|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: destruction of some illusions I had allowed myself as to Madame
d'Espard's character. When I proposed to her that we should leave
Paris and go into the country, where we could live respected on half
of her income, and so more rapidly complete a restitution of which I
spoke to her without going into the more serious details, Madame
d'Espard treated me as a madman. I then understood my wife's real
character. She would have approved of my grandfather's conduct without
a scruple, and have laughed at the Huguenots. Terrified by her
coldness, and her little affection for her children, whom she
abandoned to me without regret, I determined to leave her the command
of her fortune, after paying our common debts. It was no business of
|
