1AURELIANO BUENDIA and Remedios Moscote were married one Sunday in March before the altar

2Father Nicanor Reyna had set up in the parlor. It was the culmination of four weeks of shocks in the

3Moscote household because little Remedios had reached puberty before getting over the habits of

4childhood. In spite of the fact that her mother had taught her about the changes of adolescence, one

5February afternoon she burst shouting into the living room, where her sisters were chatting with

6Aureliano, and showed them her panties, smeared with a chocolate-colored paste. A month for the

7wedding was agreed upon. There was barely enough time to teach her how to wash herself, get

8dressed by herself, and understand the fundamental business of a home. They made her urinate over

9hot bricks in order to cure her of the habit of wetting her bed. It took a good deal of work to

10convince her of the inviolability of the marital secret, for Remedios was so confused and at the same

11time so amazed at the revelation that she wanted to talk to everybody about the details of the

12wedding night. It was a fatiguing effort, but on the date set for the ceremony the child was as adept

13in the ways of the world as any of her sisters. Don Apolinar Moscote escorted her by the arm down

14the street that was decorated with flowers and wreaths amidst the explosion of rockets and the

15music of several bands, and she waved with her hand and gave her thanks with a smile to those who

16wished her good luck from the windows. Aureliano, dressed in black, wearing the same patent

17leather boots with metal fasteners that he would have on a few years later as he faced the firing

18squad, had an intense paleness and a hard lump in his throat when he met the bride at the door of

19the house and led her to the altar. She behaved as naturally, with such discretion, that she did not

20lose her composure, not even when Aureliano dropped the ring as he tried to put it on her finger. In

21the midst of the. murmurs and confusion of the guests, she kept her arm with the fingerless lace

22glove held up and remained like that with her ring finger ready until the bridegroom managed to

23stop the ring with his foot before it rolled to the door, and came back blushing to the altar. Her

24mother and sisters suffered so much from the fear that the child would do something wrong during

25the ceremony that in the end they were the ones who committed the impertinence of picking her up

26to kiss her. From that day on the sense of responsibility, the natural grace, the calm control that

27Remedios would have in the face of adverse circumstances was revealed. It was she who, on her

28own initiative, put aside the largest piece that she had cut from the wedding cake and took it on a

29plate with a fork to Jose Arcadio Buendfa. Tied to the tmnk of the chestnut tree, huddled on a

30wooden stool underneath the palm shelter, the enormous old man, discolored by the sun and rain,

31made a vague smile of gratitude and at the piece of cake with his fingers, mumbling an unintelligible

32psalm. The only unhappy person in that noisy celebration, which lasted until dawn on Monday, was

33Rebeca Buendfa. It was her own frustrated party. By an arrangement of Ursula’s, her marriage was to

34be celebrated on the same day, but that Friday Pietro Crespi received a letter with the news of his

35mother’s imminent death. The wedding was postponed. Pietro Crespi left for the capital of the

36province an hour after receiving the letter, and on the road he missed his mother, who arrived

37punctually Saturday night and at Aureliano’s wedding sang the sad aria that she had prepared for the

38wedding of her son. Pietro Crespi returned on Sunday midnight to sweep up the ashes of the party,

39after having worn out five horses on the road in an attempt to be in time for his wedding. It was

40never discovered who wrote the letter. Tormented by Ursula, Amaranta wept with indignation and

41swore her innocence in front of the altar, which the carpenters had not finished dismantling.

