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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: studied medical books, fancied he had the diseases he read of, and
took the most extraordinary and unheard of precautions about his
health,--precautions never the same, impossible to foresee, and
consequently impossible to satisfy. Sometimes he wanted no noise;
then, when the countess had succeeded in establishing absolute
silence, he would declare he was in a tomb, and blame her for not
finding some medium between incessant noise and the stillness of La
Trappe. Sometimes he affected a perfect indifference for all earthly
things. Then the whole household breathed freely; the children played;
family affairs went on without criticism. Suddenly he would cry out
lamentably, "They want to kill me!--My dear," he would say to his
The Lily of the Valley |
