1COLONEL AURELIANO BUENDIA organized thirty-two armed uprisings and he lost them all. He had

2seventeen male children by seventeen different women and they were exterminated one after the

3other on a single night before the oldest one had reached the age of thirty-five. He survived fourteen

4attempts on his life, seventy-three ambushes, and a firing squad. He lived through a dose of

5strychnine in his coffee that was enough to kill a horse. He refused the Order of Merit, which the

6President of the Republic awarded him. He rose to be Commander in Chief of the revolutionary

7forces, with jurisdiction and command from one border to the other, and the man most feared by

8the government, but he never let himself be photographed. He declined the lifetime pension offered

9him after the war and until old age he made his living from the little gold fishes that he

10manufactured in his workshop in Macondo. Although he always fought at the head of his men, the

11only wound that he received was the one he gave himself after signing the Treaty of Neerlandia,

12which put an end to almost twenty years of civil war. He shot himself in the chest with a pistol and

13the bullet came out through his back without damaging any vital organ. The only thing left of all that

14was a street that bore his name in Macondo. And yet, as he declared a few years before he died of

15old age, he had not expected any of that on the dawn he left with his twenty-one men to join the

16forces of General Victorio Medina.

17“We leave Macondo in your care.” was all that he said to Arcadio before leaving. “We leave it to

18you in good shape, try to have it in better shape when we return. ”

19Arcadio gave a very personal interpretation to the instructions. He invented a uniform with the

20braid and epaulets of a marshal, inspired by the prints in one of Melquiades’ books, and around his

21waist he buckled the saber with gold tassels that had belonged to the executed captain. He set up the

22two artillery pieces at the entrance to town, put uniforms on his former pupils, who had been

23amused by his fiery proclamations, and let them wander through the streets armed in order to give

24outsiders an impression of invulnerability. It was a double-edged deception, for the government did

25not dare attack the place for ten months, but when it did it unleashed such a large force against it

26that resistance was liquidated in a half hour. From the first day of his rule Arcadio revealed his

27predilection for decrees. He would read as many as four a day in order to decree and institute

28everything that came into his head. He imposed obligatory military service for men over eighteen,

29declared to be public property any animals walking the streets after six in the evening, and made

30men who were overage wear red armbands. He sequestered Father Nicanor in the parish house

31under pain of execution and prohibited him from saying mass or ringing the bells unless it was for a

32Liberal victory. In order that no one would doubt the severity of his aims, he ordered a firing squad

33organized in the square and had it shoot at a scarecrow. At first no one took him seriously. They

34were, after all, schoolchildren playing at being grown-ups. But one night, when Arcadio went into

35Catarino’s store, the trumpeter in the group greeted him with a fanfare that made the customers

36laugh and Arcadio had him shot for disrespect for the authorities. People who protested were put on

37bread and water with their ankles in a set of stocks that he had set up in a schoolroom. “You

38murderer!” Ursula would shout at him every time she learned of some new arbitrary act. “When

39Aureliano finds out he’s going to shoot you and I’ll be the first one to be glad.” But it was of no use.

40Arcadio continued tightening the tourniquet with unnecessary rigor until he became the cmelest

41mler that Macondo had ever known. “Now let them suffer the difference,” Don Apolinar Moscote

42said on one occasion. “This is the Liberal paradise.” Arcadio found out about it. At the head of a

43patrol he assaulted the house, destroyed the furniture, flogged the daughters, and dragged out Don

44Apolinar Moscote. When Ursula burst into the courtyard of headquarters, after having gone through

45the town shouting shame and brandishing with rage a pitch-covered whip, Arcadio himself was

46preparing to give the squad the command to fire.

47“I dare you to, bastard!” Ursula shouted.

48Before Arcadio had time to read she let go with the first blow of the lash. “I dare you to,

49murderer! ” she shouted. “And kill me too, son of an evil mother. That way I won’t have the eyes to

50weep for the shame of having raised a monster.” Whipping him without mercy, she chased him to

51the back of the courtyard, where Arcadio curled up like a snail in its shell. Don Apolinar Moscote

52was unconscious, tied to the post where previously they had had the scarecrow that had been cut to

53pieces by shots fired in fun. The boys in the squad scattered, fearful that Ursula would go after them

54too. But she did not even look at them. She left Arcadio with Inis uniform torn, roaring with pain

55and rage, and she untied Don Apolinar Moscote and took him home. Before leaving the

56headquarters she released the prisoners from the stocks.

