secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude. He would get up at five in the morning after a
light sleep, have his eternal mug of bitter coffee in the kitchen, shut himself up all day in the workshop, and at
four in the afternoon he would go along the porch dragging a stool, not even noticing the fire of the rose bushes
or the brightness of the hour or the persistence of Amaranta,pirates of the burning sea gold, whose melancholy made the noise of a boiling pot,
which was perfectly perceptible at dusk, and he would sit in the street door as long as the mosquitoes would
allow him to. Someone dared to disturb his solitude once.
“How are you, Colonel??he asked in passing.
“Right here,?he answered. “Waiting for my funeral procession to pass.?
So that the anxiety caused by the public reappearance of his family name, having to do with the coronation of
Remedios the Beauty, was baseless. Many people did not think that way, however. Innocent of the tragedy that
threatened it, the town poured into the main square in a noisy explosion of merriment. The carnival had reached
its highest level of madness and Aureliano Segundo had satisfied at last his dream of dressing up like a tiger and
was walking along the wild throng,wow power leveling, hoarse from so much roaring, when on the swamp road a parade of several
people appeared carrying in a gilded litter the most fascinating woman that imagination could conceive. For a
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moment the inhabitants of Macondo took off their masks in order to get a better look at the dazzling creature
with a crown of emeralds and an ermine cape, who seemed invested with legitimate authority, and was not
merely a sovereign of bangles and crepe paper. There were many people who had sufficient insight to suspect
that it was a question of provocation. But Aureliano Segundo immediately conquered his perplexity and declared
the new arrivals to be guests of honor, and with the wisdom of Solomon he seated Remedios the Beauty and the
intruding queen on the same dais. Until midnight the strangers, disguised as bedouins, took part in the delirium
and even enriched it with sumptuous fireworks and acrobatic skills that made one think of the art of the gypsies.
Suddenly, during the paroxysm of the celebration, someone broke the delicate balance.
“Long live the Liberal party!?he shouted. “Long live Colonel Aureliano Buendaa!?
The rifle shots drowned out the splendor of the fireworks and the cries of terror drowned out the music and joy
turned into panic. Many years later there were those who still insisted that the royal guard of the intruding queen
was a squad of regular army soldiers who were concealing government-issue rifles under their rich Moorish
robes. The government denied the charge in a special proclamation and promised a complete investigation of the
bloody episode. But the truth never came to light, and the version always prevailed that the royal guard, without
provocation of any kind, took up combat positions upon a signal from their commander and opened fire without
pity on the crowd. When calm was restored, not one of the false bedouins remained in town and there were many
dead and wounded lying on the square: nine clowns,buy rs gold, four Columbines, seventeen playing-card kings, one devil,
three minstrels, two peers of France,buy ragnarok online zeny, and three Japanese empresses. In the confusion of the panic Jos?Arcadio
Segundo managed to rescue Remedios the Beauty and Aureliano Segundo carried the intruding queen to the
house in his arms, her dress torn and the ermine cape stained with blood. Her name was Fernanda del Carpio.
a bloody rivalry of leaders, it was impossible to determine any responsibility. The gold of the revolution, melted
into blocks that were then covered with baked clay, was beyond all control. Colonel Aureliano Buendaa had the
seventy-two gold bricks included in the inventory of surrender and closed the ceremony without allowing any
speeches. The filthy adolescent stood opposite him,buy rs money, looking into his eyes with his own calm, syrup-colored eyes.
“Something else??Colonel Aureliano Buendaa asked him.
The young colonel tightened his mouth.
“The receipt,?he said.
Colonel Aureliano Buendaa wrote it out in his own hand. Then he had a glass of lemonade and a piece of
biscuit that the novices were passing around and retired to a field tent which had been prepared for him in case
he wished to rest. There he took off his shirt, sat on the edge of the cot, and at three-fifteen in the afternoon took
his pistol and shot himself in the iodine circle that his personal physician had painted on his chest. At that
moment in Macondo 2rsula took the cover off the pot of milk on the stove, wondering why it was taking so long
to boil, and found it full of worms.
