《百年孤独》---《ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE》(中英对照)完_派派后花园

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[Novel] 《百年孤独》---《ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE》(中英对照)完

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《百年孤独》---《ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE》(中英对照)完
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·内容提要·

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  何塞·阿卡迪奥·布恩地亚和表妹乌苏拉结了婚。乌苏拉怕生下长有猪尾巴的孩子,不肯和丈夫同房。邻居普罗登肖嘲笑布恩地亚不通人道,两人决斗。普罗登肖被长矛刺中咽喉,顿时毙命。从此,死者的鬼魂缠着布恩地亚一家。夫妇俩只得远走他乡,村里一些年轻人也跟着去了。他们翻山越岭,长途跋涉了两年多,终于在人烟绝迹的一条小河边定居建村,并取名为马贡多。
  几年之后,马贡多人口增至300人。每年3月,总有一伙吉卜赛人到村里来,带来村民们从未见识过的磁铁、望远镜、放大镜等新鲜玩意儿,最后,还送来了一座炼金试验室。布恩地亚对炼金着了迷,成天足不出户,埋头捣鼓。
  小儿子奥雷良诺跟着布恩地亚整天泡在试验室里。大儿子何塞·阿卡迪奥不久跟一个经常来家帮活并用纸牌算命的女人庇拉发生了性关系。后来他又看中了一个吉卜赛姑娘,不辞而别,远走高飞。乌苏拉四处寻找,五个月后也没找到,但带回来一大群移民,还找到了与外界联系的通道。马贡多从此繁荣起来。布恩地亚夫妇收养了一个小女孩,取名雷蓓卡。不料,这女孩患有会传染的不眠症,不久,全家、全村的人都得了此病并丧失记忆。幸亏老吉卜赛人墨尔基阿德斯来到村里,配制药水,为人们治好了病。
  布恩地亚因孩子长大,人口增多,决定扩建新房,门面漆成白色。这时新任镇长莫科特命令所有房子都要刷成蓝色。老布恩地亚一怒之下,把镇长赶走。后来双方妥协,莫科特一家住了下来。
  奥雷良诺爱上了镇长未成年的小女儿雷梅苔丝,两人结了婚。但雷梅苔丝不久病死。此后,奥雷良诺便天天和岳父打牌,消磨时间。其时,适逢保守党和自由党竞选。莫科特倾向保守党,奥雷良诺同情自由党。自由党和保守党打了起来。保守党军队开到马贡多,占据学校做司令部,严厉搜查武器,熗毙自由党分子。奥雷良诺带人冲进学校,杀了保守党军官和士兵,委派侄儿阿卡迪奥(即其兄何塞·阿卡迪奥之子)镇守马贡多,自己则投奔自由党梅迪纳将军的部队。不久,成为全国闻名的奥雷良诺上校。
  自由党战败,奥雷良诺上校被捕并被判处死刑;正要执刑之际,被其兄何塞·阿卡迪奥救出,然后两人一起再去解救梅迪纳将军。他们赶到军中,将军已经被害。大家便推选奥雷良诺为加勒比海革命军司令。但是何塞·阿卡迪奥却在家里突然被熗打死,不知是他杀还是自杀。
  10月初,奥雷良诺率兵打回马贡多,守军司令蒙卡达被俘。革命法庭将所有参与抵抗的保守党人判处死刑。奥雷良诺这时忽然厌烦战争。经过一年多的斡旋,保守党和自由党终于签订了停战协定。奥雷良诺却用手熗自杀,但侥幸重伤未死。伤愈后,他闭门不出,在家里做金制的小鱼。
  这时,奥雷良诺上校在外从军时生的17个儿子都到马贡多来了,他们带来了外地的工业技术,办起了工厂。他的侄孙何塞·阿卡迪奥第二也招了一批工人,从事挖河道、修码头等工程。马贡多逐渐现代化,通了火车,有了电灯。
  有一个美国人到马贡多来,吃了这里生产的香蕉,研究了这里的土地和气候条件之后走了。不几天,来了一大批带着家属的外国技术人员,铁皮屋顶的房子盖起来了,土地被铁丝网圈起来了,马贡多变成了一个香蕉种植园。
  美国佬在马贡多专横跋扈,草菅人命。奥雷良诺上校极为气忿,心想总有一天要把孩子们武装起来赶走这群外国佬,但这时掌握市政大权的美国老板布朗已下令把他的17个孩子统统杀掉。总统致电慰问,镇长送来花圈。奥雷良诺上校极为颓丧,从此关在屋子里做金制小鱼,做满17个化掉再重做。一天,到一棵大栗树下小便,死在那里。
  工会组织香蕉工人举行大罢工。政府派兵镇压。他们杀了3000人,把尸体装上200节车皮,运到海岸,丢进大海。之后,下了四年十一个月零两天的大雨,香蕉园一片汪洋,马贡多回到田园荒芜的状态。末了,布恩地亚家族最后一代人———个长有猪尾巴的婴儿被蚂蚁吃掉,而马贡多也在一阵旋风中消失。
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[ 此帖被执素衣在2013-10-10 22:09重新编辑 ]
本帖最近评分记录: 1 条评分 派派币 +45
海蓝见鲸。

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举报 只看该作者 21楼  发表于: 2013-10-10 0
Thanks for your sharing.O(∩_∩)O
In fact,I have already did not know how many score i should give you。。。
PS:一个月之内积完分的申请是不予通过的哦
亲,你的热情吓到我了……
执素衣

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Chapter 20
PILAR TERNERA died in her wicker rocking chair during one night of festivities as she watched over the entrance to her paradise. In accordance with her last wishes she was not buried in a coffin but sitting in her rocker, which eight men lowered by ropes into a huge hole dug in the center of the dance floor. The mulatto girls, dressed in black, pale from weeping, invented shadowy rites as they took off their earrings, brooches, and rings and threw them into the pit before it was closed over with a slab that bore neither name nor dates, and that was covered with a pile of Amazonian camellias. After poisoning the animals they closed up the doors and windows with brick and mortar and they scattered out into the world with their wooden trunks that were lined with pictures of saints, prints from magazines, and the portraits of sometime sweethearts, remote and fantastic, who shat diamonds, or ate cannibals, or were crowned playing-card kings on the high seas.
   It was the end. In Pilar Ternera’s tomb, among the psalm and cheap whore jewelry, the ruins of the past would rot, the little that remained after the wise Catalonian had auctioned off his bookstore and returned to the Mediterranean village where he had been born, overcome by a yearning for a lasting springtime. No one could have foreseen his decision. He had arrived in Macondo during the splendor of the banana company, fleeing from one of many wars, and nothing more practical had occurred to him than to set up that bookshop of incunabula and first editions in several languages, which casual customers would thumb through cautiously, as if they were junk books, as they waited their turn to have their dreams interpreted in the house across the way. He spent half his life in the back of the store, scribbling in his extra-careful hand in purple ink and on pages that he tore out of school notebooks, and no one was sure exactly what he was writing. When Aureliano first met him he had two boxes of those motley pages that in some way made one think of Melquíades?parchments, and from that time until he left he had filled a third one, so it was reasonable to believe that he had done nothing else during his stay in Macondo. The only people with whom he maintained relations were the four friends, whom he had exchanged their tops and kites for books, and he set them to reading Seneca and Ovid while they were still in grammar school. He treated the classical writers with a household familiarity, as if they had all been his roommates at some period, and he knew many things that should not have been known, such as the fact that Saint Augustine wore a wool jacket under his habit that he did not take off for fourteen years and that Arnaldo of Villanova, the necromancer, was impotent since childhood because of a scorpion bite. His fervor for the written word was an interweaving of solemn respect and gossipy irreverence. Not even his own manuscripts were safe from that dualism. Having learned Catalan in order to translate them, Alfonso put a roll of pages in his pockets, which were always full of newspaper clippings and manuals for strange trades, and one night he lost them in the house of the little girls who went to bed because of hunger. When the wise old grandfather found out, instead of raising a row as had been feared, he commented, dying with laughter, that it was the natural destiny of literature. On the other hand, there was no human power capable of persuading him not to take along the three boxes when he returned to his native village, and he unleashed a string of Carthaginian curses at the railroad inspectors who tried to ship them as freight until he finally succeeded in keeping them with him in the passenger coach. “The world must be all fucked up,?he said then, “when men travel first class and literature goes as freight.?That was the last thing he was heard to say. He had spent a dark week on the final preparations for the trip, because as the hour approached his humor was breaking down and things began to be misplaced, and what he put in one place would appear in another, attacked by the same elves that had tormented Fernanda.
   “Collons,?he would curse. “I shit on Canon Twenty-seven of the Synod of London.?
   Germán and Aureliano took care of him. They helped him like a child, fastening his tickets and immigration documents to his pockets with safety pins, making him a detailed list of what he must do from the time he left Macondo until he landed in Barcelona, but nonetheless he threw away a pair of pants with half of his money in it without realizing it. The night before the trip, after nailing up the boxes and putting his clothing into the same suitcase that he had brought when he first came, he narrowed his clam eyes, pointed with a kind of impudent benediction at the stacks of books with which he had endured during his exile, and said to his friends:
   “All that shit there I leave to you people!?
   Three months later they received in a large envelope twenty-nine letters and more than fifty pictures that he had accumulated during the leisure of the high seas. Although he did not date them, the order in which he had written the letters was obvious. In the first ones, with his customary good humor, he spoke about the difficulties of the crossing, the urge he had to throw the cargo officer overboard when he would not let him keep the three boxes in his cabin, the clear imbecility of a lady who was terrified at the number thirteen, not out of superstition but because she thought it was a number that had no end, and the bet that he had won during the first dinner because he had recognized in the drinking water on board the taste of the nighttime beets by the springs of Lérida. With the passage of the days, however, the reality of life on board mattered less and less to him and even the most recent and trivial happenings seemed worthy of nostalgia, because as the ship got farther away, his memory began to grow sad. That process of nostalgia was also evident in the pictures. In the first ones he looked happy, with his sport shirt which looked like a hospital jacket and his snowy mane, in an October Caribbean filled with whitecaps. In the last ones he could be seen to be wearing a dark coat and a milk scarf, pale in the face, taciturn from absence on the deck of a mournful ship that had come to be like a sleepwalker on the autumnal seas. Germán and Aureliano answered his letters. He wrote so many during the first months that at that time they felt closer to him than when he had been in Macondo, and they were almost freed from the rancor that he had left behind. At first he told them that everything was just the same, that the pink snails were still in the house where he had been born, that the dry herring still had the same taste on a piece of toast, that the waterfalls in the village still took on a perfumed smell at dusk. They were the notebook pages again, woven with the purple scribbling, in which he dedicated a special paragraph to each one. Nevertheless, and although he himself did not seem to notice it, those letters of recuperation and stimulation were slowly changing into pastoral letters of disenchantment. One winter night while the soup was boiling in the fireplace, he missed the heat of the back of his store, the buzzing of the sun on the dusty almond trees, the whistle of the train during the lethargy of siesta time, just as in Macondo he had missed the winter soup in the fireplace, the cries of the coffee vendor, and the fleeting larks of springtime. Upset by two nostalgias facing each other like two mirrors, he lost his marvelous sense of unreality and he ended up recommending to all of them that they leave Macondo, that they forget everything he had taught them about the world and the human heart, that they shit on Horace, and that wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end.
   ?lvaro was the first to take the advice to abandon Macondo. He sold everything, even the tame jaguar that teased passersby from the courtyard of his house, and he bought an eternal ticket on a train that never stopped traveling. In the postcards that he sent from the way stations he would describe with shouts the instantaneous images that he had seen from the window of his coach, and it was as if he were tearing up and throwing into oblivion some long, evanescent poem: the chimerical Negroes in the cotton fields of Louisiana, the winged horses in the bluegrass of Kentucky, the Greek lovers in the infernal sunsets of Arizona, the girl in the red sweater painting watercolors by a lake in Michigan who waved at him with her brushes, not to say farewell but out of hope, because she did not know that she was watching a train with no return passing by. Then Alfonso and Germán left one Saturday with the idea of coming back on Monday, but nothing more was ever heard of them. A year after the departure of the wise Catalonian the only one left in Macondo was Gabriel, still adrift at the mercy of Nigromanta’s chancy charity and answering the questions of a contest in a French magazine in which the first prize was a trip to Paris. Aureliano, who was the one who subscribed to it, helped him fill in the answers, sometimes in his house but most of the time among the ceramic bottles and atmosphere of valerian in the only pharmacy left in Macondo, where Mercedes, Gabriel’s stealthy girl friend, lived. It was the last that remained of a past whose annihilation had not taken place because it was still in a process of annihilation, consuming itself from within, ending at every moment but never ending its ending. The town had reached such extremes of inactivity that when Gabriel won the contest and left for Paris with two changes of clothing, a pair of shoes, and the complete works of Rabelais, he had to signal the engineer to stop the train and pick him up. The old Street of the Turks was at that time an abandoned corner where the last Arabs were letting themselves be dragged off to death with the age-old custom of sitting in their doorways, although it had been many years since they had sold the last yard of diagonal cloth, and in the shadowy showcases only the decapitated manikins remained. The banana company’s city, which Patricia Brown may have tried to evoke for her grandchildren during the nights of intolerance and dill pickles in Prattville, Alabama, was a plain of wild grass. The ancient priest who had taken Father Angel’s place and whose name no one had bothered to find out awaited God’s mercy stretched out casually in a hammock, tortured by arthritis and the insomnia of doubt while the lizards and rats fought over the inheritance of the nearby church. In that Macondo forgotten even by the birds, where the dust and the heat had become so strong that it was difficult to breathe, secluded by solitude and love and by the solitude of love in a house where it was almost impossible to sleep because of the noise of the red ants, Aureliano, and Amaranta ?rsula were the only happy beings, and the most happy on the face of the earth.
   Gaston had returned to Brussels. Tired of waiting for the airplane, one day he put his indispensable things into a small suitcase, took his file of correspondence, and left with the idea of returning by air before his concession was turned over to a group of German pilots who had presented the provincial authorities with a more ambitious project than his. Since the afternoon of their first love, Aureliano and Amaranta ?rsula had continued taking advantage of her husband’s rare unguarded moments, making love with gagged ardor in chance meetings and almost always interrupted by unexpected returns. But when they saw themselves alone in the house they succumbed to the delirium of lovers who were making up for lost time. It was a mad passion, unhinging, which made Fernanda’s bones tremble with horror in her grave and which kept them in a state of perpetual excitement. Amaranta ?rsula’s shrieks, her songs of agony would break out the same at two in the afternoon on the dining-room table as at two in the morning in the pantry. “What hurts me most,?she would say, laughing, “is all the time that we wasted.?In the bewilderment of passion she watched the ants devastating the garden, sating their prehistoric hunger with the beam of the house, and she watched the torrents of living lava take over the porch again, but she bothered to fight them only when she found them in her bedroom. Aureliano abandoned the parchments, did not leave the house again, and carelessly answered the letters from the wise Catalonian. They lost their sense of reality, the notion of time, the rhythm of daily habits. They closed the doors and windows again so as not to waste time getting undressed and they walked about the house as Remedios the Beauty had wanted to do and they would roll around naked in the mud of the courtyard, and one afternoon they almost drowned as they made love in the cistern. In a short time they did more damage than the red ants: they destroyed the furniture in the parlor, in their madness they tore to shreds the hammock that had resisted the sad bivouac loves of Colonel Aureliano Buendía and they disemboweled the mattresses and emptied them on the floor as they suffocated in storms of cotton. Although Aureliano was just as ferocious a lover as his rival, it was Amaranta ?rsula who ruled in that paradise of disaster with her mad genius and her lyrical voracity, as if she had concentrated in her love the unconquerable energy that her great-great-grandmother had given to the making of little candy animals. And yet, while she was singing with pleasure and dying with laughter over her own inventions, Aureliano was becoming more and more absorbed and silent, for his passion was self-centered and burning. Nevertheless, they both reached such extremes of virtuosity that when they became exhausted from excitement, they would take advantage of their fatigue. They would give themselves over to the worship of their bodies, discovering that the rest periods of love had unexplored possibilities, much richer than those of desire. While he would rub Amaranta ?rsula’s erect breasts with egg whites or smooth her elastic thighs and peach-like stomach with cocoa butter, she would play with Aureliano’s portentous creature as if it were a doll and would paint clown’s eyes on it with her lipstick and give it a Turk’s mustache with her eyebrow pencil, and would put on organza bow ties and little tinfoil hats. One night they daubed themselves from head to toe with peach jam and licked each other like dogs and made mad love on the floor of the porch, and they were awakened by a torrent of carnivorous ants who were ready to eat them alive.
   During the pauses in their delirium, Amaranta ?rsula would answer Gaston’s letters. She felt him to be so far away and busy that his return seemed impossible to her. In one of his first letters he told her that his Partners had actually sent the airplane, but that a shipping agent in Brussels had sent it by mistake to Tanganyika, where it was delivered to the scattered tribe of the Makondos. That mix-up brought on so many difficulties that just to get the plane back might take two years. So Amaranta ?rsula dismissed the possibility of an inopportune return. Aureliano, for his part, had no other contact with the world except for the letters from the wise Catalonian and the news he had of Gabriel through Mercedes, the silent pharmacist. At first they were real contacts. Gabriel had turned in his return ticket in order to stay in Paris, selling the old newspapers and empty bottles that the chambermaids threw out of a gloomy hotel on the Rue Dauphine. Aureliano could visualize him then in a turtleneck sweater which he took off only when the sidewalk Cafés on Montparnasse filled with springtime lovers, and sleeping by day and writing by night in order to confuse hunger in the room that smelled of boiled cauliflower where Rocamadour was to die. Nevertheless, news about him was slowly becoming so uncertain, and the letters from the wise man so sporadic and melancholy, that Aureliano grew to think about them as Amaranta ?rsula thought about her husband, and both of them remained floating in an empty universe where the only everyday and eternal reality was love.
   Suddenly, like the stampede in that world of happy unawareness, came the news of Gaston’s return. Aureliano and Amaranta ?rsula opened their eyes, dug deep into their souls, looked at the letter with their hands on their hearts, and understood that they were so close to each other that they preferred death to separation. Then she wrote her husband a letter of contradictory truths in which she repeated her love and said how anxious she was to see him again, but at the same time she admitted as a design of fate the impossibility of living without Aureliano. Contrary to what they had expected, Gaston sent them a calm, almost paternal reply, with two whole pages devoted to a warning against the fickleness of passion and a final paragraph with unmistakable wishes for them to be as happy as he had been during his brief conjugal experience. It was such an unforeseen attitude that Amaranta ?rsula felt humiliated by the idea that she had given her husband the pretext that he had wanted in order to abandon her to her fate. The rancor was aggravated six months later when Gaston wrote again from Léopoldville, where he had finally recovered the airplane, simply to ask them to ship him the velocipede, which of all that he had left behind in Macondo was the only thing that had any sentimental value for him. Aureliano bore Amaranta ?rsula’s spite patiently and made an effort to show her that he could be as good a husband in adversity as in prosperity, and the daily needs that besieged them when Gaston’s last money ran out created a bond of solidarity between them that was not as dazzling and heady as passion, but that let them make love as much and be as happy as during their uproarious and salacious days. At the time Pilar Ternera died they were expecting a child.
   In the lethargy of her pregnancy, Amaranta ?rsula tried to set up a business in necklaces made out of the backbones of fish. But except for Mercedes, who bought a dozen, she could not find any customers. Aureliano was aware for the first time that his gift for languages, his encyclopedic knowledge, his rare faculty for remembering the details of remote deeds and places without having been there, were as useless as the box of genuine jewelry that his wife owned, which must have been worth as much as all the money that the last inhabitants of Macondo could have put together. They survived miraculously. Although Amaranta ?rsula did not lose her good humor or her genius for erotic mischief, she acquired the habit of sitting on the porch after lunch in a kind of wakeful and thoughtful siesta. Aureliano would accompany her. Sometimes they would remain there in silence until nightfall, opposite each other, looking into each other’s eyes, loving each other as much as in their scandalous days. The uncertainty of the future made them turn their hearts toward the past. They saw themselves in the lost paradise of the deluge, splashing in the puddles in the courtyard, killing lizards to hang on ?rsula, pretending that they were going to bury her alive, and those memories revealed to them the truth that they had been happy together ever since they had had memory. Going deeper into the past, Amaranta ?rsula remembered the afternoon on which she had gone into the silver shop and her mother told her that little Aureliano was nobody’s child because he had been found floating in a basket. Although the version seemed unlikely to them, they did not have any information enabling them to replace it with the true one. All that they were sure of after examining an the possibilities was that Fernanda was not Aureliano’s mother. Amaranta ?rsula was inclined to believe that he was the son of Petra Cotes, of whom she remembered only tales of infamy, and that supposition produced a twinge of horror in her heart.
   Tormented by the certainty that he was his wife’s brother, Aureliano ran out to the parish house to search through the moldy and moth-eaten archives for some clue to his parentage. The oldest baptismal certificate that he found was that of Amaranta Buendía, baptized in adolescence by Father Nicanor Reyna during the time when he was trying to prove the existence of God by means of tricks with chocolate. He began to have that feeling that he was one of the seventeen Aurelianos, whose birth certificates he tracked down as he went through four volumes, but the baptism dates were too far back for his age. Seeing him lost in the labyrinths of kinship, trembling with uncertainty, the arthritic priest, who was watching him from his hammock, asked him compassionately what his name was.
   “Aureliano Buendía,?he said.
   “Then don’t wear yourself out searching,?the priest exclaimed with final conviction. “Many years ago there used to be a street here with that name and in those days people had the custom of naming their children after streets.?
   Aureliano trembled with rage.
   “So!?he said. “You don’t believe it either.?
   “Believe what??
   “That Colonel Aureliano, Buendía fought thirty-two civil wars and lost them all,?Aureliano answered. “That the army hemmed in and machine-gunned three thousand workers and that their bodies were carried off to be thrown into the sea on a train with two hundred cars.?
   The priest measured him with a pitying look.
   “Oh, my son,?he signed. “It’s enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.?
   So Aureliano and Amaranta ?rsula accepted the version of the basket, not because they believed it, but because it spared them their terror. As the pregnancy advanced they were becoming a single being, they were becoming more and more integrated in the solitude of a house that needed only one last breath to be knocked down. They restricted themselves to an essential area, from Fernanda’s bedroom, where the charms of sedentary love were visible, to the beginning of the porch, where Amaranta ?rsula would sit to sew bootees and bonnets for the newborn baby and Aureliano, would answer the occasional letters from the wise Catalonian. The rest of the house was given over to the tenacious assault of destruction. The silver shop, Melquíades?room, the primitive and silent realm of Santa Sofía de la Piedad remained in the depths of a domestic jungle that no one would have had the courage to penetrate. Surrounded by the voracity of nature, Aureliano and Amaranta ?rsula continued cultivating the oregano and the begonias and defended their world with demarcations of quicklime, building the last trenches in the age-old war between man and ant. Her long and neglected hair, the splotches that were beginning to appear on her face, the swelling of her legs, the deformation of her former lovemaking weasel’s body had changed Amaranta ?rsula from the youthful creature she had been when she arrived at the house with the cage of luckless canaries and her captive husband, but it did not change the vivacity of her spirit. “Shit,?she would say, laughingly. “Who would have thought that we really would end up living like cannibals!?The last thread that joined them to the world was broken on the sixth month of pregnancy when they received a letter that obviously was not from the wise Catalonian. It had been mailed in Barcelona, but the envelope was addressed in conventional blue ink by an official hand and it had the innocent and impersonal look of hostile messages. Aureliano snatched it out of Amaranta ?rsula’s hands as she was about to open it.
   “Not this one,?he told her. “I don’t want to know what it says.?
   Just as he had sensed, the wise Catalonian did not write again. The stranger’s letter, which no one read, was left to the mercy of the moths on the shelf where Fernanda had forgotten her wedding ring on occasion and there it remained, consuming itself in the inner fire of its bad news as the solitary lovers sailed against the tide of those days of the last stages, those impenitent and ill-fated times which were squandered on the useless effort of making them drift toward the desert of disenchantment and oblivion. Aware of that menace, Aureliano and Amaranta ?rsula spent the hot months holding hands, ending with the love of loyalty for the child who had his beginning in the madness of fornication. At night, holding each other in bed, they were not frightened by the sublunary explosions of the ants or the noise of the moths or the constant and clean whistle of the growth of the weeds in the neighboring rooms. Many times they were awakened by the traffic of the dead. They could hear ?rsula fighting against the laws of creation to maintain the line, and Jos?Arcadio Buendía searching for the mythical truth of the great inventions, and Fernanda praying, and Colonel Aureliano Buendía stupefying himself with the deception of war and the little gold fishes, and Aureliano Segundo dying of solitude in the turmoil of his debauches, and then they learned that dominant obsessions can prevail against death and they were happy again with the certainty that they would go on loving each other in their shape as apparitions long after other species of future animals would steal from the insects the paradise of misery that the insects were finally stealing from man.
   One Sunday, at six in the afternoon, Amaranta ?rsula felt the pangs of childbirth. The smiling mistress of the little girls who went to bed because of hunger had her get onto the dining-room table, straddled her stomach, and mistreated her with wild gallops until her cries were drowned out by the bellows of a formidable male child. Through her tears Amaranta ?rsula could see that he was one of those great Buendías, strong and willful like the Jos?Arcadios, with the open and clairvoyant eyes of the Aurelianos, and predisposed to begin the race again from the beginning and cleanse it of its pernicious vices and solitary calling, for he was the only one in a century who had been engendered with love.
   “He’s a real cannibal.?she said. “We’ll name him Rodrigo.?
   “No,?her husband countered. “We’ll name him Aureliano and he’ll win thirty-two wars.?
   After cutting the umbilical cord, the midwife began to use a cloth to take off the blue grease that covered his body as Aureliano held up a lamp. Only when they turned him on his stomach did they see that he had something more than other men, and they leaned over to examine him. It was the tail of a pig.
   They were not alarmed. Aureliano and Amaranta ?rsula were not aware of the family precedent, nor did they remember ?rsula’s frightening admonitions, and the midwife pacified them with the idea that the tail could be cut off when the child got his second teeth. Then they had no time to think about it again, because Amaranta ?rsula was bleeding in an uncontainable torrent. They tried to help her with applications of spider webs and balls of ash, but it was like trying to hold back a spring with one’s hands. During the first hours she tried to maintain her good humor. She took the frightened Aureliano by the hand and begged him not to worry, because people like her were not made to die against their will, and she exploded with laughter at the ferocious remedies of the midwife. But as Aureliano’s hope abandoned him she was becoming less visible, as if the light on her were fading away, until she sank into drowsiness. At dawn on Monday they brought a woman who recited cauterizing prayers that were infallible for man and beast beside her bed, but Amaranta ?rsula’s passionate blood was insensible to any artifice that did not come from love. In the afternoon, after twenty-four hours of desperation, they knew that she was dead because the flow had stopped without remedies and her profile became sharp and the blotches on her face evaporated in a halo of alabaster and she smiled again.
   Aureliano did not understand until then how much he loved his friends, how much he missed them, and how much he would have given to be with them at that moment. He put the child in the basket that his mother had prepared for him, covered the face of the corpse with a blanket, and wandered aimlessly through the town, searching for an entrance that went back to the past. He knocked at the door of the pharmacy, where he had not visited lately, and he found a carpenter shop. The old woman who opened the door with a lamp in her hand took pity on his delirium and insisted that, no, there had never been a pharmacy there, nor had she ever known a woman with a thin neck and sleepy eyes named Mercedes. He wept, leaning his brow against the door of the wise Catalonian’s former bookstore, conscious that he was paying with his tardy sobs for a death that he had refused to weep for on time so as not to break the spell of love. He smashed his fists against the cement wall of The Golden Child, calling for Pilar Ternera, indifferent to the luminous orange disks that were crossing the sky and that so many times on holiday nights he had contemplated with childish fascination from the courtyard of the curlews. In the last open salon of the tumbledown red-light district an accordion group was playing the songs of Rafael Escalona, the bishop’s nephew, heir to the secrets of Francisco the Man. The bartender, who had a withered and somewhat crumpled arm because he had raised it against his mother, invited Aureliano to have a bottle of cane liquor, and Aureliano then bought him one. The bartender spoke to him about the misfortune of his arm. Aureliano spoke to him about the misfortune of his heart, withered and somewhat crumpled for having been raised against his sister. They ended up weeping together and Aureliano felt for a moment that the pain was over. But when he was alone again in the last dawn of Macondo, he opened up his arms in the middle of the square, ready to wake up the whole world, and he shouted with all his might:
   “Friends are a bunch of bastards!?
   Nigromanta rescued him from a pool of vomit and tears. She took him to her room, cleaned him up, made him drink a cup of broth. Thinking that it would console him, she took a piece of charcoal and erased the innumerable loves that he still owed her for, and she voluntarily brought up her own most solitary sadnesses so as not to leave him alone in his weeping. When he awoke, after a dull and brief sleep, Aureliano recovered the awareness of his headache. He opened his eyes and remembered the child.
   He could not find the basket. At first he felt an outburst of joy, thinking that Amaranta ?rsula had awakened from death to take care of the child. But her corpse was a pile of stones under the blanket. Aware that when he arrived he had found the -door to the bedroom open, Aureliano went across the porch which was saturated with the morning sighs of oregano and looked into the dining room, where the remnants of the birth still lay: the large pot, the bloody sheets, the jars of ashes, and the twisted umbilical cord of the child on an opened diaper on the table next to the shears and the fishline. The idea that the midwife had returned for the child during the night gave him a pause of rest in which to think. He sank into the rocking chair, the same one in which Rebeca had sat during the early days of the house to give embroidery lessons, and in which Amaranta had played Chinese checkers with Colonel Gerineldo Márquez, and in which Amaranta ?rsula had sewn the tiny clothing for the child, and in that flash of lucidity he became aware that he was unable to bear in his soul the crushing weight of so much past. Wounded by the fatal lances of his own nostalgia and that of others, he admired the persistence of the spider webs on the dead rose bushes, the perseverance of the rye grass, the patience of the air in the radiant February dawn. And then he saw the child. It was a dry and bloated bag of skin that all the ants in the world were dragging toward their holes along the stone path in the garden. Aureliano could not move. Not because he was paralyzed by horror but because at that prodigious instant Melquíades?final keys were revealed to him and he saw the epigraph of the parchments perfectly placed in the order of man’s time and space: The first of the line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by the ants.
   Aureliano, had never been more lucid in any act of his life as when he forgot about his dead ones and the pain of his dead ones and nailed up the doors and windows again with Fernanda’s crossed boards so as not to be disturbed by any temptations of the world, for he knew then that his fate was written in Melquíades?parchments. He found them intact among the prehistoric plants and steaming puddles and luminous insects that had removed all trace of man’s passage on earth from the room, and he did not have the calmness to bring them out into the light, but right there, standing, without the slightest difficulty, as if they had been written in Spanish and were being read under the dazzling splendor of high noon, he began to decipher them aloud. It was the history of the family, written by Melquíades, down to the most trivial details, one hundred years ahead of time. He had written it in Sanskrit, which was his mother tongue, and he had encoded the even lines in the private cipher of the Emperor Augustus and the odd ones in a Lacedemonian military code. The final protection, which Aureliano had begun to glimpse when he let himself be confused by the love of Amaranta ?rsula, was based on the fact that Melquíades had not put events in the order of man’s conventional time, but had concentrated a century of daily episodes in such a way that they coexisted in one instant. Fascinated by the discovery, Aureliano, read aloud without skipping the chanted encyclicals that Melquíades himself had made Arcadio listen to and that were in reality the prediction of his execution, and he found the announcement of the birth of the most beautiful woman in the world who was rising up to heaven in body and soul, and he found the origin of the posthumous twins who gave up deciphering the parchments, not simply through incapacity and lack of drive, but also because their attempts were premature. At that point, impatient to know his own origin, Aureliano skipped ahead. Then the wind began, warm, incipient, full of voices from the past, the murmurs of ancient geraniums, sighs of disenchantment that preceded the most tenacious nostalgia. He did not notice it because at that moment he was discovering the first indications of his own being in a lascivious grandfather who let himself be frivolously dragged along across a hallucinated plateau in search of a beautiful woman who would not make him happy. Aureliano recognized him, he pursued the hidden paths of his descent, and he found the instant of his own conception among the scorpions and the yellow butterflies in a sunset bathroom where a mechanic satisfied his lust on a woman who was giving herself out of rebellion. He was so absorbed that he did not feel the second surge of wind either as its cyclonic strength tore the doors and windows off their hinges, pulled off the roof of the east wing, and uprooted the foundations. Only then did he discover that Amaranta ?rsula was not his sister but his aunt, and that Sir Francis Drake had attacked Riohacha only so that they could seek each other through the most intricate labyrinths of blood until they would engender the mythological animal that was to bring the line to an end. Macondo was already a fearful whirlwind of dust and rubble being spun about by the wrath of the biblical hurricane when Aureliano skipped eleven pages so as not to lose time with facts he knew only too well, and he began to decipher the instant that he was living, deciphering it as he lived it, prophesying himself in the act of deciphering the last page of the parchments, as if he were looking into a speaking mirror. Then he skipped again to anticipate the predictions and ascertain the date and circumstances of his death. Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.
  
  
THE END.


第二十章

  一个节日的晚上,皮拉.苔列娜守着她那个“天堂”*入口的时候,在一把藤制的摇椅里去世了。遵照死者临终的意愿,八条汉子没有把她装进棺材,而让她直接坐在摇椅里,放进了一个很大的墓穴,墓穴就挖在跳舞场的中央。几个泪流满面、脸色苍白的混血女人,穿上丧服,开始履行魔术般的仪式。她们摘下自己的耳环、胸针和戒指,把它们丢进墓坑,拿一块没有刻上名字和日期的大石板盖住坑穴,而在石板上用亚马孙河畔的山茶花堆起了一座小丘。然后,混血女人们用毒药毒死祭奠用的牲畜,又用砖瓦堵住门窗,便各奔东西了;她们手里提着自己的小木箱,箱盖背面裱糊着石印的圣徒画像、杂志上的彩色图片,以及为时不长、不能置信、幻想出来的情人照片,这些情人看上去有的象金刚大汉,有的象食人野兽,有的象纸牌上漫游公海的加冕国王。
  *指妓院。
  这就是结局。在皮拉·苔列娜的坟墓里,在妓女的廉价首饰中间,时代的遗物——马孔多还剩下的一点儿残渣——即将腐烂了。在这之前,博学的加泰隆尼亚人就拍卖了自己的书店,回到地中海边的家乡去了,因为他非常怀念家乡真正漫长的春天。谁也没有料到这老头儿会走,他是在香蕉公司鼎盛时期,为了逃避战争来到马孔多的。他开设了出售各种文字原版书的书店,就再也想不出其他更有益的事情来干了。偶尔有些顾客,在没有轮到他们进入书店对面那座房子去圆梦之前,都顺便到这里来消磨时间,他们总是有点担心地翻阅着一本本书,好象这些书都是从垃圾堆里拾来的。博学的加泰隆尼亚人每天总有半天泡在书店后面一个闷热的小房间里,用紫墨水在一张张练习簿纸上写满了歪歪斜斜的草体字,可是谁也无法肯定他说出他究竟写了些什么。老头儿和奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚初次认识时,已经积满了两箱乱糟糟的练习簿纸,它们有点象梅尔加德斯的羊皮纸手稿。老头儿临走,又拿练习簿纸装满了第三箱。由此可以推测,博学的加泰隆尼亚人住在马孔多的时候,没有干过其他任何事情。同他保持关系的只有四个朋友,他们早在学校念书时·博学的加泰隆尼亚人就要他们把陀螺和纸蛇当作抵押品·借书给他们看,并使他们爱上了塞尼加*和奥维德*的作品。他对待古典作家一向随随便便、不拘礼节,好象早先曾跟他们在一个房间里生活过。他了解这一类人的许多隐秘事情。而这些事情似乎是谁也不知道的,比如:圣奥古斯丁*穿在修士长袍里的那件羊毛背心,整整十四年没脱下来过,巫师阿纳尔多·德维拉诺瓦*早在童年时代就被蝎子螫了一下,是一个阳萎者。博学的加泰隆尼亚人对待别人的论著有时严肃、尊重,有时又极不礼貌。他对待自己写的东西也是这种双重的态度。那个叫阿尔丰索的人,为了把老头儿的手稿译成西班牙文,曾专门攻读过加泰隆尼亚语言。有一次他随手把加泰隆尼亚人的一叠稿纸放进了自己的口袋——他的口袋里总是被一些剪报和特殊职业的指南塞得胀鼓鼓的,可是有一天晚上,在一个妓院里,在一群由于饥饿不得不出卖内体的女孩子身边,他不慎丢失了所有的稿纸。博学的加泰隆尼亚人发觉这件事以后,并没有象阿尔丰索担心的那样大事张扬,反倒哈哈大笑地说:“这是文学自然而然的命运。”但他要随身带着三箱手稿回家,朋友们怎么也说服不了他。铁路检查员要他将箱子拿去托运时,他更忍不住出口伤人,满嘴迦太基*流行的骂人话,直到检查员同意他把箱子留在旅客车厢里,他才安静下来。“一旦到了人们只顾自己乘头等车厢,却用货车车厢装运书籍的那一天,就是世界末日的来临,”他在出发前这么嘀咕了一句,就再也不吭声了。最后的准备花了他整整一个星期,对博学购加泰隆尼亚人来说,这是黑暗的一周——随着出发时间的迫近,他的情绪越来越坏,不时忘记自己打算要做的事,明明放在一个地方的东西,不知怎的突然出现在另一个地方,他以为准是那些折磨过他的家神挪动了它们的位置。
  *塞尼加(公元前4年?一公元65年),罗马政治家、哲学家及悲剧作家。
  *奥维德(公元前43年?——公元17年),罗马诗人。
  *圣奥古斯丁(354一430年〕,早期基督教会的领袖之一。
  *阿纳尔多·德维拉诺瓦(1235一一1313年),著名的加泰隆尼亚炼丹术土、医生和神学者。
  *迦太基,非洲北部古国,在今突尼斯附近,公元前146年为罗马人所灭。
  “兔崽子们!我诅咒伦敦教会的第二十七条教规。”他骂道。
  杰尔曼和奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚照顾他,就象关心孩子一样关心他:把车票和迁移证分放在他的两个口袋里,用别针别住袋口,又为他列了一张详细的表格,记明他从马孔多动身到巴塞罗那的路上应该做的一切;尽管如此,博学的加泰隆尼亚人还是出了个纸漏,连他自己也没发觉,竟把一只口袋里揣着一半现款的裤子扔进了污水坑。启程前夕,等到一只只箱子已经钉上,一件件零星什物也放进了他带到马孔多来的那只箱子里,他就合上蛤壳似的眼脸,然后做了一个带有亵渎上帝意味的祝福手势,指着那些曾经帮助他经受了乡愁的书,对朋友们说:
  “这堆旧书我就留在这儿了。”
  三个月后,他寄来了一个大邮包,里面有二十九封信和五十张照片,这些都是他在公海上利用闲暇逐渐积累起来的。虽说博学的加泰隆尼亚人没在上面注明日期,但也不难理解,这些邮件是按照怎样的顺序编排的。在开头的几封信中,他以惯有的幽默笔调介绍了旅途上的种种经历:他说到一个货物检验员不同意他把箱子放在船舱里时,他真恨不得把那个家伙扔到海里去:他又说到一位太太简直是惊人的愚蠢,只要提到“十三”这个数字,她就会心惊肉跳——这倒不是出于迷信,而是因为她认为这是个不圆满的数字;他还说到在船上吃第一顿晚饭的时候,他赢了一场赌博,他辨出船上的饮水有莱里达(莱里达,西班牙地名)泉水的味道,散发出每天夜晚从莱里达市郊飘来的甜菜气息。可是,随着时光的流逝,他对船上的生活越来越感到乏味,每当回忆起马孔多发生的那些事情,即使是最近的、最平淡的琐事,也会勾起他的怀旧情绪:船走得越远,他的回忆就越伤感。这种怀旧情绪的不断加深,从照片上也透露了出来。在最初的几张照片上,他看上去是那样幸福,穿着一件白衬衫,留着一头银发,背景是加勒比海,海面上照例飞溅着十月的浪花。在以后的一些照片上,他已换上了深色大衣,围着一条绸围巾,这时,他脸色苍白,一副心不在焉的模样,仁立在一条无名船的甲板上,这条船刚刚脱离夜间的险境,徘徊在秋天的公海上。杰尔曼和奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚都给老头儿回了信。在开始的几个月里,老头儿也经常来信,使他的两个朋友觉得他仿佛就生活在他们身边,比在马孔多时离他们更近;他的远别在他们心里引起的痛苦,也几乎消失得无影无踪。他在信里告诉他们,说一切犹如以往,家乡的小屋里至今还保存着那只粉红色的贝壳;面包馅里夹一片熏鱼片,吃起来还是那种味道;家乡的小溪每天晚上依然芳香怡人。在两个朋友面前重又出现那一张张练习簿纸,上面歪歪斜斜地写满了紫色草体字,他们每一个人都单独收到了一些。这些信洋溢着一个久病痊愈者那样的振奋精神,们连博学的加泰隆尼亚人自个儿也没有觉察到,它们渐渐变成了一首首灰心丧气的田园诗。冬天的晚上,每当壁炉里的汤锅咝咝冒气时,老头儿就不禁怀念起马孔多书店后面暖融融的小房间,怀念起阳光照射下沙沙作响的灰蒙蒙的杏树叶丛,怀念起令人昏昏欲睡的晌午突然传来的轮船汽笛声,正象他在马孔多的时候那样,曾缅怀家乡壁炉里嗤嗤冒气的汤锅,街上咖啡豆小贩的叫卖声和春天里飞来飞去的百灵鸟。这两种怀旧病犹如两面彼此对立着的镜子,相互映照,折磨着他,使他失去了自己那种心驰神往的幻想。于是他劝朋友们离开马孔多,劝他们忘掉他给他们说过的关于世界和人类感情的一切看法,唾弃贺拉斯(公元前65一8年,罗马诗人及讽刺家)的学说,告诫他们不管走到哪儿,都要永远记住:过去是虚假的,往事是不能返回的,每一个消逝的春天都一去不复返了,最狂热、最坚贞的爱情也只是一种过眼烟云似的感情。阿尔伐罗第一个听从老头儿的劝告离开马孔多,他卖掉了一切东西,甚至把他家院子里那只驯养来戏弄路人的美洲豹都卖了,才为自己购得一张没有终点站的通票。不久他便从中间站上寄来一些标满惊叹号的明信片,描述了车窗外一掠而过的瞬息情景,这些描述好象是一首被他撕成碎片、丢置脑后的长诗篇:黑人在路易斯安那*棉花种植园里若隐若现;骏马在肯塔基*绿色草原上奔驰;亚利桑那*的夕阳照着一对希腊情人,还有一个穿红绒线衣、用水彩描绘密执安湖*泊四周景物的姑娘,向他挥动着画笔——在这种招呼中,并没有告别,而只有希望,因为姑娘并不知道这辆列车将一去不复返。过了一些日子,一个星期六,阿尔丰索和杰尔曼也走了,他们打算在下一周的星期一回来,但是从此谁也没有再听到他们的消息,在博学的加泰隆尼亚人离开之后过了一年,他的朋友中只有加布里埃尔还留在马孔多,他犹疑不决地待了下来,继续利用加泰隆尼亚人不固定的恩赐,参加一家法国杂志组织的竞赛,解答有关的题目。竞赛的一等奖是一次巴黎之行。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚也订了这份杂志,便帮他填写一张张印着题目的表格。他有时在自己家里,但更多的时间是在加布里埃尔暗中的情妇梅尔塞德斯的药房里干这件事,那是马孔多唯一完好的药房,里面摆着陶制药罐,空气中弥漫着缬草的气息。城里只有这家药房幸存下来。市镇的破坏总是不见结束,这种破坏是无休无止的,好象每一刹那间都会完全结束,但最后总是没有结束。市镇透渐变成了一片废墟,所以,加布里埃尔在竞赛中终于获胜,带着两件换洗衣服、一双皮鞋和一套拉伯雷全集,准备前往巴黎的时候,他只好不停地向司机招手,让他把列车停在马孔多车站上。此时,古老的土耳其人街也变成了荒芜的一隅,最后一批阿拉伯人已把最后一码斜纹布卖掉多年,在那晦暗的橱窗里只剩下了一些无头的人体模型;这些阿拉伯人依然按照千年相传的习俗,坐在自己的店铺门口静静地等候着死神。在那有着种族偏见、盛产醋汁黄瓜的边远地区——在亚拉巴马*的普拉特维尔城*,也许帕特里西亚·布劳恩还在一夜一夜地给自己的孙子们讲述这座香蕉公司的小镇,没想到它如今已变成一片杂草丛生的平原。那个代替安格尔神父的教士——他的名字谁也不想弄清楚,——受到风湿和精疑引起的失眠症的折磨,一夜一夜地躺在吊床上,等待上帝的恩赐。跟他作伴的蜥蜴和老鼠,昼夜不停地互相厮杀,争夺教堂的统治权。在这个连鸟儿都嫌弃的市镇上,持续不断的炎热和灰尘使人呼吸都感到困难,房子里红蚂蚁的闹声,也使奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚和阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜每夜都难以成眠。他们受到孤独和爱情的折磨,但他们毕竟是人世间唯一幸福的人,是大地上最幸福的人。
  (以上“*”均为美国城名。)
  有一天,等候飞机等得不耐烦的加斯东,把一些必需的东西和所有的信件装进一个箱子,暂时离开马孔多回布鲁塞尔去了,他打算把特许证和执照交给一个德国飞机设计师之后,就乘飞机回来,那个德国飞机设计师向政府当局提供了一项比加斯东自己的设计更宏伟的设计规划。于是,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚和阿玛兰塔,乌苏娜在第一夜的爱情之后,开始利用加斯东外出的难得机会相聚,但这些相聚总是笼罩着危险的气氛,几乎总是被加斯东要突然归来的消息所打断。他们只好竭力克制自己的冲动。他俩只是单独在一起时,才置身于长期受到压抑的狂热的爱情中。这是一种失去理智、找害身体的情欲,这种情欲使他们始终处于兴奋的状态,甚至使得坟墓里的菲兰达惊得发抖。每天下午两点,在午餐桌旁,每天半夜两点,在储藏室里。都可听到阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜的号叫声和声嘶力竭的歌声。“我觉得最可惜的是咱们白白失去了那么多的好时光,”她对奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚笑着说。她瞧见蚂蚁正在把花园劫掠一空,正在用屋子里的梁柱解除它们初次感到的饥饿;她还瞧见它们象迸发的熔岩似的重新在长廊里川流不息,然而被情欲弄得麻木不仁的阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜,直到蚂蚁出现在她的卧室里,她才动手去消灭它们。此时,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚也搁下羊皮纸手稿,不离开房子一步,只是偶尔给博学的加泰隆尼亚人写回信。一对情人失去了现实感和时间观念,搞乱了每天习惯的生活节奏。为了避免在宽衣解带上浪费不必要的时间,他们关上门窗,就象俏姑娘雷麦黛丝一直向往的那副走路模样,在屋里走来走去,赤裸裸地躺在院子的水塘里。有一次在浴室的池子里亲热时,差一点被水淹死。他们在短时期内给房子造成的损害比蚂蚁还大:弄坏了客厅里的家具,撑破了那张坚韧地经受了奥雷连诺上校行军中一些风流韵事的吊床,最后甚至拆散了床垫,把里面的蕊子掏出来放在地板上,以便在棉絮团上相亲相爱。虽说奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚作为一个情人,在疯狂的爱情上并不逊于暂时离开的加斯东,但在极乐世界中造成家中一片惨状的却是阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜和她特别轻率的创造才能以及难以满足的情欲。她在爱情上倾注了不可遏止的一切精力,就象当年她的高祖母勤奋地制作糖动物一样。阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜望着自己的发明,常常快活得唱起歌来,笑得忘乎所以,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚却变得越来越若有所思、沉默寡言,因为他的爱是一种自我陶醉的、使一切化为乌有的爱。不过,他俩都掌握了爱情上的高度技巧,在他们炽热的激情耗尽之后,他们在疲倦中都得到了能够得到的一切。
  阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜总是在头脑清醒的时刻给加斯东复信。在她看来,他是陌生而遥远的,根本没有想到他可能回来。在最初的一封信里,他告诉她说,他的合伙人确实给他发过飞机,只是布鲁塞尔的海上办事处把飞机错发到坦噶尼喀转交给了马孔多出生的一些人了。这种混乱造成了一大堆麻烦,单是取回飞机就可能花上两年时间。于是阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜排除了丈夫突然回来的可能性。此时,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚跟外界的联系,除了同博学的加泰隆尼亚人通信之外,只有从郁郁寡欢的药房女店主梅尔塞德斯那儿了解到加布里埃尔的消息。起先这种消息还是实在的。为了留在巴黎,加布里埃尔把回来的飞机票兑换成一些钱,又卖掉了在多芬街上一家阴暗的旅馆门外捡到的旧报纸和空瓶子。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚不难想到朋友的样子:现在他穿的是一件高领绒线衫,只有到了春天蒙帕纳斯*路边咖啡馆里坐满一对对情人时,他才会从身上脱下这件绒线衫,为了对付饥饿,他在一个散发着花椰菜气味的小房间里,白天睡觉,晚上写东西,据说罗卡马杜尔*就是在那个房间里结束一生的。但是没过多久,加布里埃尔的消息渐渐渺茫了,博学的加泰隆尼亚人的来信也渐渐稀少了,内容也忧郁了·奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚对他们两人的思念不知不觉跟阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜对她丈夫的思念一样了。一对情人沉浸在环顾无人的世界中,对他们来说,每天唯一的、永恒的现实就是爱情。
  *法国地名。
  *罗卡马杜尔,现代阿根廷作家胡里奥·柯塔萨尔一部长篇小说中的人物。
  忽然,在他俩幸福得失去知觉的这个王国里,箭一般地射来了加斯东将要回来的消息。奥雷连诺,布恩蒂亚和阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜睁着眼睛,面面相觑,他们搁心自问时,才明白他俩已经结为一体,宁死也不愿分离了。
  于是,阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜给丈夫写了一封信,信的内容充满了矛盾:她向加斯东保证说,她很爱他,十分希望重新见到他,但同时又承认她怎样受到了命运的不幸安排,没有奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚,她就活不下去,跟他俩的担忧相反,加斯东回了一封平静的信,几乎象是父亲写的信,整整两页纸提醒他们防止变化无常的感情,信的结尾毫不含糊地祝愿他俩幸福,就象他自己在短暂的夫妻生活中感到的那样。加斯东的行为完全出乎阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜的意料。她认为自己给了丈大托词,使丈夫抛弃了她,任命运去支配她。她觉得自己受到了侮辱。半年以后,加斯东从利奥波德维尔*又写了封信给她,说他终于重新找回了飞机,信里除了要她把他的自行车寄去之外,并没有什么其他内容,因为在他看来,他留在马孔多的一切,只有自行车才是唯一珍贵的。这封信使她更加恼火,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚耐心地劝慰大发雷霆的阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜,竭力向她表示他能成为一个跟她同甘共苦的好丈夫,加斯东留下的钱快要用完时,各种日常的操心事就落到了他俩身上,一种休戚与共的感情把他俩紧紧地联结在一起——这种感情虽然没有那种令人目眩、吞噬一切的情欲力量,却能使他俩象情欲最炽烈时那样相亲相爱,无比幸福。在皮拉·苔列娜去肚的时候,他们已经在等待自己的孩子了。
  *扎伊尔城名。
  怀孕期间,阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜曾想用鱼脊骨编制一些项链去卖,可是除了梅尔塞德斯买去大约一打之外,其他主顾一个也没找到。奥雷连诺·布思蒂亚这才第一回明白过来,他那语言上的才能、渊博的知识以及罕见的记性(他能把那些似乎是他不熟悉的遥远的地方和各种琐碎事情一一记住),都跟他妻子收藏的世代相传的首饰箱一样无用,想当初单是箱里首饰的价值大概就抵得上马孔多最后一批居民的全部存款。但他俩终于奇迹般地活了下来。阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜既没有失去良好的情绪,也没有失去爱情上的创造才能,却养成了饭后坐在长廊上的习惯,仿佛要把晌午时刻昏昏欲睡、浮想联翩的神态保持下去似的,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚总是陪伴着她。有时他俩就那么默默无语、面对面地坐到深夜,彼此凝望着休息。在这种恰然自得的沉静中,他俩的爱情仍跟早先在响声不停的廖战中一样炽烈。只是渺茫的未来使他俩的心灵总是转向过去。他俩常常忆起失去的天堂中连绵不断的雨景;他们怎样在院子的水塘里僻哩啪啦地戏水,怎样打死一只只蜥蝎,把它们挂在乌苏娜身上;怎样跟乌苏娜老太婆逗乐,假装要活埋她的样子。这些回忆向他们揭示了一条真理,从他们能够记事的那一刻起,他俩在一块儿就始终是幸福的。阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜想起,有一天午后,她走进首饰作坊,菲兰达向她悦,小奥雷连诺不知是谁家的孩子,他是从一个漂在河上的柳条筐里捡来的。在他俩看来,这个解释不足为信,但是他俩没有更可靠的材料来代替这种说法,在探讨了一切可能性之后,他俩深信不疑的一点是,菲兰达决不可能是奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚的母亲。阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜倾向于这样一种看法:他可能是佩特娜·柯特生的儿子,但关于这个妇人的情况,她记得的仅仅是各种污秽丑恶的流言蜚语,所以这种猜测在他们心里不免引起反感。
  他怀疑自己可能是妻子的弟弟,这种想法不时折磨着他,使他忍不住钻到神父的屋子里去,在那些潮气侵蚀、虫子至坏的文献中,寻找自己的出身的可靠线索。他发现,一本最老的出生登记簿上提到一个奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚,说他在少年时代曾受过尼康诺.莱茵纳神父的洗礼,又说他当时曾想通过玩巧克力把戏来证明上帝的存在,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚顿时产生一线希望,以为他自己可能就是十七个奥雷连诺当中的一个,他在四大本厚书里寻出这十七个奥雷连诺受洗礼的记录,但他们受洗礼的日期,离他的年龄实在太远,正在一旁受着风湿痛折磨的神父,从自己的吊床上望见奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚激动得不住地哆嗦,被血统的问题搞得晕头转向,便同情地问他叫什么名字。
  “奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚,”他说。
  “那么,你就不要白白地折磨自己了,”神父满有把握地大声说:“多年以前,这儿就有一条街用过这个名称,当时的人都习惯用街名来给自己的儿女起名字。”
  奥雷连诺不觉气得浑身颤抖。
  “哼!”他说。“这么说,你也不相信罗。”
  “相信什么?”
  “奥雷连诺上校发动过三十二次国内战争,但每一次都失败了,”奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚回答。“政府军包围并打死了三千多工人,后来又用一列二百节车厢的火车把尸体运走,扔到了海里。”
  神父以充满怜悯的目光打量了他一眼。
  “哎,我的孩子,”他叹息道,“对我来讲,单是相信我们两人这会儿还活着,就足够了。”
  这样,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚和阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜只好默认关于柳条筐的说法,这倒不是因为他们相信它的真实性,而是它能把他们从苦恼的恐惧中解脱出来。随着阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜腹中胎儿的逐渐成长,他们越来越协调一致,在这座只需最后一阵风就会倒塌的房子里,他们越来越习惯于孤独的生活。他们把自己的活动限制在一个最小的空间里,这空间从菲兰达的卧室开始,直到长廊的一角。他们在菲兰达的卧室里,已经感到了夫妇生活的欢乐。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚给博学的加泰隆尼亚人写回信时。阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜就在长廊上为未来的婴儿编织毛线袜和小便帽。然而,房子的其他部分在破坏力的不断冲击下都已摇摇欲坠,首饰作坊、梅尔加德斯的房间、圣索菲娅·德拉佩德那个原始的寂静王国,都陷在房子的深处,就象陷在一片茂密的丛林里,谁也没有足够的勇气走进这片丛林。贪得无厌的大自然从四面八方包围着奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚和阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜,他们继续栽种牛至草和秋海棠,用生石灰划一条分界线,围住自己的世界,在早已开始的蚂蚁和人的战斗中筑起最后一个堡垒。这时。阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜头发很长,没有梳理,脸上现出黑斑,两腿浮肿,她那古希腊人似的柔和体形也由于怀孕变丑了,已经不象她提着一笼不合心意的金丝雀、带着俘获的丈夫回到家里的那一天那么年轻了,但依然保持着原来的振奋精神。“真见鬼!”她笑着说,“谁能想到,咱们最后竟会象野兽一样生活!”在阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜怀孕的第六个月,他们跟外界的最后一点联系也中断了,当时他们收到一封信,看得出这封信不是出自博学的加泰隆尼亚人之手。它是从巴塞罗那寄出的,但信封上的地址却是用蓝墨水写的,笔迹工整,有点象官方的通知。信的样子普普通通,无可指摘,但又好象是不怀好意的人寄来的,阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜正准备拆信,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚却从她手里夺了过去。
  “我不要看,”他说。“我不想知道信里写的什么。”
  正象他预感的那样,博学的加泰隆尼亚人再也写不了信了。陌生人的这封来信,结果谁也没看,就躺在菲兰达有一次忘记订婚戒指的那块搁板上,留给蛀虫去啮食,让噩耗的烈火把它慢慢烧掉。这时,一对与世隔绝的情人,正驾着一叶扁舟,逆时代潮流而行。这是一个将使他们生命终止的时代,一个将置他们子死地的不可抗拒的时代,这个时代正在竭尽全力地把这一对情人引到使他们灭绝的沙漠里去。由于意识到这种危险,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚和阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜同舟共济地度过了最后的几个月,他们忠诚相爱地等着那个在他们失去理智的情欲中受胎的儿子出世。夜里,他们相互依偎地躺在床上时,既不怕蚂蚁在月光下发出的响声,也不怕蛀虫的活动声,更不怕隔壁房间里正在滋长的杂草那清晰可闻、接连不断的沙沙声,他们常常被死者掀起的嘈杂声惊醒。他们听到,乌苏娜为了维护自己的天堂,怎样跟自然规律进行斗争;霍·阿·布恩蒂亚怎样毫无结果地寻求伟大发明的真啼;菲兰达怎样吟诵祷文;失望、战争和小金鱼怎样使奥雷连诺上校陷入牲畜般的境地;奥雷连诺第二又怎样在欢乐的酒宴方兴未艾时孤独地死去。于是他俩懂得人的爱情是高于一切的、不可抑制的,它能够战胜死亡,他俩重又感到自己无比幸福。他俩坚信自己将要继续相爱下去,坚信任他们变成幽灵时,在昆虫很快就要从他们这儿夺去可怜的天堂、未来其它一些生物又要从昆虫那儿夺去这个天堂时,他们仍将久久地相爱下去。
  一个星期日,傍晚六点,阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜感到一阵临产的剧病。笑容可掬的助产婆领着几个由于饥饿而出来干活的小女孩,把阿玛兰塔·鸟苏娜抬到餐桌上,然后叉开双腿,骑在她的肚子上,不断用野蛮的动作折磨产妇,直到一个健壮小男孩的哭声代替了产妇的叫喊声。阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜噙着泪水的眼睛看见了一个真正的布恩蒂亚,就象那些名叫霍.阿卡蒂奥的人一样,婴几明澈的眼睛又酷似那些名叫奥雷连诺的人;这孩子命中注定将要重新为这个家族奠定基础,将要驱除这个家族固有的致命缺陷和孤独性格,因为他是百年里诞生的所有的布恩蒂亚当中唯一由于爱情而受胎的婴儿。
  “他是一个真正吃人的野兽,”阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜说。“咱们就管他叫罗德里格吧。”
  “不,”她的丈夫不同意。“咱们还是管他叫奥雷连诺,他将赢得三十二次战争的胜利。”
  在给婴儿剪掉脐带之后,助产婆开始用一块布擦拭他小身体上一层蓝莹莹的胎毛,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚为她掌着灯。他们把婴儿肚子朝下地翻过身来时,忽然发现他长着一个别人没有的东西;他们俯身一看,竟然是一条猪尾巴!
  奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚和阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜并没有惊慌失措,他俩不知道布恩蒂亚家族中是否有过类似的现象,也早已忘记乌苏娜曾发出过的可怕的警告了,而助产婆的一番话使他们完全放了心。她说,等到小孩脱去乳牙以后,也许可以割掉这条无用的尾巴。然后,他们就再也没有时间去考虑这件事了,因为阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜开始大出血,血如泉涌,怎么也止不住。助产婆在产妇的出血口上撒了一些蜘蛛网和灰未,但这就象用手指按住喷泉口一样毫无用处。起先,阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜还竭力保持镇静,她拉着惊恐万状的奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚的手,求他不要难过——因为象她这么一个人,是心甘情愿地来到这个世界,也是心甘情愿离开这个世界的,——她望着助产婆的忙劲,不由得发出爽朗的笑声。但是奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚渐渐丧失了希望,因为她的脸色暗淡下来,好象亮光正从她脸上移开,最后,她陷入了沉睡状态。星期一黎明,人们领来一个女人,这女人开始在她床边大声念止血的涛词,据说这种祷词对人和牲畜同样灵验,可是阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜殷红的鲜血,对于任何同爱情无关的妙方都毫无知觉。晚上,在充满绝望的二十四小时之后,他们眼看着阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜死去了,象泉水一般喷涌的鲜血已经流尽。她伪侧影变得轮廓分明,脸上仿佛回光返照,已不见痛苦的神色,嘴角边似乎还挂着一丝微笑。
  直到此刻,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚才感到自己多么热爱自已的朋友们,多么需要他们,为了在这一瞬间能和他们相处一起,他是愿意付出任何代价的。他把婴儿安放在阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜生前准备的摇篮里,又用被子蒙住死者的脸,然后就独自在空旷的小镇上踯躅,寻找通往昔日的小径,他先是敲那家药房的门。他已经好久没来这儿了,发现药房所在地变成了木器作坊,给他开门的是一个老太婆,手里提着一盏灯。她深表同情地原谅他敲错了门,但执拗地肯定说,这儿不是药房,从来不曾有过药居,她有生以来从没见过一个名叫梅尔塞德斯的、脖子纤细、睡眠惺怪的女人。当他把额头靠在博学的加泰隆尼亚人昔日的书店门上时,禁不住啜泣起来,他懊悔自己当初不愿摆脱爱情的迷惑,没能及时为博学的加泰隆尼亚人的逝世哀悼,如今只能献上一串串悔恨的眼泪。他又挥动拳头猛击“金童”的水泥围墙,不住地呼唤着皮拉·苔列娜。此时,他根本没有注意到天上掠过一长列闪闪发光的橙黄色小圆盘,而他过去曾在院子里怀着儿童的天真,不知多少次观看过这种小圆盘。在荒芜的妓院区里,在最后一个完好无损的沙龙里,几个拉手风琴的正在演奏弗兰西斯科人的秘密继承者———个主教的侄女——拉法埃尔·埃斯卡洛娜的歌曲。沙龙主人的一只手枯萎了,仿佛被烧过了,原来有一次他竟敢举手揍他的母亲。他邀奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚共饮一瓶酒,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚也请他喝了一瓶。沙龙主人向他讲了讲他那只手遭到的不幸,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚也向沙龙主人谈了谈他心灵的创伤,他的心也枯萎了,仿佛也被烧过了,因为他竟敢爱上了自己的姑姑。临了,他们两人都扑籁簌地掉下了眼泪,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚感到自己的痛苦霎那间消失了。但他独自一人沐浴在马孔多历史上最后的晨曦中,站在广场中央的时候,禁不住张开手臂,象要唤醒整个世界似的,发自内心地高喊道:
  “所有的朋友原来全是些狗崽子!”
  最后,尼格罗曼塔把他从一汪泪水和一堆呕出的东西中拖了出来。她把他带到自己的房间里,把他身上擦干净,又让他喝了一碗热汤·想到自己的关心能够安慰他,尼格罗曼塔便一笔勾销了他至今还没偿还她的多日情场之账,故意提起自己最忧愁、最痛苦的心事,免得奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚独自一人哭泣。翌日拂晓,在短暂地沉睡了一觉之后,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚醒了过来,他首先感到的是可怕的头痛,然后睁开眼睛,想起了自已的孩子。
  谁知婴儿已不在摇篮里了。刹那间,一阵喜悦涌上奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚的心头——他想,也许阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜从死亡中复活过来,把儿子领去照顾了。可是,她依然躺在被子下面,僵硬得象一大块行头。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚还依稀地记得,他回到家里时,卧室的门是开着的。他穿过早晨散发着牛至草香味的长廊,走进餐厅,只见分娩以后,那只大锅,那条血迹班斑的垫被,那块装灰用的瓦片,那块铺在桌子上的尿布,那条放在尿布中央、绕在一起的婴儿脐带,还有旁边的那些剪刀和带子,全都没有拿走。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚心想,也许是助产婆昨夜回来把婴儿抱走了。这个推测给了他集中思想所需的片刻喘息的机会,他在一把摇椅上躺下,在这把摇椅里,雷贝卡学过刺绣,阿玛兰塔曾跟格林列尔多·马克斯上校下过棋,阿玛兰塔·乌苏哪曾给婴儿缝过衣服:就在这一刹那间——在他恍然大悟的刹那间——他终于明白自己的心再也承受不了往日那么多的重负。他自己的和别人的往事象致命的长矛刺痛了他的心。他诧异地望见放肆的蜘蛛网盘在枯死的玫瑰花丛上,望见到处都长满了顽固的莠草,望见二月里明朗的晨空一片宁静。就在这时,他看到了自己的儿子——一块皱巴巴的咬烂了的皮肤,从四面八方聚集扰来的一群蚂蚁正把这块皮肤沿着花园的石铺小径,往自己的洞穴尽力拖去。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚一下子呆住了,但不是由于惊讶和恐惧,而是因为在这个奇异的一瞬间,他感觉到了最终破译梅尔加德斯密码的奥秘。他看到过羊皮纸手稿的卷首上有那么一句题辞,跟这个家族的兴衰完全相符:
  “家族中的第一个人将被绑在树上,家族中的最后一个人将被蚂蚁吃掉。”
  在自己的一生中,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚的行为从来不象这天早晨如此理智:他忘记了死去的亲人,忘记了对死者的悲痛,重新把菲兰达的那些木十字架钉在所有的门窗上,不让人世间的任何一种诱惑扰乱他。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚已经知道,梅尔加德斯的羊皮纸手稿也指明了他的命运;在远古的植物、冒气的水塘以及光闪闪的昆虫(这些昆虫消灭了菲兰达房间里人的足迹)中间,他找到了这些依然完整无损的羊皮纸手稿;他无法克制自己迫不及待的心情,还没把它们拿到光亮的地方,就仁立在那儿嘀嘀咕咕地破译起来——他没有碰到任何困难,仿佛这些手稿是用西班牙文写的,仿佛他是在晌午令人目眩的阳光下阅读的。这是布恩蒂亚的一部家族史,在这部家族史中,梅尔加德斯对这个家族里的事件提前一百年作了预言,并且陈述了一切最平常的细节。梅尔加德斯先用他本族的文字——梵文——记下这个家族的历史,然后把这些梵文译成密码诗,诗的偶数行列用的是奥古斯都皇帝(奥古斯都(公元前63年——公元14年),罗马第一位皇帝。)的私人密码,奇数行列用的是古斯巴达的军用密码。至于梅尔加德斯采取的最后一个防范措施,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚早在自己迷恋阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜的时候就已经开始思索了,那就是老头儿并没有按照人们一般采用的时间顺序来排列事件,而是把整整一个世纪里每一天的事情集中在一起,让它们同时存在于一瞬之间。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚对这个发现入了迷,一口气地读完了改成乐谱的“教皇通谕”——这些通谕是梅尔加德斯从前打算念给阿卡蒂奥听的,实际上是预言阿卡蒂奥将被处死;接着,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚发现了世上最美的一个女人诞生的预言,她的躯体和灵魂都将升天;然后,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚还查明了一对孪生兄弟的诞生,他们是在自己的父亲死后出世的,他们未能破译羊皮纸手稿,不仅是由于他们缺乏能力和韧劲,也是因为他们的尝试为时过早。读到这儿,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚急于想知道自己的出身,不由得把羊皮纸手稿翻过去几页。刹那间吹来一阵微风,在这刚刚开始的微风中,夹杂着往日的声响——老天竺葵发出的沙沙声和顽固的怀旧病之前失望的叹息声。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚没有觉察到这阵微风,因为此刻他正好在他那好色的祖父身上发现了自己出身的初步迹象,这个祖父曾经轻率地闯到海市蜃楼的一片沙漠中去找一个不会使他幸福的美女,查明自己的祖父以后,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚继续顺着本族血统的神秘小径寻去,突然碰上了小蝎子和黄蝴蝶在半明不暗的浴室里刹那间交配的情景,就在这间浴空里,一个女人开头是一种抗拒心情,后来向一个工人屈服了,满足了他的情欲。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚全神贯注地探究,没有发觉第二阵凤——强烈的飓风已经刮来,飓风把门窗从铰链上吹落下来:掀掉了东面长廊的屋顶,甚至撼动了房子的地基。此刻,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚发现阿玛兰塔,乌苏娜并不是他的姐姐,而是他的姑姑,而且发现弗兰西斯·德拉克爵士围攻列奥阿察,只是为了搅乱这里的家族血统关系,直到这里的家族生出神话中的怪物,这个怪物注定要使这个家族彻底毁灭。此时,《圣经》所说的那种飓风变成了猛烈的龙卷风,扬起了尘土和垃圾,团团围住了马孔多。为了避免把时间花在他所熟悉的事情上,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚赶紧把羊皮纸手稿翻过十一页,开始破译和他本人有大的几首诗,就象望着一面会讲话的镜子似的,他预见到了自己的命运,他又跳过了几页羊皮纸手稿,竭力想往前弄清楚自己的死亡日期和死亡情况。可是还没有译到最后一行,他就明白自己已经不能跨出房间一步了,因为按照羊皮纸手稿的预言,就在奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚译完羊皮纸手稿的最后瞬刻间,马孔多这个镜子似的(或者蜃景似的)城镇,将被飓风从地面上一扫而光,将从人们的记忆中彻底抹掉,羊皮纸手稿所记载的一切将永远不会重现,遭受百年孤独的家族,注定不会在大地上第二次出现了。


执素衣

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等级: 内阁元老
举报 只看该作者 19楼  发表于: 2013-10-10 0


