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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: a daughter's devotion as well as . . . Rodolphe! why will you not
understand! After all, however violent my passions may be, I shall be
yours for ever! What should I say to persuade you? I will invent
pleasures . . . I . . . Great heavens! one moment! whatever you shall
ask of me--to fling myself from the window for instance--you will need
to say but one word, 'Leon!' and I will plunge down into hell. I would
bear any torture, any pain of body or soul, anything you might inflict
upon me!"
Castanier heard her with indifference. For an answer, he indicated
Leon to her with a fiendish laugh.
"The guillotine is waiting for him," he repeated.
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