One Hundred Years of Solitude

years ahead of time. He had
written it in Sanskrit, which
was his mother tongue, and
he had encoded the even lines
in the private cipher of the
Emperor Augustus and the
odd ones in a Lacedemonian
military code. The final
protection, which Aureliano
had begun to glimpse when
he let himself be confused by
the love of Amaranta Úrsula,
was based on the fact that
Melquíades had not put