1COLONEL GERINELDO MARQUEZ was the first to perceive the emptiness of the war. In his position

2as civil and military leader of Macondo he would have telegraphic conversations twice a week with

3Colonel Aureliano Buendia. At first those exchanges would determine the course of a flesh-and-

4blood war, the perfectly defined outlines of which told them at any moment the exact spot -where it

5was and the prediction of its future direction. Although he never let himself be pulled into the area

6of confidences, not even by his closest friends. Colonel Aureliano Buendia still had at that time the

7familiar tone that made it possible to identify him at the other end of the wire. Many times he would

8prolong the talk beyond the expected limit and let them drift into comments of a domestic nature.

9Little by little, however, and as the war became more intense and widespread, his image was fading

10away into a universe of unreality. The characteristics of his speech were more and more uncertain,

11and they cam together and combined to form words that were gradually losing all meaning. Colonel

12Gerineldo Marquez limited himself then to just listening, burdened by the impression that he was in

13telegraphic contact with a stranger from another world.

14“I understand, Aureliano,” he would conclude on the key. “Long live the Liberal party!”

15He finally lost all contact with the war. What in other times had been a real activity, an irresistible

16passion of his youth, became a remote point of reference for him: an emptiness. His only refuge was

17Amaranta’s sewing room. He would visit her every afternoon. He liked to watch her hands as she

18curled frothy petticoat cloth in the machine that was kept in motion by Remedios the Beauty. They

19spent many hours without speaking, content with their reciprocal company, but while Amaranta was

20inwardly pleased in keeping the fire of his devotion alive, he was unaware of the secret designs of

21that indecipherable heart. When the news of his return reached her, Amaranta had been smothered

22by anxiety. But when she saw him enter the house in the middle of Colonel Aureliano Buendfa’s

23noisy escort and she saw how he had been mistreated by the rigors of exile, made old by age and

24oblivion, dirty with sweat and dust, smelling like a herd, ugly, with his left arm in a sling, she felt

25faint with disillusionment. “My God,” she thought. “This wasn’t the person I was waiting for.” On

26the following day, however, he came back to the house shaved and clean, with his mustache

27perfumed with lavender water and without the bloody sling. He brought her a prayerbook bound in

28mother-of-pearl.

29“How strange men are,” she said, because she could not think of anything else to say. “They

30spend their lives fighting against priests and then give prayerbooks as gifts. ”

31From that time on, even during the most critical days of the war, he visited her every afternoon.

32Many times, when Remedios the Beauty was not present, it was he who turned the wheel on the

33sewing machine. Amaranta felt upset by the perseverance, the loyalty, the submissiveness of that

34man who was invested with so much authority and who nevertheless took off his sidearm in the

35living room so that he could go into the sewing room without weapons. But for four years he kept

36repeating his love and she would always find a way to reject him without hurting him, for even

37though she had not succeeded in loving him she could no longer live without him. Remedios the

38Beauty, who seemed indifferent to everything and who was thought to be mentally retarded, was not

39insensitive to so much devotion and she intervened in Colonel Gerineldo Marquez’s favor.

40Amaranta suddenly discovered that the girl she had raised, who was just entering adolescence, was

41already the most beautiful creature that had even been seen in Macondo. She felt reborn in her heart

42the rancor that she had felt in other days for Rebeca, and begging God not to impel her into the

43extreme state of wishing her dead, she banished her from the sewing room. It was around that time

44that Colonel Gerineldo Marquez began to feel the boredom of the war. He summoned Inis reserves

45of persuasion, his broad and repressed tenderness, ready to give up for Amaranta a glory that had

46cost him the sacrifice of his best years. But he could not succeed in convincing her. One August

47afternoon, overcome by the unbearable weight of her own obstinacy, Amaranta locked herself in her

48bedroom to weep over her solitude unto death after giving her final answer to her tenacious suitor:

49“Let’s forget about each other forever,” she told him. “We’re too old for this sort of thing now.”

50Colonel Gerineldo Marquez had a telegraphic call from Colonel Aureliano Buendia that

51afternoon. It was a routine conversation which was not going to bring about any break in the

52stagnant war. At the end, Colonel Gerineldo Marquez looked at the desolate streets, the crystal water

53on the almond trees, and he found himself lost in solitude.

54“Aureliano,” he said sadly on the key, “it’s raining in Macondo.”

