LOVE in the TIME of CHOLERA BOOK SUMMARY

CHAPTER ONE IT WAS INEVITABLE: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love. Dr. Juvenal Urbino noticed it as soon as he entered the still darkened house where he had hurried on an urgent call to attend a case that for him had lost all urgency many years before. The Antillean refugee Jeremiah de Saint- Amour, disabled war veteran, photographer of children, and his...

CHAPTER TWO FLORENTINO ARIZA, on the other hand, had not stopped thinking of her for a single moment since Fermina Daza had rejected him out of hand after a long and troubled love affair fifty-one years, nine months, and four days ago. He did not have to keep a running tally, drawing a line for each day on the walls of a cell, because not a day had passed that something did not happen to remind hi...

CHAPTER THREE AT THE AGE of twenty-eight, Dr. Juvenal Urbino had been the most desirable of bachelors. He had returned from a long stay in Paris, where he had completed advanced studies in medicine and surgery, and from the time he set foot on solid ground he gave overwhelming indications that he had not wasted a minute of his time. He returned more fastidious than when he left, more in control of...

CHAPTER FOUR THE DAY THAT Florentino Ariza saw Fermina Daza in the atrium of the Cathedral, in the sixth month of her pregnancy and in full command of her new condition as a woman of the world, he made a fierce decision to win fame and fortune in order to deserve her. He did not even stop to think about the obstacle of her being married, because at the same time he decided, as if it depended on hi...

CHAPTER FIVE ON THE OCCASION of the celebration of the new century, there was an innovative program of public ceremonies, the most memorable of which was the first journey in a balloon, the fruit of the boundless initiative of Dr. Juvenal Urbino. Half the city gathered on the Arsenal Beach to express their wonderment at the ascent of the enormous balloon made of taffeta in the colors of the flag,...

CHAPTER SIX FERMINA DAZA could not have imagined that her letter, inspired by blind rage, would have been interpreted by Florentino Ariza as a love letter. She had put into it all the fury of which she was capable, her crudest words, the most wounding, most unjust vilifica- tions, which still seemed minuscule to her in light of the enormity of the offense. It was the final act in a bitter exorcism...