“They’ve killed Aureliano,?she exclaimed.
She looked toward the courtyard,flyff money, obeying a habit of her solitude, and then she saw Jos?Arcadio Buendaa,buy gw gold,
soaking wet and sad in the rain and much older than when he had died. “They shot him in the back,?2rsula said
more precisely, “and no one was charitable enough to close his eyes.?At dusk through her tears she saw the swift
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and luminous disks that crossed the sky like an exhalation and she thought that it was a signal of death. She was
still under the chestnut tree, sobbing at her husband’s knees, when they brought in Colonel Aureliano Buendaa,
wrapped in a blanket that was stiff with dry blood and with his eyes open in rage.
He was out of danger. The bullet had followed such a neat path that the doctor was able to put a cord soaked in
iodine in through the chest and withdraw it from the back. “That was my masterpiece,?he said with satisfaction.
“It was the only point where a bullet could pass through without harming any vital organ.?Colonel Aureliano
Buendaa saw himself surrounded by charitable novices who intoned desperate psalms for the repose of his soul
and then he was sorry that he had not shot himself in the roof of the mouth as he had considered doing if only to
mock the prediction of Pilar Ternera.
“If I still had the authority,?he told the doctor, “I’d have you shot out of hand. Not for having saved my life but
for having made a fool of me.?
The failure of his death brought back his lost prestige in a few hours. The same people who invented the story
that he had sold the war for a room with walls made of gold bricks defined the attempt at suicide as an act of
honor and proclaimed him a martyr. Then, when he rejected the Order of Merit awarded him by the president of
the republic, even his most bitter enemies filed through the room asking him to withdraw recognition of the
armistice and to start a new war. The house was filled with gifts meant as amends. Impressed finally by the
massive support of his former comrades in arms,wow power leveling, Colonel Aureliano Buendaa did not put aside the possibility of
finally relied on enemy forces to make them submit.
He was never a greater soldier than at that time. The certainty that he was finally fighting for his own
liberation and not for abstract ideals, for slogans that politicians could twist left and right according to the
circumstances, filled him with an ardent enthusiasm. Colonel Gerineldo Mrquez, who fought for defeat with as
much conviction and loyalty as he had previously fought for victory, reproached him for his useless temerity.
“Don’t worry,?he would say, smiling. “Dying is much more difficult than one imagines.?In his case it was true.
The certainty that his day was assigned gave him a mysterious immunity, an immortality or a fixed period that
made him invulnerable to the risks of war and in the end permitted him to win a defeat that was much more
difficult, much more bloody and costly than victory.
In almost twenty years of war, Colonel Aureliano Buendaa had been at his house many times, but the state of
urgency with which he always arrived, the military retinue that accompanied him everywhere, the aura of legend
that glowed about his presence and of which even 2rsula was aware, changed him into a stranger in the end. The
last time that he was in Macondo and took a house for his three concubines, he was seen in his own house only
on two or three occasions when he had the ti me to accept an invitation to dine. Remedios the Beauty and the
twins, born during the middle of the war, scarcely knew him. Amaranta could not reconcile her image of the
brother who had spent his adolescence making little gold fishes with that of the mythical warrior who had placed
a distance of ten feet between himself and the rest of humanity. But when the approach of the armistice became
known and they thought that he would return changed back into a human being, delivered at last for the hearts of
his own people, the family feelings, dormant for such a long time, were reborn stronger than ever.
“We’ll finally have a man in the house again,?2rsula said.
Amaranta was the first to suspect that they had lost him forever. One week before the armistice, when he
entered the house without an escort, preceded by two barefoot orderlies who deposited on the porch the saddle
from the mule and the trunk of poetry, all that was left of his former imperial baggage, she saw him pass by the
sewing room and she called to him. Colonel Aureliano Buendaa had trouble recognizing her.
“It’s Amaranta,?she said good-humoredly, happy at his return, and she showed him the hand with the black
bandage. “Look.?
