Summary

Florentino decides that somehow, some way he will win back Fermina’s affection – no matter how long it takes. He realizes that two things must occur for this to be possible: he must become wealthy and successful and Juvenal must die. Florentino has no plans to do harm to Juvenal, but decides that he will just have to wait until the day that Fermina is a widow. In the meantime, he goes to his uncle and asks for a job in the River Company of the Caribbean. His uncle first gives him the job of writing business letters but they are all so poetic that they lack authority. He reassigns Florentino to cleaning garbage from the dock and tells him that he must work his way up. Florentino does just that, learning all of the mundane tasks of the business as he works his way up...