1THE WAR was over in May. Two weeks before the government made the official announcement in a

2high-sounding proclamation, which promised merciless punishment for those who had started the

3rebellion, Colonel Aureliano Buendia fell prisoner just as he was about to reach the western frontier

4disguised as an Indian witch doctor. Of the twenty-one men who had followed him to war, fourteen

5fell in combat, six were wounded, and only one accompanied him at the moment of final defeat:

6Colonel Gerineldo Marquez. The news of his capture was announced in Macondo with a special

7proclamation. “He’s alive,” Ursula told her husband. “Let’s pray to God for his enemies to show

8him clemency.” After three days of weeping, one afternoon as she was stirring some sweet milk

9candy in the kitchen she heard her son’s voice clearly in her ear. “It was Aureliano, “ she shouted,

10mnning toward the chestnut tree to tell her husband the news. “I don’t know how the miracle took

11place, but he’s alive and we’re going to see him very soon.” She took it for granted. She had the

12floors of the house scmbbed and changed the position of the furniture. One week later a rumor

13from somewhere that was not supported by any proclamation gave dramatic confirmation to the

14prediction. Colonel Aureliano Buendia had been condemned to death and the sentence would be

15carried out in Macondo as a lesson to the population. On Monday, at ten-thirty in the morning,

16Amaranta was dressing Aureliano Jose when she heard the sound of a distant troop and the blast of

17a cornet one second before Ursula burst into the room with the shout: “They’re bringing him now!”

18The troop struggled to subdue the overflowing crowd with their rifle butts. Ursula and Amaranta

19ran to the corner, pushing their way through, and then they saw him. He looked like a beggar. His

20clothing was torn, his hair and beard were tangled, and he was barefoot. He was walking without

21feeling the burning dust, his hands tied behind his back with a rope that a mounted officer had

22attached to the head of his horse. Along with him, also ragged and defeated, they were bringing

23Colonel Gerineldo Marquez. They were not sad. They seemed more disturbed by the crowd that was

24shouting all lands of insults at the troops.

25“My son!” Ursula shouted in the midst of the uproar, and she slapped the soldier who tried to

26hold her back. The officer’s horse reared. Then Colonel Aureliano Buendia stopped, tremulous,

27avoided the arms of his mother, and fixed a stern look on her eyes.

28“Go home, Mama,” he said. “Get permission from the authorities to come see me in jail.”

29He looked at Amaranta, who stood indecisively two steps behind Ursula, and he smiled as he

30asked her, “What happened to your hand?” Amaranta raised the hand with the black bandage. “A

31burn,” she said, and took Ursula away so that the horses would not run her down. The troop took

32off. A special guard surrounded the prisoners and took them to the jail at a trot.

33At dusk Ursula visited Colonel Aureliano Buendia in jail. She had tried to get permission through

34Don Apolinar Moscote, but he had lost all authority in the face of the military omnipotence. Father

35Nicanor was in bed with hepatic fever. The parents of Colonel Gerineldo Marquez, who had not

36been condemned to death, had tried to see him and were driven off with rifle butts. Facing the

37impossibility of finding anyone to intervene, convinced that her son would be shot at dawn, Ursula

38wrapped up the tilings she wanted to bring him and went to the jail alone.

39“I am the mother of Colonel Aureliano Buendia,” she announced.

40The sentries blocked her way. “I’m going in in any case,” Ursula warned them. “So if you have

41orders to shoot, start right in.” She pushed one of them aside and went into the former classroom,

42where a group of half-dressed soldiers were oiling their weapons. An officer in a field uniform,

43ruddy-faced, with very thick glasses and ceremonious manners, signaled to the sentries to withdraw.

44“I am the mother of Colonel Aureliano Buendia,” Ursula repeated.

45“You must mean,” the officer corrected with a friendly smile, “that you are the mother of Mister

46Aureliano Buendia.” Ursula recognized in his affected way of speaking the languid cadence of the

47stuck-up people from the highlands.