42Father Nicanor Reyna—whom Don Apolinar Moscote had brought from the swamp to officiate

43at the wedding—was an old man hardened by the ingratitude of his ministry. His skin was sad, with

44the bones almost exposed, and he had a pronounced round stomach and the expression of an old

45angel, which came more from, simplicity than from goodness. He had planned to return to his

46pariah after the wedding, but he was appalled at the hardness of the inhabitants of Macondo, who

47were prospering in the midst of scandal, subject to the natural law, without baptizing their children

48or sanctifying their festivals. Thinking that no land needed the seed of God so much, he decided to

49stay on for another week to Christianize both circumcised and gentile, legalize concubinage, and give

50the sacraments to the dying. But no one paid any attention to him. They would answer him that they

51had been many years without a priest, arranging the business of their souls directly with God, and

52that they had lost the evil of original sin. Tired of preaching in the open, Father Nicanor decided to

53undertake the building of a church, the largest in the world, with life-size saints and stained-glass

54windows on the sides, so that people would come from Rome to honor God in the center of

55impiety. He went everywhere begging alms with a copper dish. They gave him a large amount, but

56he wanted more, because the church had to have a bell that would raise the drowned up to the

57surface of the water. He pleaded so much that he lost his voice. His bones began to fill with sounds.

58One Saturday, not even having collected the price of the doors, he fell into a desperate confusion.

59He improvised an altar in the square and on Sunday he went through the town with a small bell, as

60in the days of insomnia, calling people to an open-air mass. Many went out of curiosity. Others from

61nostalgia. Others so that God would not take the disdain for His intermediary as a personal insult.

62So that at eight in the morning half the town was in the square, where Father Nicanor chanted the

63gospels in a voice that had been lacerated by his pleading. At the end, when the congregation began

64to break up, he raised his arms signaling for attention.

65“Just a moment,” he said. “Now we shall witness an undeniable proof of the infinite power of

66God. ”

67The boy who had helped him with the mass brought him a cup of thick and steaming chocolate,

68which he drank without pausing to breathe. Then he wiped his lips with a handkerchief that he drew

69from his sleeve, extended his arms, and closed his eyes. Thereupon Father Nicanor rose six inches

70above the level of the ground. It was a convincing measure. He went among the houses for several

71days repeating the demonstration of levitation by means of chocolate while the acolyte collected so

72much money in a bag that in less than a month he began the construction of the church. No one

73doubted the divine origin of the demonstration except Jose Arcadio Buendfa, who without changing

74expression watched the troop of people who gathered around the chestnut tree one morning to

75witness the revelation once more. He merely stretched on his stool a little and shrugged his

76shoulders when Father Nicanor began to rise up from the ground along with the chair he was sitting

77on.

78“Hoc est simplicissimus. ,” Jose Arcadio Buendia said. “Homo iste statum quartum materiae invent.”

79Father Nicanor raised his hands and the four legs of the chair all landed on the ground at the

80same time. “ Nego ,” he said. “Factum hoc existentiam Dei prohat sine dubio.”

81Thus it was discovered that Jose Arcadio Buendfa’s devilish jargon was Latin. Father Nicanor

82took advantage of the circumstance of his being the only person who had been able to communicate

83with him to try to inject the faith into his twisted mind. Every afternoon he would sit by the

84chestnut tree preaching in Latin, but Jose Arcadio Buendfa insisted on rejecting rhetorical tricks and

85the transmutation of chocolate, and he demanded the daguerreotype of God as the only proof.

86Father Nicanor then brought him medals and pictures and even a reproduction of the Veronica, but

87Jose Arcadio Buendfa rejected them as artistic objects without any scientific basis. He was so

88stubborn that Father Nicanor gave up his attempts at evangelization and continued visiting him out

89of humanitarian feelings. But then it was Jose Arcadio Buendia who took the lead and tried to break

90down the priest’s faith with rationalist tricks. On a certain occasion when Father Nicanor brought a

91checker set to the chestnut tree and invited him to a game, Jose Arcadio Buendia would not accept,

92because according to him he could never understand the sense of a contest in which the two

93adversaries have agreed upon the rules. Father Nicanor, who had never seen checkers played that

94way, could not play it again. Ever more startled at Jose Arcadio Buendia’s lucidity, he asked him how

95it was possible that they had him tied to a tree.

