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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: necessary; who will efface herself rather than injure you; your
mother, who will never shame you. No, no, Athanase; we must not part."
Athanase clung to his mother with the ardor of a dying man who clings
to life.
"But I wish it, nevertheless. If not, you will lose me; this double
grief, yours and mine, is killing me. You would rather I lived than
died?"
Madame Granson looked at her son with a haggard eye.
"So this is what you have been brooding?" she said. "They told me
right. Do you really mean to go?"
"Yes."
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