Colonel Aureliano Buendaa smiled at her the same way as when he had first seen her with the bandage on that
remote morning when he had come back to Macondo condemned to death.
“How awful,rs gold,?he said, “the way time passes!?
The regular army had to protect the house. He arrived amid insults, spat upon,wow power leveling, accused of having accelerated
the war in order to sell it for a better price. He was trembling with fever and cold and his armpits were studded
with sores again. Six months before, when she had heard talk about the armistice, 2rsula had opened up and
swept out the bridal chamber and had burned myrrh in the corners, thinking that he would come back ready to
grow old slowly among Remedios?musty dolls. But actually, during the last two years he had paid his final dues
to life, including growing old. When he passed by the silver shop,final fantasy xi gil, which 2rsula had prepared with special
diligence, he did not even notice that the keys were in the lock. He did not notice the minute,ffxi gil, tearing destruction
that time had wreaked on the house and that, after such a prolonged absence, would have looked like a disaster to
any man who had kept his memories alive. He was not pained by the peeling of the whitewash on the walls or the
dirty, cottony cobwebs in the corners or the dust on the begonias or the veins left on the beams by the termites or
the moss on the hinges or any of the insidious traps that nostalgia offered him. He sat down on the porch,
make the country believe in reconciliation, he attempted seven other revolts. One night he bombarded Riohacha
from a schooner and the garrison dragged out of bed and shot the fourteen best-known Liberals in the town as a
reprisal. For more than two weeks he held a customs post on the border and from there sent the nation a call to
general war. Another of his expectations was lost for three months in the jungle in a mad attempt to cross more
than a thousand miles of virgin territory in order to proclaim war on the outskirts of the capital. On one occasion
he was lea than fifteen miles away from Macondo and was obliged by government patrols to hide in the
mountains,cheap wow gold, very close to the enchanted region where his father had found the fossil of a Spanish galleon many
years before.
Visitaci?n died around that time. She had the pleasure of dying a natural death after having renounced a throne
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out of fear of insomnia, and her last wish was that they should dig up the wages she had saved for more than
twenty years under her bed and send the money to Colonel Aureliano Buendaa so that he could go on with the
war. But 2rsula did not bother to dig it up because it was rumored in those days that Colonel Aureliano Buendaa
had been killed in a landing near the provincial capital. The official announcement?athe fourth in less than two
years?awas considered true for almost six months because nothing further was heard of him. Suddenly,wow power leveling, when
2rsula and Amaranta had added new mourning to the past period, unexpected news arrived. Colonel Aureliano
Buendaa was alive, but apparently he had stopped harassing the government of his country and had joined with
the victorious federalism of other republics of the Caribbean. He would show up under different names farther
and farther away from his own country. Later it would be learned that the idea that was working on him at the
time was the unification of the federalist forms of Central America in order to wipe out conservative regimes
from Alaska to Patagonia. The first direct news that 2rsula received from him, several years after his departure,
was a wrinkled and faded letter that had arrived, passing through various hands, from Santiago, Cuba.
“We’ve lost him forever,?2rsula exclaimed on reading it. “If he follows this path he’ll spend Christmas at the
ends of the earth.?
The person to whom she said it, who was the first to whom she showed the letter, was the Conservative
general Jos?Raquel Moncada, mayor of Macondo since the end of the war. “This Aureliano,?General Moncada
commented, “what a pity that he’s not a Conservative.?He really admired him. Like many Conservative civilians,runescape power leveling,
Jos?Raquel Moncada had waged war in defense of his party and had earned the title of general on the field of
battle, even though he was not a military man by profession. On the contrary, like so many of his fellow party
members, he was an antimilitarist. He considered military men unprincipled loafers, ambitious plotters, experts
in facing down civilians in order to prosper during times of disorder. Intelligent, pleasant, ruddy-faced,runescape gold, a man
who liked to eat and watch cockfights, he had been at one time the most feared adversary of Colonel Aureliano
Buendaa. He succeeded in imposing his authority over the career officers in a wide sector along the coast. One
time when he was forced by strategic circumstances to abandon a stronghold to the forces of Colonel Aureliano
Buendaa, he left two letters for him. In one of them quite long, he invited him to join in a campaign to make war
vinegar, then with ashes and lemon, and finally they put him in a barrel of lye and let him stay for six hours.
