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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: astute politics of the higher social spheres were no more consonant to
Augustine than the narrow reasoning of Joseph Lebas, or Madame
Guillaume's vapid morality. Strange are the results of the false
positions into which we may be brought by the slightest mistake in the
conduct of life! Augustine was like an Alpine cowherd surprised by an
avalanche; if he hesitates, if he listens to the shouts of his
comrades, he is almost certainly lost. In such a crisis the heart
steels itself or breaks.
Madame de Sommervieux returned home a prey to such agitation as it is
difficult to describe. Her conversation with the Duchesse de
Carigliano had roused in her mind a crowd of contradictory thoughts.
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