48“As you say, mister•” she accepted, “just as long as I can see him.”

49There were superior orders that prohibited visits to prisoners condemned to death, but the

50officer assumed the responsibility of letting her have a fifteen-minute stay. Ursula showed him what

51she had in the bundle: a change of clean clothing, the short boots that her son had worn at his

52wedding, and the sweet milk candy that she had kept for him since the day she had sensed his

53return. She found Colonel Aureliano Buendia in the room that was used as a cell, lying on a cot with

54his arms spread out because his armpits were paved with sores. They had allowed him to shave. The

55thick mustache with twisted ends accentuated the sharp angles of his cheekbones. He looked paler

56to Ursula than when he had left, a little taller, and more solitary than ever. He knew all about the

57details of the house: Pietro Crespi’s suicide, Arcadio’s arbitrary acts and execution, the dauntlessness

58of Jose Arcadio Buendia underneath the chestnut tree. He knew that Amaranta had consecrated her

59virginal widowhood to the rearing of Aureliano Jose and that the latter was beginning to show signs

60of quite good judgment and that he had learned to read and write at the same time he had learned to

61speak. From the moment In which she entered the room Ursula felt inhibited by the maturity of her

62son, by his aura of command, by the glow of authority that radiated from his skin. She was surprised

63that he was so well-informed. “You knew all along that I was a wizard,” he joked. And he added in a

64serious tone, “This morning, when they brought me here, I had the impression that I had already

65been through all that before.” In fact, while the crowd was roaring alongside him, he had been

66concentrating his thoughts, startled at how the town had aged. The leaves of the almond trees were

67broken. The houses, painted blue, then painted red, had ended up with an indefinable coloration.

68“What did you expect?” Ursula sighed. “Time passes.”

69“That’s how it goes,” Aureliano admitted, “but not so much.”

70In that way the long-awaited visit, for which both had prepared questions and had even

71anticipated answers, was once more the usual everyday conversation. When the guard announced

72the end of the visit, Aureliano took out a roll of sweaty papers from under the cot. They were his

73poetry, the poems inspired by Remedios, which he had taken with him when he left, and those he

74had written later on during chance pauses in the war. “Promise me that no one will read them,” he

75said. “Light the oven with them this very night.” Ursula promised and stood up to kiss him good¬

76bye.

77“I brought you a revolver,” she murmured.

78Colonel Aureliano Buendia saw that the sentry could not see. “It won’t do me any good,” he said

79in a low voice, “but give it to me in case they search you on the way out.” Ursula took the revolver

80out of her bodice and put it under the mattress of the cot. “And don’t say good-bye,” he concluded

81with emphatic calmness. “Don’t beg or bow down to anyone. Pretend that they shot me a long time

82ago.” Ursula bit her lip so as not to cry.

83“Put some hot stones on those sores,” she said.

84She turned halfway around and left the room. Colonel Aureliano Buendia remained standing,

85thoughtful, until the door closed. Then he lay down again with his arms open. Since the beginning

86of adolescence, when he had begun to be aware of his premonitions, he thought that death would be

87announced with a definite, unequivocal, irrevocable signal, but there were only a few hours left

88before he would die and the signal had not come. On a certain occasion a very beautiful woman had

89come into his camp in Tucurinca and asked the sentries’ permission to see him. They let her through

90because they were aware of the fanaticism of mothers, who sent their daughters to the bedrooms of

91the most famous warriors, according to what they said, to improve the breed. That night Colonel

92Aureliano Buendia was finishing the poem about the man who is lost in the rain when the girl came

93into his room. He turned his back to her to put the sheet of paper into the locked drawer where he

94kept his poetry. And then he sensed it. He grasped the pistol in the drawer without turning his head.

95“Please don’t shoot,” he said.

