3岁的儿子过生日，我趁他午睡，买了条小狗，关在笼子里放在床头柜上，留了张纸条：“宝贝生日快乐，爸爸。”然后我就出去了，儿子醒来时，老婆念纸条给他听，他立马就哭了，抓着笼子嚷：“爸爸，你怎么变成狗了？”The novel follows a woman, Modesta, who is born on 1 January 1900 and her experiences though her life in the twentieth century. The text is written for the most part in the first person (by Modesta), but sometimes also in the third person, especially in the first part of the novel.