I do not believe in God, but I am afraid of Him

“I do not believe in God, but I am afraid of Him” is a saying Florentino Ariza repeats in jest, but an episode with Fermina Daza gives it a sharper meaning: under a bodily emergency he cannot control, his professed disbelief does not keep fear or the impulse to pray at bay.

The saying and its occasion

The phrase surfaces while Florentino waits in Fermina’s drawing room after she agrees to receive him. He has come prepared for rejection, and her decisive invitation has already shaken him. Before he can dwell on what the meeting means, however, a painful intestinal attack overtakes him. He sits motionless in the shadows, trying to endure it and dreading another public loss of control.

From jest to fear

The narrator links the saying to the rare occasions when Florentino’s congenital constipation has failed to protect him from urgent bodily need. This episode makes the phrase more than a witticism: as the pain intensifies, Florentino tries to remember a prayer but cannot think of one. Instead, he repeats a boyhood magic formula for hitting a bird with a stone, with the fervor of a prayer. The formula fails, and his condition worsens.

The body’s interruption

The scene places the saying amid details that strip away Florentino’s composure: the twisting in his guts, icy sweat, and the maid’s alarm at his corpse-like face. He blames the heat, but opening the window only brings the afternoon sun full into his face, so the maid closes it again. When Fermina enters and sees him distressed, she tells him he can take off his jacket. The crisis interrupts the expected reunion with an awkward, involuntary exposure, making the saying’s fear of a power beyond rational control newly immediate.