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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: heights of Chaillot.
The good soul was so surprised when the countess's footman announced
the visit of his former scholar that in his stupefaction he let her
enter without going down to receive her. Never did the countess
suspect or imagine such an existence as that which suddenly revealed
itself to her eyes, though she had long known Schmucke's contempt for
dress, and the little interest he held in the affairs of this world.
But who could have believed in such complete indifference, in the
utter laisser-aller of such a life? Schmucke was a musical Diogenes,
and he felt no shame whatever in his untidiness; in fact, he was so
accustomed to it that he would probably have denied its existence. The
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