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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: they are reaching the haven of forty. The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse was
the only person in the secret of the vehement and absorbing passion,
of which the joys, from the girlish suspicion of first love to the
preposterous follies of fulfilment, had made Leontine half crazy and
insatiable.
True love, as we know, is merciless. The discovery of Esther's
existence had been followed by one of those outbursts of rage which in
a woman rise even to the pitch of murder; then came the phase of
meanness, to which a sincere affection humbles itself so gladly.
Indeed, for the last month the Countess would have given ten years of
her life to have Lucien again for one week. At last she had even
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