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merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for the character who had died
and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears of affliction had been shed would reappear alive and
transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the
actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno
Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional
outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many felt that they had been the victims of some
new and showy gypsy business and they decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had
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too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings. Something similar
happened with the cylinder phonographs that the merry matrons from France brought with them as a substitute
for the antiquated hand organs and that for a time had serious effects on the livelihood of the band of musicians.
At first curiosity increased the clientele on the forbidden street and there was even word of respectable ladies
who disguised themselves as workers in order to observe the novelty of the phonograph from first hand,rs money, but from
so much and such close observation they soon reached the conclusion that it was not an enchanted mill as
everyone had thought and as the matrons had said, but a mechanical trick that could not be compared with
something so moving, so human, and so full of everyday truth as a band of musicians. It was such a serious
disappointment that when phonographs became so popular that there was one in every house they were not
considered objects for amusement for adults but as something good for children to take apart. On the other hand,
when someone from the town had the opportunity to test the crude reality of the telephone installed in the
railroad station,rose online zulie, which was thought to be a rudimentary version of the phonograph because of its crank, even the
most incredulous were upset. It was as if God had decided to put to the test every capacity for surprise and was
keeping the inhabitants of Macondo in a permanent alternation between excitement and disappointment, doubt
and revelation, to such an extreme that no one knew for certain where the limits of reality lay. It was an intricate
stew of truths and mirages that convulsed the ghost of Jos?Arcadio Buendaa under the chestnut tree with
impatience and made him wander all through the house even in broad daylight. Ever since the railroad had been
officially inaugurated and had begun to arrive with regularity on Wednesdays at eleven o’clock and the primitive
wooden station with a desk,runescape power leveling, a telephone, and a ticket window had been built, on the streets of Macondo men and
women were seen who had adopted everyday and normal customs and manners but who really looked like
people out of a circus. In a town that had chafed under the tricks of the gypsies there was no future for those
ambulatory acrobats of commerce who with equal effrontery offered a whistling kettle and a daily regime that
would assure the salvation of the soul on the seventh day; but from those who let themselves be convinced out of
fatigue and the ones who were always unwary, they reaped stupendous benefits. Among those theatrical
creatures, wearing riding breeches and leggings,cheap runescape gold, a pith helmet and steel-rimmed glasses, with topaz eyes and the
skin of a thin rooster, there arrived in Macondo on one of so many Wednesdays the chubby and smiling Mr.
Herbert, who ate at the house.
No one had noticed him at the table until the first bunch of bananas had been eaten. Aureliano Segundo had

awareness that she was alive and rotting in her wormhole was the implacable and aging Amaranta. She thought
of her at dawn, when the ice of her heart awakened her in her solitary bed, and she thought of her when she
soaped her withered breasts and her lean stomach, and when she put on the white stiff-starched petticoats and
corsets of old age, and when she changed the black bandage of terrible expiation on her hand. Always,runescape power leveling, at every
moment, asleep and awake, during the most sublime and most abject moments, Amaranta thought about Rebeca,
because solitude had made a selection in her memory and had burned the dimming piles of nostalgic waste that
life had accumulated in her heart, and had purified, magnified and eternalized the others,buy world of warcraft gold, the most bitter ones.
Remedios the Beauty knew about Rebeca’s existence from her. Every time they passed the run-down house she
would tell her about an unpleasant incident, a tale of hate, trying in that way to make her extended rancor be
shared by her niece and consequently prolonged beyond death, but her plan did not work because Remedios was
immune to any kind of passionate feelings and much less to those of others. 2rsula, on the other hand, who had
suffered through a process opposite to Amaranta’s,rose online zulie, recalled R ebeca with a memory free of impurities, for the
image of the pitiful child brought to the house with the bag containing her parents?bones prevailed over the
offense that had made her unworthy to be connected to the family tree any longer. Aureliano Segundo decided
that they would have to bring her to the house and take care of her, but his good intentions were frustrated by the
firm intransigence of Rebeca, who had needed many years of suffering and misery in order to attain the
privileges of solitude and who was not disposed to renounce them in exchange for an old age disturbed by the
false attractions of charity.
In February, when the sixteen sons of Colonel Aureliano Buendaa returned, still marked with the cross of
ashes, Aureliano Triste spoke to them about Rebeca in the tumult of the celebration and in half a day they
restored the appearance of the house, changing doors and windows, painting the front with gay colors, bracing
walls and pouring fresh cement on the floor, but they could not get any authorization to continue the work inside.
Rebeca did not even come to the door. She let them finish the mad restoration, then calculated what it had cost
and sent Arg|nida, her old servant who was still with her, to them with a handful of coins that had been
withdrawn from circulation after the last war and that Rebeca thought were still worth something it was then that
they saw to what a fantastic point her separation from the world had arrived and they understood that it would be
impossible to rescue her from her stubborn enclosure while she still had a breath of life in her.
On the second visit by the sons of Colonel Aureliano Buendaa to Macondo, another of them, Aureliano
Centeno, stayed on to work with Aureliano Triste. He was one of the first who had been brought to the house for
baptism and 2rsula and Amaranta remembered him very well because in a few hours he had destroyed every
breakable object that passed through his hands. Time had moderated his early impulse for growth and he was a
man of average height marked by smallpox scars, but his amazing power for manual destruction remained intact.
He broke so many plates, even without touching them, that Fernanda decided to buy him a set of pewterware
before he did away with the last pieces of her expensive china, and even the resistant metal plates were soon
dented and twisted. But to make up for that irremediable power, which was exasperating even for him,buy rohan crone, he had a
cordiality that won the immediate confidence of others and a stupendous capacity for work. In a short time he
had increased the production of ice to such a degree that it was too much for the local market and Aureliano
Triste had to think about the possibility of expanding the business to other towns in the swamp. It was then that
he thought of the decisive step, not only for the modernization of his business but to link the town with the rest of
the world.

