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 through which she was attempting to

come to terms with

her new situation. She wanted to be herself again, to recover all that she

had been obliged

to give up in half a century of servitude that had doubtless made her happy

but which,

once her husband was dead, did not leave her even the vestiges of her

identity.