They scrubbed him so much that the arabesques of his tattooing began to fade. When they thought of the
desperate measure of seasoning him with pepper, cumin seeds, and laurel leaves and boiling him for a whole day
over a slow fire, he had already begun to decompose and they had to bury him hastily. They sealed him
hermetically in a special coffin seven and a half feet long and four feet wide, reinforced inside with iron plates
and fastened together with steel bolts, and even then the smell could be perceived on the streets through which
the funeral procession passed. Father Nicanor,wow power leveling, with his liver enlarged and tight as a drum, gave him his blessing
from bed. Although in the months that followed they reinforced the grave with walls about it,buy 2moons gold, between which
they threw compressed ash, sawdust, and quicklime, the cemetery still smelled of powder for many years after,
until the engineers from the banana company covered the grave over with a shell of concrete. As soon as they
took the body out, Rebeca closed the doors of her house and buried herself alive, covered with a thick crust of
disdain that no earthly temptation was ever able to break. She went out into the street on one occasion, when she
was very old, with shoes the color of old silver and a hat made of tiny flowers, during the time that the
Wandering Jew passed through town and brought on a heat wave that was so intense that birds broke through
window screens to come to die in the bedrooms. The last time anyone saw her alive was when with one shot she
killed a thief who was trying to force the door of her house. Except for Arg|nida, her servant and confidante, no
one ever had any more contact with her after that. At one time it was discovered that she was writing letters to
the Bishop, whom she claimed as a first cousin. but it was never said whether she received any reply. The town
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forgot about her.
In spite of his triumphal return, Colonel Aureliano Buendaa was not enthusiastic over the looks of things. The
government troops abandoned their positions without resistance and that aroused an illusion of victory among the
Liberal population that it was not right to destroy,aion power leveling, but the revolutionaries knew the truth, Colonel Aureliano
Buendaa better than any of them. Although at that moment he had more than five thousand men under his
command and held two coastal states, he had the feeling of being hemmed in against the sea and caught in a
situation that was so confused that when he ordered the restoration of the church steeple, which had been
knocked down by army cannon fire, Father Nicanor commented from his sickbed: “This is silly; the defenders of
the faith of Christ destroy the church and the Masons order it rebuilt.?Looking for a loophole through which he
could escape, he spent hours on end in the telegraph office conferring with the commanders of other towns, and
every time he would emerge with the firmest impression that the war was at a stalemate. When news of fresh
liberal victories was received it was celebrated with jubilant proclamations, but he would measure the real extent
of them on the map and could see that his forces were penetrating into the jungle, defending themselves against
malaria and mosquitoes, advancing in the opposite direction from reality. “We’re wasting time,?he would
complain to his officers. “We’re wasting time while the bastards in the party are begging for seats in congress.?
Lying awake at night, stretched out on his back in a hammock in the same room where he had awaited death,cheap aion gold, he
would evoke the image of lawyers dressed in black leaving the presidential palace in the icy cold of early
The messenger even went to the extreme of violating a military secret so that they would believe his identity. He
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revealed that he was on a mission to Cura ao,cheap runescape money, where he hoped to recruit exiles from all over the Caribbean and
acquire arms and supplies sufficient to attempt a landing at the end of the year. With faith in that plan, Colonel
Aureliano Buendaa was not in favor of any useless sacrifices at that time. But Arcadio was inflexible. He had the
prisoner put into the stocks until he could prove his identity and he resolved to defend the town to the death.
He did not have long to wait. The news of the Liberal defeat was more and more concrete. Toward the end of
March, before a dawn of premature rain, the tense calm of the previous weeks was abruptly broken by the
desperate sounds of a cornet and a cannon shot that knocked down the steeple of the church. Actually,runescape power leveling, Arcadio’s
decision to resist was madness. He had only fifty poorly armed men with a ration of twenty cartridges apiece.
