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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: forms of poesy. The lover thus became one of their leading topics,--a
being rare in point of act and much desired. The few affairs which
were known gave rise to discussions, and these discussions were, as
usually happens, carried on by immaculate women.
A fact worthy of remark is the aversion shown to such conversations by
women who are enjoying some illicit happiness; they maintain before
the eyes of the world a reserved, prudish, and even timid countenance;
they seem to ask silence on the subject, or some condonation of their
pleasure from society. When, on the contrary, a woman talks freely of
such catastrophes, and seems to take pleasure in doing so, allowing
herself to explain the emotions that justify the guilty parties, we
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