1THE MARRIAGE was on the point of breaking up after two months because Aureliano Segundo, in

2an attempt to placate Petra Cotes, had a picture taken of her dressed as the Queen of Madagascar.

3When Fernanda found out about it she repacked her bridal trunks and left Macondo without saying

4good-bye. Aureliano Segundo caught up with her on the swamp road. After much pleading and

5promises of reform he succeeded in getting her to come home and he abandoned his concubine.

6Petra Cotes, aware of her strength, showed no signs of worry. She had made a man of him. While

7he was still a child she had drawn him out of Melquiades’ room, his head full of fantastic ideas and

8lacking any contact with reality, and she had given him a place in the world. Nature had made him

9reserved and withdrawn, with tendencies toward solitary meditation, and she had molded an

10opposite character in him, one that was vital, expansive, open, and she had injected him with a joy

11for living and a pleasure in spending and celebrating until she had converted him inside and out, into

12the man she had dreamed of for herself ever since adolescence. Then he married, as all sons marry

13sooner or later. He did not dare tell her the news. He assumed an attitude that was quite childish

14under the circumstances, feigning anger and imaginary resentment so that Petra Cotes would be the

15one who would bring about the break. One day, when Aureliano Segundo reproached her unjustly,

16she eluded the trap and put things in their proper place.

17“What it all means,” she said, “is that you want to marry the queen.”

18Aureliano Segundo, ashamed, pretended an attack of rage, said that he was misunderstood and

19abused, and did not visit her again. Petra Cotes, without losing her poise of a wild beast in repose

20for a single instant, heard the music and the fireworks from the wedding, the wild bustle of the

21celebration as if all of it were nothing but some new piece of mischief on the part of Aureliano

22Segundo. Those who pitied her fate were calmed with a smile. “Don’t worry,” she told them.

23“Queens run errands for me.” To a neighbor woman who brought her a set of candles so that she

24could light up the picture of her lost lover with them, she said with an enigmatic security:

25“The only candle that will make him come is always lighted.”

26Just as she had foreseen, Aureliano Segundo went back to her house as soon as the honeymoon

27was over. He brought his usual old friends, a traveling photographer, and the gown and ermine cape

28soiled with blood that Fernanda had worn during the carnival. In the heat of the merriment that

29broke out that evening, he had Petra Cotes dress up as queen, crowned her absolute and lifetime

30ruler of Madagascar, and handed out copies of the picture to his friends, she not only went along

31with the game, but she felt sorry for him inside, thinking that he must have been very frightened to

32have conceived of that extravagant means of reconciliation. At seven in the evening, still dressed as

33the queen, she received him in bed. He had been married scarcely two months, but she realized at

34once that tilings were not going well in the nuptial bed, and she had the delicious pleasure of

35vengeance fulfilled. Two days later, however, when he did not dare return but sent an intermediary

36to arrange the terms of the separation, she understood that she was going to need more patience

37than she had foreseen because he seemed ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of appearances. Nor

38did she get upset that time. Once again she made things easy with a submission that confirmed the

39generalized belief that she was a poor devil, and the only souvenir she kept of Aureliano Segundo

40was a pair of patent leather boots, which, according to what he himself had said, were the ones he

41wanted to wear in his coffin. She kept them wrapped in cloth in the bottom of a trunk and made

42ready to feed on memories, waiting without despair.

43“He has to come sooner or later,” she told herself, “even if it’s just to put on those boots.”

44She did not have to wait as long as she had imagined. Actually, Aureliano Segundo understood

45from the night of his wedding that he would return to the house of Petra Cotes much sooner than

46when he would have to put on the patent leather boots: Fernanda was a woman who was lost in the

47world. She had been born and raised in a city six hundred miles away, a gloomy city where on

48ghostly nights the coaches of the viceroys still rattled through the cobbled streets. Thirty-two

49belfries tolled a dirge at six in the afternoon. In the manor house, which was paved with tomblike

50slabs, the sun was never seen. The air had died in the cypresses in the courtyard, in the pale

51trappings of the bedrooms, in the dripping archways of the garden of perennials. Until puberty

52Fernanda had no news of the world except for the melancholy piano lessons taken in some

53neighboring house by someone who for years and years had the drive not to take a siesta. In the

54room of her sick mother, green and yellow under the powdery light from the windowpanes, she

55would listen to the methodical, stubborn, heartless scales and think that that music was in the world

