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Flaubert, Gustave, 1821-1880

"Madame Bovary"

What then revived her was
pouring a bottle of eau-de-cologne over her arms.
As she was constantly complaining about Tostes, Charles fancied that her
illness was no doubt due to some local cause, and fixing on this idea,
began to think seriously of setting up elsewhere.
From that moment she drank vinegar, contracted a sharp little cough, and
completely lost her appetite.
It cost Charles much to give up Tostes after living there four years and
"when he was beginning to get on there." Yet if it must be! He took her
to Rouen to see his old master. It was a nervous complaint: change of
air was needed.
After looking about him on this side and on that, Charles learnt that
in the Neufchatel arrondissement there was a considerable market town
called Yonville-l'Abbaye, whose doctor, a Polish refugee, had decamped a
week before. Then he wrote to the chemist of the place to ask the
number of the population, the distance from the nearest doctor, what
his predecessor had made a year, and so forth; and the answer being
satisfactory, he made up his mind to move towards the spring, if Emma's
health did not improve.


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