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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: exhaustion and melancholy. His thoughts would be of the scent of the
pastures on autumn mornings, of snowflakes, or of the bellowing of the
urus lost in the fog, and closing his eyelids he would in imagination
behold the fires in long, straw-roofed cottages flickering on the
marshes in the depths of the woods.
Others regretted their native lands as well as he, even though they
might not be so far away. Indeed the Carthaginian captives could
distinguish the velaria spread over the courtyards of their houses,
beyond the gulf on the slopes of Byrsa. But sentries marched round
them continually. They were all fastened to a common chain. Each one
wore an iron carcanet, and the crowd was never weary of coming to gaze
 Salammbo |