00:00Imagine loving someone for more than 50 years.
00:05Not weeks, not months, not a couple of years, a whole lifetime.
00:10As the world changes, as the body ages, as wrinkles appear, and the heart fills with memories.
00:19That, of course, is love in the time of cholera.
00:24A slow, deep, painful story.
00:28A story about a love that never died.
00:32But also, a story about obsession, about loneliness, about the fear of time.
00:38And regarding the most important question, does true love really exist?
00:44Today we're going to enter a hot city, full of music, ships, letters, and silences.
00:51A city where two people love each other, but cannot be together.
00:57And where a man decides to wait, to wait a whole life, without knowing what will happen.
01:03The story begins with a smell, the smell of bitter almonds.
01:08Dr. Juvenal Urbino enters a house and discovers his friend dead.
01:13A man named Jeremiah de Saint-Amour.
01:17He has taken his own life.
01:19The doctor observes him in silence, and at that moment, death begins to surround the entire story.
01:27Because this novel talks a lot about love, but it also talks about time, aging, death, and how
01:34These themes are intertwined.
01:37Juvenal Urbino is a famous, respected, educated, elegant doctor.
01:43He has dedicated his life to fighting cholera, and in the city, everyone admires him.
01:50And next to him is his wife, Fermina Daza, a strong, proud, intelligent woman.
01:56They have spent decades together, they seem like the perfect couple, but behind that image, there are silences, customs, routines.
02:07A marriage built over the years, and with all the challenges that entails.
02:14That same day, when the doctor tries to catch a parrot in a tree, he falls and dies.
02:21Just like that, out of the blue.
02:24The city is in shock, Fermina is left alone, and while everyone mourns the great doctor, a man appears.
02:32An old, thin, nervous man, with a trembling heart.
02:38His name is Florentino Ariza, and he has been waiting for this moment for more than 50 years.
02:43Waiting for the moment to declare their love.
02:47Many years before, when Fermina was young.
02:51Florentino saw her for the first time, and in that instant, he fell in love.
02:57It wasn't a peaceful love, it was a sick love, the kind that keeps you awake at night and makes you lose your appetite.
03:04That drive someone crazy.
03:07Florentino was, by nature, shy, quiet, poetic, and worked at the telegraph office.
03:14And he spent hours writing letters.
03:18When he saw Fermina walking with her aunt, he felt like the world stopped.
03:23And from then on he began to observe her, to wait to see her, to imagine conversations, to write poems.
03:31And finally, he dared to send her a letter, a letter full of love.
03:37Fermina is scared at first, but little by little, she begins to respond, and thus a secret romance is born.
03:45A love built with words, letters, glances, silences.
03:51They barely know each other, but they feel they belong to each other.
03:57Florentino lives obsessed, he thinks about Fermina all day, all night, and his mother even fears for him.
04:05Because he seems ill, and in a way, he is, because love and anger begin to resemble each other, fever.
04:13Sweating, anxiety, chest pain.
04:16Gabriel García Márquez plays with that idea constantly, love as a disease, and it is, truly, a fascinating idea.
04:26But secret love doesn't last forever; Fermina's father discovers the letters and is furious.
04:33Lorenzo Daza doesn't want his daughter to end up with a poor, dreamy young man; he wants something better, more stable, more...
04:40respectable.
04:42So he decides to separate them, takes Fermina far, far away, and during that journey, Florentino is devastated.
04:52He walks the streets like a ghost, he cries, he writes, he waits.
04:57But Fermina continues to send letters, and although the distance is enormous, the love remains alive.
05:04Or at least that's what they think, because sometimes, one loves the idea of a person more than the person themselves.
05:10real, and that will change everything.
05:13When Fermina returns to the city, Florentino rushes to see her, after so much time, after so many letters.
05:22He imagines a perfect moment, but something unexpected happens: Fermina looks at him, truly observes him for the first time, and understands.
05:32Something, she's not in love.
05:34All of that—the letters, the fantasies, the dreams—was not true love; it was illusion.
05:42And with a single sentence, she breaks Florentino's heart: "What we had was nothing more than an illusion."
05:50Thus, direct and cruel, Florentino is destroyed, but he never stops loving her, not even a little.
05:59Meanwhile, Fermina meets Dr. Juvenal Urbino, and little by little a different, more mature, more real relationship begins.
06:09not so intense, but stable.
06:12Juvenal Urbino represents order, science, education, security; he is elegant, refined, and knows how to navigate the social scene.
06:22high society.
06:24Fermina ends up marrying him, and together they build a life, a family, and a reputation.
06:31They travel, receive guests, argue, reconcile, and live like any real married couple.
06:39Because the book shows something very human, love after years, not the perfect love of novels.