96“Hoc est simplicissimus” he replied. “Because I’m Crazy.”

97From then on, concerned about his own faith, the priest did not come back to visit him and

98dedicated himself to hurrying along the building of the church. Rebeca felt her hopes being reborn.

99Her future was predicated on the completion of the work, for one Sunday when Father Nicanor was

100lunching at the house and the whole family sitting at the table spoke of the solemnity and splendor

101that religious ceremonies would acquire when the church was built, Amaranta said: “The luckiest

102one will be Rebeca.” And since Rebeca did not understand what she meant, she explained it to her

103with an innocent smile:

104“You’re going to be the one who will inaugurate the church with your wedding.”

105Rebeca tried to forestall any comments. The way the construction was going the church would

106not be built before another ten years. Father Nicanor did not agree: the growing generosity of the

107faithful permitted him to make more optimistic calculations. To the mute Indignation of Rebeca,

108who could not finish her lunch, Ursula celebrated Amaranta’s idea and contributed a considerable

109sum for the work to move faster. Father Nicanor felt that with another contribution like that the

110church would be ready within three years. From then on Rebeca did not say another word to

111Amaranta, convinced that her initiative had not the innocence that she attempted to give it. “That

112was the least serious thing I could have done,” Amaranta answered her during the violent argument

113they had that night. “In that way I won’t have to kill you for three years.” Rebeca accepted the

114challenge.

115When Pietro Crespi found out about the new postponement, he went through a crisis of

116disappointment, but Rebeca gave him a final proof of her loyalty. “We’ll elope whenever you say,”

117she told him. Pietro Crespi, however, was not a man of adventure. He lacked the impulsive character

118of his fiancee and he considered respect for one’s given word as a wealth that should not be

119squandered. Then Rebeca turned to more audacious methods. A mysterious wind blew out the

120lamps in the parlor and Ursula surprised the lovers kissing in the dark. Pietro Crespi gave her some

121confused explanations about the poor quality of modern pitch lamps and he even helped her install a

122more secure system of illumination for the room. But the fuel failed again or the wicks became

123clogged and Ursula found Rebeca sitting on her fiance’s lap. This time she would accept no

124explanation. She turned the responsibility of the bakery over to the Indian woman and sat in a

125rocking chair to watch over the young people during the visits, ready to win out over maneuvers that

126had already been old when she was a girl. “Poor Mama,” Rebeca would say with mock indignation,

127seeing Ursula yawn during the boredom of the visits. “When she dies she’ll go off to her reward in

128that rocking chair.” After three months of supervised love, fatigued by the slow progress of the

129construction, which he went to inspect every day, Pietro Crespi decided to give Father Nicanor the

130money he needed to finish the church. Amaranta did not grow impatient. As she conversed with her

131girl friends every afternoon when they came to embroider on the porch, she tried to think of new

132subterfuges. A mistake in calculation spoiled the one she considered the most effective: removing

133the mothballs that Rebeca had put in her wedding dress before she put it away in the bedroom

134dresser. She did it when two months were left for the completion of the church. But Rebeca was so

135impatient with the approach of the wedding that she wanted to get the dress ready earlier than

136Amaranta had foreseen. When she opened the dresser and unfolded first the papers and then the

137protective cloth, she found the fabric of the dress and the stitches of the veil and even the crown of

138orange blossoms perforated by moths. Although she was sure that she had put a handful of

139mothballs in the wrappings, the disaster seemed so natural that she did not dare blame Amaranta.