But among them, his former pupils, excited by the high-sounding proclamations, the determination reigned to
sacrifice their skins for a lost cause. In the midst of the tramping of boots, contradictory commands, cannon shots
that made the earth tremble, wild shooting, and the senseless sound of cornets,wow power leveling, the supposed Colonel Stevenson
managed to speak to Arcadio. “Don’t let me undergo the indignity of dying in the stocks in these women’s
clothes,?he said to him. “If I have to die, let me die fighting.?He succeeded in convincing him. Arcadio ordered
them to give him a weapon and twenty cartridges, and he left him with five men to defend headquarters while he
went off with his staff to head up the resistance. He did not get to the road to the swamp. The barricades had been
broken and the defenders were openly fighting in the streets, first until they used up their ration of rifle bullets,
then with pistols against rifles, and finally hand to hand. With the imminence of defeat, some women went into
the street armed with sticks and kitchen knives. In that confusion Arcadio found Amaranta, who was looking for
him like a madwoman, in her nightgown and with two old pistols that had belonged to Jos?Arcadio Buendaa. He
gave his rifle to an officer who had been disarmed in the fight and escaped with Amaranta through a nearby street
to take her home. 2rsula was, in the doorway waiting, indifferent to the cannon shots that had opened up a hole
in the front of the house next door. The rain was letting up, but the streets were as slippery and as smooth as
melted soap, and one had to guess distances in the darkness. Arcadio left Amaranta with 2rsula and made an
attempt to face two soldiers who had opened up with heavy firing from the corner. The old pistols that had been
kept for many years in the bureau did not work. Protecting Arcadio with her body, 2rsula tried to drag him
toward the house.
“Come along in the name of God,?she shouted at him. “There’s been enough madness!?
The soldiers aimed at them.
“Let go of that man,mabinogi gold, ma’am,?one of them shouted, “or we won’t be responsible!?
Arcadio pushed 2rsula toward the house and surrendered. A short time later the shooting stopped and the bells
began to toll. The resistance had been wiped out in less than half an hour. Not a single one of Arcadio’s men had
survived the attack, but before dying they had killed three hundred soldiers. The last stronghold was the barracks.
Before being attacked, the supposed Colonel Gregorio Stevenson had freed the prisoners and ordered his men to
masterpieces, and embroidered needlepoint peacocks, she waited for Pietro Crespi to be unable to bear the urges
of his heart and more. Her day came with the ill-fated October rains. Pietro Crespi took the sewing basket from
her lap and he told her,buy warcraft gold, “We’ll get married next month.?Amaranta did not tremble at the contact with his icy
hands. She withdrew hers like a timid little animal and went back to her work.
“Don’t be simple, Crespi.?She smiled. “I wouldn’t marry you even if I were dead.?
Pietro Crespi lost control of himself. He wept shamelessly, almost breaking his fingers with desperation, but
he could not break her down. “Don’t waste your time,?was all that Amaranta said. “If you really love me so
much, don’t set foot in this house again.?2rsula thought she would go mad with shame. Pietro Crespi exhausted
all manner of pleas. He went through incredible extremes of humiliation. He wept one whole afternoon in
2rsula’s lap and she would have sold her soul in order to comfort him. On rainy nights he could be seen
prowling about the house with an umbrella, waiting for a light in Amaranta’s bedroom. He was never better
dressed than at that time. His august head of a tormented emperor had acquired a strange air of grandeur. He
begged Amaranta’s friends, the ones who sewed with her on the porch, to try to persuade her. He neglected his
business. He would spend the day in the rear of the store writing wild notes, which he would send to Amaranta
with flower petals and dried butterflies,cheap runescape gold, and which she would return unopened. He would shut himself up for
hours on end to play the zither. One night he sang. Macondo woke up in a kind of angelic stupor that was caused
by a zither that deserved more than this world and a voice that led one to believe that no other person on earth
could feel such love. Pietro Crespi then saw the lights go on in every window in town except that of Amaranta.
