|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: not hear. When a woman is afraid to look at her interlocutor, there is
in truth no gentler, meeker, more accommodating confidant than the
cornice. The cornice is quite an institution in the boudoir; what is
it but the confessional, /minus/ the priest?
Mme. de Beauseant was eloquent and beautiful at that moment; nay,
"coquettish," if the word were not too heavy. By justifying herself
and love, she was stimulating every sentiment in the man before her;
nay, more, the higher she set the goal, the more conspicuous it grew.
At last, when her eyes had lost the too eloquent expression given to
them by painful memories, she let them fall on Gaston.
"You acknowledge, do you not, that I am bound to lead a solitary,
|
