Urbino discovers his friend Jeremiah de Saint-Amour died by suicide from gold cyanide poisoning, hiding a secret lover.

Urbino falls from a ladder trying to retrieve his parrot from a mango tree and dies on Pentecost Sunday.

Florentino Ariza declares his eternal love to the newly widowed Fermina Daza at her husband's wake.

Young Florentino first sees Fermina Daza while delivering a telegram to her father, Lorenzo Daza.

Fermina accepts Florentino's marriage proposal in a letter after two years of secret correspondence.

Fermina's teacher finds her writing a love letter in class, and her father takes her away from the city for three years.

Fermina sees Florentino in the Arcade of Scribes on her return and declares their love was only an illusion.

Dr. Juvenal Urbino treats Fermina for suspected cholera and becomes obsessively devoted to pursuing her.

Fermina finally replies to Urbino's persistent letters after Hildebranda's visit and eventually agrees to marry him.

Fermina and Urbino marry in a grand ceremony and honeymoon in Paris for many months.

Lorenzo Daza is exiled from the city to avoid a legal scandal, leaving Fermina to confront her origins alone.

Urbino has a secret affair with Barbara Lynch, which Fermina discovers and which drives her away from the city.

Fermina sends Florentino three pages of insults; his typed philosophical reply begins their slow epistolary reconciliation.

Fermina and Florentino secretly board a riverboat together and finally consummate their decades-long love.

At port, Florentino tells the captain they should sail up and down the river together forever.

This pool follows the central arc of the novel, opening with Urbino's death and Florentino's startling declaration of love at the wake, before flashing back to the young romance between Florentino and Fermina and her eventual marriage to Dr. Juvenal Urbino. It traces the long middle years in which Fermina becomes a society wife while Florentino waits, and the crisis that Urbino's affair with Barbara Lynch causes in the marriage. After Urbino's death, the pool follows Florentino's patient effort to rebuild a connection with Fermina through letters and visits, overcoming her anger and her family's disapproval. It ends on the river, where the couple finally consummates their fifty-year love and Florentino proposes they sail together forever.

The headline events of a lifelong love story.

Florentino's mother mistakes his physical lovesickness for cholera; a doctor confirms his symptoms are caused by nerves.

Florentino plays midnight violin serenades under Fermina's balcony throughout their secret courtship.

Lorenzo Daza confronts Florentino at the telegraph office and threatens to shoot him for continuing to pursue Fermina.

Florentino is trapped on a riverboat by a war outbreak and loses his virginity to a woman who pulls him into her cabin.

Florentino returns to the city from the riverboat, vows never to leave again, and begins accumulating more than six hundred affairs.

Florentino begins a relationship with the Widow Nazaret, who finds freedom and comfort from her grief in their casual affair.

Fermina spends six miserable years living in Urbino's palatial family home alongside his judgmental mother and sisters.

Florentino falls in love with a woman at Carnival who escaped from an asylum to dance and is then recaptured by nurses.

Florentino meets Leona Cassiani, gives her a job at the riverboat company, and she rises rapidly through its ranks.

Florentino entertains Dr. Juvenal Urbino at the shipping company and feels deep sadness that Urbino must die for his dream to come true.

Fermina and Urbino sell his family palace and build a new home on La Manga, entering the happiest years of their marriage.

Florentino takes on the young América Vicuña as his ward while she attends boarding school and begins a sexual relationship with her.

Fermina's son Dr. Marco Aurelio Urbino Daza approves of Florentino's weekly visits to his widowed mother.

Ofelia confronts Fermina about her growing relationship with Florentino, and Fermina throws her daughter out of the house.

Florentino receives a telegram during the river journey reporting that América Vicuña has taken her own life.

This pool covers the significant secondary events that fill in the decades running beneath the main love story. Florentino's early lovesickness, his exile on a war-threatened riverboat, and his hundreds of affairs with other women chart the years he spent waiting for Fermina, while Fermina's miserable early years inside Urbino's oppressive family home reveal the cost of her choice. The pool follows Florentino's professional rise through the riverboat company and his unlikely friendship with the shrewd Leona Cassiani, as well as his brief and doomed love affairs with figures like the Carnival woman from the asylum. It traces the late chapter of Florentino's romantic life through his relationship with the young América Vicuña, and the family tensions that surround his courtship of the widowed Fermina. The pool ends with the devastating telegram reporting América Vicuña's suicide, arriving as Florentino sails the river with the woman he always loved.

The supporting events that shaped three lives across five decades.

Florentino writes a seventy-page love letter to Fermina but his mother advises him not to deliver it.

Fermina dreams of Florentino watching her from the foot of her bed, the first moment her feelings for him truly stir.

Fermina secretly sends telegrams to Florentino throughout her three-year exile and privately resolves to marry him on her return.

Fermina's cousin Hildebranda Sánchez visits, identifies strongly with Florentino's suffering, and is troubled by Fermina's rejection of him.

Hildebranda and Fermina dress in old gowns for a photograph; Urbino drives them home and charms Hildebranda, enraging Fermina.

Florentino plays a love song under Fermina's balcony one final midnight before his mother sends him away to a distant city.

Florentino hears news of Fermina's wedding to Urbino and weeps uncontrollably for an entire week.

Florentino watches Fermina stumble on a step at the movie theatre and realizes his life is passing while he only waits.

Fermina discovers Urbino's affair with Barbara Lynch by noticing an unfamiliar scent on her husband's clothes.

Fermina confronts Urbino, who confesses his infidelity with relief, while Fermina flees to her cousin's ranch in anger and shame.

Urbino travels to the ranch and takes Fermina home after nearly two years away, and she returns changed forever.

Newspaper exposés reveal Urbino's long affair with a close friend and Lorenzo Daza's history of criminal fraud and arms dealing.

Florentino breaks his leg on a staircase and he and Fermina bond through intimate letters during his recovery.

The ghost of Juvenal Urbino appears on the riverboat and bids Fermina a final farewell, blessing their new journey.

Florentino asks the captain to raise the cholera flag, clearing all other passengers and leaving the couple alone on the river.

This pool focuses on the pivotal moments of revelation and decision that redirect the characters' lives at crucial junctures. It opens with the careful early choreography of Florentino's pursuit — his unsent letter, Fermina's dream of him, and her secret defiance during exile — before tracing the social accident that finally opens Fermina to Urbino's advances. The pool follows Florentino's grief at the wedding news and the later, painful moment when he watches Fermina age at the movie theatre and grasps that time is his true enemy. It then tracks the shattering revelation of Urbino's infidelity, Fermina's exile at her cousin's ranch, and the newspaper exposés that strip away her illusions about the men in her life. The pool ends on the river, where Urbino's ghost offers a final blessing, and the cholera flag transforms a symbol of suffering into a shield for love.