One Hundred Years of Solitude

past, she thought, children
took a long time to grow up.
All one had to do was
remember all the time needed
for José Arcadio, the elder, to
go away with the gypsies and
all that happened before he
came back painted like a
snake and talking like an
astronomer, and the things
that happened in the house
before Amaranta and Arcadio
forgot the language of the
Indians and learned Spanish.