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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: the crowd. Everybody wondered at her desire to wander through such a
mob; but is there not a keen pleasure to grand people in an incognito?
Mademoiselle de Fontaine amused herself with imagining all these town-
bred figures; she fancied herself leaving the memory of a bewitching
glance and smile stamped on more than one shopkeeper's heart, laughed
beforehand at the damsels' airs, and sharpened her pencils for the
scenes she proposed to sketch in her satirical album. Sunday could not
come soon enough to satisfy her impatience.
The party from the Villa Planat set out on foot, so as not to betray
the rank of the personages who were about to honor the ball with their
presence. They dined early. And the month of May humored this
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