57From that time on she was the one who ruled in the town. She reestablished Sunday masses,

58suspended the use of red armbands, and abrogated the harebrained decrees. But in spite of her

59strength, she still wept over her unfortunate fate. She felt so much alone that she sought the useless

60company of her husband, who had been forgotten under the chestnut tree. “Look what we’ve come

61to,” she would tell him as the June rains threatened to knock the shelter down. “Look at the empty

62house, our children scattered all over the world, and the two of us alone again, the same as in the

63beginning.” Jose Arcadio Buendia, sunk in an abyss of unawareness, was deaf to her lamentations.

64At the beginning of his madness he would announce his daily needs with urgent Latin phrases. In

65fleeting clear spells of lucidity, when Amaranta would bring him his meals he would tell her what

66bothered him most and would accept her sucking glasses and mustard plasters in a docile way. But at

67the time when Ursula went to lament by his side he had lost all contact with reality. She would bathe

68him bit by bit as he sat on his stool while she gave him news of the family. “Aureliano went to war

69more than four months ago and we haven’t heard anything about him,” she would say, scrubbing his

70back with a soaped brush. “Jose Arcadio came back a big man, taller than you, and all covered with

71needle-work, but he only brought shame to our house.” She thought she noticed, however, that her

72husband would grow sad with the bad news. Then she decided to lie to him. ‘Rou won’t believe

73what I’m going to tell you,” she said as she threw ashes over his excrement in order to pick it up

74with the shovel. “God willed that Jose Arcadio and Rebeca should get married, and now they’re very

75happy.” She got to be so sincere in the deception that she ended up by consoling herself with her

76own lies. “Arcadio is a serious man now,” she said, “and very brave, and a fine-looking young man

77with his uniform and saber.” It was like speaking to a dead man, for Jose Arcadio Buendia was

78already beyond the reach of any worry. But she insisted. He seemed so peaceful, so indifferent to

79everything that she decided to release him. He did not even move from his stool. He stayed there,

80exposed to the sun and the rain, as if the thongs were unnecessary, for a dominion superior to any

81visible bond kept him tied to the trunk of the chestnut tree. Toward August, when winter began to

82last forever, Ursula was finally able to give him a piece of news that sounded like the truth.

83“Would you believe it that good luck is still pouring down on us?” she told him. “Amaranta and

84the pianola Italian are going to get married. ”

85Amaranta and Pietro Crespi had, in fact, deepened their friendship, protected by Ursula, who this

86time did not think it necessary to watch over the visits. It was a twilight engagement. The Italian

87would arrive at dusk, with a gardenia in his buttonhole, and he would translate Petrarch’s sonnets for

88Amaranta. They would sit on the porch, suffocated by the oregano and the roses, he reading and she

89sewing lace cuffs, indifferent to the shocks and bad news of the war, until the mosquitoes made

90them take refuge in the parlor. Amaranta’s sensibility, her discreet but enveloping tenderness had

91been wearing an invisible web about her fiance, which he had to push aside materially with his pale

92and ringless fingers in order to leave the house at eight o’clock. They had put together a delightful

93album with the postcards that Pietro Crespi received from Italy. They were pictures of lovers in

94lonely parks, with vignettes of hearts pierced with arrows and golden ribbons held by doves. “I’ve

95been to this park in Florence,” Pietro Crespi would say, going through the cards. “A person can put

96out his hand and the birds will come to feed.” Sometimes, over a watercolor of Venice, nostalgia

97would transform the smell of mud and putrefying shellfish of the canals into the warm aroma of

98flowers. Amaranta would sigh, laugh, and dream of a second homeland of handsome men and

99beautiful women who spoke a childlike language with ancient cities of whose past grandeur only the

100cats among the mbble remained. After crossing the ocean in search of it, after having confused

101passion with the vehement stroking of Rebeca, Pietro Crespi had found love. Happiness was

102accompanied by prosperity. His warehouse at that time occupied almost a whole block and it was a

103hothouse of fantasy, with reproductions of the bell tower of Florence that told time with a concert

104of carillons, and music boxes from Sorrento and compacts from China that sang five-note melodies

105when they were opened, and all the musical instmments imaginable and all the mechanical toys that

