I am lying face down on the middle rug of the hallway... I am immersed in 'Between the Gypsies'... My mother's voice stirs me. She urges me to do something. According to my mother, by reading I am not doing anything, while a person should never stop doing something.

Later, I will understand that she means something with my hands. Hers are constantly creating - they are large, strong, with filed and unpainted nails, I see them skillfully diving into the dough, changing the soil in the pots, mending things delicately, ironing, neatly organizing our clothes in the drawers while scolding us for our mess...

Just as the peasant woman walked while spinning, my bourgeois mother's hands never stopped for a moment. Just like one, so too the other, they spun and endlessly increased time. [Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]