The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: torture, to which abject poverty ere long added its bitter sufferings.
Reduced to lodging in this mephitic quarter, for many months we have
lived exclusively on Marianna's sewing, she having found employment
for her needle in working for the unhappy prostitutes who make this
street their hunting ground. Marianna assures me that among those poor
creatures she has met with such consideration and generosity as I, for
my part, ascribe to the ascendency of virtue so pure that even vice is
compelled to respect it."
"Hope on," said Andrea. "Perhaps you have reached the end of your
trials. And while waiting for the time when my endeavor, seconding
yours, shall set your labors in a true light, allow me, as a fellow-
 Gambara |