One Hundred Years of Solitude

morning, the disorder of his
workshop, his frayed blanket,
and his custom of sitting in
the street door at dusk. But
she had to tolerate that one
loose piece in the family
machinery because she was
sure that the old colonel was
an animal who had been
tamed by the years and by
disappointment and who, in a
burst of senile rebellion, was
quite capable of uprooting the
foundations of the house.