140There was less than a month until the wedding, but Amparo Moscote promised to sew a new dress

141within a week. Amaranta felt faint that rainy noontime when Amparo came to the house wrapped in

142the froth of needlework for Rebeca to have the final fitting of the dress. She lost her voice and a

143thread of cold sweat ran down the path of her spine. For long months she had trembled with fright

144waiting for that hour, because if she had not been able to conceive the ultimate obstacle to Rebeca’s

145wedding, she was sure that at the last moment, when all the resources of her imagination had failed,

146she would have the courage to poison her. That afternoon, while Rebeca was suffocating with heat

147inside the armor of thread that Amparo Moscote was putting about her body with thousands of pins

148and infinite patience, Amaranta made several mistakes in her crocheting and pricked her finger with

149the needle, but she decided with frightful coldness that the date would be the last Friday before the

150wedding and the method would be a dose of laudanum in her coffee.

151A greater obstacle, as impassable as it was unforeseen, obliged a new and indefinite

152postponement. One week before the date set for the wedding, little Remedios woke up in the middle

153of the night soaked in a hot broth which had exploded in her insides with a kind of tearing belch,

154and she died three days later, poisoned by her own blood, with a pair of twins crossed in her

155stomach. Amarante suffered a crisis of conscience. She had begged God with such fervor for

156something fearful to happen so that she would not have to poison Rebeca that she felt guilty of

157Remedios’ death. That was not the obstacle that she had begged for so much. Remedios had

158brought a breath of merriment to the house. She had settled down with her husband in a room near

159the workshop, which she decorated with the dolls and toys of her recent childhood, and her merry

160vitality overflowed the four walls of the bedroom and went like a whirlwind of good health along the

161porch with the begonias: She would start singing at dawn. She was the only person who dared

162intervene in the arguments between Rebeca and Amaranta. She plunged into the fatiguing chore of

163taking care of Jose Arcadio Buendfa. She would bring him his food, she would help him with Iris

164daily necessities, wash him with soap and a scrubbing brush, keep his hair and beard free of lice and

165nits, keep the palm shelter in good condition and reinforce it with waterproof canvas in stormy

166weather. In her last months she had succeeded in communicating with him in phrases of

167rudimentary Latin. When the son of Aureliano and Pilar Ternera was born and brought to the house

168and baptized in an intimate ceremony with the name Aureliano Jose, Remedios decided that he

169would be considered their oldest child. Her maternal instinct surprised Ursula. Aureliano, for his

170part, found in her the justification that he needed to live. He worked all day in his workshop and

171Remedios would bring him a cup of black coffee in the middle of the morning. They would both

172visit the Moscotes every night. Aureliano would play endless games of dominoes with his father-in-

173law while Remedios chatted with her sisters or talked to her mother about more important things.

174The link with the Buendfas consolidated Don Apolinar Moscote’s authority in the town. On

175frequent trips to the capital of the province he succeeded in getting the government to build a

176school so that Arcadio, who had inherited the educational enthusiasm of his grandfather, could take

177charge of it. Through persuasion he managed to get the majority of houses painted blue in time for

178the date of national independence. At the urging of Father Nicanor, he arranged for the transfer of

179Catarino’s store to a back street and he closed down several scandalous establishments that

180prospered in the center of town. Once he returned with six policemen armed with rifles to whom he

181entrusted the maintenance of order, and no one remembered the original agreement not to have

182armed men in the town. Aureliano enjoyed his father-in-law’s efficiency. “You’re going to get as fat

183as he is,” his friends would say to him. But his sedentary life, which accentuated his cheekbones and

184concentrated the sparkle of his eyes, did not increase his weight or alter the parsimony of his

185character, but, on the contrary, it hardened on his lips the straight line of solitary meditation and

186implacable decision. So deep was the affection that he and his wife had succeeded in arousing in

187both their families that when Remedios announced that she was going to have a child, even Rebeca

188and Amaranta declared a tmce in order to knit items in blue wool if it was to be a boy and in pink

189wool in case it was a girl. She was the last person Arcadio thought about a few years later when he

190faced the firing squad.

