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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: white and gold, with mahogany ottomans covered in blue satin. The
dining-room, adorned in modern taste, was colder in tone than it used
to be, and the dinners were eaten with less appetite than formerly.
Monsieur du Coudrai declared that he felt his puns stick in his throat
as he glanced at the figures painted on the walls, which looked him
out of countenance. Externally, the house was still provincial; but
internally everything revealed the purveyor of the Directory and the
bad taste of the money-changer,--for instance, columns in stucco,
glass doors, Greek mouldings, meaningless outlines, all styles
conglomerated, magnificence out of place and out of season.
The town of Alencon gabbled for two weeks over this luxury, which
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