The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: took it into his head to go to see Madame de Merret, to tell her of
his ill-luck, and perhaps to find consolation. During dinner he had
observed that his wife was very becomingly dressed; he reflected as he
came home from the club that his wife was certainly much better, that
convalescence had improved her beauty, discovering it, as husbands
discover everything, a little too late. Instead of calling Rosalie,
who was in the kitchen at the moment watching the cook and the
coachman playing a puzzling hand at cards, Monsieur de Merret made his
way to his wife's room by the light of his lantern, which he set down
at the lowest step of the stairs. His step, easy to recognize, rang
under the vaulted passage.
La Grande Breteche |