Baltasar and Blimunda by José Saramago

THERE IS A time for everything. Padre Bartolomeu Lourenco finds that he does not have enough money to buy the magnets that he believes are essential to make his machine fly and, besides, the magnets have to be imported from abroad, and so, for the present, Sete-Sóis is employed, through the priest's good offices, in the slaughterhouse on the Palace Square where he fetches and carries on his back great carcasses of meat of every kind, rumps of beef, suckling pigs by the dozen, lambs strung together in pairs, passed from hook to hook, causing the sacking with which they are covered to ooze blood.

It is a filthy job, although recompensed now and then with leftovers, a pig's foot or a piece of tripe and, when God is willing and the butcher is in the right mood, even with the odd flank of mutton or a slice of rump, wrapped in a crisp cabbage leaf, so that Baltasar and Blimunda are able to eat somewhat better than usual, by dividing and sharing out, and although Baltasar has no say in the sharing, the trade offers some advantages.