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But so inflexible 28 was her determination not to surrender even the most remote corner of the house to the insects that she knocked down every obstacle in her path, and after three days of insistence 29 she succeeded in getting them to open the door for her. Faithful to the wishes of José Arcadio Segun-do, who had forbidden anyone to come in unless there was a clear indication that he had died, Santa Sofía de la Piedad tried all kinds of subterfuges 27 to throw úrsula off the track. She cleared out the rubble 26 cobwebs in the room where José Arcadio Buendía had lost his wits looking for the Philosopher's stone, she put the silver shop which had been upset by the soldiers in order, and lastly she asked for the keys to Melquíades' room to see what state it was in. The fever of restoration finally brought her to the forgotten rooms. She put the few articles of clothing that were still usable out into the sun, she drove the cockroaches off with powerful insecticide attacks, she scratched out the veins 24 that the termites had made on doors and windows and asphyxiated 25 the ants in their anthills quicklime. Up before dawn, she would use anybody available, even the children.

"If we go on like this we'll be devoured 22 by animals." From then on she did not have a moment of repose 23. "A person can't live in neglect like this," she said. One day she opened the trunk with the saints and had to ask Santa Sofía de la Piedad to get off her body the cockroaches 21 that jumped out and that had already turned the clothing to dust.

Feeling her way along through the empty bedrooms she perceived the continuous rumble 14 of the termites 15 as they carved the wood, the snipping 16 of the moths 17 in the clothes closets, and the devastating 18 noise of the enormous red ants that had prospered 19 during the deluge 20 and were undermining the foundations of the house. She did not need to see to realize that the flower beds, cultivated with such care since the first rebuilding, had been destroyed by the rain and ruined by Aureli-ano Segun-do's excavations 13, and that the walls and the cement of the floors were cracked, the furniture mushy and discolored, the doors off their hinges, and the family menaced by a spirit of resignation and despair that was inconceivable in her time. Those who noticed her stumbling and who bumped into the archangelic arm she kept raised at head level thought that she was having trouble body, but they still did not think she was blind. The spirit of her invincible 12 heart guided her through the shadows. She washed her painted face, took off the strips of brightly colored cloth, the dried lizards 10 and frogs, and the rosaries and old Arab necklaces that they had hung all over her body, and for the first time since the death of Amaranta she got up out of bed without anybody's help to join in the family life once more. úrsula cried in lamentation 9 when she discovered that for more than three years she had been a plaything for the children.

The waves of lucidity 2 that were so scarce during the rains became more frequent after August, when an and wind began to blow and suffocated 4 the rose bushes and petrified 5 the piles of mud, and ended up scattering 6 over Macon-do the burning dust that covered the rusted 7 zinc 8 roofs and the age-old almond trees forever. ÚRSULA HAD to make a great effort to fulfill 1 her promise to die when it cleared.