55There was a long silence on the line. Suddenly the apparatus jumped with the pitiless letters from

56Colonel Aureliano Buendia.

57“Don’t be a jackass, Gerineldo,” the signals said. “It’s natural for it to be raining in August.”

58They had not seen each other for such a long time that Colonel Gerineldo Marquez was upset by

59the aggressiveness of the reaction. Two months later, however, when Colonel Aureliano Buendia

60returned to Macondo, his upset was changed to stupefaction. Even Ursula was surprised at how

61much he had changed. He came with no noise, no escort, wrapped in a cloak in spite of the heat,

62and with three mistresses, whom he installed in the same house, where he spent most of his time

63lying in a hammock. He scarcely read the telegraphic dispatches that reported routine operations.

64On one occasion Colonel Gerineldo Marquez asked him for instructions for the evacuation of a

65spot on the border where there was a danger that the conflict would become an international affair.

66“Don’t bother me with trifles,” he ordered him. “Consult Divine Providence.”

67It was perhaps the most critical moment of the war. The Liberal landowners, who had supported

68the revolution in the beginning, had made secret alliances with the Conservative landowners in order

69to stop the revision of property titles. The politicians who supplied funds for the war from exile had

70Publicly repudiated the drastic aims of Colonel Aureliano Buendia, but even that withdrawal of

71authorization did not seem to bother him. He had not returned to reading his poetry, which filled

72more than five volumes and lay forgotten at the bottom of Inis trunk. At night or at siesta time he

73would call one of his women to his hammock and obtain a rudimentary satisfaction from her, and

74then he would sleep like a stone that was not concerned by the slightest indication of worry. Only he

75knew at that time that his confused heart was condemned to uncertainty forever. At first, intoxicated

76by the glory of his return, by his remarkable victories, he had peeped into the abyss of greatness. He

77took pleasure in keeping by his right hand the Duke of Marlborough, his great teacher in the art of

78war, whose attire of skins and tiger claws aroused the respect of adults and the awe of children. It

79was then that he decided that no human being, not even Ursula, could come closer to him than ten

80feet. In the center of the chalk circle that his aides would draw wherever he stopped, and which only

81he could enter, he would decide with brief orders that had no appeal the fate of the world. The first

82time that he was in Manaure after the shooting of General Moncada, he hastened to fulfill his

83victim’s last wish and the widow took the glasses, the medal, the watch, and the ring, but she would

84not let him in the door.

85“You can’t come in, colonel,” she told him. “You may be in command of your war, but I’m in

86command of my house. ”

87Colonel Aureliano Buendia did not show any sign of anger, but his spirit only calmed down when

88his bodyguard had sacked the widow’s house and reduced it to ashes. “Watch out for your heart,

89Aureliano,” Colonel Gerineldo Marquez would say to him then. “You’re rotting alive.” About that

90time he called together a second assembly of the principal rebel commanders. He found all types:

91idealists, ambitious people, adventurers, those with social resentments, even common criminals.

92There was even a former Conservative functionary who had taken refuge in the revolt to escape a

93judgment for misappropriation of funds. Many of them did not even know why they were fighting

94in the midst of that motley crowd, whose differences of values were on the verge of causing an

95internal explosion, one gloomy authority stood out: General Te6filo Vargas. He was a full-blooded

96Indian, untamed, illiterate, and endowed with quiet wiles and a messianic vocation that aroused a

97demented fanaticism in his men. Colonel Aureliano Buendia called the meeting with the aim of

98unifying the rebel command against the maneuvers of the politicians. General Teofilo Vargas came

99forward with his intentions: in a few hours he shattered the coalition of better-qualified commanders

100and took charge of the main command. “He’s a wild beast worth watching,” Colonel Aureliano

101Buendia told his officers. “That man is more dangerous to us than the Minister of War.” Then a

102very young captain who had always been outstanding for his timidity raised a cautious index finger.

103“It’s quite simple, colonel,” he proposed. “He has to be killed.”

104Colonel Aureliano Buendia was not alarmed by the coldness of the proposition but by the way in

105which, by a fraction of a second, it had anticipated his own thoughts.

106“Don’t expect me to give an order like that,” he said.

