"But she persevered, overcome by growing anxiety, and little by little she regained her ancestral appetite, the taste of primary minerals, the unbridled satisfaction of what was the original food” (Márquez 63). This states that Rebeca does not eat the earth for taste, but by instinct. She associates normal habits, food, and dancing with Pietro, and when he leaves and is no longer able to provide these comforts to Rebeca, she returns to what originally comforted her, the habits of her past. The less hope there seems for Peter's return, the more dirt he eats in an attempt to mask the pain. But he eventually returns, this time as Rebeca's boyfriend, and Rebeca once again abandons her old ways. She is on her way to becoming a normal woman in Macondo, married to a well-respected husband and taken care of financially. Pietro is not only her first lover, but the man who gives her the promise of a future that she and her family perhaps hadn't necessarily imagined when she was once again.