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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: that he could stop a mail coach to obtain money for her if he has not
sufficient for her whims. He will commit a crime if so he may be great
and noble in the eyes of some woman or of his special public; such is
the nature of the man. Such a lover is like a gambler who would be
dishonored in his own eyes if he did not repay the sum he borrowed
from a waiter in a gaming-house; but will shrink from no crime, will
leave his wife and children without a penny, and rob and murder, if so
he may come to the gaming-table with a full purse, and his honor
remain untarnished among the frequenters of that fatal abode. So it
was with Castanier.
He had begun by installing Aquiline is a modest fourth-floor dwelling,
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