107He did not give it, as a matter of fact. But two weeks later General Teofilo Vargas was cut to bits

108by machetes in an ambush and Colonel Aureliano Buendia assumed the main command. The same

109night that his authority was recognized by all the rebel commands, he woke up in a fright, calling for

110a blanket. An inner coldness which shattered his bones and tortured him even in the heat of the sun

111would not let him sleep for several months, until it became a habit. The intoxication of power began

112to break apart under waves of discomfort. Searching for a cure against the chill, he had the young

113officer who had proposed the murder of General Teofilo Vargas shot. His orders were being carried

114out even before they were given, even before he thought of them, and they always went much

115beyond what he would have dared have them do. Lost in the solitude of his immense power, he

116began to lose direction. He was bothered by the people who cheered him in neighboring villages,

117and he imagined that they were the same cheers they gave the enemy. Everywhere he met

118adolescents who looked at him with his own eyes, who spoke to him with his own voice, who

119greeted him with the same mistrust with which he greeted them, and who said they were his sons.

120He felt scattered about, multiplied, and more solitary than ever. He was convinced that his own

121officers were lying to him. He fought with the Duke of Marlborough. “The best friend a person

122has,” he would say at that time, “is one who has just died.” He was weary of the uncertainty, of the

123vicious circle of that eternal war that always found him in the same place, but always older, wearier,

124even more in the position of not knowing why, or how, or even when. There was always someone

125outside of the chalk circle. Someone who needed money, someone who had a son with whooping

126cough, or someone who wanted to go off and sleep forever because he could not stand the shit taste

127of the war in his mouth and who, nevertheless, stood at attention to inform him: “Everything

128normal, colonel.” And normality was precisely the most fearful part of that infinite war: nothing ever

129happened. Alone, abandoned by his premonitions, fleeing the chill that was to accompany him until

130death, he sought a last refuge in Macondo in the warmth of his oldest memories. His indolence was

131so serious that when they announced the arrival of a commission from his party that was authorized

132to discuss the stalemate of the war, he rolled over in his hammock without completely waking up.

133“Take them to the whores,” he said.

134They were six lawyers in frock coats and top hats who endured the violent November sun with

135stiff stoicism. Ursula put them up in her house. They spent the greater part of the day closeted in the

136bedroom in hermetic conferences and at dusk they asked for an escort and some accordion players

137and took over Catarino’s store. “Leave them alone,” Colonel Aureliano Buendia ordered. “After all,

138I know what they want.” At the beginning of December the long-awaited interview, which many had

139foreseen as an interminable argument, was resolved in less than an hour.

140In the hot parlor, beside the specter of the pianola shrouded in a white sheet, Colonel Aureliano

141Buendia did not sit down that time inside the chalk circle that his aides had drawn. He sat in a chair

142between his political advisers and, wrapped in his woolen blanket, he listened in silence to the brief

143proposals of the emissaries. They asked first that he renounce the revision of property titles in order

144to get back the support of the Liberal landowners. They asked, secondly, that he renounce the fight

145against clerical influence in order to obtain the support of the Catholic masses. They asked, finally,

146that he renounce the aim of equal rights for natural and illegitimate children in order to preserve the

147integrity of the home.

148“That means,” Colonel Aureliano Buendia said, smiling when the reading was over, “that all

149we’re fighting for is power. ”

150“They’re tactical changes,” one of the delegates replied. “Right now the main thing is to broaden

151the popular base of the war. Then we’ll have another look. ”

152One of Colonel Aureliano Buendla’s political advisers hastened to intervene.

153“It’s a contradiction” he said. “If these changes are good, it means that the Conservative regime

154is good. If we succeed in broadening the popular base of the war with them, as you people say, it

155means that the regime his a broad popular base. It means, in short, that for almost twenty years

156we’ve been fighting against the sentiments of the nation. ”

157He was going to go on, but Colonel Aureliano Buendia stopped him with a signal. “Don’t waste

158your time, doctor. ” he said. “The important thing is that from now on we’ll be fighting only for

159power.” Still smiling, he took the documents the delegates gave him and made ready to sign them.

160“Since that’s the way it is,” he concluded, “we have no objection to accepting.”

161His men looked at one another in consternation. “Excuse me, colonel,” Colonel Gerineldo

162Marquez said softly, “but this is a betrayal.”

163Colonel Aureliano Buendia held the inked pen in the air and discharged the whole weight of his

164authority on him.

165“Surrender your weapons,” he ordered.

166Colonel Gerineldo Marquez stood up and put his sidearms on the table.