midst of the excitement of the famil y the scandalization of 2rsula, the joy of the people cramming the street to
watch that apotheosis of squandering. Aureliano Segundo finished by papering the house from the front to the
kitchen, including bathrooms and bedrooms, and threw the leftover bills into the courtyard.
“Now,?he said in a final way,maple power leveling, “I hope that nobody in this house ever talks to me about money again.?
That was what happened. 2rsula had the bills taken down, stuck to great cakes of whitewash, and the house
was painted white again. “Dear Lord,?she begged, “make us poor again the way we were when we founded this
town so that you will not collect for this squandering in the other life.?Her prayers were answered in reverse.
One of the workmen removing the bills bumped into an enormous plaster statue of Saint Joseph that someone
had left in the house during the last years of the war and the hollow figure broke to pieces on the floor. It had
been stuffed with gold coins. No one could remember who had brought that life-sized saint. “Three men brought
it,?Amaranta explained. “They asked us to keep it until the rains were over and I told them to put it there in the
corner where nobody would bump into it, and there they put it, very carefully, and there it’s been ever since
because they never came back for it.?Later on, 2rsula had put candles on it and had prostrated herself before it,
not suspecting that instead of a saint she was adoring almost four bundled pounds of gold. The tardy evidence of
her involuntary paganism made her even more upset. She spat on the spectacular pile of coins, put them in three
canvas sacks, and buried them in a secret place, hoping that sooner or later the three unknown men would come
to reclaim them. Much later, during the difficult years of her decrepitude, 2rsula would intervene in the
conversations of the many travelers who came by the house at that time and ask them if they had left a plaster
Saint Joseph there during the war to be taken care of until the rains passed.
Things like that which gave 2rsula such consternation, were commonplace in those days. Macondo was
swamped in a miraculous prosperity. The adobe houses of the founders had been replaced by brick buildings with
wooden blinds and cement floors which made the suffocating heat of two o’clock in the afternoon more bearable.
All that remained at that time of Jos?Arcadio Buendaa’s ancient village were the dusty almond trees, destined to
resist the most arduous of circumstances, and the river of clear water whose prehistoric stones had been
pulverized by the frantic hammers of Jos?Arcadio Segundo when he set about opening the channel in order to
establish a boat line. It was a mad dream, comparable to those of his great-grandfather, for the rocky riverbed and
the numerous rapids prevented navigation from Macondo to the sea. But Jos?Arcadio Segundo, in an unforeseen
burst of temerity, stubbornly kept on with the project. Until then he had shown no sign of imagination. Except for
his precarious adventure with Petra Cotes, he had never known a woman. 2rsula had considered him the quietest
example the family had ever produced in all its history,runescape power leveling, incapable of standing out even as a handler of fighting
cocks, when Colonel Aureliano Buendaa told him the story of the Spanish galleon aground eight miles from the
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sea, the carbonized frame of which he had seen himself during the war. The story, which for so many years had
seemed fantastic to so many people,mu online zen, was a revelation for Jos?Arcadio Segundo. He auctioned off his roosters to
the highest bidder, recruited men, bought tools, and set about the awesome task of breaking stones,mu online items, digging