Chapter 19
AMARANTA ?RSULA returned with the angels of December, driven on a sailor’s breeze, leading her husband by a silk rope tied around his neck. She appeared without warning, wearing an ivory-colored dress, a string of pearls that reached almost to her knees, emerald and topaz rings, and with her straight hair in a smooth bun held behind her ears by swallow-tail brooches. The man whom she had married six months before was a thin, older Fleming with the look of a sailor about him. She had only to push open the door to the parlor to realize that her absence had been longer and more destructive than she had imagined.
   “Good Lord,?she shouted, more gay than alarmed, “it’s obvious that there’s no woman in this house!?
   The baggage would not fit on the porch. Besides Fernanda’s old trunk, which they had sent her off to school with, she had two upright trunks, four large suitcases, a bag for her parasols, eight hatboxes, a gigantic cage with half a hundred canaries, and her husband’s velocipede, broken down in a special case which allowed him to carry it like a cello. She did not even take a day of rest after the long trip. She put on some worn denim overalls that her husband had brought along with other automotive items and set about on a new restoration of the house. She scattered the red ants, who had already taken possession of the porch, brought the rose bushes back to life, uprooted the weeds, and planted ferns, oregano, and begonias again in the pots along the railing. She took charge of a crew of carpenters, locksmiths, and masons, who filled in the cracks in the floor, put doors and windows back on their hinges, repaired the furniture, and white-washed the walls inside and out, so that three months after her arrival one breathed once more the atmosphere of youth and festivity that had existed during the days of the pianola. No one in the house had ever been in a better mood at all hours and under any circumstances, nor had anyone ever been readier to sing and dance and toss all items and customs from the past into the trash. With a sweep of her broom she did away with the funeral mementos and piles of useless trash and articles of superstition that had been piling up in the corners, and the only thing she spared, out of gratitude to ?rsula, was the daguerreotype of Remedios in the parlor. “My, such luxury,?she would shout, dying with laughter. “A fourteen-year-old grandmother!?When one of the masons told her that the house was full of apparitions and that the only way to drive them out was to look for the treasures they had left buried, she replied amid loud laughter that she did not think it was right for men to be superstitious. She was so spontaneous, so emancipated, with such a free and modern spirit, that Aureliano did not know what to do with his body when he saw her arrive. “My, my!?she shouted happily with open arms. “Look at how my darling cannibal has grown!?Before he had a chance to react she had already put a record on the portable phonograph she had brought with her and was trying to teach him the latest dance steps. She made him change the dirty pants that he had inherited from Colonel Aureliano Buendía and gave him some youthful shirts and two-toned shoes, and she would push him into the street when he was spending too much time in Melquíades?room.
   Active, small, and indomitable like ?rsula, and almost as pretty and provocative as Remedios the Beauty, she was endowed with a rare instinct for anticipating fashion. When she received pictures of the most recent fashions in the mail, they only proved that she had not been wrong about the models that she designed herself and sewed on Amaranta’s primitive pedal machine. She subscribed to every fashion magazine, art publication. and popular music review published in Europe, and she had only to glance at them to realize that things in the world were going just as she imagined they were. It was incomprehensible why a woman with that spirit would have returned to a dead town burdened by dust and heat, and much less with a husband who had more than enough money to live anywhere in the world and who loved her so much that he let himself be led around by her on a silk leash. As time passed, however, her intention to stay was more obvious, because she did not make any plans that were not a long way off, nor did she do anything that did not have as an aim the search for a comfortable life and a peaceful old age in Macondo. The canary cage showed that those aims were made up on the spur of the moment. Remembering that her mother had told her in a letter about the extermination of the birds, she had delayed her trip several months until she found a ship that stopped at the Fortunate Isles and there she chose the finest twenty-five pairs of canaries so that she could repopulate the skies of Macondo. That was the most lamentable of her numerous frustrated undertakings. As the birds reproduced Amaranta ?rsula would release them in pairs, and no sooner did they feel themselves free than they fled the town. She tried in vain to awaken love in them by means of the bird cage that ?rsula had built during the first reconstruction of the house. Also in vain were the artificial nests built of esparto grass in the almond trees and the birdseed strewn about the roofs, and arousing the captives so that their songs would dissuade the deserters, because they would take flights on their first attempts and make a turn in the sky, just the time needed to find the direction to the Fortunate Isles.
   A year after her return, although she had not succeeded in making any friends or giving any parties, Amaranta ?rsula still believed that it was possible to rescue the community which had been singled out by misfortune. Gaston, her husband, took care not to antagonize her, although since that fatal noon when he got off the train he realized that his wife’s determination had been provoked by a nostalgic mirage. Certain that she would be defeated by the realities, he did not even take the trouble to put his velocipede together, but he set about hunting for the largest eggs among the spider webs that the masons had knocked down, and he would open them with his fingernails and spend hours looking through a magnifying glass at the tiny spiders that emerged. Later on, thinking that Amaranta ?rsula was continuing with her repairs so that her hands would not be idle, he decided to assemble the handsome bicycle, on which the front wheel was much larger than the rear one, and he dedicated himself to the capture and curing of every native insect he could find in the region, which he sent in jam jars to his former professor of natural history at the University of Liège where he had done advanced work in entomology, although his main vocation was that of aviator. When he rode the bicycle he would wear acrobat’s tights, gaudy socks, and a Sherlock Holmes cap, but when he was on foot he would dress in a spotless natural linen suit, white shoes, a silk bow tie, a straw boater, and he would carry a willow stick in his hand. His pale eyes accentuated his look of a sailor and his small mustache looked like the fur of a squirrel. Although he was at least fifteen years older than his wife, his alert determination to make her happy and his qualities as a good lover compensated for the difference. Actually, those who saw that man in his forties with careful habits, with the leash around his neck and his circus bicycle, would not have thought that he had made a pact of unbridled love with his wife and that they both gave in to the reciprocal drive in the least adequate of places and wherever the spirit moved them, as they had done since they had began to keep company, and with a passion that the passage of time and the more and more unusual circumstances deepened and enriched. Gaston was not only a fierce lover, with endless wisdom and imagination, but he was also, perhaps, the first man in the history of the species who had made an emergency landing and had come close to killing himself and his sweetheart simply to make love in a field of violets.
   They had met two years before they were married, when the sports biplane in which he was making rolls over the school where Amaranta ?rsula was studying made an intrepid maneuver to avoid the flagpole and the primitive framework of canvas and aluminum foil was caught by the tail on some electric wires. From then on, paying no attention to his leg in splints, on weekends he would pick up Amaranta ?rsula at the nun’s boardinghouse where she lived, where the rules were not as severe as Fernanda had wanted, and he would take her to his country club. They began to love each other at an altitude of fifteen hundred feet in the Sunday air of the moors, and they felt all the closer together as the beings on earth grew more and more minute. She spoke to him of Macondo as the brightest and most peaceful town on earth, and of an enormous house, scented with oregano, where she wanted to live until old age with a loyal husband and two strong sons who would be named Rodrigo and Gonzalo, never Aureliano and Jos?Arcadio, and a daughter who would be named Virginia and never Remedios. She had evoked the town idealized by nostalgia with such strong tenacity that Gaston understood that she would not get married unless he took her to live in Macondo. He agreed to it, as he agreed later on to the leash, because he thought it was a passing fancy that could be overcome in time. But when two years in Macondo had passed and Amaranta ?rsula was as happy as on the first day, he began to show signs of alarm. By that time he had dissected every dissectible insect in the region, he spoke Spanish like a native, and he had solved all of the crossword puzzles in the magazines that he received in the mail. He did not have the pretext of climate to hasten their return because nature had endowed him with a colonial liver which resisted the drowsiness of siesta time and water that had vinegar worms in it. He liked the native cooking so much that once he ate eighty-two iguana eggs at one sitting. Amaranta ?rsula, on the other hand, had brought in by train fish and shellfish in boxes of ice, canned meats and preserved fruits, which were the only things she could eat, and she still dressed in European style and received designs by mail in spite of the fact that she had no place to go and no one to visit and by that time her husband was not in a mood to appreciate her short skirts, her tilted felt hat, and her seven-strand necklaces. Her secret seemed to lie in the fact that she always found a way to keep busy, resolving domestic problems that she herself had created, and doing a poor job on a thousand things which she would fix on the following day with a pernicious diligence that made one think of Fernanda and the hereditary vice of making something just to unmake it. Her festive genius was still so alive then that when she received new records she would invite Gaston to stay in the parlor until very late to practice the dance steps that her schoolmates described to her in sketches and they would generally end up making love on the Viennese rocking chairs or on the bare floor. The only thing that she needed to be completely happy was the birth of her children, but she respected the pact she had made with her husband not to have any until they had been married for five years.
   Looking for something to fill his idle hours with, Gaston became accustomed to spending the morning in Melquíades?room with the shy Aureliano. He took pleasure in recalling with him the most hidden corners of his country, which Aureliano knew as if he had spent much time there. When Gaston asked him what he had done to obtain knowledge that was not in the encyclopedia, he received the same answer as Jos?Arcadio: “Everything Is known.?In addition to Sanskrit he had learned English and French and a little Latin and Greek. Since he went out every afternoon at that time and Amaranta ?rsula had set aside a weekly sum for him for his personal expenses, his room looked like a branch of the wise Catalonian’s bookstore. He read avidly until late at night, although from the manner in which he referred to his reading, Gaston thought that he did not buy the books in order to learn but to verify the truth of his knowledge, and that none of them interested him more than the parchments, to which he dedicated most of his time in the morning. Both Gaston and his wife would have liked to incorporate him into the family life, but Aureliano was a hermetic man with a cloud of mystery that time was making denser. It was such an unfathomable condition that Gaston failed in his efforts to become intimate with him and had to seek other pastimes for his idle hours. It was around that time that he conceived the idea of establishing an airmail service.
   It was not a new project. Actually, he had it fairly well advanced when he met Amaranta ?rsula, except that it was not for Macondo, but for the Belgian Congo, where his family had investments in palm oil. The marriage and the decision to spend a few months in Macondo to please his wife had obliged him to postpone it. But when he saw that Amaranta ?rsula was determined to organize a commission for public improvement and even laughed at him when he hinted at the possibility of returning, he understood that things were going to take a long time and he reestablished contact with his forgotten partners in Brussels, thinking that it was just as well to be a pioneer in the Caribbean as in Africa. While his steps were progressing he prepared a landing field in the old enchanted region which at that time looked like a plain of crushed flintstone, and he studied the wind direction, the geography of the coastal region, and the best routes for aerial navigation, without knowing that his diligence, so similar to that of Mr. Herbert, was filling the town with the dangerous suspicion that his plan was not to set up routes but to plant banana trees. Enthusiastic over the idea that, after all, might justify his permanent establishment in Macondo, he took several trips to the capital of the province, met with authorities, obtained licenses, and drew up contracts for exclusive rights. In the meantime he maintained a correspondence with his partners in Brussels which resembled that of Fernanda with the invisible doctors, and he finally convinced them to ship the first airplane under the care of an expert mechanic, who would assemble it in the nearest port and fly it to Macondo. One year after his first meditations and meteorological calculations, trusting in the repeated promises of his correspondents, he had acquired the habit of strolling through the streets, looking at the sky, hanging onto the sound of the breeze in hopes that the airplane would appear.
   Although she had not noticed it, the return of Amaranta ?rsula had brought on a radical change in Aureliano’s life. After the death of Jos?Arcadio he had become a regular customer at the wise Catalonian’s bookstore. Also, the freedom that he enjoyed then and the time at his disposal awoke in him a certain curiosity about the town, which he came to know without any surprise. He went through the dusty and solitary streets, examining with scientific interest the inside of houses in ruin, the metal screens on the windows broken by rust and the dying birds, and the inhabitants bowed down by memories. He tried to reconstruct in his imagination the annihilated splendor of the old banana-company town, whose dry swimming pool was filled to the brim with rotting men’s and women’s shoes, and in the houses of which, destroyed by rye grass, he found the skeleton of a German shepherd dog still tied to a ring by a steel chain and a telephone that was ringing, ringing, ringing until he picked it up and an anguished and distant woman spoke in English, and he said yes, that the strike was over, that three thousand dead people had been thrown into the sea, that the banana company had left, and that Macondo finally had peace after many years. Those wanderings led him to the prostrate red-light district, where in other times bundles of banknotes had been burned to liven up the revels, and which at that time was a maze of streets more afflicted and miserable than the others, with a few red lights still burning and with deserted dance halls adorned with the remnants of wreaths, where the pale, fat widows of no one, the French great-grandmothers and the Babylonian matriarchs, were still waiting beside their photographs. Aureliano could not find anyone who remembered his family, not even Colonel Aureliano Buendía, except for the oldest of the West Indian Negroes, an old man whose cottony hair gave him the look of a photographic negative and who was still singing the mournful sunset psalms in the door of his house. Aureliano would talk to him in the tortured Papiamento that he had learned in a few weeks and sometimes he would share his chicken-head soup, prepared by the great-granddaughter, with him. She was a large black woman with solid bones, the hips of a mare, teats like live melons, and a round and perfect head armored with a hard surface of wiry hair which looked like a medieval warrior’s mail headdress. Her name was Nigromanta. In those days Aureliano lived off the sale of silverware, candlesticks, and other bric-a-brac from the house. When he was penniless, which was most of the time, he got people in the back of the market to give him the chicken heads that they were going to throw away and he would take them to Nigromanta to make her soups, fortified with purslane and seasoned with mint. When the great-grandfather died Aureliano stopped going by the house, but he would run into Nigromanta under the dark almond trees on the square, using her wild-animal whistles to lure the few night owls. Many times he stayed with her, speaking in Papiamento about chicken-head soup and other dainties of misery, and he would have kept right on if she had not let him know that his presence frightened off customers. Although he sometimes felt the temptation and although Nigromanta herself might have seemed to him as the natural culmination of a shared nostalgia, he did not go to bed with her. So Aureliano was still a virgin when Amaranta ?rsula returned to Macondo and gave him a sisterly embrace that left him breathless. Every time he saw her, and worse yet when she showed him the latest dances, he felt the same spongy release in his bones that had disturbed his great-great-grandfather when Pilar Ternera made her pretexts about the cards in the granary. Trying to squelch the torment, he sank deeper into the parchments and eluded the innocent flattery of that aunt who was poisoning his nights with a flow of tribulation, but the more he avoided her the more the anxiety with which he waited for her stony laughter, her howls of a happy cat, and her songs of gratitude, agonizing in love at all hours and in the most unlikely parts of the house. One night thirty feet from his bed, on the silver workbench, the couple with unhinged bellies broke the bottles and ended up making love in a pool of muriatic acid. Aureliano not only could not sleep for a single second, but he spent the next day with a fever, sobbing with rage. The first night that he waited for Nigromanta to come to the shadows of the almond trees it seemed like an eternity, pricked as he was by the needles of uncertainty and clutching in his fist the peso and fifty cents that he had asked Amaranta ?rsula for, not so much because he needed it as to involve her, debase her, prostitute her in his adventure in some way. Nigromanta took him to her room, which was lighted with false candlesticks, to her folding cot with the bedding stained from bad loves, and to her body of a wild dog, hardened and without soul, which prepared itself to dismiss him as if he were a frightened child, and suddenly it found a man whose tremendous power demanded a movement of seismic readjustment from her insides.
   They became lovers. Aureliano would spend his mornings deciphering parchments and at siesta time he would go to the bedroom where Nigromanta was waiting for him, to teach him first how to do it like earthworms, then like snails, and finally like crabs, until she had to leave him and lie in wait for vagabond loves. Several weeks passed before Aureliano discovered that around her waist she wore a small belt that seemed to be made out of a cello string, but which was hard as steel and had no end, as if it had been born and grown with her. Almost always, between loves, they would eat naked in the bed, in the hallucinating heat and under the daytime stars that the rust had caused to shine on the zinc ceiling. It was the first time that Nigromanta had had a steady man, a bone crusher from head to toe, as she herself said, dying with laughter, and she had even begun to get romantic illusions when Aureliano confided in her about his repressed passion for Amaranta ?rsula, which he had not been able to cure with the substitution but which was twisting him inside all the more as experience broadened the horizons of love. After that Nigromanta continued to receive him with the same warmth as ever but she made him pay for her services so strictly that when Aureliano had no money she would make an addition to his bill, which was not figured in numbers but by marks that she made with her thumbnail behind the door. At sundown, while she was drifting through the shadows in the square, Aureliano, was going along the porch like a stranger, scarcely greeting Amaranta ?rsula and Gaston, who usually dined at that time, and shutting herself up in his room again, unable to read or write or even think because of the anxiety brought on by the laughter, the whispering, the preliminary frolics, and then the explosions of agonizing happiness that capped the nights in the house. That was his life two years before Gaston began to wait for the airplane, and it went on the same way on the afternoon that he went to the bookstore of the wise Catalonian and found four ranting boys in a heated argument about the methods used to kill cockroaches in the Middle Ages. The old bookseller, knowing about Aureliano’s love for books that had been read only by the Venerable Bede, urged him with a certain fatherly malice to get into the discussion, and without even taking a breath, he explained that the cockroach, the oldest winged insect on the face of the earth, had already been the victim of slippers in the Old Testament, but that since the species was definitely resistant to any and all methods of extermination, from tomato dices with borax to flour and sugar, and with its one thousand six hundred three varieties had resisted the most ancient, tenacious, and pitiless persecution that mankind had unleashed against any living thing since the beginnings, including man himself, to such an extent that just as an instinct for reproduction was attributed to humankind, so there must have been another one more definite and pressing, which was the instinct to kill cockroaches, and if the latter had succeeded in escaping human ferocity it was because they had taken refuge in the shadows, where they became invulnerable because of man’s congenital fear of the dark, but on the other hand they became susceptible to the glow of noon, so that by the Middle Ages already, and in present times, and per omnia secula seculorum, the only effective method for killing cockroaches was the glare of the sun.
   That encyclopedic coincidence was the beginning of a great friendship. Aureliano continued getting together in the afternoon with the four arguers, whose names were ?lvaro, Germán, Alfonso, and Gabriel, the first and last friends that he ever had in his life. For a man like him, holed up in written reality, those stormy sessions that began in the bookstore and ended at dawn in the brothels were a revelation. It had never occurred to him until then to think that literature was the best plaything that had ever been invented to make fun of people, as ?lvaro demonstrated during one night of revels. Some time would have to pass before Aureliano realized that such arbitrary attitudes had their origins in the example of the wise Catalonian, for whom wisdom was worth nothing if it could not be used to invent a way of preparing chick peas.
   The afternoon on which Aureliano gave his lecture on cockroaches, the argument ended up in the house of the girls who went to bed because of hunger, a brothel of lies on the outskirts of Macondo. The proprietress was a smiling mamasanta, tormented by a mania for opening and closing doors. Her eternal smile seemed to have been brought on by the credulity of her customers, who accepted as something certain an establishment that did not exist except in the imagination, because even the tangible things there were unreal: the furniture that fell apart when one sat on it, the disemboweled phonograph with a nesting hen inside, the garden of paper flowers, the calendars going back to the years before the arrival of the banana company, the frames with prints cut out of magazines that had never been published. Even the timid little whores who came from the neighborhood: when the proprietress informed them that customers had arrived they were nothing but an invention. They would appear without any greeting in their little flowered dresses left over from days when they were five years younger, and they took them off with the same innocence with which they had put them on, and in the paroxysms of love they would exclaim good heavens, look how that roof is falling in, and as soon as they got their peso and fifty cents they would spend it on a roll with cheese that the proprietress sold them, smiling more than ever, because only she knew that that meal was not true either. Aureliano, whose world at that time began with Melquíades?parchments and ended in Nigromanta’s bed, found a stupid cure for timidity in the small imaginary brothel. At first he could get nowhere, in rooms where the proprietress would enter during the best moments of love and make all sorts of comments about the intimate charms of the protagonists. But with time he began to get so familiar with those misfortunes of the world that on one night that was more unbalanced than the others he got undressed in the small reception room and ran through the house balancing a bottle of beer on his inconceivable maleness. He was the one who made fashionable the extravagances that the proprietress celebrated with her eternal smile, without protesting, without believing in them just as when Germán tried to burn the house down to show that it did not exist, and as when Alfonso wrung the neck of the parrot and threw it into the pot where the chicken stew was beginning to boil.
   Although Aureliano felt himself linked to the four friends by a common affection and a common solidarity, even to the point where he thought of them as if they were one person, he was closer to Gabriel than to the others. The link was born on the night when he casually mentioned Colonel Aureliano Buendía and Gabriel was the only one who did not think that he was making fun of somebody. Even the proprietress, who normally did not take part in the conversation argued with a madam’s wrathful passion that Colonel Aureliano Buendía, of whom she had indeed heard speak at some time, was a figure invented by the government as a pretext for killing Liberals. Gabriel, on the other hand, did not doubt the reality of Colonel Aureliano Buendía because he had been a companion in arms and inseparable friend of his great-great-grandfather Colonel Gerineldo Márquez. Those fickle tricks of memory were even more critical when the killing of the workers was brought up. Every time that Aureliano mentioned the matter, not only the proprietress but some people older than she would repudiate the myth of the workers hemmed in at the station and the train with two hundred cars loaded with dead people, and they would even insist that, after all, everything had been set forth in judicial documents and in primary-school textbooks: that the banana company had never existed. So that Aureliano and Gabriel were linked by a kind of complicity based on real facts that no one believed in, and which had affected their lives to the point that both of them found themselves off course in the tide of a world that had ended and of which only the nostalgia remained. Gabriel would sleep wherever time overtook him. Aureliano put him up several times in the silver workshop, but he would spend his nights awake, disturbed by the noise of the dead people who walked through the bedrooms until dawn. Later he turned him over to Nigromanta, who took him to her well-used room when she was free and put down his account with vertical marks behind the door in the few spaces left free by Aureliano’s debts.
   In spite of their disordered life, the whole group tried to do something permanent at the urging of the wise Catalonian. It was he, with his experience as a former professor of classical literature and his storehouse of rare books, who got them to spend a whole night in search of the thirty-seventh dramatic situation in a town where no one had any interest any more in going beyond primary school. Fascinated by the discovery of friendship, bewildered by the enchantments of a world which had been forbidden to him by Fernanda’s meanness, Aureliano abandoned the scrutiny of the parchments precisely when they were beginning to reveal themselves as predictions in coded lines of poetry. But the subsequent proof that there was time enough for everything without having to give up the brothels gave him the drive to return to Melquíades?room, having decided not to flag in his efforts until he had discovered the last keys. That was during the time that Gaston began to wait for the airplane and Amaranta ?rsula was so lonely that one morning she appeared in the room.
   “Hello, cannibal,?she said to him. “Back in your cave again??
   She was irresistible, with a dress she had designed and one of the long shad-vertebra necklaces that she herself had made. She had stopped using the leash, convinced of her husband’s faithfulness, and for the first time since her return she seemed to have a moment of ease. Aureliano did not need to see her to know that she had arrived. She put her elbows on the table, so close and so helpless that Aureliano heard the deep sound of her bones, and she became interested in the parchments. Trying to overcome his disturbance, he grasped at the voice that he was losing, the life that was leaving him, the memory that was turning into a petrified polyp, and he spoke to her about the priestly destiny of Sanskrit, the scientific possibility of seeing the future showing through in time as one sees what is written on the back of a sheet of paper through the light, the necessity of deciphering the predictions so that they would not defeat themselves, and the Centuries of Nostradamus and the destruction of Cantabria predicted by Saint Milanus. Suddenly, without interrupting the chat, moved by an impulse that had been sleeping in him since his origins, Aureliano put his hand on hers, thinking that that final decision would put an end to his doubts. She grabbed his index finger with the affectionate innocence with which she had done so in childhood, however, and she held it while he kept on answering questions. They remained like that, linked by icy index fingers that did not transmit anything in any way until she awoke from her momentary dream and slapped her forehead with her hand. “The ants!?she exclaimed. And then she forgot about the manuscripts, went to the door with a dance step, and from there she threw Aureliano a kiss with the tips of her fingers as she had said good-bye to her father on the afternoon when they sent her to Brussels.
   “You can tell me later,?she said. “I forgot that today’s the day to put quicklime on the anthills.?
   She continued going to the room occasionally when she had something to do in that part of the house and she would stay there for a few minutes while her husband continued to scrutinize the sky. Encouraged by that change, Aureliano stayed to eat with the family at that time as he had not done since the first months of Amaranta ?rsula’s return. Gaston was pleased. During the conversations after meals, which usually went on for more than an hour, he complained that his partners were deceiving him. They had informed him of the loading of the airplane on board a ship that did not arrive, and although his shipping agents insisted, that it would never arrive because it was not on the list of Caribbean ships, his partners insisted that the shipment was correct and they even insinuated that Gaston was lying to them in his letters. The correspondence reached such a degree of mutual suspicion that Gaston decided not to write again and he began to suggest the possibility of a quick trip to Brussels to clear things up and return with the airplane. The plan evaporated, however, as soon as Amaranta ?rsula reiterated her decision not to move from Macondo even if she lost a husband. During the first days Aureliano shared the general opinion that Gaston was a fool on a velocipede, and that brought on a vague feeling of pity. Later, when he obtained deeper information on the nature of men in the brothels, he thought that Gaston’s meekness had its origins in unbridled passion. But when he came to know him better and realized his true character was the opposite of his submissive conduct, he conceived the malicious suspicion that even the wait for the airplane was an act. Then he thought that Gaston was not as foolish as he appeared, but, quite the contrary, was a man of infinite steadiness, ability, and patience who had set about to conquer his wife with the weariness of eternal agreement, of never saying no, of simulating a limitless conformity, letting her become enmeshed in her own web until the day she could no longer bear the tedium of the illusions close at hand and would pack the bags herself to go back to Europe. Aureliano’s former pity turned into a violent dislike. Gaston’s system seemed so perverse to him, but at the same time so effective, that he ventured to warn Amaranta ?rsula. She made fun of his suspicions, however, without even noticing the heavy weight of love, uncertainty, and jealousy that he had inside. It had not occurred to her that she was arousing something more than fraternal affection in Aureliano until she pricked her finger trying to open a can of peaches and he dashed over to suck the blood out with an avidity and a devotion that sent a chill up her spine.
   “Aureliano!?She laughed, disturbed. “You’re too suspicious to be a good bat.?
   Then Aureliano went all out. Giving her some small, orphaned kisses in the hollow of her wounded hand, he opened up the most hidden passageways of his heart and drew out an interminable and lacerated intestine, the terrible parasitic animal that had incubated in his martyrdom. He told her how he would get up at midnight to weep in loneliness and rage over the underwear that she had left to dry in the bathroom. He told her about the anxiety with which he had asked Nigromanta to howl like a cat and sob gaston gaston gaston in his ear, and with how much astuteness he had ransacked her vials of perfume so that he could smell it on the necks of the little girls who went to bed because of hunger. Frightened by the passion of that outburst, Amaranta ?rsula was closing her fingers, contracting them like a shellfish until her wounded hand, free of all pain and any vestige of pity, was converted into a knot of emeralds and topazes and stony and unfeeling bones.
   “Fool!?she said as if she were spitting. “I’m sailing on the first ship leaving for Belgium.?
   ?lvaro had come to the wise Catalonian’s bookstore one of those afternoons proclaiming at the top of his lungs his latest discovery: a zoological brothel. It was called The Golden Child and it was a huge open air salon through which no less than two hundred bitterns who told the time with a deafening cackling strolled at will. In wire pens that surrounded the dance floor and among large Amazonian camellias there were herons of different colors, crocodiles as fat as pigs, snakes with twelve rattles, and a turtle with a gilded shell who dove in a small artificial ocean. There was a big white dog, meek and a pederast, who would give stud services nevertheless in order to be fed. The atmosphere had an innocent denseness, as if it had just been created, and the beautiful mulatto girls who waited hopelessly among the blood-red petals and the outmoded phonograph records knew ways of love that man had left behind forgotten in the earthly paradise. The first night that the group visited that greenhouse of illusions the splendid and taciturn old woman who guarded the entrance in a wicker rocking chair felt that time was turning back to its earliest origins when among the five who were arriving she saw a bony, jaundiced man with Tartar cheekbones, marked forever and from the beginning of the world with the pox of solitude.
   “Lord, Lord,?she sighed, “Aureliano!?
   She was seeing Colonel Aureliano Buendía once more as she had seen him in the light of a lamp long before the wars, long before the desolation of glory and the exile of disillusionment, that remote dawn when he went to her bedroom to give the first command of his life: the command to give him love. It was Pilar Ternera. Years before, when she had reached one hundred forty-five years of age, she had given up the pernicious custom of keeping track of her age and she went on living in the static and marginal time of memories, in a future perfectly revealed and established, beyond the futures disturbed by the insidious snares and suppositions of her cards.
   From that night on Aureliano, took refuge in the compassionate tenderness and understanding of his unknown great-great-grandmother. Sitting in her wicker rocking chair, she would recall the past, reconstruct the grandeur and misfortunes of the family and the splendor of Macondo, which was now erased, while ?lvaro frightened the crocodiles with his noisy laughter and Alfonso invented outlandish stories about the bitterns who had pecked out the eyes of four customers who misbehaved the week before, and Gabriel was in the room of the pensive mulatto girl who did not collect in money but in letters to a smuggler boyfriend who was in prison on the other side of the Orinoco because the border guards had caught him and had made him sit on a chamberpot that filled up with a mixture of shit and diamonds. That true brothel, with that maternal proprietress, was the world of which Aureliano had dreamed during his prolonged captivity. He felt so well, so close to perfect companionship, that he thought of no other refuge on the afternoon on which Amaranta ?rsula had made his illusions crumble. He was ready to unburden himself with words so that someone could break the knots that bound his chest, but he only managed to let out a fluid, warm, and restorative weeping in Pilar Ternera’s lap. She let him finish, scratching his head with the tips of her fingers, and without his having revealed that he was weeping from love, she recognized immediately the oldest sobs in the history of man.
   “It’s all right, child,?she consoled him. “Now tell me who it is.?
   When Aureliano told her, Pilar Ternera let out a deep laugh, the old expansive laugh that ended up as a cooing of doves. There was no mystery in the heart of a Buendía that was impenetrable for her because a century of cards and experience had taught her that the history of the family was a machine with unavoidable repetitions, a turning wheel that would have gone on spilling into eternity were it not for the progressive and irremediable wearing of the axle.
   “Don’t worry,?she said, smiling. “Wherever she is right now, she’s waiting for you.?
   It was half past four in the afternoon when Amaranta ?rsula came out of her bath. Aureliano saw her go by his room with a robe of soft folds and a towel wrapped around her head like a turban. He followed her almost on tiptoes, stumbling from drunkenness, and he went into the nuptial bedroom just as she opened the robe and closed it again in fright. He made a silent signal toward the next room where the door was half open and where Aureliano knew that Gaston was beginning to write a letter.
   “Go away,?she said voicelessly.
   Aureliano, smiled, picked her up by the waist with both hands like a pot of begonias, and dropped her on her back on the bed. With a brutal tug he pulled off her bathrobe before she had time to resist and he loomed over an abyss of newly washed nudity whose skin color, lines of fuzz, and hidden moles had all been imagined in the shadows of the other rooms. Amaranta ?rsula defended herself sincerely with the astuteness of a wise woman, weaseling her slippery, flexible, and fragrant weasel’s body as she tried to knee him in the kidneys and scorpion his face with her nails, but without either of them giving a gasp that might not have been taken for that breathing of a person watching the meager April sunset through the open window. It was a fierce fight, a battle to the death, but it seemed to be without violence because it consisted of distorted attacks and ghostly evasions, slow, cautious, solemn, so that during it all there was time for the petunias to bloom and for Gaston to forget about his aviator’s dream in the next room, as if they were two enemy lovers seeking reconciliation at the bottom of an aquarium. In the heat of that savage and ceremonious struggle, Amaranta ?rsula understood that her meticulous silence was so irrational that it could awaken the suspicions of her nearby husband much more than the sound of warfare that they were trying to avoid. Then she began to laugh with her lips tight together, without giving up the fight, but defending herself with false bites and deweaseling her body little by little until they both were conscious of being adversaries and accomplices at the same time and the affray degenerated into a conventional gambol and the attacks became caresses. Suddenly, almost playfully, like one more bit of mischief, Amaranta ?rsula dropped her defense, and when she tried to recover, frightened by what she herself had made possible, it was too late. A great commotion immobilized her in her center of gravity, planted her in her place, and her defensive will was demolished by the irresistible anxiety to discover what the orange whistles and the invisible globes on the other side of death were like. She barely had time to reach out her hand and grope for the towel to put a gag between her teeth so that she would not let out the cat howls that were already tearing at her insides.



第十九章

  十二月初旬,阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜一路顺风地回来了。她拉着丈夫系在脖子上的丝带,领他到了家,她是事先没打招呼便突然出现的;她身穿乳白色衣服,脖子上戴着的那串珍珠几乎拖到膝盖,手指上是绿宝石和黄宝石的戒指,光洁、整齐的头发梳成一个发辔,用燕尾状的发针别在耳后。六个月前同她结婚的男人,年岁较大,瘦瘦的;象个水手,是法兰德斯人。她一推开客厅的门,就感到自己离开这儿已经很久了。房子破得比想象的更厉害。
  “天啊,”她叫了一声,语气快活多于惊讶,“显然,这房子里没有女人!”
  门廊上放不下她的行李,菲兰达的那只旧箱子,是家里送她上学时给她的,此外还有一对竖着的大木箱、四只大手提箱、一只装阳伞的提包、八个帽盒、一个装了五十只金丝雀的大笼子,另外就是丈夫的自行车,这辆自行车是拆开来装在一只特制箱子里的。他象抱大提琴似的抱着箱子走。尽管经过长途跋涉,但她连一天都没休息。她全身都换上她丈夫夹在自动玩具里一道带来的粗布衣服,把这座房子里里外外打扫一遍。她扫去了在门廊里做窝的红蚂蚁,让玫瑰花丛恢复生机,铲除了杂草,种上羊齿蕨和薄荷,沿着篱笆墙又摆上了一盆盆秋海棠。她叫来一大群木匠、锁匠和泥瓦匠,让他们在地上抹缝,把门窗装好,将家具修复一新,把墙壁里里外外粉刷了一遍。就这样,在她回来三个月以后,人们又可以呼吸到自动钢琴时代曾经有过的朝气蓬勃、愉快欢乐的气息了。在这座房子里,在任何时候和任何情况下,都不曾有过一个人的情绪比现在还好,也不曾有过一个人比她更想唱,更想跳,更想把一切陈规陋习抛进垃圾堆里。她用笤帚扫掉了丧葬的祭奠品,扫掉了一堆堆破烂,扫掉了角落里成年累月堆积起来的迷信用具。出于对乌苏娜的感激,她留下了一件东西,那就是挂在客厅里的雷麦黛丝的照片。“啊唷,真逗人,”她这样喊道,笑得上气不接下气。“一个十四岁的姑妈!”一个泥瓦匠告诉她,这座房子里全是妖怪,要赶走它们只有找到它们埋藏的金银财宝才行。她笑着回答说,男人不该相信迷信。她那么天真、洒脱,那么大方、时新,使奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚见她过来便感到手足无措。“啊唷!啊唷!”她双臂张开,快活地叫道。“看看我的小鬼头是怎么长大的!”没等他反应过来,她已经在她随身带来的手提留声机上放了一张唱片,打算教他跳最新式的舞。她叫他换下奥雷连诺上校传给他的脏裤子,送给他一些颜色鲜艳的衬衫和两色皮鞋,如果他在梅尔加德斯的房间里呆久了,她就把他推到街上去。
  她象乌苏娜一样活泼、纤小、难以驾驭,并且几乎同俏姑娘雷麦黛丝同样漂亮和诱人。她有一种能够预测时尚的罕见本能。当她从邮件里收到最新式的时装图片时,旁人不得不赞赏她亲自设计的式样:她用阿玛兰塔的老式脚踏缝纫机缝制的衣服和图片上的完全一样。她订阅了欧洲出版的所有时装杂志、美术刊物、大众音乐评论,她经常只要瞟上一眼,便知道世界万物正按照她的想象发展变化义。东汉王充区别性与命,提出:“操行善恶者,性也;祸福,具有这种气质的女人,居然要回到这个满是灰尘、热得要命的死镇上来,真是不可理解,何况她有一个殷实的丈夫,钱多得足以在世界上任何地方生活,而且他对她很有感情,甘心让她牵着丝带到处走。随着时光的流逝,她准备久居的意思更加明显,因为她的计划是长远的,她的打算就是在马孔多寻求舒适的生活以安度晚年。金丝雀笼子表明她的决定不是突然的。她想起了母亲在一封信里告诉过她关于捕杀鸟类的事情,就把动身的时间推迟了几个月,直到发现了停泊在幸福岛的一只轮船。她在岛上挑选了二十五对最好的金丝雀,这样她就可以使马孔多的天空又有飞鸟生存了。这是她无数次失败中最可悲的一次。鸟儿繁殖以后,阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜却把它们一对对地放出去;鸟儿们获得了自由,便立即从小镇飞走了。她想用乌苏娜第一次重建房子时所做的鸟笼来唤起鸟儿们的感情,可是没有成功。她又在杏树上用芦草编织了鸟巢,在巢顶撒上鸟食,引诱笼中的鸟儿唱歌,想借它们的歌声劝阻那些飞出笼子的鸟儿不要远走高飞,但也失败了,因为鸟儿一有机会展开翅膀,便在空中兜一个圈子,辨别了一下幸福岛的方向,飞去了。
  回来一年之后,阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜虽然没有结交什么朋友,也没有举行任何宴会,但她仍然相信,要拯救这个灾难深重的村镇是办得到的。她的丈夫加斯东怕冒犯她,总是小心翼翼的。从他走下火车的那个决定命运的下午起,他就觉得妻子的决心是怀乡病引起的。他肯定她迟早会在现实生活中遭到挫折。他不肯花点功夫安装自行车,却在泥瓦匠们搅乱的蜘蛛网里寻找最大的卵。他用指甲弄破这些卵,花费几个小时在放大镜下面观察钻出来的小蜘蛛。后来,他想到阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜正在继续她的修缮工作,双手不得空闲,他才决定安装那辆前轮比后轮大得多的漂亮自行车。他还努力捕捉本地所能找到的每一种昆虫,给它们治病。他把昆虫放在果酱瓶里,送给列日(比利时城名。)大学教自然史的老师:尽管当时他的主要职务是飞行员,但他曾在那个大学里学过昆虫学的高年级课程。他骑自行车时总要穿上杂技师的紧身衣,套上华丽而俗气的袜子,戴上福尔摩斯式的帽子;但他步行的时候,却穿一尘不染的亚麻布西服,脚登白色鞋子,打一个丝领结,戴一顶硬草帽,手里还握一根柳木手杖。他的浅色眼睛突出了他水手的容貌,小胡子柔软齐整,活象松鼠皮。他虽然比妻子起码大十五岁,可是他的机敏和果决却能使她感到愉快。他具有一个好丈夫必备的气质,这就弥补了年龄上的差异。其实人们看到他已经四十来岁了,还保持着谨小慎微的习惯,脖子上系着丝带,骑着马戏团用的自行车,怎么也不会想到他和妻子之间曾经有过狂热的爱情生活,而且在最不适宜的或者情绪冲动的场合,他俩还会象刚开始恋爱时那样顺从彼此的需要,干出有伤风化的事来;随着时光的消逝,经过越来越多不寻常的事情的磨炼,他俩之间的这种激情就变得更加深沉和炽热了。加斯东不仅是个具有无穷智慧和想象力的狂热的情人,或许还是这样一名驾驶员,为了求得紫罗兰地里的片刻欢乐,他宁愿紧急着陆,几乎使自己和爱人丧命也在所不惜。
  他俩是在认识两年以后结婚的,当时他驾驶着运动用的双翼飞机在阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜就读的学校上空盘旋。为了躲开一根旗杆,他作了一个大胆的动作,老式的帆篷和铝制机尾被电线缠住了。从那时起,他顾不上装着夹板的腿,每逢周末都把阿玛兰塔.乌苏哪从她居住的修女公寓接走;那里的规矩不象菲兰达想象得那么严格,他可以带她到他的乡村俱乐部去。星期天,在一千五百英尺高处荒野的空气中,他们开始相爱了。地面上的生物变得越来越小,他们彼此也就越来越亲近了。她对他说起马孔多,说它是世界上最美丽、最宁静的城镇;她又谈起一座散发着薄荷香味的大房子,她想在那儿同一个忠实的丈夫、两个强健的儿子和一个女儿生活到老。儿子取名罗德里格和贡泽洛,而决不能叫什么奥雷连诺和霍·阿卡蒂奥;女儿要叫弗吉妮娅,决不能起雷麦黛丝之类的名字。她因思恋故乡而把那个小镇理想化了,她的感情那么强烈坚定,使得加斯东明白,除非带她回马孔多定居,否则休想跟她结婚。他同意了,就象他后来同意系上那条丝带一样,因为这不过是暂时的喜好,早晚都要改变的。可是在马孔多过了两年以后,阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜仍象刚来的头一天那么快活。他开始发出警号了。那时候,他已经解剖了这个地区每一种可以解剖的昆虫。他的西班牙语说得象个本地人,他解开了寄来的杂志上所有的字谜。他不能用气候这个借口来催促他俩返回,因为大自然已经赋予他一个适合异乡水土的肝脏,使他能够对付午休时间的困劲,而且他还服用长了醋虫的水。他非常喜爱本地的饭食,以致有一次他一顿吃了八十二只鬣蜴(产于美洲或西印度的一种大蜥蜴蛋。)另外,阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜已经从火车上运来了一箱箱冰冻的鱼、罐头肉和蜜饯水果——这是她唯一能吃的东西。虽然她无处可走,无人要访问,她的衣着仍旧是欧洲式样的,她仍然不断地收到邮寄来的新样式。然而她的丈夫没有心思欣赏她的短裙、歪戴的毡帽和七股项圈。她的秘诀似乎在于她总是能够变戏法似的忙忙碌碌,不停地解决自己制造的一些家务困难。她为第二天安排了许多事情,结果什么也没干成。她干活的劲头很足,但是效果很糟,使人想起菲兰达,想起“做”只是为了“拆”的那种传统恶习。她爱好玩乐的情趣仍然很浓,她收到了新唱片,就叫加斯东到客厅里呆到很晚,教他跳舞,那舞姿是她的同学画在草图上寄给她的。孩子的诞生是她唯一感到欣慰的事,但她尊重与丈夫的约定,直到婚后五年才生了孩子。
  为了找些事来填补空虚和无聊,加斯东常常同胆小的奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚在梅尔加德斯的房间里呆上一个早晨。他愉快地同奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚回忆他的回家阴暗角落里的生活。奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚也知道这些事,仿佛在那儿生活过很久似的。加斯东问起他为了获得百科全书上没有的知识作过什么努力。加斯东得到的回答是与霍·阿卡蒂奥相同的:“一切都能认识嘛。”除了梵文,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚还学了英语、法语以及一点拉丁语和希腊语。当时由于他每天下午都要出去,阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜便每周拿出一点钱供他花销。他的房间就象博学的加泰隆尼亚人那家书店的分店。他经常贪婪地阅读到深夜要普及教育,提高文化,就可以实现共产主义。认为宗教是,从他阅读时采取的方式看来,加斯东认为他买书不是为了学习,而是为了验证他已有的知识是否正确。书里的内容与羊皮纸手稿一样引不起他的兴趣,但是读书占去了他上午的大部分时间。加斯东和妻子都希望奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚变成他们家庭的一员,但是奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚是一个性格内向的人,老是处在一团令人莫测的迷雾里。加斯东努力跟他亲近,但是没有成功,只得去找其他的事情来做,借以排遣无聊的时光。就在这时,他产生了开办航空邮政的想法。
  这并不是个新计划。加斯东认识阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜的时候就想好了这个计划,但那不是为了马孔多,而是为了比属刚果,他家里的人在那里的棕榈油事业方面投了资。结婚以及婚后为了取悦妻子到马孔多生活了几个月,这就使他不得不把这项计划暂时搁置起来。嗣后,他看到阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜决心组织一个改善公共环境的委员会,并且在他暗示可能回去时,遭到了阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜的一番嘲笑,他就意识到事情要大大地延搁了。他跟布鲁塞尔失去联系的合伙人重新建立了联系,想到在加勒比地区作一名创业者并不比在非洲差。在他稳步前进的过程中,他准备在这迷人的古老地区建筑一个机场,这个地域在当时看来象是碎石铺成的平地。他研究风向,研究海边的地势,研究飞机航行最好的路线;他还不知道,他的这番类似赫伯特式的奋斗精神使小镇产生了一种极大的怀疑,人家说他不是在筹划航线,而是打算种植香蕉树。他满腔热情地抱定了一个想法——这个想法也许终究会证明他在马孔多长远的做法是对的——到省城去了几次,拜访了一些专家,获得了许可证,又草拟了取得专利权的合同。同时,他跟布鲁塞尔的合伙人保持着通信联系,就象菲兰达同没有见过的医生通信一样。在一名熟练技师照管下,第一架飞机将用船运来,那位技师要在抵达最近的港口后将飞机装配好,飞到马孔多,这终于使人们信服了。在他首次勘察并且作出气象计算一年之后,他的通信朋友的多次承诺使他充满了信心。他养成了一个习惯:在树丛间漫步,仰望天空,倾听风声,期待飞机出现。
  阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜的归来给奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚的生活带来了根本的变化,而她本人却没有注意到这一点。霍.阿卡蒂奥死后,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚在博学的加泰隆尼亚书商那里成了一个常客。他那时喜欢自由自在,加上他有随意支配的时间,暂时对小镇产生了好奇心。他感到了这一点,也不觉得惊异。他走过满地灰尘、寂寥冷落的街道,用刨根究底的兴趣考察日渐破败的房子内部,看到了窗上被铁锈和死鸟弄坏的铁丝网以及被往事压折了腰的居民。他试图凭想象恢复这个市镇和香蕉公司的辉煌时代。现在,镇上干涸了的游泳池让男人和女人的烂鞋子填得满满的;在黑麦草毁坏了的房子里面,他发现一头德国牧羊犬的骸骨,上面仍然套着颈圈,颈圈上还联着一段铁链子;一架电话机还在叮铃铃地响个不停。他一拿起耳机,便听到一个极为痛苦的妇女在遥远的地方用英语讲话。他回答说战争已经结束了。三千名死难者已经抛进海里,香蕉公司已经离开,多年之后马孔多终于享受到了和平。他在闲逛中不觉来到平坦的红灯地区。从前那儿焚烧过成捆的钞票,借以增添宴会的光彩,当时的街道纵横交错,如同迷宫一般,比其他的街道更加不幸,那里依然点着几盏红灯,凋零的花环装饰着几家冷落的舞厅;不知谁家的苍白、肥胖的寡妇、法国老太婆和巴比伦女人,仍然守在她们的留声机旁边。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚找不到一个还记得他家的人,甚至记不得奥雷连诺上校了,只有那位年纪最老的西印度黑人——头发好象棉花卷、脸盘犹如照相底版的老人,仍然站在他的房门前唱着庄严的落日赞歌。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚用他几个星期里学会的结结巴巴的巴比亚曼托语同老人谈话。老人请他喝他的曾孙女烧好的鸡头汤。他的曾孙女是一个黝黑的大块头女人,她有结实的骨架和母马似的臀部;乳房好象长在藤上的甜瓜;铁丝色的头发仿佛中世纪武士的头盔,保护着没有缺陷的、圆圆的头颅。她的名字叫尼格罗曼塔。在那些日子里,奥雷连诺,布恩蒂亚靠变卖银器、烛台和家里的其他古董过活,他一文钱都没有时(多数时候他都如此),就到市场上阴暗的地方去,求人家把打算丢弃的鸡头送给他,他拿了这些鸡头叫尼格罗曼塔煮汤,配上马齿苋菜,加点薄荷调味。尼格罗曼塔的曾祖父死后,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚停止了走街串巷,但是他常常跑到尼格罗曼塔那里去,在庭院中漆黑的杏树下,把她模仿动物叫的口笛拿来,引诱几只夜猫子。他更多的时候是跟她呆在一起的,用巴比亚曼托语评论鸡头汤以及穷困中尝到的其他可口的美味。要是她不告诉他,他的到来吓跑了其他的主顾,他就一直呆着不走。尽管他有时也受到一些诱惑,但是在他看来,尼格罗曼塔本人也象他一样患着思乡病,因此他并没有跟她一起睡觉。在阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜回到马孔多以后,并且象姐姐一般地拥抱他、使他喘不过气来时,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚还是个童男子。每当他见到她,特别是她表演最新式的舞蹈时,他都有一种骨头酥软的感觉,如同当年皮拉·苔列娜借口到库房里玩纸牌,也曾使他的高祖父神魂不定一样。他埋头在羊皮纸手稿中,想排遣苦恼,躲开姑娘天真烂漫的诱惑,因为她给他带来了一系列的痛苦,破坏了他夜间的宁静。但是,他越是躲着她,就越是焦灼地期待着她,想听到她冷漠的大笑声,听到她小猫撒欢似的嗥叫声,听到她的歌声。而在这屋里最不合适的地方,每时每刻她都在发泄情欲。一天夜里,在隔壁离他的床三十叹的工作台上,夫妇俩疯狂地拥抱,结果打碎了一些瓶子,在盐酸的水洼里结束了一场好事。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚一夜没有合眼,第二天发了高烧,气得直哭。晚上,他在杏树的阴影下第一次等待尼格罗曼塔,只觉得时间过得实在太慢,他忐忑不安,如坐针毡,手里攥着向阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜要来的一比索和五十生丁。他要这钱是出于需要,想拿它作某种尝试,以便使尼格罗曼塔就范,好侮辱她,糟蹋她。尼格罗曼塔把他带到了自己屋里。他们就这样私通。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚整个上午都在辨认羊皮纸手稿,午睡时间就去卧室,尼格罗曼塔正在那儿等着他。
  尼格罗曼塔第一次有了一个固定的男人,正如她狂笑着说的,有了一个从头到脚都象碎骨机的人。奥雷连诺,布恩蒂亚却偷偷告诉她:他爱阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜,但他的爱是受压抑的佛学日盛。,即使有了替身,也无法得到满足,特别是由于经验多了,对谈情说爱的眼界也开阔了,那就更无法满足了。为此,她甚至产生了浪漫的想法。以后,尼格罗曼塔一如既往地热情接待他,但却坚持要他为她的接待付钱,在奥雷连诺,布恩蒂亚没有钱时,她甚至还要记上一笔账,这笔账不是用数目字记的,而是用她的大拇指甲在门背后划上。日落时分,当她在广场暗处游荡的时候,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚象陌生人似的,也正好沿门廊走着。通常,他很少向正在吃饭的阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜和加斯东打招呼,他把自己关回屋里。但由于听到他俩大声狂笑、悄悄耳语,以及后来他俩在黑夜中的欢乐,他焦躁不安,书看不下去,笔动不起来,连问题都不能思考。这就是加斯东在开始等待飞机之前两年中奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚的生活。这种生活一直如此。一天午后,他去博学的加泰隆尼亚人的书店,发现四个孩子吵闹不休,热烈地争论中世纪的人用什么方法杀死蟑螂。老书商知道奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚对“可敬的比德”(大约673一735,盎格鲁撒克逊僧侣,历史学家。)读过的书有一种癖好,使用父亲般的严肃态度请他加入争论,于是他滔滔不绝他讲开了:据《旧约》上说,地球上最古老的有翅昆虫——蟑螂,一直是人们脚下的牺牲品,但是这种昆虫对于消灭它们的一切方法都有抵抗力,即使掺了硼砂的蕃茄片以及面粉和白糖,都奈何它们不得。它们有一千六百零三个变种,已经抵御了最古老、最持久、最无情的迫害,抵御了人类开天辟地以来对任何生物都不曾使用过、对自己也不曾使用过的迫害手段。由于人类的迫害,蟑螂就有繁殖的本能,因此人类也有另一种更加坚定不移、更加咄咄逼人的杀死蟑螂的本能,如果说蟑螂成功地逃脱了人类的残酷迫害,那只是因为它们在阴暗的地方找到了避难所,它们在那里不会受到伤害,因为人们生来害怕黑暗。可是它们对阳光却很敏感,所以在中世纪,在当代,甚至永远都是如此,杀死蟑螂的唯一有效办法就是把它们放在太阳底下。
  学识上的一致是伟大友谊的开端。奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚下午继续同四位争论对手见面,他们是阿尔伐罗、杰尔曼、阿尔丰索和加布里埃尔,这四位是他一生中的第一批也是最后一批朋友。象他这样整天埋头书堆的人,从书店开始到黎明时刻在妓院里结束的暴风雨般的聚会,对他真是一种启示。直到那时他还从未想到过,文艺是迄今为止用来嘲弄人的一切发明中最好的玩意儿。阿尔伐罗在一天晚宴中就是这样说的。过了一些时候奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚才想到明白,此说来源于博学的加泰隆尼亚人。老头子认为:知识要是不能用来发明一种烹饪鹰嘴豆的方法,那就一文不值了。
  奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚发表关于蟑螂的演说的那天下午,辩论是在马孔多镇边一个妓院里结束的,姑娘们因为饥饿都睡觉去了。鸨母是一个面带笑容的、假惺惺的人,不断的开门关门使她有些不耐烦。她脸上的笑容似乎是为容易上当的主顾装出来的,主顾们却认真地领受这种微笑,而这种微笑只是一种幻觉,实际上并不存在,因为这里可以触摸的一切东西都是不真实的:这里的椅子,人一坐上去就会散架;留声机里的零件换上了一只抱蛋的母鸡,花园里都是纸花,日历上的日子还是香蕉公司来到之前的日子,画框里镶着的画是从没有出版过的杂志上剪下来的,就拿附近地区来的那些羞怯的小娘儿们来说,鸨母一喊接客,她们除了装模作样,什么也不会干。她们穿着五年前剩下的瘦小的花布衫出现在嫖客面前,一句问候的话也不说,她们天真无邪地穿上这些衣服,同样天真无邪地脱去这些衣服。情欲达到高潮时,她们会大叫“天哪”,并且看着天花板如何坍塌下来。拿到一比索五十生地之后,她们便立刻去向鸨母买夹干酪的面包卷来吃。那时鸨母会笑得更甜了,因为只有她知道,那些食物也都是骗人货。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚当时的生活,开头是阅读梅尔加德斯的手稿,最后是到尼格罗曼塔的床上。他在妓院里,发现了一种医治羞怯症的笨办法。起初,他毫无进展,他呆在房间里,鸨母在他们兴致正浓的时刻走进来,把相亲相爱的迷人之处向他俩作一番介绍。不过,时间一长,他开始熟悉人世间的不幸了,因此在一天夜里,情况比往常更加令人心神不定,他在小小的接待室里脱光了衣服,拿着一瓶啤酒,以他那不可思议的男子气概,跑着穿过那座房子。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚把鸨母始终笑脸迎客的态度看做一种时髦作风,既不反对,也不相信,就象杰尔曼为了证明房子并不存在而要烧掉房子一样,也象阿尔丰索拧断鹦鹉的脖子,扔进滚沸的炖锅里一样,他都无动于衷。
  奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚感到,有一种共同的感情和友谊把他跟四位朋友联结在一起,他一想到他们,就仿佛他们是一个人。尽管如此,他还是比较接近加布里埃尔。这种关系是一天晚上产生的和宗教迷信的危害。,当时他偶然提到了奥雷连诺上校,只有加布里埃尔一个人认为他不是在说笑话。甚至通常并不参加争论的鸨母,也摆出一副太太们特有的激愤样儿,争辩地说:她有时确实听说过奥雷连诺上校这个人,他是政府为了找个借口来消灭自由党而捏造出来的一个人物。加布里埃尔却不怀疑奥雷连诺上校真有其人,因为他曾和他的曾祖父格林列尔多·马克斯上校一起打过仗,他们是亲密的朋友。大家提到屠杀工人的事件时,记忆中的那些陷坑就变得特别深了。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚每次提起这件事,不仅鸨母,甚至比她年长的人,都会起来驳斥那些神话,说工人们在车站上被军队包围,两百节车厢装满了死尸运往海边,这些都是虚构的,他们甚至还坚持说,在司法文件中以及小学教科书上,一切都讲得明明白白:香蕉公司从来不曾有过。这样,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚和加布里埃尔就有了一种共同的关系,这种关系的基础就是他俩相信谁也不相信的事实。这对他俩的生活影响相当大,结果他俩都发现自己偏离了一切都已消亡、只剩下思乡病的世界潮流。加布里埃尔不管在什么地方,有空就睡觉。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚在首饰作坊里接待过他好几次,但是加布里埃尔却整夜整夜睡不着觉,被那些穿过卧室的死人闹得无法安宁,直到天亮。后来,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚把加布里埃尔交给尼格罗曼塔,她闲下时就把他带到她那从不得空的房间里,在门背后划上几条直杠,记下他的账,这些记号与奥雷连诺的欠账紧紧地挨着。
  这伙人虽然在生活上乱七八糟,可是在博学的加泰隆尼亚人催促下,总还想做些固定的工作。博学的加泰隆尼亚人凭他古典文学老教师的资格和一间没有多少书籍的书库,领着他们整夜探讨这个小镇的第三十六次戏剧性变化,而这个小镇的人除了对小学校以外,对什么都不感兴趣。奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚对新的友谊如痴似狂,同菲兰达的冷漠相比,这种友谊就更可贵了。就在那些羊皮纸手稿开始以密码的诗句向他揭示预言的内容时,他却不再孜孜不倦地阅读了。但是后来的事实表明,他有足够的时间既出入妓院,又能做其他的事情,这就给了他一种动力,使他重返梅尔加德斯的书房,并且决心下苦功,不消沉,一定要解开这最后的谜。在加斯冬开始等待飞机的那个时期,有一天早上,阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜感到非常孤寂,跑进屋来。
  “喂,吃人的家伙,”她对他说。“还不回到你的窝里去吗?”
  她真是令人倾倒,穿了一身自己设计的服装,挂了一长串她亲手做的河鲜脊骨项链。她相信丈夫是忠实于她的,就不再使用那条丝带了。自从回来以后,她好象第一次有了片刻的安逸意识的一种形式,是社会存在的反映,并反作用于社会存在。,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚不看就知道她来了。她双肘支在桌上,挨得那么近,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚连她骨头的响动都能听到。她对羊皮纸手稿发生了兴趣。他努力克制自己的慌乱,纠正自己变了调的声音,使激荡的心情安定下来,唤起僵化了的记忆。他同她谈到梵文的神圣用途,谈到科学上预测未来的可能性,这种未来就象人们透过光亮能看到纸背面的字一样:而且谈到必须解开预言之谜。这样,他们就不会完蛋。此外还谈到诺斯特拉达马斯的《世纪》,谈到圣米勒纳斯预言过的坎塔布里亚的毁灭。他们谈话虽未中断,但他出生以来就隐伏在身上的那种冲动却突然出现了。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚把字放在她的手上,以为最后的决心会结束他的疑虑。她也满怀柔情立即抓住他的食指,不过这种纯真的感情是从孩提时代就有的,她在他回答问题的时候,一直握着他的手指。他们就那样冷冰冰地呆着,什么东西也传递不了的手指彼此勾连着。后来她从短暂的梦幻中苏醒过来,伸手摸了摸自己的前额。“蚂蚁!”她叫道。于是她忘了那些手稿,迈着舞步走到门口。在那儿,就象往日下午家里的人送她去布鲁塞尔时她的表示一样,用指尖向奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚送去一个飞吻。
  “你以后再讲给我听吧,”她说,“我忘了今天是该往蚁冢上撒石灰的日子了。”
  她需要到奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚住的那边去做事时,便偶然去他房间一趟,并且趁她丈夫不断注视天空的时候,在那里呆上几分钟。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚受到这种变化的鼓舞,常常留下来与这家人一同吃饭。而在阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜回来的头几个月内,他是从不那样做的。加斯东对此感到高兴。在饭后经常长达一个多小时的谈话中,他说他的合伙人在欺骗他。他们已经通知他,飞机已经装在一条船上,这条船尚未到达。但是他的代理人坚持说,那架飞机是永远到不了的,因为加勒比海所有商船的货单上都没有这架飞机。然而他的合伙人却坚持说那船是确有其事的;他们甚至暗指加斯东在信中对他们说了谎。通信联系造成了彼此的怀疑,所以加斯东决定不再写信,打算抓紧时间去一趟布鲁塞尔,把事情搞个水落石出,然后带着那架飞机回来。可是,阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜一再重申,她决不离开马孔多,即使失去丈夫也在所不惜,这就使加斯东的计划流产了。
  在头几天里,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚赞同了普遍的观点,即加斯东是骑自行车的傻瓜,这种想法在他心里引起一种模糊的同情。后来,当他在烟花馆里对男人的本性进行了更深入的观察之后互作用,相互制约,但身体(或心灵)的每一种活动都有心,他认识到加斯东的逆来顺受是由于纵欲的结果。对他有了更多的了解之后,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚确信他的本性正好与他谦卑的举止相反,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚甚至恶意地怀疑,加斯东所谓的等候飞机也是在作戏。于是奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚又想,加斯东并不象他所表现的那么傻,恰恰相反,他是一个无比沉着、既有才干而又坚忍的人,打算永远表示服从,决不说一个“不”字,用假装的无比顺从来使她产生厌倦,陷入她自己织下的罗网,这时他便可一举战胜她,使她有朝一日会忍受不了眼前单调无聊的日子,乖乖地自己卷起行李返回欧洲。奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚最初的怜悯变成了强烈的厌恶。他认为加斯东的招儿是邪恶的,但又那么有效。他便冒了风险去警告阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜。可是她对他的怀疑只是一笑置之,并没有注意到这里面爱情的分量,却半信半疑地以为是他的忌妒心在作怪。她在打开一个桃子罐头时,不小心划破了手指。他冲上来热心而贪婪地把血吮出来,这使她的脊梁骨一阵发凉,在这之前她根本没有想到,她对他有一种超过姐弟般的感情。
  “奥雷连诺!”她不安地笑道。“你太起劲了,会成为一个吸血鬼的。”
  于是奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚不顾一切,全力以赴了。他在她受了伤的手心上孩童似的轻轻吻了一下,接着便打开隐秘的心扉,倾诉无限的衷情,掏出潜藏在痛苦中的可怕的蠢虫。他告诉她半夜里他会醒来,寂寞地独自流泪,对着她挂在浴室里晾干的衬衣暗自发愁。他同她谈起他曾急切地要尼格罗曼塔象猫一样地叫唤,在他耳边呜咽:加斯东——加斯东——加斯东。他又谈起他如何费尽心机搜罗她的香水瓶,这样他便能够在为了挣点饭钱而上床的姑娘们脖颈上闻到香水气味。阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜被他激情的迸发吓坏了,她不由得蜷起手指,象河蚌肉似的缩回去。她的手已毫不疼痛,也没有了怜悯的感受,变成了一串绿宝石和黄玉石一样没有知觉的骨头。
  “傻瓜!”她吐出了一句话。“我就要乘第一艘船到比利时去了。”
  一天下午,阿尔伐罗来到博学的加泰隆尼亚人的书店,大叫大喊地宣布他的最新发现:一个“动物妓院”。这个地方叫做“金童”,是一个巨大的室外沙龙,那儿至少有二百多只麻形震耳欲聋地咯咯乱叫,报告时间。舞池周围的铁丝网里,大朵的亚马逊山茶花丛藏着各种颜色的苍鹭、肥猪似的鳄鱼、十二个响节的蛇,还有披着金铠潜伏在一座人造小海洋里的海龟。这里还有一条雪白的大狗,性情温顺,却是个乱伦的家伙,为了吃食,它会作出种马般的举动。气氛非常纯净浓郁,那个场所仿佛是刚刚出现的。花枝招展的混血姑娘绝望地守在鲜红的花丛中,陈旧的唱片播放着早就被尘世乐园里的人们忘却了的爱情老调。他们五人参观梦幻般的室外沙龙的头一个夜晚,坐在门口柳条摇椅里的一位衣着华丽、沉默寡言的老太婆感到时光仿佛正在回转。从走近的五个人中,她看见一个瘦瘦的人,长着鞑靼人的颧骨,患着黄疸病,从诞生之日起就永远标上了孤僻的印记。
  “天啊!天啊!”她惊叹道,“奥雷连诺!”
  她又一次看见了奥雷连诺上校,正象战前很久她在灯光下见到的那样,也象他在名誉扫地、幻想破灭以后即将流放之前那样。在那个遥远的黎明,他来到她的卧室,发出平生第一个命令,要求给他爱情。原来这是皮拉·苔列娜。多年以前,在她已经一百四十五岁时,她就已放弃了有害的计算年龄的习惯。她一直生活在平静和对往事的回忆中,一直是在一种完全清楚的、确信不疑的未来中生活,而不会受到扑克牌预卜的充满陷阱的前途不断滋扰。
  从那天晚上起,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚就在他并不认识的高祖母那里得到了同情和照顾。她一坐上柳条摇椅,就会想起过去,想起当年这一家的兴旺和没落,想起马孔多昔日的光辉,而这光辉现在已经泯灭了。这时阿尔伐罗正在嘿嘿怪笑地吓唬鳄鱼,阿尔丰索给麻屑编了个怪诞可笑的故事,说一星期之前,这些鸟儿把四个行为不端的顾客的眼珠子啄了出来。加布里埃尔呆在神情忧郁的混血姑娘的房间里。这姑娘没有收敛钱币,而在给一位从事走私活动的男朋友写信。那个男朋友已被边防警察抓走,目前正在奥里诺科河(在委内瑞拉境内,往东流入大西洋。)对岸蹲监狱。警察让他坐在一个装满了粪便和钻石的便盆上。这个真正的妓院有一个慈祥的鸨母,正是奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚在长期的禁锢期间梦寐以求的地方。他感到妙不可言,简直象是领受到了最美好的情谊,使他再也不想去别处存身了。他打算用话语来解脱自己的负担,以便有人来割断缠在他胸上的绳索,但他只是伏在皮拉.苔列娜的大腿上伤心地哭了一通。皮拉·苔列娜让他哭完,用指尖抚摸着他的头,他虽然没有显露出他是因为情欲而伤心,可她却一下子猜透了男人自古以来的伤心事。
  “好了,孩子,”她安慰他。”你就告诉我,她是谁。”
  奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚告诉她之后,皮拉·苔列娜发出一阵大笑,一种胸襟豁达的笑声,最后就象鸽子咕咕地叫了。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚心中没有她猜不透的秘密,因为一个世纪的岁月和经验告诉她,家庭的演变就象一架机器,不可避免地要有反复,就象一只轮子,若不是由于无可补救的磨损而需要更换新轮轴,它就会永远转动下去。
  “不要烦恼,”她笑着说。“不管她在哪儿,她一定会等着你。”
  午后一点半,阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜从浴室出来。奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚看见她从门口走过,穿着一件衣裙柔软的浴衣,头上包着头巾似的手绢。他几乎踮着脚尖,趁着醉意趔趔趄趄地尾随在她身后。正当她解开浴衣时,他踏进了这间幽会用的卧房。她吃了一惊,忙把衣服合上。他一声不响,向隔壁一指,那间屋门半掩着,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚知道加斯东正在那里写信。
  “走开,”她小声说。


执素衣

ZxID:13389413


等级: 内阁元老
举报 只看该作者 18楼  发表于: 2013-10-10 0


Chapter 18
AURELIANO DID NOT leave Melquíades?room for a long time. He learned by heart the fantastic legends of the crumbling books, the synthesis of the studies of Hermann the Cripple, the notes on the science of demonology, the keys to the philosopher’s stone, the Centuries of Nostradamus and his research concerning the plague, so that he reached adolescence without knowing a thing about his own time but with the basic knowledge of a medieval man. Any time that Santa Sofía de la Piedad would go into his room she would find him absorbed in his reading. At dawn she would bring him a mug of coffee without sugar and at noon a plate of rice and slices of fried plantain, which were the only things eaten in the house since the death of Aureliano Segundo. She saw that his hair was cut, picked off the nits, took in to his size the old clothing that she found in forgotten trunks, and when his mustache began to appear the brought him Colonel Aureliano Buendía’s razor and the small gourd he had used as a shaving mug. None of the latter’s children had looked so much like him, not even Aureliano Jos? particularly in respect to the prominent cheekbones and the firm and rather pitiless line of the lips. As had happened to ?rsula with Aureliano Segundo when the latter was studying in the room, Santa Sofía de la Piedad thought that Aureliano was talking to himself. Actually, he was talking to Melquíades. One burning noon, a short time after the death of the twins, against the light of the window he saw the gloomy old man with his crow’s-wing hat like the materialization of a memory that had been in his head since long before he was born. Aureliano had finished classifying the alphabet of the parchments, so that when Melquíades asked him if he had discovered the language in which they had been written he did not hesitate to answer.
   “Sanskrit,?he said.
   Melquíades revealed to him that his opportunities to return to the room were limited. But he would go in peace to the meadows of the ultimate death because Aureliano would have time to learn Sanskrit during the years remaining until the parchments became one hundred years old, when they could be deciphered. It was he who indicated to Aureliano that on the narrow street going down to the river, where dreams had been interpreted during the time of the banana company, a wise Catalonian had a bookstore where there was a Sanskrit primer, which would be eaten by the moths within six years if he did not hurry to buy it. For the first time in her long life Santa Sofía de la Piedad let a feeling show through, and it was a feeling of wonderment when Aureliano asked her to bring him the book that could be found between Jerusalem Delivered and Milton’s poems on the extreme right-hand side of the second shelf of the bookcases. Since she could not read, she memorized what he had said and got some money by selling one of the seventeen little gold fishes left in the workshop, the whereabouts of which, after being hidden the night the soldiers searched the house, was known only by her and Aureliano.
   Aureliano made progress in his studies of Sanskrit as Melquíades?visits became less and less frequent and he was more distant, fading away in the radiant light of noon. The last time that Aureliano sensed him he was only an invisible presence who murmured: “I died of fever on the sands of Singapore.?The room then became vulnerable to dust, heat, termites, red ants, and moths, who would turn the wisdom of the parchments into sawdust.
   There was no shortage of food in the house. The day after the death of Aureliano Segundo, one of the friends who had brought the wreath with the irreverent inscription offered to pay Fernanda some money that he had owed her husband. After that every Wednesday a delivery boy brought a basket of food that was quite sufficient for a week. No one ever knew that those provisions were being sent by Petra Cotes with the idea that the continuing charity was a way of humiliating the person who had humiliated her. Nevertheless, the rancor disappeared much sooner than she herself had expected, and then she continued sending the food out of pride and finally out of compassion. Several times, when she had no animals to raffle off and people lost interest in the lottery, she went without food so that Fernanda could have something to eat, and she continued fulfilling the pledge to herself until she saw Fernanda’s funeral procession pass by.
   For Santa Sofía de la Piedad the reduction in the number of inhabitants of the house should have meant the rest she deserved after more than half a century of work. Never a lament had been heard from that stealthy, impenetrable woman who had sown in the family the angelic seed of Remedios the Beauty and the mysterious solemnity of Jos?Arcadio Segundo; who dedicated a whole life of solitude and diligence to the rearing of children although she could barely remember whether they were her children or grandchildren, and who took care of Aureliano as if he had come out of her womb, not knowing herself that she was his great-grandmother. Only in a house like that was it conceivable for her always to sleep on a mat she laid out on the pantry floor in the midst of the nocturnal noise of the rats, and without telling anyone that one night she had awakened with the frightened feeling that someone was looking at her in the darkness and that it was a poisonous snake crawling over her stomach. She knew that if she had told ?rsula, the latter would have made her sleep in her own bed, but those were times when no one was aware of anything unless it was shouted on the porch, because with the bustle of the bakery, the surprises of the war, the care of the children, there was not much room for thinking about other peoples happiness. Petra Cotes whom she had never seen, was the only one who remembered her. She saw to it that she had a good pair of shoes for street wear, that she always had clothing, even during the times when the raffles were working only through some miracle. When Fernanda arrived at the house she had good reason to think that she was an ageless servant, and even though she heard it said several times that she was her husband’s mother it was so incredible that it took her longer to discover it than to forget it. Santa Sofía de la Piedad never seemed bothered by that lowly position. On the contrary, one had the impression that she liked to stay in the corners, without a pause, without a complaint, keeping clean and in order the immense house that she had lived in ever since adolescence and that, especially during the time of the banana company, was more like a barracks than a home. But when ?rsula died the superhuman diligence of Santa Sofía de la Piedad, her tremendous capacity for work, began to fall apart. It was not only that she was old and exhausted, but overnight the house had plunged into a crisis of senility. A soft moss grew up the walls. When there was no longer a bare spot in the courtyard, the weeds broke through the cement of the porch, breaking it like glass, and out of the cracks grew the same yellow flowers that ?rsula had found in the glass with Melquíades?false teeth a century before. With neither the time nor the resources to halt the challenge of nature, Santa Sofía de la Piedad spent the day in the bedrooms driving out the lizards who would return at night. One morning she saw that the red ants had left the undermined foundations, crossed the garden, climbed up the railing, where the begonias had taken on an earthen color, and had penetrated into the heart of the house. She first tried to kill them with a broom, then with insecticides, and finally with lye, but the next day they were back in the same place, still passing by, tenacious and invincible. Fernanda, writing letters to her children, was not aware of the unchecked destructive attack. Santa Sofía de la Piedad continued struggling alone, fighting the weeds to stop them from getting into the kitchen, pulling from the walls the tassels of spider webs which were rebuilt in a few hours, scraping off the termites. But when she saw that Melquíades?room was also dusty and filled with cobwebs even though she swept and dusted three times a day, and that in spite of her furious cleaning it was threatened by the debris and the air of misery that had been foreseen only by Colonel Aureliano Buendía and the young officer, she realized that she was defeated. Then she put on her worn Sunday dress, some old shoes of ?rsula’s, and a pair of cotton stockings that Amaranta ?rsula had given her, and she made a bundle out of the two or three changes of clothing that she had left.
   “I give up,?she said to Aureliano. “This is too much house for my poor bones.?
   Aureliano asked her where she was going and she made a vague sign, as if she did not have the slightest idea of her destination. She tried to be more precise, however, saying that she was going to spend her last years with a first cousin who lived in Riohacha. It was not a likely explanation. Since the death of her parents she had not had contact with anyone in town or received letters or messages, nor had she been heard to speak of any relatives. Aureliano gave her fourteen little gold fishes because she was determined to leave with only what she had: one peso and twenty-five cents. From the window of the room he saw her cross the courtyard with her bundle of clothing, dragging her feet and bent over by her years, and he saw her reach her hand through an opening in the main door and replace the bar after she had gone out. Nothing was ever heard of her again.
   When she heard about the flight, Fernanda ranted for a whole day as she checked trunks, dressers, and closets, item by item, to make sure that Santa Sofía de la Piedad had not made off with anything. She burned her fingers trying to light a fire for the first time in her life and she had to ask Aureliano to do her the favor of showing her how to make coffee. Fernanda would find her breakfast ready when she arose and she would leave her room again only to get the meal that Aureliano had left covered on the embers for her, which she would carry to the table to eat on linen tablecloths and between candelabra, sitting at the solitary head of the table facing fifteen empty chairs. Even under those circumstances Aureliano and Fernanda did not share their solitude, but both continued living on their own, cleaning their respective rooms while the cobwebs fell like snow on the rose bushes, carpeted the beams, cushioned the walls. It was around that time that Fernanda got the impression that the house was filling up with elves. It was as if things, especially those for everyday use, had developed a faculty for changing location on their own. Fernanda would waste time looking for the shears that she was sure she had put on the bed and after turning everything upside down she would find them on a shelf in the kitchen, where she thought she had not been for four days. Suddenly there was no fork in the silver chest and she would find six on the altar and three in the washroom. That wandering about of things was even more exasperating when she sat down to write. The inkwell that she had placed at her right would be on the left, the blotter would be lost and she would find it two days later under her pillow, and the pages written to Jos?Arcadio would get mixed up with those written to Amaranta ?rsula, and she always had the feeling of mortification that she had put the letters in opposite envelopes, as in fact happened several times. On one occasion she lost her fountain pen. Two weeks later the mailman, who had found it in his bag, returned it. He had been going from house to house looking for its owner. At first she thought it was some business of the invisible doctors, like the disappearance of the pessaries, and she even started a letter to them begging them to leave her alone, but she had to interrupt it to do something and when she went back to her room she not only did not find the letter she had started but she had forgotten the reason for writing it. For a time she thought it was Aureliano. She began to spy on him, to put things in his path trying to catch him when he changed their location, but she was soon convinced that Aureliano never left Melquíades?room except to go to the kitchen or the toilet, and that he was not a man to play tricks. So in the end she believed that it was the mischief of elves and she decided to secure everything in the place where she would use it. She tied the shears to the head of her bed with a long string. She tied the pen and the blotter to the leg of the table, and the glued the inkwell to the top of it to the right of the place where she normally wrote. The problems were not solved overnight, because a few hours after she had tied the string to the shears it was not long enough for her to cut with, as if the elves had shortened it. The same thing happened to her with the string to the pen and even with her own arm which after a short time of writing could not reach the inkwell. Neither Amaranta ?rsula in Brussels nor Jos?Arcadio in Rome ever heard about those insignificant misfortunes. Fernanda told them that she was happy and in reality she was, precisely because she felt free from any compromise, as if life were pulling her once more toward the world of her parents, where one did not suffer with day-to-day problems because they were solved beforehand in one’s imagination. That endless correspondence made her lose her sense of time, especially after Santa Sofía de la Piedad had left. She had been accustomed to keep track of the days, months, and years, using as points of reference the dates set for the return of her children. But when they changed their plans time and time again, the dates became confused, the periods were mislaid, and one day seemed so much like another that one could not feel them pass. Instead of becoming impatient, she felt a deep pleasure in the delay. It did not worry her that many years after announcing the eve of his final vows, Jos?Arcadio was still saying that he was waiting to finish his studies in advanced theology in order to undertake those in diplomacy, because she understood how steep and paved with obstacles was the spiral stairway that led to the throne of Saint Peter. On the other hand, her spirits rose with news that would have been insignificant for other people, such as the fact that her son had seen the Pope. She felt a similar pleasure when Amaranta ?rsula wrote to tell her that her studies would last longer than the time foreseen because her excellent grades had earned her privileges that her father had not taken into account in his calculations.
   More than three years had passed since Santa Sofía de la Piedad had brought him the grammar when Aureliano succeeded in translating the first sheet. It was not a useless chore. but it was only a first step along a road whose length it was impossible to predict, because the text in Spanish did not mean anything: the lines were in code. Aureliano lacked the means to establish the keys that would permit him to dig them out, but since Melquíades had told him that the books he needed to get to the bottom of the parchments were in the wise Catalonian’s store, he decided to speak to Fernanda so that she would let him get them. In the room devoured by rubble, whose unchecked proliferation had finally defeated it, he thought about the best way to frame the request, but when he found Fernanda taking her meal from the embers, which was his only chance to speak to her, the laboriously formulated request stuck in his throat and he lost his voice. That was the only time that he watched her. He listened to her steps in the bedroom. He heard her on her way to the door to await the letters from her children and to give hers to the mailman, and he listened until late at night to the harsh, impassioned scratching of her pen on the paper before hearing the sound of the light switch and the murmur of her prayers in the darkness. Only then did he go to sleep, trusting that on the following day the awaited opportunity would come. He became so inspired with the idea that permission would be granted that one morning he cut his hair, which at that time reached down to his shoulders, shaved off his tangled beard, put on some tight-fitting pants and a shirt with an artificial collar that he had inherited from he did not know whom, and waited in the kitchen for Fernanda to get her breakfast. The woman of every day, the one with her head held high and with a stony gait, did not arrive, but an old woman of supernatural beauty with a yellowed ermine cape, a crown of gilded cardboard, and the languid look of a person who wept in secret. Actually, ever since she had found it in Aureliano Segundo’s trunks, Fernanda had put on the moth-eaten queen’s dress many times. Anyone who could have seen her in front of the mirror, in ecstasy over her own regal gestures, would have had reason to think that she was mad. But she was not. She had simply turned the royal regalia into a device for her memory. The first time that she put it on she could not help a knot from forming in her heart and her eyes filling with tears because at that moment she smelled once more the odor of shoe polish on the boots of the officer who came to get her at her house to make her a queen, and her soul brightened with the nostalgia of her lost dreams. She felt so old, so worn out, so far away from the best moments of her life that she even yearned for those that she remembered as the worst, and only then did she discover how much she missed the whiff of oregano on the porch and the smell of the roses at dusk, and even the bestial nature of the parvenus. Her heart of compressed ash, which had resisted the most telling blows of daily reality without strain, fell apart with the first waves of nostalgia. The need to feel sad was becoming a vice as the years eroded her. She became human in her solitude. Nevertheless, the morning on which she entered the kitchen and found a cup of coffee offered her by a pale and bony adolescent with a hallucinated glow in his eyes, the claws of ridicule tore at her. Not only did she refuse him permission, but from then on she carried the keys to the house in the pocket where she kept the unused pessaries. It was a useless precaution because if he had wanted to, Aureliano could have escaped and even returned to the house without being seen. But the prolonged captivity, the uncertainty of the world, the habit of obedience had dried up the seeds of rebellion in his heart. So that he went back to his enclosure, reading and rereading the parchments and listening until very late at night to Fernanda sobbing in her bedroom. One morning he went to light the fire as usual and on the extinguished ashes he found the food that he had left for her the day before. Then he looked into her bedroom and saw her lying on the bed covered with the ermine cape, more beautiful than ever and with her skin turned into an ivory casing. Four months later, when Jos?Arcadio arrived, he found her intact.
   It was impossible to conceive of a man more like his mother. He was wearing a somber taffeta suit, a shirt with a round and hard collar, and a thin silk ribbon tied in a bow in place of a necktie. He was ruddy and languid with a startled look and weak lips. His black hair, shiny and smooth, parted in the middle of his head by a straight and tired line, had the same artificial appearance as the hair on the saints. The shadow of a well-uprooted beard on his paraffin face looked like a question of conscience. His hands were pale, with green veins and fingers that were like parasites, and he wore a solid gold ring with a round sunflower opal on his left index finger. When he opened the street door Aureliano did not have to be told who he was to realize that he came from far away. With his steps the house filled up with the fragrance of the toilet water that ?rsula used to splash on him when he was a child in order to find him in the shadows, in some way impossible to ascertain, after so many years of absence. Jos?Arcadio was still an autumnal child, terribly sad and solitary. He went directly to his mother’s bedroom, where Aureliano had boiled mercury for four months in his grandfather’s grandfather’s water pipe to conserve the body according to Melquíades?formula. Jos?Arcadio did not ask him any questions. He kissed the corpse on the forehead and withdrew from under her skirt the pocket of casing which contained three as yet unused pessaries and the key to her cabinet. He did everything with direct and decisive movements, in contrast to his languid look. From the cabinet he took a small damascene chest with the family crest and found on the inside, which was perfumed with sandalwood, the long letter in which Fernanda unburdened her heart of the numerous truths that she had hidden from him. He read it standing up, avidly but without anxiety, and at the third page he stopped and examined Aureliano with a look of second recognition.
   “So,?he said with a voice with a touch of razor in it, “You’re the bastard.?
   “I’m Aureliano Buendía.?
   “Go to your room,?Jos?Arcadio said.
   Aureliano went and did not come out again even from curiosity when he heard the sound of the solitary funeral ceremonies. Sometimes, from the kitchen, he would see Jos?Arcadio strolling through the house, smothered by his anxious breathing, and he continued hearing his steps in the ruined bedrooms after midnight. He did not hear his voice for many months, not only because Jos?Arcadio never addressed him, but also because he had no desire for it to happen or time to think about anything else but the parchments. On Fernanda’s death he had taken out the next-to-the-last little fish and gone to the wise Catalonian’s bookstore in search of the books he needed. Nothing he saw along the way interested him, perhaps because he lacked any memories for comparison and the deserted streets and desolate houses were the same as he had imagined them at a time when he would have given his soul to know them. He had given himself the permission denied by Fernanda and only once and for the minimum time necessary, so without pausing he went along the eleven blocks that separated the house from the narrow street where dreams had been interpreted in other days and he went panting into the confused and gloomy place where there was barely room to move. More than a bookstore, it looked like a dump for used books, which were placed in disorder on the shelves chewed by termites, in the corners sticky with cobwebs, and even in the spaces that were supposed to serve as passageways. On a long table, also heaped with old books and papers, the proprietor was writing tireless prose in purple letters, somewhat outlandish, and on the loose pages of a school notebook. He had a handsome head of silver hair which fell down over his forehead like the plume of a cockatoo, and his blue eyes, lively and close-set, revealed the gentleness of a man who had read all of the books. He was wearing short pants and soaking in perspiration, and he did not stop his writing to see who had come in. Aureliano had no difficulty in rescuing the five books that he was looking for from that fabulous disorder, because they were exactly where Melquíades had told him they would be. Without saying a word he handed them, along with the little gold fish, to the wise Catalonian and the latter examined them, his eyelids contracting like two clams. “You must be mad,?he said in his own language, shrugging his shoulders, and he handed back to Aureliano the five books and the little fish.
   “You can have them?he said in Spanish. “The last man who read these books must have been Isaac the Blindman, so consider well what you’re doing.?
   Jos?Arcadio restored Meme’s bedroom and had the velvet curtains cleaned and mended along with the damask on the canopy of the viceregal bed, and he put to use once more the abandoned bathroom where the cement pool was blackened by a fibrous and rough coating. He restricted his vest-pocket empire of worn, exotic clothing, false perfumes, and cheap jewelry to those places. The only thing that seemed to worry him in the rest of the house were the saints on the family altar, which he burned down to ashes one afternoon in a bonfire he lighted in the courtyard. He would sleep until past eleven o’clock. He would go to the bathroom in a shabby robe with golden dragons on it and a pair of slippers with yellow tassels, and there he would officiate at a rite which for its care and length recalled Remedios the Beauty. Before bathing he would perfume the pool with the salts that he carried in three alabaster flacons. He did not bathe himself with the gourd but would plunge into the fragrant waters and remain there for two hours floating on his back, lulled by the coolness and by the memory of Amaranta. A few days after arriving he put aside his taffeta suit, which in addition to being too hot for the town was the only one that he had, and he exchanged it for some tight-fitting pants very similar to those worn by Pietro Crespi during his dance lessons and a silk shirt woven with thread from living caterpillars and with his initials embroidered over the heart. Twice a week he would wash the complete change in the tub and would wear his robe until it dried because he had nothing else to put on. He never ate at home. He would go out when the heat of siesta time had eased and would not return until well into the night. Then he would continue his anxious pacing, breathing like a cat and thinking about Amaranta. She and the frightful look of the saints in the glow of the nocturnal lamp were the two memories he retained of the house. Many times during the hallucinating Roman August he had opened his eyes in the middle of his sleep and had seen Amaranta rising out of a marble-edged pool with her lace petticoats and the bandage on her hand, idealized by the anxiety of exile. Unlike Aureliano Jos?who tried to drown that image in the bloody bog of war, he tried to keep it alive in the sink of concupiscence while he entertained his mother with the endless fable of his pontifical vocation. It never occurred either to him or to Fernanda to think that their correspondence was an exchange of fantasies. Jos?Arcadio, who left the seminary as soon as he reached Rome, continued nourishing the legend of theology and canon law so as not to jeopardize the fabulous inheritance of which his mother’s delirious letters spoke and which would rescue him from the misery and sordidness he shared with two friends in a Trastevere garret. When he received Fernanda’s last letter, dictated by the foreboding of imminent death, he put the leftovers of his false splendor into a suitcase and crossed the ocean in the hold of a ship where immigrants were crammed together like cattle in a slaughterhouse, eating cold macaroni and wormy cheese. Before he read Fernanda’s will, which was nothing but a detailed and tardy recapitulation of her misfortunes, the broken-down furniture and the weeds on the porch had indicated that he had fallen into a trap from which he would never escape, exiled forever from the diamond light and timeless air of the Roman spring. During the crushing insomnia brought on by his asthma he would measure and remeasure the depth of his misfortune as he went through the shadowy house where the senile fussing of ?rsula had instilled a fear of the world in him. In order to be sure that she would not lose him in the shadows, she had assigned him a corner of the bedroom, the only one where he would be safe from the dead people who wandered through the house after sundown. “If you do anything bad,??rsula would tell him, “the saints will let me know.?The terror-filled nights of his childhood were reduced to that corner where he would remain motionless until it was time to go to bed, perspiring with fear on a stool under the watchful and glacial eyes of the tattletale saints. It was useless torture because even at that time he already had a terror of everything around him and he was prepared to be frightened at anything he met in life: women on the street, who would ruin his blood; the women in the house, who bore children with the tail of a pig; fighting cocks, who brought on the death of men and remorse for the rest of one’s life; firearms, which with the mere touch would bring down twenty years of war; uncertain ventures, which led only to disillusionment and madness—everything, in short, everything that God had created in His infinite goodness and that the devil had perverted. When he awakened, pressed in the vise of his nightmares, the light in the window and the caresses of Amaranta in the bath and the pleasure of being powdered between the legs with a silk puff would release him from the terror. Even ?rsula was different under the radiant light in the garden because there she did not talk about fearful things but would brush his teeth with charcoal powder so that he would have the radiant smile of a Pope, and she would cut and polish his nails so that the pilgrims who came to Rome from all over the world would be startled at the beauty of the Pope’s hands as he blessed them, and she would comb his hair like that of a Pope, and she would sprinkle his body and his clothing with toilet water so that his body and his clothes would have the fragrance of a Pope. In the courtyard of Castel Gandolfo he had seen the Pope on a balcony making the same speech in seven languages for a crowd of pilgrims and the only thing, indeed, that had drawn his attention was the whiteness of his hands, which seemed to have been soaked in lye, the dazzling shine of his summer clothing, and the hidden breath of cologne.
   Almost a year after his return home, having sold the silver candlesticks and the heraldic chamberpot—which at the moment of truth turned out to have only a little gold plating on the crest—in order to eat, the only distraction of Jos?Arcadio was to pick up children in town so that they could play in the house. He would appear with them at siesta time and have them skip rope in the garden, sing on the porch, and do acrobatics on the furniture in the living room while he would go among the groups giving lessons in good manners. At that time he had finished with the tight pants and the silk shirts and was wearing an ordinary suit of clothing that he had bought in the Arab stores, but he still maintained his languid dignity and his papal air. The children took over the house just as Meme’s schoolmates had done in the past. Until well into the night they could be heard chattering and singing and tap-dancing, so that the house resembled a boarding school where there was no discipline. Aureliano did not worry about the invasion as long as they did not bother him in Melquíades?room. One morning two children pushed open the door and were startled at the sight of a filthy and hairy man who was still deciphering the parchments on the worktable. They did not dare go in, but they kept on watching the room. They would peep in through the cracks, whispering, they threw live animals in through the transom, and on one occasion they nailed up the door and the window and it took Aureliano half a day to force them open. Amused at their unpunished mischief, four of the children went into the room one morning while Aureliano was in the kitchen, preparing to destroy the parchments. But as soon as they laid hands on the yellowed sheets an angelic force lifted them off the ground and held them suspended in the air until Aureliano returned and took the parchments away from them. From then on they did not bother him.
   The four oldest children, who wore short pants in spite of the fact that they were on the threshold of adolescence, busied themselves with Jos?Arcadio’s personal appearance. They would arrive earlier than the others and spend the morning shaving him, giving him massages with hot towels, cutting and polishing the nails on his hands and feet, and perfuming him with toilet water. On several occasions they would get into the pool to soap him from head to toe as he floated on his back thinking about Amaranta. Then they would dry him, powder his body, and dress him. One of the children, who had curly blond hair and eyes of pink glass like a rabbit, was accustomed to sleeping in the house. The bonds that linked him to Jos?Arcadio were so strong that he would accompany him in his asthmatic insomnia, without speaking, strolling through the house with him in the darkness. One night in the room where ?rsula had slept they saw a yellow glow coming through the crumbling cement as if an underground sun had changed the floor of the room into a pane of glass. They did not have to turn on the light. It was sufficient to lift the broken slabs in the corner where ?rsula’s bed had always stood and where the glow was most intense to find the secret crypt that Aureliano Segundo had worn himself out searching for during the delirium of his excavations. There were the three canvas sacks closed with copper wire, and inside of them the seven thousand two hundred fourteen pieces of eight, which continued glowing like embers in the darkness.
   The discovery of the treasure was like a deflagration. Instead of returning to Rome with the sudden fortune, which had been his dream maturing in misery, Jos?Arcadio converted the house into a decadent paradise. He replaced the curtains and the canopy of the bed with new velvet, and he had the bathroom floor covered with paving stones and the walls with tiles. The cupboard in the dining room was filled with fruit preserves, hams, and pickles, and the unused pantry was opened again for the storage of wines and liqueurs which Jos?Arcadio himself brought from the railroad station in crates marked with his name. One night he and the four oldest children had a party that lasted until dawn. At six in the morning they came out naked from the bedroom, drained the pool, and filled it with champagne. They jumped in en masse, swimming like birds flying through a sky gilded with fragrant bubbles, while Jos?Arcadio, floated on his back on the edge of the festivities, remembering Amaranta with his eyes open. He remained that way, wrapped up in himself, thinking about the bitterness of his equivocal pleasures until after the children had become tired and gone in a troop to the bedroom. where they tore down the curtains to dry themselves, and in the disorder they broke the rock crystal mirror into four pieces and destroyed the canopy of the bed in the tumult of lying down. When Jos?Arcadio came back from the bathroom, he found them sleeping in a naked heap in the shipwrecked bedroom. Inflamed, not so much because of the damage as because of the disgust and pity that he felt for himself in the emptiness of the saturnalia, he armed himself with an ecclesiastical cat-o-nine-tails that he kept in the bottom of his trunk along with a hair-shirt and other instruments of mortification and penance, and drove the children out of the house, howling like a madman and whipping them without mercy as a person would not even have done to a pack of coyotes. He was done in, with an attack of asthma that lasted for several days and that gave him the look of a man on his deathbed. On the third night of torture, overcome by asphyxiation, he went to Aureliano’s room to ask him the favor of buying some powders to inhale at a nearby drugstore. So it was that Aureliano, went out for a second time. He had to go only two blocks to reach the small pharmacy with dusty windows and ceramic bottles with labels in Latin where a girl with the stealthy beauty of a serpent of the Nile gave him the medicine the name of which Jos?Arcadio had written down on a piece of paper. The second view of the deserted town, barely illuminated by the yellowish bulbs of the street lights, did not awaken in Aureliano any more curiosity than the first. Jos?Arcadio, had come to think that he had run away, when he reappeared, panting a little because of his haste, dragging legs that enclosure and lack of mobility had made weak and heavy. His indifference toward the world was so certain that a few days later Jos?Arcadio violated the promise he had made to his mother and left him free to go out whenever he wanted to.
   “I have nothing to do outside,?Aureliano answered him.
   He remained shut up, absorbed in the parchments, which he was slowly unraveling and whose meaning, nevertheless, he was unable to interpret. Jos?Arcadio would bring slices of ham to him in his room, sugared flowers which left a spring-like aftertaste in his mouth, and on two occasions a glass of fine wine. He was not interested in the parchments, which he thought of more as an esoteric pastime, but his attention was attracted by the rare wisdom and the inexplicable knowledge of the world that his desolate kinsman had. He discovered then that he could understand written English and that between parchments he had gone from the first page to the last of the six volumes of the encyclopedia as if it were a novel. At first he attributed to that the fact that Aureliano could speak about Rome as if he had lived there many years, but he soon became aware that he knew things that were not in the encyclopedia, such as the price of items. “Everything is known,?was the only reply he received from Aureliano when he asked him where he had got that information from. Aureliano, for his part, was surprised that Jos?Arcadio when seen from close by was so different from the image that he had formed of him when he saw him wandering through the house. He was capable of laughing, of allowing himself from time to time a feeling of nostalgia for the past of the house, and of showing concern for the state of misery present in Melquíades?room. That drawing closer together of two solitary people of the same blood was far from friendship, but it did allow them both to bear up better under the unfathomable solitude that separated and united them at the same time. Jos?Arcadio could then turn to Aureliano to untangle certain domestic problems that exasperated him. Aureliano, in turn, could sit and read on the porch, waiting for the letters from Amaranta ?rsula, which still arrived with the usual punctuality, and could use the bathroom, from which Jos?Arcadio had banished him when he arrived.
   One hot dawn they both woke up in alarm at an urgent knocking on the street door. It was a dark old man with large green eyes that gave his face a ghostly phosphorescence and with a cross of ashes on his forehead. His clothing in tatters, his shoes cracked, the old knapsack on his shoulder his only luggage, he looked like a beggar, but his bearing had a dignity that was in frank contradiction to his appearance. It was only necessary to look at him once, even in the shadows of the parlor, to realize that the secret strength that allowed him to live was not the instinct of self-preservation but the habit of fear. It was Aureliano Amador, the only survivor of Colonel Aureliano Buendía’s seventeen sons, searching for a respite in his long and hazardous existence as a fugitive. He identified himself, begged them to give him refuge in that house which during his nights as a pariah he had remembered as the last redoubt of safety left for him in life. But Jos?Arcadio and Aureliano did not remember him. Thinking that he was a tramp, they pushed him into the street. They both saw from the doorway the end of a drama that had began before Jos?Arcadio had reached the age of reason. Two policemen who had been chasing Aureliano Amador for years, who had tracked him like bloodhounds across half the world, came out from among the almond trees on the opposite sidewalk and took two shots with their Mausers which neatly penetrated the cross of ashes.
   Ever since he had expelled the children from the house, Jos?Arcadio was really waiting for news of an ocean liner that would leave for Naples before Christmas. He had told Aureliano and had even made plans to set him up in a business that would bring him a living, because the baskets of food had stopped coming since Fernanda’s burial. But that last dream would not be fulfilled either. One September morning, after having coffee in the kitchen with Aureliano, Jos?Arcadio was finishing his daily bath when through the openings in the tiles the four children he had expelled from the house burst in. Without giving him time to defend himself, they jumped into the pool fully clothed, grabbed him by the hair, and held his head under the water until the bubbling of his death throes ceased on the surface and his silent and pale dolphin body dipped down to the bottom of the fragrant water. Then they took out the three sacks of gold from the hiding place which was known only to them and their victim. It was such a rapid, methodical, and brutal action that it was like a military operation. Aureliano, shut up in his room, was not aware of anything. That afternoon, having missed him in the kitchen, he looked for Jos?Arcadio all over the house and found him floating on the perfumed mirror of the pool, enormous and bloated and still thinking about Amaranta. Only then did he understand how much he had began to love him.