167“Report to the barracks,” Colonel Aureliano Buendia ordered him. “Put yourself at the

168disposition of the revolutionary court. ”

169Then he signed the declaration and gave the sheets of paper to the emissaries, saying to them:

170“Here an your papers, gentlemen. I hope you can get some advantage out of them.”

171Two days later. Colonel Gerineldo Marquez, accused of high treason, was condemned to death.

172Lying in his hammock, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was insensible to the pleas for clemency. On the

173eve of the execution, disobeying the order not to bother him, Ursula visited him in his bedroom.

174Encased in black, invested with a rare solemnity, she stood during the three minutes of the

175interview. “I know that you’re going to shoot Gerineldo,” she said calmly, “and that I can’t do

176anything to stop it. But I give you one warning: as soon as I see his body I swear to you by the

177bones of my father and mother, by the memory of Jose Arcadio Buendia, I swear to you before God

178that I will drag you out from wherever you’re hiding and kill you with my own two hands.” Before

179leaving the room, without waiting for any reply, she concluded:

180“It’s the same as if you’d been born with the tail of a pig.”

181During that interminable night while Colonel Gerineldo Marquez thought about his dead

182afternoons in Amaranta’s sewing room. Colonel Aureliano Buendia scratched for many hours trying

183to break the hard shell of his solitude. His only happy moments, since that remote afternoon when

184his father had taken him to see ice, had taken place in his silver workshop where he passed the time

185putting little gold fishes together. He had had to start thirty-two wars and had had to violate all of

186his pacts with death and wallow like a hog in the dungheap of glory in order to discover the

187privileges of simplicity almost forty years late.

188At dawn, worn out by the tormented vigil, he appeared in the cell an hour before the execution.

189“The farce is over, old friend,” he said to Colonel Gerineldo Marquez. “Let’s get out of here before

190the mosquitoes in here execute you.” Colonel Gerineldo Marquez could not repress the disdain that

191was inspired in him by that attitude.

192“No, Aureliano,” he replied. “I’d rather be dead than see you changed into a bloody tyrant.”

193“You won’t see me,” Colonel Aureliano Buendia said. “Put on your shoes and help me get this

194shitty war over with. ”

195When he said it he did not know that it was easier to start a war than to end one. It took him

196almost a year of fierce and bloody effort to force the government to propose conditions of peace

197favorable to the rebels and another year to convince his own partisans of the convenience of

198accepting them. He went to inconceivable extremes of cruelty to put down the rebellion of his own

199officers, who resisted and called for victory, and he finally relied on enemy forces to make them

200submit.

201He was never a greater soldier than at that time. The certainty that he was finally fighting for his

202own liberation and not for abstract ideals, for slogans that politicians could twist left and right

203according to the circumstances, filled him with an ardent enthusiasm. Colonel Gerineldo Marquez,

204who fought for defeat with as much conviction and loyalty as he had previously fought for victory,

205reproached him for his useless temerity. “Don’t worry,” he would say, smiling. “Dying is much more

206difficult than one imagines.” In his case it was tme. The certainty that his day was assigned gave him

207a mysterious immunity, an immortality or a fixed period that made him invulnerable to the risks of

208war and in the end permitted him to win a defeat that was much more difficult, much more bloody

209and costly than victory.

210In almost twenty years of war. Colonel Aureliano Buendia had been at his house many times, but

211the state of urgency with which he always arrived, the military retinue that accompanied him

212everywhere, the aura of legend that glowed about his presence and of which even Ursula was aware,

213changed him into a stranger in the end. The last time that he was in Macondo and took a house for

214his three concubines, he was seen in his own house only on two or three occasions when he had the

215time to accept an invitation to dine. Remedios the Beauty and the twins, born during the middle of

216the war, scarcely knew him. Amaranta could not reconcile her image of the brother who had spent

217his adolescence making little gold fishes with that of the mythical warrior who had placed a distance

218of ten feet between himself and the rest of humanity. But when the approach of the armistice

219became known and they thought that he would return changed back into a human being, delivered

220at last for the hearts of his own people, the family feelings, dormant for such a long time, were

221reborn stronger than ever.

222“We’ll finally have a man in the house again,” Ursula said.

223Amaranta was the first to suspect that they had lost him forever. One week before the armistice,

224when he entered the house without an escort, preceded by two barefoot orderlies who deposited on

225the porch the saddle from the mule and the tmnk of poetry, all that was left of his former imperial

226baggage, she saw him pass by the sewing room and she called to him. Colonel Aureliano Buendia

227had trouble recognizing her.

