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Flaubert, Gustave, 1821-1880

"Madame Bovary"


The syllabus that he read on the notice-board stunned him; lectures
on anatomy, lectures on pathology, lectures on physiology, lectures on
pharmacy, lectures on botany and clinical medicine, and therapeutics,
without counting hygiene and materia medica--all names of whose
etymologies he was ignorant, and that were to him as so many doors to
sanctuaries filled with magnificent darkness.
He understood nothing of it all; it was all very well to listen--he did
not follow. Still he worked; he had bound note-books, he attended all
the courses, never missed a single lecture. He did his little daily task
like a mill-horse, who goes round and round with his eyes bandaged, not
knowing what work he is doing.
To spare him expense his mother sent him every week by the carrier a
piece of veal baked in the oven, with which he lunched when he came back
from the hospital, while he sat kicking his feet against the wall.
After this he had to run off to lectures, to the operation-room, to the
hospital, and return to his home at the other end of the town.


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