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2016/12/05 15:59:49瀏覽238|回應0|推薦0 | |
She had the resources to do so. In addition to the cash income from the notions store and thehemostatic rags, which sufficed for her modest life, she had multiplied her savings by lendingthem to a clientele made up of the embarrassed new poor, who accepted her excessive interestrates for the sake of her discretion. Ladies with the airs of queens descended from their carriagesat the entrance to the notions shop liqua ejuice , unencumbered by nursemaids or servants, and as theypretended to buy Holland laces and passementerie trimmings, they pawned, between sobs, the lastglittering ornaments of their lost paradise. Tr sito Ariza rescued them from difficulties with somuch consideration for their lineage that many of them left more grateful for the honour than forthe favour they had received. In less than ten years she knew the jewels, so often redeemed andthen tearfully pawned again, as if they had been her own, and at the time her son decided to marry,the profits, converted into gold, lay hidden in a clay jar under her bed. Then she did her accountsand discovered not only that she could undertake to keep the rented house standing for five years,but that with the same shrewdness and a little more luck she could perhaps buy it, before she died,for the twelve grandchildren she hoped to have. Florentino Ariza, for his part, had receivedprovisional appointment as First Assistant at the telegraph office, and Lotario Thugut wanted himto head the office when he left to direct the School of Telegraphy and Magnetism, which heexpected to do the following year. So the practical side of the marriage was resolved. Still, Tr sito Ariza thought that twofinal conditions were prudent. The first was to find out who Lorenzo Daza really was nu skin hk , for thoughhis accent left no doubt concerning his origins, no one had any certain information as to hisidentity and livelihood. The second was that the engagement be a long one so that the fianc閟could come to know each other person to person, and that the strictest reserve be maintained untilboth felt very certain of their affections. She suggested they wait until the war was over. Florentino Ariza agreed to absolute secrecy, not only for his mother's reasons but because of thehermeticism of his own character. He also agreed to the delay, but its terms seemed unrealistic tohim, since in over half a century of independent life the nation had not had a single day of civilpeace. "We'll grow old waiting," he said. His godfather, the homoeopathic practitioner, who happened to be taking part in theconversation, did not believe that the wars were an obstacle. He thought they were nothing morethan the struggles of the poor, driven like oxen by the landowners, against barefoot soldiers whowere driven in turn by the government derma 21 medical . "The war is in the mountains," he said. "For as long as I can remember, they have killed us inthe cities with decrees, not with bullets."In any case, the details of the engagement were settled in their letters during the weeks thatfollowed. Fermina Daza, on the advice of her Aunt Escol tica, accepted both the two-yearextension and the condition of absolute secrecy, and suggested that Florentino Ariza ask for herhand when she finished secondary school, during the Christmas vacation. When the time camethey would decide on how the engagement was to be formalised, depending on the degree ofapproval she obtained from her father. In the meantime, they continued to write to each other withthe same ardour and frequency, but free of the turmoil they had felt before, and their letters tendedtoward a domestic tone that seemed appropriate to husband and wife. Nothing disturbed theirdreams. |
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