Explore "Boitelle" by Guy de Maupassant on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Old Antoine Boitelle's speciality throughout the country was doing the dirty jobs. Whenever a cesspool had to be cleaned out, a manure heap removed, drains flushed, or any filthy old hole attended to, he was sent for.
He would come along with the necessary implements, his sabots soaked in filth, and start work, whining all the time about his job. Then when asked why he did such repulsive work, he would reply resignedly: "Well, for my children; they must be fed. It pays better than anything else. " He had fourteen children and when anyone asked what had become of them, he would say indifferently: "There are still eight at home. One is in service, and five are married. " When asked whether they were happily married, he replied vivaciously: "I did not oppose their wishes. I have never opposed them in any way. They married as they pleased. You must never oppose the choice of others; evil is sure to follow. If I am a scavenger, it is because my parents were opposed to my inclinations. Otherwise I would have been a workman like the others."