228“It’s Amaranta,” she said good-humoredly, happy at his return, and she showed him the hand

229with the black bandage. “Look.”

230Colonel Aureliano Buendia smiled at her the same way as when he had first seen her with the

231bandage on that remote morning when he had come back to Macondo condemned to death.

232“How awful,” he said, “the way time passes!”

233The regular army had to protect the house. He arrived amid insults, spat upon, accused of having

234accelerated the war in order to sell it for a better price. He was trembling with fever and cold and his

235armpits were studded with sores again. Six months before, when she had heard talk about the

236armistice, Ursula had opened up and swept out the bridal chamber and had burned myrrh in the

237corners, thinking that he would come back ready to grow old slowly among Remedios’ musty dolls.

238But actually, during the last two years he had paid his final dues to life, including growing old. When

239he passed by the silver shop, which Ursula had prepared with special diligence, he did not even

240notice that the keys were in the lock. He did not notice the minute, tearing destruction that time had

241wreaked on the house and that, after such a prolonged absence, would have looked like a disaster to

242any man who had kept his memories alive. He was not pained by the peeling of the whitewash on

243the walls or the dirty, cottony cobwebs in the corners or the dust on the begonias or the veins left

244on the beams by the termites or the moss on the hinges or any of the insidious traps that nostalgia

245offered him. He sat down on the porch, wrapped in his blanket and with his boots still on, as if only

246waiting for it to clear, and he spent the whole afternoon watching it rain on the begonias. Ursula

247understood then that they would not have him home for long. “If it’s not the war,” she thought, “it

248can only be death.” It was a supposition that was so neat, so convincing that she identified it as a

249premonition.

250That night, at dinner, the supposed Aureliano Segundo broke his bread with his right hand and

251drank his soup with his left. His twin brother, the supposed Jose Arcadio Segundo, broke his bread

252with his left hand and drank his soup with his right. So precise was their coordination that they did

253not look like two brothers sitting opposite each other but like a trick with mirrors. The spectacle that

254the twins had invented when they became aware that they were equal was repeated in honor of the

255new arrival. But Colonel Aureliano Buendia did not notice it. He seemed so alien to everything that

256he did not even notice Remedios the Beauty as she passed by naked on her way to her bedroom.

257Ursula was the only one who dared disturb Iris, abstraction.

258“If you have to go away again,” she said halfway through dinner, “at least try to remember how

259we were tonight. ”

260Then Colonel Aureliano Buendia realized, without surprise, that Ursula was the only human

261being who had succeeded in penetrating his misery, and for the first time in many years he looked

262her in the face. Her skin was leathery, her teeth decayed, her hair faded and colorless, and her look

263frightened. He compared her with the oldest memory that he had of her, the afternoon when he had

264the premonition that a pot of boiling soup was going to fall off the table, and he found her broken

265to pieces. In an instant he discovered the scratches, the welts, the sores, the ulcers, and the scan that

266had been left on her by more than half a century of daily life, and he saw that those damages did not

267even arouse a feeling of pity in him. Then he made one last effort to search in his heart for the place

268where his affection had rotted away and he could not find it. On another occasion, he felt at least a

269confused sense of shame when he found the smell of Ursula on his own skin, and more than once

270he felt her thoughts interfering with his. But all of that had been wiped out by the war. Even

271Remedios, his wife, at that moment was a hazy image of someone who might have been his daugh¬

272ter. The countless women he had known on the desert of love and who had spread his seed all along

273the coast had left no trace in his feelings. Most of them had come into his room in the dark and had

274left before dawn, and on the following day they were nothing but a touch of fatigue in his bodily

275memory. The only affection that prevailed against time and the war was that which he had felt for

276his brother Jose Arcadio when they both were children, and it was not based on love but on

277complicity.

278“I’m sorry,” he excused himself from Ursula’s request. “It’s just that the war has done away with

279everything. ”

280During the following days he busied himself destroying all trace of his passage through the world.

281He stripped the silver shop until all that were left were impersonal objects, he gave his clothes away

282to the orderlies, and he buried his weapons in the courtyard with the same feeling of penance with

283which his father had buried the spear that had killed Prudencio Aguilar. He kept only one pistol with

284one bullet in it. Ursula did not intervene. The only time she dissuaded him was when he was about

285to destroy the daguerreotype of Remedios that was kept in the parlor lighted by an eternal lamp.

