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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: strength to speak of that time as I am speaking now. Such agony,
monsieur, usually ends in death; but this--well, it was the agony of
death with no tomb to end it. Oh! I have known pain indeed!"
The Vicomtesse raised her beautiful eyes to the ceiling; and the
cornice, no doubt, received all the confidences which a stranger might
not hear. When a woman is afraid to look at her interlocutor, there is
in truth no gentler, meeker, more accommodating confidant than the
cornice. The cornice is quite an institution in the boudoir; what is
it but the confessional, /minus/ the priest?
Mme. de Beauseant was eloquent and beautiful at that moment; nay,
"coquettish," if the word were not too heavy. By justifying herself
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