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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: At dinner, in such a house, one does not expect to meet the
patriarchal beef, the skinny fowl and salad of domestic and family
life, nor is there any attempt at the hypocritical conversation of
drawing-rooms furnished with highly respectable matrons. When, alas!
will respectability be charming? When will the women in good society
vouchsafe to show rather less of their shoulders and rather more wit
or geniality? Marguerite Turquet, the Aspasia of the Cirque-Olympique,
is one of those frank, very living personalities to whom all is
forgiven, such unconscious sinners are they, such intelligent
penitents; of such as Malaga one might ask, like Cardot--a witty man
enough, albeit a notary--to be well "deceived." And yet you must not
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