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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: "What!" he said to himself, "do the aunt and uncle think I might be
loved? Then my happiness only depends on my own audacity! But Adam--"
Ideal love and desire clashed with gratitude and friendship, all
equally powerful, and, for a moment, love prevailed. The lover would
have his day. Paz became brilliant, he tried to please, he told the
story of the Polish insurrection in noble words, being questioned
about it by the diplomatist. By the end of dinner Paz saw Clementine
hanging upon his lips and regarding him as a hero, forgetting that
Adam too, after sacrificing a third of his vast fortune, had been an
exile. At nine o'clock, after coffee had been served, Madame de Serizy
kissed her niece on the forehead, pressed her hand, and went away,
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