第十八章

  奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚在梅尔加德斯房间里又度过了一些漫长的岁月。在这个房间里,他背诵破书中的幻想故事,阅读赫尔曼.克里珀修士的学说简述,看看关于鬼神学的短评,了解点金石的寻找方法,细读诺斯特拉达马斯的《世纪》和他关于瘟疫的研究文章,就这样跨过了少年时代;他对自己的时代没有任何概念,却掌握了中世纪人类最重要的科学知识。圣索菲娅.德拉佩德无论什么时刻走进房间,总碰见奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚在埋头看书。一大早,她给他送来一杯清咖啡,晌午又给他送来一碗米饭和几小片炸香蕉——奥雷连诺第二死后家里唯一的一种吃食。她给他剪头发、蓖头屑,给他改做收藏在箱子里的旧外衣和旧衬衫;见他脸上长了胡子,又给他拿来奥雷连诺上校的刮脸刀和剃胡子用的水杯。梅梅的这个儿子比上校自己的亲儿子更象上校,甚至比奥雷连诺·霍塞更象上校,特别是他那突出的颧骨,坚毅而傲慢的嘴巴,更加强了这种相似.从前,一听到坐在梅尔加德斯房间里的奥雷连诺第二开口,乌苏娜就以为他似乎在自言自语,如今圣索菲娅·德拉佩德对奥雷连诺。布恩蒂亚也有同样的想法。事实上,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚(即前面所说的小奥雷连诺。)是在跟梅尔加德斯谈话。一对孪生兄弟死后不久,一个酷热的晌午,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚在明亮的窗子背景上看见一个阴森的老头儿,戴着乌鸦翅膀似的宽边帽;这个老头儿好象是奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚出生之前很久的某个模糊形象的化身。那时,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚已经完成羊皮纸手稿全部字母的分类工作。所以,梅尔加德斯问他知不知道是用哪一种文字作的这些记录时,他毫不犹豫地回答:
  “梵文。”
  梅尔加德斯说,他能看到自己这个房间的日子剩得不多了。不过,在羊皮纸手稿满一百周年之前的这些年月里,他一旦知道奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚学会了梵文,能够破译它们,他将放心地走到最终死亡的葬身地去。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚正是从他那儿得知,香蕉公司还在这儿的时候,在人们占卜未来和圆梦的那条朝着小河的小街上,有一个博学的加泰隆尼亚人开设的一家书店,那儿就有梵文语法书,他应当赶紧弄到它,否则六年之后它就会被蛀虫蛀坏。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚忙请圣索菲娅·德拉佩德去给他买这本书,此书是放在书架第二排右角《解放的耶路撒冷》和密尔顿诗集之间的。在自己漫长的生活中,圣索菲娅·德拉佩德心中第一次不由自主地产生一种奇特的感觉。圣索菲娅·德拉佩德不识字,她只好背熟奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚的话,为了弄到买书的钱,她卖掉了藏在首饰作坊里的十七条小金鱼当中的一条;那天晚上士兵们搜查住宅之后。只有她和奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚知道这些小金鱼放在哪儿。奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚在梵文学习中取得一些成绩之后,梅加泰隆尼亚系西班牙西北部的一个地区。尔加德斯来的次数越来越少了,变得越来越遥远了,逐渐消溶在晌午那种令人目眩的强光中了。老头儿最后一次来的时候,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚甚至没有看见他,只是感到他那虚无飘渺的存在,辨别出了他那勉强使人能够听清的低语声:”我患疟疾死在新加坡的沙滩上了。”从那一天起,梅尔加德斯的房间里开始毫无阻拦地钻进了灰尘、热气、白蚂蚁、红蚂蚁和蛀虫一--这些蛀虫将把书籍和羊皮纸手稿连同它们那些绝对玄奥的内容一起变成废物。
  家里并不缺少吃的。但是奥雷连诺第二死后第二天,在送那只写了一句不恭敬题词的花圈的人当中,有一个朋友向菲兰达提出,要付清从前欠她亡夫的钱。从这一天起,每星期三主义的马克思主义”。,就有一个人来到这儿,手里提着一只装满各种食物的藤篮,藤篮里的食物吃一个星期还绰绰有余。家里谁也不知道·这些食物都是佩特娜.柯特送来的,她以为固定的施舍是贬低那个曾经贬低她的人的一种有效方式。其实,佩特娜·柯特心里的怒气消失得比她自己预料得还快,就这样,奥雷连诺第二昔日的情妇,最初是出于自豪,后来则是出于同情,继续给他的寡妇送食物来。过了一些日子,佩特娜·柯特没有足够的力量出售彩票了,人们对抽彩也失去了兴趣。当时,她自己也饥肠辘辘地坐着,却还供养菲兰达,依然尽着自己肩负的责任,直到目睹对方入葬。
  家里的人数少了,似乎应该减轻圣索菲娅·德拉佩德挑了五十多年的日常家务重担了。这个沉默寡言、不爱交际的女人,从来没有对谁说过什么怨言,她为全家养育了天使一般善良的俏姑娘雷麦黛丝、高傲得古怪的霍·阿卡蒂奥第二,他把自己孤独寂寞的一生都献给了孩子,而他们却未必记得自己是她的儿女和孙子;她象照顾亲骨肉似的照顾奥雷连诺,布恩蒂亚,因为她并不怀疑他事实上也是她的曾孙子,如果是在其他人的住所里,她自然不必把被褥铺在储藏室的地板上睡觉,整夜听着老鼠不停的喧闹。她对谁也没讲过,有一次半夜里,她感到有人从黑暗中望着她,吓得她一下子醒了过来:原来有一条腹蛇顺着她的肚子往外爬去,圣索菲娅.德拉佩德知道,如果她把这桩事讲给乌苏娜听,乌苏娜准会要她睡在自己的床上,不过,那一阵谁也没有发现什么。如要引起别人的注意,还得在长廊上大叫大嚷才行,因为令人疲惫不堪的烤面包活、战争的动乱、对儿女们的照料,并没有给人留下时间来考虑旁人的安全。唯一记得圣索菲娅.德拉佩德的人,只是从未跟她见过一面的佩特娜·柯特。甚至在那些困难的日子里,佩特娜.柯特和奥雷连诺第二不得不每夜把出售彩票得来的微薄的钱分成一小堆一小堆时,她都一直关心圣索菲娅.德拉佩德,让她有一套体面衣服、一双优质鞋子,以便穿着它们毫不羞愧地上街。然而,菲兰达总把圣索菲娅.德拉佩德错当做固定的女仆.虽然大家曾经多次向她强调说明圣索菲娅.德拉佩德是什么人,菲兰达照旧不以为然;她勉强理解以后,一下子又忘记站在她面前的是她丈夫的母亲、她的婆婆了。圣索菲娅.德拉佩德压根儿没为自己的从属地位感到苦恼。相反地,她甚至好象很喜欢一刻不停地默默地在一个个房间里走来走去,察看房子里的各个角落,使偌大的一座房子保持整齐清洁。她从少女时代就生活在这座房子里,尽管这座房子与其说象个家园,还不如说象个兵营,特别是香蕉公司还在这儿的时候,可是乌苏娜死后,圣索菲娅·德拉佩德却无视自己非凡的麻利劲儿和惊人的劳动能力,开始泄气了,这例不是因为她自己已经变得老态龙钟、精疲力竭,而是因为这座房子老朽得一小时比一小时不堪入目。墙壁蒙上一层茸茸的青苔,整个院子长满了野草,长廊的水泥地在杂草的挤压下象玻璃似的破裂开来。大约一百年前,乌苏娜曾在梅尔加德斯放假牙的杯子里发现的那种小黄花,也一朵一朵地透过裂缝冒了出来。圣索菲娅·德拉佩德既无时间、又无精力来抵抗大自然的冲击,只好一天一天地在卧室里过日子,把每天夜里返回来的蜥蜴赶跑。有一天早晨,她看见一群红蚂蚁离开它们破坏了的地基,穿过花园,爬上长廊,把枯萎的秋海棠弄成了土灰色,径直钻到了房子深处。圣索菲娅·德拉佩德试图消灭它们,起先只是靠扫帚的帮助,接着使用了杀虫剂,最后撒上了生石灰,然而一切都无济于事——第二天到处又爬满了红蚂蚁,它们极为顽固、无法灭绝。菲兰达专心地忙着给儿女们写信,没有意识到速度吓人、难以遏制的破坏。圣索菲娅·德拉佩德不得不孤军作战:她跟杂草搏斗,不让它们窜进厨房;掸掉墙上几小时后又会出现的蜘蛛网;把红蚂蚁撵出它们的洞穴。她发现灰尘和蜘蛛网甚至钻进了梅尔加德斯的房间,她一天三次打扫收拾,拼命保持房间的清洁,可是房间越来越明显地呈现一种肮脏可怜的外貌,曾预见到这种外貌的只有两个人——奥雷连诺上校和一个年轻的军官。于是,她穿上那件破烂的袜子——阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜的礼物,——又把自己剩下的两三件换洗衣服捆成个小包袱,准备离开这座房子。
  “对我这把穷骨头来说,这座房子实在太宏伟了,”她对奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚说。“我再也住不下去了!”
  奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚问她想去哪儿,她含糊地摆了摆手,似乎一点也不知道自己未来的命运。她只是说,打算到一个住在列奥阿察的表妹那儿去度过最后的几年,但这番话简直无法令人相信。从自己的双亲相继去世以来拉克利特”。,圣索菲娅·德拉佩德在马孔多跟任何人都没有联系,也没从什么地方收到过一封信或者一个邮包,甚至一次也没讲过她有什么亲戚。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚只好送给她十四条小金鱼,因为她打算带走的只是自已的那一点储蓄:一比索二十五生丁。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚从窗口望着她在年岁的重压下,伛偻着身子,拖着两条腿,拎着那只小包袱,慢慢走过院子;望着她把手伸进篱笆门的闩孔里,又随手放下了门闩。从此他再没有见到过她,再也没有听到过她的什么消息。
  知道圣索菲娅.德拉佩德走了,菲兰达喋喋不休地唠叨了整整一天;她翻遍了所有的箱子、五斗橱和柜子,把所有的东西一件一件地查看一遍,这才确信自己的婆婆没有顺手拿走什么东西。然后,她有生以来第一次试着生炉子,不料烫痛了手指。她不得不请奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚帮忙,给她示范一下怎样煮咖啡。不久,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚只好把厨房里所有的事都承担起来。每天一起床,菲兰达就发现早餐已经摆在桌上,刚吃过早餐。她便回卧室去,直到午餐时刻才又露面,为的是拿奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚给她留下的吃食,吃食是放在散发着木炭余热的炉子上的。她把几样简单的食物拿到餐厅里,在两个枝形烛台之间,在铺着亚麻桌布的餐桌前面,她端坐下来用餐,桌子两旁放着十五把空椅子。虽然房子里只剩下了奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚和菲兰达两个人,可是每人依然生活在自己的孤独之中。他们只是收拾各自的卧室,其他一切地方都渐渐布满了蜘蛛网,它们绕在玫瑰花丛上,贴在墙壁上,甚至房梁上都有一层密密的蜘蛛网。就在这些日子,菲兰达心里产生了一种感觉,仿佛他们的房间里出现了家神。各样东西,特别是少了它们一天也过不了的,仿佛都长了腿。一把剪刀可以使菲兰达找上好几个小时,但她深信剪刀明明是放在床上的,直到她翻遍整个床铺之后,才在厨房的隔板上发现它,尽管她觉得自己已经整整四天没跨进厨房一步了。要不就是盒子里的餐叉又突然失踪,第二天,祭坛上却放着六把,洗脸盆里又冒出三把。各样东西好象跟她捉迷藏,特别是他坐下来写信时,这种游戏更使她冒火。刚刚放在右边的墨水瓶却移到了左边,镇纸干脆从桌子上不翼而飞,三天之后,她却在自己的枕头底下找到了它,她写给霍.阿卡蒂奥的信,也不知怎的装进了写给阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜的信封。菲兰达生活在令人胆战心惊的恐惧之中,她总是套错信封,就象先前不止一次发生过的那样。有一次,她的一枝羽毛笔突然不见了。过了十五天,一个邮差却把它送了口来——他在自己的口袋里发现了这枝笔,为了寻找它的主人,他一家一家地送信,不知在身上带了多久。起先,菲兰达心想,这些东西的失踪就跟宫托的丢失一样,是那些没有见过的医生耍的花招,她正开始写信请他们不要打扰她,因为有点急事要做,写了半句就停了笔,等她回到屋里,信却不知去向,她自己甚至把写信的意图都给忘记了。有一阵,她曾怀疑奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚。她开始跟踪他,在他走过的地方悄悄扔下各种东西,指望他藏起它们的时候,当场把他抓住,但她很快确信,奥雷连诺。布恩蒂亚从梅尔加德斯房间里出来,只去厨房和厕所,而且相信他是个不会开玩笑的人。于是菲兰达认为,这一切都是家神玩的把戏,便决定把每样东西固定在它们应当放的地方。她用几根长绳把剪刀缚在床头上,把一小盒羽毛笔和镇纸投在桌子脚上,又把墨水瓶粘在桌面上经常放纸的地方的右面。可是,她并没有获得自己希望的效果:只要她做针线活,两三小时以后伸手就拿不到剪刀了,似乎家神缩短了那根缚住剪刀的绳子。那根拴住镇纸的绳子也发生了同样的情况,甚至菲兰达自己的手也是如此,只要她一提起笔来写信,过了一会儿,手就够不到墨水瓶了。无论布鲁塞尔的阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜,或者罗马的霍·阿卡蒂奥,一点都不知道她这些不愉快的事,她给他们写信,说她十分幸福,事实上她也确实是幸福的,她觉得自己卸掉了一切责任,仿佛又回到了娘家似的,不必跟日常琐事打交道了,因为所有这些小问题都解决了——在想象中解决了。菲兰达没完没了地写信,渐渐失去了时间观念,这种现象在圣索菲娅.德拉佩德走后特别明显。菲兰达一向都有计算年月日的习惯,她把儿女回家的预定日期当做计算的起点。谁知儿子和女儿开始一次又一次地推迟自己的归来,日期弄乱了,期限搞错了,日子不知如何算起,连日子正在一天天过去的感觉也没有了。不过这些延期并没有使菲兰达冒火,反而使她心里感到很高兴。甚至霍·阿卡蒂奥向她说,他希望修完高等神学课程之后再学习外交课程,她也没有见怪,尽管几年以前他已经写过信,说他很快就要履行返回马孔多的誓言;她知道,要想爬到圣徒彼得(耶稣十二门徒之一。)的地位是困难重重的,这个梯子弯弯曲曲,又高又陡,可不好爬。再譬如儿子告诉她,说他看见了教皇,就连这种在别人看来最平常的消息,也使她感到欣喜若狂。女儿写信告诉她说,由于学习成绩突出,她获得了父亲顶想不到的那种优惠待遇,可以超过规定的期限继续留在布鲁塞尔求学,这就更使菲兰达高兴了。
  从圣索菲娅·德拉佩德为奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚买回一本梵文语法书的那一天起,时间不觉过了三年多,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚才译出一页羊皮纸手稿,毫无疑问,他在从事一项浩大的工程,但在那条长度无法测量的道路上,他只是迈开了第一步,因为翻译成西班牙文一时还毫无希望——那都是些用密码写成的诗。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚并没有掌握什么原始资料,以便找到破译这种密码的线索,他不由得想起梅尔加德斯曾说过,在博学的加泰隆尼亚人那家书店里,还有一些能使他洞悉羊皮纸手稿深刻含义的书,他决定跟菲兰达谈一次,要求菲兰达让他去找这些书。他的房间里垃圾成堆,垃圾堆正以惊人的速度扩大,差不多已经占满了所有的空间;奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚斟酌了这次谈话的每个字眼,考虑最有说服力的表达方式。预测各种最有利的情况。可是,他在厨房里遇见正从炉子上取下食物的菲兰达时——他没有跟菲兰达见面的其他机会,——他事先想好的那些话一下子都卡在喉咙里了,一声也没吭。他开始第一次跟踪菲兰达,窥伺她在卧室里走动,倾听他怎样走到门口从邮差手里接过儿女的来信,然后把自己的信交给邮差;一到深夜,他就留神偷听羽毛笔在纸上生硬的沙沙声,直到菲兰达啪的一声关了灯,开始喃喃祈祷,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚这才入睡,相信翌日会给他带来希望的机会。他一心一意指望得到菲兰达的允许,有一天早晨,他剪短了自己已经披到了肩上的头发,刮掉了一绺绺胡子,穿上一条牛仔裤和一件不知从谁那儿继承的扣领衬衫,走到厨房里去等候菲兰达来取吃食。但他遇见的不是从前每天出现在他面前的那个女人——一个高傲地昂首阔步的女人,而是一个异常美丽的老太婆,她身穿一件发黄的银鼠皮袍,头戴一顶硬纸板做成的金色王冠,一副倦怠模样儿,似乎在这之前还独自哭了好一阵。自从菲兰达在奥雷连诺第二的箱子里发现了这套虫子蛀坏的女王服装,她就经常把它穿在自己身上。凡是看见她在镜子前面转动身子,欣赏她那女王仪客的人,都毫无疑问地会把她当成一个疯子,但她并没有疯。对她来说,女王的服装只是成了她忆起往事的工具。她头一次把它穿上以后,不由得感到心里一阵辛酸,热泪盈眶,她好象又闻到了军人皮靴上散发出来的靴油味,那军人跟在她身后,想把她扮成一个女王;她满心怀念失去的幻想。但她感到自己已经那么衰老,那么憔悴,离开那些最美好的生活时刻已经那么遥远,她甚至怀念起了她一直认为最黑暗的日子,这时她才明白自己多么需要风儿吹过长廊带来的牛至草味儿,需要黄昏时分玫瑰花丛里袅袅升起的烟尘,甚至需要禽兽一般鲁莽的外国人,她的心——凝成一团的灰烬——虽然顺利地顶住了日常忧虑的沉重打击,却在怀旧的初次冲击下破碎了。她渴望在悲痛中寻求喜悦;随着岁月的流逝,这种渴求只是使菲兰达的心灵更加空虚,于是这种渴求也成了一种祸害。从此,孤独就使她变得越来越象家里其他的人了。然而那天早晨,她走进厨房,那个脸色苍白、瘦骨鳞峋、眼露惊讶的年轻人递给她一杯咖啡时,她不由得为自己的怪诞模样深感羞愧。菲兰达不但拒绝奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚的要求,还把房子的钥匙藏在那只放着宫托的秘密口袋里。这实在是一种多余的防范措施,因为奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚只要愿意,随时都可以溜出房子去,并且神不知鬼不觉地回来。但他过了多年孤独的生活,对周围的世界毫不信任,何况又养成了屈从的习惯,也就丧失了反抗的精神。他回到自己的斗室,一面继续研究羊皮纸手稿,一面倾听深夜里菲兰达卧室时里传来的沉重的叹息声,有一天早晨,他照例到厨房里去生炉子,却在冷却了的灰烬上,发现昨夜为菲兰达留下的午餐动也没有动过。他忍不住朝她的卧室里瞥了一眼,只见菲兰达挺直身子躺在床上,盖着那件银鼠皮袍,显得从未有过的美丽,皮肤变得象大理石那样光滑洁白。四个月以后,霍·阿卡蒂奥回到马孔多时,看见她就是这副模样。
  想不到这个儿子格外象他的母亲。霍.阿卡蒂奥穿着黑塔夫绸的西服,衬衫领子又硬又圆,一条打着花结的缎带代替了领带。这是个脸色苍白、神情倦怠的人,露出一种诧异的目光,长着一个柔弱的嘴巴的决定性的标准。否定历史发展的规律性,主张历史科学的,光滑的黑发从中分开,纹路又直又细,这头圣徒的假发显示出矫揉造作的样子。他的面孔象石膏一样白,刮得千干净净的下颏留着一块块有点发青的阴影,似乎说明良心的谴责,他有一双青筋毕露、苍白浮肿的手——游手好闲者的手,左手无名指上嵌着圆形乳白色宝石的大戒指耀人眼目。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚给他开门以后,一眼就看出站在他面前的是从远方来的人。他走过哪儿,哪儿就留下花露水的香味,在奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚还是个婴儿的时候,乌苏娜为了在双目失明的黑暗中找到他,也曾给他洒过这种花露水。不知怎的,多年不见,霍·阿卡蒂奥依然象从前一样,是个悒郁孤僻的小老头儿。他径直走进母亲的卧室,在这间卧室里,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚按照梅尔加德斯的处方,在属于他祖父的曾祖父的那只坩埚里,整整熬了四个月的水银,才使菲兰达的尸体没有腐烂。霍·阿卡蒂奥什么也没问。他俯身在已故的菲兰达额头上吻了一下,便从她那裙子的贴身口袋里掏出三只还没用过的宫托、一把衣橱钥匙。他那坚定利索的动作跟他那倦怠的神情实在不相称。他从衣橱里翻出那只刻着族徽的首饰箱,首饰箱是用一块绸子裹着的,透出檀香木的芬芳,他随手把它打开——只见箱底上放着一封长信;在这封信里,菲兰达倾诉了自己的衷肠,讲述了生前瞒着儿子的一切。霍·阿卡蒂奥站着,饶有兴昧地读完母亲的信,没有露出任何激动情绪;他在第三页上停顿了一下,就抬起头来,目不转睛地望着奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚,仿佛刚认识他似的。
  “这么说,”他开口道,嗓音里有点刮胡子的响声。“你就是杂种罗?”
  “我是奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚。”
  “快滚回自己的房间去,”霍·阿卡蒂奥说。
  奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚只好向自己的房间走去,连菲兰达孤寂的出殡也没去看一眼。有时,他从敞开的厨房门里望见霍·阿卡蒂奥气喘吁吁地在房子里走来走去,深夜听到一间间破旧的卧窒里传来他的脚步声。不过他一连几个月都没听到霍·阿卡蒂奥的嗓音,倒不是因为霍·阿卡蒂奥没跟他谈话,而是因为他自己既没有谈话的愿望,也没有时间考虑羊皮纸手稿以外的其他事情。菲兰达死后,他从地窖里取出仅存的两条小金鱼中的一条,到博学的加泰隆尼亚人那家书店里去买他需要的那几本书。他路上见到的一切都没引起他的任何兴趣,也许是他没有什么可以回忆的,没有什么可跟看见的事物相比较的;那些荒凉的街道和无人过问的房子,就跟以往一些日子他所想象的完全一样,当时只要望上它们一眼,哪怕献出整个身心他都愿意,从前菲兰达不准他出门,这一次是他自己允许自己的;他决心走出房子,不过仅这一次,在最短的时间里,怀着唯一的目的,所以他一刻不停地跑过十一条街道,正是这十一条街道把他家的房子和那条昔日有人圆梦的小街远远地隔开。他心里卜卜直跳,走进一间杂乱、昏暗的屋子,屋子里连转身的地方都没有。看来,这不是一家书店,而是一座旧书公墓,一堆堆旧书毫无秩序地放在蚂蚁啃坏的、布满蜘蛛网的书架上,不但放在书架上,还放在书架之间窄窄的过道里,放在地板上。在一张堆放着许多巨著的长桌上,店主正在不停地写着什么,既无头也无尾;他在练习簿里撕下一张张纸儿,写满了弯弯扭扭的紫色小字。他那漂亮的银白色头发垂在额上,犹如一绺白鹦鹉的羽毛。他象那些博览群书的人一样,滴溜溜的小眼睛里闪着温和善良的亮光。他满身大汗地坐在那儿.只穿着一条短裤,甚至没有抬头看来人一眼。在这乱得出奇的书堆里,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚没有特别费劲就找出了他需要的五本书,它们正好放在梅尔加德斯指点过的地方。他一句话没说,就把挑选出来的几本书和一条小金鱼递给博学的加泰隆尼亚人,加泰隆尼亚人翻了翻书,眼脸又象蛤壳似地合上了。“你该不是疯了吧,”他讲了一句家乡话,耸耸肩膀,又把书和金鱼递给奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚。
  “拿去吧,”他改用西班牙语说。“最后一个看这些书的人,大概是瞎子伊萨克,你可得仔细想想自己干的事情。”
  这时,霍·阿卡蒂奥修复了梅梅的卧室,叫人把丝绒窗帷和总督床上的花帐幔洗干净,又整顿了一下浴室;浴室里水泥浴池的四壁上,不知蒙着一层什么东西,黑黝黝的,有点毛糙。他只是占用了卧室和浴室,在里面塞满了各种废物:弄脏的异国小玩意儿、廉价的香水和伪造的首饰。在其他的房间里,只有家庭祭坛上的圣徒塑像引起他的注意。但不知为什么没中他的意,有一天晚上,他从祭坛上取下那些塑像,搬到院子里,生起一堆火,把它们都烧成了灰。平时他总是中午十二点起床。醒来以后,穿上一件绣着金龙的破晨衣,把脚往一双镶着金流苏的拖鞋里一塞,就走进浴室,在那儿开始举行自己的沐浴程式,从它的隆重程度和缓慢劲儿来看,好象俏姑娘雷麦黛丝恪守的那套沐浴程式。在下浴池之前,他先从三只白色小瓶里倒出三种香精,撒在水中。然后,他不象俏姑娘雷麦黛丝那样,靠一只南瓜形容器的帮助来沐浴,而是把身体泡在香气扑鼻的水里,仰卧两小时,清凉的水和对阿玛兰塔的回忆简直使他昏昏欲睡。他回来之后没过几天,便脱掉了在这儿穿着嫌热的塔夫绸西服——那套唯一的礼服,换上一条牛仔裤,就象皮埃特罗·克列斯比去上舞蹈课时绷在腿上的那种裤子,还有一件绣着自己的名字第一个字母的真丝衬衫。他每星期都把这套衣服在浴池里洗两次;晾晒的时候,他没有其他替换的衣服,只好穿着晨衣走来走去。霍·阿卡蒂奥从来不在家里用午餐。等晌午的炎热一过,他就上街,直到深夜才回来,然后又满脸愁容地在一个个房间里踱来踱去,气喘吁吁,思念着阿玛兰塔。在家乡的这座房子里,只有阿玛兰塔和夜灯的微光下圣徒吓人的眼睛,还保存在他的记忆里。在罗马,在一个个虚无缥缈的八月之夜,他不知梦见过阿玛兰塔多少次:她穿着一条花边裙子,手里拿着一块头巾,从大理石浴池里缓缓站起身来,脸上流露出一个异乡人的优愁。奥雷连诺上校总是竭力使阿玛兰塔的形象沉没在血腥的战争泥沼里。霍·阿卡蒂奥跟他不同,在母亲用一些关于宗教感召的寓言哄骗他的时候,他是一直想把阿玛兰塔的形象活生生地保存在感情深处的。无论他或菲兰达都从未想到过,他们的通信不过是谎言的交换而已。到达罗马之后不久,霍.阿卡蒂奥就离开了宗教学校,但他继续维持着关于自己正在学习神学和宗教法规的假象,为的是不失掉一份幻想中的遗产——他母亲那一封封荒诞的信曾一再提到过这份遗产;那份遗产也许能使他摆脱贫困,把他从特拉斯特维尔的一间小屋子解救出来——他和两个朋友就寄居在这座小屋的阁楼上。一收到菲兰达在死亡预感的驱迫下写的最后一封信,他就把一些破烂的冒牌奢侈品塞进箱子,坐上轮船,远渡重洋。在船舱里,侨民们象屠宰场里的牛似的挤成一堆,吃着冰冷的通心面和生蛆的干酪。菲兰达的遗嘱事实上只是一份详细而又过时的灾难清单,他还没看完这份遗嘱,光从倒塌的家具和杂草丛生的长廊看来,已经猜到自己掉进了一个不能自拔的陷阱,无论什么时候,他都再也见不到罗马春天那璀璨夺目的阳光,呼吸不到它那洋溢着古代文物气息的空气了。在折磨人的气喘引起失眠的夜晚,他反复衡量自己遭受灾难的深度,在阴森森的房子里走来走去。从前,正是在这座房子里,乌苏娜曾用老年人的一套胡言乱语,勾起他对世界的恐惧。由于害怕在一片黑暗中失去霍·阿卡蒂奥,她又让他养成独自坐在卧室一个角落里的习惯。她说,一到天黑,死鬼就会出现。开始在这座房子里游荡,只有那个角落是死鬼不敢看一眼的地方。“如果你干什么坏事,”乌苏娜吓唬他,“上帝的仆人立刻会把一切都告诉我。”于是他在那儿度过了童年时代的一个个夜晚,一动不动地坐在一只小凳上,在圣像那不可捉摸的冰冷目光下,吓得汗流浃背。其实,这种附加的折磨完全是不必要的,当时霍·阿卡蒂奥早已对他周围的一切感到恐惧,他下意识地害怕生活中可能遇见的一切,令人恼火的妓女;生出长了猪尾巴婴儿的家庭妇女;使一些人死亡、又使另一些人不断受到良心谴责的斗鸡,叫人遭到二十年战祸的熗炮;以失望和精神错乱告终的鲁莽行动;此外还有上帝无限仁慈地创造出来、又让魔鬼搞坏了的一切。每天早晨,他一觉醒来总是疲惫不堪,可是阿玛兰塔在浴池里给他洗完了澡,用小块绸子在他两腿之间亲切地扑上一点滑石粉以后,他夜间的惊恐就被阿玛兰塔温柔的手和窗上的亮光驱散了。在阳光明媚的花园里,乌苏娜也俨然变成了另一个人,她不再讲些形形色色的鬼怪故事来吓唬他,而是用碳粉给他刷牙——让他象罗马教皇那样容光焕发;她给他修剪和磨光指甲——让那些从世界各地汇集在罗马的朝圣者为他那双保持清洁的手感到震惊;她给他洒花露水——让他身上散发出来的香味不亚于罗马教皇。他曾有幸目睹教皇在甘多夫城堡宫廷的阳台上用七种语言向成群的朝圣者发表演说,但他注意的只是教皇那双仿佛在漂白剂里浸过的白净的手,还有他那一套夏装和一身淡雅的香水味儿。
  霍·阿卡蒂奥回到父母家里差不多只过了一年,就变卖了银制的枝形烛台和一只装饰着徽记的便盆——老实说,这便盆上只有徽记才是金的,——他唯一的消遣就是在房子里集合起一些野男孩,并给他们充分的自由,在最热的晌午时刻,他让他们在花园里跳绳,在长廊上大声唱歌,在安乐椅和沙发上翻筋斗,他自己却在这一伙跟那一伙之间转来转去,教他们各种礼节。这时,他已经脱掉牛仔裤和真丝衬衫,穿了一套从阿拉伯人小店里买来的普通西服,不过还继续保持着倦怠的神态和教皇的风度。孩子们象从前梅梅的女伴们一样,很快就熟悉了整座房子。每到深夜,都能听到他们的饶舌声、唱歌声、打红雀声——整座房子好象一所寄宿学校,住着一群放荡不羁的孩子。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚并没发现这一点,可是小客人们不久就闯到梅尔加德斯的房间前面。有一天早晨,两个野男孩猛地拉开房门,不由得吓了一大跳,只见一个肮里肮脏、头发蓬乱的人坐在桌子旁边钻研羊皮纸手稿。男孩们不放贸然进去,但从此却对这个古怪的陌生人发生了兴趣。他们在门外唧唧咕咕,不时往锁孔里窥视,把各种脏东西从气窗扔进房间,有一次还拿洋钉从外面把门窗钉死,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚只好花上整整半天工夫给自己开辟一条出路。由于没有惩罚孩子们玩的把戏,姑息了他们,他们的胆子更大了。有一次,趁奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚在厨房的时候,四个男孩钻进他的房间,企图毁掉羊皮纸手稿。不想他们刚一抓起发黄的稿卷,一股无形的力量一下子把他们提了起来,把他们一个个悬在空中,直到奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚回来,从他们手里夺回了羊皮纸手稿。从那天起,他们再也没有打扰过他了。
  这四个男孩已经进入少年时代,可是还穿着短裤,霍.阿卡蒂奥的外表就由他们装扮。早晨他们比别人来得早,给他刮胡子,用热毛巾给他摩擦身子,给他修剪和磨光手指甲、脚趾甲,给他洒花露水。当他仰面朝天地漂在浴池里、思念阿玛兰塔的时候,他们偶尔也爬进浴池去,从头到脚给他洗澡,然后用毛巾给他擦干身子,扑点滑石粉,给他穿上衣服。在这四个男孩当中,有一个男孩长着淡褐色头发,眼睛象兔子似的,仿佛用粉红色玻璃制成,平时还留下来过夜。这孩子对霍.阿卡蒂奥依依不舍,在霍·阿卡蒂奥因气喘病失眠时,都不离开他,陪着他在一个个漆黑的房间里走来走去。有一天半夜,在乌苏娜的卧室里,他们忽然发现水泥地面的缝隙里冒出一道奇异的金光,似乎有个地下太阳把卧室的地面变成了闪闪发亮的橱窗。为了弄清这是怎么回事,根本无需点灯,他们只是在乌苏娜床铺的角落里,在升起的光最亮的地方,稍稍揭起几块裂缝的石板一看;石板下出现一个地窖,原来这就是奥雷连诺第二那么苦恼而又顽固地寻找的地窖。地窖里放着三只帆布袋,用一条铜丝拴着,里面总共七千二百四十个金币,它们在一片漆黑中光采熠熠,犹如一块块烧红的炭。
  宝藏的发现仿佛是黑夜中迸发的一片亮光。然而,霍.阿卡蒂奥并没有去实现自己穷困时代梦寐以求的理想,也没有带着这突然降临的财富回罗马去,却把父母的房子变成了一片荒弃的乐土。他更新了卧室里的丝绒窗帘和天盖形花帐幔,又叫人在浴室里用石板铺地,用瓷砖砌墙。餐厅里摆满了糖渍水果、熏制腊味和醋腌食物。关闭的储藏室又启开了,里面放着葡萄酒和蜜酒;这些饮料都装在一只只箱子里,箱子是他亲自从火车站领回来的,上面写着霍·阿卡蒂奥的名字。有一天夜里,他跟自己的四个宠儿举行了一次盛大的酒宴,酒宴一直持续到天亮。早晨六点,他们光着身子走出卧室,把浴池里的水放掉,装满了香槟酒。男孩们一齐扑进浴池,好似一群小鸟在布满一层香气泡的金黄色天空中嬉戏。霍.阿卡蒂奥仰卧一旁,没有参加他们喧嚣的欢乐。他尽情地漂着,沉浸在自己的思绪中,睁着眼睛怀念阿玛兰塔。男孩们很快就玩累了。他们一窝蜂似地拥进卧室,在那儿扯下丝绒窗帘,把它们当作毛巾擦干身子,又打打闹闹地砸碎了一面水晶玻璃镜子,然后大家一下子爬到床上,在一片混乱中掀掉天盖形花帐幔。霍.阿卡蒂奥回来时,只见他们缩作一团,象睡在一艘沉船的残骸之间,他不由得火冒三丈,倒不是由于他面前出现的一片毁灭景象,而是出于对自己的可怜和厌恶,一场破坏性的纵酒把他的心都劫掠一空了。霍·阿卡蒂奥记得,在一只箱子底儿上,跟粗毛衣服以及禁绝肉欲和忏悔用的各种铁器一起,存放着一些藤条。他连忙抄起一根藤条,疯子般地大声号叫,使出对付豺狼也不可能使出的狼劲抽打自己的这些宠儿,把一群野男孩赶出了房子。卧室里只剩了他一个人,他累得喘不过气来,气喘病又发作了,这次发作持续了好几天。等到发作过去,霍.阿卡蒂奥已经奄奄一息。在受尽折磨的第三天,他就再也不能忍受了,晚上来到奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚的房间里,请他帮忙到附近哪一家药房去为他买一些止喘粉。这是奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚第二次上街。他只跑了两条街道便找到一家小药房,蒙着灰尘的橱窗里摆满了一只只贴有拉丁文标签的陶瓷瓶。一个象尼罗河水蛇那样神秘而美丽的姑娘,按照霍·阿卡蒂奥记在一片小纸上的药名,把药卖给了他。这一次,在微弱的淡黄灯光下,大街的空寂景象也没激起奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚丝毫的好奇心。霍·阿卡蒂奥正在思索奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚会不会逃跑,不料他气急败坏地回来了,拖着两条因为长时间奔波已经软弱无力的腿。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚对周围的世界显然漫不经心,过了几天,霍·阿卡蒂奥就不顾母亲的嘱咐,准许他想上街就上街了。
  “我没有什么事情需要上街。”他回答。
  奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚继续独自一人坐在房间里钻研羊皮纸手稿,逐渐把它全部译了出来,尽管上面的意思依然不得其解。霍·阿卡蒂奥经常把一片片火腿,把一些使人嘴里留下春天余味的花状糖果,送到奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚房间里;有两次,他来的时候,甚至还拿着一杯上等葡萄酒。霍.阿卡蒂奥并不想了解羊皮纸手稿,他总觉得那是一本只适合古代文人阅读的闲书,但他对这个被人忘却的亲戚却很感兴趣,没有想到他居然掌握了罕见的学问和深奥的知识。原来,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚懂得英文,在研究羊皮纸手稿的间隙中,他看完了六卷本的英国百科全书,象看长篇小说一样,从第一页看到最后一页。关于罗马,奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚可以侃侃而谈,好象一个在那儿住了多年的人,霍·阿卡蒂奥起先把这归因于他看的百科全书,但是很快就明白他的亲戚还知道许多不可能从百科全书上汲取的东西:譬如物价。问他是从哪儿知道这些情况的,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚总是回答,“一切都可以认识嘛!”奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚也觉得惊异,他只是从远处望见霍·阿卡蒂奥在一个个房间里踱来踱去,但是在有所了解以后,才知道他不象自己所想的那样。他发现霍,阿卡蒂奥不但善于笑,偶尔还会情不自禁地怀念这座房子昔日的宏伟气派,看见梅尔加德斯房间里的一片荒羌景象就难过地叹气。两个同血统的单身汉这样接近,距离友谊自然还远,可是这样接近毕竟排遣了他俩的无限孤独,他们俩既分离又联合。现在,霍·阿卡蒂奥可以去找奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚,请他帮助解决一些迫切的问题,因为霍.阿卡蒂奥本人对这些事情毫无办法,简直不知道怎么处理,而奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚也得到了霍·阿卡蒂奥的同意,可以坐在长廊上看书,收读阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜继续以从前那种一本正经的态度写给他的信,使用霍·阿卡蒂奥从前不让他进去的浴室。
  一个炎热的早晨,他们被一阵急促的敲门声惊醒。敲门的是一个陌生老头儿.一对绿莹莹的大眼睛闪着幽灵似的光芒。老头儿有一副严峻的面孔,额上现出一个灰十字。那件褴褛的衣服,那双破旧不堪的皮鞋,那只搭在肩上的旧麻袋——这是他唯一的财产——使他显出一副穷汉的模样,但是他的举止依然显得尊严,跟他的外貌形成鲜明的对比。在半明不暗的客厅中,甚至一眼就能看出,支持这个人生存的内在力量,并不是自卫的本能,而是经常的恐惧。原来,这是奥雷连诺·阿马多。在奥雷连诺上校的十六个儿子当中,他是唯一幸存的人。一种完全意外的逃犯生活,把他弄得精疲力竭,他渴望休息。他说出自己的名字,恳求他俩让他在房子里住下来,因为在那些不眠之夜里,他曾把这座房子看作是他在大地上的最后一个避难所。谁知霍.阿卡蒂奥和奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚一点也不知道这个亲戚,他俩把他错当成一个流浪汉,把他猛地推到街上。他俩站在门口,目睹了早在霍·阿卡蒂奥出世之前就开始的一场戏剧的结局。在街道对面的几棵杏树下,忽然出现警察局的两个密探——他们在过去的许多年中,一直在追捕奥雷连诺·阿马多,——他们象两条猎犬似的顺着他的踪迹从门前跑过,只听到“砰砰”两声熗响,奥雷连诺·阿马多一头栽倒在地上,两颗子弹正好打中他额上的那个十字。
  在一群野孩子被赶出房子之后,霍·阿卡蒂奥在生活中期待的就是远航大西洋的轮船消息,他必须赶在圣诞节之前到达那不勒斯。他把这件事告诉奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚,甚至想为他做一笔生意,使他能够生活下去,因为菲兰达去世之后,再也没有人送过一篮子食物来了,可是这最后一个理想也注定要变成泡影。有一次,七月的一天清晨,霍·阿卡蒂奥在厨房里喝完奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚煮的一杯咖啡,正在浴室里结束自己照例的沐浴程式,突然从瓦屋顶上跳下那四个已被赶出房子的男孩,他们不等他醒悟过来,连衣服还没脱下,就扑进浴池,揪住霍·阿卡蒂奥的头发,把他的脑袋按在水里,直到水面不再冒出气泡,直到教皇的继承人无声的苍白的身躯沉到香气四溢的水底。然后,这群男孩赶紧从只有他们和受难者知道的那个地窖里取出三袋金币,扛在肩上跑掉了。整个战斗是按军事要求进行的,有组织的,迅捷而又残忍。
  奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚正独自一人坐在自己的房间里,他对一切都没怀疑。到了晚上,他走进厨房,发现霍·阿卡蒂奥不在那儿,便开始在整座房子里寻找起来,终于在浴室里找到了。霍.阿卡蒂奥巨大膨胀的身躯漂在香气四溢、平静如镜的浴池水面上,他似乎还在思念着阿玛兰塔哩。这时,奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚才感到自己多么喜欢他。


执素衣

ZxID:13389413


等级: 内阁元老
举报 只看该作者 17楼  发表于: 2013-10-10 0


Chapter 17
RSULA HAD to make a great effort to fulfill her promise to die when it cleared. The waves of lucidity that were so scarce during the rains became more frequent after August, when an and wind began to blow and suffocated the rose bushes and petrified the piles of mud, and ended up scattering over Macondo the burning dust that covered the rusted zinc roofs and the age-old almond trees forever. ?rsula cried in lamentation when she discovered that for more than three years she had been a plaything for the children. She washed her painted face, took off the strips of brightly colored cloth, the dried lizards and frogs, and the rosaries and old Arab necklaces that they had hung all over her body, and for the first time since the death of Amaranta she got up out of bed without anybody’s help to join in the family life once more. The spirit of her invincible heart guided her through the shadows. Those who noticed her stumbling and who bumped into the archangelic arm she kept raised at head level thought that she was having trouble with her body, but they still did not think she was blind. She did not need to see to realize that the flower beds, cultivated with such care since the first rebuilding, had been destroyed by the rain and ruined by Aureliano Segundo’s excavations, and that the walls and the cement of the floors were cracked, the furniture mushy and discolored, the doors off their hinges, and the family menaced by a spirit of resignation and despair that was inconceivable in her time. Feeling her way along through the empty bedrooms she perceived the continuous rumble of the termites as they carved the wood, the snipping of the moths in the clothes closets, and the devastating noise of the enormous red ants that had prospered during the deluge and were undermining the foundations of the house. One day she opened the trunk with the saints and had to ask Santa Sofía de la Piedad to get off her body the cockroaches that jumped out and that had already turned the clothing to dust. “A person can’t live in neglect like this,?she said. “If we go on like this we’ll be devoured by animals.?From then on she did not have a moment of repose. Up before dawn, she would use anybody available, even the children. She put the few articles of clothing that were still usable out into the sun, she drove the cockroaches off with powerful insecticide attacks, she scratched out the veins that the termites had made on doors and windows and asphyxiated the ants in their anthills with quicklime. The fever of restoration finally brought her to the forgotten rooms. She cleared out the rubble and cobwebs in the room where Jos?Arcadio Buendía had lost his wits looking for the Philosopher’s stone, she put the silver shop which had been upset by the soldiers in order, and lastly she asked for the keys to Melquíades?room to see what state it was in. Faithful to the wishes of Jos?Arcadio Segundo, who had forbidden anyone to come in unless there was a clear indication that he had died, Santa Sofía de la Piedad tried all kinds of subterfuges to throw ?rsula off the track. But so inflexible was her determination not to surrender even the most remote corner of the house to the insects that she knocked down every obstacle in her path, and after three days of insistence she succeeded in getting them to open the door for her. She had to hold on to the doorjamb so that the stench would not knock her over, but she needed only two seconds to remember that the schoolgirls?seventy-two chamberpots were in there and that on one of the rainy nights a patrol of soldiers had searched the house looking for Jos?Arcadio Segundo and had been unable to find him.
   “Lord save us!?she exclaimed, as if she could see everything. “So much trouble teaching you good manners and you end up living like a pig.?
   Jos?Arcadio Segundo was still reading over the parchments. The only thing visible in the intricate tangle of hair was the teeth striped with green dime and his motionless eyes. When he recognized his great-grandmother’s voice he turned his head toward the door, tried to smile, and without knowing it repeated an old phrase of ?rsula’s.
   “What did you expect??he murmured. “Time passes.?
   “That’s how it goes,??rsula said, “but not so much.?
   When she said it she realized that she was giving the same reply that Colonel Aureliano Buendía had given in his death cell, and once again she shuddered with the evidence that time was not passing, as she had just admitted, but that it was turning in a circle. But even then she did not give resignation a chance. She scolded Jos?Arcadio Segundo as if he were a child and insisted that he take a bath and shave and lend a hand in fixing up the house. The simple idea of abandoning the room that had given him peace terrified Jos?Arcadio Segundo. He shouted that there was no human power capable of making him go out because he did not want to see the train with two hundred cars loaded with dead people which left Macondo every day at dusk on its way to the sea. “They were all of those who were at the station,?he shouted. “Three thousand four hundred eight.?Only then did ?rsula realize that he was in a world of shadows more impenetrable than hers, as unreachable and solitary as that of his great-grandfather. She left him in the room, but she succeeded in getting them to leave the padlock off, clean it every day, throw the chamberpots away except for one, and to keep Jos?Arcadio Segundo as clean and presentable as his great-grandfather had been during his long captivity under the chestnut tree. At first Fernanda interpreted that bustle as an attack of senile madness and it was difficult for her to suppress her exasperation. But about that time Jos?Arcadio told her that he planned to come to Macondo from Rome before taking his final vows, and the good news filled her with such enthusiasm that from morning to night she would be seen watering the flowers four times a day so that her son would not have a bad impression of the house. It was that same incentive which induced her to speed up her correspondence with the invisible doctors and to replace the pots of ferns and oregano and the begonias on the porch even before ?rsula found out that they had been destroyed by Aureliano Segundo’s exterminating fury. Later on she sold the silver service and bought ceramic dishes, pewter bowls and soup spoons, and alpaca tablecloths, and with them brought poverty to the cupboards that had been accustomed to India Company chinaware and Bohemian crystal. ?rsula always tried to go a step beyond. “Open the windows and the doors,?she shouted. “Cook some meat and fish, buy the largest turtles around, let strangers come and spread their mats in the corners and urinate in the rose bushes and sit down to eat as many times as they want and belch and rant and muddy everything with their boots, and let them do whatever they want to us, because that’s the only way to drive off rain.?But it was a vain illusion. She was too old then and living on borrowed time to repeat the miracle of the little candy animals, and none of her descendants had inherited her strength. The house stayed closed on Fernanda’s orders.
   Aureliano Segundo, who had taken his trunks back to the house of Petra Cotes, barely had enough means to see that the family did not starve to death. With the raffling of the mule, Petra Cotes and he bought some more animals with which they managed to set up a primitive lottery business. Aureliano Segundo would go from house to house selling the tickets that he himself painted with colored ink to make them more attractive and convincing, and perhaps he did not realize that many people bought them out of gratitude and most of them out of pity. Nevertheless, even the most pitying purchaser was getting a chance to win a pig for twenty cents or a calf for thirty-two, and they became so hopeful that on Tuesday nights Petra Cotes’s courtyard overflowed with people waiting for the moment when a child picked at random drew the winning number from a bag. It did not take long to become a weekly fair, for at dusk food and drink stands would be set up in the courtyard and many of those who were favored would slaughter the animals they had won right there on the condition that someone else supply the liquor and music, so that without having wanted to, Aureliano Segundo suddenly found himself playing the accordion again and participating in modest tourneys of voracity. Those humble replicas of the revelry of former times served to show Aureliano Segundo himself how much his spirits had declined and to what a degree his skill as a masterful carouser had dried up. He was a changed man. The two hundred forty pounds that he had attained during the days when he had been challenged by The Elephant had been reduced to one hundred fifty-six; the glowing and bloated tortoise face had turned into that of an iguana, and he was always on the verge of boredom and fatigue. For Petra Cotes, however, he had never been a better man than at that time, perhaps because the pity that he inspired was mixed with love, and because of the feeling of solidarity that misery aroused in both of them. The broken-down bed ceased to be the scene of wild activities and was changed into an intimate refuge. Freed of the repetitious mirrors, which had been auctioned off to buy animals for the lottery, and from the lewd damasks and velvets, which the mule had eaten, they would stay up very late with the innocence of two sleepless grandparents, taking advantage of the time to draw up accounts and put away pennies which they formerly wasted just for the sake of it. Sometimes the cock’s crow would find them piling and unpiling coins, taking a bit away from here to put there, to that this bunch would be enough to keep Fernanda happy and that would be for Amaranta ?rsula’s shoes, and that other one for Santa Sofía de la Piedad, who had not had a new dress since the time of all the noise, and this to order the coffin if ?rsula died, and this for the coffee which was going up a cent a pound in price every three months, and this for the sugar which sweetened less every day, and this for the lumber which was still wet from the rains, and this other one for the paper and the colored ink to make tickets with, and what was left over to pay off the winner of the April calf whose hide they had miraculously saved when it came down with a symptomatic carbuncle just when all of the numbers in the raffle had already been sold. Those rites of poverty were so pure that they nearly always set aside the largest share for Fernanda, and they did not do so out of remorse or charity, but because her well-being was more important to them than their own. What was really happening to them, although neither of them realized it, was that they both thought of Fernanda as the daughter that they would have liked to have and never did, to the point where on a certain occasion they resigned themselves to eating crumbs for three days, so that she could buy a Dutch tablecloth. Nevertheless, no matter how much they killed themselves with work, no matter how much money they eked out, and no matter how many schemes they thought of, their guardian angels were asleep with fatigue while they put in coins and took them out trying to get just enough to live with. During the waking hours when the accounts were bad. they wondered what had happened in the world for the animals not to breed with the same drive as before, why money slipped through their fingers, and why people who a short time before had burned rolls of bills in the carousing considered it highway robbery to charge twelve cents for a raffle of six hens. Aureliano Segundo thought without saying so that the evil was not in the world but in some hidden place in the mysterious heart of Petra Cotes, where something had happened during the deluge that had turned the animals sterile and made money scarce. Intrigued by that enigma, he dug so deeply into her sentiments that in search of interest he found love, because by trying to make her love him he ended up falling in love with her. Petra Cotes, for her part, loved him more and more as she felt his love increasing, and that was how in the ripeness of autumn she began to believe once more in the youthful superstition that poverty was the servitude of love. Both looked back then on the wild revelry, the gaudy wealth, and the unbridled fornication as an annoyance and they lamented that it had cost them so much of their lives to fund the paradise of shared solitude. Madly in love after so many years of sterile complicity, they enjoyed the miracle of loving each other as much at the table as in bed, and they grew to be so happy that even when they were two worn-out old people they kept on blooming like little children and playing together like dogs.
   The raffles never got very far. At first Aureliano Segundo would spend three days of the week shut up in what had been his rancher’s office drawing ticket after ticket, Painting with a fair skill a red cow, a green pig, or a group of blue hens, according to the animal being raffled, and he would sketch out a good imitation of printed numbers and the name that Petra Cotes thought good to call the business: Divine Providence Raffles. But with time he felt so tired after drawing up to two thousand tickets a week that he had the animals, the name, and the numbers put on rubber stamps, and then the work was reduced to moistening them on pads of different colors. In his last years it occurred to him to substitute riddles for the numbers so that the prize could be shared by all of those who guessed it, but the system turned out to be so complicated and was open to so much suspicion that he gave it up after the second attempt.
   Aureliano Segundo was so busy trying to maintain the prestige of his raffles that he barely had time to see the children. Fernanda put Amaranta ?rsula in a small private school where they admitted only six girls, but she refused to allow Aureliano to go to public school. She considered that she had already relented too much in letting him leave the room. Besides, the schools in those days accepted only the legitimate offspring of Catholic marriages and on the birth certificate that had been pinned to Aureliano’s clothing when they brought him to the house he was registered as a foundling. So he remained shut In at the mercy of Santa Sofía de la Piedad’s loving eyes and ?rsula’s mental quirks, learning in the narrow world of the house whatever his grandmothers explained to him. He was delicate, thin, with a curiosity that unnerved the adults, but unlike the inquisitive and sometimes clairvoyant look that the colonel had at his age, his look was blinking and somewhat distracted. While Amaranta ?rsula was in kindergarten, he would hunt earthworms and torture insects in the garden. But once when Fernanda caught him putting scorpions in a box to put in ?rsula’s bed, she locked him up in Meme’s old room, where he spent his solitary hours looking through the pictures in the encyclopedia. ?rsula found him there one afternoon when she was going about sprinkling the house with distilled water and a bunch of nettles, and in spite of the fact that she had been with him many times she asked him who he was.
   “I’m Aureliano Buendía,?he said.
   “That’s right?she replied. “And now it’s time for you to start learning how to be a silversmith.?
   She had confused him with her son again, because the hot wind that came after the deluge and had brought occasional waves of lucidity to ?rsula’s brain had passed. She never got her reason back. When she went into the bedroom she found Petronila Iguarán there with the bothersome crinolines and the beaded jacket that she put on for formal visits, and she found Tranquilina Maria Miniata Alacoque Buendía, her grandmother, fanning herself with a peacock feather in her invalid’s rocking chair, and her great-grandfather Aureliano Arcadio Buendía, with his imitation dolman of the viceregal guard, and Aureliano Iguarán, her father, who had invented a prayer to make the worms shrivel up and drop off cows, and her timid mother, and her cousin with the pig’s tail, and Jos?Arcadio Buendía, and her dead sons, all sitting in chairs lined up against the wall as if it were a wake and not a visit. She was tying a colorful string of chatter together, commenting on things from many separate places and many different times, so that when Amaranta ?rsula returned from school and Aureliano grew tired of the encyclopedia, they would find her sitting on her bed, talking to herself and lost in a labyrinth of dead people. “Fire!?she shouted once in terror and for an instant panic spread through the house, but what she was telling about was the burning of a barn that she had witnessed when she was four years old. She finally mixed up the past with the present in such a way that in the two or three waves of lucidity that she had before she died, no one knew for certain whether she was speaking about what she felt or what she remembered. Little by little she was shrinking, turning into a fetus, becoming mummified in life to the point that in her last months she was a cherry raisin lost inside of her nightgown, and the arm that she always kept raised looked like the paw of a marimonda monkey. She was motionless for several days, and Santa Sofía de la Piedad had to shake her to convince herself that she was alive and sat her on her lap to feed her a few spoonfuls of sugar water. She looked like a newborn old woman. Amaranta ?rsula and Aureliano would take her in and out of the bedroom, they would lay her on the altar to see if she was any larger than the Christ child, and one afternoon they hid her in a closet in the Pantry where the rats could have eaten her. One Palm Sunday they went into the bedroom while Fernanda was in church and carried ?rsula out by the neck and ankles.
   “Poor great-great-grandmother,?Amaranta ?rsula said. “She died of old age.?
   ?rsula was startled.
   “I’m alive!?she said.
   “You can see.?Amaranta ?rsula said, suppressing her laughter, “that she’s not even breathing.?
   “I’m talking!??rsula shouted.
   “She can’t even talk,?Aureliano said. “She died like a little cricket.?
   Then ?rsula gave in to the evidence. “My God,?she exclaimed in a low voice. “So this is what it’s like to be dead.?She started an endless, stumbling, deep prayer that lasted more than two days, and that by Tuesday had degenerated into a hodgepodge of requests to God and bits of practical advice to stop the red ants from bringing the house down, to keep the lamp burning by Remedios?daguerreotype, and never to let any Buendía marry a person of the same blood because their children would be born with the tail of a pig. Aureliano Segundo tried to take advantage of her delirium to get her to ten him where the gold was buried, but his entreaties were useless once more “When the owner appears,??rsula said, “God will illuminate him so that he will find it.?Santa Sofía de la Piedad had the certainty that they would find her dead from one moment to the next, because she noticed during those days a certain confusion in nature: the roses smelled like goosefoot, a pod of chick peas fell down and the beans lay on the ground in a perfect geometrical pattern in the shape of a starfish and one night she saw a row of luminous orange disks pass across the sky.
   They found her dead on the morning of Good Friday. The last time that they had helped her calculate her age, during the time of the banana company, she had estimated it as between one hundred fifteen and one hundred twenty-two. They buried her in a coffin that was not much larger than the basket in which Aureliano had arrived, and very few people were at the funeral, partly because there wet not many left who remembered her, and partly because it was so hot that noon that the birds in their confusion were running into walls like day pigeons and breaking through screens to die in the bedrooms.
   At first they thought it was a plague. Housewives were exhausted from sweeping away so many dead birds, especially at siesta time, and the men dumped them into the river by the cartload. On Easter Sunday the hundred-year-old Father Antonio Isabel stated from the pulpit that the death of the birds was due to the evil influence of the Wandering Jew, whom he himself had seen the night before. He described him as a cross between a billy goat and a female heretic, an infernal beast whose breath scorched the air and whose look brought on the birth of monsters in newlywed women. There were not many who paid attention to his apocalyptic talk, for the town was convinced that the priest was rambling because of his age. But one woman woke everybody up at dawn on Wednesday because she found the tracks of a biped with a cloven hoof. They were so clear and unmistakable that those who went to look at them had no doubt about the existence of a fearsome creature similar to the one described by the parish priest and they got together to set traps in their courtyards. That was how they managed to capture it. Two weeks after ?rsula’s death, Petra Cotes and Aureliano Segundo woke up frightened by the especially loud bellowing of a calf that was coming from nearby. When they got there a group of men were already pulling the monster off the sharpened stakes they had set in the bottom of a pit covered with dry leaves, and it stopped lowing. It was as heavy as an ox in spite of the fact that it was no taller than a young steer, and a green and greasy liquid flowed from its wounds. Its body was covered with rough hair, plagued with small ticks, and the skin was hardened with the scales of a remora fish, but unlike the priest’s description, its human parts were more like those of a sickly angel than of a man, for its hands were tense and agile, its eyes large and gloomy, and on its shoulder blades it had the scarred-over and calloused stumps of powerful wings which must have been chopped off by a woodsman’s ax. They hung it to an almond tree in the square by its ankles so that everyone could see it, and when it began to rot they burned it in a bonfire, for they could not determine whether its bastard nature was that of an animal to be thrown into the river or a human being to be buried. It was never established whether it had really caused the death of the birds, but the newly married women did not bear the predicted monsters, nor did the intensity of the heat decrease.
   Rebeca died at the end of that year. Argénida, her lifelong servant, asked the authorities for help to knock down the door to the bedroom where her mistress had been locked in for three days, and they found her, on her solitary bed, curled up like a shrimp, with her head bald from ringworm and her finger in her mouth. Aureliano Segundo took charge of the funeral and tried to restore the house in order to sell it, but the destruction was so far advanced in it that the walls became scaly as soon as they were painted and there was not enough mortar to stop the weeds from cracking the floors and the ivy from rotting the beams.
   That was how everything went after the deluge. The indolence of the people was in contrast to the voracity of oblivion, which little by little was undermining memories in a pitiless way, to such an extreme that at that time, on another anniversary of the Treaty of Neerlandia, some emissaries from the president of the republic arrived in Macondo to award at last the decoration rejected several times by Colonel Aureliano Buendía, and they spent a whole afternoon looking for someone who could tell them where they could find one of his descendants. Aureliano Segundo was tempted to accept it, thinking that it was a medal of solid gold, but Petra Cotes convinced him that it was not proper when the emissaries already had some proclamations and speeches ready for the ceremony. It was also around that time that the gypsies returned, the last heirs to Melquíades?science, and they found the town so defeated and its inhabitants so removed from the rest of the world that once more they went through the houses dragging magnetized ingots as if that really were the Babylonian wise men’s latest discovery, and once again they concentrated the sun’s rays with the giant magnifying glass, and there was no lack of people standing open-mouthed watching kettles fall and pots roll and who paid fifty cents to be startled as a gypsy woman put in her false teeth and took them out again. A broken-down yellow train that neither brought anyone in nor took anyone out and that scarcely paused at the deserted station was the only thing that was left of the long train to which Mr. Brown would couple his glass-topped coach with the episcopal lounging chairs and of the fruit trains with one hundred twenty cars which took a whole afternoon to pass by. The ecclesiastical delegates who had come to investigate the report of the strange death of the birds and the sacrifice of the Wandering Jew found Father Antonio Isabel playing blind man’s buff with the children, and thinking that his report was the product of a hallucination, they took him off to an asylum. A short time later they sent Father Augusto Angel, a crusader of the new breed, intransigent, audacious, daring, who personally rang the bells several times a day so that the peoples spirits would not get drowsy, and who went from house to house waking up the sleepers to go to mass but before a year was out he too was conquered by the negligence that one breathed in with the air, by the hot dust that made everything old and clogged up, and by the drowsiness caused by lunchtime meatballs in the unbearable heat of siesta time.
   With ?rsula’s death the house again fell into a neglect from which it could not be rescued even by a will as resolute and vigorous as that of Amaranta ?rsula, who many years later, being a happy, modern woman without prejudices, with her feet on the ground, opened doors and windows in order to drive away the rain, restored the garden, exterminated the red ants who were already walking across the porch in broad daylight, and tried in vain to reawaken the forgotten spirit of hospitality. Fernanda’s cloistered passion built in impenetrable dike against ?rsula’s torrential hundred years. Not only did she refuse to open doors when the arid wind passed through, but she had the windows nailed shut with boards in the shape of a cross, obeying the paternal order of being buried alive. The expensive correspondence with the invisible doctors ended in failure. After numerous postponements, she shut herself up in her room on the date and hour agreed upon, covered only by a white sheet and with her head pointed north, and at one o’clock in the morning she felt that they were covering her head with a handkerchief soaked in a glacial liquid. When she woke up the sun was shining in the window and she had a barbarous stitch in the shape of an arc that began at her crotch and ended at her sternum. But before she could complete the prescribed rest she received a disturbed letter from the invisible doctors, who mid they had inspected her for six hours without finding anything that corresponded to the symptoms so many times and so scrupulously described by her. Actually, her pernicious habit of not calling things by their names had brought about a new confusion, for the only thing that the telepathic surgeons had found was a drop in the uterus which could be corrected by the use of a pessary. The disillusioned Fernanda tried to obtain more precise information, but the unknown correspondents did not answer her letters any more. She felt so defeated by the weight of an unknown word that she decided to put shame behind her and ask what a pessary was, and only then did she discover that the French doctor had hanged himself to a beam three months earlier and had been buried against the wishes of the townspeople by a former companion in arms of Colonel Aureliano Buendía. Then she confided in her son Jos?Arcadio and the latter sent her the pessaries from Rome along with a pamphlet explaining their use, which she flushed down the toilet after committing it to memory so that no one would learn the nature of her troubles. It was a useless precaution because the only people who lived in the house scarcely paid any attention to her. Santa Sofía de la Piedad was wandering about in her solitary old age, cooking the little that they ate and almost completely dedicated to the care of Jos?Arcadio Segundo. Amaranta ?rsula, who had inherited certain attractions of Remedios the Beauty, spent the time that she had formerly wasted tormenting ?rsula at her schoolwork, and she began to show good judgment and a dedication to study that brought back to Aureliano Segundo the high hopes that Meme had inspired in him. He had promised her to send her to finish her studies in Brussels, in accord with a custom established during the time of the banana company, and that illusion had brought him to attempt to revive the lands devastated by the deluge. The few times that he appeared at the house were for Amaranta ?rsula, because with time he had become a stranger to Fernanda and little Aureliano was becoming withdrawn as he approached puberty. Aureliano Segundo had faith that Fernanda’s heart would soften with old age so that the child could join in the life of the town where no one certainly would make any effort to speculate suspiciously about his origins. But Aureliano himself seemed to prefer the cloister of solitude and he did not show the least desire to know the world that began at the street door of the house. When ?rsula had the door of Melquíades?room opened he began to linger about it, peeping through the half-opened door, and no one knew at what moment he became close to Jos?Arcadio Segundo in a link of mutual affection. Aureliano Segundo discovered that friendship a long time after it had begun, when he heard the child talking about the killing at the station. It happened once when someone at the table complained about the ruin into which the town had sunk when the banana company had abandoned it, and Aureliano contradicted him with maturity and with the vision of a grown person. His point of view, contrary to the general interpretation, was that Macondo had been a prosperous place and well on its way until it was disordered and corrupted and suppressed by the banana company, whose engineers brought on the deluge as a pretext to avoid promises made to the workers. Speaking with such good sense that to Fernanda he was like a sacrilegious parody of Jews among the wise men, the child described with precise and convincing details how the army had machine-gunned more than three thousand workers penned up by the station and how they loaded the bodies onto a two-hundred-car train and threw them into the sea. Convinced as most people were by the official version that nothing had happened, Fernanda was scandalized with the idea that the child had inherited the anarchist ideas of Colonel Aureliano Buendía and told him to be quiet. Aureliano Segundo, on the other hand, recognized his twin brother’s version. Actually, in spite of the fact that everyone considered him mad, Jos?Arcadio Segundo was at that time the most lucid inhabitant of the house. He taught little Aureliano how to read and write, initiated him in the study of the parchments, and he inculcated him with such a personal interpretation of what the banana company had meant to Macondo that many years later, when Aureliano became part of the world, one would have thought that he was telling a hallucinated version, because it was radically opposed to the false one that historians had created and consecrated in the schoolbooks. In the small isolated room where the arid air never penetrated, nor the dust, nor the heat, both had the atavistic vision of an old man, his back to the window, wearing a hat with a brim like the wings of a crow who spoke about the world many years before they had been born. Both described at the same time how it was always March there and always Monday, and then they understood that Jos?Arcadio Buendía was not as crazy as the family said, but that he was the only one who had enough lucidity to sense the truth of the fact that time also stumbled and had accidents and could therefore splinter and leave an eternalized fragment in a room. Jos?Arcadio Segundo had managed, furthermore, to classify the cryptic letters of the parchments. He was certain that they corresponded to an alphabet of forty-seven to fifty-three characters, which when separated looked like scratching and scribbling, and which in the fine hand of Melquíades looked like pieces of clothing put out to dry on a line. Aureliano remembered having seen a similar table in the English encyclopedia, so he brought it to the room to compare it with that of Jos?Arcadio Segundo. They were indeed the same.
   Around the time of the riddle lottery, Aureliano Segundo began waking up with a knot in his throat, as if he were repressing a desire to weep. Petra Cotes interpreted it as one more of so many upsets brought on by the bad situation, and every morning for over a year she would touch his palate with a dash of honey and give him some radish syrup. When the knot in his throat became so oppressive that it was difficult for him to breathe, Aureliano Segundo visited Pilar Ternera to see if she knew of some herb that would give him relief. The dauntless grandmother, who had reached a hundred years of age managing a small, clandestine brothel, did not trust therapeutic superstitions, so she turned the matter over to her cards. She saw the queen of diamonds with her throat wounded by the steel of the jack of spades, and she deduced that Fernanda was trying to get her husband back home by means of the discredited method of sticking pins into his picture but that she had brought on an internal tumor because of her clumsy knowledge of the black arts. Since Aureliano Segundo had no other pictures except those of his wedding and the copies were all in the family album, he kept searching all through the house when his wife was not looking, and finally, in the bottom of the dresser, he came across a half-dozen pessaries in their original boxes. Thinking that the small red rubber rings were objects of witchcraft he put them in his pocket so that Pilar Ternera could have a look at them. She could not determine their nature, but they looked so suspicious to her that in any case she burned them in a bonfire she built in the courtyard. In order to conjure away Fernanda’s alleged curse, she told Aureliano Segundo that he should soak a broody hen and bury her alive under the chestnut tree, and he did it with such good faith that when he finished hiding the turned-up earth with dried leaves he already felt that he was breathing better. For her part, Fernanda interpreted the disappearance as a reprisal by the invisible doctors and she sewed a pocket of casing to the inside of her camisole where she kept the new pessaries that her son sent her.
   Six months after he had buried the hen, Aureliano Segundo woke up at midnight with an attack of coughing and the feeling that he was being strangled within by the claws of a crab. It was then that he understood that for all of the magical pessaries that he destroyed and all the conjuring hens that he soaked, the single and sad piece of truth was that he was dying. He did not tell anyone. Tormented by the fear of dying without having sent Amaranta ?rsula to Brussels, he worked as he had never done, and instead of one he made three weekly raffles. From very early in the morning he could be seen going through the town, even in the most outlying and miserable sections, trying to sell tickets with an anxiety that could only be conceivable in a dying man. “Here’s Divine Providence,?he hawked. “Don’t let it get away, because it only comes every hundred years.?He made pitiful efforts to appear gay, pleasant, talkative, but it was enough to see his sweat and paleness to know that his heart was not in it. Sometimes he would go to vacant lots, where no one could see him, and sit down to rest from the claws that were tearing him apart inside. Even at midnight he would be in the red-light district trying to console with predictions of good luck the lonely women who were weeping beside their phonographs. “This number hasn’t come up in four months,?he told them, showing them the tickets. “Don’t let it get away, life is shorter than you think.?They finally lost respect for him, made fun of him, and in his last months they no longer called him Don Aureliano, as they had always done, but they called him Mr. Divine Providence right to his face. His voice was becoming filled with wrong notes. It was getting out of tune, and it finally diminished into the growl of a dog, but he still had the drive to see that there should be no diminishing of the hope people brought to Petra Cates’s courtyard. As he lost his voice, however, and realized that in a short time he would be unable to bear the pain, he began to understand that it was not through raffled pigs and goats that his daughter would get to Brussels, so he conceived the idea of organizing the fabulous raffle of the lands destroyed by the deluge, which could easily be restored by a person with the money to do so. It was such a spectacular undertaking that the mayor himself lent his aid by announcing it in a proclamation, and associations were formed to buy tickets at one hundred pesos apiece and they were sold out in less than a week. The night of the raffle the winners held a huge celebration, comparable only to those of the good days of the banana company, and Aureliano Segundo, for the last time, played the forgotten songs of Francisco the Man on the accordion, but he could no longer sing them.
   Two months later Amaranta ?rsula went to Brussels. Aureliano Segundo gave her not only the money from the special raffle, but also what he had managed to put aside over the previous months and what little he had received from the sale of the pianola, the clavichord, and other junk that had fallen into disrepair.  According to his calculations, that sum would be enough for her studies, so that all that was lacking was the price of her fare back home. Fernanda was against the trip until the last moment, scandalized by the idea that Brussels was so close to Paris and its perdition, but she calmed down with the letter that Father Angel gave her addressed to a boardinghouse run by nuns for Catholic young ladies where Amaranta ?rsula promised to stay until her studies were completed. Furthermore, the parish priest arranged for her to travel under the care of a group of Franciscan nuns who were going to Toledo, where they hoped to find dependable people to accompany her to Belgium. While the urgent correspondence that made the coordination possible went forward, Aureliano Segundo, aided by Petra Cates, prepared Amaranta ?rsula’s baggage. The night on which they were packing one of Fernanda’s bridal trunks, the things were so well organized that the schoolgirl knew by heart which were the suits and cloth slippers she could wear crossing the Atlantic and the blue cloth coat with copper buttons and the cordovan shoes she would wear when she landed. She also knew how to walk so as not to fall into the water as she went up the gangplank, that at no time was she to leave the company of the nuns or leave her cabin except to eat, and that for no reason was she to answer the questions asked by people of any sex while they were at sea. She carried a small bottle with drops for seasickness and a notebook written by Father Angel in his own hand containing six prayers to be used against storms. Fernanda made her a canvas belt to keep her money in, and she would not have to take it off even to sleep. She tried to give her the chamberpot, washed out with lye and disinfected with alcohol, but Amaranta ?rsula refused it for fear that her schoolmates would make fun of her. A few months later, at the hour of his death, Aureliano Segundo would remember her as he had seen her for the last time as she tried unsuccessfully to lower the window of the second-class coach to hear Fernanda’s last piece of advice. She was wearing a pink silk dress with a corsage of artificial pansies pinned to her left shoulder, her cordovan shoes with buckles and low heels, and sateen stockings held up at the thighs with elastic garters. Her body was slim, her hair loose and long, and she had the lively eyes that ?rsula had had at her age and the way in which she said good-bye, without crying but without smiling either, revealed the same strength of character. Walking beside the coach as it picked up speed and holding Fernanda by the arm so that she would not stumble, Aureliano scarcely had time to wave at his daughter as she threw him a kiss with the tips of her fingers. The couple stood motionless under the scorching sun, looking at the train as it merged with the black strip of the horizon, linking arms for the first time since the day of their wedding.
   On the ninth of August, before they received the first letter from Brussels, Jos?Arcadio Segundo was speaking to Aureliano in Melquíades?room and, without realizing it, he said:
   “Always remember that they were more than three thousand and that they were thrown into the sea.?
   Then he fell back on the parchments and died with his eyes open. At that same instant, in Fernanda’s bed, his twin brother came to the end of the prolonged and terrible martyrdom of the steel crabs that were eating his throat away. One week previously he had returned home, without any voice, unable to breathe, and almost skin and bones, with his wandering trunks and his wastrel’s accordion, to fulfill the promise of dying beside his wife. Petra Cotes helped him pack his clothes and bade him farewell without shedding a tear, but she forgot to give him the patent leather shoes that he wanted to wear in his coffin. So when she heard that he had died, she dressed in black, wrapped the shoes up in a newspaper, and asked Fernanda for permission to see the body. Fernanda would not let her through the door.
   “Put yourself in my place,?Petra Cotes begged. “Imagine how much I must have loved him to put up with this humiliation.?
   “There is no humiliation that a concubine does not deserve,?Fernanda replied. “So wait until another one of your men dies and put the shoes on him.?
   In fulfillment of her promise, Santa Sofía de la Piedad cut the throat of Jos?Arcadio Segundo’s corpse with a kitchen knife to be sure that they would not bury him alive. The bodies were placed in identical coffins, and then it could be seen that once more in death they had become as Identical as they had been until adolescence. Aureliano Segundo’s old carousing comrades laid on his casket a wreath that had a purple ribbon with the words: Cease, cows, life is short. Fernanda was so indignant with such irreverence that she had the wreath thrown onto the trash heap. In the tumult of the last moment, the sad drunkards who carried them out of the house got the coffins mixed up and buried them in the wrong graves.



