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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: noticed jewel-cases, with ciphers and armorial bearings stamped upon
them, and sets of fine table-linen, and weapons of price; but none of
the things were docketed. I opened a book which seemed to be
misplaced, and found a thousand-franc note in it. I promised myself
that I would go through everything thoroughly; I would try the
ceilings, and floors, and walls, and cornices to discover all the
gold, hoarded with such passionate greed by a Dutch miser worthy of a
Rembrandt's brush. In all the course of my professional career I have
never seen such impressive signs of the eccentricity of avarice.
"I went back to his room, and found an explanation of this chaos and
accumulation of riches in a pile of letters lying under the paper-
Gobseck |
