Free Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez, Edith Grossman Page B

the black cape and military sword of the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher. At his side, in complete mourning, tremulous, hardly moving, but very much in control of herself, Fermina Daza received condolenceswith no greatdisplay of feeling until eleven the following morning, when she bade farewell to her husband from the portico, waving goodbye with a handkerchief.
    It had not been easy for her to regain her self-control after she heard Digna Pardo’s shriek in the patio and found the old man of her life dying in the mud. Her first reaction was one of hope, because his eyes were open and shining witha radiant light she had never seen there before. She prayed to God to give him at least a moment so that he would not go without knowing how much she had loved him despite all their doubts, and she felt an irresistible longing to begin life with him over again so that they could say what they had left unsaid and do everything right that they had done badly in the past. But she had to give in tothe intransigence of death. Her grief exploded into a blind rage against the world, even against herself, and that is what filled her with the control and the courage to face her solitude alone. From that time on she had no peace, but she was careful about any gesture that might seem to betray her grief. The only moment of pathos, although it was involuntary, occurred at eleven o’clock Sunday nightwhen they brought in the episcopal coffin, still smelling of ship’s wax, with its copper handles and tufted silk lining. Dr. Urbino Daza ordered it closed without delay since the air in the house was already rarefied with the heady fragrance of so many flowers in the sweltering heat, and he thought he had seen the first purplish shadows on his father’s neck. An absent-minded voice was heard inthe silence: “At that age you’re half decayed while you’re still alive.” Before they closed the coffin Fermina Daza took off her wedding ring and put it on her dead husband’s finger, and then she covered his hand with hers, as she always did when she caught him digressing in public.
    “We will see each other very soon,” she said to him.
    Florentino Ariza, unseen in the crowd of notable personages,felt a piercing pain in his side. Fermina Daza had not recognized him in the confusion of the first condolences, although no one would be more ready to serve or more useful during the night’s urgent business. It was he who imposed order in the crowded kitchens so that there would be enough coffee. He found additional chairs when the neighbors’ proved insufficient, and he ordered the extra wreathsto be put in the patio when there was no more room in the house. Hemade certain there was enough brandy for Dr. Lácides Olivella’s guests, who had heard the bad news at the height of the silver anniversary celebration and had rushed in to continue the party, sitting in a circle under the mango tree. He was the only one who knew how to react when the fugitive parrot appeared in the dining roomat midnight with his head high and his wings spread, which caused a stupefied shudder to run through the house, for it seemed a sign of repentance. Florentino Ariza seized him by the neck before he had time to shout any of his witless stock phrases, and he carried him to the stable in a covered cage. He did everything this way, with so much discretion and such efficiency that it did not even occurto anyone that it might be an intrusion in other people’s affairs; on the contrary, it seemed a priceless service when evil times had fallen on the house.
    He was what he seemed: a useful and serious old man. His body was bony and erect, his skin dark and clean-shaven, his eyes avid behind round spectacles in silver frames, and he wore a romantic, old-fashioned mustache with waxed tips. He combedthe last tufts of hair at his temples upward and plastered them with brilliantine to the middle of his shining skull as a solution to total baldness. His natural gallantry and