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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: no longer did he think of making a Marchesa di Montefiore of Juana di
Mancini. He recognized the blood of the Maranas in the glance the girl
had given from behind the blinds, in the trick she had just played to
satisfy her curiosity, and also in the parting look she had cast upon
him. The libertine wanted a virtuous woman for a wife.
The adventure was full of danger, but danger of a kind that never
daunts the least courageous man, for love and pleasure followed it.
The apprentice sleeping in the shop, the cook bivouacking in the
kitchen, Perez and his wife sleeping, no doubt, the wakeful sleep of
the aged, the echoing sonority of the old mansion, the close
surveillance of the girl in the day-time,--all these things were
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