Fermina leaves Juvenal for Flores de María after a serious crisis unsettles the long stability of her marriage. She departs in anger, secretly and against the expectations of her family and society, while Juvenal accepts her decision as punishment for his own sins. Their separation becomes a test of loyalty and pride: both regret it almost at once, but neither can quickly find a way back to the other.

The Crisis Behind the Departure

The crisis arrives when the Urbinos believe they have reached a safe stretch of life: their children are grown and well-behaved, and the future seems to offer only the task of growing old without bitterness. Their marriage, stable for many years, is suddenly entangled in what the narration presents as their only serious crisis. Neither spouse knows quite how to resolve it. They try to avoid the Caribbean custom of settling a marital rupture through shouting, tears, and intermediaries, hoping instead for a more measured, European manner of dealing with it. Their uncertainty about which model of conduct to follow leaves them stuck in what the narrator calls a puerile situation that belongs nowhere.

Fermina eventually decides to leave, though she does not know why she is going or what she hopes to achieve. She acts out of sheer fury. Juvenal, restrained by guilt, cannot persuade her to stay. The scene turns on an imbalance: his sense of culpability makes him yield, while her anger gives her the resolve to depart, even without a settled plan.

A Secret Journey Homeward

Fermina sails at midnight with her face covered by a black mantilla. Contrary to what her children are told, she is not boarding a Cunard liner for Panama; she takes the regular boat to San Juan de la Ciénaga, the city where she was born and lived until adolescence. The return route answers a homesickness that has grown harder to bear over the years. The journey is therefore both an escape from her marriage and a movement toward a place bound to her earlier life.

She travels with only a fifteen-year-old goddaughter, raised as a family servant, in defiance of Juvenal’s wishes and the customs of the time. Yet the departure is secret only within limits: ship captains and officials at each port have been informed of her journey. To her children, Fermina describes the trip as a change of scene lasting about three months, spent with Aunt Hildebranda. In reality, she is determined not to return. Her explanation and her intention sharply diverge, as does the apparently ordinary voyage from the decision it carries.

Separation, Regret, and Delayed Return

Juvenal knows the strength of Fermina’s character and is troubled enough to accept her choice humbly, interpreting it as God’s punishment for the gravity of his sins. But the lights of the boat have not yet disappeared from view before both spouses repent of their weakness. Their immediate regret does not undo the separation. They continue a formal correspondence about their children and household affairs, while pride prevents either from finding a path back that feels possible. Almost two years pass before either can overcome that obstacle.

During the second year, their children spend their school vacation in Flores de María. Fermina appears content with her new life, at least as Juvenal infers from their son’s letters. Her apparent contentment intensifies the uncertainty of the separation: the family receives reports of how she seems, not access to the inward reasons that led her away or to what she intends next. She is living with Hildebranda, but the account does not present the visit as the temporary change of scene promised to her children.

A Message Carried by Public Ritual

The Bishop of Riohacha’s pastoral visit brings a public procession to Hildebranda’s ranch. He arrives beneath the pallium on a celebrated white mule with gold-embroidered trappings, followed by pilgrims, accordion players, and vendors of food and amulets. For three days the ranch fills with the crippled and the hopeless, drawn less by sermons and plenary indulgences than by the mule, which is said to perform miracles behind its master’s back.

The Bishop has known the Urbino de la Calle family since his years as an ordinary priest. After lunch at the ranch, where the conversation concerns earthly matters, he privately asks Fermina to confess. She refuses amiably but firmly, saying she has nothing to repent of. Though she does not consciously intend it, she is sure her answer will reach the right ears. The exchange becomes an indirect communication with Juvenal: Fermina maintains that she has no cause for repentance, while the separation itself remains unresolved. The episode gives the departure a public and religious echo without turning it into a formal reconciliation.

Meaning of the Break

The departure is neither a clean break nor a settled return to independence. Fermina chooses to leave without knowing her purpose, and Juvenal lets her go under the weight of guilt; both regret their weakness before the journey has even vanished from sight. Yet formal letters and family reports cannot bridge the distance, because pride outlasts immediate remorse. The nearly two-year delay gives the rupture its force: a couple long accustomed to stability discovers that shared history does not automatically provide a way back.

Her destination also complicates the meaning of escape. Fermina goes toward San Juan de la Ciénaga, her birthplace, while staying near Hildebranda in Flores de María; the journey turns backward toward a remembered home even as it carries her away from her husband. The departure thus holds anger, homesickness, guilt, and regret together without resolving them into a single motive. Its decisive consequence is a prolonged separation whose eventual repair must wait until both spouses can find a route through their pride.