191Ursula ordered a mourning period of closed doors and windows, with no one entering or leaving

192except on matters of utmost necessity. She prohibited any talking aloud for a year and she put

193Remedios’ daguerreotype in the place where her body had been laid out, with a black ribbon around

194it and an oil lamp that was always kept lighted. Future generations, who never let the lamp go out,

195would be puzzled at that girl in a pleated skirt, white boots, and with an organdy band around her

196head, and they were never able to connect her with the standard image of a great-grandmother.

197Amaranta took charge of Aureliano Jose. She adopted him as a son who would share her solitude

198and relieve her from the involutary laudanum that her mad beseeching had thrown into Remedios’

199coffee. Pietro Crespi would tiptoe in at dusk, with a black ribbon on his hat, and he would pay a

200silent visit to Rebeca, who seemed to be bleeding to death inside the black dress with sleeves down

201to her wrists. Just the idea of thinking about a new date for the wedding would have been so

202irreverent that the engagement turned into an eternal relationship, a fatigued love that no one

203worried about again, as if the lovers, who in other days had sabotaged the lamps in order to kiss, had

204been abandoned to the free will of death. Having lost her bearings, completely demoralized, Rebeca

205began eating earth again.

206Suddenly—when the mourning had gone on so long that the needlepoint sessions began again—

207someone pushed open the street door at two in the afternoon in the mortal silence of the heat and

208the braces in the foundation shook with such force that Amaranta and her friends sewing on the

209porch, Rebeca sucking her finger in her bedroom, Ursula in the kitchen, Aureliano in the workshop,

210and even Jose Arcadio Buendfa under the solitary chestnut tree had the impression that an

211earthquake was breaking up the house. A huge man had arrived. His square shoulders barely fitted

212through the doorways. He was wearing a medal of Our Lady of Help around his bison neck, his

213arms and chest were completely covered with cryptic tattooing, and on his right wrist was the tight

214copper bracelet of the ninos-en-cru ^ amulet. His skin was tanned by the salt of the open air, his hair

215was short and straight like the mane of a mule, his jaws were of iron, and he wore a sad smile. He

216had a belt on that was twice as thick as the cinch of a horse, boots with leggings and spurs and iron

217on the heels, and his presence gave the quaking impression of a seismic tremor. He went through

218the parlor and the living room, carrying some half-worn saddlebags in his hand, and he appeared like

219a thunderclap on the porch with the begonias where Amaranta and her friends were paralyzed, their

220needles in the air. “Hello,” he said to them in a tired voice, threw the saddlebags on a worktable, and

221went by on his way to the back of the house. “Hello,” he said to the startled Rebecca, who saw him

222pass by the door of her bedroom. “Hello,” he said to Aureliano, who was at his silversmith’s bench

223with all five senses alert. He did not linger with anyone. He went directly to the kitchen and there he

224stopped for the first time at the end of a trip that had begun of the other side of the world. “Hello,”

225he said. Ursula stood for a fraction of a second with her mouth open, looked into his eyes, gave a

226cry, and flung her arms around his neck, shouting and weeping with joy. It was Jose Arcadio. He was

227returning as poor as when he had left, to such an extreme that Ursula had to give him two pesos to

228pay for the rental of his horse. He spoke a Spanish that was larded with sailor slang. They asked

229where he had been and he answered: “Out there.” He hung his hammock in the room they assigned

230him and slept for three days. When he woke up, after eating sixteen raw eggs, he went directly to

231Catarino’s store, where his monumental size provoked a panic of curiosity among the women. He

232called for music and cane liquor for everyone, to be put on his bill. He would Indian-wrestle with

233five men at the same time. “It can’t be done,” they said, convinced that they would not be able to

234move his arm. “He has ninos-en-cru Catarino, who did not believe in magical tricks of strength, bet

235him twelve pesos that he could not move the counter. Jose Arcadio pulled it out of its place, lifted it

236over his head, and put it in the street. It took eleven men to put it back. In the heat of the party he

237exhibited his unusual masculinity on the bar, completely covered with tattoos of words in several

238languages intertwined in blue and red. To the women who were besieging him and coveting him he

239put the question as to who would pay the most. The one who had the most money offered him

240twenty pesos. Then he proposed raffling himself off among them at ten pesos a chance. It was a

241fantastic price because the most sought-after woman earned eight pesos a night, but they all

242accepted. They wrote their names on fourteen pieces of paper which they put into a hat and each

243woman took one out. When there were only two pieces left to draw, it was established to whom they

244belonged.

