"Toine" is a short story by Guy de Maupassant, first published in 1885. It is eleven pages long in my translation, and tells a socially realistic story of an inn keeper in rural Normandy.
Toine is a jolly and obese inn-keeper in a small village that gained the name "Toine" from his constant urging of other people to drink his brandy. (The pun seems to be lost in translation). Alas, his diet and lifestyle catches up with him, and he as a "seizure" (actually, probably a stroke), which leaves him bed-ridden. And while his friends are quite happy to continue the endless jesting and games of dominoes by his bedside, his wife, a harridan, is not. So angry is she at having to care for him, that he decides he will have to make himself useful---by incubating chicken eggs. He objects at first, and then agrees, and while he accidentally smashes some eggs at first, the second batch hatch happily and he gains happiness at being a substitute mother to some chicks.
As I said when I read my first story by Guy de Maupassant, "Story of a Farm Girl", I was somewhat thrown off by trying to read it through modern eyes. Should I read the wife who berates and beats her disabled husband as a serious abusive figure, or is this playing into the comedic trope of the nagging wife? Is the usage of a disabled man as an incubator of chicks something that should be seen as grotesque, imagining the uncleanliness of an immobile man having to feel eggs against him---or is it a comedic image, with a happy ending that he has found a new meaning in life? After reading this story, I am not sure whether to treat it as social commentary or absurdist humor, or perhaps, some of both. Luckily I have more stories to read to try to understand what exactly, Maupassant's perspective was.
http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/Toine.html