"He did not dare tell her the news. He assumed an attitude that was quite childish under the circumstances, feigning anger and imaginary resentment so that Petra Cotes would be the one who would bring about the break. One day, when Aureliano Segundo reproached her unjustly, she eluded the trap and put things in their proper place.“What it all means,” she said, “is that you want to marry the queen.” Aureliano Segundo, ashamed, pretended an attack of rage, said that he was misunderstood and abused, and did not visit her again. Petra Cotes, without losing her poise of a wild beast in repose for a single instant, heard the music and the fireworks from the wedding, the wild bustle of the celebration as if all of it were nothing but some new piece of mischief on the part of Aureliano Segundo."
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE
Such was the narrowness imposed
in the house that Aureliano Segundo felt more comfortable at Petra Cotes’s.
First, with the pretext of taking the burden off his wife, he transferred his parties.
Then, with the pretext that the animals were losing their fertility, he
transferred his barns and stables. Finally, with the pretext that it was cooler
in his concubine’s house, he transferred the small office in which he handled
his business. When Fernanda realized that she was a widow whose husband had still
not died, it was already too late for things to return to their former state.
Aureliano Segundo barely ate at home and the only appearances he put in, such
as to sleep with his wife, were not enough to convince anyone. One night, out
of carelessness, morning found him in Petra Cotes’s bed. Fernanda, contrary to expectations,
did not reproach him in the least or give the slightest sigh of resentment, but
on the same day she sent two trunks with his clothing to the house of his
concubine. She sent them in broad daylight and with instructions that they be carried
through the middle of the street so that everyone could see them, thinking that
her straying husband would be unable to bear the shame and would return to the
fold with his head hung low. But that heroic gesture was just one more proof of
how poorly Fernanda knew not only the character of her husband but the character
of a community that had nothing to do with that of her parents, for everyone
who saw the trunks pass by said that it was the natural culmination of a story
whose intimacies were known to everyone, and Aureliano Segundo celebrated the
freedom he had received with a party that lasted for three days.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE
GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUES
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