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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: Schmucke, acting on Pons' advice, came to an understanding with the
/chef-de-service/ at the Opera-Comique, so saving himself the clerical
drudgery.
The partnership between Pons and Schmucke produced one brilliant
result. Schmucke being a German, harmony was his strong point; he
looked over the instrumentation of Pons' compositions, and Pons
provided the airs. Here and there an amateur among the audience
admired the new pieces of music which served as accompaniment to two
or three great successes, but they attributed the improvement vaguely
to "progress." No one cared to know the composer's name; like
occupants of the /baignoires/, lost to view of the house, to gain a
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