Chapter 13 Summary

Jose Arcadio has grown into young adulthood and leaves home for Papal training in Rome - most of the family is supportive but Colonel Aureliano Buendia finds any religious training unpalatable. Ursula continues to grow older and becomes blind though nobody suspects it because her habits do not change. Ursula's old age is full of introspection and she reevaluates her life and understanding of things. Aureliano Segundo and Fernanda del Carpio's eldest daughter Meme takes up the clavichord and practices constantly as Amaranta begins to sew her own burial shroud. Meme then departs for boarding school. As Ursula's influence continues to wane Fernanda del Carpio's continues to increase and the Buendia house becomes increasingly formal and rigid.

Finding his wife's pretensions unbearable and her sexual activity insufficient, Aureliano Segundo gradually moves out until finally he spends virtually all of his time at the...