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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: of news, that scandal; do not ask what prompts him. That telegraph is
a social mystery; no observer can report its effects. Of many
extraordinary instances thereof, one may suffice: The assassination of
the Duc de Berry, which occurred at the Opera-house, was related
within ten minutes in the Ile-Saint-Louis. Thus the opinion of the 6th
of the line as to its quartermaster filtered through society the night
on which he gave his first ball.
Diard was therefore debarred from succeeding in society. Henceforth
his wife alone had the power to make anything of him. Miracle of our
strange civilization! In Paris, if a man is incapable of being
anything himself, his wife, when she is young and clever, may give him
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