One Hundred Years of Solitude

together even a trivial
conversation with him. She
knew that he did not look at
the dishes of food but would
put them at one end of his
workbench while he finished
a little fish and it did not
matter to him if the soup
curdled or if the meat got
cold. He grew harder and
harder ever since Colonel
Gerineldo Márquez refused to
back him up in a senile war.
He locked himself up inside