# Quote — Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

> While [Aureliano Segundo] was shut up in Melquíades room he was drawn into himself, like how Coronel Aurelian Buendía had been in his youth. But just before the treaty of Neerlandia a piece of chance took him out of his withdrawn self and made him face the reality of the world. A young woman who was selling numbers for the raffle of an accordion greeted him with a great deal of familiarity. Aureliano Segundo was not surprised, for he was frequently confused with his brother. But he did not clear up the mistake, not even when the girl tried to soften his heart with sobs, and she ended taking him to her room. […] Aureliano Segundo realized that the woman had been going to bed alternately with him and his brother, thinking that they were the same man, and instead of making things clear, he arranged to prolong the situation. He did not return to Melquíades' room. […]
>
> For almost two months he shared the woman with his brother.[…] One morning he discovered that he was sick. Two days later he found his brother clinging to a beam in the bathroom. […] José Arcadio Segundo did not see the woman again. Aureliano Segundo obtained her pardon and stayed with her until his death.

- Author: [Gabriel Garcia Marquez](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gabriel-garcia-marquez.md)
- Book: [One Hundred Years of Solitude](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gabriel-garcia-marquez/one-hundred-years-of-solitude.md)
- Page: 228
- Original (es): Mientras estuvo encerrado en el cuarto de Melquíades fue un hombre ensimismado, como lo fue el coronel Aureliano Buendía en su juventud. Pero poco antes del tratado de Neerlandia una casualidad lo sacó de su ensimismamiento y lo enfrentó a la realidad del mundo. Una mujer joven, que andaba vendiendo números para la rifa de un acordeón, lo saludó con mucha familiaridad. Aureliano Segundo no se sorprendió porque ocurría con frecuencia que lo confundieran con su hermano. Pero no aclaró el equívoco, ni siquiera cuando la muchacha trató de ablandarle el corazón con lloriqueos, y terminó por llevarlo a su cuarto.[…] Al cabo de dos semanas, Aureliano Segundo se dio cuenta de que la mujer se había estado acostando alternativamente con él y con su hermano, creyendo que eran el mismo hombre, y en vez de aclarar la situación se las arregló para prolongarla. No volvió al cuarto de Melquíades.[…] / Durante casi dos mese compartió la mujer con su hermano. […] Una mañana descubrió que estaba enfermo. Dos días después encontró a su hermano aferrado a una viga del baño.[…] José Arcadio Segundo no volvió a ver a la mujer. Aureliano Segundo obtuvo su perdón y se quedó con ella hasta la muerte.
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/One_Hundred_Years_of_Solitude#Chapters_VI_through_X) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/gabriel-garcia-marquez/one-hundred-years-of-solitude/while-aureliano-segundo

## More from this book

> One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship.

p. 337 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gabriel-garcia-marquez/one-hundred-years-of-solitude/one-minute-of-reconciliation.md)

> When the pirate Sir Francis Drake attacked Riohacha in the sixteenth century, Úrsula Iguarán's great-great-grandmother became so frightened with the ringing of alarm bells and the firing of cannons that she lost control of her nerves and sat down on a lighted stove. The burns changed her into a useless wife for the rest of her days. [ . . . ] Her husband, an Aragonese merchant by whom she had two children, spent half the value of his store on medicines and pastimes in an attempt to alleviate her terror. Finally he sold the business and took the family to live far from the sea in a settlement of peaceful Indians [ . . . ] Several centuries later the great-great-grandson of the native-born planter married the great-great-granddaughter of the Aragonese. Therefore, every time that Úrsula became exercised over her husband’s mad ideas, she would leap back over three hundred years of fate and curse the day that Sir Francis Drake had attacked Riohacha.

p. 30 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gabriel-garcia-marquez/one-hundred-years-of-solitude/when-the-pirate.md)

> Aureliano gave her a look that wrapped her in an atmosphere of uncertainty.
>
> "Somebody is coming," he told her.
>
> Úrsula, as she did whenever he made a prediction, tried to break it down with her housewifely logic. It was normal for someone to be coming.

p. 55 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gabriel-garcia-marquez/one-hundred-years-of-solitude/aureliano-gave-her.md)