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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: short' (he lifted his hand to his forehead), 'all the inheritances and
all the concerns of all Paris are weighed in the balance. Are you
still of the opinion that there are no delights behind the blank mask
which so often has amazed you by its impassiveness?' he asked,
stretching out that livid face which reeked of money.
"I went back to my room, feeling stupefied. The little, wizened old
man had grown great. He had been metamorphosed under my eyes into a
strange visionary symbol; he had come to be the power of gold
personified. I shrank, shuddering, from life and my kind.
" 'Is it really so?' I thought; 'must everything be resolved into
gold?'
Gobseck | 