56while she was being consumed as she wove funeral wreaths. Her mother, perspiring with five-

57o’clock fever, spoke to her of the splendor of the past. When she was a little girl, on one moonlit

58night Fernanda saw a beautiful woman dressed in white crossing the garden toward the chapel. What

59bothered her most about that fleeting vision was that she felt it was exactly like her, as if she had

60seen herself twenty years in advance. “It was your great-grandmother the queen,” her mother told

61her during a tmce in her coughing. “She died of some bad vapors while she was cutting a string of

62bulbs.” Many years later, when she began to feel she was the equal of her great-grandmother,

63Fernanda doubted her childhood vision, but her mother scolded her disbelief.

64“We are immensely rich and powerful,” she told her. “One day you will be a queen.”

65She believed it, even though they were sitting at the long table with a linen tablecloth and silver

66service to have a cup of watered chocolate and a sweet bun. Until the day of her wedding she

67dreamed about a legendary kingdom, in spite of the fact that her father, Don Fernando, had to

68mortgage the house in order to buy her trousseau. It was not innocence or delusions of grandeur.

69That was how they had brought her up. Since she had had the use of reason she remembered having

70done her duty in a gold pot with the family crest on it. She left the house for the first time at the age

71of twelve in a coach and horses that had to travel only two blocks to take her to the convent. Her

72classmates were surprised that she sat apart from them in a chair with a very high back and that she

73would not even mingle with them during recess. “She’s different,” the nuns would explain. “She’s

74going to be a queen.” Her schoolmates believed this because she was already the most beautiful,

75distinguished, and discreet girl they had ever seen. At the end of eight years, after having learned to

76write Latin poetry, play the clavichord, talk about falconry with gentlemen and apologetics, with

77archbishops, discuss affairs of state with foreign mlers and affairs of God with the Pope, she

78returned to her parents’ home to weave funeral wreaths. She found it despoiled. All that was left was

79the furniture that was absolutely necessary, the silver candelabra and table service, for the everyday

80utensils had been sold one by one to underwrite the costs of her education. Her mother had suc¬

81cumbed to five-o’clock fever. Her father, Don Fernando, dressed in black with a stiff collar and a

82gold watch chain, would give her a silver coin on Mondays for the household expenses, and the

83funeral wreaths finished the week before would be taken away. He spent most of his time shut up in

84his study and the few times that he went out he would return to recite the rosary with her. She had

85intimate friendships with no one. She had never heard mention of the wars that were bleeding the

86country. She continued her piano lessons at three in the afternoon. She had even began to lose the

87illusion of being a queen when two peremptory raps of the knocker sounded at the door and she

88opened it to a well-groomed military officer with ceremonious manners who had a scar on his cheek

89and a gold medal on his chest. He closeted himself with her father in the study. Two hours later her

90father came to get her in the sewing room. “Get your things together,” he told her. “You have to

91take a long trip.” That was how they took her to Macondo. In one single day, with a bmtal slap, life

92threw on top of her the whole weight of a reality that her parents had kept hidden from her for

93many years. When she returned home she shut herself up in her room to weep, indifferent to Don

94Fernando’s pleas and explanations as he tried to erase the scars of that strange joke. She had sworn

95to herself never to leave her bedroom until she died when Aureliano Segundo came to get her. It

96was an act of impossible fate, because in the confusion of her indignation, in the fury of her shame,

97she had lied to him so that he would never know her real identity. The only real clues that Aureliano

98Segundo had when he left to look for her were her unmistakable highland accent and her trade as a

99weaver of funeral wreaths. He searched for her without cease. With the fierce temerity with which

100Jose Arcadio Buendia had crossed the mountains to found Macondo, with the blind pride with

101which Colonel Aureliano Buendia had undertaken his fmitless wars, with the mad tenacity with

102which Ursula watched over the survival of the line, Aureliano Segundo looked for Fernanda, without

103a single moment of respite. When he asked where they sold funeral wreaths they took him from

104house to house so that he could choose the best ones. When he asked for the most beautiful woman

105who had ever been seen on this earth, all the women brought him their daughters. He became lost in

106misty byways, in times reserved for oblivion, in labyrinths of disappointment. He crossed a yellow

107plain where the echo repeated one’s thoughts and where anxiety brought on premonitory mirages.

