Until August

by Gabriel García Márquez

However, it would take several days before Ana Magdalena became aware that the changes were not to the world but to herself. She had always gone through life without looking at it, and only that year upon her return from the island did she begin to see it with chastened eyes.

“Do you know how old I am?” “I can’t imagine you are any age,” he said. “Just as old as you want to be.”

they threw themselves into the inconceivable pleasure of brute force subjugated by tenderness.

Never had they been happier than they were then. They understood each other without speaking, laughed their heads off at their own mischief, and made such reckless love they seemed like teenagers.

What made her most indignant was not having anything to reproach her date for. His only fault had been not trying to seduce her: not even a compliment on her radiant lioness eyes or her flowing conversation or her musical knowledge.

Only then did the daughter glimpse the reason her mother had taken those trips the six years before she died. She considered that her mother’s reason—her mother’s passion—might be the same as hers, and surprised herself with the analogy. She did not feel sad but rather encouraged by the realization that the miracle of her life was to have continued that of her dead mother.