第十七章

  八月里开始刮起了热风。这种热风不但窒息了玫瑰花丛,使所有的沼泽都干涸了,而且给马孔多生锈的锌板屋顶和它那百年杏树都撒上了一层灼热的尘土。下雨的时候,乌苏娜意识中突发的闪光是十分罕见的,但从八月开始,却变得频繁了。看来,乌苏娜还要过不少日子才能实现自己的诺言,在雨停之后死去。她知道自己给孩子们当了三年多的玩偶,就无限自怜地哭泣起来。她拭净脸上的污垢,脱掉身上的花布衣服,抖掉身上的干蜥蜴和癞蛤蟆,扔掉颈上的念珠和项链,从阿玛兰塔去世以来,头一次不用旁人搀扶,自己下了床,准备重新投身到家庭生活中去。她那颗不屈服的心在黑暗中引导着她。无论谁看到她那颤巍巍的动作,或者突然瞧见她那总是伸得与头一般高的天使似的手,都会对老太婆弱不禁凤的身体产生恻隐之心,可是谁也不会想到乌苏娜的眼睛完全瞎了。但这并没有妨碍乌苏娜发现,她从房子第一次改建以来那么细心照料的花坛,已被雨水冲毁了,又让奥雷连诺第二给掘过了,地板和墙壁裂开一道道缝,家具摇摇晃晃,全褪了色,房门也从铰链上脱落下来。家中出现了从未有过的消沉和沮丧的气氛。乌苏娜摸着走过一间间空荡荡的卧室时,传进她耳里的只是蚂蚁不停地啃蚀木头的磁哦声。蛀虫在衣柜里的活动声和雨天滋生的大红蚂蚁破坏房基的安全声。有一次,她打开一只衣箱,箱子里突然爬出一群蟑螂,里面的衣服几乎都被它们咬破了,她不得不求救似的把圣索菲娅.德拉佩德叫来。“在这样的废墟上怎能生活呢?”她说。“到头来这些畜生会把咱们也消灭的,”从这一天起,乌苏娜心里一刻也没宁静过。清早起来,她便把所有能召唤的人都叫来帮忙,小孩子也不例外。她在太阳下晒干最后一件完好无损的外套和一些还可穿的内衣,用各种毒剂突然袭击蟑螂,赶跑它们,堵死门缝和窗框上白蚂蚁开辟的一条条通路,拿生石灰把蚂蚁直接闷死在洞穴里。由于怀着一种力图恢复一切的狂热愿望,乌苏娜甚至来到那些被遗忘的房间跟前。她先叫人清除了一个房间里的垃圾和蜘蛛网,在这个房间里,霍·阿.布恩蒂亚曾绞尽脑汁,不遗余力地寻找过点金石。接着,她又亲自把士兵们翻得乱七八糟的首饰作坊整理一番;最后,她要了梅尔加德斯房间的钥匙,打算看一下里面的情况,可是霍.阿卡蒂奥第二在自己死亡之前是绝对禁止人们走进这个房间的。圣索菲娅.德拉佩德尊重他的意愿,试图用一些妙计和借口促使乌苏娜放弃自己的打算。但是老太婆固执己见,决心消灭房中偏僻角落里的虫子,毅然决然地排除了她碰到的一切困难,三天之后便达到了目的——打开了梅尔加德斯的房间。房间里发出冲鼻的臭气,乌苏娜抓住门框,才站稳了脚跟。然而她立即想起,这房间里放着为梅梅的女同学买的七十二只便盆,想起最初的一个雨夜里,士兵们为了寻找霍·阿卡蒂奥第二,搜遍了整座房子,始终没有找到。
  “我的天啊!”她若看得见梅尔加德斯房间里的一切,准会这样惊叫一声。“我花了那么多力气教你养成整洁的习惯,可你却在这儿脏得象只猪。”
  霍·阿卡蒂奥第二正在继续考证羊皮纸手稿。他那凌乱不堪、又长又密的头发垂到了额上,透过头发只望得见微绿的牙齿和呆滞的眼睛。听出曾祖母的声音,他就朝房门掉过头去,试图微笑一下,可他自己也不知怎的重复了乌苏娜从前讲过的一句话。
  “你在想什么呢?”他叨咕道。“时光正在流逝嘛。”
  “当然,”乌苏娜说,“可毕竟是…”
  这时,她忽然想起奥雷连诺上校在死刑犯牢房里也曾这么回答过她。一想到时光并没有象她最后认为的那样消失,而在轮回往返,打着圈子,她又打了个哆嗦。然而这一次乌苏娜没有泄气。她象训斥小孩儿似的,把霍·阿卡蒂奥第二教训了一顿,逼着他洗脸、刮胡子,还要他帮助她完成房子的恢复工作。自愿与世隔绝的霍·阿卡蒂奥第二,想到自己必须离开这个使他得到宁静的房间就吓坏了。他忍不住叫嚷起来,说是没有什么力量能够使他离开这儿,说他不想看到两百节车厢的列车,因为列车上装满了尸体,每晚都从马孔多向海边驶去。“在车站上被熗杀的人都在那些车厢里,三千四百零八个。”乌苏娜这才明白,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二生活在比她注定要碰上的黑暗更不可洞察的黑暗中,生活在跟他曾祖父一样闭塞和孤独的天地里。她不去打扰霍·阿卡蒂奥第二,只是叫人从他的房门上取下挂锁,除留下一个便盆外,把其它的便盆都扔掉,每天到那儿打扫一遍,让霍·阿卡蒂奥第二保持整齐清洁,甚至不逊于他那长期呆在栗树下面的曾祖父。起先,菲兰达把乌苏娜总想活动的愿望看做是老年昏聩症的发作,勉强压住自己的怒火。可是就在这时,威尼斯来了一封信——霍·阿卡蒂奥向她说,他打算在实现终身的誓言之前回一次马孔多。这个好消息使得菲兰达那么高兴,她自己也开始从早到晚收拾屋子,一天浇四次花,只要老家不让她的儿子产生坏印象就成。她又开始跟那些没有见过的医生通信,并且把欧洲蕨花盆、牛至花盆以及秋海棠花盆都陈列在长廊上,很久以后乌苏娜才知道它们都让奥雷连诺第二在一阵破坏性的愤怒中摔碎了。后来,菲兰达卖掉了一套银制餐具,买了一套陶制餐具、一些锡制汤碗和大汤勺,还有一些锡制器皿;从此,一贯保存英国古老瓷器、波希米亚水晶玻璃器皿的壁橱,就显得很可怜了。可是乌苏娜觉得这还不够。“把门窗都打开吧,”她大声说。“烤一些肉,炸一些鱼,买一些最大的甲鱼,让外国人来作客,让他们在所有的角落里铺床,干脆在玫瑰花上撒尿,让他们坐在桌边,想吃多少就吃多少,让他们连打响嗝、胡说八道,让他们穿着大皮鞋径直闯进一个个房间,把到处都踩脏,让他们跟我们一起干他们愿干的一切事儿,因为我们只有这样才能驱除破败的景象。”可是乌苏娜想干的是不可能的事。她已经太老了,在人世间活得太久了,再也不能制作糖动物了,而子孙后代又没继承她那顽强的奋斗精神。于是,按照菲兰达的吩咐,一扇扇房门依然紧紧地闭着。
  这时,奥雷连诺第二又把自己的箱子搬进了佩特娜·柯特的房子,他剩下的钱只够勉强维持全家不致饿死。有一次抽骡子彩票时赢了一笔钱,奥雷连诺第二和佩特娜·柯特便又买了一些牲畜,开办了一家简陋的彩票公司。奥雷连诺第二亲自用彩色墨水绘制彩票,竭力使它们具有尽可能令人相信的迷人模样,然后走家串户地兜售彩票。也许连他自己也没发现,不少人买他的彩票是出于感激的心情,大部分人则是出于怜悯心。然而,即使是最有怜们心的买主,也都指望花二十个生丁菲兰达那么高兴,她自己也开始从早到晚收拾屋子,一天浇四次花,只要老家不让她的儿子产生坏印象就成。她又开始跟那些没有见过的医生通信,并且把欧洲蕨花盆、牛至花盆以及秋海棠花盆都陈列在长廊上,很久以后乌苏娜才知道它们都让奥雷连诺第二在一阵破坏性的愤怒中摔碎了。后来,菲兰达卖掉了一套银制餐具,买了一套陶制餐具、一些锡制汤碗和大汤勺,还有一些锡制器皿;从此,一贯保存英国古老瓷器、波希米亚水晶玻璃器皿的壁橱,就显得很可怜了。可是乌苏娜觉得这还不够。“把门窗都打开吧,”她大声说。“烤一些肉,炸一些鱼,买一些最大的甲鱼,让外国人来作客,让他们在所有的角落里铺床,干脆在玫瑰花上撒尿,让他们坐在桌边,想吃多少就吃多少,让他们连打响嗝、胡说八道,让他们穿着大皮鞋径直闯进一个个房间,把到处都踩脏,让他们跟我们一起干他们愿干的一切事儿,因为我们只有这样才能驱除破败的景象。”可是乌苏娜想干的是不可能的事。她已经太老了,在人世间活得太久了,再也不能制作糖动物了,而子孙后代又没继承她那顽强的奋斗精神。于是,按照菲兰达的吩咐,一扇扇房门依然紧紧地闭着。
  这时,奥雷连诺第二又把自己的箱子搬进了佩特娜·柯特的房子,他剩下的钱只够勉强维持全家不致饿死。有一次抽骡子彩票时赢了一笔钱,奥雷连诺第二和佩特娜·柯特便又买了一些牲畜,开办了一家简陋的彩票公司。奥雷连诺第二亲自用彩色墨水绘制彩票,竭力使它们具有尽可能令人相信的迷人模样,然后走家串户地兜售彩票。也许连他自己也没发现,不少人买他的彩票是出于感激的心情,大部分人则是出于怜悯心。然而,即使是最有怜们心的买主,也都指望花二十个生丁赢得一头猪,或者花三十二个生丁赢得一头牛犊。这种指望把大家搞得挺紧张,以致每星期二晚上佩特娜·柯特家的院子里都聚集了一群人,等待一个有幸被选出来开彩的小孩子刹那间从一只布袋里抽出中彩的号码。这种集会很快变成了每星期一次的集市。天一黑,院子里便摆了一张张放着食品和饮料的桌子,许多幸运的人愿意宰掉赢得的牲畜供大家享受,但是有个条件:别人得请些乐师来,并且供应伏特加酒;这样,奥雷连诺第二只好违背自已的意愿,重新拿起手风琴,并且勉强参加饕餐比赛。昔日酒宴上这些无聊的作法,使得奥雷连诺第二认识到,他以往的精力已经耗尽,过去那种主宰者和舞蹈家的创造才能也已枯竭。是的,他变了。有一天,他向“母象”挑战,他夸口说他能承担一百二十公斤的重量,结果不得不减为七十八公斤,他那淳厚的脸庞,本来就由于喝醉了酒而肿胀起来,现在犹如扁平的甲鱼嘴脸,一位长就变得好似鬣蜥的嘴脸了。沮丧和疲惫混杂的神色也一直没从他的脸上消失过。可是佩特娜.柯特还从来没象现在这样强烈地爱过奥雷连诺第二,可能是因为她把他的怜悯和两人在贫穷中建立的友情当成了爱情。现在,他们恋爱用的旧床已经破得摇摇晃晃,逐渐变成了他们秘密谈心的地方,那些照出他们每个动作的镜子已经取下来卖掉,卖得的钱购买了一些专供抽彩用的牲畜,那些细布被单和能激起情欲的绒被也已经被骡子嚼坏。一对昔日的情人,两个因为失眠而感到痛苦的老人,每夭怀着一种纯洁的心情,直到深夜还精神抖擞,便把从前剧烈消耗体力的时间用来算票据账和钱。有时,他们一直坐到拂晓鸡啼,把钱分成若干小堆,一个个硬币不时从这一小堆挪到那一小堆,为的是这一小堆够菲兰达花销;那一小堆够阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜买一双皮鞋;另一小堆给圣索菲娅·德拉佩德,因为从混乱时期起她是从来没有更新过衣着的,还有一小堆够订购乌苏娜的棺材,以防她一旦去世,再一小堆够买咖啡,一磅咖啡每隔三星期就要上涨一个生丁;另一小堆够买砂糖,砂糖的甜味一天天变得越来越淡了,那一小堆够买雨停后还没晒干的劈柴;这一小堆够买绘制彩票的纸张和彩色墨水;而额外的一小堆够还四月份的一次彩票钱,因为那一次所有的彩票几乎都已卖掉,不料母牛犊身上出现了炭疽症状,只是奇迹般地抢救出了它的一张皮。奥雷连诺第二和佩特娜.柯特的接济带有一种明显的特点,总是把较大的一部分给菲兰达,他们这么做倒不是由于良心的谴责,也不是为了施舍,而是他们认为菲兰达的幸福比自己的更为珍贵。事实上,他俩自己也没意识到,他们关心菲兰达,简直就象关心自己的女儿一样,因为他们一直想有一个女儿,结果却没想成。有一次,为了给菲兰达买一条荷兰亚麻布台布,他们整整吃了三天老玉米粥。但不管他们怎么操劳,也不管他们赚了多少钱,使用了多少心计,每天夜里,得到他们爱护的天使照样累得一下子就睡着了,也不等他们为了使钱够维持生活,把钱的分配和硬币的挪动工作结束。谁知钱永远攒不够,在为失眠感到苦恼的时候,他们不禁自问,这世界上到底发生了什么事呀,为什么牲畜繁殖得不象早先那么多,为什么握在手里的钱竟会贬值,为什么不久前还能无忧无虑地点燃一叠钞票跳孔比阿巴舞(注:男人手执蜡烛的一种舞蹈。)的人,如今大声嚷嚷,说他们在光天化日下遭到了抢劫,虽然向他们索取的不过是可怜的二十个生丁,以便让他们参加一次用六只鸡作奖品的抽彩。奥雷连诺第二虽然嘴上小说,心里却在想,祸根并不在周围世界,而是在佩特娜·柯特那不可捉摸的隐蔽的内心里。在发大水时,不知什么东西挪动了一下位置,于是牲畜便染上了不孕症,钱也开始象水一样流掉。奥雷连诺第二不禁时这个秘密产生了兴趣,以深邃的目光窥视了一下佩特娜·柯特的内心,可是就在他寻找收获的时候,突然遇上了爱情。他试图从自私的目的出发激起佩特娜·柯特的热情,最后却是自己爱上了她。随着他那股柔情的增长,佩特娜·柯特也越来越强烈地爱着奥雷连诺第二。这一年的深秋,她又孩子般天真地恢复了对“哪儿有贫穷,哪儿就有爱情”这句谚语的信念。现在,回忆起往年穷奢极侈的酒宴和放荡不羁的生活,他们不免感到羞愧和懊悔,抱怨两人为最终获得这座无儿无女的孤独天堂所花的代价太大,在那么多年没有生儿育女的同居之后,他俩在热恋中奇迹般地欣然发现,餐桌边的相爱比床上的相爱毫不逊色。他们感到了这样一种幸福:虽然精力衰竭,上了年纪,却依然能象家兔那样嬉戏,象家犬那样逗闹。
  从一次次抽彩中赚得的钱并没增加多少。最初,每星期有三天,奥雷连诺第二把自己关在经营牲畜的老办事处里,绘制一张又一张彩票,按照抽彩要发的奖,维妙维肖地绘出一头火红色的母牛、三头草绿色的乳猪或者一群天蓝色的母鸡,还悉心地用印刷体字母标上公司名称:“天意彩票公司”,那是佩特娜·柯特为公司起的名称。后来,他一星期不得不绘制二千多张彩票,不久他感到实在太累,便去定做了一些刻有公司名称、牲畜画像和号码的橡皮图章。从此,他的工作只是把图章在浸透了各种彩色墨水的印垫上蘸湿,再盖在一张张彩票纸上。在自己一生的最后几年里,奥雷连诺第二忽然想用谜语代替彩票上的号码,并在猜中谜语的那些人之间平分奖品。可是这种做法太复杂,再说,它又容易引起各种可能有的怀疑,在第二次试行之后,他就只好放弃了。
  每天从清晨到深夜,奥雷连诺第二都在为巩固彩票公司的威望忙碌,他差不多没剩下什么时间去看望孩子们。菲兰达干脆把阿玛兰塔。乌苏娜送进一所一年只收六名女生的私立学校,却不同意小奥雷连诺去上市立学校。她允许他在房子里自由地游逛,这种让步已经太大了,何况当时学校只收合法出生的孩子,父母要正式举行过宗教婚礼,出生证明必须和橡皮奶头一起,系在人们把婴儿带回家的那种摇篮上,而小奥雷连诺偏偏列入了弃婴名单。这样,他就不得不继续过着闭塞的生活,纯然接受圣索菲娅.德拉佩德和乌苏娜在神志清醒时的亲切监督。在聆听了两个老太婆的各种介绍之后,他了解的只是以房屋围墙为限的一个狭窄天地。他渐渐长成一个彬彬有礼、自尊自爱的孩子,生就一种孜孜不倦的求知欲,有时使成年人都不知所措,跟少年时代的奥雷连诺上校不同的是,他还没有明察秋毫的敏锐目光,瞧起什么来甚至有些漫不经心,不时眨巴着眼睛。阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜在学校里念书时,他还在花园里挖掘蚯蚓,折磨昆虫。有一次,他正把一些蝎子往一只小盒子里塞,准备悄悄扔进乌苏娜的铺盖,不料菲兰达一把抓住了他;为了这桩事,她把他关在梅梅昔日的卧室里。他为了寻找摆脱孤独的出路,开始浏览起百科全书里的插图来。在那儿他又碰上了乌苏娜,乌苏娜手里拿着一束荨麻,正顺着一个个房间走动,一边往墙壁上稍稍撒点圣水。尽管她已经多次跟他相遇,却依然问他是谁。
  “我是奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚,”他说。
  “不错,”她答道。“你已经到了开始学做首饰的时候啦。”
  她又把他错当成了自己的儿子,因为代替暴雨使她神智清醒了一阵子的热风刚刚过去。老太婆的判断又不清楚了。走进卧室,她好象每一次都会遇到一些跟她交往过的人:佩特罗尼娜·伊古阿兰令人注目地穿着一条华丽的钟式裙,披着一块用珠子装饰的绣花披肩,都是她出入上流社会时的装束;瘫痪的外祖母特兰吉林娜·马里雅·米尼亚塔·阿拉柯克·布恩蒂亚庄重地坐在摇椅里,挥着一把孔雀羽毛扇;那儿还有乌苏娜的曾祖父——奥雷连诺·阿卡蒂奥·布恩蒂亚——穿着一套总督禁卫军的制服,她的父亲奥雷连诺·伊古阿兰(牛虻的幼虫一听到他作的祷文就会丧命),从牛背上摔下来;此外还有她那位笃信神灵的母亲;长着一条猪尾巴的堂弟霍塞·奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚和他那些已故的儿子们——他们一个个都端坐在沿墙摆着的椅子上,仿佛不是来作客,而是来听安魂祈祷的。她开始娓娓动听地跟他们谈话,讨论一些在时间和地点上彼此都无联系的事情。从学校回来的阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜,看厌了百科全书的奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚,走进她的卧宝时,也常常见她坐在床上大声地自言自语,在回忆死者的迷宫里瞎碰乱撞。有一次,她突然拉开吓人的嗓子,叫喊起来:“夫火啦!”喊声惊动了整座房子。事实上,她回忆起了自己四岁时见到的一次马厩失火。她就这样把过去跟现在混在一起。没死之前,她还有过两三次神智清醒的时候,但即使在那种时候,大概谁也不知道她讲的是此时此刻的感觉,还是对往事的回忆,乌苏娜渐渐枯槁了,还没死就变成了一具木乃伊,在她一生最后的几个月里,干瘪得犹如掉在睡衣里的一块黑李子干,她那只总是僵硬的手也变得好象长尾猴的爪子。她可以整整几天呆在那儿,一动也不动,圣索菲娅·德拉佩德只好把她摇了又摇,在确信她还活着之后,就让她坐在自己膝上,喂她一小匙糖水。这时,乌苏娜看上去就象一个获得新生的老太婆。阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜和奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚架起她,在卧室里拍着她,把她放在祭坛上,想证实一下她是否只比耶稣婴儿时稍大一点儿。有一天晚上,他们甚至把她藏在储藏室的一只柜子里,在那儿,她差一点让老鼠吃掉。在复活节前的那个礼拜日,趁菲兰达正在做弥撒,他们又走进乌苏娜的卧室,一下子抬起她的头和脚。
  “可怜的高祖母,”阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜脱口而出,“她老死了。”
  乌苏娜猝然一动。
  “我还活着哩,”她反驳了一句。
  “你瞧,”阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜抑住笑声说:“呼吸都没有啦。”
  “我不是在讲话吗?”乌苏娜叫道。
  “连话也讲不动啦!”奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚说。“象一支蜡烛燃尽了。”
  在这明确的事实面前,乌苏娜只好屈服。“我的天呀!”她轻轻地感叹一声。“这就是死吗?”她不由得开始念祷文,这是一篇毫无联系的长祷文,持续了两天多,直到星期二终于变成了杂乱无章的呓语:有向上帝的呼吁,也有殷切的教诲:要消灭红蚂蚁啦,否则房子就会轰隆一声倒塌;别让雷麦黛丝圣像前的神灯灭掉啦,别让布恩蒂亚家的任何一个人娶亲戚作妻子啦,不然生出的儿女会有一条猪尾巴。奥雷连诺第二总想利用她的呓语状态探出金子藏放的地方,可是他的一次次纠缠都无收获。“等主人回来以后,”乌苏娜说,”上帝会启示他,让他找到财宝的。”圣索菲娅·德拉佩德确信乌苏娜随时都可能与世长辞,因为这几天自然界出现了一些不可理解的现象:玫瑰花忽然散发出阵阵苦艾味儿;圣索菲娅·德拉佩德不小心碰倒一只南瓜形碟子,碟子里撒落下来的菜豆种子在地板上组成一幅精确的海星几何图;有一天夜里,天空中骤然掠过一长串橙黄色的小光盘。
  果然,在那稣蒙难周的星期四清早,乌苏娜去世了。在乌苏娜最后一次想靠家人帮助计算她究竟活了多少岁时——当时香蕉公司还在,——她就算过自己不小于一百一十五岁,但也不大于一百二十二岁。最后她被安放在一口小小的棺材里,棺材尺寸只比奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚睡过的摇篮稍大一点儿。参加葬礼的人寥寥无几,一则是许多人都已忘记了乌苏娜,二则是天气发疯似的热——那天晌午热得那么厉害,竟使鸟儿都迷失了方向:有的象一颗颗子弹飞快地钻进屋里,有的穿过窗上的铁丝网,死在一间间卧室里。
  最初,人们都认为鸟是死于瘟疫的。家庭主妇们忙拿出全身的劲儿,清扫房间里的死鸟——午休的时候鸟死得特别多:男人们则一车一车地把死鸟扔下河去。在明朗的基督复活节那一天,百岁神父安东尼奥·伊萨贝尔忽然在讲台上宣告说,他昨天夜里曾亲眼看见一个流浪的犹太人把瘟疫传到了鸟身上,他把流浪的犹太人描绘成一个公山羊和女异教徒的杂种,一个面目可憎的怪物,他的气息能使空气变得滚烫,他的出现能使年轻女人身怀怪胎。这些启示性的说教,并没有多少人当真,因为整个市镇的人都已确信,这位教区牧师由于年老变成了疯子。可是星期二清晨,一个妇女拼命的喊声把左邻右舍都惊醒起来——她发现了一些分成两瓣的爪印,这些爪印既清晰又鲜明,不知是属于哪一种两足动物的,凡是看到它们的人,谁也不怀疑它们是神父描绘的那种可怕的怪物留下的。于是每一家的院子里都设置了陷阱,没过多少日子,神秘的外来者就被逮住了,在乌苏娜死后两星期的一天半夜里,隔壁院子突然传来一阵吓人的恸哭声,犹如一头小公牛的哞哞叫声,吵醒了佩特娜·柯特和奥雷连诺第二。他俩连忙跑出去看到底发生了什么事,只见一群男人已把怪物从原先插在洞底、用于树叶遮住的尖桩上拖了下来,怪物再也不会叫了。它象一头大公牛那样吊挂着,尽管它的身材并没超过一个未成年的小孩子;伤口流着粘乎乎的绿血,全身都是爬满壁虱的粗毛和疥癣。跟神父看见的那个怪物不同的是,它的身体有些部分象人;但与其说它象人,还不如说它更象孱弱的天使;它有一双干净纤细的手,一对眼睛又大又朦胧,两个肩胛上伤痕累累、长着老茧的部分——显然是樵夫用斧头砍断的一对翅膀的残余。为了使大家都能看到这个怪物,人们又把尸体倒挂在广场的一棵杏树上。等它开始腐烂时,就点起一堆火把它烧掉了,因为无法肯定:这个败类如果是个动物,就该扔到河里,如果是个基督徒,理应享受棺葬。就这样,人们依然不清楚鸟儿是否真的死在它手里;不过,正象神父所预言的,从此没有一个新娘不身怀怪胎,炎热也始终不见减退。
  年底,雷贝卡相继去世。三天前她就把自己锁在卧室里,跟随她多年的女仆阿金尼达不得不向当局提出破门的请求。门一打开,只见雷贝卡歪着由于生癣而秃了顶的脑袋,躺在自己那张孤零零的床上,象小虾似地蜷缩着身子,嘴里还含着自己的一只大拇指。奥雷连诺第二独自承担了安葬事宜,他想把她的屋子整修一下,卖掉它。无奈这间屋子里渗透了毁灭的气息:油漆刚一涂上墙壁,就又剥落下来,用厚厚的一层石灰水也无法阻挡;杂草冒出了地面;房柱在闷热的常春藤包围中一根一根地腐烂。
  这就是雨停后马孔多的生活。萎靡迟钝的人哪里抵得住健忘症,这种健忘症使他们逐渐忘记了所有的往事。突然,在尼兰德投降周年纪念日那天,共和国总统的几个使者奉命来到了马孔多,无论如何要把奥雷连诺上校多次拒绝的勋章授予英雄的后代。使者们为了找到一个了解这些后代踪迹的人,整整辗转了一个晚上。奥雷连诺第二差点鬼迷心窍地接受那个勋章,以为它毕竟是纯金的。佩特娜.柯特却告诫他说,这将是一种不体面的行为,他才放弃了自己的打算,尽管总统的代表们已经雇来乐队,在隆重的授勋仪式上的发言也已准备好了。就在这个时候,一些吉卜赛人——最后一批继承梅尔加德斯学问的人,来到了马孔多。他们发现这个市镇荒芜不堪,它的居民跟外面的世界完全隔绝;于是吉卜赛人又拿着一块块吸铁石,把它们充作巴比伦学者的最新发明,走家串户,而且又开始用放大镜聚集阳光。有不少好奇的人张大嘴巴,盯着脸盆跳下木架,锅子向吸铁石滚去;也有不少人准备付出五十个生丁,不胜惊讶地瞧着一个吉卜赛女人从嘴里取出假牙,接着又把它装回原处。在空荡荡的火车站旁,现在只有旧式蒸汽机车停留片刻,拖着几节不载人、不载货的黄色车厢——这就是昔日铁路上残留下来的一切,看不到一列客车载满旅客、挂着布劳恩先生的专用车厢,那种车厢里放着主教安乐椅,装着玻璃顶;也看不到一列货车,载着一百二十节车厢的水果,通宵达旦、络绎不绝地驶近车站。有一天,法官们来到马孔多,调查安东尼奥·伊萨贝尔神父关于离奇的瘟疫袭击鸟儿流浪的犹太人遇害的报告,正遇上可敬的神父在跟一群娃娃玩捉迷藏,他们便认定他的报告是老年人幻觉的结果,把他送进了痴人收容所。几天以后,奥古斯托·安格尔神父,一个最新炼丹术的专家,来到这个市镇,他一本正经、大胆粗鲁,一天几次亲手敲打各式各样的钟,使教徒的心灵一直处于振奋状态;他还从这一家走到那一家,唤醒一个个贪睡的人去听弥撒。然而没过一年,奥古斯托·安格尔神父就不得不承认自己失败了:他也无力抵御滞留在空气中的惰气,无力抵御滚烫的灰尘——它到处弥漫,使得一切都显出衰老的样子。热得不堪忍受的午休时刻,摆到午餐桌上的肉丸子,总要使他昏昏欲睡。
  乌苏娜死后,整座房子又变成了废墟。即使象阿玛兰塔乌苏娜这么一个刚强的人,再过许多年也不可能把房子从废墟中搭救出来。那时,她将是一个成年妇女,毫无偏见,快快活活,富有时代感,脚踏实地,却依然不可能敞开门窗,驱散毁灭的气氛,不可能重建家园,不可能消灭在大白天放肆地顺着长廊爬行的红蚂蚁,不可能使布恩蒂亚家恢复那种已经消失的好客精神;这个家庭对闭关自守的偏爱,犹如一个不可逾越的拦河坝,屹立在乌苏娜风风雨雨的百年生活道路上,也占据了菲兰达的心灵。在热风停息之后,菲兰达不但拒不同意打开房门,还叫人把一个个木十字架钉在窗棂上,为的是遵从父母的遗教,活生生地埋葬自己。她跟没有见过的医生之间代价高昂的通信,也以彻底失败告终。在月经多次延期之后,菲兰达便在规定的那一天、那个时刻,把自己锁在自己的卧室里,头朝北躺在床上,全身只盖一条白被单。到了半夜,她忽然感到有一条不知用什么冰冷的液体浸湿的餐布搁在自己脸上,醒来以后,只见太阳照进了窗户,她那肚子上的一块弧形伤疤正在泛红-一从腹股沟开始,一直红到胸骨。可是,早在规定的手术休息期还没过去之前,菲兰达就收到没有见过的医生一封令人不愉快的来信。信中告诉她说,他们曾为她作过一次仔细的检查,检查持续了六小时,但是没有发现她的内脏有任何毛病能够引起她不止一次十分详尽地描述过的那些症状。菲兰达总是不爱说出任何东西的名称,这个坏习惯又使她上了当,心灵感应术的医生唯一发现的是子宫下垂,即使不动手术,靠宫托的帮助也能治愈。灰心丧气的菲兰达希望得到更明确的诊断,谁知那些没有见过的医生却不再回她的信。她心里对“宫托”这个不可理解的词儿感到沉重,便决定不顾羞愧去问那位法国医生,宫托究竟是什么东西。这时她才听说法国医生在三个月前吊死在仓库横梁上了,奥雷连诺上校的一个老战友违背大家的意愿,把他埋葬在坟地上。于是,菲兰达只好依靠自己的儿子,儿子从罗马给她寄来一些宫托和一份使用说明书。菲兰达开头还背诵这份说明书,后来为了对所有的人隐瞒自己的病情,又把它扔进了厕所。其实,这是一种不必要的预防措施,因为这座房子里的最后几个人根本就不注意菲兰达。圣索菲娅·德拉佩德沉湎在孤独的老年生活中,除了为全家做点简单的午餐,她把其它的时间都用来照料霍.阿卡蒂奥第二了。在一定程度上继承了俏姑娘雷麦黛丝美貌的阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜,如今也把以往用去折磨乌苏娜的时间,用来准备功课。奥雷连诺第二伪女儿开始显露与众不同的聪明才智,而且特别用功。这些素质使她父亲心里又产生了从前梅梅在他心里引起过的那些希望。他答应阿玛兰塔。乌苏娜,要按照香蕉公司时期的惯例,送她到布鲁塞尔去完成学业。这个理想使他又想耕耘洪水冲毁的土地。不过,人们难得在家里看到他,他只是为了阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜才去那儿,因为对菲兰达来说,随着时光的流逝,他已成了外人。那个已成青年的小奥雷连诺也越来越热衷于与世隔绝的孤独生活。奥雷连诺第二相信,菲兰达迟早会由于年老软下心来,让没有得到承认的孙子投身到城市生活中去:在城市里,当然谁也不会想去翻他的家谱。但小奥雷连诺显然爱上了远离尘嚣的孤独生活,他从未表示任何一点愿望,去认识家门以外的世界。乌苏娜叫人打开梅尔加德斯的房间之后,他便开始在这个房间附近转来转去,不时往门缝里窥视,不知什么时候,也不知怎的,他忽然跟霍·阿卡蒂奥第二相互交谈起来,彼此十分同情,成了朋友。过了许多个星期,有一天小奥雷连诺讲起火车站上的血腥大屠杀,奥雷连诺第二这才发现了他俩建立的友谊。那一天,不知是谁在桌子旁边对撇下马孔多的香蕉公司表示惋惜,因为从那时起,这个市镇就开始走下坡路;小奥雷连诺立即跟他争论起来,他的话使人感到他简直象是一个善于表达思想的成年人。他的观点跟一般人的看法不同,他认为,要不是香蕉公司使马孔多偏离了正确的轨道,让它受到了毒化,把它劫掠一空,而且香蕉公司的工程师们不愿向工人们让步,又酿起一场大水,那么马孔多准是一个有着伟大前途的城镇。小奥雷连诺还谈到了一些确凿可靠的详细情节:军队怎样用机熗打死一群聚集在车站上的工人——总共有三千多人,怎样把尸体装上一列有二百节车厢的火车,把他们扔到海里,他讲得头头是道,但在菲兰达看来,他的话无异是读书人亵渎耶稣的污秽言词。跟大多数人一样,她深信不疑的是官方的报导,他们说车站广场上似乎什么事也没发生。她有点反感地认为这孩子继承了奥雷连诺上校无政府主义的倾向,便叫他闭起嘴来。相反地,奥雷连诺第二却证实了孪生兄弟的话是可靠的。实际上,被人看做疯子的霍.阿卡蒂奥第二,当时是家里所有的人中最有头脑的人,是他教会小奥雷连诺读书写字的,是他引导这孩子研究羊皮纸手稿的,也是他向这孩子灌输自己的见解的,是他说香蕉公司给马孔多带来灾难的,他的这种见解跟历史学家们采纳的、教科书中阐述的那种习惯说法迎然不同。不知过了多少年,当小奥雷连诺长大成人时,大家还把他的话错当成一种谬论。在热风、灰尘和炎热都渗透不进的小房间里,他俩还回忆起很久以前一个幽灵似的老头儿,戴着一顶乌鸦翅膀似的宽边帽,背朝窗户坐在这儿说古道今,他俩同时发现,在这个房间里,始终是三月,始终是星期一。这时,他俩才明白全家把霍.阿.布恩蒂亚看成疯子是错误的,恰恰相反,他是家里唯一头脑清醒的人,清楚地了解这样一个真理:时间在自己的运动中也会碰到挫折,遇到障碍,所以某一段时间也会滞留在哪一个房间里。另外,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二还给羊皮纸手稿的密码符号分了类,把它们排成一张表。他深信,这张表相当于四十六个到五十三个字母组成的字母表,这些字母单独写出来就象小蜘蛛和小壁虱,把它们联成行又象是晒在铅丝上的内衣。小奥雷连诺不由得想起自己曾在英国百科全书里见到过这类东西,便把书拿来比较了一下,两张表果然相符。
  在奥雷连诺第二打算推行谜语抽彩的时候,每夭早上他都觉得咽喉有点发紧,似乎那儿有一口痰卡住了。佩特娜·柯特断定这只是恶劣的天气引起的一种不舒服之感,便在每天早上拿一把小刷子给他的上颚抹一层蜂蜜和萝卜汁,抹了一年多。不料奥雷连诺第二咽喉里的肿瘤越长越大,连呼吸都开始发生困难,他只好去拜访皮拉,苔列娜,问她知不知道有什么草药能治肿瘤。他的这位曾在妓院里当过老鸨的外祖母,精神矍铄,已经活到一百岁,却依然把医学看成一种迷信。她连忙向纸牌请教。抽出的一张是被黑桃杰克的长剑刺中咽喉的红桃老开,占卜老妇由此推论,菲兰达在丈夫的照片上扎了一根别针,想靠这种陈旧的方式迫使他回家,可她又缺乏巫术知识,这就引起了丈夫体内的肿瘤。除了完整地保存在家庭影集里的那些结婚照片之外,奥雷连诺第二记不得他还有什么照片,就瞒着自己的妻子,翻遍了整座房子,只在五斗橱的深处发现了半打包装特殊的宫托。他以为这些橡皮制的漂亮玩意儿准跟巫术有关,连忙在口袋里藏了一只,拿去给皮拉·苔列娜看。皮拉·苔列娜也不能断定这种神秘玩意儿的用途和性质,不过觉得它们实在令人可疑,便叫奥雷连诺第二把半打宫托都拿来给她,为了以防万一,她在院子里生起一堆火,把它们烧了个精光。她建议奥雷连诺第二抓一只生蛋的母鸡,往鸡身上撒尿,然后把它活埋在栗树下面的泥地里,就可以消除菲兰达可能造成的灾害。奥雷连诺第二由衷地相信事情准会成功,就采纳了这些建议。他刚给掘出的土坑盖上一层干树叶,就感到呼吸好象顺畅些了。不明真相的菲兰达把宫托的失踪解释成没有见过的医生对她的报复,就赶紧在内衣背面缝上一只贴身口袋,把儿子寄给她的一些新宫托藏在里面。
  奥雷连诺第二活埋抱蛋母鸡之后过了六个月,一天半夜里,他咳嗽一阵醒了过来,感到似乎有一只大蟹在用铁螯乱挟他的内脏。这时他才开始明白,不管他烧掉了多少今人迷惑的宫托,也不管他在多少母鸡身上撒尿,他照样面临着死亡,这才是唯一确凿而又可悲的现实。他没向任何人透露这个想法。由于担心死亡可能在他送阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜去布鲁塞尔之前来临,他不由得拿出一生中从未有过的劲头,一星期搞了三次抽彩,代替过去的一次抽彩,天还没亮,他就起床,怀着只有即将死亡的人才能理解的痛苦心情,跑遍了全镇,连最偏僻、最贫穷的居民区也不放过,一心想把自己的小彩票卖光。“请看天意呀!”他一路叫喊。“不要错过机会,百年才有一次呀!"他令人感动地装出一副高高兴兴、彬彬有礼、十分健谈的样子,但从他那沁出汗珠的死灰色脸上,一眼就可看出,他很快就不再是这个世界上的居民了,那对正在折磨他内脏的蟹螯使他不得不偶尔溜到一块荒地上去,避开旁人的目光,坐下来喘一口气,哪怕只有一分钟也好。可是半夜里,一想到在那些酒吧旁边长吁短叹的孤身女人身上可能赚得一大笔钱,他就又起床,在人们寻欢作乐的那条街上转来转去。“请看,这个号码已经四个月没有人抽到了!”他指着自己的彩票向她们说。“不要错过机会,生命比我们想象的还短促呀:”最后,大家失去了对他的敬意,开始挖苦他;在他一生的最后几个月里,人家再也不象从前那样尊敬地称他“奥雷连诺先生,,而是毫不客气地当面叫他“天意先生”。他的嗓音也变得越来越微弱、低沉,终于变成了狗的嘶叫声。虽然奥雷连诺第二还能在佩特娜.柯特的院子里保持人们对发奖的兴趣,但是由于嗓门越来越低,疼痛日益加剧,眼看就要痛得不堪忍受,他就越来越明白拿猪和山羊来抽彩也不能帮助他的女儿去布鲁塞尔了。这时他忽然想出一个主意,搞一次神话般的抽彩:把自己那块被大水冲毁的土地作为奖品,反正有钱的人可以想法平整土地。这个主意对每一个人都有诱惑力。镇长亲自用特别通告宣布了这次抽彩,每张彩票一百个比索,人们一群群地组织起来,合伙购买彩票,不到一个星期,全部彩票就销售一空。一天晚上,发奖以后,那些走运的人举行了一次豪华的酒重,有点象从前香蕉公司鼎盛时期热闹的庆祝会,奥雷连诺第二最后一次用手风琴演奏了弗兰西斯科人的歌曲,只是他再也不能唱这些歌了。
  两个月后,阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜准备去布鲁塞尔。奥雷连诺第二交给女儿的钱,不仅有他从不同寻常的抽彩中赚得的一切,而且包括他在一生的最后几个月里的全部积蓄,还有他卖掉自动钢琴、旧式风琴和各种不再讨人喜欢的旧家具所得到的一小笔钱。根据他的计算,这些钱足够她整个念书时期花销,不清楚的只有一点——口来的路费是不是够。菲兰达一想到布鲁塞尔距离罪恶的巴黎那么近,内心深处就冒火,她坚决反对女儿的布鲁塞尔之行。不过安格尔神父的一封推荐信使她心里又平静了。信是写给一个修道院附设的天主教女青年寄宿中学的,这个学校答应阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜在那儿一直住到学习结束。另外,神父还找到一群去托莱多的圣芳济派的修女,她们同意带着姑娘一起去,在托莱多再给她联系直接到布鲁塞尔去的可靠旅伴。当这件事正在书来信往地加紧进行时,奥雷连诺第二就在佩特娜·柯特的帮助下,为阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜作准备。等到那天晚上,她的东西放进菲兰达年轻时放置嫁妆的一只大箱子以后,一切都已考虑周到了,未来的女大学生也已记住:该穿怎样的衣服和绒布拖鞋横渡大西洋;她上岸时要穿的配有铜钮扣的天蓝色呢大衣和那双精制的山羊皮鞋应当放在哪儿。她又牢牢地记住,从舷梯上船时应该怎样迈步,免得摔到水里;记住自己不可离开那些女修士一步,记住自己只能吃饭时走出自己的船舱;在公海上,无论遇到怎样的景致,她都不该回答男男女女可能向她提出的一切问题。她随身带了一瓶预防晕船的药水和一个小本子,小本子上有安格尔神父亲笔记的六段抵御暴风雨的祷词。菲兰达给她缝了一条藏钱的帆布腰带,并且示范了一下怎样束在腰里,晚上也可以不取下来;她还想送给女儿一只金便盆,是用漂白剂洗净、用酒精消过毒的,可是阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜没有接受她的礼品,说她担心大学里的女同学会取笑她。再过几个月,奥雷连诺第二在临死的床上将回忆起的女儿,就跟他最后一次见到的阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜一样。她身穿一件粉红色绸上衣,右肩上别着一朵假三色茧,脚上穿着一双精制的薄膜乎底的山羊皮鞋和一双有橡皮圆吊带的丝袜。她身材不高,披着长头发,她那滴溜溜的目光,就象乌苏娜年轻时的目光,她那既无眼泪又无笑容的告别举止,证明她继承了高祖母的坚毅性格。她听完菲兰达最后的教诲,没来得及放下二等车厢那扇满是灰尘的玻璃窗,列车就开动了。随着列车速度的逐渐加快,奥雷连诺第二也加紧了脚步,他在列车旁边小跑,拉着菲兰达的一只手,免得她跌跤。女儿用手指尖向他投来一个飞吻,他好不容易赶了上去,挥了挥手,表示回答。一对老夫妇一动不动地长久站在灼人的太阳下,望着列车怎样变成地平线上的一个小黑点——他们婚后还是头一次手携着手地站在一起哩。
  八月九日,布鲁塞尔来的第一封信还没到达之前,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二在梅尔加德斯的房间里跟小奥雷连诺谈话,谈着谈着,他就前言不搭后语地说:
  “你要永远记住:他们有三千多人,全部扔进了海里。”
  说完,他便一头扑倒在羊皮纸手稿上,睁着眼睛死了。同一时刻,在菲兰达床上也结束了一场长时间的痛苦斗争,那是霍·阿卡蒂奥第二的孪生兄弟跟挟住他咽喉的蟹螯之间进行的一场斗争。一星期之前,皮包骨的奥雷连诺第二带着自己的旅行箱和破手风琴,悄然无声地回到了父母亲的房子里,他是回来履行自己死在妻子身旁的诺言的。佩特娜·柯特帮他收拾好了衣服,一滴眼泪也没落,就跟他分了手,但是忘记把他躺在棺材里要穿的一双漆皮鞋装进旅行箱了。所以,在知道奥雷连诺第二去世之后,她穿上丧服,用报纸把漆皮鞋包好,便来要求菲兰达同意她跟遗体告别,菲兰达连门坎都不让她跨过。
  “请您为我考虑考虑吧,”佩特娜·柯特恳求她。“我这么屈辱地来,可见我多么爱他。”
  “姘头活该受到这种屈辱,”菲兰达答道。“跟你睡过觉的许多男人中间,还有人要死的,你就等他死时拿这双皮鞋给他穿吧。”
  为了履行自己的誓言,圣索菲娅·德拉佩德拿来一把菜刀,割断霍.阿卡蒂奥第二尸体的喉管,这才相信他不是被活埋的。一对孪生兄弟的尸体安放在两个同样的棺材里,这时,只见他们死后又变得象青年时代那样相象了。奥雷连诺第二的酒友们在他的棺材上放了一个花圈,花圈上系着一条深紫色缎带,上面写着一句题词:“繁殖吧,母牛,生命短促呀!”这种污辱死者的行为激怒了菲兰达,她忙叫人把花圈扔到污水坑里去。几个伤心的酒徒从房子里抬出棺材,在最后一阵仓促的准备中把它们搞错了,把奥雷连诺第二的尸体埋在为霍·阿卡蒂奥第二挖掘的坟墓里,而将霍·阿卡蒂奥第二的尸体埋葬在他兄弟的坟墓里了。


执素衣

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Chapter 16
IT RAINED FOR four years, eleven months, and two days. There were periods of drizzle during which everyone put on his full dress and a convalescent look to celebrate the clearing, but the people soon grew accustomed to interpret the pauses as a sign of redoubled rain. The sky crumbled into a set of destructive storms and out of the north came hurricanes that scattered roofs about and knocked down walls and uprooted every last plant of the banana groves. Just as during the insomnia plague, as ?rsula came to remember during those days, the calamity itself inspired defenses against boredom. Aureliano Segundo was one of those who worked hardest not to be conquered by idleness. He had gone home for some minor matter on the night that Mr. Brown unleashed the storm, and Fernanda tried to help him with a half-blown-out umbrella that she found in a closet. “I don’t need it,?he said. “I’ll stay until it clears.?That was not, of course, an ironclad promise, but he would accomplish it literally. Since his clothes were at Petra Cotes’s, every three days he would take off what he had on and wait in his shorts until they washed. In order not to become bored, he dedicated himself to the task of repairing the many things that needed fixing in the house. He adjusted hinges, oiled locks, screwed knockers tight, and planed doorjambs. For several months he was seen wandering about with a toolbox that the gypsies must have left behind in Jos?Arcadio Buendía’s days, and no one knew whether because of the involuntary exercise, the winter tedium or the imposed abstinence, but his belly was deflating little by little like a wineskin and his face of a beatific tortoise was becoming less bloodshot and his double chin less prominent until he became less pachydermic all over and was able to tie his own shoes again. Watching him putting in latches and repairing clocks, Fernanda wondered whether or not he too might be falling into the vice of building so that he could take apart like Colonel Aureliano Buendía and his little gold fishes, Amaranta and her shroud and her buttons, Jos?Arcadio and the parchments, and ?rsula and her memories. But that was not the case. The worst part was that the rain was affecting everything and the driest of machines would have flowers popping out among their gears if they were not oiled every three days, and the threads in brocades rusted, and wet clothing would break out in a rash of saffron-colored moss. The air was so damp that fish could have come in through the doors and swum out the windows, floating through the atmosphere in the rooms. One morning ?rsula woke up feeling that she was reaching her end in a placid swoon and she had already asked them to take her to Father Antonio Isabel, even if it had to be on a stretcher, when Santa Sofía de la Piedad discovered that her back was paved with leeches. She took them off one by one, crushing them with a firebrand before they bled her to death. It was necessary to dig canals to get the water out of the house and rid it of the frogs and snails so that they could dry the floors and take the bricks from under the bedposts and walk in shoes once more. Occupied with the many small details that called for his attention, Aureliano Segundo did not realize that he was getting old until one afternoon when he found himself contemplating the premature dusk from a rocking chair and thinking about Petra Cotes without quivering. There would have been no problem in going back to Fernanda’s insipid love, because her beauty had become solemn with age, but the rain had spared him from all emergencies of passion and had filled him with the spongy serenity of a lack of appetite. He amused himself thinking about the things that he could have done in other times with that rain which had already lasted a year. He had been one of the first to bring zinc sheets to Macondo, much earlier than their popularization by the banana company, simply to roof Petra Cotes’s bedroom with them and to take pleasure in the feeling of deep intimacy that the sprinkling of the rain produced at that time. But even those wild memories of his mad youth left him unmoved, just as during his last debauch he had exhausted his quota of salaciousness and all he had left was the marvelous gift of being able to remember it without bitterness or repentance. It might have been thought that the deluge had given him the opportunity to sit and reflect and that the business of the pliers and the oilcan had awakened in him the tardy yearning of so many useful trades that he might have followed in his life and did not; but neither case was true, because the temptation of a sedentary domesticity that was besieging him was not the result of any rediscovery or moral lesion. it came from much farther off, unearthed by the rain’s pitchfork from the days when in Melquíades?room he would read the prodigious fables about flying carpets and whales that fed on entire ships and their crews. It was during those days that in a moment of carelessness little Aureliano appeared on the porch and his grandfather recognized the secret of his identity. He cut his hair, dressed him taught him not to be afraid of people, and very soon it was evident that he was a legitimate Aureliano Buendía, with his high cheekbones, his startled look, and his solitary air. It was a relief for Fernanda. For some time she had measured the extent of her pridefulness, but she could not find any way to remedy it because the more she thought of solutions the less rational they seemed to her. If she had known that Aureliano Segundo was going to take things the way he did, with the fine pleasure of a grandfather, she would not have taken so many turns or got so mixed up, but would have freed herself from mortification the year before Amaranta ?rsula, who already had her second teeth, thought of her nephew as a scurrying toy who was a consolation for the tedium of the rain. Aureliano Segundo remembered then the English encyclopedia that no one had since touched in Meme’s old room. He began to show the children the pictures, especially those of animals, and later on the maps and photographs of remote countries and famous people. Since he did not know any English and could identify only the most famous cities and people, he would invent names and legends to satisfy the children’s insatiable curiosity.
   Fernanda really believed that her husband was waiting for it to clear to return to his concubine. During the first months of the rain she was afraid that he would try to slip into her bedroom and that she would have to undergo the shame of revealing to him that she was incapable of reconciliation since the birth of Amaranta ?rsula. That was the reason for her anxious correspondence with the invisible doctors, interrupted by frequent disasters of the mail. During the first months when it was learned that the trains were jumping their tracks in the rain, a letter from the invisible doctors told her that hers were not arriving. Later on, when contact with the unknown correspondents was broken, she had seriously thought of putting on the tiger mask that her husband had worn in the bloody carnival and having herself examined under a fictitious name by the banana company doctors. But one of the many people who regularly brought unpleasant news of the deluge had told her that the company was dismantling its dispensaries to move them to where it was not raining. Then she gave up hope. She resigned herself to waiting until the rain stopped and the mail service was back to normal, and in the meantime she sought relief from her secret ailments with recourse to her imagination, because she would rather have died than put herself in the hands of the only doctor left in Macondo, the extravagant Frenchman who ate grass like a donkey. She drew close to ?rsula, trusting that she would know of some palliative for her attacks. But her twisted habit of not calling things by their names made her put first things last and use “expelled?for “gave birth?and “burning?for “flow?so that it would all be less shameful, with the result that ?rsula reached the reasonable conclusion that her trouble was intestinal rather than uterine, and she advised her to take a dose of calomel on an empty stomach. If it had not been for that suffering, which would have had nothing shameful about it for someone who did not suffer as well from shamefulness, and if it had not been for the loss of the letters, the rain would not have bothered Fernanda, because, after all, her whole life had been spent as if it had been raining. She did not change her schedule or modify her ritual. When the table was still raised up on bricks and the chairs put on planks so that those at the table would not get their feet wet, she still served with linen tablecloths and fine chinaware and with lighted candles, because she felt that the calamities should not be used as a pretext for any relaxation in customs. No one went out into the street any more. If it had depended on Fernanda, they would never have done so, not only since it started raining but since long before that, because she felt that doors had been invented to stay closed and that curiosity for what was going on in the street was a matter for harlots. Yet she was the first one to look out when they were told that the funeral procession for Colonel Gerineldo Márquez was passing by and even though she only watched it through the half-opened window it left her in such a state of affliction that for a long time she repented in her weakness.
   She could not have conceived of a more desolate cortege. They had put the coffin in an oxcart over which they built a canopy of banana leaves, but the pressure of the rain was so intense and the streets so muddy that with every step the wheels got stuck and the covering was on the verge of falling apart. The streams of sad water that fell on the coffin were soaking the flag that had been placed on top which was actually the flag stained with blood and gunpowder that had been rejected by more honorable veterans. On the coffin they had also placed the saber with tassels of silver and copper, the same one that Colonel Gerineldo Márquez used to hang on the coat rack in order to go into Amaranta’s sewing room unarmed. Behind the cart, some barefoot and all of them with their pants rolled up, splashing in the mud were the last survivors of the surrender at Neerlandia carrying a drover’s staff in one hand and in the other a wreath of paper flowers that had become discolored in the rain. They appeared like an unreal vision along the street which still bore the name of Colonel Aureliano Buendía and they all looked at the house as they passed and turned the corner at the square, where they had to ask for help to move the cart, which was stuck. ?rsula had herself carried to the door by Santa Sofía de la Piedad. She followed the difficulties of the procession with such attention that no one doubted that she was seeing it, especially because her raised hand of an archangelic messenger was moving with the swaying of the cart.
   “Good-bye, Gerineldo, my son,?she shouted. “Say hello to my people and tell them I’ll see them when it stops raining.?
   Aureliano Segundo helped her back to bed and with the same informality with which he always treated her, he asked her the meaning of her farewell.
   “It’s true,?she said. “I’m only waiting for the rain to stop in order to die.?
   The condition of the streets alarmed Aureliano Segundo. He finally became worried about the state of his animals and he threw an oilcloth over his head and sent to Petra Cotes’s house. He found her in the courtyard, in the water up to her waist, trying to float the corpse of a horse. Aureliano Segundo helped her with a lever, and the enormous swollen body gave a turn like a bell and was dragged away by the torrent of liquid mud. Since the rain began, all that Petra Cotes had done was to clear her courtyard of dead animals. During the first weeks she sent messages to Aureliano Segundo for him to take urgent measures and he had answered that there was no rush, that the situation was not alarming, that there would be plenty of time to think about something when it cleared. She sent him word that the horse pastures were being flooded, that the cattle were fleeing to high ground, where there was nothing to eat and where they were at the mercy of jaguars and sickness. “There’s nothing to be done,?Aureliano Segundo answered her. “Others will be born when it clears.?Petra Cates had seen them die in dusters and the was able to butcher only those stuck in the mud. She saw with quiet impotence how the deluge was pitilessly exterminating a fortune that at one time was considered the largest and most solid in Macondo, and of which nothing remained but pestilence. When Aureliano Segundo decided to go see what was going on, he found only the corpse of the horse and a squalid mule in the ruins of the stable. Petra Cotes watched him arrive without surprise, joy, or resentment, and she only allowed herself an ironic smile.
   “It’s about time!?she said.
   She had aged, all skin and bones, and her tapered eyes of a carnivorous animal had become sad and tame from looking at the rain so much. Aureliano Segundo stayed at her house more than three months, not because he felt better there than in that of his family, but because he needed all that time to make the decision to throw the piece of oilcloth back over his head. “There’s no rush,?he said, as he had said in the other home. “Let’s hope that it clears in the next few hours.?During the course of the first week he became accustomed to the inroads that time and the rain had made in the health of his concubine, and little by little he was seeing her as she had been before, remembering her jubilant excesses and the delirious fertility that her love provoked in the animals, and partly through love, partly through interest, one night during the second week he awoke her with urgent caresses. Petra Cotes did not react. “Go back to sleep,?she murmured. “These aren’t times for things like that.?Aureliano Segundo saw himself in the mirrors on the ceiling, saw Petra Cotes’s spinal column like a row of spools strung together along a cluster of withered nerves, and he saw that she was right, not because of the times but because of themselves, who were no longer up to those things.
   Aureliano Segundo returned home with his trunks, convinced that not only ?rsula but all the inhabitants of Macondo were waiting for it to dear in order to die. He had seen them as he passed by, sitting in their parlors with an absorbed look and folded arms, feeling unbroken time pass, relentless times, because it was useless to divide it into months and years, and the days into hours, when one could do nothing but contemplate the rain. The children greeted Aureliano Segundo with excitement because he was playing the asthmatic accordion for them again. But the concerts did not attract their attention as much as the sessions with the encyclopedia, and once more they got together in Meme’s room, where Aureliano Segundo’s imagination changed a dirigible into a flying elephant who was looking for a place to sleep among the clouds. On one occasion he came across a man on horseback who in spite of his strange outfit had a familiar look, and after examining him closely he came to the conclusion that it was a picture of Colonel Aureliano Buendía. He showed it to Fernanda and she also admitted the resemblance of the horseman not only to the colonel but to everybody in the family, although he was actually a Tartar warrior. Time passed in that way with the Colossus of Rhodes and snake charmers until his wife told him that there were only three pounds of dried meat and a sack of rice left in the pantry.
   And what do you want me to do about it??he asked.
   “I don’t know,?Fernanda answered. “That’s men’s business.?
   “Well,?Aureliano Segundo said, “something will be done when it clears.?
   He was more interested in the encyclopedia than In the domestic problem, even when he had to content himself with a scrap of meat and a little rice for lunch. “It’s impossible to do anything now,?he would say. “It can’t rain for the rest of our lives.?And while the urgencies of the pantry grew greater, Fernanda’s indignation also grew, until her eventual protests, her infrequent outbursts came forth in an uncontained, unchained torrent that begin one morning like the monotonous drone of a guitar and as the day advanced rose in pitch, richer and more splendid. Aureliano Segundo was not aware of the singsong until the following day after breakfast when he felt himself being bothered by a buzzing that was by then more fluid and louder than the sound of the rain, and it was Fernanda, who was walking throughout the house complaining that they had raised her to be a queen only to have her end up as a servant in a madhouse, with a lazy, idolatrous, libertine husband who lay on his back waiting for bread to rain down from heaven while she was straining her kidneys trying to keep afloat a home held together with pins where there was so much to do, so much to bear up under and repair from the time God gave his morning sunlight until it was time to go to bed that when she got there her eyes were full of ground glass, and yet no one ever said to her, “Good morning, Fernanda, did you sleep well??Nor had they asked her, even out of courtesy, why she was so pale or why she awoke with purple rings under her eyes in spite of the fact that she expected it, of course, from a family that had always considered her a nuisance, an old rag, a booby painted on the wall, and who were always going around saying things against her behind her back, calling her church mouse, calling her Pharisee, calling her crafty, and even Amaranta, may she rest in peace, had said aloud that she was one of those people who could not tell their rectums from their ashes, God have mercy, such words, and she had tolerated everything with resignation because of the Holy Father, but she had not been able to tolerate it any more when that evil Jos?Arcadio Segundo said that the damnation of the family had come when it opened its doors to a stuck-up highlander, just imagine, a bossy highlander, Lord save us, a highlander daughter of evil spit of the same stripe as the highlanders the government sent to kill workers, you tell me, and he was referring to no one but her, the godchild of the Duke of Alba, a lady of such lineage that she made the liver of presidents?wives quiver, a noble dame of fine blood like her, who had the right to sign eleven peninsular names and who was the only mortal creature in that town full of bastards who did not feel all confused at the sight of sixteen pieces of silverware, so that her adulterous husband could die of laughter afterward and say that so many knives and forks and spoons were not meant for a human being but for a centipede, and the only one who could tell with her eyes closed when the white wine was served and on what side and in which glass and when the red wine and on what side and in which glass, and not like that peasant of an Amaranta, may she rest in peace, who thought that white wine was served in the daytime and red wine at night, and the only one on the whole coast who could take pride in the fact that she took care of her bodily needs only in golden chamberpots, so that Colonel Aureliano Buendía, may he rest in peace, could have the effrontery to ask her with his Masonic Ill humor where she had received that privilege and whether she did not shit shit but shat sweet basil, just imagine, with those very words, and so that Renata, her own daughter, who through an oversight had seen her stool in the bedroom, had answered that even if the pot was all gold and with a coat of arms, what was inside was pure shit, physical shit, and worse even than any other kind because it was stuck-up highland shit, just imagine, her own daughter, so that she never had any illusions about the rest of the family, but in any case she had the right to expect a little more consideration from her husband because, for better or for worse, he was her consecrated spouse her helpmate, her legal despoiler, who took upon himself of his own free and sovereign will the grave responsibility of taking her away from her paternal home, where she never wanted for or suffered from anything, where she wove funeral wreaths as a pastime, since her godfather had sent a letter with his signature and the stamp of his ring on the sealing wax simply to say that the hands of his goddaughter were not meant for tasks of this world except to play the clavichord, and, nevertheless, her insane husband had taken her from her home with all manner of admonitions and warnings and had brought her to that frying pan of hell where a person could not breathe because of the heat, and before she had completed her Pentecostal fast he had gone off with his wandering trunks and his wastrel’s accordion to loaf in adultery with a wretch of whom it was only enough to see her behind, well, that’s been said, to see her wiggle her mare’s behind in order to guess that she was a, that she was a, just the opposite of her, who was a lady in a palace or a pigsty, at the table or in bed, a lady of breeding, God-fearing, obeying His laws and submissive to His wishes, and with whom he could not perform, naturally, the acrobatics and trampish antics that he did with the other one, who, of course, was ready for anything like the French matrons, and even worse, if one considers well, because they at least had the honesty to put a red light at their door, swinishness like that, just imagine, and that was all that was needed by the only and beloved daughter of Do?a Renata Argote and Don Fernando del Carpio, and especially the latter, an upright man, a fine Christian, a Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher, those who receive direct from God the privilege of remaining intact in their graves with their skin smooth like the cheeks of a bride and their eyes alive and clear like emeralds.
   “That’s not true,?Aureliano Segundo interrupted her. “He was already beginning to smell when they brought him here.?
   He had the patience to listen to her for a whole day until he caught her in a slip. Fernanda did not pay him any mind, but she lowered her voice. That night at dinner the exasperating buzzing of the singsong had conquered the sound of the rain. Aureliano, Segundo ate very little, with his head down, and he went to his room early. At breakfast on the following day Fernanda was trembling, with a look of not having slept well, and she seemed completely exhausted by her rancor. Nevertheless, when her husband asked if it was not possible to have a soft-boiled egg, she did not answer simply that they had run out of eggs the week before, but she worked up a violent diatribe against men who spent their time contemplating their navels and then had the gall to ask for larks?livers at the table. Aureliano Segundo took the children to look at the encyclopedia, as always, and Fernanda pretended to straighten out Meme’s room just so that he could listen to her muttering, of course, that it certainly took cheek for him to tell the poor innocents that there was a picture of Colonel Aureliano Buendía in the encyclopedia. During the afternoon, while the children were having their nap, Aureliano Segundo sat on the porch and Fernanda pursued him even there, provoking him, tormenting him, hovering about him with her implacable horsefly buzzing, saying that, of course, while there was nothing to eat except stones, her husband was sitting there like a sultan of Persia, watching it rain, because that was all he was, a slob, a sponge, a good-for-nothing, softer than cotton batting, used to living off women and convinced that he had married Jonah’s wife, who was so content with the story of the whale. Aureliano Segundo listened to her for more than two hours, impassive, as if he were deaf. He did not interrupt her until late in the afternoon, when he could no longer bear the echo of the bass drum that was tormenting his head.
   “Please shut up,?he begged.
   Fernanda, quite the contrary, raised her pitch. “I don’t have any reason to shut up,?she said. “Anyone who doesn’t want to listen to me can go someplace else.?Then Aureliano Segundo lost control. He stood up unhurriedly, as if he only intended to stretch, and with a perfectly regulated and methodical fury he grabbed the pots with the begonias one after the other, those with the ferns, the oregano, and one after the  other he smashed them onto the floor. Fernanda was frightened because until then she had really not had a clear indication of the tremendous inner force of her singsong, but it was too late for any attempt at rectification. Intoxicated by the uncontained torrent of relief, Aureliano Segundo broke the glass on the china closet and piece by piece, without hurrying, he took out the chinaware and shattered it on the floor. Systematically, serenely, in the same parsimonious way in which he had papered the house with banknotes, he then set about smashing the Bohemian crystal ware against the walls, the hand-painted vases, the pictures of maidens in flower-laden boats, the mirrors in their gilded frames, everything that was breakable, from parlor to pantry, and he finished with the large earthen jar in the kitchen, which exploded in the middle of the courtyard with a hollow boom. Then he washed his hands, threw the oilcloth over himself, and before midnight he returned with a few strings of dried meat, several bags of rice, corn with weevils, and some emaciated bunches of bananas. From then on there was no more lack of food.
   Amaranta ?rsula and little Aureliano would remember the rains as a happy time. In spite of Fernanda’s strictness, they would splash in the puddles in the courtyard, catch lizards and dissect them, and pretend that they were poisoning the soup with dust from butterfly wings when Santa Sofía de la Piedad was not looking ?rsula was their most amusing plaything. They looked upon her as a big,. broken-down doll that they carried back and forth from one corner to another wrapped in colored cloth and with her face painted with soot and annatto, and once they were on the point of plucking out her eyes with the pruning shears as they had done with the frogs. Nothing gave them as much excitement as the wanderings of her mind. Something, indeed, must have happened to her mind during the third year of the rain, for she was gradually losing her sense of reality and confusing present time with remote periods of her life to the point where, on one occasion, she spent three days weeping deeply over the death of Petronila Iguarán, her great-grandmother, buried for over a century. She sank into such an insane state of confusion that she thought little Aureliano was her son the colonel during the time he was taken to see ice, and that the Jos?Arcadio who was at that time in the seminary was her firstborn who had gone off with the gypsies. She spoke so much about the family that the children learned to make up imaginary visits with beings who had not only been dead for a long time, but who had existed at different times. Sitting on the bed, her hair covered with ashes and her face wrapped in a red kerchief, ?rsula was happy in the midst of the unreal relatives whom the children described in all detail, as if they had really known them. ?rsula would converse with her forebears about events that took place before her own existence, enjoying the news they gave her, and she would weep with them over deaths that were much more recent than the guests themselves. The children did not take long to notice that in the course of those ghostly visits ?rsula would always ask a question destined to establish the one who had brought a life-size plaster Saint Joseph to the house to be kept until the rains stopped. It was in that way that Aureliano Segundo remembered the fortune buried in some place that only ?rsula knew, but the questions and astute maneuvering that occurred to him were of no use because in the labyrinth of her madness she seemed to preserve enough of a margin of lucidity to keep the secret which she would reveal only to the one who could prove that he was the real owner of the buried gold. She was so skillful and strict that when Aureliano Segundo instructed one of his carousing companions to pass himself off as the owner of the fortune, she got him all caught up in a minute interrogation sown with subtle traps.
   Convinced that ?rsula would carry the secret to her grave, Aureliano Segundo hired a crew of diggers under the pretext that they were making some drainage canals in the courtyard and the backyard, and he himself took soundings in the earth with iron bars and all manner of metal-detectors without finding anything that resembled gold in three months of exhaustive exploration. Later on he went to Pilar Ternera with the hope that the cards would we more than the diggers, but she began by explaining that any attempt would be useless unless ?rsula cut the cards. On the other hand, she confirmed the existence of the treasure with the precision of its consisting of seven thousand two hundred fourteen coins buried in three canvas sacks reinforced with copper wire within a circle with a radius of three hundred eighty-eight feet with ?rsula’s bed as the center, but she warned that it would not be found until it stopped raining and the suns of three consecutive Junes had changed the piles of mud into dust. The profusion and meticulous vagueness of the information seemed to Aureliano Segundo so similar to the tales of spiritualists that he kept on with his enterprise in spite of the fact that they were in August and they would have to wait at least three years in order to satisfy the conditions of the prediction. The first thing that startled him, even though it increased his confusion at the same time, was the fact that it was precisely three hundred eighty-eight feet from ?rsula’s bed to the backyard wall. Fernanda feared that he was as crazy as his twin brother when she saw him taking the measurements, and even more when he told the digging crew to make the ditches three feet deeper. Overcome by an exploratory delirium comparable only to that of his great-grandfather when he was searching for the route of inventions, Aureliano Segundo lost the last layers of fat that he had left and the old resemblance to his twin brother was becoming accentuated again, not only because of his slim figure, but also because of the distant air and the withdrawn attitude. He no longer bothered with the children. He ate at odd hours, muddled from head to toe, and he did so in a corner in the kitchen, barely answering the occasional questions asked by Santa Sofía de la Piedad. Seeing him work that way, as she had never dreamed him capable of doing, Fernanda thought that his stubbornness was diligence, his greed abnegation, and his thick-headedness perseverance, and her insides tightened with remorse over the virulence with which she had attacked his idleness. But Aureliano Segundo was in no mood for merciful reconciliations at that time. Sunk up to his neck in a morass of dead brandies and rotting flowers, he flung the dirt of the garden all about after having finished with the courtyard and the backyard, and he excavated so deeply under the foundations of the east wing of the house that one night they woke up in terror at what seemed to be an earthquake, as much because of the trembling as the fearful underground creaking. Three of the rooms were collapsing and a frightening crack had opened up from the porch to Fernanda’s room. Aureliano Segundo did not give up the search because of that. Even when his last hopes had been extinguished and the only thing that seemed to make any sense was what the cards had predicted, he reinforced the jagged foundation, repaired the crack with mortar, and continued on the side to the west. He was still there on the second week of the following June when the rain began to abate and the clouds began to lift and it was obvious from one moment to the next that it was going to clear. That was what happened. On Friday at two in the afternoon the world lighted up with a crazy crimson sun as harsh as brick dust and almost as cool as water, and it did not rain again for ten years.
   Macondo was in ruins. In the swampy streets there were the remains of furniture, animal skeletons covered with red lilies, the last memories of the hordes of newcomers who had fled Macondo as wildly as they had arrived. The houses that had been built with such haste during the banana fever had been abandoned. The banana company tore down its installations. All that remained of the former wired-in city were the ruins. The wooden houses, the cool terraces for breezy card-playing afternoons, seemed to have been blown away in an anticipation of the prophetic wind that years later would wipe Macondo off the face of the earth. The only human trace left by that voracious blast was a glove belonging to Patricia Brown in an automobile smothered in wild pansies. The enchanted region explored by Jos?Arcadio Buendía in the days of the founding, where later on the banana plantations flourished, was a bog of rotting roots, on the horizon of which one could manage to see the silent foam of the sea. Aureliano Segundo went through a crisis of affliction on the first Sunday that he put on dry clothes and went out to renew his acquaintance with the town. The survivors of the catastrophe, the same ones who had been living in Macondo before it had been struck by the banana company hurricane, were sitting in the middle of the street enjoying their first sunshine. They still had the green of the algae on their skin and the musty smell of a corner that had been stamped on them by the rain, but in their hearts they seemed happy to have recovered the town in which they had been born. The Street of the Turks was again what it had been earlier, in the days when the Arabs with slippers and rings in their ears were going about the world swapping knickknacks for macaws and had found in Macondo a good bend in the road where they could find respite from their age-old lot as wanderers. Having crossed through to the other side of the rain. the merchandise in the booths was falling apart, the cloths spread over the doors were splotched with mold, the counters undermined by termites, the walls eaten away by dampness, but the Arabs of the third generation were sitting in the same place and in the same position as their fathers and grandfathers, taciturn, dauntless, invulnerable to time and disaster, as alive or as dead as they had been after the insomnia plague and Colonel Aureliano Buendía’s thirty-two wars. Their strength of spirit in the face of ruins of the gaming tables, the fritter stands, the shooting galleries, and the alley where they interpreted dreams and predicted the future made Aureliano Segundo ask them with his usual informality what mysterious resources they had relied upon so as not to have gone awash in the storm, what the devil they had done so as not to drown, and one after the other, from door to door, they returned a crafty smile and a dreamy look, and without any previous consultation they all gave the answer:
   “Swimming.?
   Petra Cotes was perhaps the only native who had an Arab heart. She had seen the final destruction of her stables, her barns dragged off by the storm. but she had managed to keep her house standing. During the second year she had sent pressing messages to Aureliano Segundo and he had answered that he did not know when he would go back to her house, but that in any case he would bring along a box of gold coins to pave the bedroom floor with. At that time she had dug deep into her heart, searching for the strength that would allow her to survive the misfortune, and she had discovered a reflective and just rage with which she had sworn to restore the fortune squandered by her lover and then wiped out by the deluge. It was such an unbreakable decision that Aureliano Segundo went back to her house eight months after the last message and found her green disheveled, with sunken eyelids and skin spangled with mange, but she was writing out numbers on small pieces of paper to make a raffle. Aureliano Segundo was astonished, and he was so dirty and so solemn that Petra Cotes almost believed that the one who had come to see her was not the lover of all her life but his twin brother.
   “You’re crazy,?he told her. “Unless you plan to raffle off bones.?
   Then she told him to look in the bedroom and Aureliano Segundo saw the mule. Its skin was clinging to its bones like that of its mistress, but it was just as alive and resolute as she. Petra Cotes had fed it with her wrath, and when there was no more hay or corn or roots, she had given it shelter in her own bedroom and fed it on the percale sheets, the Persian rugs, the plush bedspreads, the velvet drapes, and the canopy embroidered with gold thread and silk tassels on the episcopal bed.