96When he turned around holding his Pistol, the girl had lowered hers and did not know what to

97do. In that way he had avoided four out of eleven traps. On the other hand, someone who was

98never caught entered the revolutionary headquarters one night in Manaure and stabbed to death his

99close friend Colonel Magnifico Visbal, to whom he had given his cot so that he could sweat out a

100fever. A few yards away, sleeping in a hammock in the same room, he was not aware of anything.

101His efforts to systematize his premonitions were useless. They would come suddenly in a wave of

102supernatural lucidity, like an absolute and momentaneous conviction, but they could not be grasped.

103On occasion they were so natural that he identified them as premonitions only after they had been

104fulfilled. Frequently they were nothing but ordinary bits of superstition. But when they condemned

105him to death and asked him to state his last wish, he did not have the least difficulty in identifying

106the premonition that inspired his answer.

107“I ask that the sentence be carried out in Macondo,” he said.

108The president of the court-martial was annoyed. “Don’t be clever, Buendia,” he told him.

109“That’s just a trick to gain more time.”

110“If you don’t fulfill it, that will be your worry.” the colonel said, “but that’s my last wish.”

111Since then the premonitions had abandoned him. The day when Ursula visited him in jail, after a

112great deal of thinking he came to the conclusion that perhaps death would not be announced that

113time because it did not depend on chance but on the will of his executioners. He spent the night

114awake, tormented by the pain of his sores. A little before dawn he heard steps in the hallway.

115“They’re coming,” he said to himself, and for no reason he thought of Jose Arcadio Buendia, who at

116that moment was thinking about him under the dreary dawn of the chestnut tree. He did not feel

117fear or nostalgia, but an intestinal rage at the idea that this artificial death would not let him see the

118end of so many things that he had left unfinished. The door opened and a sentry came in with a mug

119of coffee. On the following day at the same hour he would still be doing what he was then, raging

120with the pain in his armpits, and the same thing happened. On Thursday he shared the sweet milk

121candy with the guards and put on his clean clothes, which were tight for him, and the patent leather

122boots. By Friday they had still not shot him.

123Actually, they did not dare carry out the sentence. The rebelliousness of the town made the

124military men think that the execution of Colonel Aureliano Buendia might have serious political

125consequences not only in Macondo but throughout the area of the swamp, so they consulted the

126authorities in the capital of the province. On Saturday night, while they were waiting for an answer

127Captain Roque Carnicero went with some other officers to Catarino’s place. Only one woman,

128practically threatened, dared take him to her room. “They don’t want to go to bed with a man they

129know is going to die,” she confessed to him. “No one knows how it will come, but everybody is

130going around saying that the officer who shoots Colonel Aureliano Buendia and all the soldiers in

131the squad, one by one, will be murdered, with no escape, sooner or later, even if they hide at the

132ends of the earth.” Captain Roque Carnicero mentioned it to the other officers and they told their

133superiors. On Sunday, although no one had revealed it openly, although no action on the part of the

134military had disturbed the tense calm of those days, the whole town knew that the officers were

135ready to use any manner of pretext to avoid responsibility for the execution. The official order

136arrived in the Monday mail: the execution was to be carried out within twenty-four hours. That night

137the officers put seven slips of paper into a cap, and Captain Roque Carnicero’s unpeaceful fate was

138foreseen by his name on the prize slip. “Bad luck doesn’t have any chinks in it,” he said with deep

139bitterness. “I was born a son of a bitch and I’m going to die a son of a bitch.” At five in the morning

140he chose the squad by lot, formed it in the courtyard, and woke up the condemned man with a

141premonitory phrase.

142“Let’s go, Buendia,” he told him. “Our time has come.”

143“So that’s what it was,” the colonel replied. “I was dreaming that my sores had burst.”

144Rebeca Buendia got up at three in the morning when she learned that Aureliano would be shot.

