One Hundred Years of Solitude

with a hallucinated glow in
his eyes, the claws of ridicule
tore at her. Not only did she
refuse him permission, but
from then on she carried the
keys to the house in the
pocket where she kept the
unused pessaries. It was a
useless precaution because if
he had wanted to, Aureliano
could have escaped and even
returned to the house without
being seen. But the prolonged
captivity, the uncertainty of