106could be conceived. Bmno Crespi, his younger brother, was in charge of the store because Pietro

107Crespi barely had enough time to take care of the music school. Thanks to him the Street of the

108Turks, with its dazzling display of knickknacks, became a melodic oasis where one could forget

109Arcadio’s arbitrary acts and the distant nightmare of the war. When Ursula ordered the revival of

110Sunday mass, Pietro Crespi donated a German harmonium to the church, organized a children’s

111chorus, and prepared a Gregorian repertory that added a note of splendor to Father Nicanor’s quiet

112rite. No one doubted that he would make Amaranta a fortunate mate. Not pushing their feelings,

113letting themselves be borne along by the natural flow of their hearth they reached a point where all

114that was left to do was set a wedding date. They did not encounter any obstacles. Ursula accused

115herself inwardly of having twisted Rebecca’s destiny with repeated postponements and she was not

116about to add more remorse. The rigor of the mourning for Remedios had been relegated to the

117background by the mortifications of the war, Aureliano’s absence, Arcadio’s brutality, and the

118expulsion of Jose Arcadio and Rebeca. With the imminence of the wedding, Pietro Crespi had

119hinted that Aureliano Jose, in whom he had stirred up a love that was almost filial, would be

120considered their oldest child. Everything made Amaranta think that she was heading toward a

121smooth happiness. But unlike Rebeca, she did not reveal the slightest anxiety. With the same

122patience with which she dyed tablecloths, sewed lace masterpieces, and embroidered needlepoint

123peacocks, she waited for Pietro Crespi to be unable to bear the urges of his heart and more. Her day

124came with the ill-fated October rains. Pietro Crespi took the sewing basket from her lap and he told

125her, “We’ll get married next month.” Amaranta did not tremble at the contact with his icy hands.

126She withdrew hers like a timid little animal and went back to her work.

127“Don’t be simple, Crespi.” She smiled. “I wouldn’t marry you even if I were dead.”

128Pietro Crespi lost control of himself. He wept shamelessly, almost breaking his fingers with

129desperation, but he could not break her down. “Don’t waste your time,” was all that Amaranta said.

130“If you really love me so much, don’t set foot in this house again.” Ursula thought she would go

131mad with shame. Pietro Crespi exhausted all manner of pleas. He went through incredible extremes

132of humiliation. He wept one whole afternoon in Ursula’s lap and she would have sold her soul in

133order to comfort him. On rainy nights he could be seen prowling about the house with an umbrella,

134waiting for a light in Amaranta’s bedroom. He was never better dressed than at that time. His august

135head of a tormented emperor had acquired a strange air of grandeur. He begged Amaranta’s friends,

136the ones who sewed with her on the porch, to try to persuade her. He neglected his business. He

137would spend the day in the rear of the store writing wild notes, which he would send to Amaranta

138with flower petals and dried butterflies, and which she would return unopened. He would shut

139himself up for hours on end to play the zither. One night he sang. Macondo woke up in a kind of

140angelic stupor that was caused by a zither that deserved more than this world and a voice that led one to believe that no other person on earth could feel such love. Pietro Crespi then saw the lights

141go on in every window in town except that of Amaranta. On November second, All Souls’ Day, his

142brother opened the store and found all the lamps lighted, all the music boxes opened, and all the

143docks striking an interminable hour, and in the midst of that mad concert he found Pietro Crespi at

144the desk in the rear with his wrists cut by a razor and his hands thrust into a basin of benzoin.

145Ursula decreed that the wake would be in her house. Father Nicanor was against a religious

146ceremony and burial in consecrated ground. Ursula stood up to him. “In a way that neither you nor

147I can understand, that man was a saint,” she said. “So I am going to bury him, against your wishes,

148beside Melquiades’ grave.” She did it with the support of the whole town and with a magnificent

149funeral. Amaranta did not leave her bedroom. From her bed she heard Ursula’s weeping, the steps

150and whispers of the multitude that invaded the house, the wailing of the mourners, and then a deep

151silence that smelled of trampled flowers. For a long time she kept on smelling Pietro Crespi’s

152lavender breath at dusk, but she had the strength not to succumb to delirium. Ursula abandoned her.