第十六章

  雨,下了四年十一个月零两夭。有时,它仿佛停息了,居民们就象久病初愈那样满脸笑容,穿上整齐的衣服,准备庆祝睛天的来临;但在这样的间隙之后,雨却更猛,大家很快也就习惯了。隆隆的雷声响彻了天空,狂烈的北风向马孔多袭来,掀开了屋顶,刮倒了墙垣,连根拔起了种植园最后剩下的几棵香蕉树。但是,犹如乌苏娜这些日子经常想起的失眠症流行时期那样,灾难本身也能对付苦闷。在跟无所事事进行斗争的人当中,奥雷连诺第二是最顽强的一个。那天晚上,为了一点儿小事,他顺便来到菲兰达家里,正巧碰上了布劳恩先生话说不吉利招来的狂风暴雨。菲兰达在壁橱里找到一把破伞,打算拿给丈夫。“用不着雨伞,”奥雷连诺第二说。“我要在这儿等到雨停。”当然,这句话不能认为是不可违背的誓言,然而奥雷连诺第二打算坚决履行自己的诺言,他的衣服是在佩特娜·柯特家里的,每三天他都脱下身上的衣服.光是穿着短裤,等着把衣服洗干净。他怕闲得无聊,开始修理家中需要修理的许多东西。他配好了门上的铰链,在锁上涂了油,拧紧了门闩的螺钉,矫正了房门的侧柱。在几个月中都可以看见,他腋下挟着一个工具箱(这个工具箱大概是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚在世时吉卜赛人留下的),在房子里忙未忙去,谁也不知道怎么回事——由于体力劳动呢,还是由于极度的忧闷,或者由于不得不节欲——他的肚子逐渐瘪了,象个空扁的皮酒囊;他那大乌龟似的傻里傻气的嘴脸,失去了原来的紫红色;双下巴也消失了;奥雷连诺第二终于瘦得那么厉害,能够自个儿系鞋带了。看见他一鼓作气地修理门闩,拆散挂钟,菲兰达就怀疑丈夫是否也染上了瞎折腾的恶习,象奥雷连诺上校做他的金鱼,象阿玛兰塔缝她的钮扣和殓衣,象霍·阿卡蒂奥第二看他的羊皮纸手稿,象乌苏娜反复唠叨她的往事。但是事情并非如此。原因只是暴雨把一切都搅乱了,甚至不会孕育的机器,如果三天不擦一次油,齿轮之间也会开出花朵;锦缎绣品的丝绒也会生锈;湿衣服也会长出番红花颜色的水草。空气充满了水分,鱼儿可以经过敞开的房门钻进屋子,穿过房间,游出窗子。有一天早晨乌苏娜醒来,感到非常虚弱——临终的预兆——,本来已经要求把她放上担架,抬到安东尼奥·伊萨贝尔神父那儿去,可是圣索菲娅.德拉佩德立即发现,老太婆的整个背上都布满了水蛭。她就用一根燃烧着的木头烧灼它们,把它们一个一个地除掉,免得它们吸干乌苏娜最后剩下的血。这就不得不挖一条水沟,排出屋里的水,消除屋里的癞蛤模和蜗牛,然后才能弄干地面,搬走床脚下面的砖头,穿着鞋子走动。奥雷连诺第二忙于许多需要他注意的小事,没有察觉自己渐渐老了,可是有一天晚上,他一动动地坐在摇椅里,望着早临的夜色,想着佩特娜.柯特,虽未感到任何激动,却突然觉得自己老了。看来,没有什么妨碍他回到菲兰达索然寡昧的怀抱(她虽上了年纪,姿容倒更焕发了),可是雨水冲掉了他的一切欲望,使他象个吃得过饱的人那样平平静静。从前,在这种延续整整一年的雨中,他是什么都干得出来的,他一想到此就不禁一笑。在香蕉公司推广锌板屋顶之前很久,他是第一个把锌板带到马孔多的。他把它们弄来,就是为了给佩特娜·柯特盖屋顶,因为听到雨水浇到屋顶的响声,他就觉得跟她亲亲热热特别舒服。然而,即使忆起青年时代那些荒唐怪诞的事儿,奥雷连诺第二也无动于衷,好象他在最后一次放荡时已经发泄完了自己的情欲,现在想起过去的快活就没有苦恼和懊悔了。乍一看来,雨终于使他能够安静地坐”下来,悠闲地左右思量,但是装着注油器和平口钳的箱子却使他过迟地想到了那些有益的事情,那些事情是他能做而未做的。但是情况并不如此。奥雷连诺第二喜欢舒适的家庭生活,既不是由于回忆起往事,也不是由于痛苦的生活经历。他对家庭生活的喜爱是在雨中产生的,是很久以前的童年时代产生的,当时他曾在梅尔加德斯的房间里阅读神话故事,那些故事谈到了飞毯,谈到了吞下整只整只轮船和乘员的鲸鱼。有一天,因为菲兰达的疏忽,小奥雷连诺溜到了氏廊上。奥雷连诺第二立即认出这小孩儿是他的孙子。他给他理发,帮他穿衣服.叫他不要怕人;不久之后,谁也不怀疑这是布恩蒂亚家中合法的孩子了,他具有这家人的共同特点:突出的颧骨,惊异的眼神,孤僻的模样儿。菲兰达从此也就放心了。她早就想克制骄做,可是不知道怎么办才好,因为她越考虑解决办法,就越觉得这些办法不合适。如果她知道奥雷连诺第二会用祖父的宽厚态度对待意外的孙子,她就不会采取各种搪塞和拖延的花招,一年前就会放弃把亲骨肉弄死的打算了。这时,阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜的乳齿已经换成恒齿,侄儿成了她闷倦的下雨时刻用来消遣的活玩具。奥雷连诺第二有一次想起,在梅梅昔日的卧室里,扔着大家忘记了的英国百科全书。他开始让孩子们看图画:起初是动物画,然后是地图、其他国家的风景画以及名人的肖像。奥雷连诺第二不懂英语,勉强能够认出的只是最有名的城市和最著名的人物,囚此他不得不自己想出一些名字和说法,来满足孩子们无限的好奇心。
  菲兰达真的相信,天一放晴,她的丈夫准会回到恰妇那儿去。开头,她生怕他试图钻进她自己的卧宝:如果他钻了进来,她就得羞涩地向他解释,在阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜出生以后,她已失去了夫妻生活的能力。这种恐惧也成了菲兰达跟没有见过的医生加紧通信的原因,由于邮务工作遭到阻碍,她和他们的通信是经常中断的。在最初几个月里,暴风雨造成了几次铁道事故,菲兰达从没有见过的医生的信中知道,她的几封信都没送到收信地点。随后,跟陌生医生的联系终于断了,她忧认真考虑是不是戴上她大夫在血腥的狂欢节戴过的老虎面具,化名去找香蕉公司的医生诊治。可是,有一个经常把暴雨中的不幸消息带到她家来的女人告诉她,香蕉公司已把门诊所迁到无雨的地方去了。于是菲兰达只好放弃自己的希望,听天由命,等候雨停和邮务恢复正常,这时她就用土方土药治疗自己的暗疾,因为她宁死也不让自己落到最后留在马孔多的一个医生手里,那医生是个有点古怪的法国人,象马或驴一样用草充饥。她跟乌苏娜亲近起来,希望从老太婆那儿探出什么救命药方。可是菲兰达有一种拐弯抹角的习惯,不愿直呼事物的名称,她把原因换成了结果,说是因为太热,所以出血。这样,她就觉得自己的病不太可羞了。乌苏娜很有道理地诊断说,病不在肚子里,而在胃里,劝她服用甘汞。其他任何一个没有反常差耻心的女人,都不会觉得这种疾病对自己有什么可耻,而菲兰达却不是这样。如果不是这种病症,如果她的信函没有遗失,她眈不会理睬缠绵的雨了,因为她度过的一生终归象是窗外的滂沱大雨。她没改变用餐的时间,也没放弃自己的任何习惯。别人在桌于脚下垫上砖头,将椅子放在厚木板上,免得吃饭时弄湿了脚,菲兰达照旧铺上荷兰桌布,摆上中国餐具,晚餐之前点上枝形烛台的蜡烛,因为她以为自然灾害不能作为破坏常规的借口。家里的任何人都没上街。如果菲兰达能够做到的话,她在大雨开始之前很久就会把所有的房门永远关上,冈为照她看来,房门发明出来就是为了关闭的,而对街上的事感到兴趣的只是那些妓女。但是,听说格林列尔多·马克斯上校的送葬队伍经过房屋前面,第一个扑到窗口去的就是她:但是,通过半开的窗子看见的景象使得菲兰达难过到了那种程度,以至许多个月以后她还在懊悔自己一时的脆弱。
  凄清的送葬队伍是难以想象的。棺材放在一辆普通半车上,上面用香蕉叶搭了个篷顶,雨水不断地落下,车轮经常陷在泥里,篷顶勉强没垮。一股股悲凉的南水掉到盖着棺材的旗帜上,把旗帜都浸得透湿了;这是一面布满硝烟和血迹的战斗旗帜,更加荣耀的老军人是不会要它的,棺材上放着一把银丝和铜丝穗子的军刀,从前格林列尔多·马克斯上校为了空手走进阿玛兰塔的缝纫室,挂在客厅衣架上的就是这把军刀。棺材后面,在泥浆里啪呛啪哒走着的,是在尼兰德投降以后活下来的最后几名老军人,他们卷着裤腿,有的甚至光着脚,一只手拄着芦苇杆,另一只手拿着雨水淋得变了色的纸花圈。这象是幽灵的队伍。在仍以奥雷连诺上校命名的街上,他们好象按照口令一样齐步走过,掉头看了看上校的房子,然后拐过街角,到了广场——在这儿他们不得不请人帮忙,因为临时搭成的柩车陷在泥里了。乌苏娜要求圣索菲娅·德拉佩德扶她到门边去。谁也不能怀疑她看见了什么,因为她那么注意地望着送葬队伍,柩车在泥坑里左右摇晃,她象报告佳音的天使民一样伸出的一只手也左右挥动。
  “再见吧,格林列尔多,我的孩子,”乌苏娜叫了一声。“向咱们的人转达我的问候吧,并且告诉他们对古代逻辑思想的发展有一定贡献。但由于过分夸大这种差,天一晴我就要去看望他们了。”
  奥雷连诺第二把为祖母扶回床上,用往常那种不礼貌的态度问她这些话是什么意思。
  “那是真的,”乌苏娜回答。“雨一停,我就要去了。”
  淹没街道的泥流引起了奥雷连诺第二的不安。他终于担心起自己的牲畜,把一块油布披在头上,就到佩特娜·柯特家里去了。佩特娜.柯特站在院里齐腰深的水中,正在推动一匹死马。奥雷连诺第二拿着一根木棍帮助她。胀鼓鼓的巨大尸体象钟摆一样晃晃荡荡,立亥就被泥流卷走了。大雨刚一开始大同①古代儒家宣扬的理想社会。语出《礼记·礼运》:,佩特娜.柯特就在清除院子里死了的牲畜。最初几个星期,她曾捎信给奥雷连诺第二,要他迅速采取什么措施,可他回答说,不必着急,情况并不那么坏,雨一停,他就想办法。佩特娜·柯特又请人告诉他,牧场给淹没了,牲口都跑到山里去了,它们在那儿没有吃的,还会被豹于吃掉,或者病死。“甭担心,”奥雷连诺第二回答她。“只要雨停,其他的牲畜又会生下来了。”在佩特娜.柯特眼前,牲畜成群死去,她好不容易才把陷在泥淖里的剁成了块。她束手无策地望着洪水无情地消灭了她的财产--以前被认为是马孔多最可靠的财产,现在剩下的只是臭气了。当奥雷连诺第二终于决定去看看那里的情况时,他在畜栏的废墟里仅仅发现了一匹死马和一匹衰竭的骡子。佩特娜·柯特见他来了,既没表示惊讶,也没表示高兴或怨恨,,光是讥笑了一声。
  “欢迎光临!”佩特娜·柯特说。睡得好吗?”也没有人问过她,哪怕出于礼貌,她为什么那么苍白,醒来以后她的眼睛下面为什么会有青紫斑,当然罗,尽管她没指望这家人的任何照顾,归根到底,他们总把她看做是一个障碍,看做是从炉灶上取下热锅的一块破布,看做是一个乱、涂墙壁的蠢货,这家人总是背地里说她的坏话,把她叫做伪善者,叫做法利赛人(注:《新约》里所谓的伪善者),叫做假惺惺的人,甚至阿玛兰塔——愿她安息吧——还大声地说,她菲兰达是一个荤素不分的人(注:意指大斋禁忌期间也不忘男女关系的人)——仁慈的上帝,这是什么话啊——她服从上帝的意志,屈辱地忍受了一切,可是她再也不能忍耐了,因为霍·阿卡蒂奥第二这个混蛋说,家庭毁灭了,因为家里放进了一个山地女人,试想一下吧,一个专横跋扈的山地女人,——上帝啊,宽恕我的罪孽吧,——一个狗杂种的山地女人,就象政府派来屠杀工人的那帮山地人一样——真难设想——他说的就是她菲兰达,阿尔巴公爵的教女,名门出身的女人,总统夫妇都羡慕她,一个纯种的贵族女人,她有权用十一个西班牙名字签字,她在这个杂种的小镇上是唯一正经的女人,摆着十六套餐具的桌子也难不倒她,而她那通奸的丈夫却笑得要死地说,需要这么多刀叉、匙子和茶勺的不是人,而是娱蚣,可是只有她一个人知道,什么时候应当送上白酒,用哪一只手,斟在什么杯子里;什么时候应当送上红酒,用哪一只手,斟在什么杯子里,那个乡巴佬阿玛兰塔却不一样——愿她安息吧,——她认为白酒是白天喝的,而红酒是晚上喝的,她菲兰达是唯一到过整个沿海地带的,可以夸口说,她只能在金便盆里撒尿,而那个可恶的共济会会员,奥雷连诺上校——愿他安息吧,——竟敢粗鲁地问她,她为什么得到了这种特权,她拉屎拉出的是不是菊花,你瞧,他竟说出这种话来,——而雷纳塔呢,她自己的女儿,却偷看她在卧室里大便,然后说便盆确实完全是金的,上面还有许多徽记,可里面是普通的大便,最寻常的大便,甚至比寻常的大便还糟糕——山地人的大便——你瞧,这是她自己的女儿;说实在的,她对家中其他的人从来不抱任何幻想,但是,无论如何,有权期待丈夫的一点儿尊重,因为,不管怎么说,他是她合法的配偶,她的主子,她的保护人,按照自己的愿望和上帝的意志承担了重大的责任,把她从父母的家里弄来,她本来在那儿无忧无虑地生活,她编织花圈不过是为了消磨时光,因为她的教父捎了一封信给她,信上是他亲手签名的,而且用他的宝石戒指盖了个火漆印,信里说他教女的双手生来不是从事尘世劳动的,而是为了弹钢琴的,然而这个无情的家伙——她的丈夫,虽然临行时得到过好心的劝说和警告,却从她父母家中把她带到这个地狱里来,这儿热得喘不上气,而且她还来不及遵守斋期的节欲规定,他已经拎起他的流动衣箱和讨厌的手风琴,去跟他的姘头——那个不要脸的淫妇——住在一起了,只要看看她的屁股——也就是说,看看她扭动她那母马似的大屁股,立刻就能知道这是个什么货色,是个什么畜生,——跟她菲兰达恰恰相反,她菲兰达在家里,在猪圈里,在桌边,在床上,都是个天生的好女人,敬畏神灵,奉公守法,顺从命运,她当然不能去干各种肮脏的事儿,能干那些龌龊勾当的自然只有那个婊子,她象法国妓女一样什么都干得出来,甚至比法国妓女恶劣一千倍,法国妓女干得正大光明,至少还在门上挂个红灯,可他却对她菲兰达忘恩负义,她菲兰达是雷纳塔.阿尔戈特夫人和菲兰达.德卡皮奥先生唯一钟爱的女儿,尤其她父亲是个虔诚的人,真正的基督徒,获得过“圣墓(注:耶稣的墓)勋章”;由于上帝的特殊恩惠,他们在坟墓里不会腐烂,皮肤还会象新娘的缎子衣服那么光洁,眼睛还会象绿宝石那么晶莹透亮。
  “这说得不准确,”奥雷连诺第二打断她。“人家把你父亲送到这儿的时候,他已经臭得相当厉害了。”
  他耐着性子听了整整一天,最后才揭穿菲兰达说得不准。菲兰达什么也没回答,只是降低了嗓门。这天吃晚饭的时候,她那恼怒的聒噪声把雨声都给压住了。奥雷连诺第二耷拉着脑袋,坐在桌边大学古典语言学教授。继承叔本华的基本观点,但不同意他,吃得很少,很早就到自己的卧室里去了。第二天早餐时,菲兰达浑身发抖,显然过了一个不眠之夜,她反复回忆过去受到的委屈,似乎已经精疲力尽。然而,奥雷连诺第二问她能不能给他一个煮熟的鸡蛋时,她不只是说前一个星期就没有鸡蛋了,而且尖酸刻薄地指摘一帮男人,说他们只会把时间用来欣赏自己肮脏的肚脐眼,然后恬不知耻地要求别人把百灵鸟的心肝给他们送上桌子。奥雷连诺第二照旧和孩子们一起浏览百科全书里的图画,可是菲兰达假装拾掇梅梅的卧室,其实她只想让他听见她唠叨,自然罗,只有失去了最后一点羞耻心的人才会告诉天真无邪的孩子,仿佛百科全书里有奥雷连诺上校的画像。白天午休时刻,孩子们睡觉的时候,奥雷连诺第二坐在长廊上,可是菲兰达又在那儿找到了他,刺激他,揶揄他,在他周围转来转去,象牛虻一样不停地轰轰嗡嗡,说了又说,家里除了石头什么吃的都没有了,而她漂亮的丈夫却象波斯苏丹那么坐着,盯着下雨,因为他是个懒汉、食客、废物、孱头,靠女人过活已经习惯了,以为他讨了约拿②的老婆,那②见《圣经》.”约拿的老婆”意即不祥的人,带来坏运气的人。个女人只要听听鲸鱼的故事就满足了。奥雷连诺第二听菲兰达罗唆了两个多小时,无动于衷,象个聋子。他一直没有打断她的絮聒,直到傍晚才失去了耐心。她的话象鼓声似地震动着他的脑筋。
  “看在基督的面上,请你住嘴。”他央求道。
  菲兰达提高嗓门回答:“我不住嘴,”她说。“谁不愿意听我的话,就让他滚蛋。”这下子,奥雷连诺第二按捺不住了。他慢慢地站立起来,仿佛想伸个懒腰似的,平静而恼怒地从架子上拿起一个个秋海棠、欧洲蕨、牛至花盆,一个个地摔在地上,砸得粉碎。菲兰达吓坏了——她直到此刻还不明白她的气话包含着多么可怕的力量。奥雷连诺第二突然不可遏制地感到自由了,发狂地击碎了玻璃橱,从里面拿出一个个杯盘碗盏,不慌不忙地都把它们往地上扔。他的样儿平平静静,神情严肃、专注,而且象从前用钞票裱糊房子那么仔细,把波希米亚水晶玻璃器皿、手绘彩色花瓶、蔷薇船美女图、金框镜子都往墙上砸,凡是这座房子——从客厅到储藏室——可以砸碎的东西都在墙上砸得稀烂。最后落到他手里的是厨房里立着的一个大瓦罐。象炸弹爆炸一样,这只瓦罐轰隆一声在院子里砸成了无数碎片。最后,奥雷连诺第二洗了洗手,披上油布就出门去了,可是半夜以前又回来了,带来了几大块青筋嶙嶙的腌肉、几袋大米、玉米和象鼻虫(注:可以食用的一种害虫),还有几串干瘪的香蕉。从这时起,家里就不缺少吃的了。
  阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜和小奥雷连诺忆起下雨的那些年月,都觉得那是他俩一生中最快活的时候。尽管菲兰达禁止,他俩还是在院子的泥潭里啪哒啪哒走着玩儿,捉到了蜥蜴就把它们肢解,并且在圣索菲娅·德拉佩德注意不到的时候中心项见“原则同格论”。,悄悄地把蝴蝶翅膀上的粉末撒到锅里,假装在汤里下毒。乌苏娜是他们最喜爱的玩具。他们拿她当做老朽的大玩偶,把她从一个角落拖到另一个角落,给她穿上花衣服,在她脸上涂抹油烟,有一次差点儿用修剪花木的剪刀扎破了她的眼睛,就象对付癫蛤蟆那样。老太婆神志恍惚的时候,他俩特别开心。下雨的第三年,乌苏娜脑子里显然真的发生了一些变化,她逐渐失去了现实感,把现时和早就过去的生活年代混在一起,伤心地号啕大哭了整整三天,哀悼一百多年前埋掉的她的曾祖母佩特罗尼娜·伊古阿兰。她的脑海里一切都搅乱了:她把小奥雷连诺当做是去参观冰块时的儿子——奥雷连诺上校,而把神学院学生霍·阿卡蒂奥错看成她那跟吉卜赛人一起跑掉的头生子。乌苏娜大谈特谈自己的家庭,孩子们就假想出一些亲戚来看望她,这些亲戚不仅是许多年前去世的,而且是生活在不同时代的。她的头发给撒上了灰,眼睛系上了一块红手绢,可她坐在床上,和亲戚们在一起,感到非常高兴;阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜和小奥雷连诺细致地描绘这些亲戚,仿佛真的看见了他们似的。乌苏娜跟自己的远祖闲聊她出生之前的那些事情,对他们告诉她的那些消息很感兴趣,跟他们一块儿哀悼在这些想象的客人已经死后的那些亲戚。孩子们很快发现,乌苏娜极力想弄清楚一个人,那个人在战争时期有一次曾把圣约瑟夫的等身石膏像带到这儿,要求存放到雨停以后就把它取走。于是,奥雷连诺第二想起了藏在什么地方的财宝,那个地方只有乌苏娜一个人知道,但他的一切探问和诡计都没有奏效,因为,她在梦幻的迷宫里瞎闯,似乎仍有足够的理智来保守自己的秘密;她拿定了主意,谁能证明自己是财宝的真正主人,她就把秘密告诉谁。乌苏娜是那么机灵和固执,奥雷连诺第二试图拿自己的一个酒友冒充财宝的主人,她便向他作了细致的盘问,设置了许多不易觉察的陷阱,就把冒充者戳穿了。
  相信乌苏娜将把自己的秘密带进坟墓,奥雷连诺第二就雇了一些掘土工人,好象要在庭院和后院挖排水沟似的,他自己则拿着一根铁钎在地上打眼试探,并且用各种金属探测器到处勘察,可是经过三个月疲劳的勘探,没有发现任何金子似的东西。随后,他认为纸牌比掘土工人更有眼力,就去找皮拉·苔列娜帮忙,但她向他解释,除非乌苏娜亲手抽牌,否则任何企图都是无用的。不过,她毕竟肯定了财宝的存在,甚至准确地说出这批财宝包括七千二百十四个金币,是装在三只帆布口袋里的,口袋上系了铜丝,埋藏在半径为一百二十公尺的范围之内,乌苏娜的床铺就是半径的中心。然而皮拉·苔列娜警告说,要等雨停了,连续三个六月的太阳把成堆的泥土变成了灰尘,才能弄到财宝。奥雷连诺第二觉得这些说法既玄奥又含糊,犹如鬼怪故事,于是立即决定继续探索,虽然现在已是八月,要符合预言的条件至少还有三年,有一种情况特别使他惊异,甚至叫他莫名其妙,那就是从乌苏娜的床铺到后院篱垣的距离正好是一百二十公尺。菲兰达看见奥雷连诺第二测量房间,听到他吩咐掘土工人把沟再挖深一公尺,她就生怕她丈夫象他兄弟那样疯了。
  他怀着一种“勘探热”,这种“勘探热”象他的曾祖父去寻找伟大发明时一样,耗尽了自己最后剩下的脂肪,从前和孪生兄弟相似之处就又突出了:不仅瘦骨嶙嶙的身体,而且漫不经心的眼神和孤僻的样儿,都象霍·阿卡蒂奥第二。他不再关心孩子们,他从头到脚满是污泥,该吃饭的时候,就坐在厨房角落里吃,而且勉强回答圣索菲娅·德拉佩德偶然提出的问题。菲兰达看见奥雷连诺第二拼命干活(这种拼命精神是她以前在他身上没有料到的),就把他的狂热看做是爱好劳动,把他的黄金梦看做是忘我精神,把他的顽固看做是坚定。现在她一想起,为了使他摆脱消极状态,在他前面说过一些刻薄话,就感到良心的谴责。可是奥雷连诺第二这时顾不上原谅与和解。他立在齐颈的枯枝败叶和烂花莠草的泥坑里,在花园里不停地挖呀挖呀,最后挖到了庭院和后院,就这样深深地挖空了长廊东边的地基,有一天夜里,家里的人被地下发出的震动声和折裂声惊醒起来;他们以为是地震,其实是三个房间的地面塌陷了,长廊的地面出现很长的裂缝,裂缝一直到了菲兰达的卧室。然而奥雷连诺第二并不放弃自己的勘探。尽管最后的希望破灭了,似乎只有依靠纸牌的预卜了,但他加固了摇摇欲坠的房基,用石灰浆填满了裂缝,又在房屋两边继续挖掘。在这儿,他挖到了下一年六月的第二个星期,雨终于开始停息。雨云消散,每一天都可能放晴了。事情果然如此。星期五下午两点,吉祥的红太阳普照大地,它象砖头一样粗糙,几乎象水那样清澈。从这一天起,整整十年没有下雨。
  马孔多成了一片废墟。街道上是一个个水潭,污泥里到处都露出破烂的家具和牲畜的骸骨,骸骨上长出了红百合花一-这是一群外国佬最后的纪念品,他们匆忙地来到马孔多,又匆忙地逃离了马孔多。“香蕉热”时期急速建筑起来的房屋已经抛弃了。香蕉公司运走了自己所有的东西。在铁丝网围着的小镇那儿王阳明即“王守仁”。,只留下了一堆堆垃圾,那一座座木房子,从前每天傍晚凉台上都有人无忧无虑地玩纸牌,也象被狂风刮走了,这种狂风是未来十二级飓风的前奏;多年以后,那种飓风注定要把马孔多从地面上一扫而光。在这一次致命的狂风之后,从前这儿住过人的唯一证明。是帕特里西娅.布劳恩忘在小汽车里的一只手套,小汽车上爬满了三色茧。霍.阿布恩蒂亚建村时期勘探过的“魔区”,嗣后香蕉园曾在这儿繁荣起来,现在却是一片沼泽,到处都隐藏着烂掉的树根,在远处露出的地平线上,这片海洋在好几年中仍然无声地翻着泡沫。第一个礼拜日,奥雷连诺第二穿着干衣服,出门看见这个市镇的样子,感到十分惊愕。雨后活下来的那些人——全是早在香蕉公司侵入之前定居马孔多的人——都坐在街道中间,享受初露的阳光。他们的皮肤仍象水藻那样微微发绿,下雨年间渗进皮肤的储藏室霉味还没消失可是他们脸上却露出愉快的微笑,因为意识到他们土生土长的市镇重新属于他们了。辉煌的土耳其人街又成了昔日的样子,从前,那些浪迹天涯的阿拉伯人,穿着拖鞋,戴着粗大的金属耳环,拿小玩意儿交换鹦鹉,在千年的流浪之后在马孔多获得了可靠的栖身之所。现在,下雨时摆在摊子上的货品已经瓦解,陈列在商店里的货品已经发霉,柜台已被白蚁至坏,墙壁已给潮气侵蚀,可是第三代的阿拉伯人却坐在他们的祖辈坐过的地方,象祖辈一样的姿势,默不吭声,泰然自若,不受时间和自然灾害的支配,死活都象患失眠症以后那样,或者象奥雷连诺上校的三十二次战争以后那样。面对着毁了的赌桌和食品摊,面对着残存的靶场,面对着人们曾在那里圆梦和预卜未来的一片瓦砾的小街小巷,阿拉伯人依然精神饱满,这使奥雷连诺第二觉得惊异,他就用往常那种不拘礼节的口吻询问他们,他们依靠什么神秘的力量才没给洪流冲走,没给大水淹死;他从这家走到那家,一再提出这个问题,到处都遇到同样巧妙的微笑。同样沉思的目光以及同样的回答:
  “我们会游泳。”
  在全镇其他的居民中,仅仅佩特娜·柯特一个人还有阿拉伯人的胸怀。畜栏和马厩在她眼前倒塌了,但她没有泄气,维持了自己的家。最近一年,她一直想把奥雷连诺第二叫来,写了一张张字条给他,可他回答说,他不知道哪一天回到她的家里,但是不管怎样,他准会带着一袋金币到她家里,用它们来铺卧室的地面。
  那时她就冥思苦想,希望找到一种能够帮助她忍受苦命的力量,但她在心里找到的只是愤恨,一种公正的、无情的愤恨,于是她发誓要恢复情人浪费的和暴雨毁掉的财产。她的决心是那么坚定弗洛姆(ErichFromm,1900—1980)美国心理学家、社会,奥雷连诺第二收到最后一张字条之后过了八个月,终于来到了佩特娜.柯特家里,女主人脸色发青,披头散发,眼睛凹陷,皮肤长了疥疮,正在一片片纸儿上写号码,想把它们做成彩票。奥雷连诺第二不胜惊讶,默不做声地站在她面前,他是那么瘦削和拘谨,佩特娜·柯特甚至觉得,她看见的不是跟她度过了整整一生的情人,而是他的孪生兄弟。
  “你疯啦,”他说。“你想用什么抽彩?难道用尸骨吗?”
  于是,她要他到卧室里去看看,他看见了一匹骡子。骡子象它的女主人一样瘦骨嶙峋,但也象她一样坚定、活跃。佩特娜.柯特拼命饲养它,再也没有干草、玉米或树根的时候,她就把它安顿在她的卧室里,让它去嚼棉布床单、波斯毯子、毛绒被子、丝绒窗帘以及主教床上的帐幔,这种帐幔是金线刺绣的,装饰了丝线做成的穗子。


执素衣

ZxID:13389413


等级: 内阁元老
举报 只看该作者 15楼  发表于: 2013-10-10 0



Chapter 15
THE EVENTS that would deal Macondo its fatal blow were just showing themselves when they brought Meme Buendía’s son home. The public situation was so uncertain then that no one had sufficient spirit to become involved with private scandals, so that Fernanda was able to count on an atmosphere that enabled her to keep the child hidden as if he had never existed. She had to take him in because the circumstances under which they brought him made rejection impossible. She had to tolerate him against her will for the rest of her life because at the moment of truth she lacked the courage to go through with her inner determination to drown him in the bathroom cistern. She locked him up in Colonel Aureliano Buendía’s old workshop. She succeeded in convincing Santa Sofía de la Piedad that she had found him floating in a basket. ?rsula would die without ever knowing his origin. Little Amaranta ?rsula, who went into the workshop once when Fernanda was feeding the child, also believed the version of the floating basket. Aureliano Segundo, having broken finally with his wife because of the irrational way in which she handled Meme’s tragedy, did not know of the existence of his grandson until three years after they brought him home, when the child escaped from captivity through an oversight on Fernanda’s part and appeared on the porch for a fraction of a second, naked, with matted hair, and with an impressive sex organ that was like a turkey’s wattles, as if he were not a human child but the encyclopedia definition of a cannibal.
   Fernanda had not counted on that nasty trick of her incorrigible fate. The child was like the return of a shame that she had thought exiled by her from the house forever. As soon as they carried off Mauricio Babilonia with his shattered spinal column, Fernanda had worked out the most minute details of a plan destined to wipe out all traces of the burden. Without consulting her husband, she packed her bags, put the three changes of clothing that her daughter would need into a small suitcase, and went to get her in her bedroom a half hour before the train arrived.
   “Let’s go, Renata,?she told her.
   She gave no explanation. Meme, for her part, did not expect or want any. She not only did not know where they were going, but it would have been the same to her if they had been taking her to the slaughterhouse. She had not spoken again nor would she do so for the rest of her life from the time that she heard the shot in the backyard and the simultaneous cry of pain from Mauricio Babilonia. When her mother ordered her out of the bedroom she did not comb her hair or wash her face and she got into the train as if she were walking in her sleep, not even noticing the yellow butterflies that were still accompanying her. Fernanda never found out nor did she take the trouble to, whether that stony silence was a determination of her will or whether she had become mute because of the impact of the tragedy. Meme barely took notice of the journey through the formerly enchanted region. She did not see the shady, endless banana groves on both sides of the tracks. She did not see the white houses of the gringos or their gardens, dried out by dust and heat, or the women in shorts and blue-striped shirts playing cards on the terraces. She did not see the oxcarts on the dusty roads loaded down with bunches of bananas. She did not see the girls diving into the transparent rivers like tarpons, leaving the passengers on the train with the bitterness of their splendid breasts, or the miserable huts of the workers all huddled together where Mauricio Babilonia’s yellow butterflies fluttered about and in the doorways of which there were green and squalid children sitting on their pots, and pregnant women who shouted insults at the train. That fleeting vision, which had been a celebration for her when she came home from school, passed through Meme’s heart without a quiver. She did not look out of the window, not even when the burning dampness of the groves ended and the train went through a poppy-laden plain where the carbonized skeleton of the Spanish galleon still sat and then came out into the dear air alongside the frothy, dirty sea where almost a century before Jos?Arcadio Buendía’s illusions had met defeat.
   At five o’clock in the afternoon, when they had come to the last station in the swamp, she got out of the train because Fernanda made her. They got into a small carriage that looked like an enormous bat, drawn by an asthmatic horse, and they went through the desolate city in the endless streets of which, split by saltiness, there was the sound of a piano lesson just like the one that Fernanda heard during the siestas of her adolescence. They went on board a riverboat, the wooden wheel of which had a sound of conflagration, and whose rusted metal plates reverberated like the mouth of an oven. Meme shut herself up in her cabin. Twice a day Fernanda left a plate of food by her bed and twice a day she took it away intact, not because Meme had resolved to die of hunger, but because even the smell of food was repugnant to her and her stomach rejected even water. Not even she herself knew that her fertility had outwitted the mustard vapors, just as Fernanda did not know until almost a year later, when they brought the child. In the suffocating cabin, maddened by the vibration of the metal plates and the unbearable stench of the mud stirred up by the paddle wheel, Meme lost track of the days. Much time had passed when she saw the last yellow butterfly destroyed in the blades of the fan and she admitted as an irremediable truth that Mauricio Babilonia had died. She did not let herself be defeated by resignation, however. She kept on thinking about him during the arduous muleback crossing of the hallucinating plateau where Aureliano Segundo had become lost when he was looking for the most beautiful woman who had ever appeared on the face of the earth, and when they went over the mountains along Indian trails and entered the gloomy city in whose stone alleys the funereal bronze bells of thirty-two churches tolled. That night they slept in the abandoned colonial mansion on boards that Fernanda laid on the floor of a room invaded by weeds, wrapped in the shreds of curtains that they pulled off the windows and that fell to pieces with every turn of the body. Meme knew where they were because in the flight of her insomnia she saw pass by the gentleman dressed in black whom they delivered to the house inside a lead box on one distant Christmas Eve. On the following day, after mass, Fernanda took her to a somber building that Meme recognized immediately from her mother’s stories of the convent where they had raised her to be a queen, and then she understood that they had come to the end of the journey. While Fernanda was speaking to someone in the office next door, Meme remained in a parlor checkered with large oil paintings of colonial archbishops, still wearing an etamine dress with small black flowers and stiff high shoes which were swollen by the cold of the uplands. She was standing in the center of the parlor thinking about Mauricio Babilonia under the yellow stream of light from the stained glass windows when a very beautiful novice came out of the office carrying her suitcase with the three changes of clothing. As she passed Meme she took her hand without stopping.
   “Come, Renata,?she said to her.
   Meme took her hand and let herself be led. The last time that Fernanda saw her, trying to keep up with the novice, the iron grating of the cloister had just closed behind her. She was still thinking about Mauricio Babilonia, his smell of grease, and his halo of butterflies, and she would keep on thinking about him for all the days of her life until the remote autumn morning when she died of old age, with her name changed and her head shaved and without ever having spoken a word, in a gloomy hospital in Cracow.
   Fernanda returned to Macondo on a train protected by armed police. During the trip she noticed the tension of the passengers, the military preparations in the towns along the line, and an atmosphere rarified by the certainty that something serious was going to happen, but she had no information until she reached Macondo and they told her that Jos?Arcadio Segundo was inciting the workers of the banana company to strike. “That’s all we need,?Fernanda said to herself. “An anarchist in the family.?The strike broke out two weeks later and it did not have the dramatic consequences that had been feared. The workers demanded that they not be obliged to cut and load bananas on Sundays, and the position seemed so just that even Father Antonio Isabel interceded in its favor because he found it in accordance with the laws of God. That victory, along with other actions that were initiated during the following months, drew the colorless Jos?Arcadio Segundo out of his anonymity, for people had been accustomed to say that he was only good for filling up the town with French whores. With the same impulsive decision with which he had auctioned off his fighting cocks in order to organize a harebrained boat business, he gave up his position as foreman in the banana company and took the side of the workers. Quite soon he was pointed out as the agent of an international conspiracy against public order. One night, during the course of a week darkened by somber rumors, he miraculously escaped four revolver shots taken at him by an unknown party as he was leaving a secret meeting. The atmosphere of the following months was so tense that even ?rsula perceived it in her dark corner, and she had the impression that once more she was living through the dangerous times when her son Aureliano carried the homeopathic pills of subversion in his pocket. She tried to speak to Jos?Arcadio Segundo, to let him know about that precedent, but Aureliano Segundo told her that since the night of the attempt on his life no one knew his whereabouts.
   “Just like Aureliano,??rsula exclaimed. “It’s as if the world were repeating itself.?
   Fernanda, was immune to the uncertainty of those days. She had no contact with the outside world since the violent altercation she had had with her husband over her having decided Memes fate without his consent. Aureliano Segundo was prepared to rescue his daughter with the help of the police if necessary, but Fernanda showed him some papers that were proof that she had entered the convent of her own free will. Meme had indeed signed once she was already behind the iron grating and she did it with the same indifference with which she had allowed herself to be led away. Underneath it all, Aureliano Segundo did not believe in the legitimacy of the proof. Just as he never believed that Mauricio Babilonia had gone into the yard to steal chickens, but both expedients served to ease his conscience, and thus he could go back without remorse under the shadow of Petra Cotes, where he revived his noisy revelry and unlimited gourmandizing. Foreign to the restlessness of the town, deaf to ?rsula’s quiet predictions. Fernanda gave the last tam to the screw of her preconceived plan. She wrote a long letter to her son Jos?Arcadio, who was then about to take his first orders, and in it she told him that his sister Renata had expired in the peace of the Lord and as a consequence of the black vomit. Then she put Amaranta ?rsula under the care of Santa Sofía de la Piedad and dedicated herself to organizing her correspondence with the invisible doctors, which had been upset by Meme’s trouble. The first thing that she did was to set a definite date for the postponed telepathic operation. But the invisible doctors answered her that it was not wise so long as the state of social agitation continued in Macondo. She was so urgent and so poorly Informed that she explained to them In another letter that there was no such state of agitation and that everything was the result of the lunacy of a brother-in-law of hers who was fiddling around at that time in that labor union nonsense just as he had been involved with cockfighting and riverboats before. They were still not in agreement on the hot Wednesday when an aged nun knocked at the door bearing a small basket on her arm. When she opened the door Santa Sofía de la Piedad thought that it was a gift and tried to take the small basket that was covered with a lovely lace wrap. But the nun stopped her because she had instructions to give it personally and with the strictest secrecy to Do?a Fernanda del Carpio de Buendía. It was Meme’s son. Fernanda’s former spiritual director explained to her in a letter that he had been born two months before and that they had taken the privilege of baptizing him Aureliano, for his grandfather, because his mother would not open her lips to tell them her wishes. Fernanda rose up inside against that trick of fate, but she had sufficient strength to hide it in front of the nun.
   “We’ll tell them that we found him floating in the basket,?she said smiling.
   “No one will believe it,?the nun said.
   “If they believe it in the Bible,?Fernanda replied, “I don’t see why they shouldn’t believe it from me.?
   The nun lunched at the house while she waited for the train back, and in accordance with the discretion they asked of her, she did not mention the child again, but Fernanda viewed her as an undesirable witness of her shame and lamented the fact that they had abandoned the medieval custom of hanging a messenger who bore bad news. It was then that she decided to drown the child in the cistern as soon as the nun left, but her heart was not strong enough and she preferred to wait patiently until the infinite goodness of God would free her from the annoyance.
   The new Aureliano was a year old when the tension of the people broke with no forewarning. Jos?Arcadio Segundo and other union leaders who had remained underground until then suddenly appeared one weekend and organized demonstrations in towns throughout the banana region. The police merely maintained public order. But on Monday night the leaders were taken from their homes and sent to jail in the capital of the province with two-pound irons on their legs. Taken among them were Jos?Arcadio Segundo and Lorenzo Gavilán, a colonel in the Mexican revolution, exiled in Macondo, who said that he had been witness to the heroism of his comrade Artemio Cruz. They were set free, however, within three months because of the fact that the government and the banana company could not reach an agreement as to who should feed them in jail. The protests of the workers this time were based on the lack of sanitary facilities in their living quarters, the nonexistence of medical services, and terrible working conditions. They stated, furthermore, that they were not being paid in real money but in scrip, which was good only to buy Virginia ham in the company commissaries. Jos?Arcadio Segundo was put in jail because he revealed that the scrip system was a way for the company to finance its fruit ships; which without the commissary merchandise would have to return empty from New Orleans to the banana ports. The other complaints were common knowledge. The company physicians did not examine the sick but had them line up behind one another in the dispensaries and a nurse would put a pill the color of copper sulfate on their tongues, whether they had malaria, gonorrhea, or constipation. It was a cure that was so common that children would stand in line several times and instead of swallowing the pills would take them home to use as bingo markers. The company workers were crowded together in miserable barracks. The engineers, instead of putting in toilets, had a portable latrine for every fifty people brought to the camps at Christmas time and they held public demonstrations of how to use them so that they would last longer. The decrepit lawyers dressed in black who during other times had besieged Colonel Aureliano Buendía and who now were controlled by the banana company dismissed those demands with decisions that seemed like acts of magic. When the workers drew up a list of unanimous petitions, a long time passed before they were able to notify the banana company officially. As soon as he found out about the agreement Mr. Brown hitched his luxurious glassed-in coach to the train and disappeared from Macondo along with the more prominent representatives of his company. Nonetheless some workers found one of them the following Saturday in a brothel and they made him sign a copy of the sheet with the demands while he was naked with the women who had helped to entrap him. The mournful lawyers showed in court that that man had nothing to do with the company and in order that no one doubt their arguments they had him jailed as an impostor. Later on, Mr. Brown was surprised traveling incognito, in a third-class coach and they made him sign another copy of the demands. On the following day he appeared before the judges with his hair dyed black and speaking flawless Spanish. The lawyers showed that the man was not Mr. Jack Brown, the superintendent of the banana company, born in Prattville Alabama, but a harmless vendor of medicinal plants, born in Macondo and baptized there with the name of Dagoberto Fonseca. A while later, faced with a new attempt by the workers the lawyers publicly exhibited Mr. Brown’s death certificate, attested to by consuls and foreign ministers which bore witness that on June ninth last he had been run over by a fire engine in Chicago. Tired of that hermeneutical delirium, the workers turned away from the authorities in Macondo and brought their complaints up to the higher courts. It was there that the sleight-of-hand lawyers proved that the demands lacked all validity for the simple reason that the banana company did not have, never had had, and never would have any workers in its service because they were all hired on a temporary and occasional basis. So that the fable of the Virginia ham was nonsense, the same as that of the miraculous pills and the Yuletide toilets, and by a decision of the court it was established and set down in solemn decrees that the workers did not exist.
   The great strike broke out. Cultivation stopped halfway, the fruit rotted on the trees and the hundred-twenty-car trains remained on the sidings. The idle workers overflowed the towns. The Street of the Turks echoed with a Saturday that lasted for several days and in the poolroom at the Hotel Jacob they had to arrange twenty-four-hour shifts. That was where Jos?Arcadio Segundo was on the day it was announced that the army had been assigned to reestablish public order. Although he was not a man given to omens, the news was like an announcement of death that he had been waiting for ever since that distant morning when Colonel Gerineldo Márquez had let him see an execution. The bad omen did not change his solemnity, however. He took the shot he had planned and it was good. A short time later the drumbeats, the shrill of the bugle, the shouting and running of the people told him that not only had the game of pool come to an end, but also the silent and solitary game that he had been playing with himself ever since that dawn execution. Then he went out into the street and saw them. There were three regiments, whose march in time to a galley drum made the earth tremble. Their snorting of a many-headed dragon filled the glow of noon with a pestilential vapor. They were short, stocky, and brutelike. They perspired with the sweat of a horse and had a smell of suntanned hide and the taciturn and impenetrable perseverance of men from the uplands. Although it took them over an hour to pass by, one might have thought that they were only a few squads marching in a circle, because they were all identical, sons of the same bitch, and with the same stolidity they all bore the weight of their packs and canteens, the shame of their rifles with fixed bayonets, and the chancre of blind obedience and a sense of honor. ?rsula heard them pass from her bed in the shadows and she made a crow with her fingers. Santa Sofía de la Piedad existed for an instant, leaning over the embroidered tablecloth that she had just ironed, and she thought of her son, Jos?Arcadio Segundo, who without changing expression watched the last soldiers pass by the door of the Hotel Jacob.
   Martial law enabled the army to assume the functions of arbitrator in the controversy, but no effort at conciliation was made. As soon as they appeared in Macondo, the soldiers put aside their rifles and cut and loaded the bananas and started the trains running. The workers, who had been content to wait until then, went into the woods with no other weapons but their working machetes and they began to sabotage the sabotage. They burned plantations and commissaries, tore up tracks to impede the passage of the trains that began to open their path with machine-gun fire, and they cut telegraph and telephone wires. The irrigation ditches were stained with blood. Mr. Brown, who was alive in the electrified chicken coop, was taken out of Macondo with his family and those of his fellow countrymen and brought to a safe place under the protection of the army. The situation was threatening to lead to a bloody and unequal civil war when the authorities called upon the workers to gather in Macondo. The summons announced that the civil and military leader of the province would arrive on the following Friday ready to intercede in the conflict.
   Jos?Arcadio Segundo was in the crowd that had gathered at the station on Friday since early in the morning. He had taken part in a meeting of union leaders and had been commissioned, along with Colonel Gavilán, to mingle in the crowd and orient it according to how things went. He did not feel well and a salty paste was beginning to collect on his palate when he noticed that the army had set up machine-gun emplacements around the small square and that the wired city of the banana company was protected by artillery pieces. Around twelve o’clock, waiting for a train that was not arriving, more than three thousand people, workers, women, and children, had spilled out of the open space in front of the station and were pressing into the neighboring streets, which the army had closed off with rows of machine guns. At that time it all seemed more like a jubilant fair than a waiting crowd. They had brought over the fritter and drink stands from the Street of the Turks and the people were in good spirits as they bore the tedium of waiting and the scorching sun. A short time before three o’clock the rumor spread that the official train would not arrive until the following day. The crowd let out a sigh of disappointment. An army lieutenant then climbed up onto the roof of the station where there were four machine-gun emplacements aiming at the crowd and called for silence. Next to Jos?Arcadio Segundo there was a barefooted woman, very fat, with two children between the ages of four and seven. She was carrying the smaller one and she asked Jos?Arcadio Segundo, without knowing him, if he would lift up the other one so that he could hear better. Jos?Arcadio Segundo put the child on his shoulders. Many years later that child would still tell, to the disbelief of all, that he had seen the lieutenant reading Decree No. 4 of the civil and military leader of the province through an old phonograph horn. It had been signed by General Carlos Cortes Vargas and his secretary, Major Enrique García Isaza, and in three articles of eighty words he declared the strikers to be a “bunch of hoodlums?and he authorized the army to shoot to kill.
   After the decree was read, in the midst of a deafening hoot of protest, a captain took the place of the lieutenant on the roof of the station and with the horn he signaled that he wanted to speak. The crowd was quiet again.
   “Ladies and gentlemen,?the captain said in a low voice that was slow and a little tired. “you have five minutes to withdraw.?
   The redoubled hooting and shouting drowned out the bugle call that announced the start of the count. No one moved.
   Five minutes have passed,?the captain said in the same tone. “One more minute and we’ll open fire.?
   Jos?Arcadio Segundo, sweating ice, lowered the child and gave him to the woman. “Those bastards might just shoot,?she murmured. Jos?Arcadio Segundo did not have time to speak because at that instant he recognized the hoarse voice of Colonel Gavilán echoing the words of the woman with a shout. Intoxicated by the tension, by the miraculous depth of the silence, and furthermore convinced that nothing could move that crowd held tight in a fascination with death, Jos?Arcadio Segundo raised himself up over the heads in front of him and for the first time in his life he raised his voice.
   “You bastards!?he shouted. “Take the extra minute and stick it up your ass!?
   After his shout something happened that did not bring on fright but a kind of hallucination. The captain gave the order to fire and fourteen machine guns answered at once. But it all seemed like a farce. It was as if the machine guns had been loaded with caps, because their panting rattle could be heard and their incandescent spitting could be seen, but not the slightest reaction was perceived, not a cry, not even a sigh among the compact crowd that seemed petrified by an instantaneous invulnerability. Suddenly, on one side-of the station, a cry of death tore open the enchantment: “Aaaagh, Mother.?A seismic voice, a volcanic breath. the roar of a cataclysm broke out in the center of the crowd with a great potential of expansion. Jos?Arcadio Segundo barely had time to pick up the child while the mother with the other one was swallowed up by the crowd that swirled about in panic.
   Many years later that child would still tell, in spite of people thinking that he was a crazy old man, how Jos?Arcadio Segundo had lifted him over his head and hauled him, almost in the air, as if floating on the terror of the crowd, toward a nearby street. The child’s privileged position allowed him to see at that moment that the wild mass was starting to get to the corner and the row of machine guns opened fire. Several voices shouted at the same time:
   “Get down! Get down!?
   The people in front had already done so, swept down by the wave of bullets. The survivors, instead of getting down, tried to go back to the small square, and the panic became a dragon’s tail as one compact wave ran against another which was moving in the opposite direction, toward the other dragon’s tail In the street across the way, where the machine guns were also firing without cease. They were Penned in. swirling about in a gigantic whirlwind that little by little was being reduced to its epicenter as the edges were systematically being cut off all around like an onion being peeled by the insatiable and methodical shears of the machine guns. The child saw a woman kneeling with her arms in the shape of a cross in an open space, mysteriously free of the stampede. Jos?Arcadio Segundo put him up there at the moment he fell with his face bathed in blood, before the colossal troop wiped out the empty space, the kneeling woman, the light of the high, drought-stricken sky, and the whorish world where ?rsula Iguarán had sold so many little candy animals.
   When Jos?Arcadio Segundo came to he was lying face up in the darkness. He realized that he was riding on an endless and silent train and that his head was caked with dry blood and that all his bones ached. He felt an intolerable desire to sleep. Prepared to sleep for many hours, safe from the terror and the horror, he made himself comfortable on the side that pained him less, and only then did he discover that he was lying against dead people. There was no free space in the car except for an aisle in the middle. Several hours must have passed since the massacre because the corpses had the same temperature as a plaster in autumn and the same consistency of petrified foam that it had, and those who had put them in the car had had time to pile them up in the same way in which they transported bunches of bananas. Trying to flee from the nightmare, Jos?Arcadio Segundo dragged himself from one car to an other in the direction in which the train was heading, and in the flashes of light that broke through the wooden slats as they went through sleeping towns he saw the man corpses, woman corpses, child corpses who would be thrown into the sea like rejected bananas. He recognized only a woman who sold drinks in the square and Colonel Gavilán, who still held wrapped in his hand the belt with a buckle of Morelia silver with which he had tried to open his way through the panic. When he got to the first car he jumped into the darkness and lay beside the tracks until the train had passed. It was the longest one he had ever seen, with almost two hundred freight cars and a locomotive at either end and a third one in the middle. It had no lights, not even the red and green running lights, and it slipped off with a nocturnal and stealthy velocity. On top of the cars there could be seen the dark shapes of the soldiers with their emplaced machine guns.
   After midnight a torrential cloudburst came up. Jos?Arcadio Segundo did not know where it was that he had jumped off, but he knew that by going in the opposite direction to that of the train he would reach Macondo. After walking for more than three hours, soaked to the skin, with a terrible headache, he was able to make out the first houses in the light of dawn. Attracted by the smell of coffee, he went into a kitchen where a woman with a child in her arms was leaning over the stove.
   “Hello,?he said, exhausted. “I’m Jos?Arcadio Segundo Buendía.?
   He pronounced his whole name, letter by letter, in order to convince her that he was alive. He was wise in doing so, because the woman had thought that he was an apparition as she saw the dirty, shadowy figure with his head and clothing dirty with blood and touched with the solemnity of death come through the door. She recognized him. She brought him a blanket so that he could wrap himself up while his clothes dried by the fire, she warmed some water to wash his wound, which was only a flesh wound, and she gave him a clean diaper to bandage his head. Then she gave him a mug of coffee without sugar as she had been told the Buendías drank it, and she spread his clothing out near the fire.
   Jos?Arcadio Segundo did not speak until he had finished drinking his coffee.
   “There must have been three thousand of them?he murmured.
   “What??
   “The dead,?he clarified. “It must have been an of the people who were at the station.?
   The woman measured him with a pitying look. “There haven’t been any dead here,?she said. “Since the time of your uncle, the colonel, nothing has happened in Macondo.?In the three kitchens where Jos?Arcadio Segundo stopped before reaching home they told him the same thing. “There weren’t any dead. He went through the small square by the station and he saw the fritter stands piled one on top of the other and he could find no trace of the massacre. The streets were deserted under the persistent rain and the houses locked up with no trace of life inside. The only human note was the first tolling of the bells for mass. He knocked at the door at Colonel Gavilán’s house. A pregnant woman whom he had seen several times closed the door in his face. “He left,?she said, frightened. “He went back to his own country.?The main entrance to the wire chicken coop was guarded as always by two local policemen who looked as if they were made of stone under the rain, with raincoats and rubber boots. On their marginal street the West Indian Negroes were singing Saturday psalms. Jos?Arcadio Segundo jumped over the courtyard wall and entered the house through the kitchen. Santa Sofía de la Piedad barely raised her voice. “Don’t let Fernanda see you,?she said. “She’s just getting up.?As if she were fulfilling an implicit pact, she took her son to the “chamberpot room.?arranged Melquíades?broken-down cot for him and at two in the afternoon, while Fernanda was taking her siesta, she passed a plate of food in to him through the window.
   Aureliano Segundo had slept at home because the rain had caught him time and at three in the afternoon he was still waiting for it to clear. Informed in secret by Santa Sofía de la Piedad, he visited his brother in Melquíades?room at that time. He did not believe the version of the massacre or the nightmare trip of the train loaded with corpses traveling toward the sea either. The night before he had read an extraordinary proclamation to the nation which said that the workers had left the station and had returned home in peaceful groups. The proclamation also stated that the union leaders, with great patriotic spirit, had reduced their demands to two points: a reform of medical services and the building of latrines in the living quarters. It was stated later that when the military authorities obtained the agreement with the workers, they hastened to tell Mr. Brown and he not only accepted the new conditions but offered to pay for three days of public festivities to celebrate the end of the conflict. Except that when the military asked him on what date they could announce the signing of the agreement, he looked out the window at the sky crossed with lightning flashes and made a profound gesture of doubt.
   “When the rain stops,?he said. “As long as the rain lasts we’re suspending all activities.?
   It had not rained for three months and there had been a drought. But when Mr. Brown announced his decision a torrential downpour spread over the whole banana region. It was the one that caught Jos?Arcadio Segundo on his way to Macondo. A week later it was still raining. The official version, repeated a thousand times and mangled out all over the country by every means of communication the government found at hand, was finally accepted: there were no dead, the satisfied workers had gone back to their families, and the banana company was suspending all activity until the rains stopped. Martial law continued with an eye to the necessity of taking emergency measures for the public disaster of the endless downpour, but the troops were confined to quarters. During the day the soldiers walked through the torrents in the streets with their pant legs rolled up, playing with boats with the children. At night after taps, they knocked doors down with their rifle butts, hauled suspects out of their beds, and took them off on trips from which there was no return. The search for and extermination of the hoodlums, murderers, arsonists, and rebels of Decree No. 4 was still going on, but the military denied it even to the relatives of the victims who crowded the commandant’s offices in search of news. “You must have been dreaming,?the officers insisted. “Nothing has happened in Macondo, nothing has ever happened, and nothing ever will happen. “This is a happy town.?In that way they were finally able to wipe out the union leaders.
   The only survivor was Jos?Arcadio Segundo. One February night the unmistakable blows of rifle butts were heard at the door. Aureliano Segundo, who was still waiting for it to clear, opened the door to six soldiers under the command of an officer. Soaking from the rain, without saying a word, they searched the house room by room, closet by closet, from parlor to pantry. ?rsula woke up when they turned on the light in her room and she did not breathe while the march went on but held her fingers in the shape of a cross, pointing them to where the soldiers were moving about. Santa Sofía de la Piedad managed to warn Jos?Arcadio Segundo, who was sleeping in Melquíades?room, but he could see that it was too late to try to escape. So Santa Sofía de la Piedad locked the door again and he put on his shirt and his shoes and sat down on the cot to wait for them. At that moment they were searching the gold workshop. The officer made them open the padlock and with a quick sweep of his lantern he saw the workbench and the glass cupboard with bottles of acid and instruments that were still where their owner had left them and he seemed to understand that no one lived in that room. He wisely asked Aureliano Segundo if he was a silversmith, however, and the latter explained to him that it had been Colonel Aureliano Buendía’s workshop. “Oho,?the officer said, turned on the lights, and ordered such a minute search that they did not miss the eighteen little gold fishes that had not been melted down and that were hidden behind the bottles Is their tin can. The officer examined them one by one on the workbench and then he turned human. “I’d like to take one, if I may,?he said. “At one time they were a mark of subversion, but now they’re relics.?He was young, almost an adolescent, with no sign of timidity and with a natural pleasant manner that had not shown itself until then. Aureliano Segundo gave him the little fish. The officer put it in his shirt pocket with a childlike glow in his eyes and he put the others back in the can and set it back where it had been.
   “It’s a wonderful memento,?he said. “Colonel Aureliano Buendía was one of our greatest men.?
   Nevertheless, that surge of humanity did not alter his professional conduct. At Melquíades?room, which was locked up again with the padlock, Santa Sofía de la Piedad tried one last hope. “No one has lived in that room for a century,?she said. The officer had it opened and flashed the beam of the lantern over it, and Aureliano Segundo and Santa Sofía de la Piedad saw the Arab eyes of Jos?Arcadio Segundo at the moment when the ray of light passed over his face and they understood that it was the end of one anxiety and the beginning of another which would find relief only in resignation. But the officer continued examining the room with the lantern and showed no sign of interest until he discovered the seventy-two chamberpots piled up in the cupboards. Then he turned on the light. Jos?Arcadio Segundo was sitting on the edge of the cot, ready to go, more solemn and pensive than ever. In the background were the shelves with the shredded books, the rolls of parchment, and the clean and orderly worktable with the ink still fresh in the inkwells. There was the same pureness in the air, the same clarity, the same respite from dust and destruction that Aureliano Segundo had known in childhood and that only Colonel Aureliano Buendía could not perceive. But the officer was only interested in the chamberpots.
   “How many people live in this house??he asked.
   “Five.?
   The officer obviously did not understand. He paused with his glance on the space where Aureliano Segundo and Santa Soft de la Piedad were still seeing Jos?Arcadio Segundo and the latter also realized that the soldier was looking at him without seeing him. Then he turned out the light and closed the door. When he spoke to the soldiers, Aureliano, Segundo understood that the young officer had seen the room with the same eyes as Colonel Aureliano Buendía.
   “It’s obvious that no one has been in that room for at least a hundred years.?the officer said to the soldiers. “There must even be snakes in there.?
   When the door closed, Jos?Arcadio Segundo was sure that the war was over. Years before Colonel Aureliano Buendía had spoken to him about the fascination of war and had tried to show it to him with countless examples drawn from his own experience. He had believed him. But the night when the soldiers looked at him without seeing him while he thought about the tension of the past few months, the misery of jail, the panic at the station, and the train loaded with dead people, Jos?Arcadio Segundo reached the conclusion that Colonel Aureliano Buendía was nothing but a faker or an imbecile. He could not understand why he had needed so many words to explain what he felt in war because one was enough: fear. In Melquíades?room, on the other hand, protected by the supernatural light, by the sound of the rain, by the feeling of being invisible, he found the repose that he had not had for one single instant during his previous life, and the only fear that remained was that they would bury him alive. He told Santa Sofía de la Piedad about it when she brought him his daily meals and she promised to struggle to stay alive even beyond her natural forces in order to make sure that they would bury him dead. Free from all fear, Jos?Arcadio Segundo dedicated himself then to peruse the manuscripts of Melquíades many times, and with so much more pleasure when he could not understand them. He became accustomed to the sound of the rain, which after two months had become another form of silence, and the only thing that disturbed his solitude was the coming and going of Santa Sofía de la Piedad. He asked her, therefore, to leave the meals on the windowsill and padlock the door. The rest of the family forgot about him including Fernanda, who did not mind leaving him there when she found that the soldiers had seen him without recognizing him. After six months of enclosure, since the soldiers had left Macondo Aureliano Segundo removed the padlock, looking for someone he could talk to until the rain stopped. As soon as he opened the door he felt the pestilential attack of the chamberpots, which were placed on the floor and all of which had been used several times. Jos?Arcadio Segundo, devoured by baldness, indifferent to the air that had been sharpened by the nauseating vapors, was still reading and rereading the unintelligible parchments. He was illuminated by a seraphic glow. He scarcely raised his eyes when he heard the door open, but that look was enough for his brother to see repeated in it the irreparable fate of his great-grandfather.
   “There were more than three thousand of them,?was all that Jos?Arcadio Segundo said. “I’m sure now that they were everybody who had been at the station.?