108After sterile weeks he came to an unknown city where all the bells were tolling a dirge. Although he

109had never seen them and no one had ever described them to him he immediately recognized the

110walls eaten away by bone salt, the broken-down wooden balconies gutted by fungus, and nailed to

111the outside door, almost erased by rain, the saddest cardboard sign in the world: Funeral Wreaths for

112Sale. From that moment until the icy morning when Fernanda left her house under the care of the

113Mother Superior there was barely enough time for the nuns to sew her trousseau and in six trunks

114put the candelabra, the silver service, and the gold chamberpot along with the countless and useless

115remains of a family catastrophe that had been two centuries late in its fulfillment. Don Fernando

116declined the invitation to go along. He promised to go later when he had cleared up his affairs, and

117from the moment when he gave his daughter his blessing he shut himself up in his study again to

118write out the announcements with mournful sketches and the family coat of arms, which would be

119the first human contact that Fernanda and her father would have had in all their lives. That was the

120real date of her birth for her. For Aureliano Segundo it was almost simultaneously the beginning and

121the end of happiness.

122Fernanda carried a delicate calendar with small golden keys on which her spiritual adviser had

123marked in purple ink the dates of venereal abstinence. Not counting Holy week, Sundays, holy days

124of obligation, first Fridays, retreats, sacrifices, and cyclical impediments, her effective year was

125reduced to forty-two days that were spread out through a web of purple crosses. Aureliano Segundo,

126convinced that time would break up that hostile network, prolonged the wedding celebration be¬

127yond the expected time. Tired of throwing out so many empty brandy and champagne bottles so

128that they would not clutter up the house and at the same time intrigued by the fact that the

129newlyweds slept at different times and in separate rooms while the fireworks and music and the

130slaughtering of cattle went on, Ursula remembered her own experience and wondered whether Fer¬

131nanda might have a chastity belt too which would sooner or later provoke jokes in the town and give

132rise to a tragedy. But Fernanda confessed to her that she was just letting two weeks go by before

133allowing the first contact with her husband. Indeed, when the period was over, she opened her

134bedroom with a resignation worthy of an expiatory victim and Aureliano Segundo saw the most

135beautiful woman on earth, with her glorious eyes of a frightened animal and her long, copper-

136colored hair spread out across the pillow. He was so fascinated with that vision that it took him a

137moment to realize that Fernanda was wearing a white nightgown that reached down to her ankles,

138with long sleeves and with a large, round buttonhole, delicately trimmed, at the level of her lower

139stomach. Aureliano Segundo could not suppress an explosion of laughter.

140“That’s the most obscene thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he shouted with a laugh that rang

141through the house. “I married a Sister of Charity.”

142A month later, unsuccessful in getting his wife to take off her nightgown, he had the picture

143taken of Petra Cotes dressed as a queen. Later on, when he succeeded in getting Fernanda to come

144back home, she gave in to his urges in the fever of reconciliation, but she could not give him the

145repose he had dreamed about when he went to fetch her in the city with the thirty-two belfries.

146Aureliano Segundo found only a deep feeling of desolation in her. One night, a short time before

147their first child was born, Fernanda realized that her husband had returned in secret to the bed of

148Petra Cotes.

149“That’s what happened,” he admitted. And he explained in a tone of prostrated resignation: “I

150had to do it so that the animals would keep on breeding. ”

151He needed a little time to convince her about such a strange expedient, but when he finally did so

152by means of proofs that seemed irrefutable, the only promise that Fernanda demanded from him

153was that he should not be surprised by death in his concubine’s bed. In that way the three of them

154continued living without bothering each other. Aureliano Segundo, punctual and loving with both of

155them. Petra Cotes, strutting because of the reconciliation, and Fernanda, pretending that she did not

156know the truth.

157The pact did not succeed, however, in incorporating Fernanda into the family. Ursula insisted in

158vain that she take off the woolen ruff which she would have on when she got up from making love

159and which made the neighbors whisper. She could not convince her to use the bathroom or the

160night lavatory and sell the gold chamberpot to Colonel Aureliano Buendia so that he could convert

161it into little fishes. Amaranta felt so uncomfortable with her defective diction and her habit of using

162euphemisms to designate everything that she would always speak gibberish in front of her.

163“Thifisif.” she would say, “ifisif onefos ofosif thofosif whosufu cantantant statantand thefesef

164smufumellu ofosif therisir owfisown shifisifit. ”

165One day, irritated by the mockery, Fernanda wanted to know what Amaranta was saying, and she

166did not use euphemisms in answering her.

