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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: having two hundred thousand francs a year."
"Society," said she, "asserts its hold on us by appealing to our
vanity, our love of appearances.--Pooh! We will be philosophers!"
That evening was the last gleam of the delusive well-being in which
Madame de la Baudraye had lived since coming to Paris. Three days
later she observed a cloud on Lousteau's brow as he walked round the
little garden-plot smoking a cigar. This woman, who had acquired from
her husband the habit and the pleasure of never owing anybody a sou,
was informed that the household was penniless, with two quarters' rent
owing, and on the eve, in fact, of an execution.
This reality of Paris life pierced Dinah's heart like a thorn; she
The Muse of the Department |
