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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: This chain holds all the couples by the feet, and runs along the
bottom of the /tolard/. It took me over two years to get accustomed to
that iron clanking, which called out incessantly, 'Thou art a galley-
slave!' If I slept an instant some vile companion moved or quarrelled,
reminding me of where I was. There is a terrible apprenticeship to
make before a man can learn how to sleep. I myself could not sleep
until I had come to the end of my strength and to utter exhaustion.
When at last sleep came I had the nights in which to forget. Oh! to
/forget/, madame, that was something! Once there, a man must learn to
satisfy his needs, even in the smallest things, according to the ways
laid down by pitiless regulations. Imagine, madame, the effect such a
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