One Hundred Years of Solitude: Chapter 19 Summary & Analysis

Amaranta Úrsula returns home from Brussels, leading her husband, Gaston, on a silk leash. She arrives with loads of luggage including a cage of 50 canaries and her husband’s velocipede. She wastes no time in trying to fix up the house again, getting rid of many of the old family relics, with the exception of the daguerreotype of Remedios on the wall. She is vibrant and beautiful and social compared to the solitary young man living in the house. It becomes clear that she intends to remain in Macondo for the rest of her life, despite it being a dead town.

Even a year after her return, having made no friends and thrown no parties, Amaranta Úrsula remains convinced she can revive Macondo. Gaston can tell that his wife is lost in a nostalgic memory of the town, rather than the true and present state of it. He delays putting together his bicycle, sure that Amaranta Úrsula will awaken from her nostalgia any minute, but when she doesn’t, he puts the bike together and begins gather bug specimens to send home to his natural history professor.

The couple is passionate about each other, making love wherever and whenever the moods strikes. Gaston’s true passion is aviation, and they met when he rode his biplane over the convent where Amaranta Úrsula went to school. While Gaston takes to the native food and culture, Amaranta Úrsula eats only imported frozen fish and shellfish and canned meats and continues dressing in the European style. They have resolved to wait five years to have children.

Gaston visits Aureliano and gets the sense that he uses the books he buys at the Catalonian’s store to verify the knowledge he already innately knows, rather than to teach himself something new. Aureliano is hermetic though and unwilling to participate in family life with the couple, and so Gaston seeks out a new interest for himself, devising a plan for an airmail service. He had conceived of it prior to his arrival in Macondo, but had envisioned it being put to use in the Belgian Congo where his family had investments in palm oil. He reconnects with his Belgian partners and prepares a landing field. His partners agree to ship the first airplane and a mechanic, but a year later, the plane still has not arrived.

Aureliano wanders Macondo, trying to reconstruct a memory of what the town might have been like at its height. He talks to the remaining residents and no one can remember the Buendía family, except a single old black man. The man’s granddaughter, Nigromanta, makes them soup and they continue their friendship even after the old man dies, until Nigromanta warns Aureliano that he is scaring off her customers.

Aureliano, still a virgin, feels an attraction to Amaranta Úrsula, who he now knows to be his aunt. Overcome with the agony of listening to his aunt and Gaston make love, he asks Amaranta Úrsula to give him some money and takes it to purchase Nigromanta’s services. They become lovers and Nigromanta dreams of marrying Aureliano, until he tells her he is in love with Amaranta Úrsula. After this, Nigromanta requires Aureliano pay for her services. 

One afternoon at the Catalonian’s store, Aureliano joins the conversation of four young men discussing methods of killing cockroaches in the Middle Ages. He gathers with these young men each afternoon for the rest of his life. The afternoon of their meeting, the young men go to a brothel, which they continue to frequent together. When Aureliano discusses Colonel Aureliano Buendía, only his friend Gabriel Márquez believes him because he knows the man was a close friend of his own great-great-grandfather Colonel Gerineldo Márquez. Similarly, when Aureliano brings up the history of the massacre, people deny that even the banana company every existed.

Lonely, one day Amaranta Úrsula appears in Aureliano’s room wearing a dress and a fish vertebra necklace she’s made. Aureliano tells her about the prophecies and puts his hand on hers. They remain like that until Amaranta Úrsula remembers that today is the day to put quicklime on the ants and she runs off to take care of the task. She continues to visit Aureliano occasionally and Aureliano begins to have meals with the couple. Gaston’s Belgian partners claim the plane was shipped, but the plane never arrives. Gaston mentions the possibility of going to Brussels to clear up the confusion and hasten the arrival of the plane. One afternoon, Amaranta Úrsula cuts herself on a can and Aureliano kisses the wound and reveals his love for her. She calls him a fool, and tells him she’s leaving for Belgium soon.

One of Aureliano’s friends tells them about a zoological brothel which they go to visit. Outside the entrance, an old woman exclaims, “Aureliano!” thinking she has seen Colonel Aureliano Buendía. It is Pilar Ternera, over 145 years old. Aureliano begins to visit her regularly to hear about the history of Macondo. On the afternoon that Amaranta Úrsula rebuffs him, Aureliano runs to the comforts of Pilar Ternera. When he tells her who he is crying over, she laughs at the predictable repetitions of the Buendía family. She assures him that Amaranta Úrsula is waiting for him. Back home, Aureliano follows Amaranta Úrsula out of the bath. At first Amaranta Úrsula resists, but then she gives in, enjoying herself.