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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: either a rich man she does not love or a poor man she loves too well.
The one you have just seen pass will probably dress and redress three
times this evening,--as a princess, a peasant-girl, a Tyrolese; by
which she will earn about two hundred francs a month."
"She is better dressed than my prefect's wife."
"If you should go to her house," said Bixiou, "you would find there a
chamber-maid, a cook, and a man-servant. She occupies a fine apartment
in the rue Saint-Georges; in short, she is, in proportion to French
fortunes of the present day compared with those of former times, a
relic of the eighteenth century 'opera-girl.' Carabine is a power; at
this moment she governs du Tillet, a banker who is very influential in
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