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: besides all this, he had bound himself to do an immense amount of
dramatic work for which he had already received payment. He could see
no bottom to the gulf of misery that lay before him, into which he was
about to roll. In presence of such threatened evil his boldness
deserted him. Would the Comtesse de Vandenesse stand by him? Would she
fly with him? Women are never led into a gulf of that kind except by
an absolute love, and the love of Raoul and Marie had not bound them
together by the mysterious and inalienable ties of happiness. But
supposing that the countess did follow him to some foreign country;
she would come without fortune, despoiled of everything, and then,
alas! she would merely be one more embarrassment to him. A mind of a
|