145She stayed in the bedroom in the dark, watching the cemetery wall through the half-opened window

146as the bed on which she sat shook with Jose Arcadio’s snoring. She had waited all week with the

147same hidden persistence with which during different times she had waited for Pietro Crespi’s letters.

148“They won’t shoot him here,” Jose Arcadio, told her. “They’ll shoot him at midnight in the barracks

149so that no one will know who made up the squad, and they’ll bury him right there.” Rebeca kept on

150waiting. “They’re stupid enough to shoot him here,” she said. She was so certain that she had

151foreseen the way she would open the door to wave good-bye. “They won’t bring him through the

152streets,” Jose Arcadio insisted, with six scared soldiers and knowing that the people are ready for

153anything.” Indifferent to her husband’s logic, Rebeca stayed by the window.

154“You’ll see that they’re just stupid enough,” she said.

155On Tuesday, at five-in the. morning, Jose Arcadio had drunk his coffee and let the dogs out

156when Rebeca closed the window and held onto the head of the bed so as not to fall down. “There,

157they’re bringing him,” she sighed. “He’s so handsome.” Jose Arcadio looked out the window and

158saw him. tremulous in the light of dawn. He already had his back to the wall and his hands were on

159his hips because the burning knots in his armpits would not let him lower them. “A person fucks

160himself up so much,” Colonel Aureliano Buendia said. “Fucks himself up so much just so that six

161weak fairies can kill him and he can’t do anything about it.” He repeated it with so much rage that it

162almost seemed to be fervor, and Captain Roque Carnicero was touched, because he thought he was

163praying. When the squad took aim, the rage had materialized into a viscous and bitter substance that

164put his tongue to sleep and made him close his eyes. Then the aluminum glow of dawn disappeared

165and he saw himself again in short pants, wearing a tie around his neck, and he saw his father leading

166him into the tent on a splendid afternoon, and he saw the ice. When he heard the shout he thought

167that it was the final command to the squad. He opened his eyes with a shudder of curiosity,

168expecting to meet the incandescent trajectory of the bullets, but he only saw Captain Roque

169Carnicero with his arms in the air and Jose Arcadio crossing the street with his fearsome shotgun

170ready to go off.

171“Don’t shoot,” the captain said to Jose Arcadio. “You were sent by Divine Providence.”

172Another war began right there. Captain Roque Carnicero and his six men left with Colonel

173Aureliano Buendia to free the revolutionary general Victorio Medina, who had been condemned to

174death in Riohacha. They thought they could save time by crossing the mountains along the trail that

175Jose Arcadio Buendia had followed to found Macondo, but before a week was out they were

176convinced that it was an impossible undertaking. So they had to follow the dangerous route over the

177outcroppings; with no other munitions but what the firing squad had. They would camp near the

178towns and one of them, with a small gold fish in his hand, would go in disguise in broad daylight to

179contact the dormant Liberals, who would go out hunting on the following morning and never

180return. When they saw Riohacha from a ridge in the mountains. General Victorio Medina had been

181shot. Colonel Aureliano Buendla’s men proclaimed him chief of the revolutionary forces of the

182Caribbean coast with the rank of general. He assumed the position but refused the promotion and

183took the stand that he would never accept it as long as the Conservative regime was in power. At the

184end of three months they had succeeded in arming more than a thousand men, but they were wiped

185out. The survivors reached the eastern frontier. The next thing that was heard of them was that they

186had landed on Cabo de la Vela, coming from the smaller islands of the Antilles, and a message from

187the government was sent all over by telegraph and included in jubilant proclamations throughout the

188country announcing the death of Colonel Aureliano Buendia. But two days later a multiple telegram

189which almost overtook the previous one announced another uprising on the southern plains. That

190was how the legend of the ubiquitous Colonel Aureliano Buendia, began. Simultaneous and

191contradictory information declared him victorious in Villanueva, defeated in Guacamayal, devoured

192by Motilon Indians, dead in a village in the swamp, and up in arms again in Urumita. The Liberal