167“I was saying,” she told her, “that you’re one of those people who mix up their ass and their

168ashes. ”

169From that time on they did not speak to each other again. When circumstances demanded it they

170would send notes. In spite of the visible hostility of the family, Fernanda did not give up her drive to

171impose the customs of her ancestors. She put an end to the custom of eating in the kitchen and

172whenever anyone was hungry, and she imposed the obligation of doing it at regular hours at the

173large table in the dining room, covered with a linen cloth and with silver candlesticks and table

174service. The solemnity of an act which Ursula had considered the most simple one of daily life

175created a tense atmosphere against which the silent Jose Arcadio Segundo rebelled before anyone

176else. But the custom was imposed, the same as that of reciting the rosary before dinner, and it drew

177the attention of the neighbors, who soon spread the rumor that the Buendias did not sit down to the

178table like other mortals but had changed the act of eating into a kind of high mass. Even Ursula’s

179superstitions, with origins that came more from an inspiration of the moment than from tradition,

180came into conflict with those of Fernanda, who had inherited them from her parents and kept them

181defined and catalogued for every occasion. As long as Ursula had full use of her faculties some of

182the old customs survived and the life of the family kept some quality of her impulsiveness, but when

183she lost her sight and the weight of her years relegated her to a corner, the circle of rigidity begun by

184Fernanda from the moment she arrived finally closed completely and no one but she determined the

185destiny of the family. The business in pastries and small candy animals that Santa Sofia de la Piedad

186had kept up because of Ursula’s wishes was considered an unworthy activity by Fernanda and she

187lost no time in putting a stop to it. The doors of the house, wide open from dawn until bedtime.

188were closed during siesta time under the pretext that the sun heated up the bedrooms and in the end

189they were closed for good. The aloe branch and loaf of bread that had been hanging over the door

190since the days of the founding were replaced by a niche with the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Colonel

191Aureliano, Buendia became aware somehow of those changes and foresaw their consequences.

192“We’re becoming people of quality,” he protested. “At this rate we’ll end up fighting against the

193Conservative regime again, but this time to install a king in its place.” Fernanda very tactfully tried

194not to cross Iris path. Within herself she was bothered by his independent spirit his resistance to all

195kinds of social rigidity. She was exasperated by his mugs of coffee at five in the morning, the

196disorder of his workshop, his frayed blanket, and his custom of sitting in the street door at dusk. But

197she had to tolerate that one loose piece in the family machinery because she was sure that the old

198colonel was an animal who had been tamed by the years and by disappointment and who, in a burst

199of senile rebellion, was quite capable of uprooting the foundations of the house. When her husband

200decided to give their first son the name of Iris great-grandfather, she did not dare oppose him

201because she had been there only a year. But when the first daughter was bom she expressed her

202unreserved determination to name her Renata after her mother. Ursula had decided to call her

203Remedios. After a tense argument, in which Aureliano Segundo acted as the laughing go-between,

204they baptized her with the name Renata Remedios, but Fernanda went on calling her just Renata

205while her husband’s family and everyone in town called her Meme, a diminutive of Remedios.

206At first Fernanda did not talk about her family, but in time she began to idealize her father. She

207spoke of him at the table as an exceptional being who had renounced all forms of vanity and was on

208his way to becoming a saint. Aureliano Segundo, startled at that unbridled glorification of his father-

209in-law, could not resist the temptation to make small jokes behind his wife’s back. The rest of the

210family followed his example. Even Ursula, who was extremely careful to preserve family harmony

211and who suffered in secret from the domestic friction, once allowed herself the liberty of saying that

212her little great-great-grandson had his pontifical future assured because he was “the grandson of a

213saint and the son of a queen and a rustler.” In spite of that conspiracy of smiles, the children became

214accustomed to think of their grandfather as a legendary being who wrote them pious verses in his

215letters and every Christmas sent them a box of gifts that barely fitted through the outside door.