On November second, All Souls?Day, his brother opened the store and found all the lamps lighted, all the music
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boxes opened, and all the docks striking an interminable hour, and in the midst of that mad concert he found
Pietro Crespi at the desk in the rear with his wrists cut by a razor and his hands thrust into a basin of benzoin.
2rsula decreed that the wake would be in her house. Father Nicanor was against a religious ceremony and
burial in consecrated ground. 2rsula stood up to him. “In a way that neither you nor I can understand, that man
was a saint,?she said. “So I am going to bury him,wow power leveling, against your wishes, beside Melquaades?grave.?She did it with
the support of the whole town and with a magnificent funeral. Amaranta did not leave her bedroom. From her
bed she heard 2rsula’s weeping, the steps and whispers of the multitude that invaded the house,mabinogi money, the wailing of
the mourners, and then a deep silence that smelled of trampled flowers. For a long time she kept on smelling
Pietro Crespi’s lavender breath at dusk, but she had the strength not to succumb to delirium. 2rsula abandoned
her. She did not even raise her eyes to pity her on the afternoon when Amaranta went into the kitchen and put her
hand into the coals of the stove until it hurt her so much that she felt no more pain but instead smelled the
pestilence of her own singed flesh. It was a stupid cure for her remorse. For several days she went about the
house with her hand in a pot of egg whites, and when the burns healed it appeared as if the whites had also
scarred over the sores on her heart. The only external trace that the tragedy left was the bandage of black gauze
that she put on her burned hand and that she wore until her death.
Arcadio gave a rare display of generosity by decreeing official mourning for Pietro Crespi. 2rsula interpreted
preparing to give the squad the command to fire.
“I dare you to, bastard!?2rsula shouted.
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Before Arcadio had time to read she let go with the first blow of the lash. “I dare you to,wow power leveling, murderer!?she
shouted. “And kill me too,mabinogi gold, son of an evil mother. That way I won’t have the eyes to weep for the shame of
having raised a monster.?Whipping him without mercy, she chased him to the back of the courtyard, where
Arcadio curled up like a snail in its shell. Don Apolinar Moscote was unconscious, tied to the post where
previously they had had the scarecrow that had been cut to pieces by shots fired in fun. The boys in the squad
scattered, fearful that 2rsula would go after them too. But she did not even look at them. She left Arcadio with
his uniform torn, roaring with pain and rage, and she untied Don Apolinar Moscote and took him home. Before
leaving the headquarters she released the prisoners from the stocks.
From that time on she was the one who ruled in the town. She reestablished Sunday masses, suspended the use
of red armbands, and abrogated the harebrained decrees. But in spite of her strength, she still wept over her
unfortunate fate. She felt so much alone that she sought the useless company of her husband, who had been
forgotten under the chestnut tree. “Look what we’ve come to,?she would tell him as the June rains threatened to
knock the shelter down. “Look at the empty house, our children scattered all over the world, and the two of us
alone again, the same as in the beginning.?Jos?Arcadio Buendaa, sunk in an abyss of unawareness, was deaf to
her lamentations. At the beginning of his madness he would announce his daily needs with urgent Latin phrases.
In fleeting clear spells of lucidity, when Amaranta would bring him his meals he would tell her what bothered
him most and would accept her sucking glasses and mustard plasters in a docile way. But at the time when
2rsula went to lament by his side he had lost all contact with reality. She would bathe him bit by bit as he sat on
his stool while she gave him news of the family. “Aureliano went to war more than four months ago and we
haven’t heard anything about him,?she would say, scrubbing his back with a soaped brush. “Jos?Arcadio came
back a big man, taller than you, and all covered with needle-work, but he only brought shame to our house.?She
thought she noticed, however, that her husband would grow sad with the bad news. Then she decided to lie to
him. ‘Rou won’t believe what I’m going to tell you,?she said as she threw ashes over his excrement in order to
pick it up with the shovel. “God willed that Jos?Arcadio and Rebeca should get married, and now they’re very
happy.?She got to be so sincere in the deception that she ended up by consoling herself with her own lies.
