|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: widow and prove, categorically, her ruin. Rumors were so rife that
bets were made for and against the marriage. By the laws of worldly
jurisprudence this gossip was not allowed to reach the ears of the
parties concerned. No one was enemy or friend enough to Paul or to
Madame Evangelista to inform either of what was being said. Paul had
some business at Lanstrac, and used the occasion to make a hunting-
party for several of the young men of Bordeaux,--a sort of farewell,
as it were, to his bachelor life. This hunting party was accepted by
society as a signal confirmation of public suspicion.
When this event occurred, Madame de Gyas, who had a daughter to marry,
thought it high time to sound the matter, and to condole, with joyful
|
