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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the
weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true
woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her
instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her
fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little
party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some
distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no
means reassuring. At the words, 'Those are brigands!' they all
quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall
enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw
from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer had strength to walk;
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