“If you don’t fear God, fear him through the metals.
Suddenly, almost five months after her disappearance, ?rsula came back. She arrived exalted, rejuvenated, with new clothes in a style that was unknown in the village. Jos?Arcadio Buendía could barely stand up under the impact. “That was it!?he shouted. “I knew it was going to happen.?And he really believed it, for during his prolonged imprisonment as he manipulated the material, he begged in the depth of his heart that the longed-for miracle should not be the discovery of the philosopher’s stone, or the freeing of the breath that makes metals live, or the faculty to convert the hinges and the locks of the house into gold, but what had just happened: ?rsula’s return. But she did not share his excitement. She gave him a conventional kiss, as if she had been away only an hour, and she told him:
“Look out the door.?
Jos?Arcadio Buendía took a long time to get out of his perplexity when he went out into the street and saw the crowd. They were not gypsies. They were men and women like them, with straight hair and dark skin, who spoke the same language and complained of the same pains. They had mules loaded down with things to eat, oxcarts with furniture and domestic utensils, pure and simple earthly accessories put on sale without any fuss by peddlers of everyday reality. They came from the other side of the swamp, only two days away, where there were towns that received mail every month in the year and where they were familiar with the implements of good living. ?rsula had not caught up with the gypsies, but she had found the route that her husband had been unable to discover in his frustrated search for the great inventions.