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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: house, the gossip of the town, a well-to-do sub-lieutenant who seemed
likely to cut the ground from under his feet--all the innumerable
snares, in short, of the provincial ant-lion were set for him, and to
such good purpose, that Castanier said five years later, "To this day
I do not know how it came about!"
The dragoon received fifteen thousand francs with the lady, who after
two years of marriage, became the ugliest and consequently the most
peevish woman on earth. Luckily they had no children. The fair
complexion (maintained by a Spartan regimen), the fresh, bright color
in her face, which spoke of an engaging modesty, became overspread
with blotches and pimples; her figure, which had seemed so straight,
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