216Actually they were the last remains of his lordly inheritance. They used them to build an altar of life-

217size saints in the children’s bedroom, saints with glass eyes that gave them a disquietingly lifelike

218look, whose artistically embroidered clothing was better than that worn by any inhabitant of Macon-

219do. Little by little the funereal splendor of the ancient and icy mansion was being transformed into

220the splendor of the House of Buendia. “They’ve already sent us the whole family cemetery,”

221Aureliano Segundo commented one day. “All we need now are the weeping willows and the

222tombstones.” Although nothing ever arrived in the boxes that the children could play with, they

223would spend all year waiting for December because, after all, the antique and always unpredictable

224gifts were something, new in the house. On the tenth Christmas, when little Jose Arcadio was

225getting ready to go to the seminary, the enormous box from their grandfather arrived earlier than

226usual, nailed tight and protected with pitch, and addressed in the usual Gothic letters to the Very

227Distinguished Lady Dona Fernanda del Carpio de Buendia. While she read the letter in her room the

228children hastened to open the box. Aided as was customary by Aureliano Segundo, they broke the

229seals, opened the cover, took out the protective sawdust, and found inside a long lead chest closed

230by copper bolts. Aureliano Segundo took out the eight bolts as the children watched impatiently,

231and he barely had time to give a cry and push the children aside when be raised the lead cover and

232saw Don Fernando, dressed in black and with a crucifix on his chest, Iris skin broken out in

233pestilential sores and cooking slowly in a frothy stew with bubbles like live pearls.

234A short time after the birth of their daughter, the unexpected jubilee for Colonel Aureliano,

235Buendia, ordered by the government to celebrate another anniversary of the Treaty of Neerlandia,

236was announced. It was a decision so out of line with official policy that the colonel spoke out

237violently against it and rejected the homage. “It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of the word ‘jubilee,’

238” he said. “But whatever it means, it has to be a trick.” The small goldsmith shop was filled with

239emissaries. Much older and more solemn, the lawyers in dark suits who in other days had flapped

240about the colonel like crows had returned. When he saw them appear the same as the other time,

241when they came to put a stop to the war, he could not bear the cynicism of their praise. He ordered

242them to leave him in peace, insisting that he was not a hero of the nation as they said but an artisan

243without memories whose only dream was to die of fatigue in the oblivion and misery of his little

244gold fishes. What made him most indignant was the word that the president of the republic himself

245planned to be present at the ceremonies in Macondo in order to decorate him with the Order of

246Merit. Colonel Aureliano, Buendfa had him told, word for word, that he was eagerly awaiting that

247tardy but deserved occasion in order to take a shot at him, not as payment for the arbitrary acts and

248anachronisms of his regime, but for his lack of respect for an old man who had not done anyone any

249harm. Such was the vehemence with which he made the threat that the president of the republic

250canceled his trip at the last moment and sent the decoration with a personal representative. Colonel

251Gerineldo Marquez, besieged by pressures of all kinds, left his bed of a paralytic in order to persuade

252his former companion in arms. When the latter saw the rocking chair carried by four men appear

253and saw the friend who had shared his victories and defeats since youth sitting in it among some

254large pillows, he did not have a single doubt but that he was making that effort in order to express

255his solidarity. But when he discovered the real motive for his visit he had them take him out of the

256workshop.

257“Now I’m convinced too late,” he told him, “that I would have done you a great favor if I’d let

258them shoot you. ”

259So the jubilee was celebrated without the attendance of any members of the family. Chance had it

260that it also coincided with carnival week, but no one could get the stubborn idea out of Colonel

261Aureliano Buendia’s head that the coincidence had been foreseen by the government in order to

262heighten the cmelty of the mockery. From his lonely workshop he could hear the martial music, the

263artillery salutes, the tolling of the Te Deum, and a few phrases of the speeches delivered in front of

264the house as they named the street after him. His eyes grew moist with indignation, with angry

265impotence, and for the first time since his defeat it pained him not to have the strength of youth so

266that he could begin a bloody war that would wipe out the last vestiges of the Conservative regime.

267The echoes of the homage had not died down when Ursula knocked at the workshop door.

268“Don’t bother me,” he said. “I’m busy.”

269“Open up,” Ursula insisted in a normal voice. “This has nothing to do with the celebration.”

