| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: commerce with an eye in which intelligence was veiled beneath
simplicity: he observed the customers; asked in leisure moments for
explanations about the merchandise, whose divers sorts and proper
places he retained in his head. The day came when he knew all the
articles, and their prices and marks, better than any new-comer; and
from that time Monsieur and Madame Ragon made a practice of employing
him in the business.
When the terrible levy of the year II. made a clean sweep in the shop
of citizen Ragon, Cesar Birotteau, promoted to be second clerk,
profited by the occasion to obtain a salary of fifty francs a month,
and took his seat at the dinner-table of the Ragons with ineffable
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: be a prudent man, playing at a game which might bring him to ruin. The
heaps of gold and notes piled on the fateful cards showed the frenzy
of play. A circle of silent men stood round the players at the table.
Now and then a few words were spoken--PASS, PLAY, I STOP, A THOUSAND
LOUIS, TAKEN--but, looking at the five motionless men, it seemed as
though they talked only with their eyes. As the Colonel, alarmed by
Soulanges' pallor, went up to him, the Count was winning. Field-
Marshal the Duc d'Isemberg, Keller, and a famous banker rose from the
table completely cleaned out of considerable sums. Soulanges looked
gloomier than ever as he swept up a quantity of gold and notes; he did
not even count it; his lips curled with bitter scorn, he seemed to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: against the foot of the walls like an overflowing sea.
They moved forward the rope ladders, straight ladders, and sambucas,
the latter consisting of two poles from which a series of bamboos
terminating in a moveable bridge were lowered by means of tackling.
They formed numerous straight lines resting against the wall, and the
Mercenaries mounted them in files, holding their weapons in their
hands. Not a Carthaginian showed himself; already two thirds of the
rampart had been covered. Then the battlements opened, vomiting flames
and smoke like dragon jaws; the sand scattered and entered the joints
of their armour; the petroleum fastened on their garments; the liquid
lead hopped on their helmets and made holes in their flesh; a rain of
Salammbo |
