How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Then Florentino Ariza knew that some night, sometime in the future, in a joyous bed with Fermina Daza, he was going to tell her that he had no revealed the secret of his love, not even to the one person who had earned the right to know it. (4.84)
For Florentino, being loyal to Fermina means not only continuing to love her for his entire life, but also not telling anyone but her about it. It's as though he were guarding a secret of hers, not his own.
Quote #8
In truth, he always behaved as if he were the eternal husband of Fermina Daza, an unfaithful husband but a tenacious one, who fought endlessly to free himself from his servitude without causing her the displeasure of a betrayal. (4.98)
This quote addresses the paradoxical nature of Florentino's amorous dalliances – though he remains loyal to her, he seems to think of himself as an unfaithful husband.
Quote #9
So that it was reasonable to think that the woman he loved most on earth, the one he had waited for from one century to the next without a sigh of disenchantment, might no have the opportunity to lead him by the arm across a street full of lunar grave mounds and beds of windblown poppies in order to help him reach the other side of death in safety. (5.106)
Florentino's loyalty to Fermina is so great that he feels that, if only the actors in this love triangle die in the right order, there's nothing to prevent him from being with her. Unfortunately, as he ages he realizes that it is not a certainty that Dr. Urbino will be the first to die.