270Then Colonel Aureliano Buendia took down the bar and saw at the door seventeen men of the

271most varied appearance, of all types and colors, but all with a solitary air that would have been

272enough to identify them anywhere on earth. They were his sons. Without any previous agreement,

273without knowing each other, they had arrived from the most distant corners of the coast, captivated

274by the talk of the jubilee. They all bore with pride the name Aureliano and the last name of their

275mothers. The three days that they stayed in the house, to the satisfaction of Ursula and the scandal

276of Fernanda, were like a state war. Amaranta searched among old papers for the ledger where Ursula

277had written down the names and birth and baptism dates of all of them, and beside the space for

278each one she added his present address. That list could well have served as a recapitulation of twenty

279years of war. From it the nocturnal itinerary of the colonel from the dawn he left Macondo at the

280head of twenty-one men on his way to a fanciful rebellion until he returned for the last time

281wrapped in a blanket stiff with blood could have been reconstructed. Aureliano Segundo did not let

282the chance go by to regale his cousins with a thunderous champagne and accordion party that was

283interpreted as a tardy adjustment of accounts with the carnival, which went awry because of the

284jubilee. They smashed half of the dishes, they destroyed the rose bushes as they chased a bull they

285were trying to hog-tie, they killed the hens by shooting them, they made Amaranta dance the sad

286waltzes of Pietro Crespi, they got Remedios the Beauty to put on a pair of men’s pants and climb a

287greased pole, and in the dining room they turned loose a pig daubed with lard, which prostrated

288Fernanda, but no one regretted the destruction because the house shook with a healthy earthquake.

289Colonel Aureliano Buendia who at first received them with mistrust and even doubted the parentage

290of some, was amused by their wildness, and before they left he gave each one a little gold fish. Even

291the withdrawn Jose Arcadio Segundo offered them an afternoon of cockfights, which was at the

292point of ending in tragedy because several of the Aurelianos were so expert in matters of the cockpit

293that they spotted Father Antonio Isabel’s tricks at once. Aureliano Segundo, who saw the limitless

294prospect of wild times offered by those mad relatives, decided that they should all stay and work for

295him. The only one who accepted was Aureliano Triste, a big mulatto with the drive and explorer’s

296spirit of his grandfather. Fie had already tested his fortune in half the world and it did not matter to

297him where he stayed. The others, even though they were unmarried, considered their destinies

298established. They were all skillful craftsmen, the men of their houses, peace-loving people. The Ash

299Wednesday before they went back to scatter out along the coast, Amaranta got them to put on

300Sunday clothes and accompany her to church. More amused than devout, they let themselves be led

301to the altar rail where Father Antonio Isabel made the sign of the cross in ashes on them. Back at

302the house, when the youngest tried to clean his forehead, he discovered that the mark was indelible

303and so were those of his brothers. They tried soap and water, earth and a scrubbing brush, and lastly

304a pumice stone and lye, but they could not remove the crosses. On the other hand, Amaranta and

305the others who had gone to mass took it off without any trouble. “It’s better that way,” Ursula

306stated as she said goodbye to them. “From now on everyone will know who you are.” They went off

307in a troop, preceded by a band of musicians and shooting off fireworks, and they left behind in the

308town an impression that the Buendia line had enough seed for many centuries. Aureliano Triste,

309with the cross of ashes on his forehead, set up on the edge of town the ice factory that Jose Arcadio

310Buendia had dreamed of in his inventive delirium.

311Some months after his arrival, when he was already well-known and well-liked, Aureliano Triste

312went about looking for a house so that he could send for his mother and an unmarried sister (who

313was not the colonel’s daughter), and he became interested in the run-down big house that looked

314abandoned on a corner of the square. Fie asked who owned it. Someone told him that it did not

315belong to anyone, that in former times a solitary widow who fed on earth and whitewash from the

316walls had lived there, and that in her last years she was seen only twice on the street with a hat of

317tiny artificial flowers and shoes the color of old silver when she crossed the square to the post office

318to mail a letter to the Bishop. They told him that her only companion was a pitiless servant woman

319who killed dogs and cats and any animal that got into the house and threw their corpses into the

320middle of the street in order to annoy people with the rotten stench. So much time had passed since

321the sun had mummified the empty skin of the last animal that everybody took it for granted that the

322lady of the house and the maid had died long before the wars were over, and that if the house was

323still standing it was because in recent years there had not been a rough winter or destructive wind.

324The hinges had cmmbled with mst, the doors were held up only by clouds of cobwebs, the windows

325were soldered shut by dampness, and the floor was broken by grass and wildflowers and in the

326cracks lizards and all manner of vermin had their nests, all of which seemed to confirm the notion

327that there had not been a human being there for at least half a century. The impulsive Aureliano

328Triste did not need such proof to proceed. Fie pushed on the main door with his shoulder and the

329worm-eaten wooden frame fell down noiselessly amid a dull cataclysm of dust and termite nests.