第十五章

  整个马孔多将要遭到致命打击的那些事情刚露苗头,梅梅的儿子就给送到家里来了。全镇处于惊惶不安的状态,谁也不愿去管别人的家庭丑事,因此,菲兰达决定利用这种有利情况把孩子藏起来,仿佛肚上没有他这个人似的。她不得不收留这个孙子,因为周围的环境不容许她拒绝。事与愿违,她到死的一天都得承认这个孩子;她本来暗中决定在浴宝水池里把他溺毙,可是在最后时刻她又失去了这种勇气。她把他关在奥雷连诺上校往日的作坊里,她让圣索菲娅.德拉佩德相信,她是在河上漂来的一只柳条筐里发现这个孩子的。乌苏娜直到临终的时候,始终都不知道他的出生秘密。有一天,小姑娘阿玛兰塔。乌苏娜偶然走进作坊,菲兰达正在那儿喂孩子,小姑娘也相信了关于柳条筐的说法。因为妻子的荒唐行为毁了梅梅的一生,奥雷连诺第二终于离开了妻子,他是三年以后才知道这个孙子的,那时由于菲兰达的疏忽,孩子跑出了作坊,在长廊上呆了一会儿——这孩子全身赤裸裸的,头发乱蓬蓬的,他的男性器官犹如火鸡的垂肉;他不象人,而象百科全书中野人的图像。
  菲兰达没有料到无可避免的命运会这样残酷地捉弄她。她认为已经永远雪洗了的耻辱,仿佛又跟这个孩子一起回到了家里。当初还没抬走负伤的毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚时,菲兰达已经周密地想好了消灭一切可耻痕迹的计划,她没跟丈夫商量,第二天就收拾好了行李,把女儿的三套换洗衣服放进一口小提箱,在列车开行之前半小时来到梅梅的卧室。
  “走吧,雷纳塔,”她说。
  菲兰达未作任何解释,梅梅也没要求和希望解释。梅梅不知道她俩要去哪儿,然而,即使带她到屠宰场去,她也是不在乎的。自从她听到后院的熗声唯物主义和经验批判主义全名《唯物主义和经验批判主,同时听到毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚疼痛的叫声,她就没说一句话,至死都没有再说什么。母亲叫她走出卧室的时候,她没杭头,没洗脸,就象梦游入似的坐上火车,甚至没去注意还在她头上飞来飞去的黄蝴蝶。菲兰达决不知道,而且不想知道,女儿死不吭声是表示她的决心呢,还足她遭到打击之后变成了哑巴。梅梅几乎没有注意她们经过了往日的“魔区”,她没看见铁道两边绿荫如盖的、广亵无边的香蕉园,她没看见外国佬白色的儿园房子,由于炎热和尘上,这些口子显出一派干旱的景象;她没看见穿着短裤和蓝白条纹上衣、在露台上玩纸牌的女人;她没看见尘土飞扬的道路上满载香蕉的牛车,她没看见象鱼儿一样在清澈的河里嬉戏的姑娘,她们那高耸的乳房真叫火车上的乘客感到难受;她没看见工人们居住的肮脏简陋的棚屋——毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚的黄蝴蝶正在棚屋周围飞舞,而棚屋门前却何一些又瘦又脏的孩子坐在自己的瓦罐上,几个怀孕的女人正在朝着驶过的列车臭骂,从前,梅梅从修道院学校回家的时候,这些一晃而过的景象是叫她愉快的,现在却没使她的胸怀恢复生气。她没朝窗外看上一眼,即使散发着热气和潮气的种植园已到尽头,列车穿越一片罂粟地(罂粟中间仍然立若烧焦的西班牙大帆船骨架),然后驶人泡沫直翻、污浊混沌的大海旁边清新空气里的时候,她都没朝窗外瞧上一眼;几乎一百年前,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的幻想曾在这大海之滨遭到破灭。
  下午1点钟,她们到了沼泽地带的终点站,菲兰达把梅梅领出车厢,她们坐上一辆蝙蝠似的小马车,穿过一座荒凉的城市,驾车的马象气喘病人一样直喘粗气,在城内宽长的街道上空,在海盐摧裂的土地上空,回荡着菲兰达青年时代每天午休时听到的钢琴声。她俩登上一艘内河轮船,轮船包着生锈的外壳,象火炉似的冒着热气,而木制蹼轮的叶片划着河水的时候,却象消防唧筒那样发出噗哧噗哧的响声。梅梅躲在自己的船舱里。菲兰达每天两次拿一碟食物放在梅梅床边,每天两次又把原封未动的食物拿走,这倒不是因为梅梅决心饿死,而是因为她厌恶食物的气味,她的胃甚至把水都倒了出来。梅梅还不怀疑用芥未膏沐浴对她并无帮助,就象菲兰达几乎一年以后见到了孩子才明白真相一样。在闷热的船舱里,铁舱壁不住地震动,蹼轮搅起的淤泥臭得难闻,梅梅已经记不得日子了。过了许多时间,她才看见最后一只黄蝴蝶在电扇的叶片里丧生,终于意识到毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚已经死了,这是无法挽回的事了。可是梅梅没有忘记自己钟爱的人。她一路上都不断想到他。接着,她和母亲骑着骡子经过幻景幢幢的荒漠(奥雷连诺第二寻找世上最美的女人时曾在这儿徘徊过),然后沿着印第安人的小径爬上山岗,进入一座阴森的城市;这里都是石铺的、陡峭的街道,三十二个钟楼都敲起了丧钟,她俩在一座古老荒弃的宅子里过夜,房间里长满了杂草,菲兰达铺在地上的木板成了她俩的卧铺,菲兰达把早已变成破布的窗帘取下来,铺在光木板上,身体一动破布就成了碎片。梅梅已经猜到她们是在哪儿了,因为她睡不着觉,浑身战栗,看见一个身穿黑衣的先生从旁走过,这就是很久以前的一个圣诞节前夕用铅制的箱子抬到她们家中的那个人。第二天弥撒以后,菲兰达把她带到一座阴暗的房子。梅梅凭她多次听到的母亲讲过的修道院(她母亲家中曾想在这儿把她母亲培养成为女王),立即认出了它,知道旅行到了终点。菲兰达在隔壁房间里跟什么人谈话的时候,梅梅就在客厅里等候;客厅里挂着西班牙人主教古老的大幅油画。梅梅冷得发抖,因为他还穿若满是黑色小花朵的薄衣服,高腰皮鞋也给荒原上的冰弄得翘起来了。她站在客厅中间彩绘玻璃透过来的昏黄的灯光下面,想着毛里西奥.巴比洛尼亚;随后,隔壁房间里走出一个很美的修女,手里拎着梅梅的衣箱。她走过梅梅面前的时候,停都没停一下,拉着梅梅的手,说:
  “走吧,雷纳塔。”
  梅梅抓住修女的手,顺从地让她把她带走。菲兰达最后一次看见女儿的时候,这姑娘跟上修女的脚步,已经到了刚刚关上的修道院铁栅栏另一面。梅梅仍在思念毛里西奥.巴比洛尼亚——想着他身上发出的机油气味,想着他头上的一群黄蝴蝶——“庸俗唯物主义”。,而且终生都想着他,直到很久以后一个秋天的早晨,她老死在克拉科夫一个阴暗的医院里;她是化名死去的,始终没说什么。
  菲兰达是搭乘武装警察保护的列车返回马孔多的。旅途上,她惊异地看出了乘客们紧张的面孔,发现了铁路沿线城镇的军事戒备状态,闻到了山雨欲来风满楼的气息,然而菲兰达并不明白这是怎么一回事,回到马孔多之后她才听说,霍.阿卡蒂奥第二正在鼓动香焦园工人罢工。“我们家里就是需要一个无政府主义者嘛,”菲兰达自言自语。两个星期之后,罢工就开始了,没有发生大家担心的悲惨后果。工人们拒绝在星期天收割和运送香蕉,这个要求似乎是十分合理的,就连伊萨贝尔神父也表示赞许,认为它是符合圣规的。这次罢工的胜利,犹如随后几个月爆发的罢工,使得霍·阿卡蒂奥第二的苍白形象有了光彩,因为人家一贯说他只会让法国妓女充斥整个市镇。就象从前突然决定卖掉自己的斗鸡,准备建立毫无意义的航行企业那样,霍.阿卡蒂奥第二现在决定放弃香蕉公司监工的职务,站在工人方面。没过多久,政府就宣称他是国际阴谋集团的走狗,说他破坏社会秩序。在谣言纷纷的一周间,有一天夜晚,在离开秘密会议的路上,他神奇地逃脱了一个陌生人暗中向他射来的四颗手熗子弹。随后几个月的空气是那么紧张,就连乌苏娜在她黑暗的角落里也感觉到了,她仿佛又处在儿子奥雷连诺上校衣兜里塞满“顺势疗法”药丸掩护颠覆活动的那种危险时代。她想跟霍.阿卡蒂奥第二谈谈,让他知道过去的经验教训,可是奥雷连诺第二告诉她说,从他兄弟遭到暗杀的那一夜起,谁也不知道他到哪儿去了。
  “跟奥雷连诺上校一模一样,”乌苏娜慨叹一声。“仿佛世上的一切都在循环。”
  这些日子的惶惶不安并没有使菲兰达受到影响。由于她未经丈夫同意就决定了梅梅的命运,丈夫生气地跟她大吵了一顿,她就不跟外界接触了。奥雷连诺第二威胁她,说他要把女儿从修道院里弄出来——必要时就请警察帮忙——,可是菲兰达给他看了几张纸儿原则同格见“原则同格论”。,证明梅梅是自愿进修道院的,其实,梅梅在这些纸儿上签字时,已在铁栅栏里边了,而且象她让母亲带她出来一样,她在纸上签个字儿也是无所谓的,奥雷连诺第二内心深处并不相信这种证明是真的,就象他决不相信毛里西奥.巴比洛尼亚钻进院子是想偷鸡。但是两种解释都帮助他安了心,使他毫不懊悔地回到佩特娜·柯特的卵翼下,在她家里重新狂欢作乐和大摆酒宴。菲兰达对全镇的恐慌毫不过问,对乌苏娜可怕的预言充耳不闻,加紧实现自己的计划。她写了一封长信给霍.阿卡蒂奥(他很快就成了牧师),说他妹妹雷纳塔患了黄热病,已经安谧地长眠了。然后,她把阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜交给圣索菲娅.德拉佩德照顾,就重新跟没有见过的医生通信,因为这样的通信被梅梅的不幸事故打断了。她首先确定了接受心灵感应术治疗的最后日期。可是没有见过的医生回答她说,马孔多的混乱状态还没结束的时候,施行这种手术是轻率的。菲兰达心情急切,消息很不灵通,便在下一封信里向他们说,镇上没有任何混乱,现在一切都怪她狂妄的夫兄极端愚蠢,着迷地去干工会的事儿,就象从前狂热地爱上斗鸡和航行那样。在一个炎热的星期三,她和医生们还没取得一致的意见,就有一个手上挎着小筐子的老修女来敲房门。圣索菲娅·德拉佩德把门打开以后,以为这是谁送来的礼物,想从修女手中接过雅致的花边餐巾遮住的筐子。可是老修女阻止了她,因为人家嘱咐她把筐子秘密地亲自交给菲兰达·德卡皮奥·布恩蒂亚太太。躺在筐子里的是梅梅的儿子。菲兰达往日的忏悔神父在信里向她说,孩子是两个月前出生的,他们已经给他取名叫奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚,以纪念他的祖父,因为他的母亲根本不愿张嘴表示自己的意愿。菲兰达心中痛恨命运的捉弄,但她还有足够的力量在修女面前加以遮掩。
  “咱们就说是在河上漂来的筐子里发现他的吧,”她微笑着说。
  “谁也不会相信这种说法,”修女说。
  “如果大家相信《圣经》里的说法,”菲兰达回答,“我看不出人家为什么不相信我的说法。”
  为了等候返回的列车,修女留在布恩蒂亚家中吃午饭,并且根据修道院里的嘱咐,再也没有提孩子的事,可是菲兰达把她看做是不受欢迎的丑事见证人,就抱怨中世纪的风俗已经过时了,按照那种风俗是要把传递坏消息的人吊死的。于是菲兰达拿定主意,只要修女一走,就把婴儿淹死在水池里,但她没有这种勇气,只好耐心等待仁慈的上帝让她摆脱这个累赘。
  新生的奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚满周岁的时候,马孔多突然又出现了紧张的空气。霍.阿卡蒂奥第二和其他的工会头头是一直处于地下状态的,周末忽然到了镇上,并且在香蕉地区的城镇里组织示威游行。警察只是维持社会秩序。然而,星期一夜间,一伙士兵把工会头头们从床上拖了起来,给他们戴上五公斤重的脚镣,投进了省城的监狱。被捕的还有霍·阿卡蒂奥第二和洛伦索.加维兰上校;这个上校参加过墨西哥的革命,流亡到了马孔多,说他目睹过他的朋友阿特米奥·克鲁斯的英雄壮举。可是不过三个月,他们就获释了。因为谁该支付犯人的伙食费,政府和香蕉公司未能达成协议。食品质量恶劣和劳动条件不好又引起了不满的浪潮。此外,工人们抱怨说,他们领到的布是真正的钱,而是临时购货券,只能在香蕉公司的商店里购买弗吉尼亚(注:美国地名)火腿。霍.阿卡蒂奥第二关进监狱,正是因为他揭露了临时购货券制度,说它是香蕉公司为水果船筹措资金的办法,如果没有商店的买卖,水果船就会空空如也地从新奥尔良回到香蕉港。工人们其余的要求是有关生活条件和医务工作的。公司的医生们不给病人诊断,光叫他们在门诊所前面排队,而且护士只给每个病人口里放一粒硫酸铜颜色的药丸,不管病人患的是什么病——疟疾、淋病或者便秘。还有一种普遍的疗法是,孩子们排了几次队,医生们却不给他们吞药丸,而把他们带到自己家里去当做“宾戈*”赌博的“筹码”。工人们都极端拥挤地住在快要倒塌的板棚里,工程师们不给他们修建茅房,而是每逢圣诞节在镇上安置若干活动厕所,每五十个人使用一个厕所,而且这些工程师还当众表演如何使用厕所,以使它们寿命长久一些。身穿黑衣服的老朽的律师们,从前曾经围着奥雷连诺上校打转,现在却代表香蕉公司的利益,好象耍魔术一样巧妙地驳斥了工人们的控诉。工人们拟了一份一致同意的请愿书,过了很久官方才通知香蕉公司。布劳恩先生刚刚听到请愿书的事,立即把玻璃顶棚的华丽车厢挂在列车上,带着公司中最重要的代表人物悄悄地离开了马孔多。但在下个星期六,工人们在妓院里找到了其中一个人物,强迫他在请愿书副本上签了字,这个人物是一个妓女同意把他诱入陷阱的,他还赤身露体地跟这个女人躺在一起就给抓住了。然而气急败坏的律师们在法庭上证明,这个人跟香蕉公司毫无关系,为了不让任何人怀疑他们的论证,他们要政府把这个人当做骗子关进监狱。随后,工人们抓到了在三等车厢里化名旅行的布劳恩先生本人,强迫他在请愿书的另一副本上签了字。第二天,他就把头发染黑,出现在法官们面前,说一口无可指摘的西班牙语。律师们证明,这并不是亚拉巴马州普拉特维尔城出生的杰克·布劳恩先生——香蕉公司总经理,而是马孔多出生的、无辜的药材商人,名叫达戈贝托·冯塞卡。嗣后,工人们又想去抓布劳恩先生的时候,律师们在各个公共场所张贴了他的死亡证明书,证明书是由驻外使馆领事和参赞签字的,证明六月九号杰克·布劳恩先生在芝加哥被救火车轧死了。工人们厌恶这种诡辩的胡言,就不理会地方政权,向上级法院提出控诉。可是那里的法学魔术师证明,工人的要求是完全非法的,香蕉公司没有、从来没有、也决不会有任何正式工人,——公司只是偶尔雇佣他们来做些临时性的工作。所以,弗吉尼亚火腿,神奇药丸以及圣诞节厕所都是无稽之谈,法院裁定并庄严宣布:根本没有什么工人。
  *宾戈,一种赌博,从袋子里取出标有号码的牌子,放在手中纸板上的相同号码上,谁先摆满纸板号码,谁就获胜。
  大罢工爆发了。种植园的工作停顿下来,香蕉在树上烂掉,一百二十节车厢的列车凝然不动地停在铁道侧线上。城乡到处都是失业工人。土耳其人街上开始了没完没了的星期六,在雅各旅馆的台球房里,球台旁边昼夜都拥聚着人,轮流上场玩耍。军队奉命恢复社会秩序的消息宣布那一天,霍.阿卡蒂奥第二正在台球房里。他虽没有预见才能,但把这个消息看做是死亡的预兆,从格林列尔多·马克斯上校让他去看行刑的那个遥远的早晨起,他就在等候这种死亡。但是,凶兆并没有使他失去自己固有的坚忍精神。他拿球杆一碰台球,如愿地击中了两个球。过了片刻,街上的鼓声、喇叭声、叫喊声和奔跑声都向他说明,不仅台球游戏,而且从那天黎明看了行刑以后自己玩的沉默和孤独的“游戏”,全都结束了。于是他走上街头,便看见了他们。在街上经过的有三个团的士兵,他们在鼓声下整齐地行进,把大地都震动了。这是明亮的晌午,空气中充满了这条多头巨龙吐出的臭气。士兵们都很矮壮、粗犷。他们身上发出马汗气味和阳光晒软的揉皮的味儿,在他们身上可以感到山地人默不作声的,不可战胜的大无畏精神。尽管他们在霍.阿.阿卡蒂奥第二面前走过了整整一个小时,然而可以认为这不过是几个班,他们都在兜着圈儿走,他们彼此相似,仿佛是一个母亲养的儿子。他们同样显得呆头呆脑,带着沉重的背包和水壶,扛着插上刺刀的可耻的步熗,患着盲目服从的淋巴腺鼠疫症,怀着荣誉感。乌苏娜从晦暗的床上听到他们的脚步声,就举起双手合成十字。圣索菲娅·德拉佩德俯身在刚刚熨完的绣花桌布上愣了片刻,想到了自己的儿子霍·阿卡蒂奥第二,而他却站在雅各旅馆门口,不动声色地望着最后一些士兵走过。
  根据戒严令,军队应当在争执中起到仲裁者的作用,决不能在争执者之间当和事佬。士兵们耀武扬威地经过马孔多之后,就架起了熗支,开始收割香蕉,装上列车运走了。至今还在静待的工人们,进入了树林,仅用大砍刀武装起来,展开了反对工贼的斗争。他们焚烧公司的庄园和商店,拆毁铁路路基,阻挠用机熗开辟道路的列车通行,割断电话线和电报线。灌溉渠里的水被血染红了。安然无恙地呆在“电气化养鸡场”里的布劳恩先生,在士兵们保护下,带着自己的和同国人的家眷逃出了马孔多,给送到了安全地点。正当事态将要发展成为力量悬殊的、血腥的内战时,政府号召工人们在马孔多集中起来。号召书声称,省城的军政首脑将在下星期蔽临镇上,调解冲突。
  星期五清早聚集在车站上的人群中,也有霍·阿卡蒂奥第二。前一天,他参加了工会头头们的会议,会上指示他和加维兰上校混在群众中间,根据情况引导他们的行动。霍·阿卡蒂奥第二觉得不大自在:因为军队在车站广场周围架起了机熗,香蕉公司的、铁栅栏围着的小镇也用大炮保护起来;他一发现这个情况,总是觉得嘴里有一种苦咸味儿。约莫中午十二点钟,三千多人——工人、妇女和儿童——为了等候还没到达的列车,拥满了车站前面的广场,聚集在邻近的街道上,街道是由士兵们用机熗封锁住的。起初,这更象是节日的游艺会。从土耳其人街上,搬来了出售食品饮料的摊子,人们精神抖擞地忍受着令人困倦的等待和灼热的太阳。三点钟之前有人传说,载着政府官员的列车最早明天才能到达。疲乏的群众失望地叹了叹气。车站房屋顶上有四挺机熗的熗口对准人群,一名中尉爬上屋顶,让大家肃静。霍·阿卡蒂奥第二身边站着一个赤脚的胖女人,还有两个大约四岁和七岁的孩子。她牵着小的一个,要求她不认识的霍·阿卡蒂奥第二抱起另一个,让这孩子能够听得清楚一些。霍·阿卡蒂奥第二把孩子放在自己肩上。多年以后,这个孩子还向大家说(虽然谁也不相信他的话),中尉用扩音喇叭宣读了省城军政首脑的第四号命令。命令是由卡洛斯·柯特斯·伐加斯将军和他的秘书恩里克·加西亚·伊萨扎少校签署的,在八十个字的三条命令里,把罢工者说成是“一伙强盗”,授命军队不惜子弹,打死他们。
  命令引起了震耳欲聋的抗议声,可是一名上尉立即代替了屋顶上的中尉,挥着扩音喇叭表示他想讲话。人群又安静了。
  “女士们和先生们,”上尉低声、缓和地说,显得有点困倦。“限你们五分钟离开。”
  唿哨声和喊叫声压倒了宣布时限开始的喇叭声,谁也没动。
  “五分钟过了,”上尉用同样的声调说。“再过一分钟就开熗啦。”
  霍·阿卡蒂奥第二浑身冷汗,放下孩子,把他交给他母亲。“这帮坏蛋要开熗啦,”她嘟哝地说。霍·阿卡蒂奥第二来不及回答,因为他立刻听出了加维兰上校嘶哑的嗓音,上校象回音似的大声重复了女人所说的话,时刻紧急,周围静得出奇,霍.阿卡蒂奥第二象喝醉了酒似的,但他相信没有任何力量能够挪动在死神凝视下岿然不动的群众,就踮起脚尖,越过前面的头顶,平生第一次提高嗓门叫道:
  “杂种!你们趁早滚蛋吧!”
  话音刚落,事情就发生了;这时,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二产生的不是恐惧,而是一种幻觉。上尉发出了开熗的命令,十四挺机熗立即响应。但这一切象是滑稽戏。他们仿佛在作空弹射击,因为机熗的哒哒声可以听到,闪闪的火舌可以看见,但是紧紧挤在一起的群众既没叫喊一声,也没叹息一声,他们都象石化了,变得刀熗不入了。蓦然间,在车站另一边,一声临死的嚎叫,使大家从迷糊状态中清醒过来:“啊一啊一啊一啊,妈妈呀!”好象强烈的地震,好象火山的轰鸣,好象洪水的咆哮,震动了人群的中心,顷刻间扩及整个广场。霍·阿卡蒂奥第二刚刚拉住一个孩子,母亲和另一个孩子就被混乱中奔跑的人群卷走了。
  多年以后,尽管大家认为这孩子已经是个昏聩的老头儿,但他还在说,霍.阿卡蒂奥第二如何把他举在头上,几乎让他悬在空中,仿佛在人群的恐怖浪潮中漂浮似的,把他带到邻近的一条街上。举过人们头顶的孩子从上面望见,慌乱的人群开始接近街角,那里的一排机熗开火了。几个人同时叫喊:
  “卧倒!卧倒!”
  前面的人已给机熗子弹击倒了,活着的人没有卧倒,试图回到广场上去。于是,在惊惶失措的状态中,好象有一条龙的尾巴把人群象浪涛似的扫去,迎头碰上了另一条街的另一条龙尾扫来的浪涛,因为那儿的机熗也在不停地扫射。人们好象栏里的牲畜似的给关住了:他们在一个巨大的漩涡中旋转,这个漩涡逐渐向自己的中心收缩,因为它的周边被机熗火力象剪刀似的毫不停辍地剪掉了——就象剥洋葱头那样。孩子看见,一个女人双手合成十字,跪在空地中间,神秘地摆脱了蜂拥的人群。霍.阿卡蒂奥第二也把孩子摔在这儿了,他倒在地上,满脸是血,汹涌的巨大人流扫荡了空地,扫荡了跪着的女人,扫荡了酷热的天穹投下的阳光,扫荡了这个卑鄙龌龊的世界;在这个世界上,乌苏娜曾经卖过那么多的糖动物啊。
  霍.阿卡蒂奥第二苏醒的时候,是仰面躺着的,周围一片漆黑。他明白自己是在一列颀长、寂静的火车上,他的头上凝着一块血,浑身的骨头都在发痛。他耐不住想睡。他想在这儿连续睡它许多小时,因为他离开了恐怖场面,在安全的地方了,于是他朝不太痛的一边侧过身去,这才发现自己是躺在一些尸体上的。尸体塞满了整个车厢,只是车厢中间留了一条通道。大屠杀之后大概已过了几个小时,因为尸体的温度就象秋天的石膏,也象硬化的泡沫塑料。把他们搬上车来的那些人,甚至还有时间把他们一排排地堆叠起来,就象通常运送香蕉那样。霍·阿卡蒂奥第二打算摆脱这种可怕的处境,就从一个车厢爬到另一个车厢,爬到列车前去;列车驶过沉睡的村庄时,壁板之间的缝隙透进了闪烁的亮光,他便看见死了的男人、女人和孩子,他们将象报废的香蕉给扔进大海。他只认出了两个人:一个是在广场上出售清凉饮料的女人,一个是加维兰上校——上校手上依然绕着莫雷利亚(注:墨西哥地名)银色扣子的皮带,他曾试图在混乱的人群中用它给自己开辟道路。到了第一节车厢,霍.阿卡蒂奥第二往列车外面的黑暗中纵身一跳,便躺在轨道旁边的沟里,等着列车驶过。这是他见过的最长的列车——几乎有二百节运货车厢,列车头尾各有一个机车,中间还有一个机车。列车上没有一点儿灯光,甚至没有红色和绿色信号灯,他沿着钢轨悄悄地、迅捷地溜过去。列车顶上隐约现出机熗旁边士兵的身影。
  半夜以后,大雨倾盆而下。霍·阿卡蒂奥第二不知道他跳下的地方是哪儿,但他明白,如果逆着列车驶去的方向前进,就能到达马孔多。经过三个多小时的路程,浑身湿透,头痛已极,他在黎明的亮光中看见了市镇边上的一些房子。受到咖啡气味的引诱,他走进了一户人家的厨房,一个抱着孩子的妇人正俯身在炉灶上。
  “您好,”他精疲力尽地说。“我是霍·阿卡蒂奥第二·布恩蒂亚。”
  他逐字地说出自己的整个姓名,想让她相信他是活人。他做得挺聪明,因为她看见他走进屋来时,面色阴沉,疲惫不堪,浑身是血,死死板板,还当他是个幽灵哩。她认出了霍·阿卡蒂奥第二。她拿来一条毯子,让他裹在身上,就在灶边烘干他的衣服,烧水给他洗伤口(他只是破了点皮),并且给了他一块干净尿布缠在头上。然后,她又把一杯无糖的咖啡放在他面前(因为她曾听说布恩蒂亚家的人喜欢喝这种咖啡),便将衣服挂在炉灶旁边。
  霍.阿卡蒂奥第二喝完咖啡之前,一句话也没说。
  “那儿大概有三千,”他咕哝着说。
  “什么?”
  “死人,”他解释说,“大概全是聚在车站上的人。”
  妇人怜悯地看了看他。“这里不曾有过死人,”她说。“自从你的亲戚——奥雷连诺上校去世以来,马孔多啥事也没发生过。”在回到家里之前,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二去过三家人的厨房,人家都同样告诉他:“这儿不曾有过死人。”他经过车站广场,看见了一些乱堆着的食品摊子,没有发现大屠杀的任何痕迹。雨还在下个不停,街道空荡荡的,在一间间紧闭的房子里,甚至看不出生命的迹象。唯一证明这里有人的,是叫人去做早祷的钟声。霍·阿卡蒂奥第二敲了敲加维兰上校家的门。他以前见过多次的这个怀孕的女人,在他面前砰地把门关上。“他走啦,”她惶惑地说,“回他的国家去啦。”在“电气化养鸡场”的大门口,照常站着两个本地的警察,穿着雨衣和长统胶靴,活象雨下的石雕像。在镇郊的小街上,印第安黑人正在唱圣歌。霍.阿卡蒂奥第二越过院墙,钻进布恩蒂亚家的厨房。圣索菲娅.德拉佩德低声向他说:“当心,别让菲兰达看见你。她已经起床啦。”仿佛履行某种无言的协议,圣索菲娅·德拉佩德领着儿子进了“便盆间”,把梅尔加德斯那个破了的折叠床安排给他睡觉;下午两点,当菲兰达睡午觉的时候,她就从窗口递给他一碟食物。
  奥雷连诺第二留在家里过夜,因为遇到了雨,下午三点他还在等候天晴。圣索菲娅·德拉佩德把他兄弟回来的事秘密地告诉了他,他就到梅尔加德斯的房间里去了。奥雷连诺第二既不相信广场上的大屠杀事件,也不相信夜间列车载着尸体开往海边的恶梦。前一天晚上,马孔多宣布了政府的特别通告,说工人们服从命令离开了车站,成群地安然回家去了。通告中还说,工人领袖们怀着崇高的爱国热情,把他们的要求归结为两点:改革医疗设施,棚区修建公共厕所。随后,奥雷连诺第二知道,军事当局和工人达成协议之后,就急忙通知布劳恩先生,他不仅同意满足新的要求,甚至建议由公司出钱举行三天的群众游艺会,借以庆祝和解。然而,军事当局问他哪一天可以在协议上签字的时候,他望了望窗外电光闪闪的天空,装出一副意味深长的疑虑样儿。
  “等雨停以后,”他说。“只要还在下雨,我们就暂停一切活动。”
  整整三个月没有降雨,出现了干旱的季节。可是布劳恩先生刚刚宣布自己的决定,整个香蕉地区就下起了滂沱大雨。这就是霍.阿卡蒂奥第二返回马孔多的路上遇到的大雨。一个星期之后,暴雨还在继续。政府的说法重复了多次,通过官方的各种消息渠道传到居民们耳朵里,居民们终于相信:没有死人,满意的工人回到了自己家里,香蕉公司暂停一切活动,直到暴雨终止。戒严令继续有效,如果连绵的暴雨引起什么灾祸,就得采取非常措施,但是军队撤回了兵营。白天,士兵们卷起裤腿,在变成了洪流的街道上逛来逛去,并且和孩子们一起划着小船玩耍。夜间,宵禁开始之后,他们就用熗托砸开人家的房门,把可疑的人拖出床铺,送到一去不复返的地方去。士兵们仍在搜查和消灭罪犯、杀人犯、纵火犯和第四号命令的破坏分子,可是军事当局即使在牺牲者的亲人面前也否认这种情形,这些家属挤满了警备队长的接待室,希望知道被捕者的命运。“我相信你们不过是做了个梦,”警备队长硬说。“马孔多过去没有发生、现在没有发生、将来也不会发生任何事情。这是一个幸福的市镇嘛。”工会头头们就这样被消灭了。
  唯一的幸存者是霍.阿卡蒂奥第二。二月里的一个夜晚,房门被敲得震动起来,是用熗托敲的——这种声音不会跟任何声音相混。奥雷连诺第二仍在等候天气晴了就出去,他开了门,看见了一个军官率领下的六名士兵,全都穿着湿淋淋的雨衣。他们二话没说,就在房子里搜查起来,从一个房间到一个房间,从一个橱柜到一个橱柜,从客厅到储藏室。房间里的灯扭亮时,乌苏娜醒了过来,士兵们翻箱倒柜,她都没有吭声,但是双手合十地对着士兵们搜查的地方。圣索菲娅.德拉佩德已经唤醒霍·阿卡蒂奥第二,他是睡在梅尔加德斯房间里的,但他立即明白,企图逃跑已经太迟了。圣索菲娅.德拉佩德重新锁上房门,他就穿上衬衫和鞋子,坐在床沿等着他们进来。这时,他们正要搜查首饰作坊。军官命令打开挂锁,举起灯来朝房间里很快扫视一遍,便看见了工作台、盛放酸类瓶子的玻璃柜以及各种器械,这些器械仍在主人原来放置的地方,他似乎明白这个房间是无人居住的,然而诡谲地询问奥雷连诺第二是不是首饰匠,奥雷连诺第二说明这儿是奥雷连诺上校的作坊。“啊哈!”军官说着扭开了电灯,命令彻底搜查,因此,就连十几只金鱼也没瞒过他们的眼睛——这些金鱼没有熔化,仍在瓶子后面的铁罐子里。军官把金鱼倒在工作台上,仔细地瞧了瞧每一只,然后显然温和了一些。“如果你们允许的话,我想要一只。”他说,“从前,它们是叛乱分子的识别标志,可现在是珍贵的纪念品了。”他很年轻,几乎是个少年,但是态度沉着,现在才显出他身上有点讨人喜欢的东西。奥雷连诺第二给了他一只金鱼。这个军官象孩子似的高兴得两眼发亮,把一只金鱼放进衬衣口袋,而将其余的投入罐里,把罐子放在原处。
  “这东西是无价之宝,”他说。“奥雷连诺上校是一个最伟大的人物嘛。”
  然而,人道的冲动并没有影响他的职业行动。在梅尔加德斯的房门前面,圣索菲娅.德拉佩德使出了她的最后一招。“这儿几乎一百年不曾住人了,”她说。军官命令打开房门,拿灯火朝房间里扫了一遍,光线在霍.阿卡蒂奥第二脸上掠过的片该间,奥雷连诺第二和圣索菲娅·德拉佩德都瞧见了他那阿拉伯人似的眼睛,明白这是一种担忧的终结,另一种担忧的开端,要解除这种担忧只有听天由命。然而军官拿灯照射房间,没有显露任何兴趣,直到发现了堆在橱里的七十二个便盆。接着,他极开电灯。霍.阿卡蒂奥第二显出比以前更加庄重和沉思的神态,坐在床沿,准备站起来就走。在他身后可以看见放着破书和羊皮纸手稿的书架,还可看见整洁的工作台,墨水瓶里的墨水还是满满的,在这个房间里,空气还是那么清新和洁净,灰尘还是那么少,一切都没破坏,就象奥雷连诺第二从小记得的那样,这种情形当时只有奥雷连诺上校未能发现。然而,军官感到兴趣的只是便盆。
  “有多少人住在这座房子里?”他问。
  “五个。”
  军官显然大惑不解。他的视线停在奥雷连诺第二和圣索菲婉.德拉佩德继续看见霍.阿卡蒂奥第二的空间;现在霍·阿卡蒂奥第二自已也发觉,军官望着他,却没看见他。然后,军官灭了灯,关上了门。当他和士兵们谈话的时候,奥雷连诺第二明白,这个年轻的军官是用奥雷连诺上校那样的眼光看待梅尔加德斯的房间的。
  “显蜘这儿起码一百年无人居住了,’军官向士兵们说。“里面大概有蛇。”
  房门关上以后,霍.阿卡蒂奥第二相信战争已经过去了。许多年前奥雷连诺上校曾经向他谈到战争的魅力,并且试图以自己生活中的充数事例证明自己的见解。霍·阿卡蒂奥第二相信了他。可是在军官对他视而不见的那天夜里,他想起了最近几个月的紧张状态,想起了监狱的肮脏,想起了车站上的混乱,想起了载满尸体的列车,最后认为奥雷连诺上校不过是个骗子或傻瓜。他不明白,为什么需要耗费那么多的话语来解释自己在战争中的感受,其实只要一个词儿就够了:恐怖。在梅尔加德斯的房间里,神奇的阳光和淅沥的雨声似乎都在保护他,他感到别人看不见他,他就获得了自己过去一生中一分钟也不曾有过的宁静,他唯一想到的是害怕别人把他活活埋掉。他向给他送饭来的圣索菲娅·德拉佩德说到了这一点,她就答应尽量活得长久一些,以便亲眼看见他死了以后才被埋掉。就这样,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二终于摆脱了一切恐惧,开始研究梅尔加德斯的羊皮纸手稿,他越不理解它们,就越有兴趣地继续研究。他已听惯了雨声,两个月以后,雨声也变成了另一种形式的宁静,只有圣索菲娅·德拉佩德的出现才扰乱了他的宁静。他要她把饮食放在窗台上,而用挂锁把门锁上。家中其余的人,其中包括菲兰达,都把霍·阿卡蒂奥第二给忘记了。自从知道军官在房间里碰见他,而没看见他,菲兰达就让他呆在这儿了。霍·阿卡蒂奥第二幽居了半年之后,军队离开了马孔多,奥雷连诺第二渴望找人聊天,等雨停止,就取下了房门上的挂锁。他刚进屋,立刻闻到了便盆的臭气——这些便盆放在地上,全都用过几次了。霍·阿卡蒂奥第二已经秃顶,对令人作呕、毒化空气的恶臭满不在乎,继续反复阅读难以理解的羊皮纸手稿。他浑身都是天使般的光彩。听到开门的声音,他只是从桌上扬起眼来,接着又俯下了眼睛,但在这短暂的一瞬里,奥雷连诺第二已经足以看出兄弟也将遭到曾祖父避免不了的命运。
  “他们有三千多人,”霍·阿卡蒂奥第二说,‘我相信,全都是聚在车站上的。”


执素衣

ZxID:13389413


等级: 内阁元老
举报 只看该作者 14楼  发表于: 2013-10-10 0


Chapter 14
MEME’S LAST VACATIONS coincided with the period of mourning for Colonel Aureliano Buendía. The shuttered house was no place for parties. They spoke in whispers, ate in silence, recited the rosary three times a day, and even clavichord practice during the heat of siesta time had a funereal echo. In spite of her secret hostility toward the colonel, it was Fernanda who imposed the rigor of that mourning, impressed by the solemnity with which the government exalted the memory of its dead enemy. Aureliano Segundo, as was his custom came back to sleep in the house during his daughter’s vacation and Fernanda must have done some. thing to regain her privileges as his legitimate wife because the following year Meme found a newborn little sister who against the wishes of her mother had been baptized with the name Amaranta ?rsula.
   Meme had finished her course of study. The diploma that certified her as a concert clavichordist was ratified by the virtuosity with which she executed popular melodies of the seventeenth century at the gathering organized to celebrate the completion of her studies and with which the period of mourning came to in end. More than her art, the guests admired her duality. Her frivolous and even slightly infantile character did not seem up to any serious activity, but when she sat down at the clavichord she became a different girl, one whose unforeseen maturity gave her the air of an adult. That was how she had always been. She really did am have any definite vocation, but she had earned the highest grades by means of inflexible discipline simply in order not to annoy her mother. They could have imposed on her an apprenticeship in any other field and the results would have been the same. Since she had been very small she had been troubled by Fernanda’s strictness, her custom of deciding in favor of extremes; and she would have been capable of a much more difficult sacrifice than the clavichord lessons merely not to run up against her intransigence. During the graduation ceremonies she had the impression that the parchment with Gothic letters and illuminated capitals was freeing her from a compromise that she had accepted not so much out of obedience as out of convenience, and she thought that from then on not even the insistent Fernanda would worry any more about an instrument that even the nuns looked upon as a museum fossil. During the first years she thought that her calculations were mistaken because after she had put half the town to sleep, not only in the parlor but also at all charitable functions, school ceremonies, and patriotic celebrations that took place in Macondo, her mother still invited to the house every newcomer whom she thought capable of appreciating her daughter’s virtues. Only after the death of Amaranta, when the family shut itself up again in a period of mourning, was Meme able to lock the clavichord and forget the key in some dresser drawer without Fernanda’s being annoyed on finding out when and through whose fault it had been lost. Meme bore up under the exhibitions with the same stoicism that she had dedicated to her apprenticeship. It was the price of her freedom. Fernanda was so pleased with her docility and so proud of the admiration that her art inspired that she was never against the house being fall of girl friends, her spending the afternoon in the groves, and going to the movies with Aureliano Segundo or some muted lady as long as the film was approved by Father Antonio Isabel from the pulpit. During those moments of relaxation Meme’s real tastes were revealed. Her happiness lay at the other extreme from discipline, in noisy parties, in gossip about lovers, in prolonged sessions with her girl friends, where they learned to smoke and talked about male business, and where they once got their hands on some cane liquor and ended up naked, measuring and comparing the parts of their bodies. Meme would never forget that night when she arrived home chewing licorice lozenges, and without noticing their consternation, sat down at the table where Fernanda and Amaranta were eating dinner without saying a word to each other. She had spent two tremendous hours in the bedroom of a girl friend, weeping with laughter and fear, and beyond an crises she had found the rare feeling of. bravery that she needed in order to run away from school and tell her mother in one way or another that she could use the clavichord as an enema. Sitting at the head of the table, drinking a chicken broth that landed in her stomach like an elixir of resurrection, Meme then saw Fernanda and Amaranta wrapped in an accusatory halo of reality. She had to make a great effort not to throw at them their prissiness, their poverty of spirit their delusions of grandeur. From the time of her second vacation she had known that her father was living at home only in order to keep up appearances, and knowing Fernanda as she did and having arranged later to meet Petra Cotes, she thought that her father was right. She also would have preferred being the daughter of the concubine. In the haziness of the alcohol Meme thought with pleasure about the scandal that would have taken place if she were to express her thoughts at that moment, and the intimate satisfaction of her roguishness was so intense that Fernanda noticed it.
   “What’s the matter??she asked.
   “Nothing,?Meme answered. “I was only now discovering how much I loved you both.?
   Amaranta was startled by the obvious burden of hate that the declaration carried. But Fernanda felt so moved that she thought she would go mad when Meme awoke at midnight with her head splitting with pain and drowning in vomited gall. She gave her a vial of castor oil, put compresses on her stomach and ice cubes on her head, and she made her stay in bed for five days and follow the diet ordered by the new and outlandish French doctor, who after examining her for more than two hours reached the foggy conclusion that she had an ailment peculiar to women. Having lost her courage, in a miserable state of demoralization, Meme had no other recourse but to bear up under it. ?rsula, completely blind by then but still active and lucid, was the only one who guessed the exact diagnosis. “As far as I can see,?she thought, “that’s the same thing that happens to drunken people.?But she not only rejected the idea, she reproached herself for the frivolity of her thought. Aureliano Segundo felt a twinge of conscience when he saw Meme’s state of prostration and he promised himself to take better care of her in the future. That was how the relationship of jolly comradeship was born between father and daughter, which freed him for a time from the bitter solitude of his revels and freed her from Fernanda’s watchful eye without necessity of provoking the domestic crisis that seemed inevitable by then. At that time Aureliano Segundo postponed any appointments in order to be with Meme, to take her to the movies or the circus, and he spent the greater part of his idle time with her. In recent times his annoyance with the absurd obesity that prevented him from tying his shoes and his abusive satisfaction with all manner of appetites had began to sour his character. The discovery of his daughter restored his former joviality and the pleasure of being with her was slowly leading him away from dissipation. Meme was entering a fruitful age. She was not beautiful, as Amaranta had never been, but on the other hand she was pleasant, uncomplicated, and she had the virtue of making a good impression on people from the first moment. She had a modem spirit that wounded the antiquated sobriety and poorly disguised miserly heart of Fernanda, and that, on the other hand, Aureliano Segundo took pleasure in developing. It was he who resolved to take her out of the bedroom she had occupied since childhood, where the fearful eyes of the saints still fed her adolescent terrors, and he furnished for her a room with a royal bed, a large dressing table, and velvet curtains, not realizing that he was producing a second version of Petra Cotes’s room. He was so lavish with Meme that he did not even know how much money he gave her because she herself would take it out of his pockets, and he kept abreast of every kind of new beauty aid that arrived in the commissary of the banana company. Meme’s room became filled with pumice-stone cushions to polish her nails with, hair curlers, toothbrushes, drops to make her eyes languid, and so many and such new cosmetics and artifacts of beauty that every time Fernanda went into the room she was scandalized by the idea that her daughter’s dressing table must have been the same as those of the French matrons. Nevertheless Fernanda divided her time in those days between little Amaranta ?rsula, who was mischievous and sickly, and a touching correspondence with the invisible physicians. So that when she noticed the complicity between father and daughter the only promise she extracted from Aureliano Segundo was that he would never take Meme to Petra Cotes’s house. It was a meaningless demand because the concubine was so annoyed with the comradeship between her lover and his daughter that she did not want anything to do with her. Petra was tormented by an unknown fear, as if instinct were telling her that Meme, by just wanting it, could succeed in what Fernanda had been unable to do: deprive her of a love that by then she considered assured until death. For the first time Aureliano Segundo had to tolerate the harsh expressions and the violent tirades of his concubine, and he was even afraid that his wandering trunks would make the return journey to his wife’s house. That did not happen. No one knew a man better than Petra Cotes knew her lover and she knew that the trunks would remain where they had been sent because if Aureliano Segundo detested anything it was complicating his life with modifications and changes. So the trunks stayed where they were and Petra Cotes set about reconquering the husband by sharpening the only weapons that his daughter could not use on him. It too was an unnecessary effort because Meme had no desire to intervene in her father’s affairs and if she had, it would certainly have been in favor of the concubine. She had no time to bother anybody. She herself swept her room and made her bed, as the nuns had taught her. In the morning she took care of her clothes, sewing on the porch or using Amaranta’s old pedal machine. While the others were taking their siestas she would practice the clavichord for two hours, knowing that the daily sacrifice would keep Fernanda calm. For the same reason she continued giving concerts at church fairs and school parties, even though the requests were less and less frequent. At nightfall she would fix herself up, put on one of her simple dresses and her stiff high shoes, and if she had nothing to do with her father she would go to the homes of her girl friends, where she would stay until dinnertime. It was rare that Aureliano Segundo would not call for her then to take her to the movies.
   Among Meme’s friends there were three young American girls who broke through the electrified chicken fence barrier and made friends with girls from Macondo. One of them was Patricia Brown. Grateful for the hospitality of Aureliano Segundo, Mr. Brown opened the doors of his house to Meme and invited her to the Saturday dances, which were the only ones where gringos and natives mingled. When Fernanda found out about it she forgot about Amaranta ?rsula and the invisible doctors for a moment and became very melodramatic. “Just think,?she said to Meme, “what the colonel must be thinking in his grave.?She sought, of course, the backing of ?rsula. But the blind old woman, contrary to what everyone expected, saw nothing reproachable in Meme’s going to the dances and making friends with American girls her own age as long as she kept her strict habits and was not converted to the Protestant religion. Meme sensed the thought of her great-great-grandmother very well and the day after the dances she would get up earlier than usual to go to mass. Fernanda’s opposition lasted until the day when Meme broke down her resistance with the news that the Americans wanted to hear her play the clavichord. The instrument was taken out of the house again and carried to Mr. Brown’s, where the young concert artist really did receive very sincere applause and the most enthusiastic congratulations. From then on she was invited not only to the dances but also to the Sunday swim parties in the pool and to lunch once a week. Meme learned to swim like a professional, to play tennis, and to eat Virginia ham with slices of pineapple. Among dances, swimming, and tennis she soon found herself getting involved in the English language. Aureliano Segundo was so enthusiastic over the progress of his daughter that from a traveling salesman he bought a six-volume English encyclopedia with many color prints which Meme read in her spare time. The reading occupied the attention that she had formerly given to gossip about sweethearts and the experimental retreats that she would go through with her girl friends, not because it was imposed as discipline but because she had lost all interest by then in talking about mysteries that were in the public domain. She looked back on the drunken episode as an infantile adventure and it seemed so funny to her that she told Aureliano Segundo about it and he thought it was more amusing than she did. “If your mother only knew,?he told her, doubling up with laughter, as he always said when he told her something in confidence. He had made her promise that she would let him know about her first love affair with the same confidence, and Meme told him that she liked a redheaded American boy who had come to spend his vacation with his parents. “What do you know,?Aureliano Segundo said, laughing. “If your mother only knew.?But Meme also told him that the boy had gone back to his country and had disappeared from sight. The maturity of her judgment ensured peace in the family. Aureliano Segundo then devoted more time to Petra Cotes, and although his body and soul no longer permitted him the debauches of days gone by, he lost no chance to arrange them and to dig out the accordion, which by then had some keys held in place by shoelaces. At home, Amaranta was weaving her interminable shroud and ?rsula dragged about in her decrepitude through the depths of the shadows where the only thing that was still visible was the ghost of Jos?Arcadio Buendía under the chestnut tree. Fernanda consolidated her authority. Her monthly letters to her son Jos?Arcadio at that time did not carry a string of lies and she hid from him only her correspondence with the invisible doctors, who had diagnosed a benign tumor in her large intestine and were preparing her for a telepathic operation.
   It might have been aid that peace and happiness reigned for a long time in the tired mansion of the Buendías if it had not been for the sudden death of Amaranta, which caused a new uproar. It was an unexpected event. Although she was old and isolated from everyone, she still looked firm and upright and with the health of a rock that she had always had. No one knew her thoughts since the afternoon on which she had given Colonel Gerineldo Márquez his final rejection and shut herself up to weep. She was not seen to cry during the ascension to heaven of Remedios the Beauty or over the extermination of the Aurelianos or the death of Colonel Aureliano Buendía, who was the person she loved most in this world, although she showed it only when they found his body under the chestnut tree. She helped pick up the body. She dressed him in his soldier’s uniform, shaved him, combed his hair, and waxed his mustache better than he had ever done in his days of glory. No one thought that there was any love in that act because they were accustomed to the familiarity of Amaranta with the rites of death. Fernanda was scandalized that she did not understand the relationship of Catholicism with life but only its relationship with death, as if it were not a religion but a compendium of funeral conventions. Amaranta was too wrapped up in the eggplant patch of her memories to understand those subtle apologetics. She had reached old age with all of her nostalgias intact. When she listened to the waltzes of Pietro Crespi she felt the same desire to weep that she had had in adolescence, as if time and harsh lessons had meant nothing. The rolls of music that she herself had thrown into the trash with the pretext that they had rotted from dampness kept spinning and playing in her memory. She had tried to sink them into the swampy passion that she allowed herself with her nephew Aureliano Jos?and she tried to take refuge in the calm and virile protection of Colonel Gerineldo Márquez, but she had not been able to overcome them, not even with the most desperate act of her old age when she would bathe the small Jos?Arcadio three years before he was sent to the seminary and caress him not as a grandmother would have done with a grandchild, but as a woman would have done with a man, as it was said that the French matrons did and as she had wanted to do with Pietro Crespi at the age of twelve, fourteen, when she saw him in his dancing tights and with the magic wand with which he kept time to the metronome. At times It pained her to have let that outpouring of misery follow its course, and at times it made her so angry that she would prick her fingers with the needles, but what pained her most and enraged her most and made her most bitter was the fragrant and wormy guava grove of love that was dragging her toward death. Just as Colonel Aureliano Buendía thought about his war, unable to avoid it, so Amaranta thought about Rebeca. But while her brother had managed to sterilize his memories, she had only managed to make hers more scalding. The only thing that she asked of God for many years was that he would not visit on her the punishment of dying before Rebeca. Every time she passed by her house and noted the progress of destruction she took comfort in the idea that God was listening to her. One afternoon, when she was sewing on the porch, she was assailed by the certainty that she would be sitting in that place, in the same position, and under the same light when they brought her the news of Rebeca’s death. She sat down to wait for it, as one waits for a letter, and the fact was that at one time she would pull off buttons to sew them on again so that inactivity would not make the wait longer and more anxious. No one in the house realized that at that time Amaranta was sewing a fine shroud for Rebeca. Later on, when Aureliano Triste told how he had seen her changed into an apparition with leathery skin and a few golden threads on her skull, Amaranta was not surprised because the specter described was exactly what she had been imagining for some time. She had decided to restore Rebeca’s corpse, to disguise with paraffin the damage to her face and make a wig for her from the hair of the saints. She would manufacture a beautiful corpse, with the linen shroud and a plush-lined coffin with purple trim. and she would put it at the disposition of the worms with splendid funeral ceremonies. She worked out the plan with such hatred that it made her tremble to think about the scheme, which she would have carried out in exactly the same way if it had been done out of love, but she would not allow herself to become upset by the confusion and went on perfecting the details so minutely that she came to be more than a specialist and was a virtuoso in the rites of death. The only thing that she did not keep In mind in her fearsome plan was that in spite of her pleas to God she might die before Rebeca. That was, in fact, what happened. At the final moment, however, Amaranta did not feel frustrated, but on the contrary, free of all bitterness because death had awarded her the privilege of announcing itself several years ahead of time. She saw it on one burning afternoon sewing with her on the porch a short time after Meme had left for school. She saw it because it was a woman dressed in blue with long hair, with a sort of antiquated look, and with a certain resemblance to Pilar Ternera during the time when she had helped with the chores in the kitchen. Fernanda was present several times and did not see her, in spite of the fact that she was so real, so human, and on one occasion asked of Amaranta the favor of threading a needle. Death did not tell her when she was going to die or whether her hour was assigned before that of Rebeca, but ordered her to begin sewing her own shroud on the next sixth of April. She was authorized to make it as complicated and as fine as she wanted, but just as honestly executed as Rebeca’s, and she was told that she would die without pain, fear, or bitterness at dusk on the day that she finished it. Trying to waste the most time possible, Amaranta ordered some rough flax and spun the thread herself. She did it so carefully that the work alone took four years. Then she started the sewing. As she got closer to the unavoidable end she began to understand that only a miracle would allow her to prolong the work past Rebeca’s death, but the very concentration gave her the calmness that she needed to accept the idea of frustration. It was then that she understood the vicious circle of Colonel Aureliano Buendía’s little gold fishes. The world was reduced to the surface of her skin and her inner self was safe from all bitterness. It pained her not to have had that revelation many years before when it had still been possible to purify memories and reconstruct the universe under a new light and evoke without trembling Pietro Crespi’s smell of lavender at dusk and rescue Rebeca from her slough of misery, not out of hatred or out of love but because of the measureless understanding of solitude. The hatred that she noticed one night in Memes words did not upset her because it was directed at her, but she felt the repetition of another adolescence that seemed as clean as hers must have seemed and that, however, was already tainted with rancor. But by then her acceptance of her fate was so deep that she was not even upset by the certainty that all possibilities of rectification were closed to her. Her only objective was to finish the shroud. Instead of slowing it down with useless detail as she had done in the beginning, she speeded up the work. One week before she calculated that she would take the last stitch on the night of February 4, and without revealing the motives, she suggested to Meme that she move up a clavichord concert that she had arranged for the day after, but the girl paid no attention to her. Amaranta then looked for a way to delay for forty-eight hours, and she even thought that death was giving her her way because on the night of February fourth a storm caused a breakdown at the power plant. But on the following day, at eight in the morning, she took the last stitch in the most beautiful piece of work that any woman had ever finished, and she announced without the least bit of dramatics that she was going to die at dusk. She not only told the family but the whole town, because Amaranta had conceived of the idea that she could make up for a life of meanness with one last favor to the world, and she thought that no one was in a better position to take letters to the dead.
   The news that Amaranta Buendía was sailing at dusk carrying the mail of death spread throughout Macondo before noon, and at three in the afternoon there was a whole carton full of letters in the parlor. Those who did not want to write gave Amaranta verbal messages, which she wrote down in a notebook with the name and date of death of the recipient. “Don’t worry,?she told the senders. “The first thing I’ll do when I get there is to ask for him and give him your message.?It was farcical. Amaranta did not show any upset or the slightest sign of grief, and she even looked a bit rejuvenated by a duty accomplished. She was as straight and as thin as ever. If it had not been for her hardened cheekbones and a few missing teeth, she would have looked much younger than she really was. She herself arranged for them to put the letters in a box sealed with pitch and told them to place it in her grave in a way best to protect it from the dampness. In the morning she had a carpenter called who took her measurements for the coffin as she stood in the parlor, as if it were for a new dress. She showed such vigor in her last hours that Fernanda thought she was making fun of everyone. ?rsula, with the experience that Buendías died without any illness, did not doubt at all that Amaranta had received an omen of death, but in any case she was tormented by the fear that with the business of the letters and the anxiety of the senders for them to arrive quickly they would bury her alive in their confusion. So she set about clearing out the house, arguing with the intruders as she shouted at them, and by four in the afternoon she was successful. At that time Amaranta had finished dividing her things among the poor and had left on the severe coffin of unfinished boards only the change of clothing and the simple cloth slippers that she would wear in death. She did not neglect that precaution because she remembered that when Colonel Aureliano Buendía died they had to buy a pair of new shoes for him because all he had left were the bedroom slippers that he wore in the workshop. A little before five Aureliano Segundo came to fetch Meme for the concert and was surprised that the house was prepared for the funeral. if anyone seemed alive at the moment it was the serene Amaranta, who had even had enough time to cut her corns. Aureliano Segundo and Meme took leave of her with mocking farewells and promised her that on the following Saturday they would have a big resurrection party. Drawn by the public talk that Amaranta Buendía was receiving letters for the dead, Father Antonio Isabel arrived at five o’clock for the last rites and he had to wait for more than fifteen minutes for the recipient to come out of her bath. When he saw her appear in a madapollam nightshirt and with her hair loose over her shoulders, the decrepit parish priest thought that it was a trick and sent the altar boy away. He thought however, that he would take advantage of the occasion to have Amaranta confess after twenty years of reticence. Amaranta answered simply that she did not need spiritual help of any kind because her conscience was clean. Fernanda was scandalized. Without caring that people could hear her she asked herself aloud what horrible sin Amaranta had committed to make her prefer an impious death to the shame of confession. Thereupon Amaranta lay down and made ?rsula give public testimony as to her virginity.
   “Let no one have any illusions,?she shouted so that Fernanda would hear her. “Amaranta Buendía is leaving this world just as she came into it.
   She did not get up again. Lying on cushions, as if she really were ill, she braided her long hair and rolled it about her ears as death had told her it should be on her bier. Then she asked ?rsula for a mirror and for the first time in more than forty years she saw her face, devastated by age and martyrdom, and she was surprised at how much she resembled the mental image that she had of herself. ?rsula understood by the silence in the bedroom that it had begun to grow dark.
   “Say good-bye to Fernanda,?she begged her. One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship.?
   “It’s of no use now,?Amaranta replied.
   Meme could not help thinking about her when they turned on the lights on the improvised stage and she began the second part of the program. In the middle of the piece someone whispered the news in her ear and the session stopped. When he arrived home, Aureliano Segundo had to push his way through the crowd to see the corpse of the aged virgin, ugly and discolored, with the black bandage on her hand and wrapped in the magnificent shroud. She was laid out in the parlor beside the box of letters.
   ?rsula did not get up again after the nine nights of mourning for Amaranta, Santa Sofía de la Piedad took care of her. She took her meals to her bedroom and annatto water for her to wash in and she kept her up to date on everything that happened in Macondo. Aureliano Segundo visited her frequently and he brought her clothing which she would place beside the bed along with the things most indispensable for daily life, so that in a short time she had built up a world within reach of her hand. She managed to arouse a great love in little Amaranta ?rsula, who was just like her, and whom she taught how to read. Her lucidity, the ability to be sufficient un herself made one think that she was naturally conquered by the weight of her hundred years, but even though it was obvious that she was having trouble seeing, no one suspected that she was totally blind. She had so much time at her disposal then and so much interior silence to watch over the life of the house that she was the first to notice Meme’s silent tribulation.
   “Come here,?she told her. “Now that were alone, confess to this poor old woman what’s bothering you.?
   Meme avoided the conversation with a short laugh. ?rsula did not insist, but she ended up confirming her suspicions when Meme did not come back to visit her. She knew that she was getting up earlier than usual, that she did not have a moment’s rest as she waited for the time for her to go out, that she spent whole nights walking back and forth in the adjoining bedroom, and that the fluttering of a butterfly would bother her. On one occasion she said that she was going to see Aureliano Segundo and ?rsula was surprised that Fernanda’s imagination was so limited when her husband came to the house looking for his daughter. It was too obvious that Meme was involved in secret matters, in pressing matters, in repressed anxieties long before the night that Fernanda upset the house because she caught her kissing a man in the movies.
   Meme was so wrapped up in herself at that time that she accused ?rsula of having told on her. Actually, she told on herself. For a long time she had been leaving a trail that would have awakened the most drowsy person and it took Fernanda so long to discover it because she too was befogged, by her relationship with the invisible doctors. Even so she finally noticed the deep silences, the sudden outbursts, the changes in mood, and the contradictions of her daughter. She set about on a disguised but implacable vigilance. She let her go out with her girl friends as always, she helped her get dressed for the Saturday parties, and she never asked an embarrassing question that might arouse her. She already had a great deal of proof that Meme was doing different things from what she said, and yet she would give no indication of her suspicions, hoping for the right moment. One night Meme said that she was going to the movies with her father. A short time later Fernanda heard the fireworks of the debauch and the unmistakable accordion of Aureliano Segundo from the direction of Petra Cotes’s place. Then she got dressed, went to the movie theater, and in the darkness of the seats she recognized her daughter. The upsetting feeling of certainty stopped her from seeing the man she was kissing, but she managed to hear his tremulous voice in the midst of the deafening shouts and laughter of the audience. “I’m sorry, love,?she heard him say, and she took Meme out of the place without saying a word to her, put her through the shame of parading her along the noisy Street of the Turks, and locked her up in her bedroom.
   On the following day at six in the afternoon, Fernanda recognized the voice of the man who came to call on her. He was young, sallow, with dark and melancholy eyes which would not have startled her so much if she had known the gypsies, and a dreamy air that to any woman with a heart less rigid would have been enough to make her understand her daughter’s motives. He was wearing a shabby linen suit with shoes that showed the desperate defense of superimposed patches of white zinc, and in his hand he was carrying a straw hat he had bought the Saturday before. In all of his life he could never have been as frightened as at that moment, but he had a dignity and presence that spared him from humiliation and a genuine elegance that was defeated only by tarnished hands and nails that had been shattered by rough work. Fernanda, however, needed only one look to guess his status of mechanic. She saw that he was wearing his one Sunday suit and that underneath his shirt he bore the rash of the banana company. She would not let him speak. She would not even let him come through the door, which a moment later she had to close because the house was filled with yellow butterflies.
   “Go away,?she told him. “You’ve got no reason to come calling on any decent person.?
   His name was Mauricio Babilonia. He had been born and raised in Macondo, and he was an apprentice mechanic in the banana company garage. Meme had met him by chance one afternoon when she went with Patricia Brown to get a car to take a drive through the groves. Since the chauffeur was sick they assigned him to take them and Meme was finally able to satisfy her desire to sit next to the driver and see what he did. Unlike the regular chauffeur, Mauricio Babilonia gave her a practical lesson. That was during the time that Meme was beginning to frequent Mr. Brown’s house and it was still considered improper for a lady to drive a car. So she was satisfied with the technical information and she did not see Mauricio Babilonia again for several months. Later on she would remember that during the drive her attention had been called to his masculine beauty, except for the coarseness of his hands, but that afterward she had mentioned to Patricia Brown that she had been bothered by his rather proud sense of security. The first Saturday that she went to the movies with her father she saw Mauricio Babilonia again, with his linen suit, sitting a few seats away from them, and she noticed that he was not paying much attention to the film in order to turn around and look at her. Meme was bothered by the vulgarity of that. Afterward Mauricio Babilonia came over to say hello to Aureliano Segundo and only then did Meme find out that they knew each other because he had worked in Aureliano Triste’s early power plant and he treated her father with the air of an employee. That fact relieved the dislike that his pride had caused in her. They had never been alone together nor had they spoken except in way of greeting, the night when she dreamed that he was saving her from a shipwreck and she did not feel gratitude but rage. It was as if she had given him the opportunity he was waiting for, since Meme yearned for just the opposite, not only with Mauricio Babilonia but with any other man who was interested in her. Therefore she was so indignant after the dream that instead of hating him, she felt an irresistible urge to see him. The anxiety became more intense during the course of the week and on Saturday it was so pressing that she had to make a great effort for Mauricio Babilonia not to notice that when he greeted her in the movies her heart was in her mouth. Dazed by a confused feeling of pleasure and rage, she gave him her hand for the first time and only then did Mauricio Babilonia let himself shake hers. Meme managed to repent her impulse in a fraction of a second but the repentance changed immediately into a cruel satisfaction on seeing that his hand too was sweaty and cold. That night she realized that she would not have a moment of rest until she showed Mauricio Babilonia the uselessness of his aspiration and she spent the week turning that anxiety about in her mind. She resorted to all kinds of useless tricks so that Patricia Brown would go get the car with her. Finally she made use of the American redhead who was spending his vacation in Macondo at that time and with the pretext of learning about new models of cars she had him take her to the garage. From the moment she saw him Meme let herself be deceived by herself and believed that what was really going on was that she could not bear the desire to be alone with Mauricio Babilonia, and she was made indignant by the certainty that he understood that when he saw her arrive.
   “I came to see the new models,?Meme said.
   “That’s a fine excuse,?he said.
   Meme realized that he was burning in the heat of his pride, and she desperately looked for a way to humiliate him. But he would not give her any time. “Don’t get upset,?he said to her in a low voice. “It’s not the first time that a woman has gone crazy over a man.?She felt so defeated that she left the garage without seeing the new models and she spent the night turning over in bed and weeping with indignation. The American redhead, who was really beginning to interest her, looked like a baby in diapers. It was then that she realized that the yellow butterflies preceded the appearances of Mauricio Babilonia. She had seen them before, especially over the garage, and she had thought that they were drawn by the smell of paint. Once she had seen them fluttering about her head before she went into the movies. But when Mauricio Babilonia began to pursue her like a ghost that only she could identify in the crowd, she understood that the butterflies had something to do with him. Mauricio Babilonia was always in the audience at the concerts, at the movies, at high mass, and she did not have to see him to know that he was there, because the butterflies were always there. Once Aureliano Segundo became so impatient with the suffocating fluttering that she felt the impulse to confide her secret to him as she had promised, but instinct told her that he would laugh as usual and say: “What would your mother say if she found out??One morning, while she was pruning the roses, Fernanda let out a cry of fright and had Meme taken away from the spot where she was, which was the same place in the garden where Remedios the Beauty had gone up to heaven. She had thought for an instant that the miracle was going to be repeated with her daughter, because she had been bothered by a sudden flapping of wings. It was the butterflies. Meme saw them as if they had suddenly been born out of the light and her heart gave a turn. At that moment Mauricio Babilonia came in with a package that according to what he said, was a present from Patricia Brown. Meme swallowed her blush, absorbed her tribulation, and even managed a natural smile as she asked him the favor of leaving it on the railing because her hands were dirty from the garden. The only thing that Fernanda noted in the man whom a few months later she was to expel from the house without remembering where she had seen him was the bilious texture of his skin.
   “He’s a very strange man,?Fernanda said. “You can see in his face that he’s going to die.?
   Meme thought that her mother had been impressed by the butterflies When they finished pruning the row bushes she washed her hands and took the package to her bedroom to open it. It was a kind of Chinese toy, made up of five concentric boxes, and in the last one there was a card laboriously inscribed by someone who could barely write: We’ll get together Saturday at the movies. Meme felt with an aftershock that the box had been on the railing for a long time within reach of Fernanda’s curiosity, and although she was flattered by the audacity and ingenuity of Mauricio Babilonia, she was moved by his Innocence in expecting that she would keep the date. Meme knew at that time that Aureliano Segundo had an appointment on Saturday night. Nevertheless, the fire of anxiety burned her so much during the course of the week that on Saturday she convinced her father to leave her alone in the theater and come back for her after the show. A nocturnal butterfly fluttered about her head while the lights were on. And then it happened. When the lights went out, Mauricio Babilonia sat down beside her. Meme felt herself splashing in a bog of hesitation from which she could only be rescued, as had occurred in her dreams, by that man smelling of grease whom she could barely see in the shadows.
   “If you hadn’t come,?he said, “You never would have seen me again.?
   Meme felt the weight of his hand on her knee and she knew that they were both arriving at the other side of abandonment at that instant.
   “What shocks me about you,?she said, smiling, “is that you always say exactly what you shouldn’t be saying.?
   She lost her mind over him. She could not sleep and she lost her appetite and sank so deeply into solitude that even her father became an annoyance. She worked out an intricate web of false dates to throw Fernanda off the track, lost sight of her girl friends, leaped over conventions to be with Mauricio Babilonia at any time and at any place. At first his crudeness bothered her. The first time that they were alone on the deserted fields behind the garage he pulled her mercilessly into an animal state that left her exhausted. It took her time to realize that it was also a form of tenderness and it was then that she lost her calm and lived only for him, upset by the desire to sink into his stupefying odor of grease washed off by lye. A short time before the death of Amaranta she suddenly stumbled into in open space of lucidity within the madness and she trembled before the uncertainty of the future. Then she heard about a woman who made predictions from cards and went to see her in secret. It was Pilar Ternera. As soon as Pilar saw her come in she was aware of Meme’s hidden motives. “Sit down,?she told her. “I don’t need cards to tell the future of a Buendía,?Meme did not know and never would that the centenarian witch was her great-grandmother. Nor would she have believed it after the aggressive realism with which she revealed to her that the anxiety of falling in love could not find repose except in bed. It was the same point of view as Mauricio Babilonia’s, but Meme resisted believing it because underneath it all she imagined that it had been inspired by the poor judgment of a mechanic. She thought then that love on one side was defeating love on the other, because it was characteristic of men to deny hunger once their appetites were satisfied. Pilar Ternera not only cleared up that mistake, she also offered the old canopied bed where she had conceived Arcadio, Meme’s grandfather, and where afterward she conceived Aureliano Jos? She also taught her how to avoid an unwanted conception by means of the evaporation of mustard plasters and gave her recipes for potions that in cases of trouble could expel “even the remorse of conscience.?That interview instilled In Meme the same feeling of bravery that she had felt on the drunken evening. Amaranta’s death, however, obliged her to postpone the decision. While the nine nights lasted she did not once leave the side of Mauricio Babilonia, who mingled with the crowd that invaded the house. Then came the long period of mourning and the obligatory withdrawal and they separated for a time. Those were days of such inner agitation, such irrepressible anxiety, and so many repressed urges that on the first evening that Meme was able to get out she went straight to Pilar Ternera’s. She surrendered to Mauricio Babilonia, without resistance, without shyness, without formalities, and with a vocation that was so fluid and an intuition that was so wise that a more suspicious man than hers would have confused them with obvious experience. They made love twice a week for more than three months, protected by the innocent complicity of Aureliano Segundo, who believed without suspicion in his daughter’s alibis simply in order to set her free from her mother’s rigidity.
   On the night that Fernanda surprised them in the movies Aureliano Segundo felt weighted down by the burden of his conscience and he visited Meme in the bedroom where Fernanda kept her locked up, trusting that she would reveal to him the confidences that she owed him. But Meme denied everything. She was so sure of herself, so anchored in her solitude that Aureliano Segundo had the impression that no link existed between them anymore, that the comradeship and the complicity were nothing but an illusion of the past. He thought of speaking to Mauricio Babilonia, thinking that his authority as his former boss would make him desist from his plans, but Petra Cotes convinced him that it was a woman’s business, so he was left floating in a limbo of indecision, barely sustained by the hope that the confinement would put an end to his daughter’s troubles.
   Meme showed no signs of affliction. On the contrary, from the next room ?rsula perceived the peaceful rhythm of her sleep, the serenity of her tasks, the order of her meals, and the good health of her digestion. The only thing that intrigued ?rsula after almost two months of punishment was that Meme did not take a bath in the morning like everyone else, but at seven in the evening. Once she thought of warning her about the scorpions, but Meme was so distant, convinced that she had given her away, that she preferred not to disturb her with the impertinences, of a great-great-grandmother. The yellow butterflies would invade the house at dusk. Every night on her way back from her bath Meme would find a desperate Fernanda killing butterflies with an insecticide bomb. “This is terrible,?she would say, “All my life they told me that butterflies at night bring bad luck.?One night while Meme was in the bathroom, Fernanda went into her bedroom by chance and there were so many butterflies that she could scarcely breathe. She grabbed for the nearest piece of cloth to shoo them away and her heart froze with terror as she connected her daughter’s evening baths with the mustard plasters that rolled onto the floor. She did not wait for an opportune moment as she had the first time. On the following day she invited the new mayor to lunch. Like her, he had come down from the highlands, and she asked him to station a guard in the backyard because she had the impression that hens were being stolen. That night the guard brought down Mauricio Babilonia as he was lifting up the tiles to get into the bathroom where Meme was waiting for him, naked and trembling with love among the scorpions and butterflies as she had done almost every night for the past few months. A bullet lodged in his spinal column reduced him to his bed for the rest of his life. He died of old age in solitude, without a moan, without a protest, without a single moment of betrayal, tormented by memories and by the yellow butterflies, who did not give him a moment’s peace, and ostracized as a chicken thief.



第十四章

  梅梅的最后一次暑假正碰上奥雷连诺上校的丧期。在门窗遮得严严实实的房子里,现在无法狂欢作乐了。大家都轻言细语他说话,默不吭声地进餐,每天祈祷三次,甚至午休炎热时刻的钢琴乐曲听起来也象送葬曲了。严格的服丧是菲兰达亲自规定的;尽管她怀恨奥雷连诺上校,但是政府悼念这个死敌的隆重程度也震动了她。象女儿往常度假时那样,奥雷连诺第二是在家中过夜的;菲兰达显然恢复了她跟丈夫同床共寝的合法权利,因为梅梅下一年回来的时候,看见了出生不久的小妹妹;同菲兰达的愿望相悖,这小姑娘取了阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜这个名字。
  梅梅结束了自己的学业。她在毕业典礼上出色地演奏了十六世纪的民间乐曲之后,证明她为“音乐会钢琴手”的毕业文凭就一致通过了,家中的丧期也就终止了。除了梅梅精湛的演奏技术,客人们更惊叹的是她那不寻常的双重表现。她那有点孩子气的轻浮性格,似乎使她不能去做任何正经的事,但她一坐在钢琴面前就完全变了样,突然象个大人那么成熟了。她经常都是如此。其实,梅梅并没有特殊的音乐才能,但她不愿违拗母亲,就拼命想在钢琴演奏上达到高超的境地。不过,如果让她学习别的东西,她也会同样成功的。梅梅从小就讨厌菲兰达的严峻态度,讨厌母亲包办代替的习惯,但只要跟顽固的母亲下发生冲突,她是准备作出更大牺牲的。这姑娘在毕业典礼上感到,印上哥特字(注:黑体字)和装饰字(注:通常是大写字母)的毕业文凭,仿佛使她摆脱了自己承担的义务(她承担这种义务不是由于服从,而是为了自己的宁静),以为从现在起甚至执拗的菲兰达也不会再想到乐器了,因为修女们自己已经把它叫做“博物馆的老古董”。最初几年,梅梅觉得自己的想法错了,因为,在家庭招待会上,在募捐音乐会上,在学校晚会上,在爱国庆祝会匕尽管她的钢琴乐曲已把半个市镇的人弄得昏昏沉沉,菲兰达仍然继续把一些陌生人邀到家里,只要她认为这些人能够赏识女儿的才能。阿玛兰塔死后,生家暂时又陷入丧事的时候,梅梅才锁上钢琴,把钥匙藏在一个橱柜里,免得母亲什么时候找到它,并且被她丢失。但是在这以前,梅梅象学习弹琴时那样,坚毅地公开显示自己的天才。她以此换得自己的自由。菲兰达喜欢女儿的恭顺态度,对女儿的技艺引起的普遍赞赏感到自豪,以致毫不反对梅梅把女友们聚到家里,或者去种植园游玩,或者跟奥雷连诺第二以及值得信任的女人去看电影,只要影片是安东尼奥·伊萨贝尔神父在讲坛上赞许过的。在娱乐活动中,梅梅表现了真正的兴趣。她觉得愉快的事情是跟陈规旧俗毫无关系的:她喜欢热闹的社交聚会;喜欢跟女友们长时间坐在僻静的角落里,瞎聊谁爱上了椎;学抽香烟,闲谈男人的事;有一次甚至喝了三瓶罗木酒(注:甘蔗酿造的烈性酒),然后脱光衣服,拿她们的身体各部进行较量。梅梅永远不会忘记那个夜晚:菲兰达和阿玛兰塔在饭厅里默不作声地吃晚饭时,她嚼着一块甘蔗糖走了进来,就在桌边坐下,谁也没有发现她的反常状态。在这之前,梅梅在女朋友的卧室里度过了可怕的两小时,又哭又笑,吓得直叫,可是“危机”过去之后,她突然觉得自己有了一股勇气,有了这种勇气,她就能够从寺院学校跑回家里,随便向母亲说,她能拿钢琴当作消化剂了。她坐在桌子顶头,喝着鸡汤,这汤好象起死回生的神水流到她的肚里。梅梅忽然看见菲兰达和阿玛兰塔头上出现一个表示惩罚的光环。她勉强忍住没有咒骂她们的假仁假义、精神空虚以及她们对“伟大”的荒谬幻想。梅梅还在第二个暑假期间就已知道,父亲住在家中只是为了装装门面。她熟悉菲兰达,而且想稍迟一些见见佩特娜·柯特。她认为她的父亲是对的,她宁愿把他的情妇当做母亲。在醉酒的状态中,梅梅怡然白得地想到,如果她把自己的想法说了出来,马上就会发生一出丑剧;她暗中的调皮和高兴是那么不平常,终于被菲兰达发现了。
  “你怎么啦?”菲兰达问。
  “没啥,”梅梅回答。“我现在才明白,我多么喜爱你们两个啊。”
  这句话里显然的憎恨使得阿玛兰塔吃了一惊。然而,梅梅半夜醒来,脑袋剧痛,开始呕吐,菲兰达却急得差点儿发疯了。菲兰达让女儿喝了一整瓶蓖麻油,给她的肚子贴上敷布,在她的头上放置冰袋,连续五天不准她出门,给她吃有点古怪的法国医生规定的饮食,经过两个多小时对梅梅的检查,医生得出了含糊的结论,说她患了一般的妇女病。梅梅失去了勇气,懊丧已极,在这种可怜的状态中,除了忍耐,毫无办法。乌苏娜已经完全瞎了,可是依然活跃和敏锐,她是凭直觉唯一作出正确诊断的。“我看,”她对自己说,“这是喝醉了,但她立即撇开了这种想法,甚至责备自己轻率,奥雷连诺第二发现梅梅的颓丧情绪时,受到良心的谴责,答应将来更多地关心她。父女之间愉快的伙伴关系由此产生,这种关系暂时使他摆脱了狂饮作乐中苦恼的孤独,而让她脱离了菲兰达令人厌恶的照顾,似乎防止了梅和母亲之间已经难免的冲突。在那些日子里,奥雷连诺第二把大部分空闲时间都用在女儿身上,毫不犹豫地推迟任何约会,只想跟女儿度过夜晚,带她去电影院或杂技场。在最近几年中,奥雷连诺第二脾气变坏了,原因是他过度的肥胖使他无法自己系鞋带,无法象以前那样满足自己的各种欲望。奥雷连诺第二得到女儿以后,恢复了以往的快活劲儿,而他跟她在一起的乐趣逐渐使他放弃了放荡的生活方式。梅梅象春天的树木似的开花了。她并不美,就象阿玛兰塔从来不美一样,但她外貌可爱、作风朴实,人家乍一看就会喜欢她,她的现代精神伤害了菲兰达守旧的中庸思想和欲盖弥彰的冷酷心肠,可是奥雷连诺第二却喜欢这种精神,竭力加以鼓励。奥雷连诺第二把梅梅拉出她从小居住的卧窒(卧室里的圣像吓人的眼睛仍然使她感到孩子的恐惧);他在女儿的新房间里放了一张华丽的床和一个大梳妆台,挂上了丝绒窗帘,但是没有意识到他在复制佩特娜·柯特的卧室。他很慷慨,甚至不知道自己给了梅梅多少钱,因为钱是她从他衣袋里自己拿的。奥雷连诺第二供给了女儿各种新的美容物品,只要是能在香蕉公司的商店里弄到的。梅梅的卧室摆满了指甲磨石、烫发夹、洁牙剂①、媚限水②,还有其他许多新的化妆品和美容器具;菲兰达每次走愈这个房间就觉得恼怒,以为女儿的梳妆台大概就是法国艺妓的那种玩意。然而,当时菲兰达正全神贯注地关心淘气和病弱的阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜,并且跟没有见过的医生进行动人的通信。因此,她发现父女之间的串通时,只要求奥雷连诺第二决不把梅悔带到佩特娜·柯特家里去。这个要求是多余的,因为佩特娜.柯特已经嫉妒她的情人和他女儿的友谊,甚到听都不愿听到梅梅的名字了。奥雷连诺第二的情妇有一种至今莫名其妙的恐惧,仿佛本能暗示她,梅悔只要愿意,就能做到菲兰达无法做到的事:使佩特娜·柯特失去似乎至死都有保障的爱情。于是,在在情妇家里,奥雷连诺第二看见了凶狠的眼神,听到了恶毒的嘲笑——他甚至担心他那流动衣箱不得不撤回妻子家里。可是事儿没到这个地步,任何人了解另一个人,都不如佩特哪.柯特了解自己的情人!她知道衣箱还会留在原处的,因为奥雷连诺第二最讨厌的事情,就是变来变去而把生活搞得十分复杂。因此,衣箱就留在原地了,佩特娜·柯特开始用自己唯一的武器夺回了情人,而这种武器是他的女儿不能用在他身上的。佩特娜.例特也白费了力气,因为梅梅从来不想干预父亲的事情,即使她这么做,也只有利于佩特娜.柯特。梅悔是没有时间来打扰别人的。每天,她象修女们教她的,自己收拾卧室和床铺,早上都琢磨自己的衣服——在长廊上刺绣,或者在阿玛兰塔的旧式手摇机上缝纫。在别人饭后午睡时,她就练两小时钢琴,知道自己每天牺牲午睡继续练琴可使菲兰达安心。出于同样的想法,她继续在教堂义卖会和学校集会上演奏,尽管她接到的邀请越来越少,傍晚,她都穿上一件普通的衣服和系带的高腹皮鞋,如果不跟父亲到哪儿去,就上女朋友家里,在那儿呆到晚餐的时候。可是奥雷连诺第二经常都来找她,带她去看电影。
  ----------------------------
  ①使牙齿光洁的药剂。
  ②使眼睛显得懒洋洋的眼药水。
  在梅梅的女朋友当中,有三个年轻的美国姑娘,她们都是钻出“电气化养鸡场”,跟马孔多姑娘们交上朋友的。其中一个美国姑娘是帕特里西娅·布劳恩。为了感谢奥雷连诺第二的好客精神,布劳恩先生向梅梅敞开了自己的家、邀请她参加礼拜大的跳舞晚会,这是外国人和本地人混在一起的唯一场合。菲兰达知道了这种邀请,就暂时忘了阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜和没有见过的医生,变得激动不安起来。“你只消想一想,”她向梅梅说。“上校在坟墓里对这件事会有啥想法呀。”菲兰达当然寻求乌苏娜的支持。可是出乎每个人的预料,瞎老太婆认为,如果姑娘保持坚定的信仰,不去皈依基督教,那么,参加跳舞会啦,结交年岁相同的美国姑娘啦,都是没有什么可以指摘的。梅梅十分理解高祖母的意思,舞会之后的第二天,她总比平常更早地起床,去做弥撒。菲兰达仍然采取反对立场,直到有一天女儿说,美国人希望听听她弹钢琴,菲兰达才不反对了,钢琴再一次搬出宅子,送到布劳恩先生家中,年轻的女音乐家在那儿得到了最真诚的鼓掌和最热烈的祝贺;嗣后,他们不仅邀她参加舞会,还邀她参加星期天的游泳会,而且每周请她去吃一次午饭。梅梅学会了游泳(象个职业游泳运动员似的)、打网球、吃弗吉尼亚火腿加几片菠萝的便餐。在跳舞、游泳以及打网球的时候,她不知不觉地学会了英语。奥雷连诺第二对女儿的进步十分高兴,甚至从一个流动商人那儿给她买了六卷附有许多插图的英国百科全书,梅梅空闲下来就拿它来读。读书占据了她的身心,她就不去跟女友们呆在僻静的地方瞎谈情场纠葛了,但这不是因为她认为自己有读书的责任,而是因为她已毫无兴趣去议论全镇皆知的那些秘密了。现在她想起前次的酪酊大醉,就觉得那是孩子的胡闹,是可笑的;她向奥雷连诺第二谈起它来,他更觉得可笑。“如果你母亲知道就好啦!……”他笑得喘呼呼他说。只要儿女向他但白什么事儿,他总是这么说。他得到了女儿向他同样坦率谈谈初恋的许诺以后,梅梅恨快就告诉他,她喜欢一个美国小伙子,他是来马孔多跟他父母一块儿度假的。“原来是这么一个小家伙!”奥雷连诺第二笑着说。“如果你母亲知道就好啦!……”可是梅梅接着又告诉他,那小队子回国了,杏无踪影了。梅梅成熟的头脑帮助巩固了家庭的和睦关系。渐渐地,奥雷连诺第二又经常去佩特娜·柯特那儿了。尽管大宴宾客已经不象从前那样使他身心愉快,但他仍不放过消闲取乐的机会,从套子里取出了手风琴;手风琴的几个琴键现在是用鞋带系上的。在这个家庭里,阿玛兰塔没完没了地缝她的殓衣,而老朽的乌苏娜却呆在黑暗的深处,她从那儿唯一还能看见的就是栗树下面霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的幽灵,菲兰达巩固了自己的权力,她每月寄给儿子的信,这时已经没有一行假话,她隐瞒霍.阿卡蒂奥的只是她跟没有见过的医生的通信,那些医生断定她息了大肠良性肿瘤,准备让她接受心灵感应术(注:一种迷信)的治疗。
  已经可以说,在饱经沧桑的布恩蒂亚家中,长时间是一片和平安乐的气氛,然而阿玛兰塔的碎然死亡引起了新的混乱。这是一件没有料到的事情。阿玛兰塔已经老了,孤身独处,但还显得结实、笔挺,象以往那样特别健康。自从那一天她最终拒绝了格林列尔多.马克斯上校的求婚,她就呆在房间里痛哭,惟也不知道她想些什么。当她走出卧室的时候,她的泪水已经永远于了。俏姑娘雷麦黛丝升天之后,十六个奥雷连诺惨遭杀害之后,奥雷连诺上校去世之后,她都没有哭过;这个上校是她在世上最喜爱的人,尽管大家在栗树下面发现他的尸体时,她才表露了对他的爱。她帮着从地上抬起他的尸体。她给他穿上军服,梳理头发,修饰面容,把他的胡了捻卷得比他自己在荣耀时捻卷得还好。谁也不觉得她的行动中有什么爱,因为大家一贯认为她熟悉丧葬礼仪。菲兰达生气地说,阿玛兰塔不明白天主教和生的关系,只看见它和死的关系,仿佛天主教不是宗教,而是一整套丧葬礼仪。可是阿玛兰塔沉湎在往事的回忆里,没有听到菲兰达为天主教奥妙的辩护。阿玛兰塔已到老年,可是过去的悲痛记忆犹新。她听到皮埃特罗·克列斯比的华尔兹舞曲时,就象从前青年时代那样想哭,仿佛时光和痛苦的经历没有给她什么教训。尽管她借口说录音带在潮湿中腐烂了,亲手把它们扔在垃圾堆里了,可是它们仍在她的记忆里转动播放。她曾想把它们淹没在她川侄儿的肮脏的恋情里(她曾让自己迷于这种恋情),而且曾想人格林列尔多上校男性的庇护下躲开它们,可是即使借助老年时最恶劣的行为,她也摆脱不了那些录音带的魔力:在把年轻的霍·阿卡蒂奥送往神学院的前三年,有一次她给他洗澡,曾抚摸过他,不象祖母抚摸孙子,而象女人抚摸男人,也象传说的法国艺妓那种做法,还象她十二--十四岁时打算抚摸皮埃特岁.克列斯比那样;当时他穿首紧绷绷的跳舞裤儿站在她面前,挥舞魔杖跟节拍器合着拍子。阿玛兰塔有时难过的是,她身后留下了一大堆病苦,有时她又觉得那么恼怒,甚至拿针扎自己的手指,然而最使她苦恼、悲哀和发狂的却是芬芳的、满是虫子的爱情花圃,是这个花圃使她走向死亡的。就象奥雷连诺上校不能不想到战争一样,阿玛兰塔不能下想到雷贝卡。不过,如果说奥雷连诺上校能够冲淡自己的回忆,阿玛兰塔却更加强了自己的回忆。在许多年中,她唯一祈求上帝的,是不要让她在雷贝卡之前受到死亡的惩罚。每一次,她经过雷贝卡的住所时,看见它越来越破败,就高兴地以为上帝听从了她的要求。有一次在长廊上缝衣服的时候,她忽然深信自己将坐在这个地方,坐在同样的位置上,在同样的阳光下,等候雷贝卡的死讯。从那时起,阿玛兰塔就坐着等待,有时——这是完全真的——甚至扯掉衣服上的钮扣,然后又把它们缝上,以免无所事事的等待显得长久和难熬。家中谁也没有料到,阿玛兰塔那时是在为雷贝卡缝制讲究的殓衣。后来奥雷连诺·特里斯特说,雷贝卡已经变成一个幽灵,皮肤皱巴巴的,脑壳上有几根黄头发,阿玛兰塔对此并不觉得惊异,因为他所描绘的幽灵正是她早就想象到的,阿玛兰塔决定拾掇雷贝卡的尸体,在她脸上损毁的地方涂上石蜡,拿圣像的头发给她做假发。阿玛兰塔打算塑造一个漂亮的尸体,裹上亚麻布殓衣,放进棺材,悄材外面蒙上长毛绒,里面讨上紫色布,由壮观的丧葬队伍送给虫子去受用。阿玛兰塔痛恨地拟定自己的计划时突然想到,如果她爱雷贝卡,也会这么干的。这种想法使阿玛兰塔不寒而栗,但她没有气馁,继续把计划的一切细节考虑得更加完善,很快就不仅成了一名尸体整容专家,而已成了丧葬礼仪的行家。在这可怕的计划中,她没想到的只有一点:尽管她向上帝祈求,但她可能死在雷贝卡之前。事情果然如此。但在最后一分钟,阿玛兰塔感到自己并没有绝望,相反地,她没有任何悲哀,因为死神优待她,几年前就顶先告诉了她结局的临近。在把梅梅送往修道院学校之后不久,她在一个炎热的响午就看见了死神;列神跟她一块儿坐在长廊上缝衣服她立刻认出了死神;这死神没什么可怕,不过是个穿着蓝衣服的女人,头发挺长,模样古板,有点儿象帮助乌苏娜干些厨房杂活时的皮拉·苔列娜。菲兰达也有几次跟阿玛兰塔一起坐在长廊上,但她没有看见死神,虽然死神是那么真切,象人一样,有一次甚至请阿玛兰塔替她穿针引线。死神井没有说阿玛兰塔哪年哪月哪天会死,她的时刻会不会早于雷贝卡,死神只是要她从下一个月——四月六日起开始给自己缝硷衣,容许她把殓衣缝得象自己希望的那么奇妙和漂亮,但要象给雷贝卡缝殓衣时那么认真,随后死神又说,阿玛兰塔将在硷衣缝完的那天夜里死去,没有痛苦,没有忧伤和恐惧。阿玛兰塔打算尽量多花一些时间,选购了上等麻纱,开始自己织布。单是织布就花了四年的工夫,然后就动手缝制了,越接近难免的结局,她就越明白,只有奇迹能够让她把殓衣的缝制拖到雷贝卡死亡之后,但是经常聚精会神地干活使她得到了平静,帮助她容忍了希望破灭的想法。正是这个时候,她懂得了奥雷连诺上校制作小金鱼的恶性循环的意义。现在对她来说,外部世界就是她的身体表面,她的内心是没有任何痛苦的。她遗憾的是许多年前没有发现这一点,当时还能清除回忆中的肮脏东西,改变整个世界:毫不战栗地回忆黄昏时分皮埃特罗.克列斯比身上发出的黛衣草香味,把雷贝卡从悲惨的境地中搭救出来,——不是出于爱,也不是由于恨,而是因为深切理解她的孤独,有一天晚上,她在梅梅话里感到的憎恨曾使她吃了一惊,倒不是因为这种憎恨是针对她的,而是因为她觉得这姑娘的青年时代和她以前一样虽是纯洁的,但已沾染了憎恨别人的坏习气。可她感到现在已经没有痛改前非的可能,也就满不在乎了,听从命董的摆布了。她唯一操心的是缝完殓衣。她不象开头那样千方百计延缓工作,而是加快进度。距离工作结束还剩一个星期的时候,她估计二月四号晚上将缝最后一针,于是并没说明原因,就劝梅梅推迟原定五号举行的钢琴音乐会,可是梅梅不听她的劝告。接着,阿玛兰塔开始寻找继续拖延四十八小时的办法,甚至认为死神迎合了她的愿望,因为二月四号晚上暴风雨把发电站破坏了。但是,第二天早上八点,阿玛兰塔仍在世间最漂亮的硷衣上缝了最后一针,泰然自若他说她晚上就要死了。这一点,她不仅告诉全家,而且告诉全镇,因她以为,最终为人们做一件好事就能弥补自己一生的悭吝,而最适合这个目的的就是帮助人家捎信给死人。
  阿玛兰塔傍晚就要起锚,带着信件航行到死人国去,这个消息还在晌午之前就传遍了整个马孔多;下午三点,客厅里已经立着一口装满了信件的箱子,不愿提笔的人就让阿玛兰塔传递口信,她把它们都记在笔记本里,并且写上收信人的姓名及其死亡的日期。“甭担心,”她安慰发信的人。“我到达那儿要做的第一件事就是找到他,把您的信转交给他。”这一切象是一出滑稽戏。阿玛兰塔没有任何明显的不安,也没有任何悲伤的迹象,由于承担了捎信的任务,她甚至显得年轻了。她象往常那样笔挺、匀称,如果不是脸颊凹陷、缺了几颗门牙,她看上去比自己的岁数年轻得多。她亲自指挥别人把信投入箱子,用树脂把箱子封上,并且说明如何将箱子放进坟墓才能较好地防止潮湿。早上,她叫来一个木匠,当他给她量棺材尺寸的时候,她却泰然地站着,仿佛他准备给她量衣服。在最后的时刻里,她还有那么充沛的精力,以致菲兰达产生了疑心:阿玛兰塔说自己要死是不是跟大家寻开心?乌苏娜知道布恩蒂亚家的人通常部是无病死亡的,所以相信阿玛兰塔确实得到了死亡的预兆,但在捎信的事情上,乌苏娜担心的是癫狂的发信人渴望信件快点儿到达,在忙乱中把她女儿活活地埋掉。因此,乌苏娜跟刚进屋子的人争争吵吵,下午四点就把他们都撵出去了。这时,阿玛兰塔已把自己的东西分发给了穷人,只在简陋、粗糙的木板棺材上留下了一身衣服和一双没有后跟的普通布鞋,这双鞋子是她死时要穿的。她所所以没有忽略鞋子,是她想起自己在奥雷连诺去世时曾给他买了一双新皮鞋,因他只有一双在作坊里穿的家常便鞋。五点之前不久,奥雷连诺第二来叫梅梅去参加音乐会时,对家中的丧葬气氛感到十分惊讶。这时,如果说谁象活人,那就是安详的阿玛兰塔,她镇静自若,甚至还有时间来割自己的鸡眼。奥雷连诺第二和梅梅戏谑地跟她告别,答应下个星期六举行一次庆祝她复活的盛大酒宴,五点钟,安东尼奥·伊萨贝尔神父听说阿玛兰塔正在收集捎给死人的信,前来为她举行最后一次圣餐仪式,在临死的人走出浴室之前,他不得不等候了二十多分钟,她穿着印度白布衬衫,头发披在肩上,出现在衰老的教区神父面前,他以为这是个鬼把戏,就把拿着圣餐的小厮打发走了。但他仍然决定利用这个机会听取阿玛兰塔的祈祷,因为她几乎二十年拒绝祈祷了。阿玛兰塔直截了当地说,她不需要任何精神上的帮助,因为她的心地是纯洁的。菲兰达对此很不痛快。她不顾人家可能听见她的话,大声地自言自语,阿玛兰塔宁愿要亵读神灵的死亡,而不要忏悔,这是多大的罪恶啊!然后阿玛兰塔躺下,让乌苏娜当众证明她的贞洁。
  “让谁也不要乱想,”她大声叫嚷,使菲兰达能够听见。“阿玛兰塔如何来到这个世界,就如何离开这个世界。”
  阿玛兰塔再也没有起床。她象病人似地躺在枕上,把长发编成辫子,放在耳边,——是死神要她这样躺进棺材的。然后,阿玛兰塔要求鸟苏娜拿来一面镜子,四十多年来第一次看见了岁月和苦难毁掉的自己的面孔;她觉得奇怪的是,这副面孔跟她想象的完全一样。乌苏娜根据卧室中逐渐出现的寂静,知道天色开始黑了。
  “向菲兰达告别吧,”乌苏娜要求阿玛兰塔,“重新合好的一分钟,比友好的一生还宝贵啊!”
  “现在这没用处了,”阿玛兰塔回答。
  临时搭成的台子上重新灯火通明,第二部分节目开始的时候,梅梅仍然不能不想到阿玛兰塔。她正演奏一支曲子,有人在她耳边低声地报告了噩耗,音乐会就停止了,奥雷连诺第二走进屋子,不得不挤过人群,才能瞧见老处女的尸体:她显得苍白难看,手上缠着黑色绷带,身子裹着漂亮的殓衣,棺材停放在客厅里,旁边是一箱信件。经过九夜的守灵,鸟苏娜再也不能起床了。圣索菲怀。德拉佩德照顾她,把饮食和洗脸水给她拿进卧室,将马孔多发生的一切事情告诉她。奥雷连诺第二常来看望鸟苏娜,给她各式各样的衣服,她都把它们放在床边,跟其它许多最必需的生活用品混在一“起,很快在伸手就能摸到的距离内建立了一个世界。她得到:”小姑娘阿玛兰塔;乌苏娜的爱,小姑娘一切都象她,她教小姑娘读书识字,现在,甚至谁也没有猎到鸟苏娜完全瞎了,虽然大家都知道她视力不好;她那清醒的头脑以及无需旁人照顾的本领,只是使人想到百岁的高龄压倒了她。这时,乌苏娜有了那么多的空闲时间,内心又那么平静,就能注意家中的生活了,囵此她第一个发现了梅梅闷不吱声的苦恼。“到这儿来吧,”鸟苏娜向小姑娘说。“现在,只有咱俩在一块儿,你就向可怜的老太婆但白说说你的心事吧。”
  梅悔羞涩地笑了一声,避免交谈,鸟苏娜没有坚持。可是梅悔不再来看望她时,她的疑心就更大了。乌苏娜知道,梅梅现在起床比往常都早,一分钟也坐不住,等候可以溜出家门的时刻,而且通育部在邻室的床上辗转反侧,房间里总有一只飞舞的蝴蝶妨碍她睡觉。有一次梅梅说她要去看看父亲,乌苏娜就对菲兰达的头脑迟钝感到惊异了,虽然在这之后不久,奥雷连诺第二自己就来找她的女儿。十分显然,梅梅很久以来就在千什么秘密勾当,有什么焦急的事,直到有一天晚上,菲兰达发现梅梅在电影院里跟一个男人接吻,终于把整个家庭闹翻了天。
  梅梅心里难过,以为乌苏娜出卖了她,其实是她出卖了自己。她早就留下了一连串痕迹,甚至能够引起瞎子的怀疑。如果说菲兰达过了那么久才发现这些痕迹,只是因为她在全神贯注地跟没有见过的医生秘密通信。但是菲兰达终于看出,女儿时而长久沉默,时而突然发抖,时而情绪骤变,脾气暴跺了。菲兰达开始不断地秘密观察梅梅。她照旧让女儿跟女友们外出,帮她穿上星期六晚会的衣服,一次也没向她提出可能使她警觉的难堪的问题,菲兰达已有不少证据,梅梅所做的跟她所说的不同,可是母亲为了等待决定性的罪证,仍然没有表露自己的怀疑,有一夭晚上,梅梅说她要跟父亲去看电影。没过多久,菲兰达就听到了佩特娜.柯特家的方向传来了鞭炮的噼啪声和奥雷连诺第二手风琴的声音,他的手风琴跟其他任何人的手风琴都是混同不了的,于是她穿上衣服,到电影院去,在池座前几排的昏暗中认出了自己的女儿。由于怀疑得到证实,菲兰达感到震惊,她还来不及看清跟梅梅接吻的男人,就在观众震耳欲聋的叫声和笑声中听出了他那颤抖的声音。“很抱歉,亲爱的,”菲兰达一听,二话没说,立刻把梅梅拖出池座,羞愧地拉着她经过熙熙攘攘的土耳其人街,把她关在她的卧室里。
  次日下午六时,有个人来拜访菲兰达,她听出了他的声音。这人年纪挺轻,脸色发黄,如果菲兰达以前见过吉卜赛人,他那悒郁的黑眼睛是不会叫她那么吃惊的:任何一个心肠不硬的妇女,只要看见这人脸上那副恍惚的神情,都能理解梅梅的动机。客人穿着破旧的亚麻布衣服和皮鞋,为了使皮鞋象个样子,他在鞋上拼命涂了几层锌白,但是锌白已经出现了裂纹;他手里拿着上星州六买的一顶草帽。在他的一生中,他从来不象现在这么畏缩,但他态度尊严,镇定自若,这就使他没有丢脸。在他身上可以感到一种天生的高尚气度——只有一双手肮里肮脏,他干粗活时已把指甲弄裂了。然而,菲兰达一眼就猜到他是个机修工人。她看出,他穿的是一件星期日穿的衣服,他那衬衣下面的肉体染上了香蕉公司的皮疹。她不让他开口,甚至不准他进门,过了片刻,她就不得不把门关上,因为整座房子都是黄蝴蝶。
  “走开,”她说。“规矩人家用不着你来串门。”
  他叫毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚,出生在马孔多,是香蕉公司汽车库的徒工。梅梅是偶然跟他认识的,有一天下午,她和帕特卫西娅.布劳恩去要汽车到种植园去,司机病了,毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚接受了开车的任务,梅梅终于达到了自己的愿望——坐在司机身边,看他怎样开车。跟正式的司机不同,毛里西奥.巴比洛尼亚用实物向他作了一切解释。这件事情发生的时候,梅梅刚开始到布劳恩先生家里去作容,而且驾驶汽车被认为是妇女不配干的事情。因此,她满足于理论上的解释,好几个月都没跟毛里西奥.巴比洛尼亚重新见面,她随后想起,在种植园里乘车游逛的时候,他那男性的美曾经引起她的注意(她不喜欢的只是他那双粗糙的手).而且后来她还向帕特里西娅·布劳恩提到,他那几乎自高自大的态度给她留下了讨厌的印象。另一个星期六,梅梅和父亲去电影院,又看见了毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚,他仍然穿着那件亚麻布衣服,坐在离她和父亲不远的地方。姑娘发现,他不太注意电影,老是掉头看她。这种粗俗的样儿使梅梅感到厌恶。散场以后,毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚走来招呼奥雷连诺第二,这时梅梅才知道他俩彼此认识,因为毛里西奥.巴比洛尼亚从前在奥雷连诺·特里斯特的小电站上工作,——他在她父亲面前象下属一般毕恭毕敬。这个发现消除了他的高傲在梅梅身上引起的恶感。她跟他没有私会过,除了打打招呼,还没聊过什么。有一天夜里她忽然做了个梦:他在船舶失事时救了她,可她没有感激之情,只有愤怒。在梦中,仿佛她自己给了他期待的机会,而她渴望的却是相反的情况,不仅要求毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚这样,要求对她发生兴趣的其他男人也是这样。但是,她那么气愤,醒来之后却没恨他,反而感到非去见他不可。在一个星期中,她的焦渴越来越厉害,星期六就变得难以忍受了;随后,当毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚在电影院里招呼她的时候,她不得不作出极大的克制,不让他发现她的心快要跳出胸口。在高兴和嗔怒掺在一起的心情下,她第一次伸手给他,他也第一次握着它。在某一瞬间,她懊悔自己的冲动,但她发觉他的手也汗湿、冰冷时,她的懊悔立即变成了极大的满足。梅梅夜里开始明白,如果不向毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚说明他的希望完全枉然,她就不会有一分钟的宁静;随后整整一个星期,她都心急火燎,再也无法去想其它事人为了促使帕特里西娅·布劳恩跟他一块儿女要汽车,她使出了各种无用的花招。最后,利用一个红发美国人前来马孔多度假的机会,并且借口参观新式汽车,她请这个美国人带她去汽车库。梅梅刚一看见毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚,就不再期骗自己,知道实际情况是她自己巴望跟他单独呆在一起。她刚出现在门口,他就明白了一切;他的这种信心使得梅梅十分气恼。
  “我是来参观新式汽车的,”梅侮说。
  “嗯,这个借口不错嘛,”他回答。
  梅梅觉得,他那高傲的烈火的伤了她,她就拼命想法伤他的面子。但他不让她有时间这么干。“别怕,”他降低声音说。“女人为男人发疯已不是头一遭了。”她觉得自己束手无策,甚至没看新式汽车一眼,就从汽车库走了出去,通宵都在床上翻来覆去,气得直哭。说实在的,已经使她感到兴趣的那个红头发美国人,此刻在她眼里不过象一个裹着尿布的小孩儿了。正是从这个时候起,她发现黄蝴蝶预示毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚的出现。以前,尤其在汽车库里,她看见过黄蝴蝶,可她以为它们是被油漆吸引到那儿去的。有一次,在暗黑的观众厅里,梅梅听到它们在她的头顶上飞舞。但是,当毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚象个鬼影(在人群中只有她一个人看得见这个鬼影)追踪她的时候,她才想到黄蝴蝶跟他有某种关系。在音乐会上,在电影院里,在教堂里做弥撒时,毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚经常都在人群中间;要发现他,梅梅只消举眼找到黄蝴蝶就行了。有一次奥雷连诺第二大发牢骚,咒骂黄蝴蝶讨厌地飞来飞去,梅梅差点儿象她以前答应过父亲的那样,把自己的秘密告诉他,但她下意识地想到,他又会象往常一样笑着说:“如果你母亲知道了,她会说什么呀?”有一天早上,菲兰达和梅梅正在修剪玫瑰花丛的时候,菲兰达忽然惊叫一声,从梅梅站立的地方——俏姑娘雷麦黛丝升天的地方,把梅梅往旁边一拖。空中突然出现的翅膀拍动声把菲兰达吓了一跳,刹那间她以为怪事又要在女儿身上重现了。然而这是蝴蝶。它们那么突然地出现在梅梅眼前,仿佛是从阳光里产生的,使得她的心都缩紧了。就在这时,毛里西奥.巴比洛尼亚走进花园,手里拿着一个包包,他说这是帕特里西娅.布劳恩的赠品。梅梅勉强驱散了脸上羞涩的红晕,装出一副十分自然的笑容,请他把包包放在长廊的栏杆上,因为她的手挺脏。菲兰达在这个人身上注意到的,只是他那病态的、发黄的皮肤;几个月之后她将把他撵出自己的家,甚至记不起她在哪儿见过他了。
  “一个很古怪的人,”菲兰达说。“凭他的脸色就能看出,他活不了多久。”
  梅梅以为蝴蝶给母亲的印象太深了。她把玫瑰花丛修剪完毕,就洗了洗手,将包包拿进卧室去打开。包包里是个中国玩具似的东西——五个小盒,一个套着一个,在最后一个小盒里放着一张名信片,一个勉强会写字的人吃力地写上了几个字儿:“星期六在电影院相见。”梅梅觉得后怕,因为包包在长廊上放了不少时间,菲兰达可能怀疑它。梅梅虽然喜欢毛里西奥.巴比洛尼亚的勇敢和发明才干,但他天真地相信她准会赴约,这就触犯了她的自尊心。梅梅知道,星期六晚上奥雷连诺第二是有约会的。但在整整一个星期中,她都感到杌陧不安,星期六晚上,她要父亲送她去电影院,散场之后再来接她。观众厅里的电灯还亮着的时候,夜出的蝴蝶就在她头顶上不停地飞舞。然后事儿就发生了。灯一熄灭,毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚就在她身边坐下。梅梅觉得自已仿佛在可怕的泥坑里无力地挣扎,象在梦中一样,能够搭救她的只有这个沾上机油味的人;在黑暗的大厅里,她勉强才能看得见他。
  “如果你不来,”他说,“你就永远见不到我了。”
  梅梅感到他的手放在她的膝上,而且明白:从这一刹那起,他俩已经难解难分了。
  “你叫我生气的是,”她微笑着说,“你总说些不该说的话。”
  她爱他爱得发狂。她睡不着觉,吃不下饭,陷入孤独,甚至父亲也成了她的障碍。为了迷惑菲兰达,她胡乱地编造了一大堆谎话,不是说别人邀请她,就是说有什么事;她抛弃了自己的女友,逾越了一切常规,只要跟毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚相会就行——不管什么地方,也不管什么时候,起初,她不喜欢他的粗鲁。他俩第一次在汽车库后面的空地上幽会时,他毫不怜惜地将她弄得象个动物似的,把她搞得精疲力尽。梅梅后来明白,这也是一种爱抚,于是她失去了平静,光是为他活在人世了,渴望一再闻到使她发疯的机器油和碱水味儿。在阿玛兰塔去世之前不久,她突然短时间清醒过来,面对渺茫的前途不住地战粟。那时梅梅听说有一个用纸牌算命的女人,就悄悄地去她那儿。这是皮拉·苔列娜。她一看见梅梅,立刻明白姑娘来找她的隐秘原因。“坐下吧,”皮拉·苔列娜说。“给布恩蒂亚家的人算命,我是不需要纸牌的。”梅梅不知道,永远不会知道,百岁的女巫是她的曾祖母。皮拉·苔列娜向她说,爱情的苦恼只有在床上才能解除,她听了十分直率的解释也不相信,毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚持同样的看法,可是梅梅也不相信他的话,她心里认为,他那么说是因为无知,象其他工人一样。她以为一方的情欲得到了满足,就会不管另一方了,因为人们由于天性,解除了饥饿,就会失去对食物的兴趣。皮拉·苔列娜不仅消除了梅梅的错误想法,而且让梅梅使用一张旧床,在这张床上,她怀过梅梅的祖父阿卡蒂奥,然后又怀过奥雷连诺·霍塞。此外,她还教梅梅利用芥未膏沐浴的办法预防不需要的受孕,并且给了梅梅药剂处方,如果发生了麻烦,这种药剂就能免除一切——“甚至免除良心的遗贡”。在这次谈话之后,梅梅感到勇气百倍,犹如喝得酩酊大醉的那天晚上一样。然而,阿玛兰塔之死使她不得不推迟计划的实行。在守灵的九夜里,她一分钟也没离开毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚,他总在房里的人群中踱来踱去。后来开始了长久的服丧期,必须深居简出,一对情人只好暂时分开了。在这些日子里,梅梅心中焦躁,苦闷已极,冲动难抑,在她能够出门的第一个晚上,她就径直前往皮拉·苔列娜家里了。她听任毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚摆布,没有抗拒,没有羞耻,没有扭捏,表现了那么大的天赋和本领,以致疑心较重的男人都会拿它们跟真正的经验混为一谈。在三个多月中,他俩每周幽会两次。奥雷连诺第二不知不觉地跟他俩狼狈为奸,保护他俩,天真地证实女儿想出的借口,希望她摆脱母亲的束缚。
  菲兰达在电影院里突然捉住梅梅和毛里西奥.巴比洛尼亚的那天晚上,奥雷连诺第二感到良心的谴责,来到禁闭女儿的卧室里,以为梅梅按照她的诺言在他面前吐露真情,心情就会轻松一些。可是梅梅否认一切。她那么自信,一口咬定自己是孤单的,奥雷连诺第二就觉得他和女儿的关系断了,他俩从来不是知心的伙伴——一切只是往日的幻想。他考虑是不是跟毛里西奥·巴比洛尼亚谈谈,也许昔日老板的威望能让这个人放弃自己的打算,可是佩特娜·柯特劝他不要插手女人的事儿,他就陷入犹豫不决的状态,希望禁锢能够解除女儿的痛苦。
  梅梅没有显出任何痛苦的迹象,相反地,乌苏娜从隔壁房间里听到,梅梅夜间睡得挺香,白天安静地做事,按时吃饭,消化良好。在梅梅关了几乎两个月之后,乌苏娜觉得奇怪的只有一点:梅梅不象其他的人那样早上走进浴室,而是晚上七时走进浴室,有一次,乌苏娜甚至想警告梅梅当心蝎子,可是梅梅认为高祖母出卖了她,避免跟乌苏娜谈话,乌苏娜就决定不再婆妈妈地打扰她了。天刚黑,房子里就满是黄蝴蝶。每天晚上从浴室出来的时候,梅梅都发现绝望的菲兰达用喷射杀虫剂来消灭蝴蝶。“真可怕,”菲兰达哼叫起来,“我一直听说,夜出的蝴蝶会带来灾祸。”有一次,梅梅在浴室里的时候,菲兰达偶然走进她的房间,那么多的蝴蝶使她气都喘不过来。她随手抓起一块布来驱赶它们,但她把女儿夜间的沐浴和散在地上的芥末膏联系起来,就吓得发呆了,菲兰达并不象前次那样等候方便的机会。第二天,她就把新任镇长邀来吃午饭。这位镇长象她一样是生在山里的。她请他夜间在她的后院设置一名警卫,因为她觉得有人偷她的鸡。那天夜里,几乎象过去几个月的每天夜晚一样,梅梅在浴室里裸着身子,正在战战兢兢地等候毛里西奥.巴比洛尼亚,周围满是蝎子和蝴蝶;这时,毛里西奥.巴比洛尼亚在房顶上揭开一块瓦正想跳下浴室,警卫就开熗打伤了他。子弹陷在他的脊柱里,使他躺在床上一直到死。他是在孤独中老死的,没有抱怨,没有愤恨,没有出卖别人;往事的回忆以及不让他有片刻宁静的黄蝴蝶把他折磨死了,人家都骂他是偷鸡的贼。