153She did not even raise her eyes to pity her on the afternoon when Amaranta went into the kitchen

154and put her hand into the coals of the stove until it hurt her so much that she felt no more pain but

155instead smelled the pestilence of her own singed flesh. It was a stupid cure for her remorse. For

156several days she went about the house with her hand in a pot of egg whites, and when the burns

157healed it appeared as if the whites had also scarred over the sores on her heart. The only external

158trace that the tragedy left was the bandage of black gauze that she put on her burned hand and that

159she wore until her death.

160Arcadio gave a rare display of generosity by decreeing official mourning for Pietro Crespi. Ursula

161interpreted it as the return of the strayed lamb. But she was mistaken. She had lost Arcadio, not

162when he had put on his military uniform, but from the beginning. She thought she had raised him as

163a son, as she had raised Rebeca, with no privileges or discrimination. Nevertheless, Arcadio was a

164solitary and frightened child during the insomnia plague, in the midst of Ursula’s utilitarian fervor,

165during the delirium of Jose Arcadio Buendfa, the hermetism of Aureliano, and the mortal rivalry

166between Amaranta and Rebeca. Aureliano had taught him to read and write, thinking about other

167things, as he would have done with a stranger. He gave him his clothing so that Visitacion could take

168it in when it was ready to be thrown away. Arcadio suffered from shoes that were too large, from his

169patched pants, from his female buttocks. He never succeeded in communicating with anyone better

170than he did with Visitacion and Cataure in their language. Melquiades was the only one who really

171was concerned with him as he made him listen to his incomprehensible texts and gave him lessons

172in the art of daguerreotype. No one imagined how much he wept in secret and the desperation with

173which he tried to revive Melquiades with the useless study of his papers. The school, where they

174paid attention to him and respected him, and then power, with his endless decrees and his glorious

175uniform, freed him from the weight of an old bitterness. One night in Catarino’s store someone

176dared tell him, “you don’t deserve the last name you carry.” Contrary to what everyone expected,

177Arcadio did not have him shot.

178“To my great honor,” he said, “I am not a Buendia.”

179Those who knew the secret of his parentage thought that the answer meant that he too was

180aware of it, but he had really never been. Pilar Ternera, his mother, who had made his blood boil in

181the darkroom, was as much an irresistible obsession for him as she had been first for Jose Arcadio

182and then for Aureliano. In spite of her having lost her charms and the splendor of her laugh, he

183sought her out and found her by the trail of her smell of smoke. A short time before the war, one

184noon when she was later than usual in coming for her younger son at school, Arcadio was waiting

185for her in the room where he was accustomed to take his siesta and where he later set up the stocks.

186While the child played in the courtyard, he waited in his hammock, trembling with anxiety, knowing

187that Pillar Ternera would have to pass through there. She arrived. Arcadio grabbed her by the wrist

188and tried to pull her into the hammock. “I can’t, I can’t,” Pilar Ternera said in horror. “You can’t

189imagine how much I would like to make you happy, but as God is my witness I can’t.” Arcadio took

190her by the waist with his tremendous hereditary strength and he felt the world disappear with the

191contact of her skin. “Don’t play the saint,” he said. “After all, everybody knows that you’re a

192whore.” Pilar overcame the disgust that her miserable fate inspired in her.

193“The children will find out,” she murmured. “It will be better if you leave the bar off the door

194tonight. ”

195Arcadio waited for her that night trembling with fever in his hammock. He waited without

196sleeping, listening to the aroused crickets in the endless hours of early morning and the implacable

197telling of time by the curlews, more and more convinced that he had been deceived. Suddenly, when

198anxiety had broken down into rage, the door opened. A few months later, facing the firing squad,

199Arcadio would relive the wandering steps in the classroom, the stumbling against benches, and

200finally the bulk of a body in the shadows of the room and the breathing of air that was pumped by a

201heart that was not his. He stretched out his hand and found another hand with two rings on the

202same finger about to go astray in the darkness. He felt the structure of the veins, the pulse of its

203misfortune, and felt the damp palm with a lifeline cut off at the base of the thumb by the claws of

204death. Then he realized that this was not the woman he was waiting for, because she did not smell of

205smoke but of flower lotion, and she had inflated, blind breasts with nipples like, a man’s, a sex as

206stony and round as a nut, and the chaotic tenderness of excited inexperience. She was a virgin and

207she had the unlikely name of Santa Sofia de la Piedad. Pilar Ternera had paid her fifty pesos, half of

208her life savings, to do what she was doing. Arcadio, had seen her many times working in her parents’

209small food store but he had never taken a good look at her because she had that rare virtue of never

210existing completely except at the opportune moment. But from that day on he huddled like a cat in

211the warmth of her armpit She would go to the school at siesta time with the consent of her parents,

212to whom Pilar Ternera hid paid the other half of her savings. Later on, when the government troops

213dislodged them from the place where they had made love, they did it among the cans of lard and

214sacks of corn in the back of the store. About the time that Arcadio was named civil and military

215leader they had a daughter.

