文档介绍：Chapter 1
MANY YEARS LATER as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant
afternoon when his 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 . 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, so he traded his mule and a
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pair of goats for the two ized ingots. Úrsula Iguarán, his wife, who relied on tho