|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: Castilian knight whom we laugh at in the pages of Cervantes,--a faith,
nevertheless, with which all love begins.
At the first gleam of day, the first note of the waking birds, I fled
back among the trees of Frapesle and reached the house; no one had
seen me, no one suspected by absence, and I slept soundly until the
bell rang for breakfast. When the meal was over I went down, in spite
of the heat, to the meadow-lands for another sight of the Indre and
its isles, the valley and its slopes, of which I seemed so passionate
an admirer. But once there, thanks to a swiftness of foot like that of
a loose horse, I returned to my punt, the willows, and Clochegourde.
All was silent and palpitating, as a landscape is at midday in summer.
 The Lily of the Valley |