286“That picture stopped belonging to you a long time ago,” she told him. “It’s a family relic.” On the

287eve of the armistice, when no single object that would let him be remembered was left in the house,

288he took the trunk of poetry to the bakery when Santa Sofia de la Piedad was making ready to light

289the oven.

290“Light it with this,” he told her, handing her the first roll of yellowish papers. “It will, burn better

291because they’re very old things. ”

292Santa Sofia de la Piedad, the silent one, the condescending one, the one who never contradicted

293anyone, not even her own children, had the impression that it was a forbidden act.

294“They’re important papers,” she said.

295“Nothing of the sort,” the colonel said. “They’re things that a person writes to himself.”

296“In that case,” she said, “you burn them, colonel.”

297He not only did that, but he broke up the trunk with a hatchet and threw the pieces into the fire.

298Hours before, Pilar Ternera had come to visit him. After so many years of not seeing her, Colonel

299Aureliano Buendfa was startled at how old and fat she had become and how much she had lost of

300the splendor of her laugh, but he was also startled at the depths she had reached in her reading of

301the cards. “Watch out for your mouth,” she told him, and he wondered whether the other time she

302had told him that during the height of his glory it had not been a surprisingly anticipated vision of

303his fate. A short time later, when his personal physician finished removing his sores, he asked him,

304without showing any particular interest, where the exact location of his heart was. The doctor

305listened with his stethoscope and then painted a circle on his cheat with a piece of cotton dipped in

306iodine.

307The Tuesday of the armistice dawned warm and rainy. Colonel Aureliano Buendia appeared in

308the kitchen before five o’clock and had his usual black coffee without sugar. “You came into the

309world on a day like this,” Ursula told him. “Everybody was amazed at your open eyes.” He did not

310pay any attention because he was listening to the forming of the troops, the sound of the comets,

311and the voices of command that were shattering the dawn. Even though after so many years of war

312they should have sounded familiar to him this time he felt the same weakness in his knees and the

313same tingling in his skin that he had felt in his youth in the presence of a naked woman. He thought

314confusedly, finally captive in a trap of nostalgia, that perhaps if he had married her he would have

315been a man without war and without glory, a nameless artisan, a happy animal. That tardy shudder

316which had not figured in his forethought made his breakfast bitter. At seven in the morning, when

317Colonel Gerineldo Marquez came to fetch him, in the company of a group of rebel officers, he

318found him more taciturn than ever, more pensive and solitary. Ursula tried to throw a new wrap

319over his shoulders. “What will the government think,” she told him. “They’ll figure that you’ve

320surrendered because you didn’t have anything left to buy a cloak with.” But he would not accept it.

321When he was at the door, he let her put an old felt hat of Jose Arcadio Buendia’s on his head.

322“Aureliano,” Ursula said to him then, “Promise me that if you find that it’s a bad hour for you

323there that you’ll think of your mother. ”

324He gave her a distant smile, raising his hand with all his fingers extended, and without saying a

325word he left the house and faced the shouts, insults, and blasphemies that would follow him until he

326left the town. Ursula put the bar on the door, having decided not to take it down for the rest of her

327life. “We’ll rot in here,” she thought. “We’ll turn to ashes in this house without men, but we won’t

328give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing us weep.” She spent the whole morning looking for a

329memory of her son in the most hidden corners, but she could find none.

330The ceremony took place fifteen miles from Macondo in the shade of a gigantic ceiba tree around

331which the town of Neerlandia would be founded later. The delegates from the government and the

332party and the commission of the rebels who were laying down their arms were served by a noisy

333group of novices in white habits who looked like a flock of doves that had been frightened by the

334rain. Colonel Aureliano Buendia arrived on a muddy mule. He had not shaved, more tormented by

335the pain of the sores than by the great failure of his dreams, for he had reached the end of all hope,

336beyond glory and the nostalgia of glory. In accordance with his arrangements there was no music,

337no fireworks, no pealing bells, no shouts of victory, or any other manifestation that might alter the

338mournful character of the armistice. An itinerant photographer who took the only picture of him

339that could have been preserved was forced to smash his plates without developing them.

