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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: walked along the sunny side of the street leaning on Schmucke's arm.
Nobody in the Boulevard du Temple laughed at the "pair of
nutcrackers," for one of the old men looked so shattered, and the
other so touchingly careful of his invalid friend. By the time that
they reached the Boulevard Poissonniere, a little color came back to
Pons' face; he was breathing the air of the boulevards, he felt the
vitalizing power of the atmosphere of the crowded street, the life-
giving property of the air that is noticeable in quarters where human
life abounds; in the filthy Roman Ghetto, for instance, with its
swarming Jewish population, where malaria is unknown. Perhaps, too,
the sight of the streets, the great spectacle of Paris, the daily
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