“Arcadio is a serious man now,?she said, “and very brave, and a fine-looking young man with his uniform and
saber.?It was like speaking to a dead man, for Jos?Arcadio Buendaa was already beyond the reach of any worry.
But she insisted. He seemed so peaceful, so indifferent to everything that she decided to release him. He did not
even move from his stool. He stayed there,buy tales of pirates money, exposed to the sun and the rain, as if the thongs were unnecessary, for
a dominion superior to any visible bond kept him tied to the trunk of the chestnut tree. Toward August,mabinogi gold, when
winter began to last forever, 2rsula was finally able to give him a piece of news that sounded like the truth.
“Would you believe it that good luck is still pouring down on us??she told him. “Amaranta and the pianola
Amaranta and her friends were paralyzed, their needles in the air. “Hello,?he said to them in a tired voice, threw
the saddlebags on a worktable, and went by on his way to the back of the house. “Hello,wow power leveling,?he said to the startled
Rebecca, who saw him pass by the door of her bedroom. “Hello,?he said to Aureliano, who was at his
silversmith’s bench with all five senses alert. He did not linger with anyone. He went directly to the kitchen and
there he stopped for the first time at the end of a trip that had begun of the other side of the world. “Hello,?he
said. 2rsula stood for a fraction of a second with her mouth open,city of villains infamy, looked into his eyes, gave a cry, and flung her
arms around his neck, shouting and weeping with joy. It was Jos?Arcadio. He was returning as poor as when he
had left, to such an extreme that 2rsula had to give him two pesos to pay for the rental of his horse. He spoke a
Spanish that was larded with sailor slang. They asked where he had been and he answered: “Out there.?He hung
his hammock in the room they assigned him and slept for three days. When he woke up, after eating sixteen raw
eggs, he went directly to Catarino’s store,aoc gold, where his monumental size provoked a panic of curiosity among the
women. He called for music and cane liquor for everyone, to be put on his bill. He would Indian-wrestle with
five men at the same time. “It can’t be done,?they said, convinced that they would not be able to move his arm.
“He has ni os-en-cruz.?Catarino,city of villains power leveling, who did not believe in magical tricks of strength, bet him twelve pesos that he
could not move the counter. Jos?Arcadio pulled it out of its place, lifted it over his head, and put it in the street. It
took eleven men to put it back. In the heat of the party he exhibited his unusual masculinity on the bar,
completely covered with tattoos of words in several languages intertwined in blue and red. To the women who
were besieging him and coveting him he put the question as to who would pay the most. The one who had the
most money offered him twenty pesos. Then he proposed raffling himself off among them at ten pesos a chance.
It was a fantastic price because the most sought-after woman earned eight pesos a night, but they all accepted.
They wrote their names on fourteen pieces of paper which they put into a hat and each woman took one out.
When there were only two pieces left to draw, it was established to whom they belonged.
“Five pesos more from each one,?Jos?Arcadio proposed, “and I’ll share myself with both.
