MANY YEARS LATER
as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon
father took him to discover ice. At that time Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses,
built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones,
which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many
things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point. Every year
during the month of March a family of ragged gypsies would set up their tents near the village,
and with a great uproar of pipes and kettledrums they would display new inventions. First they
brought the magnet. A heavy gypsy with an untamed beard and sparrow hands, who introduced
himself as Melquíades, put on a bold public demonstration of what he himself called the eighth
wonder of the learned alchemists of Macedonia. He went from house to house dragging two metal
ingots and everybody was amazed to see pots, pans, tongs, and braziers tumble down from their
places and beams creak from the desperation of nails and screws trying to emerge, and even
objects that had been lost for a long time appeared from where they had been searched for most
and went dragging along in turbulent confusion behind Melquíades?magical irons.
“Things have a life of their own,?the gypsy proclaimed with a harsh accent.
“It’s simply a matter of waking up their souls.?Jos?Arcadio Buendía, whose unbridled
imagination always went beyond the genius of nature and even beyond miracles and magic,
thought that it would be possible to make use of that useless invention to extract gold from
the bowels of the earth. Melquíades, who was an honest man, warned him: “It won’t work for that
But Jos?Arcadio Buendía at that time did not believe in the honesty of gypsies.