Love in the Time of Cholera (53 page)
Read Love in the Time of Cholera Online
Authors: Gabriel García Márquez,Edith Grossman
When there was nothing left to eat on the plates, the Captain wiped his lips with a corner of the tablecloth and broke into indecent slang that
ended once and for all the reputation for fine speech enjoyed by the riverboat captains. For he was not speaking to them or to anyone else, but was trying instead to come to terms with his own rage. His conclusion, after a string of barbaric curses, was that he could find no way out of the mess he had gotten into with the cholera flag.
Florentino Ariza listened to him without blinking. Then he
looked
through the windows at the complete circle of the quadrant on the mariner’s compass, the clear horizon, the December sky without a single cloud, the waters that could be navigated forever, and he said:
“Let us keep going, going, going, back to La Dorada.”
Fermina Daza shuddered because she recognized his former voice, illuminated by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and she looked at the
Captain: he was their destiny. But the Captain did not see her because he was stupefied by Florentino Ariza’s tremendous powers of inspiration.
“Do you mean what you say?” he asked.
“From the moment I was born,” said Florentino Ariza, “I have never said anything I did not mean.”
The Captain looked at Fermina Daza and saw on her eyelashes the first glimmer of wintry frost. Then he looked at
Florentino Ariza, his invincible power, his intrepid love, and he was overwhelmed by the belated suspicion that it is life, more than death, that has no limits.
“And how long do you think we can keep up this goddamn coming and going?” he asked.
Florentino Ariza had kept his answer ready for fifty-three years, seven months, and eleven days and nights.
“Forever,” he said.
CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD
COLLECTED STORIES
IN EVIL HOUR
INNOCENT ERENDIRA AND OTHER STORIES
LEAF STORM
LIVING TO TELL THE TALE
MEMORIES OF MY MELANCHOLY WHORES
NEWS OF A KIDNAPPING
NO ONE WRITES TO THE COLONEL
OF LOVE AND OTHER DEMONS
ONE HUNDRED YEARS
OF SOLITUDE
STRANGE PILGRIMS
THE AUTUMN OF THE PATRIARCH
THE GENERAL IN HIS LABYRINTH
THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECKED SAILOR
‘My favourite book by one of the world’s greatest authors. You’re in the hands of a master’ Mariella Frostrup
‘On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop
was coming on …’
When newly-wed Ángela Vicario and Bayardo San Román are left to their wedding night, Bayardo discovers that his new wife is no virgin. Disgusted, he returns Ángela to her family home that very night, where her humiliated mother beats her savagely and her two brothers demand to know her violator, whom she names as Santiago Nasar.
As he wakes to thoughts of the previous night’s
revelry, Santiago is unaware of the slurs that have been cast against him. But with Ángela’s brothers set on avenging their family honour, soon the whole town knows who they plan to kill, where, when and why.
‘A masterpiece’
Evening Standard
‘A work of high explosiveness – the proper stuff of Nobel prizes. An exceptional novel’
The Times
‘Brilliant writer, brilliant book’
Guardian
‘The stories are rich and unsettling, confident and eloquent. They are magical’ John Updike
Sweeping through crumbling towns, travelling fairs and windswept ports, Gabriel García Márquez introduces a host of extraordinary characters and communities
in his mesmerising tales of everyday life: smugglers, bagpipers, the President and Pope at the funeral of Macondo’s revered matriarch; a very old angel with enormous wings. Teeming with the magical oddities for which his novels are loved, Márquez’s stories are a delight.
‘These stories abound with love affairs, ruined beauty, and magical women. It is essence of Márquez’
Guardian
‘Of all the
living authors known to me, only one is undoubtedly touched by genius: Gabriel García Márquez’
Sunday Telegraph
‘Márquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no one else can do’ Salman Rushdie
‘A masterly book’
Guardian
‘César Montero was dreaming about elephants. He’d seen them at the movies on Sunday …’
Only moments later, César is led away by police as they clear the crowds away from the man he has just killed.
But César is not the only
man to be riled by the rumours being spread in his Colombian hometown – under the cover of darkness, someone creeps through the streets sticking malicious posters to walls and doors. Each night the respectable townsfolk retire to their beds fearful that they will be the subject of the following morning’s lampoons.
As paranoia seeps through the town and the delicate veil of tranquility begins
to slip, can the perpetrator be uncovered before accusation and violence leave the inhabitants’ sanity in tatters?
‘
In Evil Hour
was the book which was to inspire my own career as a novelist. I owe my writing voice to that one book!’ Jim Crace
‘Belongs to the very best of Márquez’s work … Should on no account be missed’
Financial Times
‘A splendid achievement’
The Times
