“You know better than I,?he said, “that all courts-martial are farces and that you’re really paying for the crimes
of other people, because this time we’re going to win the war at any price. Wouldn’t you have done the same in
my place??
General Moncada,dungeon fighter online gold, got up to clean his thick horn-rimmed glasses on his shirttail. “Probably,?he said. “But what
worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it’s a natural death.?He laid his glasses
on the bed and took off his watch and chain. “What worries me,cheap dofus kamas,?he went on, “is that out of so much hatred for
the military, out of fighting them so much and thinking about them so much,acheter kamas, you’ve ended up as bad as they are.
And no ideal in life is worth that much baseness.?He took off his wedding ring and the medal of the Virgin of
Help and put them alongside his glasses and watch.
“At this rate,?he concluded, “you’ll not only be the most despotic and bloody dictator in our history, but you’ll
shoot my dear friend 2rsula in an attempt to pacify your conscience.?
Colonel Aureliano Buendaa stood there impassively. General Moncada then gave him the glasses, medal,
?73 312188 3
watch, and ring and he changed his tone.
“But I didn’t send for you to scold you,?he said. “I wanted to ask you the favor of sending these things to my
wife.?
Colonel Aureliano Buendaa put them in his pockets.
“Is she still in Manaure??
“She’s still in Manaure,?General Moncada confirmed, “in the same house behind the church where you sent
the letter.?
“I’ll be glad to, Jos?Raquel,?Colonel Aureliano Buendaa said.
When he went out into the blue air of the mist his face grew damp as on some other dawn in the past and only
then did he realize that -he had ordered the sentence to be carried out in the courtyard and not at the cemetery
wall. The firing squad, drawn up opposite the door,ddo platinum, paid him the honors of a head of state.
“They can bring him out now,?he ordered.
Chapter 9
COLONEL GERINELDO MRQUEZ was the first to perceive the emptiness of the war. In his position as civil
and military leader of Macondo he would have telegraphic conversations twice a week with Colonel Aureliano
Buendaa. At first those exchanges would determine the course of a flesh-and-blood war, the perfectly defined
outlines of which told them at any moment the exact spot -where it was and the prediction of its future direction.
Although he never let himself be pulled into the area of confidences, not even by his closest friends, Colonel
Aureliano Buendaa still had at that time the familiar tone that made it possible to identify him at the other end of
the wire. Many times he would prolong the talk beyond the expected limit and let them drift into comments of a
The house became full of loves Aureliano expressed it in poetry that had no beginning or end. He would write
it on the harsh pieces of parchment that Melquaades gave him, on the bathroom walls, on the skin of his arms,
and in all of it Remedios would appear transfigured: Remedios in the soporific air of two in the afternoon,rappelz money,
Remedios in the soft breath of the roses, Remedios in the water-clock secrets of the moths, Remedios in the
steaming morning bread, Remedios everywhere and Remedios forever. Rebeca waited for her love at four in the
afternoon,acheter kamas, embroidering by the window. She knew that the mailman’s mule arrived only every two weeks, but
she always waited for him, convinced that he was going to arrive on some other day by mistake. It happened
quite the opposite: once the mule did not come on the usual day. Mad with desperation, Rebeca got up in the
middle of the night and ate handfuls of earth in the garden with a suicidal drive, weeping with pain and fury,
chewing tender earthworms and chipping her teeth on snail shells. She vomited until dawn. She fell into a state
of feverish prostration, lost consciousness, and her heart went into a shameless delirium. 2rsula, scandalized,
forced the lock on her trunk and found at the bottom, tied together with pink ribbons, the sixteen perfumed letters
and the skeletons of leaves and petals preserved in old books and the dried butterflies that turned to powder at the
touch.
Aureliano was the only one capable of understanding such desolation. That afternoon, while 2rsula was trying
to rescue Rebeca from the slough of delirium, he went with Magnafico Visbal and Gerineldo Mrquez to
Catarino’s store. The establishment had been expanded with a gallery of wooden rooms where single women
who smelled of dead flowers lived. A group made up of an accordion and drums played the songs of Francisco
the Man, who had not been seen in Macondo for several years. The three friends drank fermented cane juice.
Magnafico and Gerineldo, contemporaries of Aureliano but more skilled in the ways of the world, drank
methodically with the women seated on their laps. One of the women, withered and with goldwork on her teeth,
gave Aureliano a caress that made him shudder. He rejected her. He had discovered that the more he drank the
more he thought about Remedios, but he could bear the torture of his recollections better. He did not know
exactly when he began to float. He saw his friends and the women sailing in a radiant glow, without weight or
mass,acheter kamas, saying words that did not come out of their mouths and making mysterious signals that did not correspond
to their expressions. Catarino put a hand on his shoulder and said to him: “It’s going on eleven.?Aureliano turned
his head, saw the enormous disfigured face with a felt flower behind the ear, and then he lost his memory, as
during the ti mes of forgetfulness,rs gold, and he recovered it on a strange dawn and in a room that was completely
foreign, where Pilar Ternera stood in her slip, barefoot, her hair down, holding a lamp over him, startled with
disbelief.
“Aureliano!?
Aureliano checked his feet and raised his head. He did not know how he had come there, but he knew what his
aim was, because he had carried it hidden since infancy in an inviolable backwater of his heart.
“I’ve come to sleep with you,?he said.
His clothes were smeared with mud and vomit. Pilar Ternera, who lived alone at that time with her two
younger children, did not ask him any questions. She took him to the bed. She cleaned his face with a damp
cloth, took of his clothes, and then got completely undressed and lowered the mosquito netting so that her
children would not see them if they woke up. She had become tired of waiting for the man who would stay, of
the men who left, of the countless men who missed the road to her house, confused by the uncertainty of the
cards. During the wait her skin had become wrinkled, her breasts had withered, the coals of her heart had gone