She continued going to the room occasionally when she had something to do in that part of the house and she would stay there for a few minutes while her husband continued to scrutinize the sky. Encouraged by that change, Aureliano stayed to eat with the family at that time as he had not done since the first months of Amaranta ?rsula’s return. Gaston was pleased. During the conversations after meals, which usually went on for more than an hour, he complained that his partners were deceiving him. They had informed him of the loading of the airplane on board a ship that did not arrive, and although his shipping agents insisted, that it would never arrive because it was not on the list of Caribbean ships, his partners insisted that the shipment was correct and they even insinuated that Gaston was lying to them in his letters. The correspondence reached such a degree of mutual suspicion that Gaston decided not to write again and he began to suggest the possibility of a quick trip to Brussels to clear things up and return with the airplane. The plan evaporated, however, as soon as Amaranta ?rsula reiterated her decision not to move from Macondo even if she lost a husband. During the first days Aureliano shared the general opinion that Gaston was a fool on a velocipede, and that brought on a vague feeling of pity. Later, when he obtained deeper information on the nature of men in the brothels, he thought that Gaston’s meekness had its origins in unbridled passion. But when he came to know him better and realized his true character was the opposite of his submissive conduct, he conceived the malicious suspicion that even the wait for the airplane was an act. Then he thought that Gaston was not as foolish as he appeared, but, quite the contrary, was a man of infinite steadiness, ability, and patience who had set about to conquer his wife with the weariness of eternal agreement, of never saying no, of simulating a limitless conformity, letting her become enmeshed in her own web until the day she could no longer bear thetedium of the illusions close at hand and would pack the bags herself to go back to Europe. Aureliano’s former pity turned into a violent dislike. Gaston’s system seemed so perverse to him, but at the same time so effective, that he ventured to warn Amaranta ?rsula. She made fun of his suspicions, however, without even noticing the heavy weight of love, uncertainty, and jealousy that he had inside. It had not occurred to her that she was arousing something more than fraternal affection in Aureliano until she pricked her finger trying to open a can of peaches and he dashed over to suck the blood out with an avidity and a devotion that sent a chill up her spine.
“Aureliano!?She laughed, disturbed. “You’re too suspicious to be a good bat.?
Then Aureliano went all out. Giving her some small, orphaned kisses in the hollow of her wounded hand, he opened up the most hidden passageways of his heart and drew out an interminable and lacerated intestine, the terrible parasitic animal that had incubated in his martyrdom. He told her how he would get up at midnight to weep in loneliness and rage over the underwear that she had left to dry in the bathroom. He told her about the anxiety with which he had asked Nigromanta to howl like a cat and sob gaston gaston gaston in his ear, and with how much astuteness he had ransacked her vials of perfume so that he could smell it on the necks of the little girls who went to bed because of hunger. Frightened by the passion of that outburst, Amaranta ?rsula was closing her fingers, contracting them like a shellfish until her wounded hand, free of all pain and any vestige of pity, was converted into a knot of emeralds and topazes and stony and unfeeling bones.