Segundo was able to sack 2rsula’s savings from time to time. They were a frivolous couple, with no other
worries except going to bed every night, even on forbidden days, and frolicking there until dawn. “That woman
has been your ruination,?2rsula would shout at her great-grandson when she saw him coming into the house like
a sleepwalker. “She’s got you so bewitched that one of these days I’m going to see you twisting around with
colic and with a toad in your belly.?Jos?Arcadio Segundo, who took a long time to discover that he had been
supplanted, was unable to understand his brother’s passion. He remembered Petra Cotes as an ordinary woman,
rather lazy in bed, and completely lacking in any resources for lovemaking. Deaf to 2rsula’s clamor and the
teasing of his brother, Aureliano Segundo only thought at that time of finding a trade that would allow him to
maintain a house for Petra Cotes, and to die with her, on top of her and underneath her, during a night of feverish
license. When Colonel Aureliano Buendaa opened up his workshop again,mu bless, seduced at last by the peaceful charms
of old age, Aureliano Segundo thought that it would be good business to devote himself to the manufacture of
little gold fishes. He spent many hours in the hot room watching how the hard sheets of metal, worked by the
colonel with the inconceivable patience of disillusionment, were slowly being converted into golden scales. The
work seemed so laborious to him and the thought of Petra Cotes was so persistent and pressing that after three
weeks he disappeared from the workshop. It was during that time that it occurred to Petra Cotes to raffle off
rabbits. They reproduced and grew up so fast that there was barely time to sell the tickets for the raffle. At first
Aureliano Segundo did not notice the alarming proportions of the proliferation. But one night,mu online items, when nobody in
town wanted to hear about the rabbit raffle any more, he heard a noise by the courtyard door. “Don’t get
worried,buy wow gold,?Petra, Cotes said. “It’s only the rabbits.?They could not sleep, tormented by the uproar of the animals.
At dawn Aureliano Segundo opened the door and saw the courtyard paved with rabbits, blue in the glow of
dawn. Petra Cotes, dying with laughter, could not resist the temptation of teasing him.
“Those are the ones who were born last night,runescape power leveling,?she aid.
“Oh my God!?he said. “Why don’t you raffle off cows??
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A few days later, in an attempt to clean out her courtyard, Petra Cotes exchanged the rabbits for a cow, who
two months later gave birth to triplets. That was how things began. Overnight Aureliano Segundo be. came the
owner of land and livestock and he barely had ti me to enlarge his overflowing barns and pigpens. It was a
delirious prosperity that even made him laugh, and he could not help doing crazy things to release his good
humor. “Cease, cows, life is short,?he would shout. 2rsula wondered what entanglements he had got into,
whether he might be stealing, whether he had become a rustler, and every time she saw him uncorking
champagne just for the pleasure of pouring the foam over his head, she would shout at him and scold him for the
waste. It annoyed him so much that one day when he awoke in a merry mood, Aureliano Segundo appeared with
a chest full of money, a can of paste, and a brush, and singing at the top of his lungs the old songs of Francisco
the Man, he papered the house inside and out and from top to bottom, with one-peso banknotes. The old
mansion, painted white since the time they had brought the pianola, took on the strange look of a mosque. In the

a bloody rivalry of leaders, it was impossible to determine any responsibility. The gold of the revolution,runescape power leveling, 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, 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,rs money, obeying a habit of her solitude,gw gold, and then she saw Jos?Arcadio Buendaa,
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,rs money, 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, Colonel Aureliano Buendaa did not put aside the possibility of

“You know better than I,?he said,wow power leveling, “that all courts-martial are farces and that you’re really paying for the crimes
of other people,buy world of warcraft gold, 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, 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,?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, 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,runescape power leveling,?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,cheap runescape money,?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, 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