340The ceremony lasted only the time necessary to sign the documents. Around the rustic table

341placed in the center of a patched circus tent where the delegates sat were the last officers who were

342faithful to Colonel Aureliano Buendia. Before taking the signatures, the personal delegate of the

343president of the republic tried to read the act of surrender aloud, but Colonel Aureliano Buendia was

344against it. “Let’s not waste time on formalities,” he said and prepared to sign the papers without

345reading them. One of his officers then broke the soporific silence of the tent.

346“Colonel,” he said, “please do us the favor of not being the first to sign.”

347Colonel Aureliano Buendia acceded. When the documents went all around the table, in the midst

348of a silence that was so pure that one could have deciphered the signatures from the scratching of

349the pen on the paper, the first line was still blank. Colonel Aureliano Buendia prepared to fill it.

350“Colonel,” another of his officers said, “there’s still time for everything to come out right.”

351Without changing his expression, Colonel Aureliano Buendia signed the first copy. He had not

352finished signing the last one when a rebel colonel appeared in the doorway leading a mule carrying

353two chests. In spite of his entire youth he had a dry look and a patient expression. He was the

354treasurer of the revolution in the Macondo region. He had made a difficult journey of six days,

355pulling along the mule, who was dying of hunger, in order to arrive at the armistice on time. With an

356exasperating parsimony he took down the chests, opened them, and placed on the table, one by one,

357seventy-two gold bricks, Everyone had forgotten about the existence of that fortune. In the disorder

358of the past year, when the central command fell apart and the revolution degenerated into a bloody

359rivalry of leaders, it was impossible to determine any responsibility. The gold of the revolution,

360melted into blocks that were then covered with baked clay, was beyond all control. Colonel

361Aureliano Buendia had the seventy-two gold bricks included in the inventory of surrender and

362closed the ceremony without allowing any speeches. The filthy adolescent stood opposite him,

363looking into his eyes with his own calm, syrup-colored eyes.

364“Something else?” Colonel Aureliano Buendia asked him.

365The young colonel tightened his mouth.

366“The receipt,” he said.

367Colonel Aureliano Buendia wrote it out in his own hand. Then he had a glass of lemonade and a

368piece of biscuit that the novices were passing around and retired to a field tent which had been

369prepared for him in case he wished to rest. There he took off his shirt, sat on the edge of the cot,

370and at three-fifteen in the afternoon took his pistol and shot himself in the iodine circle that his

371personal physician had painted on his chest. At that moment in Macondo Ursula took the cover off

372the pot of milk on the stove, wondering why it was taking so long to boil, and found it full of

373worms.

374“They’ve killed Aureliano,” she exclaimed.

375She looked toward the courtyard, obeying a habit of her solitude, and then she saw Jose Arcadio

376Buendia, soaking wet and sad in the rain and much older than when he had died. “They shot him in

377the back,” Ursula said more precisely, “and no one was charitable enough to close his eyes.” At dusk

378through her tears she saw the swift and luminous disks that crossed the sky like an exhalation and

379she thought that it was a signal of death. She was still under the chestnut tree, sobbing at her

380husband’s knees, when they brought in Colonel Aureliano Buendla, wrapped in a blanket that was

381stiff with dry blood and with his eyes open in rage.

382He was out of danger. The bullet had followed such a neat path that the doctor was able to put a

383cord soaked in iodine in through the chest and withdraw it from the back. “That was my

384masterpiece,” he said with satisfaction. “It was the only point where a bullet could pass through

385without harming any vital organ.” Colonel Aureliano Buendla saw himself surrounded by charitable

386novices who intoned desperate psalms for the repose of his soul and then he was sorry that he had

387not shot himself in the roof of the mouth as he had considered doing if only to mock the prediction

388of Pilar Ternera.

389“If I still had the authority,” he told the doctor, “I’d have you shot out of hand. Not for having

390saved my life but for having made a fool of me. ”

391The failure of his death brought back his lost prestige in a few hours. The same people who

392invented the story that he had sold the war for a room with walls made of gold bricks defined the

393attempt at suicide as an act of honor and proclaimed him a martyr. Then, when he rejected the

394Order of Merit awarded him by the president of the republic, even his most bitter enemies filed

395through the room asking him to withdraw recognition of the armistice and to start a new war. The

396house was filled with gifts meant as amends. Impressed finally by the massive support of his former

397comrades in arms. Colonel Aureliano Buendla did not put aside the possibility of pleasing them. On