The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: for her, and brought them with a subdued look, standing on tiptoe to
put a girlish kiss on her lips. And the pale woman, with the great
tired eyes and languid movements, never uttered a word of complaint,
and smiled upon her children, so full of life and health--it was a
sublime picture, lacking no melancholy autumn pomp of yellow leaves
and half-despoiled branches, nor the softened sunlight and pale clouds
of the skies of Touraine.
At last the doctor forbade Mme. Willemsens to leave her room. Every
day it was brightened by the flowers that she loved, and her children
were always with her. One day, early in November, she sat at the piano
for the last time. A picture--a Swiss landscape--hung above the
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