Rosendo de la Rosa

Rosendo de la Rosa is a riverboat captain whose generosity brings Florentino Ariza into Ausencia Santander’s home—and whose absences make their affair possible. He appears as a genial host, an extravagant drinker, and a husband whose own divided life helps establish the permissive but precarious arrangement that ends with the house stripped bare and a warning painted on its wall.

Identity and Background

Rosendo is a captain on the river and Ausencia’s lover. He has a wife and nine children, while also maintaining a relationship with Ausencia, whom he visits at night through the back door. The arrangement is presented without a clear account of whether Ausencia’s marriage has ended: she may have left her husband, he may have left her, or they may have left each other together. Rosendo’s own domestic life is similarly divided between family and mistress.

His seafaring routine makes that division audible. When his ship nears port, he sounds three long blasts for his wife and children, followed by two short, melancholy blasts for Ausencia. The ritual identifies both households as parts of his life, but gives each its separate signal and place.

The Captain as Host

Rosendo brings Florentino to Ausencia’s house for lunch, carrying a demijohn of homemade aguardiente and ingredients for an elaborate sancocho. He is delighted by Florentino’s interest in the house and tells him the history of its objects, collected on his river journeys. The captain is enormous, heavily haired except for his head, and marked by a large mustache and a powerful voice; despite this imposing presence, he is exceptionally courteous.

His hospitality has a comic physical limit. Before the meal begins, Rosendo has drunk half the demijohn and collapses across the tray of glasses and bottles. Ausencia asks Florentino to help drag him to bed and undress him. The captain’s unconsciousness leaves the two alone in the adjoining room; without discussing or proposing it, they undress together. That unplanned beginning becomes a clandestine affair lasting more than seven years, conducted whenever Rosendo is away.

Marriage, Habit, and Exposure

The affair depends on the predictable rhythms of Rosendo’s voyages. His customary horn signals make surprise unlikely, while Florentino uses the ship’s itineraries to choose when to visit. The contrast between Rosendo’s grand arrivals and the lovers’ private encounters gives the relationship its practical conditions: his return is announced to both households, but his absence creates the opportunity for the secret one.

Rosendo’s habits also produce friction with Ausencia. She insists on receiving Florentino naked and undressing him at the door, believing it unlucky to have a clothed man in the house. Rosendo, by contrast, believes smoking naked brings bad luck and sometimes postpones lovemaking rather than put out his Cuban cigar. These domestic superstitions reveal a conflict not of direct confrontation but of incompatible routines; the affair continues in the spaces his travels and preferences leave open.

The Looted House and Narrative Role

One afternoon, after Florentino declines Ausencia’s sexual advance because he feels watched, the lovers remain together in silence. When Ausencia goes to the kitchen, she discovers that nearly everything in the house has disappeared: the furniture, rugs, statues, tapestries, precious trinkets, and even the cockatoo. The thieves have removed the contents through the sea terrace without interrupting the lovers. Only the wall lamps remain, along with a message painted on the rear wall: “This is what you get for fucking around.”

Rosendo cannot understand why Ausencia does not report the robbery, contact dealers in stolen goods, or allow the misfortune to be discussed again. His bafflement marks the gap between the captain’s demand for an intelligible response and Ausencia’s refusal to reopen the episode. He does not drive Florentino away: Florentino continues to visit the nearly empty house, though less often, distracted by other opportunities. Rosendo’s part in the story is therefore defined by a sharp reversal. His generous welcome enables the affair, his absences sustain it, and the theft exposes its hidden cost without resolving the divided arrangement that preceded it.