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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: thus cut in half. The more honorable half, which served both as
ante-room and dining-room, was hung with an old salmon-rose-
colored paper, with a flock border, the manufacture of Reveillon,
no doubt; the holes and spots had been carefully touched over
with wafers. Prints representing the battles of Alexander, by
Lebrun, in frames with the gilding rubbed off were symmetrically
arranged on the walls. In the middle stood a massive mahogany
table, old-fashioned in shape, and worn at the edges. A small
stove, whose thin straight pipe was scarcely visible, stood in
front of the chimney-place, but the hearth was occupied by a
cupboard. By a strange contrast the chairs showed some remains of
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