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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: now white as death, her very hair and eyes seem to me to have paled;
she turns a languishing look upon me as if bidding me farewell;
nothing rouses her, nothing tempts her. In spite of all my efforts I
cannot amuse my children; they smile at me, but their smile is only in
answer to my endearments, it does not come from them. They weep
because they have no strength to play with me. Suffering has enfeebled
their whole being, it has loosened even the ties that bound them to
me.
"Thus you can well believe that Clochegourde is very sad. Monsieur de
Mortsauf now rules everything--Oh my friend! you, my glory!" she
wrote, farther on, "you must indeed love me well to love me still; to
The Lily of the Valley |
