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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: Vandieres owed their lives to their carriage, behind which Philippe
forced them, using it as a breastwork. As for the major and the
grenadier, they found their safety in their strength. They killed to
escape being killed.
This hurricane of human beings, the flux and reflux of living bodies,
had the effect of leaving for a few short moments the whole bank of
the Beresina deserted. The multitude were surging to the plain. If a
few men rushed to the river, it was less in the hope of reaching the
other bank, which to them was France, than to rush from the horrors of
Siberia. Despair proved an aegis to some bold hearts. One officer
sprang from ice-cake to ice-cake, and reached the opposite shore. A
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