Capon

Meaning

Lemma.

A chapon is a castrated male chicken fattened for the table. Brotteaux’s gift is called magnificent because such food is scarce, not because the object is grand in itself. He obtained it from a market woman for whom he sometimes writes; explaining this would be imprudent because market women are associated with royalism and émigrés. Practical kindness therefore passes through relationships a rigid political classification could make suspect. The mother’s grateful acceptance makes the food’s present use unmistakable.