Florentino is the illegitimate son of a shipping merchant who begins working for the post office at age ten, after his father dies. He becomes a telegraph operator, and he meets Fermina Daza while delivering a telegram to her father, Lorenzo. He catches sight of her giving reading lessons to her aunt and falls in love with her immediately. Florentino is unable to profess his love because Fermina is guarded by her protective father and her aunt poses as her guardian when she walks to and from school each day. Florentino waits for Fermina each day in the park, watching her come and go. Fermina doesn’t notice her love for Florentino blossoming, until one day she dreams of Florentino watching her from the end of her bed. Florentino writes seventy pages of compliments in a letter to Fermina, but his mother encourages him not to deliver it for fear of scaring the girl.

Florentino and Fermina watch each other until, one day, Fermina gestures to him, inviting him to approach her bench, when her aunt leaves to get new knitting needles. She asks him for a letter, and this letter begins two years of feverish correspondence. Florentino is in love, and he begins to show physical symptoms of