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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: of the early days of her married life, and she looked back across the
years to see wherein she might have failed in her duty as a wife and
mother. She was broken in upon by the Abbe Fontanon in an almost
indescribable state of excitement.
"Has any misfortune befallen you, Father?" she asked with filial
solicitude.
"Ah! I only wish," cried the Normandy priest, "that all the woes
inflicted on you by the hand of God were dealt out to me; but, my
admirable friend, there are trials to which you can but bow."
"Can any worse punishments await me than those with which Providence
crushes me by making my husband the instrument of His wrath?"
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