ox, and the name of Alexander von
Humboldt. Arcadio got a little closer to him when he began
to help Aureliano in his silverwork. Melquiades answered
that effort at communication at times by giving forth with
phrases in Spanish that had very little to do with reality. One
afternoon, however, he seemed to be illuminated by a sudden
emotion. Years later, facing the firing squad, Arcadio would
remember the trembling with which Melqufades made him
listen to several pages of his impenetrable writing, which of
course he did not understand, but which when read aloud
were like encyclicals being chanted. Then he smiled for the
first time in a long while and said in Spanish: "When I die,
burn mercury in my room for three days." Arcadio told that
to Jose Arcadio Buendia and the latter tried to get more
explicit infonnation, but he received only one answer: "I
have found immortality." When Melqufades'' breathing
began to smell, Arcadio took him to bathe in the river on
Thursday mornings. He seemed to get better. He would un
dress and get into the water with the boys, and his mysterious
sense of orientation would allow him to avoid the deep and
dangerous spots. "We come from the water," he said on a
certain occasion. Much time passed in that way without any
one''s seeing him in the house except on the night when he