216The only relatives who knew about it were Jose Arcadio and Rebeca, with whom Arcadio

217maintained close relations at that time, based not so much on kinship as on complicity. Jose Arcadio

218had put his neck into the marital yoke. Rebeca’s firm character, the voracity of her stomach, her

219tenacious ambition absorbed the tremendous energy of her husband, who had been changed from a

220lazy, woman-chasing man into an enormous work animal. They kept a clean and neat house. Rebeca

221would open it wide at dawn and the wind from the graveyard would come in through the windows

222and go out through the doors to the yard and leave the whitewashed walls and furniture tanned by

223the saltpeter of the dead. Her hunger for earth, the cloc-cloc of her parents’ bones, the impatience of

224her blood as it faced Pietro Crespi’s passivity were relegated to the attic of her memory. All day long

225she would embroider beside the window, withdrawn from the uneasiness of the war, until the

226ceramic pots would begin to vibrate in the cupboard and she would get up to warm the meal, much

227before the appearance, first, of the mangy hounds, and then of the colossus in leggings and spurs

228with a double-barreled shotgun, who sometimes carried a deer on his shoulder and almost always a

229string of rabbits or wild ducks. One afternoon, at the beginning of his rule, Arcadio paid them a

230surprise visit. They had not seen him since they had left the house, but he seemed so friendly and

231familiar that they invited him to share the stew.

232Only when they were having coffee did Arcadio reveal the motive behind his visit: he had

233received a complaint against Jose Arcadio. It was said that he had begun by plowing his own yard

234and had gone straight ahead into neighboring lands, knocking down fences and buildings with his

235oxen until he took forcible possession of the best plots of land around. On the peasants whom he

236had not despoiled because he was not interested in their lands, he levied a contribution which he

237collected every Saturday with his hunting dogs and his double-barreled shotgun. He did not deny it.

238He based his right on the fact that the usurped lands had been distributed by Jose Arcadio Buendia

239at the time of the founding, and he thought it possible to prove that his father had been crazy ever

240since that time, for he had disposed of a patrimony that really belonged to the family. It was an

241unnecessary allegation, because Arcadio had not come to do justice. He simply offered to set up a

242registry office so that Jose Arcadio could legalize his title to the usurped land, under the condition

243that he delegate to the local government the right to collect the contributions. They made an

244agreement. Years later, when Colonel Aureliano Buendia examined the titles to property, he found

245registered in his brother’s name all of the land between the hill where his yard was on up to the

246horizon, including the cemetery, and discovered that during the eleven months of his rule, Arcadio

247had collected not only the money of the contributions, but had also collected fees from people for

248the right to bury their dead in Jose Arcadio’s land.

249It took Ursula several months to find out what was already public knowledge because people hid

250it from her so as not to increase her suffering. At first she suspected it. “Arcadio is building a

251house,” she confided with feigned pride to her husband as she tried to put a spoonful of calabash

252syrup into his mouth. Nevertheless, she involuntarily sighed and said, “I don’t know why, but all this

253has a bad smell to me.” Later on, when she found out that Arcadio had not only built a house but

254had ordered some Viennese furniture, she confirmed her suspicion that he was using public funds.

255“You’re the shame of our family name,” she shouted at him one Sunday after mass when she saw

256him in his new house playing cards with his officers. Arcadio paid no attention to her. Only then did

257Ursula know that he had a six-month-old daughter and that Santa Sofia de la Piedad, with whom he

258was living outside of marriage, was pregnant again. She decided to write to Colonel Aureliano

259Buendia, wherever he was, to bring him up to date on the situation. But the fast-moving events of

260those days not only prevented her plans from being carried out, they made her regret having

261conceived them. The war, which until then had been only a word to designate a vague and remote

262circumstance, became a concrete and dramatic reality. Around the end of February an old woman

263with an ashen look arrived in Macondo riding a donkey loaded down with brooms. She seemed so

264inoffensive that the sentries let her pass without any questions as another vendor, one of the many

265who often arrived from the towns in the swamp. She went directly to the barracks. Arcadio received

266her in the place where the classroom used to be and which at that time had been transformed into a

267kind of rearguard encampment, with roiled hammocks hanging on hooks and mats piled up in the

268corners, and rifles and carbines and even hunting shotguns scattered on the floor. The old woman

269stiffened into a military salute before identifying herself:

270“I am Colonel Gregorio Stevenson.”