执素衣

ZxID:13389413


等级: 内阁元老
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Chapter 13
IN THE BEWILDERMENT of her last years, ?rsula had had very little free time to attend to the papal education of Jos?Arcadio, and the time came for him to get ready to leave for the seminary right away. Meme, his sister, dividing her time between Fernanda’s rigidity and Amaranta’s bitterness, at almost the same moment reached the age set for her to be sent to the nuns?school, where they would make a virtuoso on the clavichord of her. ?rsula felt tormented by grave doubts concerning the effectiveness of the methods with which she had molded the spirit of the languid apprentice Supreme Pontiff, but she did not put the blame on her staggering old age or the dark clouds that barely permitted her to make out the shape of things, but on something that she herself could not really define and that she conceived confusedly as a progressive breakdown of time. “The years nowadays don’t pass the way the old ones used to,?she would say, feeling that everyday reality was slipping through her hands. In the past, she thought, children took a long time to grow up. All one had to do was remember all the time needed for Jos?Arcadio, the elder, to go away with the gypsies and all that happened before he came back painted like a snake and talking like an astronomer, and the things that happened in the house before Amaranta and Arcadio forgot the language of the Indians and learned Spanish. One had to see only the days of sun and dew that poor Jos?Arcadio Buendía went through under the chestnut tree and all the time weeded to mourn his death before they brought in a dying Colonel Aureliano Buendía, who after so much war and so much suffering from it was still not fifty years of age. In other times, after spending the whole day making candy animals, she had more than enough time for the children, to see from the whites of their eyes that they needed a dose of castor oil. Now, however, when she had nothing to do and would go about with Jos?Arcadio riding on her hip from dawn to dusk, this bad kind of time compelled her to leave things half done. The truth was that ?rsula resisted growing old even when she had already lost count of her age and she was a bother on all sides as she tried to meddle in everything and as she annoyed strangers with her questions as to whether they had left a plaster Saint Joseph to be kept until the rains were over during the days of the war. No one knew exactly when she had begun to lose her sight. Even in her later years, when she could no longer get out of bed, it seemed that she was simply defeated by decrepitude, but no one discovered that she was blind. She had noticed it before the birth of Jos?Arcadio. At first she thought it was a matter of a passing debility and she secretly took marrow syrup and put honey on her eyes, but quite soon she began to realize that she was irrevocably sinking into the darkness, to a point where she never had a clear notion of the invention of the electric light, for when they put in the first bulbs she was only able to perceive the glow. She did not tell anyone about it because it would have been a public recognition of her uselessness. She concentrated on a silent schooling in the distances of things and peoples voices, so that she would still be able to see with her memory what the shadows of her cataracts no longer allowed her to. Later on she was to discover the unforeseen help of odors, which were defined in the shadows with a strength that was much more convincing than that of bulk and color, and which saved her finally from the shame of admitting defeat. In the darkness of the room she was able to thread a needle and sew a buttonhole and she knew when the milk was about to boil. She knew with so much certainty the location of everything that she herself forgot that she was blind at times. On one occasion Fernanda had the whole house upset because she had lost her wedding ring, and ?rsula found it on a shelf in the children’s bedroom. Quite simply, while the others were going carelessly all about, she watched them with her four senses so that they never took her by surprise, and after some time she discovered that every member of the family, without realizing it, repeated the same path every day, the same actions, and almost repeated the same words at the same hour. Only when they deviated from meticulous routine did they run the risk of losing something. So when she heard Fernanda all upset be cause she had lost her ring, ?rsula remembered that the only thing different that she had done that day was to put the mattresses out in the sun because Meme had found a bedbug the might before. Since the children had been present at the fumigation, ?rsula figured that Fernanda had put the ring in the only place where they could not reach it: the shelf. Fernanda, on the other hand, looked for it in vain along the paths of her everyday itinerary without knowing that the search for lost things is hindered by routine habits and that is why it is so difficult to find them.
   The rearing of Jos?Arcadio helped ?rsula in the exhausting task of keeping herself up to date on the smallest changes in the house. When she realized that Amaranta was dressing the saints in the bedroom she pretended to show the boy the differences in the colors.
   “Let’s see,?she would tell him. “Tell me what color the Archangel Raphael is wearing.?
   In that way the child gave her the information that was denied her by her eyes, and long before he went away to the seminary ?rsula could already distinguish the different colors of the saints?clothing by the texture. Sometimes unforeseen accidents would happen. One afternoon when Amaranta was ‘embroidering on the porch with the begonias ?rsula bumped into her.
   “For heaven’s sake,?Amaranta protested. “watch where you’re going.?
   “It’s your fault,??rsula said. “You’re not sitting where you’re supposed to.?
   She was sure of it. But that day she began to realize something that no one had noticed and it was that with the passage of the year the sun imperceptibly changed position and those who sat on the porch had to change their position little by little without being aware of it. From then on ?rsula had only to remember the date in order to know exactly where Amaranta was sitting. Even though the trembling of her hands was more and more noticeable and the weight of her feet was too much for her, her small figure was never seen in so many places at the same time. She was almost as diligent as when she had the whole weight of the house on her shoulders. Nevertheless, in the impenetrable solitude of decrepitude she had such clairvoyance as she examined the most insignificant happenings in the family that for the first time she saw clearly the truths that her busy life in former times had prevented her from seeing. Around the time they were preparing Jos?Arcadio for the seminary she had already made a detailed recapitulation of life in the house since the founding of Macondo and had completely changed the opinion that she had always held of her descendants. She realized that Colonel Aureliano Buendía had not lost his love for the family because he had been hardened by the war, as she had thought before, but that he had never loved anyone, not even his wife Remedios or the countless one-night women who had passed through his life, and much less his sons. She sensed that he had fought so many wars not out of idealism, as everyone had thought, nor had he renounced a certain victory because of fatigue, as everyone had thought, but that he had won and lost for the same reason, pure and sinful pride. She reached the conclusion that the son for whom she would have given her life was simply a man incapable of love. One night when she was carrying him in her belly she heard him weeping. It was such a definite lament that Jos?Arcadio Buendía woke up beside her and was happy with the idea that his son was going to be a ventriloquist. Other people predicted that he would be a prophet. She, on the other hand, shuddered from the certainty that the deep moan was a first indication of the fearful pig tail and she begged God to let the child die in her womb. But the lucidity of her old age allowed her to see, and she said so many times, that the cries of children in their mothers?wombs are not announcements of ventriloquism or a faculty for prophecy but an unmistakable sign of an incapacity for love. The lowering of the image of her son brought out in her all at once all the compassion that she owed him. Amaranta, however, whose hardness of heart frightened her, whose concentrated bitterness made her bitter, suddenly became clear to her in the final analysis as the most tender woman who had ever existed, and she understood with pitying clarity that the unjust tortures to which she had submitted Pietro Crespi had not been dictated by a desire for vengeance, as everyone had thought, nor had the slow martyrdom with which she had frustrated the life of Colonel Gerineldo Márquez been determined by the gall of her bitterness, as everyone had thought, but that both actions had been a mortal struggle between a measureless love and an invincible cowardice, and that the irrational fear that Amaranta had always had of her own tormented heart had triumphed in the end. It was during that time that ?rsula, began to speak Rebeca’s name, bringing back the memory of her with an old love that was exalted by tardy repentance and a sudden admiration, coming to understand that only she, Rebeca, the one who had never fed of her milk but only of the earth of the land and the whiteness of the walls, the one who did not carry the blood of her veins in hers but the unknown blood of the strangers whose bones were still clocing in their grave. Rebeca, the one with an impatient heart, the one with a fierce womb, was the only one who bad the unbridled courage that ?rsula had wanted for her line.
   “Rebeca,?she would say, feeling along the walls, “how unfair we’ve been to you!?
   In the house they simply thought that her mind was wandering, especially since the time she had begun walking about with her right arm raised like the Archangel Gabriel. Fernanda, however, realized that there was a sun of clairvoyance in the shadows of that wandering, for ?rsula could say without hesitation how much money had been spent in the house during the previous year. Amaranta had a similar idea one day as her mother was stirring a pot of soup in the kitchen and said all at once without knowing that they were listening to her that the corn grinder they had bought from the first gypsies and that had disappeared during the time before Jos?Arcadio, had taken his sixty-five trips around the world was still in Pilar Ternera’s house. Also almost a hundred years old, but fit and agile in spite of her inconceivable fatness, which frightened children as her laughter had frightened the doves in other times, Pilar Ternera was not surprised that ?rsula was correct because her own experience was beginning to tell her that an alert old age can be more keen than the cards.
   Nevertheless, when ?rsula realized that she had not had enough time to consolidate the vocation of Jos?Arcadio, she let herself be disturbed by consternation. She began to make mistakes, trying to see with her eyes the things that intuition allowed her to see with greater clarity. One morning she poured the contents of an inkwell over the boy’s head thinking that it was rose water. She stumbled so much in her insistence in taking part in everything that she felt herself upset by gusts of bad humor and she tried to get rid of the shadows that were beginning to wrap her in a straitjacket of cobwebs. It was then that it occurred to her that her clumsiness was not the first victory of decrepitude and darkness but a sentence passed by time. She thought that previously, when God did not make the same traps out of the months and years that the Turks used when they measured a yard of percale, things were different. Now children not only grew faster, but even feelings developed in a different way. No sooner had Remedios the Beauty ascended to heaven in body and soul than the inconsiderate Fernanda was going about mumbling to herself because her sheets had been carried off. The bodies of the Aurelianos were no sooner cold in their graves than Aureliano Segundo had the house lighted up again, filled with drunkards playing the accordion and dousing themselves in champagne, as if dogs and not Christians had died, and as if that madhouse which had cost her so many headaches and so many candy animals was destined to become a trash heap of perdition. Remembering those things as she prepared Jos?Arcadio’s trunk, ?rsula wondered if it was not preferable to lie down once and for all in her grave and let them throw the earth over her, and she asked God, without fear, if he really believed that people were made of iron in order to bear so many troubles and mortifications, and asking over and over she was stirring up her own confusion and she felt irrepressible desires to let herself go and scamper about like a foreigner and allow herself at last an instant of rebellion, that instant yearned for so many times and so many times postponed, putting her resignation aside and shitting on everything once and for all and drawing out of her heart the infinite stacks of bad words that she had been forced to swallow over a century of conformity.
   “Shit!?she shouted.
   Amaranta, who was starting to put the clothes into the trunk, thought that she had been bitten by a scorpion.
   “Where is it??she asked in alarm.
   “What??
   “The bug!?Amaranta said.
   ?rsula put a finger on her heart.
   “Here,?she said.
   On Thursday, at two in the afternoon, Jos?Arcadio left for the seminary. ‘?rsula would remember him always as she said good-bye to him, languid and serious, without shedding a tear, as she had taught him, sweltering in the heat in the green corduroy suit with copper buttons and a starched bow around his neck. He left the dining room impregnated with the penetrating fragrance of rose water that she had sprinkled on his head so that she could follow his tracks through the house. While the farewell lunch was going on, the family concealed its nervousness with festive expressions and they celebrated with exaggerated enthusiasm the remarks that Father Antonio Isabel made. But when they took out the trunk bound in velvet and with silver corners, it was as if they had taken a coffin out of the house. The only one who refused to take part in the farewell was Colonel Aureliano Buendía.
   “That’s all we need,?he muttered. “A Pope!?
   Three months later Aureliano Segundo and Fernanda took Meme to school and came back with a clavichord, which took the place of the pianola. It was around that time that Amaranta started sewing her own shroud. The banana fever had calmed down. The old inhabitants of Macondo found themselves surrounded by newcomers and working hard to cling to their precarious resources of times gone by, but comforted in any case by the sense that they had survived a shipwreck. In the house they still had guests for lunch and the old routine was never really set up again until the banana company left years later. Nevertheless, there were radical changes in the traditional sense of hospitality because at that time it was Fernanda who imposed her rules. With ?rsula relegated to the shadows and with Amaranta absorbed In the work of her winding cloth, the former apprentice queen had the freedom to choose the guests and impose on them the rigid norms that her parents had taught her. Her severity made the house a redoubt of old customs in a town convulsed by the vulgarity with which the outsiders squandered their easy fortunes. For her, with no further questions asked, proper people were those who had nothing to do with the banana company. Even Jos?Arcadio Segundo, her brother-in-law, was the victim of her discriminatory jealousy because during the excitement of the first days he gave up his stupendous fighting cocks again and took a job as foreman with the banana company.
   “He won’t ever come into this house again,?Fernanda said, “as long as he carries the rash of the foreigners.?
   Such was the narrowness imposed in the house that Aureliano Segundo felt more comfortable at Petra Cotes’s. First, with the pretext of taking the burden off his wife, he transferred his parties. Then, with the pretext that the animals were losing their fertility, he transferred his barns and stables. Finally, with the pretext that it was cooler in his concubine’s house, he transferred the small office in which he handled his business. When Fernanda realized that she was a widow whose husband had still not died, it was already too late for things to return to their former state. Aureliano Segundo barely ate at home and the only appearances he put in, such as to sleep with his wife, were not enough to convince anyone. One night, out of carelessness, morning found him in Petra Cotes’s bed. Fernanda, contrary to expectations, did not reproach him in the least or give the slightest sigh of resentment, but on the same day she sent two trunks with his clothing to the house of his concubine. She sent them in broad daylight and with instructions that they be carried through the middle of the street so that everyone could see them, thinking that her straying husband would be unable to bear the shame and would return to the fold with his head hung low. But that heroic gesture was just one more proof of how poorly Fernanda knew not only the character of her husband but the character of a community that had nothing to do with that of her parents, for everyone who saw the trunks pass by said that it was the natural culmination of a story whose intimacies were known to everyone, and Aureliano Segundo celebrated the freedom he had received with a party that lasted for three days. To the greater disadvantage of his wife, as she was entering into a sad maturity with her somber long dresses, her old-fashioned medals, and her out-of-place pride, the concubine seemed to be bursting with a second youth, clothed in gaudy dresses of natural silk and with her eyes tiger-striped with a glow of vindication. Aureliano Segundo gave himself over to her again with the fury of adolescence, as before, when Petra Cotes had not loved him for himself but because she had him mixed up with his twin brother and as she slept with both of them at the same time she thought that God had given her the good fortune of having a man who could make love like two. The restored passion was so pressing that on more than one occasion they would look each other in the eyes as they were getting ready to eat and without saying anything they would cover their plates and go into the bedroom dying of hunger and of love. Inspired by the things he had seen on his furtive visits to the French matrons, Aureliano Segundo bought Petra Cotes a bed with an archiepiscopal canopy, put velvet curtains on the windows, and covered the ceiling and the walls of the bedroom with large rock-crystal mirrors. At the same time he was more of a carouser and spendthrift than ever. On the train, which arrived every day at eleven o’clock, he would receive cases and more cases of champagne and brandy. On the way back from the station he would drag the improvised cumbiamba along in full view of all the people on the way, natives or outsiders, acquaintances or people yet to be known, without distinctions of any kind. Even the slippery Mr. Brown, who talked only in a strange tongue, let himself be seduced by the tempting signs that Aureliano Segundo made him and several times he got dead drunk in Petra Cotes’s house and he even made the fierce German shepherd dogs that went everywhere with him dance to some Texas songs that he himself mumbled in one way or another to the accompaniment of the accordion.
   “Cease, cows,?Aureliano Segundo shouted at the height of the party. “Cease, because life is short.?
   He never looked better, nor had he been loved more, nor had the breeding of his animals been wilder. There was a slaughtering of so many cows, pigs, and chickens for the endless parties that the ground in the courtyard turned black and muddy with so much blood. It was an eternal execution ground of bones and innards, a mud pit of leftovers, and they had to keep exploding dynamite bombs all the time so that the buzzards would not pluck out the guests?eyes. Aureliano Segundo grew fat, purple-colored, turtle-shaped, because of an appetite comparable only to that of Jos?Arcadio when he came back from traveling around the world. The prestige of his outlandish voracity, of his immense capacity as a spendthrift, of his unprecedented hospitality went beyond the borders of the swamp and attracted the best-qualified gluttons from all along the coast. Fabulous eaters arrived from everywhere to take part in the irrational tourneys of capacity and resistance that were organized in the house of Petra Cotes. Aureliano Segundo was the unconquered eater until the luckless Saturday when Camila Sagastume appeared, a totemic female known all through the land by the good name of “The Elephant.?The duel lasted until dawn on Tuesday. During the first twenty-four hours, having dispatched a dinner of veal, with cassava, yams, and fried bananas, and a case and a half of champagne in addition, Aureliano Segundo was sure of victory. He seemed more enthusiastic, more vital than his imperturbable adversary, who possessed a style that was obviously more professional, but at the same time less emotional for the large crowd that filled the house. While Aureliano Segundo ate with great bites, overcome by the anxiety of victory, The Elephant was slicing her meat with the art of a surgeon and eating it unhurriedly and even with a certain pleasure. She was gigantic and sturdy, but over her colossal form a tenderness of femininity prevailed and she had a face that was so beautiful, hands so fine and well cared for, and such an irresistible personal charm that when Aureliano Segundo saw her enter the house he commented in a low voice that he would have preferred to have the tourney in bed and not at the table. Later on, when he saw her consume a side of veal without breaking a single rule of good table manners, he commented seriously that that delicate, fascinating, and insatiable proboscidian was in a certain way the ideal woman. He was not mistaken. The reputation of a bone crusher that had preceded The Elephant had no basis. She was not a beef cruncher or a bearded lady from a Greek circus, as had been said, but the director of a school of voice. She had learned to eat when she was already the respectable mother of a family, looking for a way for her children to eat better and not by means of any artificial stimulation of their appetites but through the absolute tranquility of their spirits. Her theory, demonstrated in practice, was based on the principle that a person who had all matters of conscience in perfect shape should be able to eat until overcome by fatigue. And it was for moral reasons and sporting interest that she left her school and her home to compete with a man whose fame as a great, unprincipled eater had spread throughout the country. From the first moment she saw him she saw that Aureliano Segundo would lose not his stomach but his character. At the end of the first night, while The Elephant was boldly going on, Aureliano Segundo was wearing himself out with a great deal of talking and laughing. They slept four hours. On awakening each one had the juice of forty oranges, eight quarts of coffee, and thirty raw eggs. On the second morning, after many hours without sleep and having put away two pigs, a bunch of bananas, and four cases of champagne, The Elephant suspected that Aureliano Segundo had unknowingly discovered the same method as hers, but by the absurd route of total irresponsibility. He was, therefore, more dangerous than she had thought. Nevertheless, when Petra Cotes brought two roast turkeys to the table, Aureliano Segundo was a step away from being stuffed.
   “If you can’t, don’t eat any more,?The Elephant said to him. “Let’s call it a tie.?
   She said it from her heart, understanding that she could not eat another mouthful either, out of remorse for bringing on the death of her adversary. But Aureliano Segundo interpreted it as another challenge and he filled himself with turkey beyond his incredible capacity. He lost consciousness. He fell face down into the plate filled with bones, frothing at the mouth like a dog, and drowning in moans of agony. He felt, in the midst of the darkness, that they were throwing him from the top of a tower into a bottomless pit and in a last flash of consciousness he realized that at the end of that endless fall death was waiting for him.
   “Take me to Fernanda,?he managed to say.
   His friends left him at the house thinking that they had helped him fulfill his promise to his wife not to die in his concubine’s bed. Petra Cotes had shined his patent leather boots that he wanted to wear in his coffin, and she was already looking for someone to take them when they came to tell her that Aureliano Segundo was out of danger. He did recover, indeed, in less than a week, and two weeks later he was celebrating the fact of his survival with unprecedented festivities. He continued living at Petra Cotes’s but he would visit Fernanda every day and sometimes he would stay to eat with the family, as if fate had reversed the situation and had made him the husband of his concubine and the lover of his wife.
   It was a rest for Fernanda. During the boredom of her abandonment her only distractions were the clavichord lessons at siesta time and the letters from her children. In the detailed messages that she sent them every two weeks there was not a single line of truth. She hid her troubles from them. She hid from them the sadness of a house which, in spite of the light on the begonias, in spite of the heaviness at two in the afternoon, in spite of the frequent waves of festivals that came in from the street was more and more like the colonial mansion of her parents. Fernanda would wander alone among the three living ghosts and the dead ghost of Jos?Arcadio Buendía, who at times would come to sit down with an inquisitive attention in the half-light of the parlor while she was playing the clavichord. Colonel Aureliano Buendía was a shadow. Since the last time that he had gone out into the street to propose a war without any future to Colonel Gerineldo Márquez, he left the workshop only to urinate under the chestnut tree. He did not receive any visits except that of the barber every three weeks, He fed on anything that ?rsula brought him once a day, and even though he kept on making little gold fishes with the same passion as before, he stopped selling them when he found out that people were buying them not as pieces of jewelry but as historic relics. He made a bonfire in the courtyard of the dolls of Remedios which had decorated, their bedroom since their wedding. The watchful ?rsula realized what her son was doing but she could not stop him.
   “You have a heart of stone,?she told him.
   “It’s not a question of a heart,?he said. “The room’s getting full of moths.?
   Amaranta was weaving her shroud. Fernanda did not understand why she would write occasional letters to Meme and even send her gifts and on the other hand did not even want to hear about Jos?Arcadio. “They’ll die without knowing why,?Amaranta answered when she was asked through ?rsula, and that answer planted an enigma in Fernanda’s heart that she was never able to clarify. Tall, broad-shouldered, proud, always dressed in abundant petticoats with the lace and in air of distinction that resisted the years and bad memories, Amaranta seemed to carry the cross of ashes of virginity on her forehead. In reality she carried it on her hand in the black bandage, which she did not take off even to sleep and which she washed and ironed herself. Her life was spent in weaving her shroud. It might have been said that she wove during the day and unwove during the night, and not with any hope of defeating solitude in that way, but, quite the contrary, in order to nurture it.
   The greatest worry that Fernanda had during her years of abandonment was that Meme would come to spend her first vacation and not find Aureliano Segundo at home. His congestion had put an end to that fear. When Meme returned, her parents had made an agreement that not only would the girl think that Aureliano Segundo was still a domesticated husband but also that she would not notice the sadness of the house. Every year for two months Aureliano Segundo played his role of an exemplary husband and he organized parties with ice cream and cookies which the gay and lively schoolgirl enhanced with the clavichord. It was obvious from then on that she had inherited very little of her mother’s character. She seemed more of a second version of Amaranta when the latter had not known bitterness and was arousing the house with her dance steps at the age of twelve or fourteen before her secret passion for Pietro Crespi was to twist the direction of her heart in the end. But unlike Amaranta, unlike all of them, Meme still did not reveal the solitary fate of the family and she seemed entirely in conformity with the world, even when she would shut herself up in the parlor at two in the afternoon to practice the clavichord with an inflexible discipline. It was obvious that she liked the house, that she spent the whole year dreaming about the excitement of the young people her arrival brought around, and that she was not far removed from the festive vocation and hospitable excesses of her father. The first sign of that calamitous inheritance was revealed on her third vacation, when Meme appeared at the house with four nuns and sixty-eight classmates whom she had invited to spend a week with her family on her own Initiative and without any previous warning.
   “How awful!?Fernanda lamented. “This child is as much of a barbarian as her father!?
   It was necessary to borrow beds and hammocks from the neighbors, to set up nine shifts at the table, to fix hours for bathing, and to borrow forty stools so that the girls in blue uniforms with masculine buttons would not spend the whole day running from one place to another. The visit was a failure because the noisy schoolgirls would scarcely finish breakfast before they had to start taking turns for lunch and then for dinner, and for the whole week they were able to take only one walk through the plantations. At nightfall the nuns were exhausted, unable to move, give another order, and still the troop of tireless adolescents was in the courtyard singing school songs out of tune. One day they were on the point of trampling ?rsula, who made an effort to be useful precisely where she was most in the way. On another day the nuns got all excited because Colonel Aureliano Buendía had urinated under the chestnut tree without being concerned that the schoolgirls were in the courtyard. Amaranta was on the point of causing panic because one of the nuns went into the kitchen as she was salting the soup and the only thing that occurred to her to say was to ask what those handfuls of white powder were.
   “Arsenic,?Amaranta answered.
   The night of their arrival the students carried on in such a way, trying to go to the bathroom before they went to bed, that at one o’clock in the morning the last ones were still going in. Fernanda then bought seventy-two chamberpots but she only managed to change the nocturnal problem into a morning one, because from dawn on there was a long line of girls, each with her pot in her hand, waiting for her turn to wash it. Although some of them suffered fevers and several of them were infected by mosquito bites, most of them showed an unbreakable resistance as they faced the most troublesome difficulties, and even at the time of the greatest heat they would scamper through the garden. When they finally left, the flowers were destroyed, the furniture broken, and the walls covered with drawings and writing, but Fernanda pardoned them for all of the damage because of her relief at their leaving. She returned the borrowed beds and stools and kept the seventy-two chamberpots in Melquíades?room. The locked room, about which the spiritual life of the house revolved in former times, was known from that time on as the “chamberpot room.?For Colonel Aureliano Buendía it was the most appropriate name, because while the rest of the family was still amazed by the fact that Melquíades?room was immune to dust and destruction, he saw it turned into a dunghill. In any case, it did not seem to bother him who was correct, and if he found out about the fate of the room it was because Fernanda kept passing by and disturbing his work for a whole afternoon as she put away the chamberpots.
   During those days Jos?Arcadio Segundo reappeared in the house. He went along the porch without greeting anyone and he shut himself up in the workshop to talk to the colonel. In spite of the fact that she could not see him, ?rsula analyzed the clicking of his foreman’s boots and was surprised at the unbridgeable distance that separated him from the family, even from the twin brother with whom he had played ingenious games of confusion in childhood and with whom he no longer had any traits in common. He was linear, solemn, and had a pensive air and the sadness of a Saracen and a mournful glow on his face that was the color of autumn. He was the one who most resembled his mother, Santa Sofía de la Piedad. ?rsula reproached herself for the habit of forgetting about him when she spoke about the family, but when she sensed him in the house again and noticed that the colonel let him into the workshop during working hours, she reexamined her old memories and confirmed the belief that at some moment in childhood he had changed places with his twin brother, because it was he and not the other one who should have been called Aureliano. No one knew the details of his life. At one time it was discovered that he had no fixed abode, that he raised fighting cocks at Pilar Ternera’s house and that sometimes he would stay there to sleep but that he almost always spent the night in the rooms of the French matrons. He drifted about, with no ties of affection, with no ambitions, like a wandering star in ?rsula’s planetary system.
   In reality, Jos?Arcadio Segundo was not a member of the family, nor would he ever be of any other since that distant dawn when Colonel Gerineldo Márquez took him to the barracks, not so that he could see an execution, but so that for the rest of his life he would never forget the sad and somewhat mocking smile of the man being shot. That was not only his oldest memory, but the only one he had of his childhood. The other one, that of an old man with an old-fashioned vest and a hat with a brim like a crow’s wings who told him marvelous things framed in a dazzling window, he was unable to place in any period. It was an uncertain memory, entirely devoid of lessons or nostalgia, the opposite of the memory of the executed man, which had really set the direction of his life and would return to his memory clearer and dearer as he grew older, as if the passage of time were bringing him closer to it. ?rsula tried to use Jos?Arcadio Segundo to get Colonel Aureliano Buendía. to give up his imprisonment. “Get him to go to the movies,?she said to him. “Even if he doesn’t like the picture, as least he’ll breathe a little fresh air.?But it did not take her long to realize that he was as insensible to her begging as the colonel would have been, and that they were armored by the same impermeability of affection. Although she never knew, nor did anyone know, what they spoke about in their prolonged sessions shut up in the workshop, she understood that they were probably the only members of the family who seemed drawn together by some affinity.
   The truth is that not even Jos?Arcadio Segundo would have been able to draw the colonel out of his confinement. The invasion of schoolgirls had lowered the limits of his patience. With the pretext that his wedding bedroom was at the mercy of the moths in spite of the destruction of Remedios?appetizing dolls, he hung a hammock in the workshop and then he would leave it only to go into the courtyard to take care of his necessities. ?rsula was unable to string together even a trivial conversation with him. She knew that he did not look at the dishes of food but would put them at one end of his workbench while he finished a little fish and it did not matter to him if the soup curdled or if the meat got cold. He grew harder and harder ever since Colonel Gerineldo Márquez refused to back him up in a senile war. He locked himself up inside himself and the family finally thought of him is if he were dead. No other human reaction was seen in him until one October eleventh, when he went to the. street door to watch a circus parade. For Colonel Aureliano Buendía it had been a day just like all those of his last years. At five o’clock in the morning the noise of the toads and crickets outside the wall woke him up. The drizzle had persisted since Saturday and there was no necessity for him to hear their tiny whispering among the leaves of the garden because he would have felt the cold in his bones in any case. He was, as always, wrapped in his woolen blanket and wearing his crude cotton long drawers, which he still wore for comfort, even though because of their musty, old-fashioned style he called them his “Goth drawers.?He put on his tight pants but did not button them up, nor did he put the gold button into his shirt collar as he always did, because he planned to take a bath. Then he put the blanket over his head like a cowl. brushed his dripping mustache with his fingers, and went to urinate in the courtyard. There was still so much time left for the sun to come out that Jos?Arcadio Buendía was still dozing under the shelter of palm fronds that had been rotted by the rain. He did not see him, as he had never seen him, nor did he hear the incomprehensible phrase that the ghost of his father addressed to him as he awakened, startled by the stream of hot urine that splattered his shoes. He put the bath off for later, not because of the cold and the dampness, but because of the oppressive October mist. On his way back to the workshop he noticed the odor of the wick that Santa Sofía de la Piedad was using to light the stoves, and he waited in the kitchen for the coffee to boil so that he could take along his mug without sugar. Santa Sofía de la Piedad asked him, as on every morning, what day of the week it was, and he answered that it was Tuesday, October eleventh. Watching the glow of the fire as it gilded the persistent woman who neither then nor in any instant of her life seemed to exist completely, he suddenly remembered that on one October eleventh in the middle of the war he had awakened with the brutal certainty that the woman with whom he had slept was dead. She really was and he could not forget the date because she had asked him an hour before what day it was. In spite of the memory he did not have an awareness this time either of to what degree his omens had abandoned him and while the coffee was boiling he kept on thinking out of pure curiosity but without the slightest risk of nostalgia about the woman whose name he had never known and whose face he had not seen because she had stumbled to his hammock in the dark. Nevertheless, in the emptiness of so many women who came into his life in the same way, he did not remember that she was the one who in the delirium of that first meeting was on the point of foundering in her own tears and scarcely an hour before her death had sworn to love him until she died. He did not think about her again or about any of the others after he went into the workshop with the steaming cup, and he lighted the lamp in order to count the little gold fishes, which he kept in a tin pail. There  were seventeen of them. Since he had decided not to sell any, he kept on making two fishes a day and when he finished twenty-five he would melt them down and start all over again. He worked all morning, absorbed, without thinking about anything, without realizing that at ten o’clock the rain had grown stronger and someone ran past the workshop shouting to close the doors before the house was flooded, and without thinking even about himself until ?rsula came in with his lunch and turned out the light.
   “What a rain!??rsula said.
   “October,?he said.
   When he said it he did not raise his eyes from the first little fish of the day because he was putting in the rubies for the eyes. Only when he finished it and put it with the others in the pail did he begin to drink the soup. Then, very slowly, he ate the piece of meat roasted with onions, the white rice, and the slices of fried bananas all on the same plate together. His appetite did not change under either the best or the harshest of circumstances. After lunch he felt the drowsiness of inactivity. Because of a kind of scientific superstition he never worked, or read, or bathed, or made love until two hours of digestion had gone by, and it was such a deep-rooted belief that several times he held up military operations so as not to submit the troops to the risks of indigestion. So he lay down in the hammock, removing the wax from his ears with a penknife, and in a few minutes he was asleep. He dreamed that he was going into an empty house with white walls and that he was upset by the burden of being the first human being to enter it. In the dream he remembered that he had dreamed the same thing the night before and on many nights over the past years and he knew that the image would be erased from his memory when he awakened because that recurrent dream had the quality of not being remembered except within the dream itself. A moment later, indeed, when the barber knocked at the workshop door, Colonel Aureliano Buendía awoke with the impression that he had fallen asleep involuntarily for a few seconds and that he had not had time to dream anything.
   “Not today.?he told the barber. “We’ll make it on Friday.?
   He had a three-day beard speckled with white hairs, but he did not think it necessary to shave because on Friday he was going to have his hair cut and it could all be done at the same time. The sticky sweat of the unwanted siesta aroused the scars of the sores in his armpits. The sky had cleared but the sun had not come out. Colonel Aureliano Buendía released a sonorous belch which brought back the acidity of the soup to his palate and which was like a command from his organism to throw his blanket over his shoulders and go to the toilet. He stayed there longer than was necessary, crouched over the dense fermentation that was coming out of the wooden box until habit told him that it was time to start work again. During the time he lingered he remembered again that it was Tuesday, and that Jos?Arcadio Segundo had not come to the workshop because it was payday on the banana company farms. That recollection, as all of those of the past few years, led him to think about the war without his realizing it. He remembered that Colonel Gerineldo Márquez had once promised to get him a horse with a white star on its face and that he had never spoken about it again. Then he went on toward scattered episodes but he brought them back without any judgment because since he could not think about anything else, he had learned to think coldly so that inescapable memories would not touch any feeling. On his way back to the workshop, seeing that the air was beginning to dry out, he decided that it was a good time to take a bath, but Amaranta had got there ahead of him. So he started on the second little fish of the day. He was putting a hook on the tail when the sun came out with such strength that the light creaked like a fishing boat. The air, which had been washed by the three-day drizzle, was filled with flying ants. Then he came to the realization that he felt like urinating and he had been putting it off until he had finished fixing the little fish. He went out into the courtyard at ten minutes after four, when he heard the distant brass instruments, the beating of the bass drum and the shouting of the children, and for the first time since his youth he knowingly fell into a trap of nostalgia and relived that prodigious afternoon Of the gypsies when his father took him to see ice. Santa Sofía de la Piedad dropped what she was doing in the kitchen and ran to the door.
   “It’s the circus,?she shouted.
   Instead of going to the chestnut tree, Colonel Aureliano Buendía also went to the street door and mingled with the bystanders who, were watching the parade. He saw a woman dressed in gold sitting on the head of an elephant. He saw a sad dromedary. He saw a bear dressed like a Dutch girl keeping time to the music with a soup spoon and a pan. He saw the clowns doing cartwheels at the end of the parade and once more he saw the face of his miserable solitude when everything had passed by and there was nothing but the bright expanse of the street and the air full of flying ants with a few onlookers peering into the precipice of uncertainty. Then he went to the chestnut tree, thinking about the circus, and while he urinated he tried to keep on thinking about the circus, but he could no longer find the memory. He pulled his head in between his shoulders like a baby chick and remained motionless with his forehead against the trunk of the chestnut tree. The family did not find him until the following day at eleven o’clock in the morning when Santa Sofía de la Piedad went to throw out the garbage in back and her attention was attracted by the descending vultures.



第十三章

  在最后几年的混乱中,乌苏娜还来不及抽出足够的空闲时间来好好地教育霍·阿卡蒂奥,使他能够当上一个教皇,而送他去神学院的时间就已到了,所以不得不慌仓仓地准备。霍·阿卡蒂奥的妹妹梅梅是由严峻的菲兰达和沮丧的阿玛兰塔共同照顾的,几乎同时达到了可以进入修道院学校的年龄;她们想在那儿把她培养成为一个出色的钢琴手。乌苏娜疑虑重重地觉得,把萎靡不振的人培养成为教皇,她的方法是不够有效的,但她并不归咎于自己的老迈,也不怪遮住视线的一片云曦,——透过这片云曦,她只能吃力地辨别周围各种东西的轮廓,——而一切都要怪她自己还不确切了解的某种现象,她只模糊地觉得那种现象就是世态的恶化。“现在的年月跟从前完全不同啦,”她感到自己把握不住每天的现实,抱怨地说。从前,她想,孩子长得挺慢嘛。只消回忆一下就够了:在她的大儿子霍·阿卡蒂奥跟吉卜赛人逃走之前,过了乡长的时间啊,而在他全身画得象一条蛇,说着星相家怪里怪气的话,回到家里的时候,发生了多少事情啊,而且在阿玛兰塔和阿卡蒂奥忘掉印第安语、学会西班牙语之前,家中什么事没有发生呀!再想想吧,可怜的霍·阿·布恩蒂亚在菜树下面呆了多少个日日夜夜,家里的人为他哀悼了多久,然后奄奄一总的奥雷连诺上校才给抬回家来,当时他还不满五十岁,并且经历了那么长久的战争和那么多的苦难。从前,她成天忙于自己的糖果,还能照顾子孙,凭他们的眼白就知道该把蓖麻油滴在他们眼里。现在她完全空闲下来,从早到晚仅仅照顾霍·阿卡蒂奥一个人的时候,由于时世不佳,她几乎无法把任何一件事儿干完了。实际上,乌苏娜即使年事已高,但是仍不服老:她什么事都要操心,任何事都要管,而且总是询问外来的人,他们曾否在战争时期把圣约瑟夫的石膏像留在这儿,等雨季过了就来取走。谁也不能确凿地说,乌苏娜是什么时候丧失视觉的。即使在她生前的最后几年,她已经不能起床时,大家还以为她只是老朽了,谁也没有发现她完全瞎了。乌苏娜自己是在霍·阿卡蒂奥出生之前不久感到自己快要失明的。起初,她以为这是暂时的虚弱,悄悄地喝点儿骨髓汤,在眼里滴点儿蜂蜜;可她很快就相信自己正在绝望地陷入黑暗。乌苏娜对电灯始终没有明确的概念,因为马孔多开始安装电灯时,她只能把它当成一种朦胧的亮光。她没有向任何人说她快要瞎了,因为这么一说就是公开承认自己无用了。乌苏娜背着大家,开始坚持不懈地研究各种东西之间的距离和人的声音,想在白内障的阴影完全挡住她的视线时,仍能凭记忆知道各种东西的位置。随后,她又意外地得到了气味的帮助;在黑暗中,气味比轮廓和颜色更容易辨别,终于使别人没有发现她是瞎子。尽管周围一片漆黑,乌苏娜还能穿针引线,缭扣门,及时发现牛奶就要煮沸。她把每件东西的位置记得那么清楚,有时甚至忘了自己眼瞎了。有一次,菲兰达向整座房子大叫大嚷,说她的订婚戒指不见了,乌苏娜却在小孩儿卧室里的隔板上找到了它。道理是很简单的:当其他的人在房子里漫不经心地来来去去时,乌苏娜就凭自己剩下的四种感官注意别人的活动,使得谁也不会突然撞着她;很快她就发现,而家里的每个人却没觉察到。他们每天走的都是同样的路,重复同样的动作,同样的时匆几乎说同样的话。只有偏离常规的时候,他们才会失掉什么东西。所以,听到菲兰达哭哭叫叫.乌苏娜就想起,菲兰达这一天所做的唯一不同的事儿,是把孩子床上的褥垫拿出去晒,因为昨夜在孩子床上发现了臭虫。因为收拾房间时孩子们在场,乌苏娜就以为菲兰达准把戒指放在孩子们唯一够不着的地方--隔板上。恰恰相反,菲兰达却在平常来来去去的地方寻找戒指,不知道正是日常的习惯使她难以找到失去的东西。
  抚养和教育霍·阿卡蒂奥的事,也帮助乌苏娜知道了家中发生的甚至最小的变化。譬如,只要听见阿玛兰塔在给卧室里的圣像穿衣服,她就马上假装教孩子识别颜色。
  “呢,”她向孩子说,“现在告诉我吧:天使拉斐尔的衣服是啥颜色呀?”
  这样,孩子就告诉了鸟苏娜她的眼睛看不见的情况。所以,在孩子进神学院之前很久,乌苏娜已经能够用千摸着辨别圣像农着的不同颜色。有时也发生过预料不到的事。有一次,阿玛兰塔在秋海棠长廊上绣花时两重真理即“二重真理”。,乌苏娜撞上了她。
  “我的天,”阿玛兰塔生气他说,“瞧你走到哪儿来啦。”
  “这要怪你自己,”乌苏娜回答,“你没坐在你应当坐的地方。”
  乌苏娜完全相信自己是对的。那一天,她开始知道一种谁也不注意的现象:随着一年四季的交替,太阳也悄悄地逐渐改变在天上的位置,坐在长廊上的人也不知不觉地逐渐移动和改变自己的位置。从那时起,乌苏娜只要想起当天是几号成十七卷,其子百家续修。全祖望又以十年之力增补,稿成,就能准确地断定阿玛兰塔是坐在哪儿的。虽然乌苏娜的手一天一天地越来越颜抖了两条腿仿佛灌满了铅,可她那矮个的身躯从来不象现在这样接连出现在那么多的地方。乌苏娜几乎象从前肩负全家重担时那么勤劳。然而现在,在黯然无光的暮年的孤独中,她却能异常敏锐地洞悉家中哪怕最小的事情,第一次清楚地知道了一些真情实况,而这些真情实况是她以前一直忙碌时无法知道的。她准备让霍·阿卡蒂奥去进神学院时,已经细致地考察了马孔多建立以来布恩蒂亚家的整个生活,完全改变了自己关于子孙后代的看法。她相信,奥雷连诺上校失去了对家庭的爱,并不象她从前所想的是战争使他变得冷酷了,而是他从来没有爱过任何人:没有爱过他的妻子雷麦黛丝,没有爱过他一生中碰到的无数一夜情人,尤其没有爱过他的一群儿子。她觉得,他发动了那么多的战争,并不象大家认为的是出于理想;他放弃十拿九稳的胜利,也不象大家所想的是由于困乏;他取得胜利和遭到失败都是同一个原冈:名副其实的、罪恶的虚荣心。她最后认为,她的儿子(为了他,她连性命都不顾)是生来不爱别人的。有一天夜皮晚,当他还在她肚子里的时候,她就听见他啼哭,啼哭声是那么悲哀和清晰,睡在旁边的霍·阿·布恩蒂亚醒了过来,甚至高兴地认为这孩子将是一个天生的口技演员。另一些人预言,他将成为一个先知。乌苏娜本人却吓得发抖,因为她突然相信,这种腹中的啼哭预示孩干将会长着一条可怕的猪尾巴,于是祈求上帝让孩子死在她的肚子里。但她恍然明白,而且说了又说,孩子在母亲肚子里又哭又叫,并不表示他有口技和预见才能,只能确凿地表明他不爱别人。这样贬低儿子的形象却使她突然产生了对他的怜悯。然而,阿玛兰塔却跟他相反,她的铁石心肠曾使乌苏娜害怕,她隐秘的痛苦曾叫乌苏娜难过,现在乌苏娜倒觉得她是一个最温柔的女人了,而且怀着同情心敏锐地感到,阿玛兰塔让皮埃特罗·克列斯比遭到毫无道理的折磨,决不象大家认为的是由于她那报复的渴望,而格林列尔多·马克斯上校遭到慢性的摧折,也决不象大家认为的是由于她那极度的悲恨。实际上,二者都是无限的爱情和不可克制的胆怯之间生死搏斗的结果,在阿玛兰塔痛苦的心中纠缠不休的荒谬的恐怖感,终于在这种斗争中占了上风。乌苏娜越来越频繁地提到雷贝卡的名字时,她总怀着往日的怜爱想起雷贝十的形象;由于过迟的悔悟和突然的钦佩,这种怜爱就更强烈了;她明白,雷贝卡虽不是她的奶养大的,而是靠泥上和墙上的石灰长大的;这姑娘血管里流着的不是布思蒂亚的血,而是陌生人的血,陌生人的骸骨甚至还在坟墓里发出咔嚓咔嚓的响声,可是只有雷贝卡——性情急躁的雷贝卡,热情奔放的雷贝卡,是唯一具有豪迈勇气的,而这种勇气正是乌苏娜希望她的子孙后代具备的品质。
  “雷贝卡啊,”她摸着墙壁,喃喃说道,“我们对你多不公道呀!”
  大家认为,乌苏娜不过是在胡言乱语,特别是她象天使加百利那样伸出右手打算走走的时候。但是菲兰达看出,这种胡言里面有时也有理性的光辉,因为乌苏娜能够毫不口吃地回答,过去一年家中花了多少钱。阿玛兰塔也有同样的想法。有一次,在厨房里,她的母亲正在锅里搅汤,不知道人家在听她说话,竟突然说老玉米的手磨至今还在皮拉·苔列娜家中,这个手磨是向第一批吉卜赛人买来的,在霍·阿卡蒂奥六十五次环游世界之前就不见了。皮拉·苔歹娜几乎也有一百岁了,可是依然隐壮、灵活,尽管孩子们害怕她那不可思议的肥胖,就象从前鸽子害怕她那响亮的笑声;她对乌苏娜的话并不感到奇怪,因为她已相信,老年人清醒的头脑常常比纸牌更加敏锐。然而,乌苏娜发现自己没有足够的时间教导霍·阿卡蒂奥确立他的志向时,就陷入了沮丧的状态。那些靠直觉弄得更清楚的东西,她想用眼睛去看,就失误了。有一天早晨,她把一瓶墨水倒在孩子头上,还以为它是花露水哩。她总想干预一切事情,碰了一个个钉子之后,就感到越来越苦恼,妄图摆脱周围蛛网一般的黑暗。接着她又想到,她的失误并不是衰老和黑暗第一次战胜她的证明,而是时世不佳的结果。她想,跟土耳其人量布的花招不一样,从前上帝还不骗人的时候,一切都是不同的。现在呢,不仅孩子们长得很快,甚至人的感觉也不象以前那样了。俏姑娘雷麦黛丝的灵魂和躯体刚刚升到空中,没有心肝的菲兰达马上唠唠叨叨,因为她的床单飞走了。十六个奥雷连诺在坟墓里尸骨未寒,奥雷连诺第二又把一帮酒鬼带到家中,弹琴作乐,狂饮滥喝,好象死去的不是基督徒,而是一群狗;她伤了那么多脑筋、耗去了那么多糖动物的这座疯人院似乎注定要成为罪恶的渊薮了。乌苏娜给霍·阿卡蒂奥装箱子的时候,一面回忆痛苦的往事,一面问了问自己,躺进坟墓,让人在她身上撒上泥土是不是更好一些呢;而且她又无所畏惧地请问上帝,他是不是真以为人是铁铸的,能够经受那么多的苦难;但她越问越糊涂,难以遏制地希望象外国人那样蹦跳起来,最终来一次片刻的暴动,这种片刻的暴动是她向往了多次,推迟了多次的;她不愿屈从地生活,热望唾弃一切,从心中倒出一大堆骂人的话,而这些话她己低三下四地压抑整整一个世纪了。
  “混蛋!”乌苏娜骂了一声。
  正在动手衣服装进箱子的阿玛兰塔,以为蝎子螫了母亲。
  “它在哪儿?”阿玛兰塔惊骇地问。
  “什么?”
  “蝎子,”阿玛兰塔解释。
  乌苏娜拿指头做了戳胸口。
  “在这儿,”她回答。
  星期四,下午两点,霍。阿卡蒂奥去神学院了。乌苏娜经常记得他离开时的样子:板着面孔,无精打采,象她教他的那样没流一滴眼泪;由于穿了一件绿色灯芯绒衣服,扣着铜扣,领口系着浆硬的花结,他热得气都喘不上来。霍·阿卡蒂奥离开之后,饭厅里留下了浓烈的花露水味儿;为了在房子里容易找到这个孩子,乌苏娜是把花露水洒在孩子头上的。在送别午餐上,一家人在愉快的谈吐后面隐藏若激动,用夸大的热忱回答安东尼奥.伊萨贝尔神父的笑谑。可是,大家把丝绒蒙面、银色包角的箱子抬出的时候,仿佛从房子里抬出一口棺材。奥雷连诺上校拒绝参加送别午餐。
  “咱们就缺一个教皇!”他嘟哝着说。
  三个月之后,奥雷连诺第二和菲兰达把梅梅领到修道院学校去,带回一架旧式小钢琴,代替了自动钢琴。正是这时候,阿玛兰塔开始给自己缝制殓衣。“香蕉热”已经平静下去了,马孔多的土著居民发现,他们被外国人排挤到了次要地位,好不容易维持了以前的微薄收入,但他们感到高兴的是,仿佛船舶失事时终于侥幸得救了。布恩蒂亚家继续邀请成群的客人吃饭,昔日的家庭生活直到几年以后香蕉公司离开时才恢复过来。然而传统的好客精神发生了根本的文化,因为现在权力转到了菲兰达千里。乌苏娜被挤到了黑暗的境地。阿玛兰塔专心地缝制自己的殓衣。过去的“女王”有了选择客人的白由,能让他们遵守她的父母教导她的严规旧礼。那些外国人大肆挥霍轻易赚来的钱,把这个市镇摘行乌烟瘴气,但由于菲兰达处事严厉,布恩蒂亚家却成了旧习俗的堡垒。菲兰达认为,只有跟香蕉公司没有瓜葛的人才是正派的人。她丈夫的哥哥霍·阿卡蒂奥第二甚至也受到区别对待,因为在“香蕉热”最初几天的混乱中,他又卖掉了自己出色的斗鸡,当上了香蕉园的监工。
  “只要他身上还有这帮外国佬的传染病,他就休想再到这儿来,”菲兰达说。
  家中的生活变得那么严峻,奥雷连诺第二就觉得在佩特娜.柯特家里更舒服了。首先,他借口减轻妻子的负担,把酒宴移到了情妇家里。然后,借口牲畜正在丧失繁殖力,他又把畜栏和马厩迁到她那儿去了。最后,借口情妇家里不那么热,他甚至把经营买卖的小账房搬到了那儿。菲兰达发现自己变成了守活寡的妇人,时间已经迟了。奥雷连诺第二几乎不在家里吃饭,只是假装回家过夜,但这是骗不了人的。有一天早晨他不小心,有人发现他在佩特娜·柯特床上,然而出乎意外,他不仅没有听到妻子的一小点责备,甚至没有听到她最轻微的怨声,但是就在那一天,菲兰达把他的两口衣箱送到他的情妇家里。她是叫人大白天经过街道中间送去的,让全镇的人都能看见,以为不走正道的丈夫忍受不了耻辱,会弯着脖子回到窝里,可是这个勇敢的姿态只是再一次证明,菲兰达不熟悉丈夫的性格和马孔多的风习,这里的习俗和她父母的旧习毫无共同之处,——每一个看见箱子的人都说,这是故事的自然结局,故事的内情是人人皆知的。奥雷连诺第二却举办了三天的酒宴,庆贺他得到的自由,除了夫妇之间的不幸,菲兰达穿着硕长的黑衣服,戴着过时的颈饰,露出不合时宜的傲气,好象过早地衰老了;而穿着鲜艳的天然丝衣服的情妇,恕到被践踏的权利获得恢复,两眼闪着愉快的光彩,焕发了青春。奥雷连诺第二重新投入她的怀抱,象从前跟她睡在一起那么热情,因为当时她把他当成了他的孪生兄弟;跟两兄弟睡觉,她以为上帝给了她空前的幸福——一个男人能象两个男人那么爱她。复苏的情欲是遏制不住的:不止一次,他俩已经坐在桌边,彼此盯着对方的眼睛,一句话没说,遮上餐具,就到卧室里去——两人只顾发泄情欲,饿得要死。奥雷连诺第二偷袭法国艺妓时看见过一些东西,在这些东西的鼓舞下,他给佩特娜.柯特买了一张有帐幔的床,象大主教的卧榻一样,在窗上挂起了丝绒帘子,在卧室的墙上和天花板上都安了挺大的镜子。同时,他比以前更加胡闹和挥霍了。每天早上十一点钟,列车都给他运来成箱的香摈酒和白兰地。奥雷连诺第二从车站上回来时,他都象在即兴舞蹈中那样,把路上偶然邂逅的人拖走,——本地人或外来人,熟人或生人,毫无区别。甚至只会说外国话的滑头的布劳恩先生,也被奥雷连诺的手势招引来了,好几次在佩特娜.柯特家里喝得酪叮大醉,有一回他甚至让随身的凶猛的德国牧羊犬跳舞,他自己勉强哼着得克萨斯歌曲,而由手风琴伴奏。
  “繁殖吧,母牛啊,”奥雷连诺第二在欢宴的高潮中叫嚷。“繁殖吧——生命短促呀。”
  他从来没有象现在这么愉快,人家从来没有象现在这么喜欢他,他的牲畜从来没有象现在这样控制不住地繁殖。为了没完没了的酒宴,宰了那么多的牛。猪、鸡,院子里的泥土被血弄得乌七八糟、粘搭搭的,骨头和内脏不断扔在这儿,吃剩的食物不断倒在这儿,几乎每小时都要把这些东西哔哔喇喇地烧掉,免得兀鹰来啄客人的眼睛。奥雷连诺第二发胖了,面孔泛起了紫红色,活象乌龟的嘴脸,可一切都怪他那出奇的胃口,甚至周游世界回来的霍.阿卡蒂奥也无法跟他相比。奥雷连诺第二难以思议的暴食,他那空前未闻的挥霍,他那无比的好客精神,这种名声传出了沼泽地带,引起了著名暴食者们的注意。许多惊人的暴食都从沿海各地来到了马孔多,参加佩特娜.柯特家中举行的荒谬为饕餮比赛。奥雷连诺第二是经常取得胜利的,直到一个不幸的星期六卡米娜·萨加斯笃姆来到为止;这个女人体型上很象图腾塑像,是蜚声全国的“母象”。比赛延续到星期二早晨。第一个昼夜,吃掉了一只小牛,外加配莱:木薯、山药和油炸番蕉,而且喝完了一箱半香摈酒,奥雷连诺第二完全相信自己的胜利。他认为,他的精神和活力都超过沉着的对手;她进食的方式当然是比较内行的,可是正因为这样,就不大使挤满屋子的大部分观众感到兴趣。当奥雷连诺第二渴望胜利、大口咬肉的时候,“母象”却用外科医生的技术把肉切成块,不慌不忙地吃着,甚至感到一定的愉快。她长得粗壮肥胖,可是女性的温柔胜过了她的茁壮:她有一副漂亮的面孔和一双保养很好的雅致的手儿,还有那么不可抗拒的魅力,以致奥雷连诺第二看见她走进屋子的时候,甚至说他宁愿跟她在床上比赛,而不在桌边比赛,接着,他看见“母象”吃掉了一整条猪腿,一点没有违背进食的礼貌和规矩,他就十分认真他说,这个雅致、进人、贪馋的女人在某种意义上倒是个理想的女人。他并没有看错,以往传说“母象”是个贪婪的兀鹰,这是没有根据的。她既不是传说的“绞肉机”,也不是希腊杂技团中满脸络腮子的女人,而是音乐学校校长。当她已经是个可敬的母亲时,为了找到一种能使孩子吃得更多的办法,她也学会了巧妙地狼吞虎咽,但不是靠人为地刺激胃口,而是靠心灵的绝对宁静。她那实践检验过的理论原则是:一个人只要心地平静,就能不停地吃到疲乏的时候。就这样,由于心理的原因和竞技的兴趣,她离开了自己的学校和家庭,想跟全国闻名的放肆的暴食者决一雌雄。“母象”刚一看见奥雷连诺第二,立即明白他要输的不是肚子,而是性格。的确,到第一夜终了的时候,她还保持着自己的战斗力,而奥雷连诺第二却因说说笑笑消耗了自己的力量。他俩睡了四个小时。然后,每人喝了五十杯橙子汁、八升咖啡和三十只生鸡蛋。第二天早上,在许多小时的不眠之后,吃掉了两头猪、一串香蕉和四箱香槟酒。“母象”开始怀疑奥雷连诺第二不知不觉地采用了她自己的办法,但完全是不顾后果地瞎吃。因此,他比她预料的更危险。佩特娜·柯特把两只烤火鸡拿上桌子的时候,奥雷连诺第二已经快要昏厥了。
  “如果不行,你就别吃啦,”“母象”向他说。“就算不分胜负吧。”
  她是真心诚意说的,因为她自己也无法再吃一块肉了;她知道对手每吃一口都会加快他的死亡。可是奥雷连诺第二把她的话当成新的挑战,便噎地吃完了整只火鸡,超过了自己不可思议的容量,失去了知觉。他伏倒在一盘啃光的骨头上,象疯狗似地嘴里流出泡沫,发出临死的稀嘘声。在他突然陷入的黑暗中,他觉得有人从塔顶把他摔进无底的深渊;在最后的刹那间,他明白自己这样掉到底就非死不可了。
  “把我抬到菲兰达那儿去吧,”他还来得及说出这么一句。
  抬他回家的朋友们以为,他履行了给他妻子的诺言:不让自己死在情妇床上。佩特娜·柯特把他希望穿着躺进棺材的漆皮鞋擦干净,已在找人给他送去,就有人来告诉她说奥雷连诺第二脱离了危险。的确,不到一个星期他就康复了;两个星期以后,他又以空前盛大的酒宴庆祝自己的复活。他继续住在佩特娜.柯特家里,可是现在每天都去看望菲兰达,有时还留下来跟全家一块儿吃饭,仿佛命运变换了一切的位置,把他变成了情妇的丈夫、妻子的情人。
  菲兰达终于能够稍微喘口气了。在难以忍受的孤独的日子里,被弃的妻子唯一能够解闷的,就是午休时弹琴和阅读孩子的信。她自己每日两次给霍·阿卡蒂奥和梅梅捎去详细的信函,可是没有一行是真话。菲兰达向孩子们隐瞒了自己的不幸,隐瞒了这座房子的悲哀;这座房子,尽管长廊上的秋海棠充满了阳光,尽管下午两点钟十分闷热,尽管街头的欢乐声阵阵传来,一天一天地变得越来越象她父母阴暗的宅子了。菲兰达在三个活的幽灵和一个死人——霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的幽灵——当中孤零零地徘徊;这个死人经常呆在客厅中晦暗的角落里,紧张地注意倾听她弹琴。昔日的奥雷连诺上校只剩了一个影子。自从那一天他最后一次走出屋子,打算劝格林列尔多·马克斯上校重新发动毫无希望的战争,他就不曾离开自己的作坊,除非到栗树下去解手。除了每三个星期来一次的理发师,他不接待任何人。乌苏娜每天给他送一次饮食;她送什么,他就吃什么。他虽然象从前那样辛勤地制作金鱼,但已经不拿去卖了,因他发现人家购买金鱼,不是拿它作装饰品,而是当作历史遗物。有一次,他把自己结婚以来卧室里装饰的雷麦黛丝的那些玩偶拿到院子里付之一炬,警觉的乌苏娜发现儿子正在干些什么,可是无法阻止他。
  “你真是铁石心肠啊,”她说。
  “这跟心肠没有关系,”他回答,“房间里满是虫子嘛。”
  阿玛兰塔仍在缝制自己的殓衣。菲兰达无法明白,为什么阿玛兰塔不时写信给梅梅,甚至给她捎去东西,但却不愿听听霍·阿卡蒂奥的消息,菲兰达通过乌苏娜向她问到这一点的时候,阿玛兰塔就回答说:“他们都会莫名其妙死掉的。”菲兰达就把阿玛兰塔的回答当作一个谜记在心里,这个谜是她永远无法猜破的。高挑、笔挺、傲慢的阿玛兰塔,经常穿着泡沫一样雪白轻柔的裙子,尽管年岁已高、往事沉痛,仍有一副优越的样儿,她的额上似乎也有自己的灰十字——处女的标记。她真有这样的标记,不过是在手上——在黑色绷带下面;阿玛兰塔即便夜间也不取掉这个绷带,有时亲自拿它洗呀熨呀。阿玛兰塔是在缝制殓衣中生活的。可以看出,她白天缝,晚上拆,但这不是为了摆脱孤独,恰恰相反,而是为了保持孤独。
  在跟丈夫分离的日子里,菲兰达最苦恼的是:梅梅回来度假的时候,在家里看不见奥雷连诺第二。他的昏厥结束了她的这种担忧。到梅梅回来时,她的父母已达成了协议,姑娘不仅相信奥雷连诺第二仿佛仍然是个忠顺的丈夫,甚至不会发现家里的悲哀。每一年,奥雷连诺第二都要连续两月扮演一个模范丈夫,把朋友们聚集起来,拿冰淇淋和甜饼款待他们;愉快活泼的姑娘梅梅弹琴助兴。当时已经看出,她很少继承母亲的性格。梅梅更象是第二个阿玛兰塔——十二岁至十四岁时的阿玛兰塔,当时阿玛兰塔还不知道悲哀,她那轻盈的舞步曾给家中带来生气,直到她对皮埃特罗·克列斯比的恋情使她的心永远离开了正轨。但是,梅梅跟阿玛兰塔不同,跟布恩蒂亚家所有其他的人都不同,她还没有表现出这家人命定的孤独感,她似乎完全满意周围的世界,即使下午两点她把自己关在客厅里坚毅地练习弹琴的时候。十分显然,她喜欢这个家,她整年都在幻想年轻小伙子见到她时的热烈场面,她也象父亲那样喜欢娱乐和漫无节制地接待客人。这种不幸的遗传性是在第三个暑假中初次表现出来的,当时梅梅自作主张,也没预先通知,就把四个修女和六十八个女同学带到家里,让她们在这儿玩一个星期。
  “多倒霉!”菲兰达悲叹地说,“这孩子象她父亲一样冒失!”
  这就不得不向邻居借用木床和吊铺,让大家分成九班轮流吃饭,规定沐浴的时间,而且借来了四十只凳子,免得穿着蓝制服和男靴的姑娘们整天在房子里荡来荡去。应付她们实在困难:闹喳喳的一群刚刚吃完早饭又要给另一批人开午饭,然后是晚饭;整整一个星期,女学生们只到种植园去游玩过一次。黑夜来临,为了把姑娘们赶上床铺,修女们累得精疲力尽,可是不管她们怎么卖力,总有一群不知疲倦的少女留在院子里,调门不准地高唱校歌。有一次,姑娘们差点儿绊倒了乌苏娜,因为她总喜欢到她最能妨碍别人的地方去帮忙。另一次,由于奥雷连诺上校当着姑娘们的面在栗树下小便,修女们竟嚷叫起来。阿玛兰塔呢,差点儿引起了惊慌:她正把盐放在汤里时,一个修女走进厨房,立即问她撒到锅里的白色粉未是什么。
  “砒霜。”
  到达的第一夜,姑娘们累得要命,想在睡觉之前上一次厕所,——大约夜里一点,其中最后几个才轮流进去。于是菲兰达买了七十二个便盆,但这只把夜间的问题变成了早上的问题,因为姑娘们天一亮就在厕所前面排了长长的队伍,手里都拿着便盆,等候轮到自己去洗便盆。尽管其中几个姑娘感冒了,其他一些姑娘的皮肤被蚊子咬得起了疱,可是大多数人在困难面前表现了坚忍精神,甚至最热的时刻也在花园里蹦蹦跳跳。到客人们最终离开的时候,花丛被踩坏了,家具给毁了,墙上布满了画儿和字儿,可是菲兰达看见她们走了就高兴,原谅她们造成的损害。她把床和凳子送还了邻居,而将七十二只便盆堆在梅尔加德斯的房间里。
  这个锁着的房间——昔日全家精神生活的中心,现在成了闻名的“便盆间”了。照奥雷连诺上校看来,这个称呼是最合适的,尽管梅尔加德斯的卧室没有尘土,也没遭到破坏,全家的人仍然对它感到惊讶,可是上校却觉得它不过是一堆垃圾。无论如何,他似乎根本不管谁是对的:如果说他知道了这个房间的命运,那是因为菲兰达为了收藏便盆整天在他旁边跑来跑去,妨碍他工作。
  这时,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二重新出现在家里。他跟谁也不打招呼,就走到长廊尽头,钻到作坊里去跟上校谈话。乌苏娜已经看不见他,可是分辨得出他那监工的靴子发出的啪哒声,他跟家庭、甚至跟孪生兄弟之间不可逾越的距离使她感到诧异;儿童时代他曾跟孪生兄弟玩弄换装把戏,现在两人都没有一点共同之处了。霍·阿卡蒂奥第二又高又瘦,举止傲慢,黝黑的脸庞上有一种晦暗的光彩,神态犹如萨拉秦人(注:萨拉秦人,古代阿拉伯游牧民族)那么阴郁。他更象自己的母亲圣索菲娅·德拉佩德,而不象布恩蒂亚家的人,乌苏娜有时谈起家庭,甚至忘了提到他的名字,虽然她也责备自己。她发现霍.阿卡蒂奥第二重新回到家里,上校在作坊里干活时接见他,她就反复忆起了往事,确信霍·阿卡蒂奥第二童年时代跟孪生兄弟换了位置,正是他而不是孪生兄弟应当叫做奥雷连诺。谁也不知道他的详情。有一段时间大家知道,他没有固定的住所,在皮拉·苔列娜家中饲养斗鸡,有时就在她那儿睡觉,然而其他的夜晚几乎都是在法国艺妓的卧室里度过的。他随波逐流,没有什么眷恋,也没有什么志气——仿佛是乌苏娜行星系中的一颗流星。
  实际上,霍.阿卡蒂奥第二已经不是自己家庭里的人,也不可能成为其他任何一个家庭的成员,这是很久以前的一个早上开始的,当时格林列尔多.马克斯上校带他到兵营去——并不是为了让他看看行刑,而是为了让他一辈子记住处决犯悲哀的、有点儿滑稽的微笑。这不仅是他最早的回忆,也是他童年时代唯一的回忆。他还记得的就是一个老头儿的形象,那老头儿穿着旧式坎肩,戴着帽檐活象乌鸦翅膀的帽子,曾在亮晃晃的窗子跟前给他讲述各种奇异的事儿。可是,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二记不得这是什么时候的事了。这件往事是朦胧的,在他心中没有留下痛苦之感,也没给他什么教益,前一件往事却不相同,实际上确定了他一生的方向,而且他越老,那件往事就越清楚,仿佛时间过得越久,那件往事离他就越近。乌苏娜打算通过霍.阿卡蒂奥第二,使奥雷连诺上校从禁锢中脱身出来。“劝他去看看电影吧,”她向霍·阿卡蒂奥第二说,“即使他不喜欢电影,哪怕呼吸一点儿新鲜空气也好嘛。”但她很快发现,霍.阿卡蒂奥第二象奥雷连诺上校一样,对她的恳求无动于衷,两人都有同样的“甲胃”,任何感情都是透不过它的。尽管乌苏娜不知道,而且也不知道,他俩关在作坊里长时间谈些什么,但她明白全家只有这两个人是由内在的密切关系连在一起的。
  其实,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二即使愿意满足乌苏娜的要求,也是办不到的。姑娘们的侵犯已使上校忍无可忍,虽然雷麦黛丝诱人的玩偶已经烧毁了,可他借口卧室里虫子太多,就在作坊内挂起了吊床,现在只是为了到院子里去解手才走出房子。乌苏娜甚至无法跟他随便聊聊。她到儿子那里去时已经预先知道:他连食碟都不看看,就把它推到桌子另一头去,继续做他的金鱼,汤上起了一层膜,肉变冷了,他根本就不理会。在他已到老年的时候,自从格林列尔多.马克斯上校拒绝帮助他重新发动战争,他就越来越冷酷了。他把自己关在作坊里,家里的人终于认为他似乎已经死了。谁也没有看到他表现人类的感情,直到十月十一号那天他到门外去观看从旁经过的杂技团的时候。对奥雷连诺上校来说,这一天象他最后几年中其它的日子一样。早晨五点,癞蛤蟆和蟋蟀在院子里掀起的闹声就把他惊醒了。星期六开始的霏霏细雨仍在下个不停,即使上校没有听见花园中树叶之间籁籁的雨声,他骨头发冷也感觉得到正在下雨,奥雷连诺上校象平常那样披着毛料斗篷,穿着粗布长衬裤,这种长衬裤是他为了舒适才穿上的,由于式样太旧,他管它叫“哥特式衬裤”。他穿的裤于是紧绷绷的,没有扣上钮扣,衬衣领子也不象平常那样扣上金色扣子,因为他准备洗澡。然后,他把斗篷象风帽似的遮在头上,用手指理了理下垂的胡子,就到院子里去小便。离太阳出来还早,霍.阿.布恩蒂亚还在棕榈棚下面睡觉,棕榈叶已给雨水淋得腐烂了。上校象往常一样没有看见父亲,一股热屎淋在幽灵的鞋子上,幽灵惊醒过来,向他说了一句莫名其妙的话,他也没有听见,他决定稍迟一些再洗澡——不是由于寒冷和潮湿,而是因为十月间沉闷的迷雾。他回到作坊的时候,圣索菲娅·德拉佩德正在生炉子,他闻到烟气,就在厨房里等候咖啡壶煮开,以便取走一杯无糖的咖啡。象每天早晨一样,圣索菲娅·德拉佩德问他今天是星期几,他回答说是星期二,十月十一号。他面前的这个女人,面孔平静,给炉火照得亮堂堂的;他望着她的面孔,无论过去或现在都不相信她是活人,而且他突然想起,在战争激烈的时候,也是十月十一号,有一次醒来,竟下意识地认为跟他睡在一起的女人是死的。她的确已经死了,而且他还记得日期,因为那个女人在出事之前一小时也问过他当天是星期几。然而,即使记得这件事情,奥雷连诺上校毕竟不知道他的预感已经不灵了;接着,咖啡正要煮开的时候,他仍在继续想着那个女人,但是纯粹出于好奇,而没有任何怀旧的感情;他始终都不知道那个女人的名字,在她死后他才看见她的面孔,因为她是在一团漆黑中摸到他的吊床来的。这样跟他发生关系的女人是很多的,因此他记不起来,正是这个女人在第一次发在的拥抱中,几乎淹没在自己的泪水里,而且在死前一小时还发誓说她至死都爱他。回到作坊之后,他已经不再去想这个女人和其他的女人,点上了灯,打算数一数铁罐子里保存的金鱼。金鱼一共十六条。自从他决定不再去卖金鱼,他每天都做两条,达到二十五条时,他又拿它们在坩埚里熔化,重新开始。他整个早上全神贯注地工作,什么也没去想,而且没有发觉,十点钟雨大了,有个人从作坊旁边跑过,叫嚷关上房门,免得雨水灌进房子,可是上校甚至忘了自己,直到乌苏娜拿着午饭进来,灭了灯。
  “多大的雨呀!”乌苏娜说。
  “十月嘛,”他说。
  说话的时候,他并没有从这一矢做的第一条金鱼上扬起视线,因他正在给它安装红宝石眼睛。刚刚做完这条金鱼,他就把它和其他的金鱼一起放在罐子里,开始喝汤。然后,他慢慢地吃了一块洋葱嫩肉、白米饭和几片炸香蕉,这些都是放在同一只盘子里的。无论在最好的或者最坏的情况下,他的胃口总是相同的。午饭以后,他想休息一会儿。由于某种具有科学根据的迷信,用于消化的两个小时还没过去,他就决不工作、看书、沐浴或者谈爱。这是一种根深蒂固的信念,为了不让自己的士兵消化不良,他曾几次延迟开始军事行动。他躺在吊床上,用铅笔刀从耳朵里挖出耳垢,几分钟就睡着了。他做了个梦,仿佛走进一座白色墙壁的空房子,由于他是走进这座房子的第一个人,不禁感到毛骨悚然,他在梦中记起,前一夜,甚至最近几年,他曾多次做过这样的梦:而且明白,只要他一醒来,一切就会忘记,因为他那周期性的梦境有一个特点:只能在梦中想起做过的梦。过了片刻,理发师敲作坊的门时,奥雷连诺上校睁开眼来,觉得自己只打了几秒钟的瞌睡,还来不及梦见什么哩。
  “今天不必了,”他向理发师说。“咱们星期五再见吧。”
  他的胡须已有三天没刮了,跟白头发连接了起来。可他认为不必刮脸,星期五反正要剪发,可以同时刮脸和剪发。在不太舒服的午睡之后,他浑身都是粘搭搭的汗,腋下的疮疤也在发痛。雨停了,可是太阳仍然没有露脸。奥雷连诺上校打了个响嗝,嘴里感到了汤的酸味,这也好象是他的机体发出的命令,要他披上斗篷走进厕所。他在那儿逗留的时间,比需要的时间长久一些;他蹲在茅坑的木箱上,木箱里发出强烈的发酵气味,然后习惯告诉他应该开始工作了。他在厕所里想起,今天是星期二,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二不来作坊,因为星期二是香蕉公司的发薪日。就象最近几年经常忆起往事一样,这时他又不知不觉地想起了战争。他记得,格林列尔多.马克斯上校有一次答应给他弄一匹额上有颗白星的骏马,但是这个朋友再也不提这件事了。然后,他开始反复思量战争中的一件件事情,可是回忆过去并没有在他心里激起欢乐和悲哀,因为他无法避免去想战争他就学会了平静地想它,不动感情。返回作坊的时候,他发现空气开始变得干燥了,就决定洗澡,可是浴室已被阿玛兰塔占据。于是,他着手做这一天的第二条金鱼。他已给金鱼装上了尾巴,这时太阳突然钻出云层,强烈的阳光仿佛照得周围的一切象旧渔船那样轧轧发响。三天的雨水冲洗过的空气中满是飞蚁。这时上校觉得,他早就想去小便了,可是一直推迟到金鱼做完。下午四点十分,他刚走到院子里,便听到了远处传来的铜管乐器声、大鼓声和孩子们的欢呼声,他从青年时代以来第一次自觉地掉进了怀旧的罗网,重新想起了同吉卜赛人呆在一起的那个奇妙的下午;那时,他父亲是带他去参观冰块的。圣索菲娅·德拉佩德放下厨房里的活儿,跑到门外。
  “是杂技团!”她喊了一声。
  奥雷连诺上校没去栗树那儿,也走到门外,同一群爱看热闹的人混在一起,他们正在观望街上行进的队伍。他看见大象背上一个穿着金色衣服的女人;看见一只悒郁的单峰骆驼;看见一只装扮成荷兰姑娘的狗熊,它用匙子和盘子打着音乐拍子;看见正在队伍后头翻筋斗的几个小丑。在一切都已过去之后,除了充满阳光的、空旷的街道、飞蚁以及几个仍然在茫然张望的观众,什么也没有了,上校又面对自己可怜的孤独了。接着,什他一面想着杂技团,一面朝栗树走去;小便的时候。他想继续想一想杂技团,可是么也记不起来。他象小鸡似的缩着脖子,把脑门扎在树干上,就一动不动了。第二天早上十一点钟,圣索菲虹·德拉佩德妻到后院去倒垃圾,发现几只秃鹰朝栗树飞来,全家才知道出了事。