06:46But everyday love, the kind that survives amidst routines, petty arguments, and weariness.
06:54Sometimes Fermina feels happy, sometimes she feels trapped, but she carries on, because that's life.
07:01Meanwhile, Florentino remains alone, or at least alone in his heart, because although he promises to wait for Fermina forever,
07:11He begins to have many relationships, a great many, with widows, with young men, with married women.
07:19She seeks to fill the void, but no relationship manages to erase Fermina, no one takes that place.
07:25He keeps counting the days, waiting, always waiting.
07:32This part of the story is strange, because Florentino seems to be divided into two people.
07:39On one hand, he is a deeply romantic man, capable of waiting decades for a woman.
07:46But on the other hand, he lives countless adventures, some tender, some dark, and some even uncomfortable.
07:55Gabriel García Márquez does not try to turn him into a perfect hero; he shows him full of contradictions.
08:03Florentino seeks love, but often finds only loneliness, and each relationship leaves a mark.
08:10And time keeps passing, the city changes, the ships change, people grow old.
08:16But he continues to hold onto hope, as if he were frozen in the past.
08:22As if their real life hadn't even begun yet.
08:26One of the most beautiful things about the book is how it portrays time, not as something fast, but slow, heavy,
08:34inevitable.
08:36The characters age before our eyes, they lose strength, they lose friends, they lose their youth, and they begin to wonder, was it worth it?
08:57The love here is not youthful, it is an aged love, full of nostalgia, because the book wants to say something very important.
09:04Importantly, love doesn't disappear with age, it just changes.
09:09And then we arrive back at the beginning.
09:14Juvenal Urbino dies, after so many years, after a whole life with Fermina, and the pain is enormous.
09:20Because even though the marriage wasn't perfect, there was love, there was companionship, there was a shared history.
09:30Fermina is left empty, confused, and just as she is going through her grief, Florentino appears and tells her something incredible.
09:39He tells her that he has loved her all his life, that he never stopped waiting for her, imagine that.
09:45A woman's husband has just died, and an old man appears to declare his love for her, 50 years later.
09:53Fermina gets furious, considers it disrespectful and ridiculous, and expels him.
09:59But Florentino doesn't give up.
10:02Because he has never given up.
10:05Little by little.
10:08Florentino begins to approach again, slowly, with letters, with conversations, with patience.
10:16They are no longer young, idealized beauty no longer exists, now there are wrinkles, pain, and tiredness.
10:24But there is also something different: honesty.
10:29For the first time, they begin to truly get to know each other, not as a fantasy, not as an adolescent dream.
10:35But rather like two old people who have suffered a lot.
10:40And something unexpected happens, Fermina begins to feel calm next to him, she begins to open her heart.
10:48Because after a lifetime, they both understand something: love doesn't always arrive when you want it to.
10:54Sometimes he arrives late, very late.
10:57The most beautiful moment in the book takes place on a boat, Florentino and Fermina are traveling together on the river.
11:04Far from the noise, far from the city, for the first time, they seem free.
11:10They no longer need to impress anyone, they no longer have to follow social rules,
11:15It's just them, two old people, two tired people, two hearts that have waited too long.
11:23And on that journey, they find peace.
11:27Florentino understands that love was not just desire, it was also companionship.
11:33Fermina understands that perhaps she never completely stopped feeling something for him.
11:37And then something symbolic happens: the ship raises the cholera flag.
11:43That means nobody can go up.
11:45No one can approach; the ship is isolated from the world.
11:49As if love and illness were finally the same thing.
11:54And when the captain asks, "How long do you think we can continue this back and forth?"
12:01Florentino replies, "All my life."
12:04And that sentence sums up the whole novel.
12:09Love in the Time of Cholera is not a perfect love story.
12:14And that is precisely what makes it unforgettable.
12:19Here, love hurts, confuses, waits, makes mistakes.
12:25Sometimes it seems beautiful, and other times it seems like an obsession.
12:30Gabriel García Márquez shows us that people change,
12:34that time destroys many things, but it can also build something new.
12:40Florentino spent decades waiting.
12:43Was that romantic?
12:45Or was it an inability to let go?
12:48The novel leaves that question open, and perhaps that's why it remains so powerful.
12:54Because it doesn't offer simple answers, only emotions, nostalgia, melancholy.
13:00And a constant feeling that time never stops.
13:05Ultimately, this story speaks of the fear of being alone, of the human desire to be loved.
13:11And how some people spend their whole lives looking for a place to rest their hearts.
13:17And so this story ends, with a boat moving slowly forward, with two old men looking at the river.
13:24And with a love that survived time.
13:27Perhaps true love isn't perfect, perhaps it isn't young, perhaps it isn't easy,
13:34But perhaps, just perhaps, true love is that which remains, even when everything else disappears.
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