Explore "The Story of Fifine" by Bernard Capes on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Very early I made a strange discovery: Fifine was doing the housework. It did not, perhaps, amount to much, which was likely the reason that the fact was impressed upon me gradually; but, when at length conviction came, I was immensely surprised and interested. The little domestic bienséances, obligatory even in Bohemia, came one by one to be appropriated to meeter hands than mine, so that by and by I was altogether without the occupations which, to speak truth, had served me hitherto as an excuse for much self-malingering in the matter of my professional work.
It began, properly enough, perhaps, with Fifine's quiet intimation that I was to regard her bedroom as her own exclusive property and care; and it ended by her every day making _my_ bed, sous ce nom-là, as well as her own. That was sufficiently gratifying; and so was it to find her cleaning up the plates and dishes after meals; but, when it came to her offering to take my place at the electric stove, I was inclined to kick a little.