One Hundred Years of Solitude

the tent.

            Colonel,    he  said,   please  do

us the favor of not being the
first to sign.

            Colonel Aureliano   Buendía

acceded. When the
documents went all around
the table, in the midst of a
silence that was so pure that
one could have deciphered
the signatures from the
scratching of the pen on the
paper, the first line was still