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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: "You talk of millions to a young man," I began, "and do you think that
he will shrink from enduring any number of hardships to gain them? Are
you not laughing at me?"
"May I die unshriven," he cried vehemently, "if all that I am about to
tell you is not true. I was one-and-twenty years old, like you at this
moment. I was rich, I was handsome, and a noble by birth. I began with
the first madness of all--with Love. I loved as no one can love
nowadays. I have hidden myself in a chest, at the risk of a dagger
thrust, for nothing more than the promise of a kiss. To die for Her--
it seemed to me to be a whole life in itself. In 1760 I fell in love
with a lady of the Vendramin family; she was eighteen years old, and
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