271He brought bad news. The last centers of Liberal resistance, according to what he said, were

272being wiped out. Colonel Aureliano Buendia, whom he had left fighting in retreat near Riohacha,

273had given him a message for Arcadio. He should surrender the town without resistance on the

274condition that the lives and property of Liberals would be respected. Arcadio examined that strange

275messenger who could have been a fugitive grandmother with a look of pity.

276“You have brought something in writing, naturally,” he said.

277“Naturally,” the emissary answered, “I have brought nothing of the sort. It’s easy to understand

278that under the present circumstances a person can’t carry anything that would compromise him. ”

279As he was speaking he reached into his bodice and took out a small gold fish. “I think that this

280will be sufficient,” he said. Arcadio could see that indeed it was one of the little fishes made by

281Colonel Aureliano Buendia. But anyone could have bought it before the war or stolen it, and it had

282no merit as a safe-conduct pass. The messenger even went to the extreme of violating a military

283secret so that they would believe his identity. He revealed that he was on a mission to Curasao,

284where he hoped to recruit exiles from all over the Caribbean and acquire arms and supplies

285sufficient to attempt a landing at the end of the year. With faith in that plan. Colonel Aureliano

286Buendia was not in favor of any useless sacrifices at that time. But Arcadio was inflexible. He had

287the prisoner put into the stocks until he could prove his identity and he resolved to defend the town

288to the death.

289He did not have long to wait. The news of the Liberal defeat was more and more concrete.

290Toward the end of March, before a dawn of premature rain, the tense calm of the previous weeks

291was abruptly broken by the desperate sounds of a cornet and a cannon shot that knocked down the

292steeple of the church. Actually, Arcadio’s decision to resist was madness. He had only fifty poorly

293armed men with a ration of twenty cartridges apiece. But among them, his former pupils, excited by

294the high-sounding proclamations, the determination reigned to sacrifice their skins for a lost cause.

295In the midst of the tramping of boots, contradictory commands, cannon shots that made the earth

296tremble, wild shooting, and the senseless sound of cornets, the supposed Colonel Stevenson

297managed to speak to Arcadio. “Don’t let me undergo the indignity of dying in the stocks in these

298women’s clothes,” he said to him. “If I have to die, let me die fighting.” He succeeded in convincing

299him. Arcadio ordered them to give him a weapon and twenty cartridges, and he left him with five

300men to defend headquarters while he went off with his staff to head up the resistance. He did not

301get to the road to the swamp. The barricades had been broken and the defenders were openly

302fighting in the streets, first until they used up their ration of rifle bullets, then with pistols against

303rifles, and finally hand to hand. With the imminence of defeat, some women went into the street

304armed with sticks and kitchen knives. In that confusion Arcadio found Amaranta, who was looking

305for him like a madwoman, in her nightgown and with two old pistols that had belonged to Jose

306Arcadio Buendia. He gave his rifle to an officer who had been disarmed in the fight and escaped

307with Amaranta through a nearby street to take her home. Ursula was, in the doorway waiting,

308indifferent to the cannon shots that had opened up a hole in the front of the house next door. The

309rain was letting up, but the streets were as slippery and as smooth as melted soap, and one had to

310guess distances in the darkness. Arcadio left Amaranta with Ursula and made an attempt to face two

311soldiers who had opened up with heavy firing from the corner. The old pistols that had been kept

312for many years in the bureau did not work. Protecting Arcadio with her body, Ursula tried to drag

313him toward the house.

314“Come along in the name of God,” she shouted at him. “There’s been enough madness!”

315The soldiers aimed at them.

316“Let go of that man, ma’am,” one of them shouted, “or we won’t be responsible!”

