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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: shutters are always closed; the balconies are hung with swallows'
nests; the doors are for ever shut. Straggling grasses have outlined
the flagstones of the steps with green; the ironwork is rusty. Moon
and sun, winter, summer, and snow have eaten into the wood, warped the
boards, peeled off the paint. The dreary silence is broken only by
birds and cats, polecats, rats, and mice, free to scamper round, and
fight, and eat each other. An invisible hand has written over it all:
'Mystery.'
"If, prompted by curiosity, you go to look at this house from the
street, you will see a large gate, with a round-arched top; the
children have made many holes in it. I learned later that this door
La Grande Breteche |
