Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez, Edith Grossman Page A

president from their party after forty-five years of Conservative hegemony. Dr. Urbino did not agree: in his opinion a Liberal president was exactlythe same as a Conservative president, but not as well dressed. But he did not want to contradict the Archbishop, although he would have liked to point out to him that guests were at that luncheon not because of what they thought but because of the merits of their lineage, which was something that had always stood over and above the hazards of politics and the horrors of war. From this point ofview, in fact, not a single person was missing.
    The downpour ended as suddenly as it had begun, and the sun began to shine in a cloudless sky, but the storm had been so violent that several trees were uprooted and the overflowing stream had turned the patio into a swamp. The greatest disaster had occurred inthe kitchen. Wood fires had been built outdoors on bricks behind the house, and the cooksbarely had time to rescue their pots from the rain. They lost precious time reorganizing the flooded kitchen and improvising new fires in the back gallery. But by one o’clock the crisis had been resolved and only the dessert was missing: the Sisters of St. Clare were in charge of that, and they had promised to send it before eleven. It was feared that the ditch along the King’s Highway had flooded,as it did even in less severe winters, and in that case it would be at least two hours before the dessert arrived. As soon as the weather cleared they opened the windows, and the house was cooled by air that had been purified by the sulfurous storm. Then the band was told to play its program of waltzes on the terrace of the portico, and that only heightened the confusion because everyone hadto shout to be heard over the banging of copper pots inside the house. Tired of waiting, smiling even on the verge of tears, Aminta de Olivella ordered luncheon to be served.
    The group from the School of Fine Arts began their concert in the formal silence achieved for the opening bars of Mozart’s “La Chasse.” Despite the voices that grew louder and more confused and the intrusions of Don Sancho’sblack servants, who could barely squeeze past the tables with their steaming serving dishes, Dr. Urbino managed to keep a channel open to the music until the program was over. His powers of concentration had decreased so much with the passing years that he had to write down each chess move in order to remember what he had planned. Yet he could still engage in serious conversation and follow aconcert at the same time, although he never reached the masterful extremes of a German orchestra conductor, a great friend of his during his time in Austria, who read the score of 
Don Giovanni
 while listening to 
Tannhäuser
.
    He thought that the second piece on the program, Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden,” was played with facile theatricality. While he strained to listen through the clatter ofcovered dishes, he stared at a blushing boy who nodded to him in greeting. He had seen him somewhere, no doubt about that, but he could not remember where. This often happened to him, above all with people’s names, even those he knew well, or with a melody from other times, and it caused him such dreadful anguish that one night he would have preferred to die rather than endure it until dawn. Hewas on the verge ofreaching that state now when a charitable flash illuminated his memory: the boy had been one of his students last year. He was surprised to see him there, in the kingdom of the elect, but Dr. Olivella reminded him that he was the son of the Minister of Health and was preparing a thesis in forensic medicine. Dr. Juvenal Urbino greeted him with a joyful wave of his hand and theyoung doctor stood up and responded with a bow. But not then, not ever, did he realize that this was the intern who had been with him that morning in the house of Jeremiah de Saint-Amour.
    Comforted by yet another victory over old age, he