193leaders, who at that moment were negotiating for participation in the congress, branded him in

194adventurer who did not represent the party. The national government placed him in the category of

195a bandit and put a price of five thousand pesos on his head. After sixteen defeats, Colonel Aureliano

196Buendia left Guajira with two thousand well-armed Indians and the garrison, which was taken by

197surprise as it slept, abandoned Riohacha. He established his headquarters there and proclaimed total

198war against the regime. The first message he received from the government was a threat to shoot

199Colonel Gerineldo Marquez within forty-eight hours if he did not withdraw with his forces to the

200eastern frontier. Colonel Roque Carnicero, who was his chief of staff then, gave him the telegram

201with a look of consternation, but he read it with unforeseen joy.

202“How wonderful!” he exclaimed. “We have a telegraph office in Macondo now.”

203His reply was definitive. In three months he expected to establish his headquarters in Macondo.

204If he did not find Colonel Gerineldo Marquez alive at that time he would shoot out of hand all of

205the officers he held prisoner at that moment starting with the generals, and he would give orders to

206his subordinates to do the same for the rest of the war. Three months later, when he entered

207Macondo in triumph, the first embrace he received on the swamp road was that of Colonel Geri¬

208neldo Marquez.

209The house was full of children. Ursula had taken in Santa Sofia de la Piedad with her older

210daughter and a pair of twins, who had been born five months after Arcadio had been shot. Contrary

211to the victim’s last wishes, she baptized the girl with the name of Remedios. I’m sure that was what

212Arcadio meant,” she alleged. “We won’t call her Ursula, because a person suffers too much with that

213name.” The twins were named Jose Arcadio Segundo and Aureliano Segundo. Amaranta took care

214of them all. She put small wooden chairs in the living room and established a nursery with other

215children from neighboring families. When Colonel Aureliano Buendia returned in the midst of

216exploding rockets and ringing bells, a children’s chorus welcomed him to the house. Aureliano Jose,

217tall like his grandfather, dressed as a revolutionary officer, gave him military honors.

218Not all the news was good. A year after the flight of Colonel Aureliano Buendia, Jose Arcadio

219and Rebeca went to live in the house Arcadio had built. No one knew about his intervention to halt

220the execution. In the new house, located on the best corner of the square, in the shade of an almond

221tree that was honored by three nests of redbreasts, with a large door for visitors and four windows

222for light, they set up a hospitable home. Rebeca’s old friends, among them four of the Moscote

223sisters who were still single, once more took up the sessions of embroidery that had been

224intermpted years before on the porch with the begonias. Jose Arcadio continued to profit from the

225usurped lands, the title to which was recognized by the Conservative government. Every afternoon

226he could be seen returning on horseback, with his hunting dogs and his double-barreled shotgun and

227a string of rabbits hanging from his saddle. One September afternoon, with the threat of a storm, he

228returned home earlier than usual. He greeted Rebeca in the dining room, tied the dogs up in the

229courtyard, hung the rabbits up in the kitchen to be salted later, and went to the bedroom to change

230his clothes. Rebeca later declared that when her husband went into the bedroom she was locked in

231the bathroom and did not hear anything. It was a difficult version to believe, but there was no other

232more plausible, and no one could think of any motive for Rebeca to murder the man who had made

233her happy. That was perhaps the only mystery that was never cleared up in Macondo. As soon as

234Jose Arcadio closed the bedroom door the sound of a pistol shot echoed through the house. A

235trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room, went out into the street,

236continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs,

237passed along the Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a

238right angle at the Buendia house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlor, hugging

239the walls so as not to stain the rugs, went on to the other living room, made a wide curve to avoid

240the dining-room table, went along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under

241Amaranta’s chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson to Aureliano Jose , and went through the pantry

242and came out in the kitchen, where Ursula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread.

243“Holy Mother of God!” Ursula shouted.