317Arcadio pushed Ursula toward the house and surrendered. A short time later the shooting

318stopped and the bells began to toll. The resistance had been wiped out in less than half an hour. Not

319a single one of Arcadio’s men had survived the attack, but before dying they had killed three

320hundred soldiers. The last stronghold was the barracks. Before being attacked, the supposed Colonel

321Gregorio Stevenson had freed the prisoners and ordered his men to go out and fight in the street.

322The extraordinary mobility and accurate aim with which he placed his twenty cartridges gave the

323impression that the barracks was well-defended, and the attackers blew it to pieces with cannon fire.

324The captain who directed the operation was startled to find the rubble deserted and a single dead

325man in his undershorts with an empty rifle still clutched in an arm that had been blown completely

326off. He had a woman’s full head of hair held at the neck with a comb and on his neck a chain with a

327small gold fish. When he turned him over with the tip of his boot and put the light on his face, the

328captain was perplexed. “Jesus Christ,” he exclaimed. Other officers came over.

329“Look where this fellow turned up,” the captain said. “It’s Gregorio Stevenson.”

330At dawn, after a summary court martial, Arcadio was shot against the wall of the cemetery. In the

331last two hours of his life he did not manage to understand why the fear that had tormented him

332since childhood had disappeared. Impassive, without even worrying about making a show of his

333recent bravery, he listened to the interminable charges of the accusation. He thought about Ursula,

334who at that hour must have been under the chestnut tree having coffee with Jose Arcadio Buendia.

335He thought about his eight-month-old daughter, who still had no name, and about the child who

336was going to be born in August. He thought about Santa Sofia de la Piedad, whom he had left the

337night before salting down a deer for next day’s lunch, and he missed her hair pouring over her

338shoulders and her eyelashes, which looked as if they were artificial. He thought about his people

339without sentimentality, with a strict dosing of his accounts with life, beginning to understand how

340much he really loved the people he hated most. The president of the court-martial began his final

341speech when Arcadio realized that two hours had passed. “Even if the proven charges did not have

342merit enough,” the president was saying, “the irresponsible and criminal boldness with which the

343accused drove his subordinates on to a useless death would be enough to deserve capital

344punishment.” In the shattered schoolhouse where for the first time he had felt the security of power,

345a few feet from the room where he had come to know the uncertainty of love, Arcadio found the

346formality of death ridiculous. Death really did not matter to him but life did, and therefore the

347sensation he felt when they gave their decision was not a feeling of fear but of nostalgia. He did not

348speak until they asked him for his last request.

349“Tell my wife,” he answered in a well-modulated voice, “to give the girl the name of Ursula.” He

350paused and said it again: “Ursula, like her grandmother. And tell her also that if the child that is to be

351born is a boy, they should name him Jose Arcadio, not for his uncle, but for his grandfather. ”

352Before they took him to the execution wall Father Nicanor tried to attend him. “I have nothing

353to repent,” Arcadio said, and he put himself under the orders of the squad after drinking a cup of

354black coffee. The leader of the squad, a specialist in summary executions, had a name that had much

355more about it than chance: Captain Roque Carnicero, which meant butcher. On the way to the

356cemetery, under the persistent drizzle, Arcadio saw that a radiant Wednesday was breaking out on

357the horizon. His nostalgia disappeared with the mist and left an immense curiosity in its place. Only

358when they ordered him to put his back to the wall did Arcadio see Rebeca, with wet hair and a pink

359flowered dress, opening wide the door. He made an effort to get her to recognize him. And Rebeca

360did take a casual look toward the wall and was paralyzed with stupor, barely able to react and wave

361good-bye to Arcadio. Arcadio answered her the same way. At that instant the smoking mouths of

362the rifles were aimed at him and letter by letter he heard the encyclicals that Melquiades had chanted

363and he heard the lost steps of Santa Sofia de la Piedad, a virgin, in the classroom, and in his nose he

364felt the same icy hardness that had drawn his attention in the nostrils of the corpse of Remedios.

365“Oh, God damn it!” he managed to think. “I forgot to say that if it was a girl they should name her

366Remedios.” Then, all accumulated in the rip of a claw, he felt again all the terror that had tormented

367him in his life. The captain gave the order to fire. Arcadio barely had time to put out his chest and

368raise his head, not understanding where the hot liquid that burned his thighs was pouring from.

369“Bastards!” he shouted. “Long live the Liberal Party!”