245“Five pesos more from each one,” Jose Arcadio proposed, “and I’ll share myself with both.

246He made his living that way. He had been around the world sixty-five times, enlisted in a crew of

247sailors without a country. The women who went to bed with him that night in Catarino’s store

248brought him naked into the dance salon so that people could see that there was not a square inch of

249his body that was not tattooed, front and back, and from his neck to his toes. He did not succeed in

250becoming incorporated into the family. He slept all day and spent the night in the red-light district,

251making bets on his strength. On the rare occasions when Ursula got him to sit down at the table, he

252gave signs of radiant good humor, especially when he told about his adventures in remote countries.

253He had been shipwrecked and spent two weeks adrift in the Sea of Japan, feeding on the body of a

254comrade who had succumbed to sunstroke and whose extremely salty flesh as it cooked in the sun

255had a sweet and granular taste. Under a bright noonday sun in the Gulf of Bengal his ship had lulled

256a sea dragon, in the stomach of which they found the helmet, the buckles, and the weapons of a

257Crusader. In the Caribbean he had seen the ghost of the pirate ship of Victor Hugues, with its sails

258torn by the winds of death, the masts chewed by sea worms, and still looking for the course to

259Guadeloupe. Ursula would weep at the table as if she were reading the letters that had never arrived

260and in which Jose Arcadio told about his deeds and misadventures. “And there was so much of a

261home here for you, my son,” she would sob, “and so much food thrown to the hogs!” But

262underneath it an she could not conceive that the boy the gypsies took away was the same lout who

263would eat half a suckling pig for lunch and whose flatulence withered the flowers. Something similar

264took place with the rest of the family. Amaranta could not conceal the repugnance that she felt at

265the table because of his bestial belching. Arcadio, who never knew the secret of their relationship,

266scarcely answered the questions that he asked with the obvious idea of gaining his affection.

267Aureliano tried to relive the times when they slept in the same room, tried to revive the complicity

268of childhood, but Jose Arcadio had forgotten about it, because life at sea had saturated his memory

269with too many things to remember. Only Rebeca succumbed to the first impact. The day that she

270saw him pass by her bedroom she thought that Pietro Crespi was a sugary dandy next to that

271protomale whose volcanic breathing could be heard all over the house. She tried to get near him

272under any pretext. On a certain occasion Jose Arcadio looked at her body with shameless attention

273and said to her “You’re a woman, little sister.” Rebeca lost control of herself. She went back to

274eating earth and the whitewash on the walls with the avidity of previous days, and she sucked her

275finger with so much anxiety that she developed a callus on her thumb. She vomited up a green liquid

276with dead leeches in it. She spent nights awake shaking with fever, fighting against delirium, waiting

277until the house shook with the return of Jose Arcadio at dawn. One afternoon, when everyone was

278having a siesta, she could no longer resist and went to his bedroom. She found him in his shorts,

279lying in the hammock that he had hung from the beams with a ship’s hawser. She was so impressed

280by his enormous motley nakedness that she felt an impulse to retreat. “Excuse me,” she said, “I

281didn’t know you were here.” But she lowered her voice so as not to wake anyone up. “Come here,”

282he said. Rebeca obeyed. She stopped beside the hammock in an icy sweat, feeling knots forming in

283her intestines, while Jose Arcadio stroked her ankles with the tips of his fingers, then her calves, then

284her thighs, murmuring: “Oh, little sister, little sister.” She had to make a supernatural effort not to

285die when a startlingly regulated cyclonic power lifted her up by the waist and despoiled her of her

286intimacy with three clashes of its claws and quartered her like a little bird. She managed to thank

287God for having been born before she lost herself in the inconceivable pleasure of that unbearable

288pain, splashing in the steaming marsh of the hammock which absorbed the explosion of blood like a

289blotter.