244She followed the thread of blood back along its course, and in search of its origin she went

245through the pantry, along the begonia porch where Aureliano Jose was chanting that three plus three

246is six and six plus three is nine, and she crossed the dining room and the living rooms and followed

247straight down the street, and she turned first to the right and then to the left to the Street of the

248Turks, forgetting that she was still wearing her baking apron and her house slippers, and she came

249out onto the square and went into the door of a house where she had never been, and she pushed

250open the bedroom door and was almost suffocated by the smell of burned gunpowder, and she

251found Jose Arcadio lying face down on the ground on top of the leggings he had just taken off, and

252she saw the starting point of the thread of blood that had already stopped flowing out of his right

253ear. They found no wound on his body nor could they locate the weapon. Nor was it possible to

254remove the smell of powder from the corpse. First they washed him three times with soap and a

255scmbbing brush, and they mbbed him with salt and vinegar, then with ashes and lemon, and finally

256they put him in a barrel of lye and let him stay for six hours. They scrubbed him so much that the

257arabesques of his tattooing began to fade. When they thought of the desperate measure of seasoning

258him with pepper, cumin seeds, and laurel leaves and boiling him for a whole day over a slow fire, he

259had already begun to decompose and they had to bury him hastily. They sealed him hermetically in a

260special coffin seven and a half feet long and four feet wide, reinforced inside with iron plates and

261fastened together with steel bolts, and even then the smell could be perceived on the streets through

262which the funeral procession passed. Father Nicanor, with his liver enlarged and tight as a drum,

263gave him his blessing from bed. Although in the months that followed they reinforced the grave

264with walls about it, between which they threw compressed ash, sawdust, and quicklime, the cemetery

265still smelled of powder for many years after, until the engineers from the banana company covered

266the grave over with a shell of concrete. As soon as they took the body out, Rebeca closed the doors

267of her house and buried herself alive, covered with a thick crust of disdain that no earthly temptation

268was ever able to break. She went out into the street on one occasion, when she was very old, with

269shoes the color of old silver and a hat made of tiny flowers, during the time that the Wandering Jew

270passed through town and brought on a heat wave that was so intense that birds broke through

271window screens to come to die in the bedrooms. The last time anyone saw her alive was when with

272one shot she killed a thief who was trying to force the door of her house. Except for Argenida, her

273servant and confidante, no one ever had any more contact with her after that. At one time it was

274discovered that she was writing letters to the Bishop, whom she claimed as a first cousin, but it was

275never said whether she received any reply. The town forgot about her.

276In spite of his triumphal return, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was not enthusiastic over the looks

277of things. The government troops abandoned their positions without resistance and that aroused an

278illusion of victory among the Liberal population that it was not right to destroy, but the

279revolutionaries knew the tmth, Colonel Aureliano Buendia better than any of them. Although at that

280moment he had more than five thousand men under his command and held two coastal states, he

281had the feeling of being hemmed in against the sea and caught in a situation that was so confused

282that when he ordered the restoration of the church steeple, which had been knocked down by army

283cannon fire, Father Nicanor commented from his sickbed: “This is silly; the defenders of the faith of

284Christ destroy the church and the Masons order it rebuilt.” Looking for a loophole through which

285he could escape, he spent hours on end in the telegraph office conferring with the commanders of

286other towns, and every time he would emerge with the firmest impression that the war was at a

287stalemate. When news of fresh liberal victories was received it was celebrated with jubilant

288proclamations, but he would measure the real extent of them on the map and could see that his

289forces were penetrating into the jungle, defending themselves against malaria and mosquitoes,

290advancing in the opposite direction from reality. “We’re wasting time,” he would complain to his

291officers. “We’re wasting time while the bastards in the party are begging for seats in congress.” Lying

292awake at night, stretched out on his back in a hammock in the same room where he had awaited

293death, he would evoke the image of lawyers dressed in black leaving the presidential palace in the icy

294cold of early morning with their coat collars turned up about their ears, rubbing their hands, whis¬

295pering, taking refuge in dreary early-morning cafes to speculate over what the president had meant

296when he said yes, or what he had meant when he said no, and even to imagine what the president

297was thinking when he said something quite different, as he chased away mosquitoes at a temperature

298of ninety-five degrees, feeling the approach of the fearsome dawn when he would have to give his

299men the command to jump into the sea.