He made his living that way. He had been around the world sixty-five times, enlisted in a crew of sailors
without a country. The women who went to bed with him that night in Catarino’s store brought him naked into
the dance salon so that people could see that there was not a square inch of his body that was not tattooed, front
and back, and from his neck to his toes. He did not succeed in becoming incorporated into the family. He slept all
day and spent the night in the red-light district, making bets on his strength. On the rare occasions when 2rsula
got him to sit down at the table, he gave signs of radiant good humor, especially when he told about his
adventures in remote countries. He had been shipwrecked and spent two weeks adrift in the Sea of Japan, feeding
on the body of a comrade who had succumbed to sunstroke and whose extremely salty flesh as it cooked in the
sun had a sweet and granular taste. Under a bright noonday sun in the Gulf of Bengal his ship had killed a sea
dragon, in the stomach of which they found the helmet, the buckles, and the weapons of a Crusader. In the
Caribbean he had seen the ghost of the pirate ship of Victor Hugues, with its sails torn by the winds of death, the
masts chewed by sea worms, and still looking for the course to Guadeloupe. 2rsula would weep at the table as if
she were reading the letters that had never arrived and in which Jos?Arcadio told about his deeds and
misadventures. “And there was so much of a home here for you, my son,?she would sob, “and so much food
thrown to the hogs!?But underneath it an she could not conceive that the boy the gypsies took away was the
same lout who would eat half a suckling pig for lunch and whose flatulence withered the flowers. Something
similar took place with the rest of the family. Amaranta could not conceal the repugnance that she felt at the table
capital of the province he succeeded in getting the government to build a school so that Arcadio, who had
inherited the educational enthusiasm of his grandfather, could take charge of it. Through persuasion he managed
to get the majority of houses painted blue in time for the date of national independence. At the urging of Father
Nicanor, he arranged for the transfer of Catarino’s store to a back street and he closed down several scandalous
establishments that prospered in the center of town. Once he returned with six policemen armed with rifles to
whom he entrusted the maintenance of order, and no one remembered the original agreement not to have armed
men in the town. Aureliano enjoyed his father-in-law’s efficiency. “You’re going to get as fat as he is,?his friends
would say to him. But his sedentary life, which accentuated his cheekbones and concentrated the sparkle of his
eyes, did not increase his weight or alter the parsimony of his character, but, on the contrary, it hardened on his
lips the straight line of solitary meditation and implacable decision. So deep was the affection that he and his
wife had succeeded in arousing in both their families that when Remedios announced that she was going to have
a child. even Rebeca and Amaranta declared a truce in order to knit items in blue wool if it was to be a boy and in
pink wool in case it was a girl. She was the last person Arcadio thought about a few years later when he faced the
firing squad.
2rsula ordered a mourning period of closed doors and windows,city of villains infamy, with no one entering or leaving except on
matters of utmost necessity. She prohibited any talking aloud for a year and she put Remedios?daguerreotype in
the place where her body had been laid out, with a black ribbon around it and an oil lamp that was always kept
lighted. Future generations, who never let the lamp go out, would be puzzled at that girl in a pleated skirt,aoc power leveling, white
boots,buy rs money, and with an organdy band around her head, and they were never able to connect her with the standard
image of a great-grandmother. Amaranta took charge of Aureliano Jos? She adopted him as a son who would
share her solitude and relieve her from the involutary laudanum that her mad beseeching had thrown into
Remedios?coffee. Pietro Crespi would tiptoe in at dusk,wow power leveling, with a black ribbon on his hat, and he would pay a silent
visit to Rebeca, who seemed to be bleeding to death inside the black dress with sleeves down to her wrists. Just
the idea of thinking about a new date for the wedding would have been so irreverent that the engagement turned
into an eternal relationship, a fatigued love that no one worried about again, as if the lovers, who in other days
had sabotaged the lamps in order to kiss, had been abandoned to the free will of death. Having lost her bearings,
completely demoralized, Rebeca began eating earth again.
Suddenly?awhen the mourning had gone on so long that the needlepoint sessions began again?asomeone
pushed open the street door at two in the afternoon in the mortal silence of the heat and the braces in the
foundation shook with such force that Amaranta and her friends sewing on the porch, Rebeca sucking her finger
in her bedroom, 2rsula in the kitchen, Aureliano in the workshop, and even Jos?Arcadio Buendaa under the
solitary chestnut tree had the impression that an earthquake was breaking up the house. A huge man had arrived.
His square shoulders barely fitted through the doorways. He was wearing a medal of Our Lady of Help around
his bison neck, his arms and chest were completely covered with cryptic tattooing, and on his right wrist was the
tight copper bracelet of the ni os-en-cruz amulet. His skin was tanned by the salt of the open air, his hair was
short and straight like the mane of a mule, his jaws were of iron, and he wore a sad smile. He had a belt on that
was twice as thick as the cinch of a horse, boots with leggings and spurs and iron on the heels, and his presence
gave the quaking impression of a seismic tremor. He went through the parlor and the living room, carrying some
half-worn saddlebags in his hand, and he appeared like a thunderclap on the porch with the begonias where
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