From the book
The Gods Are Athirst
Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Meaning
Lemma.
Boyaux means intestines or guts in the cabbage seller’s blunt phrase. Her exhortation to scrape them clean turns the loss of meat into a comic image of bodily emptiness. This is a street speaker’s coarse language, not a technical anatomical explanation or a literal instruction to perform an action.
Places to read
- Chapter VI, paragraph 6Frenchratissons-nous les boyaux: We can scrape our guts clean. Her response to the disappearance of the fine oxen.