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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: took it in turns to sit up with Mme. Willemsens, never taking their
eyes from the invalid. It was the deeply tragical hour that comes in
all our lives, the hour of listening in terror to every deep breath
lest it should be the last, a dark hour protracted over many days. On
the fifth day of that fatal week the doctor interdicted flowers in the
room. The illusions of life were going one by one.
Then Marie and his brother felt their mother's lips hot as fire
beneath their kisses; and at last, on the Saturday evening, Mme.
Willemsens was too ill to bear the slightest sound, and her room was
left in disorder. This neglect for a woman of refined taste, who clung
so persistently to the graces of life, meant the beginning of the
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