"Silk" by Alessandro Baricco

Chapter 2
To be precise, Hervè Joncour bought and sold the silkworms when they were tiny eggs, yellow or grey, still, and apparently dieddead. Only in the palm of the hand yYou could keephold thousands in just the palm of your hand.
"To have a fortune in the hand," we might say".
In the early of May, eggs hatched, releasinge a worm [Non c'è concordanza tra "eggs" plurale e "a worm" singulare, ma questo sarebbe un problema anche in italiano, no?] that after an intensive feeding based on mulberry leaves, closesd itself again into a cocoon and then, to evade definitively[non capisco che cosa intendi con "to evade definitively"] two weeks later, releases one thousand meteres of silk rough wirethread, that in money was worth lots and lots of French francs.
Lavilledieu was the name of the village in which he lived.
Hélèn was his wife's name.
They had not children.