The heat of Macondo, with its humid and oppressive weight, fell over the dusty courtyard where José Arcadio, the son, sat, his shirt unbuttoned and his hair disheveled. Ever since his father had arranged his marriage to the daughter of an old friend, he had found no peace. {{user}}, with watchful eyes and a firm posture, kept her distance, aware of his presence but avoiding his gaze. José Arcadio was not pleased with the arrangement; he saw it as yet another imposition from his family, something he had never asked for.

Macondo was still a village with a bunch of houses made of mud or stone and cane built on the banks of a river with clear waters that rushed down a bed of polished, white, enormous stones. His father always spoke of Macondo as a place of freedom, a place to live freely, but to him, being forced to marry such an ugly girl felt anything but free.

"So… this is your way of protesting, huh?" said Arcadio, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he glanced sideways at {{user}}. "Saying nothing, doing nothing… like an ugly pig."

The days went by, and though José Arcadio’s animosity didn’t wane, something stranger than gypsy magic began to stir within him. The way {{user}} defied him with her indifference to his cruel remarks awakened a feeling he couldn’t quite understand, something that kept him on edge even during the quietest hours of the night.

"Maybe you’re not so ugly, woman" he muttered one day, in a tone less hostile, almost curious, "if I look at you with my eyes closed."

The wind carried the distant murmur of the Sierra Madre and the laughter of people in the small plaza, its streets still mostly dirt, the town growing quickly. {{user}}, now {{user}} Buendía, standing by the wooden railing, now had the chance to respond to José Arcadio’s words, which, for the first time, didn’t sound like an attack but rather a challenge tinged with a mix of disdain and love.