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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: of the revels had ten fingers on which she knew better how to count
than any of her guests. In that house secret saturnalias of literature
and art, politics and finance were carried on; there, desire reigned a
sovereign; there, caprice and fancy were as sacred as honor and virtue
to a bourgeoise; thither came Blondet, Finot, Etienne Lousteau, Vernou
the feuilletonist, Couture, Bixiou, Rastignac in his earlier days,
Claude Vignon the critic, Nucingen the banker, du Tillet, Conti the
composer,--in short, that whole devil-may-care legion of selfish
materialists of all kinds; friends of Florine and of the singers,
actresses and "danseuses" collected about her. They all hated or liked
one another according to circumstances.
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