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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: financial position. At that time three hundred thousand francs were
left; the income of twenty-four thousand francs was reduced to
eighteen thousand. Wirth had kept up this state of things for three
years! After that confidential interview, Malvina put down the
carriage, sold the horses, and dismissed the coachman, without her
mother's knowledge. The furniture, now ten years old, could not be
renewed, but it all faded together, and for those that like harmony
the effect was not half bad. The Baroness herself, that so well-
preserved flower, began to look like the last solitary frost-touched
rose on a November bush. I myself watched the slow decline of luxury
by half-tones and semi-tones! Frightful, upon my honor! It was my last
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