from a letter written by the historical Bolívar to General Santander on August 4, 1823: "It seems that the devil controls the business of my life." As Palencia-Roth points out, the word used for devil here is rather than the more familiar . derives from the Greek word , which can equally mean divine power, fate, or destiny. Accordingly, the General succumbs to his fate and accepts his death as destiny. The theme of love is central to the novel. Bolívar had a reputation as a womanizer, and books have been written on his philandering; but as depicted in this novel, during the last seven months of his life, the General could no longer engage in the activities that had fueled that reputation. García Márquez mentions a woman every few pages, many of whom are his own invention, exploring love through the General's memories. Palencia-Roth notes that the presence of these women "allows a labyrinthine exploration of his life before his final journey" and suggests that García Márquez uses love as a barometer of the General's heart and health. Although Bolívar is usually thought to have died from tuberculosis, Palencia-Roth believes that for the author, the General dies from the lack of love. "Despised by many of his countrymen, abandoned by all but a few aides and associates, left—during the final seven months of his life—without even the companionship of his longtime mistress Manuela Saenz, Bolívar had no choice but to die of a broken heart." Numbers and religious symbols Numbers are an important symbolic aspect of the novel. The book is divided into eight chapters, almost all of equal length, which represent the eight-year love affair between the General and Manuela Sáenz. The General's last hours are marked by an octagonal clock. Allusions to the number three are even more common in the novel. As García Márquez scholar Isabel Rodríguez Vergara notes, the number three—the Trinity which occupies a vital place in the symbology of the Catholic Mass—is repeated 21 times throughout the book. She quotes Mircea Eliade: "In the novel it represents a symbolic sacrifice aimed at redeeming humankind—that of Bolívar, a misunderstood redeemer sacrificed by his own people." Rodríguez Vergara observes that the General is like a supernatural being, simultaneously dying and being surrounded by symbolic circumstances such as rain, fiestas, and the plague. The novel begins with Bolívar immersed in purifying waters, in a state of