The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: gave themselves up to dreams of happiness; the sun was beginning to go
down, and the crescent of the moon was already rising in another part
of the sky.
But Salammbo turned her head as though some one had called her; the
people, who were watching her, followed the direction of her eyes.
The door of the dungeon, hewn in the rock at the foot of the temple,
on the summit of the Acropolis, had just opened; and a man was
standing on the threshold of this black hole.
He came forth bent double, with the scared look of fallow deer when
suddenly enlarged.
The light dazzled him; he stood motionless awhile. All had recognised
 Salammbo |