290Three days later they were married during the five-o’clock mass. Jose Arcadio had gone to Pietro

291Crespi’s store the day before. He found him giving a zither lesson and did not draw him aside to

292speak to him. “I’m going to marry Rebeca,” he told him. Pietro Crespi turned pale, gave the zither to

293one of his pupils, and dismissed the class. When they were alone in the room that was crowded with

294musical instruments and mechanical toys, Pietro Crespi said:

295“She’s your sister.”

296“I don’t care,” Jose Arcadio replied.

297Pietro Crespi mopped his brow with the handkerchief that was soaked in lavender.

298“It’s against nature,” he explained, “and besides, it’s against the law.”

299Jose Arcadio grew impatient, not so much at the argument as over Pietro Crespi’s paleness.

300“Fuck nature two times over,” he said. “And I’ve come to tell you not to bother going to ask

301Rebeca anything. ”

302But his brutal deportment broke down when he saw Pietro Crespi’s eyes grow moist.

303“Now,” he said to him in a different tone, “if you really like the family, there’s Amaranta for

304„ ??

305you.

306Father Nicanor revealed in his Sunday sermon that Jose Arcadio and Rebeca were not brother

307and sister. Ursula never forgave what she considered an inconceivable lack of respect and when they

308came back from church she forbade the newlyweds to set foot in the house again. For her it was as

309if they were dead. So they rented a house across from the cemetery and established themselves there

310with no other furniture but Jose Arcadio’s hammock. On their wedding night a scorpion that had

311got into her slipper bit Rebeca on the foot. Her tongue went to sleep, but that did not stop them

312from spending a scandalous honeymoon. The neighbors were startled by the cries that woke up the

313whole district as many as eight times in a single night and three times during siesta, and they prayed

314that such wild passion would not disturb the peace of the dead.

315Aureliano was the only one who was concerned about them. He bought them some furniture and

316gave them some money until Jose Arcadio recovered his sense of reality and began to work the no-

317man’s-land that bordered the courtyard of the house. Amaranta, on the other hand, never did

318overcome her rancor against Rebeca, even though life offered her a satisfaction of which she had

319not dreamed: at the initiative of Ursula, who did not know how to repair the shame, Pietro Crespi

320continued having lunch at the house on Tuesdays, rising above his defeat with a serene dignity. He

321still wore the black ribbon on his hat as a sign of respect for the family, and he took pleasure in

322showing his affection for Ursula by bringing her exotic gifts: Portuguese sardines, Turkish rose

323marmalade, and on one occasion a lovely Manila shawl. Amaranta looked after him with a loving

324diligence. She anticipated his wants, pulled out the threads on the cuffs of his shirt, and embroidered

325a dozen handkerchiefs with his initials for his birthday. On Tuesdays, after lunch, while she would

326embroider on the porch, he would keep her happy company. For Pietro Crespi, that woman whom

327he always had considered and treated as a child was a revelation. Although her temperament lacked

328grace, she had a rare sensibility for appreciating the tilings of the world and had a secret tenderness.

329One Tuesday, when no one doubted that sooner or later it had to happen, Pietro Crespi asked her to

330marry him. She did not stop her work. She waited for the hot blush to leave her ears and gave her

331voice a serene stress of maturity.

332“Of course, Crespi,” she said. “But when we know each other better. It’s never good to be hasty

333in things. ”

334Ursula was confused. In spite of the esteem she had for Pietro Crespi, she could not tell whether

335his decision was good or bad from the moral point of view after his prolonged and famous

336engagement to Rebeca. But she finally accepted it as an unqualified fact because no one shared her

337doubts. Aureliano, who was the man of the house, confused her further with his enigmatic and final

338opinion:

339“These are not times to go around thinking about weddings.”

