The day that she saw him
pass by her bedroom she thought that Pietro Crespi was
a sugary dandy next to that protomale whose volcanic breathing could be heard all
over the house. She tried to get near him under any pretext. On a certain
occasion José Arcadio looked at her body with shameless attention and said to
her “You’re a woman, little sister.” Rebeca lost control of herself. She went
back to eating earth and the whitewash on the walls with the avidity of previous
days, and she sucked her finger with so much anxiety that she developed a
callus on her thumb. She vomited up a green liquid with dead leeches in it. She
spent nights awake shaking with fever, fighting against delirium, waiting until
the house shook with the return of José Arcadio at dawn.
ONE HUNDRED
YEARS OF SOLITUDE
GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUES
GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUES