Adam's Breed by Radclyffe Hall — Read

That Christmas the pains in Fabio's back were rather more violent than usual, and in consequence he thought a great deal about God and much less about the Casa Boselli.

It was now his duty to help Maddalena to price their diminishing stock; his the task of watching a fluctuating market that bucked up and down like a turbulent bronco, thoroughly out of hand. But somehow those pains in his poor old back, together with his thoughts about God, made such trifles as customers, food and money, seem very far off and unimportant, so that sometimes now he would make mistakes, on the wrong side, too, for the Casa Boselli. Then it was that Teresa would undress him and rub him and swathe him in yards of red flannel; after which she would push him back again between the shafts, like an antiquated horse that only stands up because it is strapped to its toil. He would hobble about consulting his price list and dolefully shaking his head.