One Hundred Years of Solitude

keys on which her spiritual
adviser had marked in purple
ink the dates of venereal
abstinence. Not counting
Holy week, Sundays, holy
days of obligation, first
Fridays, retreats, sacrifices,
and cyclical impediments, her
effective year was reduced to
forty-two days that were
spread out through a web of
purple crosses. Aureliano
Segundo, convinced that time
would break up that hostile