300One night of uncertainty, when Pilar Ternera was singing in the courtyard with the soldiers, he

301asked her to read the future in her cards. “Watch out for your mouth,” was all that Pilar Ternera

302brought out after spreading and picking up the cards three times. “I don’t know what it means, but

303the sign is very clear. Watch out for your mouth. ” Two days later someone gave an orderly a mug of

304black coffee and the orderly passed it on to someone else and that one to someone else until, hand

305to hand, it reached Colonel Aureliano Buendia office. He had not asked for any coffee, but since it

306was there the colonel drank it. It had a dose of nux vomica strong enough to kill a horse. When they

307took him home he was stiff and arched and his tongue was sticking out between his teeth. Ursula

308fought against death over him. After cleaning out his stomach with emetics, she wrapped him in hot

309blankets and fed him egg whites for two days until his harrowed body recovered its normal

310temperature. On the fourth day he was out of danger. Against his will, pressured by Ursula and his

311officers, he stayed in bed for another week. Only then did he learn that Iris verses had not been

312burned. “I didn’t want to be hasty,” Ursula explained to him. “That night when I went to light the

313oven I said to myself that it would be better to wait until they brought the body.” In the haze of

314convalescence, surrounded by Remedios’ dusty dolls. Colonel Aureliano Buendia, brought back the

315decisive periods of his existence by reading his poetry. He started writing again. For many hours,

316balancing on the edge of the surprises of a war with no future, in rhymed verse he resolved his

317experience on the shores of death. Then his thoughts became so clear that he was able to examine

318them forward and backward. One night he asked Colonel Gerineldo Marquez:

319“Tell me something, old friend: why are you fighting?”

320“What other reason could there be?” Colonel Gerineldo Marquez answered. “For the great liberal

321party. ”

322“You’re lucky because you know why,” he answered. “As far as I’m concerned. I’ve come to

323realize only just now that I’m fighting because of pride. ”

324“That’s bad,” Colonel Gerineldo Marquez said. Colonel Aureliano Buendia was amused at his

325alarm. “Naturally,” he said. “But in any case, it’s better than not knowing why you’re fighting.” He

326looked him in the eyes and added with a smile:

327“Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn’t have any meaning for anyone.”

328His pride had prevented him from making contact with the armed groups in the interior of the

329country until the leaders of the party publicly rectified their declaration that he was a bandit. He

330knew, however, that as soon as he put those scruples aside he would break the vicious circle of the

331war. Convalescence gave him time to reflect. Then he succeeded in getting Ursula to give him the

332rest of her buried inheritance and her substantial savings. He named Colonel Gerineldo Marquez

333civil and military leader of Macondo and he went off to make contact with the rebel groups in the

334interior.

335Colonel Gerineldo Marquez was not only the man closest to Colonel Aureliano Buendia, but

336Ursula received him as a member of the family. Fragile, timid, with natural good manners, he was,

337however, better suited for war than for government. His political advisers easily entangled him in

338theoretical labyrinths. But he succeeded in giving Macondo the atmosphere of rural peace that

339Colonel Aureliano, Buendia dreamed of so that he could die of old age making little gold fishes.

340Although he lived in his parents’ house he would have lunch at Ursula’s two or three times a week.

341He initiated Aureliano Jose in the use of firearms, gave him early military instruction, and for several

342months took him to live in the barracks, with Ursula’s consent, so that he could become a man.