death of Jos?Arcadio. But Rebeca was already beyond any vanity. After searching for it uselessly in the taste of
earth, in, the perfumed letters from Pietro Crespi, in the tempestuous bed of her husband,dungeon fighter gold, she had found peace in
that house where memories materialized through the strength of implacable evocation and walked like human
beings through the cloistered rooms, Leaning back in her wicker rocking chair,rs money, looking at Colonel Aureliano
Buendaa as if he were the one who looked like a ghost out of the past, Rebeca was not even upset by the news
that the lands usurped by Jos?Arcadio would be returned to their rightful owners.
“Whatever you decide will be done, Aureliano,?she sighed. “I always thought and now I have the proof that
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you’re a renegade.?
The revision of the deeds took place at the same time as the summary courts-martial presided over by Colonel
Gerineldo Mrquez, which ended with the execution of all officers of the regular army who had been taken
prisoner by the revolutionaries. The last court-martial was that of Jos?Raquel Moncada. 2rsula intervened. ‘”His
government was the best we’ve ever had in Macondo,?she told Colonel Aureliano Buendaa. “I don’t have to tell
you anything about his good heart, about his affection for us, because you know better than anyone.?Colonel
Aureliano Buendaa gave her a disapproving look.
“I can’t take over the job of administering justice,?he replied. “If you have something to say, tell it to the
court-martial.?
2rsula not only did that she also brought all of the mothers of the revolutionary officers who lived in Macondo
to testify. One by one the old women who had been founders of the town, several of whom had taken part in the
daring crossing of the mountains, praised the virtues of General Moncada. 2rsula was the last in line. Her
gloomy dignity, the weight of her name, the convincing vehemence of her declaration made the scale of justice
hesitate for a moment. “You have taken this horrible game very seriously and you have done well because you
are doing your duty,?she told the members of the court. “But don’t forget that as long as God gives us life we
will still be mothers and no matter how revolutionary you may be, we have the right to pull down your pants and
give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect.?The court retired to deliberate as those words still echoed in
the school that had been turned into a barracks. At midnight General Jos?Raquel Moncada was sentenced to
death. Colonel Aureliano Buendaa,wow power leveling, in spite of the violent recriminations of 2rsula, refused to commute the
sentence. A short while before dawn he visited the condemned man in the room used as a cell.
“Remember, old friend,runescape power leveling,?he told him. “I’m not shooting you. It’s the revolution that’s shooting you.?
General Moncada did not even get up from the cot when he saw him come in.
“Go to hell, friend,?he answered.
Until that moment, ever since his return. Colonel Aureliano Buendaa had not given himself the opportunity to
see him with his heart. He was startled to see how much he had aged, how his hands shook, and the rather
punctilious conformity with which he awaited death, and then he felt a great disgust with himself, which he
mingled with the beginnings of pity.

morning with their coat collars turned up about their ears, rubbing their hands, whispering, taking refuge in
dreary early-morning caf|s to speculate over what the president had meant when he said yes, or what he had
meant when he said no, and even to imagine what the president was thinking when he said something quite
different, as he chased away mosquitoes at a temperature of ninety-five degrees, feeling the approach of the
fearsome dawn when he would have to give his men the command to jump into the sea.
One night of uncertainty, when Pilar Ternera was singing in the courtyard with the soldiers,cheap aion kina, he asked her to
read the future in her cards. “Watch out for your mouth,?was all that Pilar Ternera brought out after spreading
and picking up the cards three times. “I don’t know what it means, but the sign is very clear. Watch out for your
mouth.?Two days later someone gave an orderly a mug of black coffee and the orderly passed it on to someone
else and that one to someone else until, hand to hand, it reached Colonel Aureliano Buendaa office. He had not
asked for any coffee, but since it was there the colonel drank it. It had a dose of nux vomica strong enough to kill
a horse. When they took him home he was stiff and arched and his tongue was sticking out between his teeth.
2rsula fought against death over him. After cleaning out his stomach with emetics, she wrapped him in hot
blankets and fed him egg whites for two days until his harrowed body recovered its normal temperature. On the
fourth day he was out of danger. Against his will, pressured by 2rsula and his officers, he stayed in bed for
another week. Only then did he learn that his verses had not been burned. “I didn’t want to be hasty,?2rsula
explained to him. “That night when I went to light the oven I said to myself that it would be better to wait until
they brought the body.?In the haze of convalescence,runescape power leveling, surrounded by Remedios?dusty dolls, Colonel Aureliano
Buendaa, brought back the decisive periods of his existence by reading his poetry. He started writing again. For
many hours, balancing on the edge of the surprises of a war with no future, in rhymed verse he resolved his
experience on the shores of death. Then his thoughts became so clear that he was able to examine them forward
and backward. One night he asked Colonel Gerineldo Mrquez:
“Tell me something, old friend: why are you fighting??
“What other reason could there be??Colonel Gerineldo Mrquez answered. “For the great liberal party.?
“You’re lucky because you know why,?he answered. “As far as I’m concerned,buy 2moons gold, I’ve come to realize only just
?62 312188 3
now that I’m fighting because of pride.?
“That’s bad,world of warcraft gold,?Colonel Gerineldo Mrquez said. Colonel Aureliano Buendaa was amused at his alarm.
“Naturally,?he said. “But in any case, it’s better than not knowing why you’re fighting.?He looked him in the
eyes and added with a smile:
“Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn’t have any meaning for anyone.?
His pride had prevented him from making contact with the armed groups in the interior of the country until the
leaders of the party publicly rectified their declaration that he was a bandit. He knew, however, that as soon as he
put those scruples aside he would break the vicious circle of the war. Convalescence gave him time to reflect.
Then he succeeded in getting 2rsula to give him the rest of her buried inheritance and her substantial savings. He
named Colonel Gerineldo Mrquez civil and military leader of Macondo and he went off to make contact with

