In a certain reign there was a lady not of the first rank
whom the emperor loved more than any of the others. The
grand ladies with high ambitions thought her a presumptuous
upstart, and lesser ladies were still more resentful. Everything
she did offended someone. Probably aware of what was happening,
she fell seriously ill and came to spend more time at home than
at court.
It may have been because of a bond in a former life that she
bore the emperor a beautiful son, a jewel beyond compare. The
emperor was in a fever of impatience to see the child on the
earliest day possible. When he was brought to the court, the
paulownia was full in bloom in the garden. The emperor's eldest
son was the grandson of the Minister of the Right. The world
assumed that with this powerful support he would one day be
named crown prince; but the new child was far more beautiful.
One of my favorite openings:
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano BuendÃa was to remember that distant afternoon
when his father took him to discover ice. At that time, Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on
the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like
prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was
necessary to point.