330Aureliano Triste stood on the threshold waiting for the dust to clear and then he saw in the center of

331the room the squalid woman, still dressed in clothing of the past century, with a few yellow threads

332on her bald head, and with two large eyes, still beautiful, in which the last stars of hope had gone

333out, and the skin of her face was wrinkled by the aridity of solitude. Shaken by that vision from

334another world, Aureliano Triste barely noticed that the woman was aiming an antiquated pistol at

335him.

336“I beg your pardon,” he murmured.

337She remained motionless in the center of the room filled with knickknacks, examining inch by

338inch the giant with square shoulders and with a tattoo of ashes on his forehead, and through the

339haze of dust she saw him in the haze of other times with a double-barreled shotgun on his shoulder

340and a string of rabbits in his hand.

341“For the love of God,” she said in a low voice, it’s not right for them to come to me with that

342memory now. ”

343“I want to rent the house,” Aureliano Triste said.

344The woman then raised the pistol, aiming with a firm wrist at the cross of ashes, and she held the

345trigger with a determination against which there was no appeal.

346“Get out,” she ordered.

347That night at dinner Aureliano Triste told the family about the episode and Ursula wept with

348consternation. “Holy God!” she exclaimed, clutching her head with her hands. “She’s still alive!”

349Time, wars, the countless everyday disasters had made her forget about Rebeca. The only one who

350had not lost for a single minute the awareness that she was alive and rotting in her wormhole was

351the implacable and aging Amaranta. She thought of her at dawn, when the ice of her heart awakened

352her in her solitary bed, and she thought of her when she soaped her withered breasts and her lean

353stomach, and when she put on the white stiff-starched petticoats and corsets of old age, and when

354she changed the black bandage of terrible expiation on her hand. Always, at every moment, asleep

355and awake, during the most sublime and most abject moments, Amaranta thought about Rebeca,

356because solitude had made a selection in her memory and had burned the dimming piles of nostalgic

357waste that life had accumulated in her heart, and had purified, magnified and eternalized the others,

358the most bitter ones. Remedios the Beauty knew about Rebeca’s existence from her. Every time they

359passed the run-down house she would tell her about an unpleasant incident, a tale of hate, trying in

360that way to make her extended rancor be shared by her niece and consequently prolonged beyond

361death, but her plan did not work because Remedios was immune to any kind of passionate feelings

362and much less to those of others. Ursula, on the other hand, who had suffered through a process

363opposite to Amaranta’s, recalled Rebeca with a memory free of impurities, for the image of the

364pitiful child brought to the house with the bag containing her parents’ bones prevailed over the

365offense that had made her unworthy to be connected to the family tree any longer. Aureliano

366Segundo decided that they would have to bring her to the house and take care of her, but his good

367intentions were frustrated by the firm intransigence of Rebeca, who had needed many years of

368suffering and misery in order to attain the privileges of solitude and who was not disposed to

369renounce them in exchange for an old age disturbed by the false attractions of charity.

370In February, when the sixteen sons of Colonel Aureliano Buendfa returned, still marked with the

371cross of ashes, Aureliano Triste spoke to them about Rebeca in the tumult of the celebration and in

372half a day they restored the appearance of the house, changing doors and windows, painting the

373front with gay colors, bracing walls and pouring fresh cement on the floor, but they could not get

374any authorization to continue the work inside. Rebeca did not even come to the door. She let them

375finish the mad restoration, then calculated what it had cost and sent Argenida, her old servant who

376was still with her, to them with a handful of coins that had been withdrawn from circulation after

377the last war and that Rebeca thought were still worth something it was then that they saw to what a

378fantastic point her separation from the world had arrived and they understood that it would be

379impossible to rescue her from her stubborn enclosure while she still had a breath of life in her.

380On the second visit by the sons of Colonel Aureliano Buendia to Macondo, another of them,

381Aureliano Centeno, stayed on to work with Aureliano Triste. He was one of the first who had been

382brought to the house for baptism and Ursula and Amaranta remembered him very well because in a

383few hours he had destroyed every breakable object that passed through his hands. Time had

384moderated his early impulse for growth and he was a man of average height marked by smallpox

385scars, but his amazing power for manual destruction remained intact. He broke so many plates, even