distributed by Jos?Arcadio Buendaa at the time of the founding, and he thought it possible to prove that his father
had been crazy ever since that time, for he had disposed of a patrimony that really belonged to the family. It was
an unnecessary allegation, because Arcadio had not come to do justice. He simply offered to set up a registry
office so that Jos?Arcadio could legalize his title to the usurped land, under the condition that he delegate to the
local government the right to collect the contributions. They made an agreement. Years later, when Colonel
Aureliano Buendaa examined the titles to property, he found registered in his brother’s name all of the land
between the hill where his yard was on up to the horizon, including the cemetery, and discovered that during the
eleven months of his rule, Arcadio had collected not only the money of the contributions, but had also collected
fees from people for the right to bury their dead in Jos?Arcadio’s land.
It took 2rsula several months to find out what was already public knowledge because people hid it from her so
as not to increase her suffering. At first she suspected it. “Arcadio is building a house,?she confided with feigned
pride to her husband as she tried to put a spoonful of calabash syrup into his mouth. Nevertheless, she
involuntarily sighed and said, “I don’t know why, but all this has a bad smell to me.?Later on, when she found
out that Arcadio had not only built a house but had ordered some Viennese furniture,mabinogi gold, she confirmed her suspicion
that he was using public funds. “You’re the shame of our family name,?she shouted at him one Sunday after
mass when she saw him in his new house playing cards with his officers. Arcadio paid no attention to her. Only
then did 2rsula know that he had a six-month-old daughter and that Santa Sofaa de la Piedad, with whom he was
living outside of marriage, was pregnant again. She decided to write to Colonel Aureliano Buendaa, wherever he
was, to bring him up to date on the situation. But the fast-moving events of those days not only prevented her
plans from being carried out, they made her regret having conceived them. The war, which until then had been
only a word to designate a vague and remote circumstance, became a concrete and dramatic reality. Around the
end of February an old woman with an ashen look arrived in Macondo riding a donkey loaded down with
brooms. She seemed so inoffensive that the sentries let her pass without any questions as another vendor, one of
the many who often arrived from the towns in the swamp. She went directly to the barracks. Arcadio received her
in the place where the classroom used to be and which at that time had been transformed into a kind of rearguard
encampment, with roiled hammocks hanging on hooks and mats piled up in the corners, and rifles and carbines
and even hunting shotguns scattered on the floor. The old woman stiffened into a military salute before
identifying herself:
“I am Colonel Gregorio Stevenson.?
He brought bad news. The last centers of Liberal resistance,rs gold, according to what he said, were being wiped out.
Colonel Aureliano Buendaa, whom he had left fighting in retreat near Riohacha,runescape power leveling, had given him a message for
Arcadio. He should surrender the town without resistance on the condition that the lives and property of Liberals
would be respected. Arcadio examined that strange messenger who could have been a fugitive grandmother with
a look of pity.
“You have brought something in writing, naturally,cheap tales of pirates gold,?he said.
“Naturally,?the emissary answered, “I have brought nothing of the sort. It’s easy to understand that under the
present circumstances a person can’t carry anything that would compromise him.?
As he was speaking he reached into his bodice and took out a small gold fish. “I think that this will be
sufficient,?he said. Arcadio could see that indeed it was one of the little fishes made by Colonel Aureliano
Buendaa. But anyone could have bought it before the war or stolen it, and it had no merit as a safe-conduct pass.

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, murderer!?she
shouted. “And kill me too, 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,wow power leveling, 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,runescape power leveling, 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,buy wow gold, 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,ro zeny, 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, 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, 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