343Many years before, when he was still almost a child, Gerineldo Marquez had declared his love for

344Amaranta. At that time she was so illusioned with her lonely passion for Pietro Crespi that she

345laughed at him. Gerineldo Marquez waited. On a certain occasion he sent Amaranta a note from jail

346asking her to embroider a dozen batiste handkerchiefs with his father’s initials on them. He sent her

347the money. A week later Amaranta, brought the dozen handkerchiefs to him in jail along with the

348money and they spent several hours talking about the past. “When I get out of here I’m going to

349marry you,” Gerineldo Marquez told her when she left. Amaranta laughed but she kept on thinking

350about him while she taught the children to read and she tried to revive her juvenile passion for

351Pietro Crespi. On Saturday, visiting days for the prisoners, she would stop by the house of

352Gerineldo Marquez’s parents and accompany them to the jail. On one of those Saturdays Ursula was

353surprised to see her in the kitchen, waiting for the biscuits to come out of the oven so that she could

354pick the best ones and cap them in a napkin that she had embroidered for the occasion.

355“Marty him,” she told her. “You’ll have a hard time finding another man like him.”

356Amaranta feigned a reaction of displeasure.

357“I don’t have to go around hunting for men,” she answered. “I’m taking these biscuits to

358Gerineldo because I’m sorry that sooner or later they’re going to shoot him. ”

359She said it without thinking, but that was the time that the government had announced its threat

360to shoot Colonel Gerineldo Marquez if the rebel forces did not surrender Riohacha. The visits

361stopped. Amaranta shut herself up to weep, overwhelmed by a feeling of guilt similar to the one that

362had tormented her when Remedios died, as if once more her careless words had been responsible

363for a death. Her mother consoled her. She inured her that Colonel Aureliano Buendia would do

364something to prevent the execution and promised that she would take charge of attracting Gerineldo

365Marquez herself when the war was over. She fulfilled her promise before the imagined time. When

366Gerineldo Marquez returned to the house, invested with his new dignity of civil and military leader,

367she received him as a son, thought of delightful bits of flattery to hold him there, and prayed with all

368her soul that he would remember his plan to marry Amaranta. Her pleas seemed to be answered. On

369the days that he would have lunch at the house. Colonel Gerineldo Marquez would linger on the

370begonia porch playing Chinese checkers with Amaranta. Ursula would bring them coffee and milk

371and biscuits and would take over the children so that they would not bother them. Amaranta was

372really making an effort to kindle in her heart the forgotten ashes of her youthful passion. With an

373anxiety that came to be intolerable, she waited for the lunch days, the afternoons of Chinese

374checkers, and time flew by in the company of the warrior with a nostalgic name whose fingers

375trembled imperceptibly as he moved the pieces. But the day on which Colonel Gerineldo Marquez

376repeated his wish to marry her, she rejected him.

377“I’m not going to marry anyone,” she told him, “much less you. You love Aureliano so much

378that you want to marry me because you can’t marry him. ”

379Colonel Gerineldo Marquez was a patient man. “I’ll keep on insisting,” he said. “Sooner or later

380I’ll convince you.” He kept on visiting the house. Shut up in her bedroom biting back her secret

381tears, Amaranta put her fingers in her ears so as not to bear the voice of the suitor as he gave Ursula

382the latest war news, and in spite of the fact that she was dying to see him she had the strength not to

383go out and meet him.

384At that time Colonel Aureliano Buendia took the time to send a detailed account to Macondo

385every two weeks. But only once, almost eight months after he had left, did he write to Ursula. A

386special messenger brought a sealed envelope to the house with a sheet of paper inside bearing the

387colonel’s delicate hand: Take good care of Papa because he is going to die. Ursula became alarmed. “If

388Aureliano says so it’s because Aureliano knows,” she said. And she had them help her take Jose

389Arcadio Buendia to his bedroom. Not only was he as heavy as ever, but during his prolonged stay