340That opinion, which Ursula understood only some months later, was the only sincere one that

341Aureliano could express at that moment, not only with respect to marriage, but to anything that was

342not war. He himself, facing a firing squad, would not understand too well the concatenation of the

343series of subtle but irrevocable accidents that brought him to that point. The death of Remedios had

344not produced the despair that he had feared. It was, rather, a dull feeling of rage that grades ally

345dissolved in a solitary and passive frustration similar to the one he had felt during the time he was

346resigned to living without a woman. He plunged into his work again, but he kept up the custom of

347playing dominoes with his father-in-law. In a house bound up in mourning, the nightly

348conversations consolidated the friendship between the two men. “Get married again. Aurelito,” his

349father-in-law would tell him. “I have six daughters for you to choose from.” On one occasion on the

350eve of the elections, Don Apolinar Moscote returned from one of his frequent trips worried about

351the political situation in the country. The Liberals were determined to go to war. Since Aureliano at

352that time had very confused notions about the difference between Conservatives and Liberals, his

353father-in-law gave him some schematic lessons. The Liberals, he said, were Freemasons, bad people,

354wanting to hang priests, to institute civil marriage and divorce, to recognize the rights of illegitimate

355children as equal to those of legitimate ones, and to cut the country up into a federal system that

356would take power away from the supreme authority. The Conservatives, on the other hand, who had

357received their power directly from God, proposed the establishment of public order and family

358morality. They were the defenders of the faith of Christ, of the principle of authority, and were not

359prepared to permit the country to be broken down into autonomous entities. Because of his

360humanitarian feelings Aureliano sympathized with the Liberal attitude with respect to the rights of

361natural children, but in any case, he could not understand how people arrived at the extreme of

362waging war over things that could not be touched with the hand. It seemed an exaggeration to him

363that for the elections his father-in-law had them send six soldiers armed with rifles under the

364command of a sergeant to a town with no political passions. They not only arrived, but they went

365from house to house confiscating hunting weapons, machetes, and even kitchen knives before they

366distributed among males over twenty-one the blue ballots with the names of the Conservative

367candidates and the red ballots with the names of the Liberal candidates. On the eve of the elections

368Don Apolinar Moscote himself read a decree that prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages and the

369gathering together of more than three people who were not of the same family. The elections took

370place without incident. At eight o’clock on Sunday morning a wooden ballot box was set up in the

371square, which was watched over by the six soldiers. The voting was absolutely free, as Aureliano

372himself was able to attest since he spent almost the entire day with his father-in-law seeing that no

373one voted more than once. At four in the afternoon a roll of dmms in the square announced the

374closing of the polls and Don Apolinar Moscote sealed the ballot box with a label crossed by his

375signature. That night, while he played dominoes with Aureliano, he ordered the sergeant to break the

376seal in order to count the votes. There were almost as many red ballots as blue, but the sergeant left

377only ten red ones and made up the difference with blue ones. Then they sealed the box again with a

378new label and the first thing on the following day it was taken to the capital of the province. “The

379Uberals will go to war,” Aureliano said. Don Apolinar concentrated on his domino pieces. “If you’re

380saying that because of the switch in ballots, they won’t,” he said. “We left a few red ones in so there

381won’t be any complaints.” Aureliano understood the disadvantages of being in the opposition. “If I

382were a Liberal,” he said, “I’d go to war because of those ballots.” His father-in-law looked at him

383over his glasses.

384“Come now, Aurelito,” he said, “if you were a Liberal, even though you’re my son-in-law, you

385wouldn’t have seen the switching of the ballots. ”

386What really caused indignation in the town was. not the results of the elections but the fact that

387the soldiers had not returned the weapons. A group of women spoke with Aureliano so that he