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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: fingers, like the brilliants in a river of gems around a woman's neck.
Lastly, this species of Japanese idol had constantly upon his blue
lips, a fixed, unchanging smile, the shadow of an implacable and
sneering laugh, like that of a death's head. As silent and motionless
as a statue, he exhaled the musk-like odor of the old dresses which a
duchess' heirs exhume from her wardrobe during the inventory. If the
old man turned his eyes toward the company, it seemed that the
movements of those globes, no longer capable of reflecting a gleam,
were accomplished by an almost imperceptible effort; and, when the
eyes stopped, he who was watching them was not certain finally that
they had moved at all. As I saw, beside that human ruin, a young woman
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