Florentino Ariza wrote every night. Letter by letter, he had no mercy as he poisoned himselfwith the smoke from the palm oil lamps in the back room of the notions shop, and his lettersbecame more discursive and more lunatic the more he tried to imitate his favourite poets from thePopular Library, which even at that time was approaching eighty volumes. His mother, who hadurged him with so much fervour to enjoy his torment, became concerned for his health. "You aregoing to wear out your brains," she shouted at him from the bedroom when she heard the firstroosters crow. "No woman is worth all that." She could not remember ever having known anyonein such a state of unbridled passion. But he paid no attention to her seo service provider .
Sometimes he went to theoffice without having slept, his hair in an uproar of love after leaving the letter in the prearrangedhiding place so that Fermina Daza would find it on her way to school. She, on the other hand,under the watchful eye of her father and the vicious spying of the nuns, could barely manage to fillhalf a page from her notebook when she locked herself in the bathroom or pretended to take notesin class. But this was not only due to her limited time and the danger of being taken by surprise, itwas also her nature that caused her letters to avoid emotional pitfalls and confine themselves torelating the events of her daily life in the utilitarian style of a ship's log. In reality they weredistracted letters, intended to keep the coals alive without putting her hand in the fire, whileFlorentino Ariza burned himself alive in every line. Desperate to infect her with his own madness,he sent her miniaturist's verses inscribed with the point of a pin on camellia petals. It was he, notshe, who had the audacity to enclose a lock of his hair in one letter, but he never received theresponse he longed for, which was an entire strand of Fermina Daza's braid. He did move her atlast to take one step further, and from that time on she began to send him the veins of leaves driedin dictionaries, the wings of butterflies, the feathers of magic birds, and for his birthday she gavehim a square centimetre of St dermes vs medilase .
Peter Clavier's habit, which in those days was being sold in secret ata price far beyond the reach of a schoolgirl her age. One night, without any warning, FerminaDaza awoke with a start: a solo violin was serenading her, playing the same waltz over and overagain. She shuddered when she realised that each note was an act of thanksgiving for the petalsfrom her herbarium, for the moments stolen from arithmetic to write her letters, for her fear ofexaminations when she was thinking more about him than about the natural sciences, but she didnot dare believe that Florentino Ariza was capable of such imprudence.
The next morning at breakfast Lorenzo Daza could not contain his curiosity--first because hedid not know what playing a single piece meant in the language of serenades, and second because,despite the attention with which he had listened, he could not determine which house it had beenintended for. Aunt Escol tica, with a sangfroid that took her niece's breath away, stated that shehad seen through the bedroom curtains that the solitary violinist was standing on the other side ofthe park, and she said that in any event a single piece was notification of severed relations. In thatday's letter Florentino Ariza confirmed that he had played the serenade, that he had composed thewaltz, and that it bore the name he called Fermina Daza in his heart: "The Crowned Goddess." Hedid not play it in the park again, but on moonlit nights in places chosen so that she could listenwithout fear in her bedroom. One of his favoured spots was the paupers' cemetery, exposed to thesun and the rain on an indigent hill, where turkey buzzards dozed and the music achieved asupernatural resonance. Later he learned to recognise the direction of the winds, and in this way hewas certain that his melody carried as far as it had to dermes vs medilase .
