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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: it, she refused to wear the draperies that concealed some portion of
her defects, and her Spanish eyes grew entrancing when they saw that
Balthazar thought her beautiful as before.
Nevertheless, even so, distrust soiled the rare moments when she
yielded herself to happiness. She asked herself if Claes were not
seeking a domestic slave,--one who would necessarily keep the house?
whether he had himself no secret imperfection which obliged him to be
satisfied with a poor, deformed girl? Such perpetual misgivings gave a
priceless value to the few short hours during which she trusted the
sincerity and the permanence of a love which was to avenge her on the
world. Sometimes she provoked hazardous discussions, and probed the
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