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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: maintained a silence that was almost horrible, and did nothing but
what he judged necessary for his own welfare. Their misery was even
grotesque. Faces, discolored by cold, were covered with a layer of
mud, on which tears had made a furrow from the eyes to the beard,
showing the thickness of that miry mask. The filth of their long
beards made these men still more repulsive. Some were wrapped in the
countess's shawls, others wore the trappings of horses and muddy
saddlecloths, or masses of rags from which the hoar-frost hung; some
had a boot on one leg and a shoe on the other; in fact, there were
none whose costume did not present some laughable singularity. But in
presence of such amusing sights the men themselves were grave and
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