执素衣

ZxID:13389413


等级: 内阁元老
举报 只看该作者 12楼  发表于: 2013-10-10 0


Chapter 12
DAZZLED BY SO MANY and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo did not know where their amazement began. They stayed up all night looking at the pale electric bulbs fed by the plant that Aureliano Triste had brought back when the train made its second trip, and it took time and effort for them to grow accustomed to its obsessive toom-toom. They be. came indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for the character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears of affliction had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many felt that they had been the victims of some new and showy gypsy business and they decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings. Something similar happened with the cylinder phonographs that the merry matrons from France brought with them as a substitute for the antiquated hand organs and that for a time had serious effects on the livelihood of the band of musicians. At first curiosity increased the clientele on the forbidden street and there was even word of respectable ladies who disguised themselves as workers in order to observe the novelty of the phonograph from first hand, but from so much and such close observation they soon reached the conclusion that it was not an enchanted mill as everyone had thought and as the matrons had said, but a mechanical trick that could not be compared with something so moving, so human, and so full of everyday truth as a band of musicians. It was such a serious disappointment that when phonographs became so popular that there was one in every house they were not considered objects for amusement for adults but as something good for children to take apart. On the other hand, when someone from the town had the opportunity to test the crude reality of the telephone installed in the railroad station, which was thought to be a rudimentary version of the phonograph because of its crank, even the most incredulous were upset. It was as if God had decided to put to the test every capacity for surprise and was keeping the inhabitants of Macondo in a permanent alternation between excitement and disappointment, doubt and revelation, to such an extreme that no one knew for certain where the limits of reality lay. It was an intricate stew of truths and mirages that convulsed the ghost of Jos?Arcadio Buendía under the chestnut tree with impatience and made him wander all through the house even in broad daylight. Ever since the railroad had been officially inaugurated and had begun to arrive with regularity on Wednesdays at eleven o’clock and the primitive wooden station with a desk, a telephone, and a ticket window had been built, on the streets of Macondo men and women were seen who had adopted everyday and normal customs and manners but who really looked like people out of a circus. In a town that had chafed under the tricks of the gypsies there was no future for those ambulatory acrobats of commerce who with equal effrontery offered a whistling kettle and a daily regime that would assure the salvation of the soul on the seventh day; but from those who let themselves be convinced out of fatigue and the ones who were always unwary, they reaped stupendous benefits. Among those theatrical creatures, wearing riding breeches and leggings, a pith helmet and steel-rimmed glasses, with topaz eyes and the skin of a thin rooster, there arrived in Macondo on one of so many Wednesdays the chubby and smiling Mr. Herbert, who ate at the house.
   No one had noticed him at the table until the first bunch of bananas had been eaten. Aureliano Segundo had come across him by chance as he protested In broken Spanish because there were no rooms at the Hotel Jacob, and as he frequently did with strangers, he took him home. He was in the captive-balloon business, which had taken him halfway around the world with excellent profits, but he had not succeeded in taking anyone up in Macondo because they considered that invention backward after having seen and tried the gypsies?flying carpets. He was leaving, therefore, on the next train. When they brought to the table the tiger-striped bunch of bananas that they were accustomed to hang in the dining room during lunch, he picked the first piece of fruit without great enthusiasm. But he kept on eating as he spoke, tasting, chewing, more with the distraction of a wise man than with the delight of a good eater, and when he finished the first bunch he asked them to bring him another. Then he took a small case with optical instruments out of the toolbox that he always carried with him. With the auspicious attention of a diamond merchant he examined the banana meticulously, dissecting it with a special scalpel, weighing the pieces on a pharmacist’s scale, and calculating its breadth with a gunsmith’s calipers. Then he took a series of instruments out of the chest with which he measured the temperature, the level of humidity in the atmosphere, and the intensity of the light. It was such an intriguing ceremony that no one could eat in peace as everybody waited for Mr. Herbert to pass a final and revealing judgment, but he did not say anything that allowed anyone to guess his intentions.
   On the days that followed he was seen with a net and a small basket hunting butterflies on the outskirts of town. On Wednesday a group of engineers, agronomists, hydrologists, topographers, and surveyors arrived who for several weeks explored the places where Mr. Herbert had hunted his butterflies. Later on Mr. Jack Brown arrived in an extra coach that had been coupled onto the yellow train and that was silver-plated all over, with seats of episcopal velvet, and a roof of blue glass. Also arriving on the special car, fluttering around Mr. Brown, were the solemn lawyers dressed in black who in different times had followed Colonel Aureliano Buendía everywhere, and that led the people to think that the agronomists, hydrologists, topographers, and surveyors, like Mr. Herbert with his captive balloons and his colored butterflies and Mr. Brown with his mausoleum on wheels and his ferocious German shepherd dogs, had something to do with the war. There was not much time to think about it, however, because the suspicious inhabitants of Macondo barely began to wonder what the devil was going on when the town had already become transformed into an encampment of wooden houses with zinc roofs inhabited by foreigners who arrived on the train from halfway around the world, riding not only on the seats and platforms but even on the roof of the coaches. The gringos, who later on brought their languid wives in muslin dresses and large veiled hats, built a separate town across the railroad tracks with streets lined with palm trees, houses with screened windows, small white tables on the terraces, and fans mounted on the ceilings, and extensive blue lawns with peacocks and quails. The section was surrounded by a metal fence topped with a band of electrified chicken wire which during the cool summer mornings would be black with roasted swallows. No one knew yet what they were after, or whether they were actually nothing but philanthropists, and they had already caused a colossal disturbance, much more than that of the old gypsies, but less transitory and understandable. Endowed with means that had been reserved for Divine Providence in former times, they changed the pattern of the rams, accelerated the cycle of harvest, and moved the river from where it had always been and put it with its white stones and icy currents on the other side of the town, behind the cemetery. It was at that time that they built a fortress of reinforced concrete over the faded tomb of Jos?Arcadio, so that the corpses smell of powder would not contaminate the waters. For the foreigners who arrived without love they converted the street of the loving matrons from France into a more extensive village than it had been, and on one glorious Wednesday they brought in a trainload of strange whores, Babylonish women skilled in age-old methods and in possession of all manner of unguents and devices to stimulate the unaroused, to give courage to the timid, to satiate the voracious, to exalt the modest man, to teach a lesson to repeaters, and to correct solitary people. The Street of the Turks, enriched by well-lit stores with products from abroad, displacing the old bazaars with their bright colors, overflowed on Saturday nights with the crowds of adventurers who bumped into each other among gambling tables, shooting galleries, the alley where the future was guessed and dreams interpreted, and tables of fried food and drinks, and on Sunday mornings there were scattered on the ground bodies that were sometimes those of happy drunkards and more often those of onlookers felled by shots, fists, knives, and bottles during the brawls. It was such a tumultuous and intemperate invasion that during the first days it was impossible to walk through the streets because of the furniture and trunks, and the noise of the carpentry of those who were building their houses in any vacant lot without asking anyone’s permission, and the scandalous behavior of couples who hung their hammocks between the almond trees and made love under the netting in broad daylight and in view of everyone. The only serene corner had been established by peaceful West Indian Negroes, who built a marginal street with wooden houses on piles where they would sit in the doors at dusk singing melancholy hymns in their disordered gabble. So many changes took place in such a short time that eight months after Mr. Herbert’s visit the old inhabitants had a hard time recognizing their own town.
   “Look at the mess we’ve got ourselves into,?Colonel Aureliano Buendía said at that time, “just because we invited a gringo to eat some bananas.?
   Aureliano Segundo, on the other hand, could not contain his happiness over the avalanche of foreigners. The house was suddenly filled with unknown guests, with invincible and worldly carousers, and it became necessary to add bedrooms off the courtyard, widen the dining room, and exchange the old table for one that held sixteen people, with new china and silver, and even then they had to eat lunch in shifts. Fernanda had to swallow her scruples and their guests of the worst sort like kings as they muddied the porch with their boots, urinated in the garden. laid their mats down anywhere to take their siesta, and spoke without regard for the sensitivities of ladies or the proper behavior of gentlemen. Amaranta, was so scandalized with the plebeian invasion that she went back to eating in the kitchen as in olden days. Colonel Aureliano Buendía, convinced that the majority of those who came into his workshop to greet him were not doing it because of sympathy or regard but out of the curiosity to meet a historical relic, a museum fossil, decided to shut himself in by barring the door and he was not seen any more except on very rare occasions when he would sit at the street door. ?rsula, on the other hand, even during the days when she was already dragging her feet and walking about groping along the walls, felt a juvenile excitement as the time for the arrival of the train approached. “We have to prepare some meat and fish,?she would order the four cooks, who hastened to have everything ready under the imperturbable direction of Santa Sofía de la Piedad. “We have to prepare everything,?she insisted, “because we never know what these strangers like to eat.?The train arrived during the hottest time of day. At lunchtime the house shook with the bustle of a marketplace, and the perspiring guests—who did not even know who their hosts were—trooped in to occupy the best places at the table, while the cooks bumped into each other with enormous kettles of soup, pots of meat, large gourds filled with vegetables, and troughs of rice, and passed around the contents of barrels of lemonade with inexhaustible ladles. The disorder was such that Fernanda was troubled by the idea that many were eating twice and on more than one occasion she was about to burst out with a vegetable hawker’s insults because someone at the table in confusion asked her for the check. More than a year had gone by since Mr. Herbert’s visit and the only thing that was known was that the gringos were planning to plant banana trees in the enchanted region that Jos?Arcadio Buendía and his men had crossed in search of the route to the great inventions. Two other sons of Colonel Aureliano Buendía, with the cross of ashes on their foreheads, arrived, drawn by that great volcanic belch, and they justified their determination with a phrase that may have explained everybody’s reasons.
   “We came,?they said, “because everyone is coming.?
   Remedios the Beauty was the only one who was immune to the banana plague. She was becalmed in a magnificent adolescence, more and more impenetrable to formality, more and more indifferent to malice and suspicion, happy in her own world of simple realities. She did not understand why women complicated their lives with corsets and petticoats, so she sewed herself a coarse cassock that she simply put over her and without further difficulties resolved the problem of dress, without taking away the feeling of being naked, which according to her lights was the only decent way to be when at home. They bothered her so much to cut the rain of hair that already reached to her thighs and to make rolls with combs and braids with red ribbons that she simply shaved her head and used the hair to make wigs for the saints. The startling thing about her simplifying instinct was that the more she did away with fashion in a search for comfort and the more she passed over conventions as she obeyed spontaneity, the more disturbing her incredible beauty became and the more provocative she became to men. When the sons of Colonel Aureliano Buendía were in Macondo for the first time, ?rsula remembered that in their veins they bore the same blood as her great-granddaughter and she shuddered with a forgotten fright. “Keep your eyes wide open,?she warned her. “With any of them your children will come out with the tail of a pig.?The girl paid such little attention to the warning that she dressed up as a man and rolled around in the sand in order to climb the greased pole, and she was at the point of bringing on a tragedy among the seventeen cousins, who were driven mad by the unbearable spectacle. That was why none of them slept at the house when they visited the town and the four who had stayed lived in rented rooms at ?rsula’s insistence. Remedios the Beauty, however, would have died laughing if she had known about that precaution. Until her last moment on earth she was unaware that her irreparable fate as a disturbing woman was a daily disaster. Every time she appeared in the dining room, against ?rsula’s orders, she caused a panic of exasperation among the outsiders. It was all too evident that she was completely naked underneath her crude nightshirt and no one could understand that her shaved and perfect skull was not some kind of challenge, and that the boldness with which she uncovered her thighs to cool off was not a criminal provocation, nor was her pleasure when she sucked her fingers after. eating. What no member of the family ever knew was that the strangers did not take long to realize that Remedios the Beauty gave off a breath of perturbation, a tormenting breeze that was still perceptible several hours after she had passed by. Men expert in the disturbances of love, experienced all over the world, stated that they had never suffered an anxiety similar to the one produced by the natural smell of Remedios the Beauty. On the porch with the begonias, in the parlor, in any place in the house, it was possible to point out the exact place where she had been and the time that had passed since she had left it. It was a definite, unmistakable trace that no one in the family could distinguish because it had been incorporated into the daily odors for a long time, but it was one that the outsiders identified immediately. They were the only ones, therefore, who understood how the young commander of the guard had died of love and how a gentleman from a faraway land had been plunged into desperation. Unaware of the restless circle in which she moved, of the unbearable state of intimate calamity that she provoked as she passed by, Remedios the Beauty treated the men without the least bit of malice and in the end upset them with her innocent complaisance. When ?rsula succeeded in imposing the command that she eat with Amaranta in the kitchen so that the outsiders would not see her, she felt more comfortable, because, after all, she was beyond all discipline. In reality, it made no difference to her where she ate, and not at regular hours but according to the whims of her appetite. Sometimes she would get up to have lunch at three in the morning, sleep all day long, and she spent several months with her timetable all in disarray until some casual incident would bring her back into the order of things. When things were going better she would get up at eleven o’clock in the morning and shut herself up until two o’clock, completely nude, in the bathroom, killing scorpions as she came out of her dense and prolonged sleep. Then she would throw water from the cistern over herself with a gourd. It was an act so prolonged, so meticulous, so rich in ceremonial aspects that one who did not know her well would have thought that she was given over to the deserved adoration of her own body. For her, however, that solitary rite lacked all sensuality and was simply a way of passing the time until she was hungry. One day, as she began to bathe herself, a stranger lifted a tile from the roof and was breathless at the tremendous spectacle of her nudity. She saw his desolate eyes through the broken tiles and had no reaction of shame but rather one of alarm.
   “Be careful,?she exclaimed. “You’ll fall.?
   “I just wanted to see you,?the foreigner murmured.
   “Oh, all right,?she said. “But be careful, those tiles are rotten.?
   The stranger’s face had a pained expression of stupor and he seemed to be battling silently against his primary instincts so as not to break up the mirage. Remedios the Beauty thought that he was suffering from the fear that the tiles would break and she bathed herself more quickly than usual so that the man would not be in danger. While she was pouring water from the, cistern she told him that the roof was in that state because she thought that the bed of leaves had been rotted by the rain and that was what was filling the bathroom with scorpions. The stranger thought that her small talk was a way of covering her complaisance, so that when she began to soap herself he gave into temptation and went a step further.
   “Let me soap you,?he murmured.
   “Thank you for your good intentions,?she said, “but my two hands are quite enough.?
   “Even if it’s just your back,?the foreigner begged.
   “That would be silly,?she said. “People never soap their backs.?
   Then, while she was drying herself, the stranger begged her, with his eyes full of tears, to marry him. She answered him sincerely that she would never marry a man who was so simple that he had wasted almost an hour and even went without lunch just to see a woman taking a bath. Finally, when she put on her cassock, the man could not bear the proof that, indeed, she was not wearing anything underneath, as everyone had suspected, and he felt himself marked forever with the white-hot iron of that secret. Then he took two more tiles off in order to drop down into the bathroom.
   “It’s very high,?she warned him in fright. “You’ll kill yourself!?
   The rotten tiles broke with a noise of disaster and the man barely had time to let out a cry of terror as he cracked his skull and was killed outright on the cement floor. The foreigners who heard the noise in the dining room and hastened to remove the body noticed the suffocating odor of Remedios the Beauty on his skin. It was so deep in his body that the cracks in his skull did not give off blood but an amber-colored oil that was impregnated with that secret perfume, and then they understood that the smell of Remedios the Beauty kept on torturing men beyond death, right down to the dust of their bones. Nevertheless, they did not relate that horrible accident to the other two men who had died because of Remedios the Beauty. A victim was still needed before the outsiders and many of the old inhabitants of Macondo would credit the legend that Remedios Buendía did not give off a breath of love but a fatal emanation. The occasion for the proof of it came some months later on one afternoon when Remedios the Beauty went with a group of girl friends to look at the new plantings. For the girls of Macondo that novel game was reason for laughter and surprises, frights and jokes, and at night they would talk about their walk as if it had been an experience in a dream. Such was the prestige of that silence that ?rsula did not have the heart to take the fun away from Remedios the Beauty, and she let her go one afternoon, providing that she wore a hat and a decent dress. As soon as the group of friends went into the plantings the air became impregnated with a fatal fragrance. The men who were working along the rows felt possessed by a strange fascination, menaced by some invisible danger, and many succumbed to a terrible desire to weep. Remedios the Beauty and her startled friends managed to take refuge in a nearby house just as they were about to be assaulted by a pack of ferocious males. A short time later they were rescued by the flour Aurelianos, whose crosses of ash inspired a sacred respect, as if they were caste marks, stamps of invulnerability. Remedios the Beauty did not tell anyone that one of the men, taking advantage of the tumult, had managed to attack her stomach with a hand that was more like the claw of an eagle clinging to the edge of a precipice. She faced the attacker in a kind of instantaneous flash and saw the disconsolate eyes, which remained stamped on her heart like the hot coals of pity. That night the man boasted of his audacity and swaggered over his good luck on the Street of the Turks a few minutes before the kick of a horse crushed his chest and a crowd of outsiders saw him die in the middle of the street, drowned in his own bloody vomiting.
   The supposition that Remedios the Beauty Possessed powers of death was then borne out by four irrefutable events. Although some men who were easy with their words said that it was worth sacrificing one’s life for a night of love with such an arousing woman, the truth was that no one made any effort to do so. Perhaps, not only to attain her but also to conjure away her dangers, all that was needed was a feeling as primitive and as simple as that of love, but that was the only thing that did not occur to anyone. ?rsula did not worry about her any more. On another occasion, when she had not yet given up the idea of saving her for the world, she had tried to get her interested in basic domestic affairs. “Men demand much more than you think,?she would tell her enigmatically. “There’s a lot of cooking, a lot of sweeping, a lot of suffering over little things beyond what you think.?She was deceiving herself within, trying to train her for domestic happiness because she was convinced that once his passion was satisfied them would not be a man on the face of the earth capable of tolerating even for a day a negligence that was beyond all understanding. The birth of the latest Jos?Arcadio and her unshakable will to bring him up to be Pope finally caused her to cease worrying about her great-granddaughter. She abandoned her to her fate, trusting that sooner or later a miracle would take place and that in this world of everything there would also be a man with enough sloth to put up with her. For a long time already Amaranta had given up trying to make her into a useful woman. Since those forgotten afternoons when her niece barely had enough interest to turn the crank on the sewing machine, she had reached the conclusion that she was simpleminded. “Were going to have to raffle you off,?she would tell her, perplexed at the fact that men’s words would not penetrate her. Later on, when ?rsula insisted that Remedios the Beauty go to mass with her face covered with a shawl, Amaranta thought that a mysterious recourse like that would turn out to be so provoking that soon a man would come who would be intrigued enough to search out patiently for the weak point of her heart. But when she saw the stupid way in which she rejected a pretender who for many reasons was more desirable than a prince, she gave up all hope. Fernanda did not even make any attempt to understand her. When she saw Remedios the Beauty dressed as a queen at the bloody carnival she thought that she was an extraordinary creature. But when she saw her eating with her hands, incapable of giving an answer that was not a miracle of simplemindedness, the only thing that she lamented was the fact that the idiots in the family lived so long. In spite of the fact that Colonel Aureliano Buendía kept on believing and repeating that Remedios the Beauty was in reality the most lucid being that he had ever known and that she showed it at every moment with her startling ability to put things over on everyone, they let her go her own way. Remedios the Beauty stayed there wandering through the desert of solitude, bearing no cross on her back, maturing in her dreams without nightmares, her interminable baths, her unscheduled meals, her deep and prolonged silences that had no memory until one afternoon in March, when Fernanda wanted to fold her brabant sheets in the garden and asked the women in the house for help. She had just begun when Amaranta noticed that Remedios the Beauty was covered all over by an intense paleness.
   “Don’t you feel well??she asked her.
   Remedios the Beauty, who was clutching the sheet by the other end, gave a pitying smile.
   “Quite the opposite,?she said, “I never felt better.?
   She had just finished saying it when Fernanda felt a delicate wind of light pull the sheets out of her hands and open them up wide. Amaranta felt a mysterious trembling in the lace on her petticoats and she tried to grasp the sheet so that she would not fall down at the instant in which Remedios the Beauty began to rise. ?rsula, almost blind at the time, was the only person who was sufficiently calm to identify the nature of that determined wind and she left the sheets to the mercy of the light as she watched Remedios the Beauty waving good-bye in the midst of the flapping sheets that rose up with her, abandoning with her the environment of beetles and dahlias and passing through the air with her as four o’clock in the afternoon came to an end, and they were lost forever with her in the upper atmosphere where not even the highest-flying birds of memory could reach her.
   The outsiders, of course, thought that Remedios the Beauty had finally succumbed to her irrevocable fate of a queen bee and that her family was trying to save her honor with that tale of levitation. Fernanda, burning with envy, finally accepted the miracle, and for a long time she kept on praying to God to send her back her sheets. Most people believed in the miracle and they even lighted candles and celebrated novenas. Perhaps there might have been talk of nothing else for a long time if the barbarous extermination of the Aurelianos had not replaced amazement with honor. Although he had never thought of it as an omen, Colonel Aureliano Buendía had foreseen the tragic end of his sons in a certain way. When Aureliano Serrador and Aureliano Arcaya, the two who arrived during the tumult, expressed a wish to stay in Macondo, their father tried to dissuade them. He could not understand what they were going to do in a town that had been transformed into a dangerous place overnight. But Aureliano Centeno and Aureliano Triste, backed by Aureliano Segundo. gave them work in their businesses. Colonel Aureliano Buendía had reasons that were still very confused and were against that determination. When he saw Mr. Brown in the first automobile to reach Macondo—an orange convertible with a horn that frightened dogs with its bark—the old soldier grew indignant with the servile excitement of the people and he realized that something had changed in the makeup of the men since the days when they would leave their wives and children and toss a shotgun on their shoulders to go off to war. The local authorities, after the armistice of Neerlandia, were mayors without initiative, decorative judges picked from among the peaceful and tired Conservatives of Macondo. “This is a regime of wretches,?Colonel Aureliano Buendía would comment when he saw the barefoot policemen armed with wooden clubs pass. “We fought all those wars and all of it just so that we didn’t have to paint our houses blue.?When the banana company arrived, however, the local functionaries were replaced by dictatorial foreigners whom Mr. Brown brought to live in the electrified chicken yard so that they could enjoy, as he explained it, the dignity that their status warranted and so that they would not suffer from the heat and the mosquitoes and the countless discomforts and privations of the town. The old policemen were replaced by hired assassins with machetes. Shut up in his workshop, Colonel Aureliano Buendía thought about those changes and for the first time in his quiet years of solitude he was tormented by the definite certainty that it had been a mistake not to have continued the war to its final conclusion. During that time a brother of the forgotten Colonel Magnífico Visbal was taking his seven-year-old grandson to get a soft drink at one of the pushcarts on the square and because the child accidentally bumped into a corporal of police and spilled the drink on his uniform, the barbarian cut him to pieces with his machete, and with one stroke he cut off the head of the grandfather as he tried to stop him. The whole town saw the decapitated man pass by as a group of men carried him to his house, with a woman dragging the head along by its hair, and the bloody sack with the pieces of the child.
   For Colonel Aureliano Buendía it meant the limits of atonement. He suddenly found himself suffering from the same indignation that he had felt in his youth over the body of the woman who had been beaten to death because she had been bitten by a rabid dog. He looked at the groups of bystanders in front of the house and with his old stentorian voice, restored by a deep disgust with himself, he unloaded upon them the burden of hate that he could no longer bear in his heart.
   “One of these days,?he shouted, I’m going to arm my boys so we can get rid of these shitty gringos!?
   During the course of that week, at different places along the coast, his seventeen sons were hunted down like rabbits by invisible criminals who aimed at the center of their crosses of ash. Aureliano Triste was leaving the house with his mother at seven in the evening when a rifle shot came out of the darkness and perforated his forehead. Aureliano Centeno was found in the hammock that he was accustomed to hang up in the factory with an icepick between his eyebrows driven in up to the handle. Aureliano Serrador had left his girl friend at her parents?house after having taken her to the movies and was returning through the well-lighted Street of the Turks when someone in the crowd who was never identified fired a revolver shot which knocked him over into a caldron of boiling lard. A few minutes later someone knocked at the door of the room where Aureliano Arcaya was shut up with a woman and shouted to him: “Hurry up, they’re killing your brothers.?The woman who was with him said later that Aureliano Arcaya jumped out of bed and opened the door and was greeted with the discharge of a Mauser that split his head open. On that night of death, while the house was preparing to hold a wake for the four corpses, Fernanda ran through the town like a madwoman looking for Aureliano Segundo, whom Petra Cotes had locked up in a closet, thinking that the order of extermination included all who bore the colonel’s name. She would not let him out until the fourth day, when the telegrams received from different places along the coast made it clear that the fury of the invisible enemy was directed only at the brothers marked with the crosses of ash. Amaranta fetched the ledger where she had written down the facts about her nephews and as the telegrams arrived she drew lines through the names until only that of the eldest remained. They remembered him very well because of the contrast between his dark skin and his green eyes. His name was Aureliano Amador and he was a carpenter, living in a village hidden in the foothills. After waiting two weeks for the telegram telling of his death, Aureliano Segundo sent a messenger to him in order to warn him, thinking that he might not know about the threat that hung over him. The emissary returned with the news that Aureliano Amador was safe. The night of the extermination two men had gone to get him at his house and had shot at him with their revolvers but they had missed the cross of ashes. Aureliano Amador had been able to leap over the wall of the courtyard and was lost in the labyrinth of the mountains, which he knew like the back of his hand thanks to the friendship he maintained with the Indians, from whom he bought wood. Nothing more was heard of him.
   Those were dark days for Colonel Aureliano Buendía. The president of the republic sent him a telegram of condolence in which he promised an exhaustive investigation and paid homage to the dead men. At his command, the mayor appeared at the services with four funeral wreaths, which he tried to place on the coffins, but the colonel ordered him into the street. After the burial he drew up and personally submitted to the president of the republic a violent telegram, which the telegrapher refused to send. Then he enriched it with terms of singular aggressiveness, put it in an envelope, and mailed it. As had happened with the death of his wife, as had happened to him so many times during the war with the deaths of his best friends, he did not have a feeling of sorrow but a blind and directionless rage, a broad feeling of impotence. He even accused Father Antonio Isabel of complicity for having marked his sons with indelible ashes so that they-could be identified by their enemies. The decrepit priest, who could no longer string ideas together and who was beginning to startle his parishioners with the wild interpretations he gave from the pulpit, appeared one afternoon at the house with the goblet in which he had prepared the ashes that Wednesday and he tried to anoint the whole family with them to show that they could be washed off with water. But the horror of the misfortune had penetrated so deeply that not even Fernanda would let him experiment on her and never again was a Buendía seen to kneel at the altar rail on Ash Wednesday.
   Colonel Aureliano Buendía did not recover his calm for a long time. He abandoned the manufacture of little fishes, ate with great difficulty, and wandered all through the house as if walking in his sleep, dragging his blanket and chewing on his quiet rage. At the end of three months his hair was ashen, his old waxed mustache poured down beside his colorless lips, but, on the other hand, his eyes were once more the burning coals that had startled those who had seen him born and that in other days had made chairs rock with a simple glance. In the fury of his torment he tried futilely to rouse the omens that had guided his youth along dangerous paths into the desolate wasteland of glory. He was lost, astray in a strange house where nothing and no one now stirred in him the slightest vestige of affection. Once he opened Melquíades?room, looking for the traces of a past from before the war, and he found only rubble, trash, piles of waste accumulated over all the years of abandonment. Between the covers of the books that no one had ever read again, in the old parchments damaged by dampness, a livid flower had prospered, and in the air that had been the purest and brightest in the house an unbearable smell of rotten memories floated. One morning he found ?rsula weeping under the chestnut tree at the knees of her dead husband. Colonel Aureliano Buendía was the only inhabitant of the house who still did not see the powerful old man who had been beaten down by half a century in the open air. “Say hello to your father,??rsula told him. He stopped for an instant in front of the chestnut tree and once again he saw that the empty space before him did not arouse an affection either.
   “What does he say??he asked.
   “He’s very sad,??rsula answered, “because he thinks that you’re going to die.?
   “Tell him,?the colonel said, smiling, “that a person doesn’t die when he should but when he can.?
   The omen of the, dead father stirred up the last remnant of pride that was left in his heart, but he confused it with a sudden gust of strength. It was for that reason that he hounded ?rsula to tell him where in the courtyard the gold coins that they had found inside the plaster Saint Joseph were buried. “You’ll never know,?she told him with a firmness inspired by an old lesson. “One day,?she added, “the owner of that fortune will appear and only he can dig it up.?No one knew why a man who had always been so generous had begun to covet money with such anxiety, and not the modest amounts that would have been enough to resolve an emergency, but a fortune of such mad size that the mere mention of it left Aureliano Segundo awash in amazement. His old fellow party members, to whom he went asking for help, hid so as not to receive him. It was around that time that he was heard to say. “The only difference today between Liberals and Conservatives is that the Liberals go to mass at five o’clock and the Conservatives at eight.?Nevertheless he insisted with such perseverance, begged in such a way, broke his code of dignity to such a degree, that with a little help from here and a little more from there, sneaking about everywhere, with a slippery diligence and a pitiless perseverance, he managed to put together in eight months more money than ?rsula had buried. Then he visited the ailing Colonel Gerineldo Márquez so that he would help him start the total war.
   At a certain time Colonel Gerineldo Márquez was really the only one who could have pulled, even from his paralytics chair, the musty strings of rebellion. After the armistice of Neerlandia, while Colonel Aureliano Buendía took refuge with his little gold fishes, he kept in touch with the rebel officers who had been faithful to him until the defeat. With them he waged the sad war of daily humiliation, of entreaties and petitions, of come-back-tomorrow, of any-time-now, of we’re-studying-your-case-with-the-proper-attention; the war hopelessly lost against the many yours-most-trulys who should have signed and would never sign the lifetime pensions. The other war, the bloody one of twenty years, did not cause them as much damage as the corrosive war of eternal postponements. Even Colonel Gerineldo Márquez, who escaped three attempts on his life, survived five wounds, and emerged unscathed from innumerable battles, succumbed to that atrocious siege of waiting and sank into the miserable defeat of old age, thinking of Amaranta among the diamond-shaped patches of light in a borrowed house. The last veterans of whom he had word had appeared photographed in a newspaper with their faces shamelessly raised beside an anonymous president of the republic who gave them buttons with his likeness on them to wear in their lapels and returned to them a flag soiled with blood and gunpowder so that they could place it on their coffins. The others, more honorable. were still waiting for a letter in the shadow of public charity, dying of hunger, living through rage, ratting of old age amid the exquisite shit of glory. So that when Colonel Aureliano Buendía invited him to start a mortal conflagration that would wipe out all vestiges of a regime of corruption and scandal backed by the foreign invader, Colonel Gerineldo Márquez could not hold back a shudder of compassion.
   “Oh, Aureliano,?he sighed. “I already knew that you were old, but now I realize that you’re a lot older than you look.?



第十二章

  马孔多居民被许多奇异的发明弄得眼花缭乱,简直来不及表示惊讶。他们望着淡白的电灯,整夜都不睡觉;电机是奥雷连诺·特里斯特第二次乘火车旅行之后带回来的,——它那无休无止的嗡嗡声,要好久才能逐渐习惯。生意兴隆的商人布鲁诺·克列斯比先生,在设有狮头式售票窗口的剧院里放映的电影,搞得马孔多的观众恼火已极,因为他们为之痛哭的人物,在一部影片里死亡和埋葬了,却在另一部影片里活得挺好,而且变成了阿拉伯人。花了两分钱去跟影片人物共命运的观众,忍受不了这种空前的欺骗,把坐椅都砸得稀烂。根据布鲁诺.克列斯比先生的坚决要求,镇长在一张布告中说明:电影机只是一种放映幻象的机器,观众不应予以粗暴的对待;许多人以为自己受了吉卜赛人新把戏的害,就决定不再去看电影了,因为自己的倒霉事儿已经够多,用不着去为假人假事流泪。快活的法国艺妓带来的留声机也出现了类似的情况,此种留声机代替了过时的手风琴,使得地方乐队的收入受到了损失,最初大家好奇,前来“禁街”(指花天酒地的街道)参观的人很多,甚至传说一些高贵妇女也乔装男人,希望亲眼看看这种神秘的新鲜玩意儿,但她们就近看了半天以后认为:这并不象大家所想的和艺妓们所说的是个“魔磨”,而是安了发条的玩具,它的音乐根本不能跟乐队的音乐相比,因为乐队的音乐是动人的、有人味的,充满了生活的真实。大家对留声机深感失望,尽管它很快得到了广泛的推广,每个家庭都有一架,但毕竟不是供成年人消遣,而是给孩子们拆来拆去玩耍的。不过,镇上的什么人见到了火车站上的电话机,面对这种严峻的现实,最顽固的怀疑论者也动摇了。这种电话机有一个需要转动的长把手,因此大家最初把它看作是一种原始的留声机。上帝似乎决定试验一下马孔多居民们惊愕的限度,让他们经常处于高兴与失望、怀疑和承认的交替之中,以致没有一个人能够肯定他说现实的限度究竟在哪里。这是现实和幻想的混合,犹如栗树下面霍·阿·布恩蒂亚不安的幽灵甚至大白天也在房子里踱来踱去。铁路正式通车之后,每个星期三的十一点钟,一列火车开始准时到达,车站上建立了一座房子——一个简陋的木亭,里面有一张桌子和一台电话机,还有一个售票的小窗口;马孔多街道上出现了外来的男男女女,他们装做是从事一般买卖的普通人,但是很象杂技演员。这些沿街表演的流动杂技演员,也鼓簧弄舌地硬要别人观看啸叫的铁锅,并且传授大斋第七天拯救灵魂的摄生方法。(注:指节欲规则,节欲方法)在已经厌恶吉卜赛把戏的这个市镇上,这些杂技演员是无法指望成功的,但他们还是想尽巧招赚了不少钱,主要靠那些被他们说得厌烦的人和容易上当的人。在一个星期三,有一位笑容可掬的矮小的赫伯特先生,和这些杂技演员一块儿来到了马孔多,然后在布恩蒂亚家里吃饭。他穿着马裤,系着护腿套,戴着软木头盔和钢边眼镜;眼镜后面是黄玉似的眼睛。
  赫伯特先生在桌边吃完第一串香蕉之前,谁也没有注意他。奥雷连诺第二是在雅各旅馆里偶然遇见他的,他在那儿用半通不通的西班牙语抱怨没有空房间,奥雷连诺第二就象经常对待外来人那样,把他领到家里来了。赫伯特先生有几个气球,他带着它们游历了半个世界,到处都得到极好的收入,但他未能把任何一个马孔多居民升到空中,因为他们看见过和尝试过吉卜赛人的飞毯,就觉得气球是倒退了。因此,赫伯特先生已买好了下一趟列车的车票。
  一串虎纹香蕉拿上桌子的时候(这种香蕉通常是拿进饭厅供午餐用的),赫伯特先生兴致不大地掰下了第一个香蕉。接着又掰下一个,再掰下一个;他不停地一面谈,一面吃;一面咀嚼,一面品味,但没有食客的喜悦劲儿,只有学者的冷淡神态。吃完了第一串香蕉,他又要了第二串。然后,他从经常带在身边的工具箱里,掏出一个装着精密仪器的小盒子。他以钻石商人的怀疑态度仔细研究了一个香蕉:用专门的柳叶刀从香蕉上剖下一片,放在药秤上称了称它的重量,拿军械技师的卡规量了量它的宽度。随后,他又从箱子里取出另一套仪器,测定温度、空气湿度和阳光强度。这些繁琐的手续是那样引人入胜,以致谁也不能平静地吃,都在等待赫伯特先生发表最后意见,看看究竟是怎么一回事,但他并没有说出一句能够使人猜到他的心思的话来。随后几天,有人看见赫伯特先生拿着捕蝶网和小篮子在市镇郊区捕捉蝴蝶。
  下星期三,这儿来了一批工程师、农艺师、水文学家、地形测绘员和土地丈量员,他们在几小时内就勘探了赫伯特先生捕捉蝴蝶的地方。然后,一个叫杰克.布劳恩先生的也乘火车来了;他乘坐的银色车厢是加挂在黄色列车尾部的,有丝绒软椅和蓝色玻璃车顶。在另一个车厢里无为而治。主张“是非有分,以法断之;虚静谨听,以法为,还有一些身穿黑衣服的重要官员,全都围着布劳恩先生转来转去;他们就是从前到处都跟随着奥雷连诺上校的那些律师,这使人不得不想到,这批农艺师、水文学家、地形测绘员和土地丈量员,象赫伯特先生跟他的气球和花蝴蝶一样,也象布劳恩先生跟他那安了轮子的陵墓与凶恶的德国牧羊犬一样,是同战争有某种关系的。然而没有多少时间加以思考,多疑的马孔多居民刚刚提出问题:到底会发生什么事,这市镇已经变成了一个营地,搭起了锌顶木棚,棚子里住满了外国人,他们几乎是从世界各地乘坐火车——不仅坐在车厢里和平台上,而且坐在车顶上——来到这儿的。没过多久,外国佬就把没精打采的老婆接来了,这些女人穿的是凡而纱衣服,戴的是薄纱大帽,于是,他们又在铁道另一边建立了一个市镇;镇上有棕榈成荫的街道,还有窗户安了铁丝网的房屋,阳台上摆着白色桌子,天花板上吊着叶片挺大的电扇,此外还有宽阔的绿色草坪,孔雀和鹌鹑在草坪上荡来荡去。整个街区围上了很高的金属栅栏,活象一个硕大的电气化养鸡场。在凉爽的夏天的早晨,栅栏上边蹲着一只只燕子,总是显得黑压压的。还没有人清楚地知道:这些外国人在马孔多寻找什么呢,或者他们只是一些慈善家;然而,他们已在这儿闹得天翻地覆——他们造成的混乱大大超过了从前吉卜赛人造成的混乱,而且这种混乱根本不是短时间的、容易理解的。他们借助上帝才有的力量,改变了雨水的状况,缩短了庄稼成熟的时间,迁移了河道,甚至把河里的白色石头都搬到市镇另一头的墓地后面去了。就在那个时候,在霍·阿卡蒂奥坟琢褪了色的砖石上面,加了一层钢筋混凝土,免得河水染上尸骨发出的火药气味。对于那些没带家眷的外国人,多情的法国艺妓们居住的一条街就变成了他们消遣的地方,这个地方比金属栅栏后面的市镇更大,有个星期三开到的一列火车,载来了一批十分奇特的妓女和善于勾引的巴比伦女人,她们甚至懂得各种古老的诱惑方法,能够刺激阳萎者,鼓舞胆怯者,满足贪婪者,激发文弱者,教训傲慢者,改造遁世者。土耳其人街上是一家家灯火辉煌的舶来品商店,这些商店代替了古老的阿拉伯店铺,星期六晚上这儿都虞集着一群群冒险家:有的围在牌桌旁,有的站在靶场上,有的在小街小巷里算命和圆梦,有的在餐桌上大吃大喝,星期天早晨,地上到处都是尸体,有些死者是胡闹的醉汉,但多半是爱看热闹的倒霉蛋,都是在夜间斗殴时被熗打死的、拳头揍死的、刀子戳死的或者瓶子砸死的。马孔多突然涌进那么多的人,最初街道都无法通行,因为到处都是家具、箱子和各种建筑材料。有些人没有得到许可,就随便在什么空地上给自己盖房子;此外还会撞见一种丑恶的景象——成双成对的人大白天在杏树之间挂起吊床,当众乱搞。唯一宁静的角落是爱好和平的西印度黑人开辟的——他们在镇郊建立了整整一条街道,两旁是木桩架搭的房子,每天傍晚,他们坐在房前的小花园里,用古怪的语言唱起了抑郁的圣歌。在短时间里发生了那么多的变化,以致在赫伯特先生访问之后过了八个月,马孔多的老居民已经认不得自己的市镇了。
  “瞧,咱们招惹了多少麻烦,”奥雷连诺上校那时常说,“都是因为咱们用香蕉招待了一个外国佬。”
  恰恰相反,奥雷连诺第二看见外国人洪水般地涌来,就控制不住自己的高兴。家中很快挤满了各式各样的陌生人,挤满了世界各地来的不可救药的二流子,因此需要在院子里增建新的住房,扩大饭厅,用一张能坐十六个人的餐桌代替旧的桌子,购置新的碗碟器皿;即使如此,吃饭还得轮班。菲兰达只好克制自己的厌恶,象侍候国王一样侍候这些最无道德的客人:他们把靴底的泥土弄在廊上,直接在花园里撒尿,午休时想把席子铺在哪儿就铺在哪儿,想说什么就说什么,根本就不注意妇女的羞涩和男人的耻笑。阿玛兰塔被这帮鄙俗的家伙弄得气恼已极,又象从前那样在厨房里吃饭了。奥雷连诺上校相信,他们大多数人到作坊里来向他致意,并不是出于同情或者尊敬他,而是好奇地希望看看历史的遗物,看看博物馆的古董,所以他就闩上了门,现在除了极少的情况,再也看不见他坐在当街的门口了。相反地,乌苏娜甚至已经步履瞒珊、摸着墙壁走路了,但在每一列火车到达的前夜,她都象孩子一般高兴。“咱们得预备一些鱼肉,”她向四个厨娘吩咐道,她们急于在圣索菲娅.德拉佩德沉着的指挥下把一切都准备好。“咱们得预备一切东西,”她坚持说,“因为咱们压根儿不知道这些外国人想吃啥。”在一天最热的时刻,列车到达了。午餐时,整座房子象市场一样闹哄哄的,汗流浃背的食客甚至还不知道谁是慷慨的主人,就闹喳喳地蜂拥而入,慌忙在桌边占据最好的座位,而厨娘们却彼此相撞,她们端来了一锅锅汤、一盘盘肉菜、一碗碗饭,用长柄勺把整桶整桶的柠檬水舀到玻璃杯里。房子里混乱已极,菲兰达想到许多人吃了两次就很恼火,所以,当漫不经心的食客把她的家当成小酒馆,向她要账单的时候,她真想用市场上菜贩的语言发泄自己的愤怒。赫伯特先生来访之后过了一年多时间,大家只明白了一点:外国佬打算在一片魔力控制的土地上种植香蕉树,这片土地就是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚一帮人去寻找伟大发明时经过的土地。奥雷连诺上校的另外两个脑门上仍有灰十字的儿子又到了马孔多,他们是被涌入市镇的火山熔岩般的巨大人流卷来的,为了证明自己来得有理,他们讲的一句话大概能够说明每个人前来这儿的原因。
  “我们到这儿来,”他俩说,“因为大家都来嘛。”
  俏姑娘雷麦黛丝是唯一没有染上“香蕉热”的人。她仿佛停留在美妙的青春期,越来越讨厌各种陈规,越来越不在乎别人的嫌厌和怀疑,只在自己简单的现实世界里寻求乐趣。她不明白娘儿们为什么要用乳罩和裙子把自己的生活搞得那么复杂,就拿粗麻布缝了一件肥大的衣服,直接从头上套下去,一劳永逸地解决了穿衣服的问题,这样既穿了衣服,又觉得自己是裸体的,因为她认为裸体状态在家庭环境里是唯一合适的。家里的人总是劝她把长及大腿的蓬松头发剪短一些,编成辫子,别上篦子,扎上红色丝带;她听了腻烦,干脆剃光了头,把自己的头发做成了圣像的假发。她下意识地喜欢简单化,但最奇怪的是,她越摆脱时髦、寻求舒服,越坚决反对陈规、顺从自由爱好,她那惊人之美就越动人,她对男人就越有吸引力。奥雷连诺上校的儿子们第一次来到马孔多的时候,乌苏娜想到他们的血管里流着跟曾孙女相同的血,就象从前那样害怕得发抖。“千万小心啊,”她警告俏姑娘雷麦黛丝。“跟他们当中的任何一个人瞎来,你的孩子都会有猪尾巴。”俏姑娘雷麦黛丝不太重视曾祖母的话,很快穿上男人的衣服,在沙地上打了打滚,想爬上抹了油脂的竿子,这几乎成了十二个亲戚之间发生悲剧的缘由,因为他们都给这种忍受不了的景象弄疯了。正由于这一点,他们来到的时候,乌苏娜不让他们任何一个在家里过夜,而留居马孔多的那四个呢,按照她的吩咐,在旁边租了几个房间。如果有人向俏姑娘雷麦黛丝说起这些预防措施,她大概是会笑死的。直到她在世上的最后一刻,她始终都不知道命运使她成了一个扰乱男人安宁的女人,犹如寻常的天灾似的。每一次,她违背乌苏娜的禁令,出现在饭厅里的时候,外国人中间都会发生骚乱。一切都太显眼了,除了一件肥大的粗麻布衣服,俏姑娘雷麦黛丝是赤裸裸的,而且谁也不能相信,她那完美的光头不是一种挑衅,就象她露出大腿来乘凉的那种无耻样儿和饭后舔手指的快活劲儿不是罪恶的挑逗。布恩蒂亚家中没有一个人料到,外国人很快就已发觉:俏姑娘雷麦黛丝身上发出一种引起不安的气味,令人头晕的气味,在她离开之后,这些气味还会在空气中停留几个小时。在世界各地经历过情场痛苦的男人认为,俏姑娘雷麦黛丝的天生气味在他们身上激起的欲望,他们从前是不曾感到过的。在秋海棠长廊上,在客厅里,在房中的任何一个角落里,他们经常能够准确地指出俏姑娘雷麦黛丝呆过的地方,断定她离开之后过了多少时间,她在空气中留下了清楚的痕迹,这种痕迹跟任何东西都不会相混:家里的人谁也没有觉出它来,因为它早已成了家中日常气味中的一部分,可是外人立刻就把它嗅出来了。所以只有他们明白,那个年轻的军官为什么会死于爱情,而从远地来的那个绅士为什么会陷于绝望。俏姑娘雷麦黛丝由于不知道自己身上有一种引起不安的自然力量,她在场时就会激起男人心中难以忍受的慌乱感觉,所以她对待他们是没有一点虚假的,她的天真热情终于弄得他们神魂颠倒起来。乌苏娜为了不让外国人看见自己的曾孙女,要她跟阿玛兰塔一起在厨房里吃饭,这一点甚至使她感到高兴,因为她毕竟用不着服从什么规矩了。其实,什么时候在哪几吃饭,她是不在乎的,她宁愿不按规定的时间吃饭,想吃就吃。有时,她会忽然在清晨三点起来吃点东西,然后一直睡到傍晚,连续几个月打乱作息时间表,直到最后某种意外的情况才使她重新遵守家中规定的制度。然而,即使情况有了好转,她也早上十一点起床,一丝不挂地在浴室里呆到下午两点,一面打蝎子,一面从深沉和长久的迷梦中逐渐清醒过来。然后,她才用水瓢从贮水器里舀起水来,开始冲洗身子。这种长时间的、细致的程序,夹了许多美妙的动作,不大了解俏姑娘雷麦黛丝的人可能以为她在理所当然地欣赏自己的身姿。然而,实际上,这些奇妙的动作没有任何意义,只是俏姑娘雷麦黛丝吃饭之前消磨时光的办法。有一次,她刚开始冲洗身子,就有个陌生人在屋顶上揭开一块瓦:他一瞅见俏姑娘雷麦黛丝赤身露体的惊人景象,连气都喘不过来人她在瓦片之间发现了他那凄凉的眼睛,并不害臊,而是不安。
  “当心,”她惊叫一声。“你会掉下来的。”
  “我光想瞧瞧你,”陌生人咕噜说。
  “哦,好吧,”她说,“可你得小心点儿,屋顶完全腐朽啦。”
  陌个人脸上露出惊异和痛苦的表情,他似乎在闷不作声地跟原始本能搏斗,生怕奇妙的幻景消失。俏姑娘雷麦黛丝却以为他怕屋顶塌下,就尽量比平常洗得快些,不愿让这个人长久处在危险之中。姑娘一面冲洗身子,一面向他说,这屋顶的状况很糟,因为瓦上铺的树叶被雨水淋得腐烂了,蝎子也就钻进浴室来了。陌生人以为她嘀嘀咕咕是在掩饰她的青睐,所以她在身上擦肥皂时,他就耐不住想碰碰运气。
  “让我给你擦肥皂吧,”他嘟嚷说。
  “谢谢你的好意,”她回答,“可我的两只手完全够啦。”
  “嗨,哪怕光给你擦擦背也好,”陌生人恳求。
  “为啥?”她觉得奇怪。“哪儿见过用肥皂擦背的?”
  接着,当地擦干身子的时候,陌生人泪汪汪地央求她嫁给他。她坦率地回答他说,她决不嫁给一个憨头憨脑的人,因为他浪费了几乎一个小时,连饭都不吃,光是为了观看一个洗澡的女人。俏姑娘雷麦黛丝最后穿上肥大衣服时,陌生人亲眼看见,正象许多人的猜测,她的确是把衣服直接套在光身上的,他认为这个秘密完全得到了证实。他又挪开两块瓦,打算跳进浴室。
  “这儿挺高,”姑娘惊骇地警告他,“你会摔死的!”
  腐朽的屋顶象山崩一样轰然塌下,陌生人几乎来不及发出恐怖的叫声,就掉到洋灰地上,撞破脑袋,立即毙命。从饭厅里闻声跑来的一群外国人,连忙把尸体搬出去时.觉得他的皮肤发出俏姑娘雷麦黛丝令人窒息的气味。这种气味深深地钻进了死者的身体内部:从他的脑壳裂缝里渗出来的甚至也不是血,而是充满了这种神秘气味的玻璃色油:大家立即明白,一个男人即使死了,在他的骸骨化成灰之前,俏姑娘雷麦黛丝的气味仍在折磨他,然而,谁也没有把这件可怕的事跟另外两个为俏姑娘雷麦黛丝丧命的男人联系起来。在又一个人牺牲之后,外国人和马孔多的许多老居民才相信这么个传说:俏姑娘雷麦黛丝身上发出的不是爱情的气息,而是死亡的气息。几个月以后的一桩事情证实了这种说法。有一天下午,俏姑娘雷麦黛丝和女友们一起去参观新的香蕉园。马孔多居民有一种时髦的消遣,就是在一行行香蕉树之间的通道上遛哒,通道没有尽头,满是潮气,宁静极了;这种宁静的空气是挺新奇的,仿佛是从什么地方原封不动移来的,那里的人似乎还没享受过它,它还不会清楚地传达声音,有时在半米的距离内,也听不清别人说些什么,可是从种植园另一头传来的声音却绝对清楚。马孔多的姑娘们利用这种奇怪的现象来做游戏,嬉闹呀,恐吓呀,说笑呀,晚上谈起这种旅游,仿佛在谈一场荒唐的梦。马孔多香蕉林的宁静是很有名气的,乌苏娜不忍心阻拦俏姑娘雷麦黛丝去玩玩,那天下午叫她戴上帽子、穿上体面的衣服,就让她去了。姑娘们刚刚走进香蕉园,空气中马上充满了致命的气味,正在挖灌溉渠的一伙男人,觉得自己被某种神奇的魔力控制住了,遇到了什么看不见的危险,其中许多人止不住想哭。俏姑娘和惊惶失措的女友们好不容易钻进最近的一座房子,躲避一群向她们凶猛扑来的男人。过了一阵,姑娘们才由四个奥雷连诺救了出来,他们额上的灰十字使人感到一种神秘的恐怖,好象它们是等级符号,是刀熗不入的标志。俏姑娘雷麦黛丝没告诉任何人,有个工人利用混乱伸手抓住她的肚子,犹如鹰爪抓住悬崖的边沿。瞬息间,仿佛有一道明亮的白光使她两眼发花,她朝这人转过身去,便看见了绝望的目光,这目光刺进她的心房,在那里点燃了怜悯的炭火。傍晚,在土耳其人街上,这个工人吹嘘自己的勇敢和运气,可是几分钟之后。马蹄就踩烂了他的胸膛;一群围观的外国人看见他在马路中间垂死挣扎,躺在自己吐出的一摊血里。
  俏姑娘雷麦黛丝拥有置人死地的能力,这种猜测现在已由四个不可辩驳的事例证实了。虽然有些喜欢吹牛的人说,跟这样迷人的娘儿们睡上一夜,不要命也是值得的,但是谁也没有这么干。其实,要博得她的欢心,又不会受到她的致命伤害,只要有一种原始的、朴素的感情——爱情就够了,然而这一点正是谁也没有想到的。乌苏娜不再关心自己的曾孙女儿了。以前,她还想挽救这个姑娘的时候,曾让她对一些简单的家务发生兴趣。“男人需要的比你所想的多,”她神秘地说。“除了你所想的,还需要你没完没了地做饭啦,打扫啦,为鸡毛蒜皮的事伤脑筋啦。”乌苏娜心里明白,她竭力教导这个姑娘如何获得家庭幸福,是她在欺骗自己,因为她相信:世上没有那么一个男人,满足自己的情欲之后,还能忍受俏姑娘雷麦黛丝叫人无法理解的疏懒。最后一个霍.阿卡蒂奥刚刚出世,乌苏娜就拼命想使他成为一个教皇,也就不再关心曾孙女儿了。她让姑娘听天由命,相信无奇不有的世界总会出现奇迹,迟早能够找到一个很有耐性的男人来承受这个负担,在很长的时期里,阿玛兰塔已经放弃了使悄姑娘雷麦黛丝适应家务的一切打算。在很久以前的那些晚上,在阿玛兰塔的房间里,她养育的姑娘勉强同意转动缝纫机把手的饲·候,她就终于认为俏姑娘雷麦黛丝只是一个笨蛋。“我们得用抽彩的办法把你卖出去,”她担心姑娘对男人主个无动于衷,就向她说。后来,俏姑娘雷麦黛丝去教堂时,乌苏娜嘱咐她蒙上面纱,阿玛兰塔以为这种神秘办法倒是很诱人的,也许很快就会出现一个十分好奇的男人,耐心地在她心中寻找薄弱的地方。但是,在这姑娘轻率地拒绝一个在各方面都比任何王子都迷人的追求者之后,阿玛兰塔失去了最后的希望。而菲兰达呢,她根本不想了解俏姑娘雷麦黛丝。她在血腥的狂欢节瞧见这个穿着女王衣服的姑娘时,本来以为这是一个非凡的人物。可是,当她发现雷麦黛丝用手吃饭,而且只能回答一两句蠢话时,她就慨叹布恩蒂亚家的白痴存在太久啦。尽管奥雷连诺上校仍然相信,并且说了又说,俏姑娘雷麦黛丝实际上是他见过的人当中头脑最清醒的人,她经常用她挖苫别人的惊人本领证明了这一点,但家里的人还是让她走自己的路。于是,俏姑娘雷麦黛丝开始在孤独的沙漠里徘徊,但没感到任何痛苦,并且在没有梦魇的酣睡中,在没完没了的休浴中,在不按时的膳食中,在长久的沉恩中,逐渐成长起来。直到三月里的一天下午,菲兰达打算取下花园中绳子上的床单,想把它们折起来,呼唤家中的女人来帮忙。她们刚刚动手,阿玛兰塔发现俏姑娘雷麦黛丝突然变得异常紧张和苍白。
  “你觉得不好吗?”她问。
  悄姑娘雷麦黛丝双手抓住床单的另一头,惨然地微笑了一下。
  “完全相反,我从来没有感到这么好。”
  俏姑娘雷麦黛丝话刚落音,菲兰达突然发现一道闪光,她手里的床单被一阵轻风卷走,在空中全幅展开。悄姑娘雷麦黛丝抓住床单的一头,开始凌空升起的时候,阿玛兰塔感到裙子的花边神秘地拂动。乌苏娜几乎已经失明,只有她一个人十分镇定,能够识别风的性质——她让床单在闪光中随风而去,瞧见俏姑娘雷麦黛丝向她挥手告别;姑娘周围是跟她一起升空的、白得耀眼的、招展的床单,床单跟她一起离开了甲虫飞红、天竺牡丹盛开的环境,下午四点钟就跟她飞过空中,永远消失在上层空间,甚至飞得最高的鸟儿也迫不上她了。
  外国人当然认为雷麦黛丝终于屈从了蜂王难免的命运,而她家里的人却想用升天的神话挽回她的面子。菲兰达满怀嫉妒,最终承认了这个奇迹,很长时间都在恳求上帝送回她的床单。马孔多的大多数土著居民也相信这个奇迹,甚至点起蜡烛举行安魂祈祷。大概,如果不是所有的奥雷连诺惨遭野蛮屠杀的恐怖事件代替了大家的惊讶,大家长久都不会去谈其他的事情。在某种程度上,奥雷连诺上校预感到了儿子们的悲惨结局,虽然没有明确这种感觉就是预兆。跟成群的外国人一起来到马孔多的,还有奥雷连诺.塞拉多和奥雷连诺·阿卡亚,他俩希望留在马孔多的时候,父亲却想劝阻他们。现在,天一黑走路就很危险,他不明白这两个儿子将在镇上干些什么。可是,奥雷连诺·森腾诺和奥雷连诺·特里斯特在奥雷连诺第二的支持下,却让两个兄弟在自己的工厂里干活。奥雷连诺上校是有理由反对这种决定的,虽说他的理由还很不清楚。布劳恩先生是坐着第一辆小汽车来到马孔多的——这是一辆桔黄色的小汽车,装有可以折起的顶篷,嘟嘟的喇叭声吓得镇上的狗狺狺直叫;奥雷连诺上校看见这个外国佬的时候,就对镇上的人在这个外国佬面前的卑躬样儿感到愤怒,知道他们自从扔下妻子儿女、扛起武器走向战争以来,精神面貌已经发生了变化。在尼兰德停战协定以后,掌管马孔多的是一个失去了独立性的镇民,是从爱好和平的、困倦的保守党人中间选出的一些无权的法官。“这是残废管理处,”奥雷连诺上校看见手持木棒的赤足警察,就说。“我们打了那么多的仗,都是为了不把自己的房子刷成蓝色嘛。”然而,香蕉公司出现以后,专横傲慢的外国人代替了地方官吏,布劳恩先生让他们住在“电气化养鸡场”里,享受高等人士的特权,不会象镇上其他的人那样苦于酷热和蚊子,也不会象别人那样感到许多不便和困难。手执大砍刀的雇佣刽子手取代了以前的警察。奥雷连诺上校关在自己的作坊里思考这些变化,在长年的孤独中第一次痛切地坚信,没把战争进行到底是他的错误。正巧有一天,大家早已忘却的马格尼菲柯.维斯巴尔的弟弟,带着一个七岁的孙子到广场上一个小摊跟前去喝柠檬水。小孩儿偶然把饮料洒到旁边一个警士班长的制服上,这个野蛮人就用锋利的大砍刀把小孩儿剁成了碎块,并且一下子砍掉了试图搭救孙子的祖父的脑袋。当几个男人把老头儿的尸体搬走的时候,全镇的人都看见了无头的尸体,看见了一个妇人手里拎着的脑袋,看见了一个装着孩子骸骨的、血淋淋的袋子。
  这个景象结束了奥雷连诺上校的悔罪心情。年轻时,看见一个疯狗咬伤的妇人被熗托打死,他曾恼怒已极;现在他也象那时一样,望着街上一群麇集的观众,就用往常那种雷鸣般的声音(因他无比地憎恨自己,他的声音又洪亮了),向他们发泄再也不能遏制的满腔怒火。
  “等着吧,”他大声叫嚷。“最近几天我就把武器发给我的一群孩子,让他们除掉这些坏透了的外国佬。”
  随后整整一个星期,在海边不同的地方,奥雷连诺的十七个儿子都象兔子一样遭到隐蔽的歹徒袭击,歹徒专门瞄准灰十字的中心。晚上七时,奥雷连诺·特里斯特从白己的母亲家里出来,黑暗中突然一声熗响,子弹打穿了他的脑门。奥雷连诺.森腾诺是在工厂里他经常睡觉的吊床上被发现的,他的双眉之间插着一根碎冰锥,只有把手露在外面。奥雷连诺·塞拉多看完电影把女朋友送回了家,沿着灯火辉煌的上耳其人街回来的时候,藏在人群中的一个凶手用手熗向前看他射击,使得他直接倒在一口滚沸的油锅里。五分钟之后,有人敲了敲奥雷连诺.阿卡亚和他妻子的房门,呼叫了一声:“快,他们正在屠杀你的兄弟们啦,”后来这个女人说,奥雷连诺·阿卡亚跳下床,开了门,门外的一支毛瑟熗击碎了他的脑壳。在这死亡之夜里,家中的人准备为四个死者祈祷的时候,菲兰达象疯子似的奔过市镇去寻找自己的丈夫;佩特娜·柯特以为黑名单包括所有跟上校同名的人,已把奥雷连诺第二藏在衣橱里,直到第四天,从沿海各地拍来的电报知道,暗敌袭击的只是画了灰十字的弟兄。阿玛兰塔找出一个记录了侄儿们情况的小本子,收到一封封电报之后,她就划掉一个个名字,最后只剩了最大的一个奥雷连比的名字。家里的人清楚地记得他,因为他的黑皮肤和绿眼睛是对照鲜明的,他叫奥需连诺·阿马多,是个木匠,住在山麓的一个村子里,奥雷连诺上校等候他的死汛空等了两个星期,就派了一个人去警告奥雷连诺.阿马多,以为他可能不知道自己面临的危险。这个人回来报告说,奥雷连诺.阿马多安全无恙。在大屠杀的夜晚,有两个人到他那儿去,用手熗向他射击,可是未能击中灰十字。奥雷连诺.阿马多跳过院墙,就在山里消失了;由于跟出售木柴给他的印第安人一直友好往来,他知道那里的每一条小烃,以后就再也没有听到他的消息了。
  对奥雷连诺上校来说,这是黑暗的日子。共和国总统用电报向他表示慰问,答应进行彻底调查,并且赞扬死者。根据总统的指示,镇长带者四个花圈参加丧礼,想把它们放在棺材上,上校却把它们摆在街上。安葬之后,他拟了一份措词尖锐的电报给共和国总统,亲自送到邮电局,可是电报员拒绝拍发。于是,奥宙连诺上校用极不友好的问句充实了电文。放在信封里邮寄,就象妻子死后那样,也象战争中他的好友们死亡时多次经历过的那样,他感到的不是悲哀,而是盲目的愤怒和软弱无能,他甚至指责安东尼奥.伊萨贝尔是同谋犯,故意在他的儿子们脸上阿上擦洗不掉的十字,使得敌人能够认出他们。老朽的神父已经有点儿头脑昏馈,在讲坛上布道时竟胡乱解释《圣经》,吓唬教区居民;有一天下午,他拿着一个通常在大斋第一天用来盛圣灰的大碗,来到布恩蒂亚家里,想给全家的人抹上圣灰,表明圣灰是容易擦掉的。可是大家心中生怕倒霉,甚至菲兰达也不让他在她身上试验;以后,在大斋的第一天,再也没有一个布恩蒂亚家里的人跪在圣坛栏杆跟前了。
  在很长时间里,奥雷连诺上校未能恢复失去的平静。他怀着满腔的怒火不再制作全鱼,勉强进点饮食,在地上拖着斗篷,象梦游人一样在房子里踱来踱去。到了第三个月末尾,他的头发完全白了,从前卷起的胡梢垂在没有血色的嘴唇两边,可是两只眼睛再一次成了两块燃烧的炭火;在他出生时,这两只眼睛曾把在场的人吓了一跳,而且两眼一扫就能让椅子移动。奥雷迁诺上校满怀愤怒,妄图在自己身上找到某种预感,那种预感曾使他年轻时沿着危险的小道走向光荣的荒漠。他迷失在这座陌生的房子里,这里的任何人和任何东西都已激不起他的一点儿感情。有一次他走进梅尔加德斯的房间,打算找出战前的遗迹,但他只看见垃圾、秽物和各种破烂,这些都是荒芜多年之后堆积起来的。那些早已无人阅读的书,封面和羊皮纸已被潮气毁坏,布满了绿霉,而房子里往日最明净的空气,也充溢着难以忍受的腐烂气味。另一天早晨,他发现乌苏娜在栗树底下——她正把头伏在已故的丈夫膝上抽泣。在半个世纪的狂风暴雨中弄弯了腰的这个老头儿,奥雷连诺是个家长久没有看见过他的唯一的人。“向你父亲问安吧,”乌苏娜说。他在栗树前面停了片刻,再一次看见,即使这块主地也没激起他的任何感情。
  “他在说什么呀!”奥雷连诺上校问道。
  “他很难过,”乌苏娜回答。“他以为你该死啦。”
  “告诉他吧,”上校笑着说。“人不是该死的时候死的,而是能死的时候死的。”
  亡父的预言激起了他心中最后剩下的一点儿傲气,可是他把这种刹那间的傲气错误地当成了突然进发的力量。他向母亲追问,在圣约瑟夫石膏像里发现的金币究竟藏在哪儿。“这你永远不会知道,”由于过去的痛苦教训,她坚定地说。“有朝一日财主来了,他才能把它挖出来,谁也无法理解,一个经常无私的人,为什么突然贪婪地渴望钱财,渴望的不是日常需要的少数钱,而是一大笔财产——只要提起这笔财产的数量,甚至奥雷连诺第二也惊得发呆。过去的党内同僚,奥雷连访问他们要钱,他们都避免跟他相见。下面这句话正是他这时说的:“现在,自由党人和保守党人之间的区别是:自由党人举行早祷,保守党人举行晚祷。”然而,他那么坚持不懈地努力,那么苦苦地恳求,那么不顾自尊心,四处奔走,每处都得到一点儿帮助,在八个月中弄到的饯就超过了乌苏娜所藏的数目。随后,他去患病的格林列尔多·马克斯上校,希望上校帮助他重新发动全面战争。
  有一段时间,格林列尔多上校虽然瘫倒在摇椅里,却真是唯一能够拉动起义操纵杆的人。在尼兰德停故协定之后,当奥雷连诺上校躲在小金鱼中间的时候,格林列尔多·马克斯上校仍跟那些最终没有背弃他的起义军官保持着联系。他跟他们又经历了一场战争,这场战争就是经常丢脸、祈求、申请,就是没完没了的回答:“明天来吧”,“已经快啦”,“我们正公认真研究你的问题”;这场注定失败的战争是反对“敬启者”的,反对“你的忠实仆人”的,他们一直答应发给老兵终身养老金,可是始终不给。前一场血腥的二十年战争给予老兵的损害,都比不上这一场永远拖延的毁灭性战争。格林列尔多.马克斯上校本人逃脱过三次谋杀,五次负伤未死,在无数次战斗中安然无损,由丁忍受不了无穷等待的折磨,就接受了最终的失败——衰老;他坐在自己的摇椅里,望着地板上透进的阳光,思念着阿玛兰塔。他再也没有见到自己的战友们,只有一次在报上看见一张照片,几个老兵站在一个不知名的共和国总统旁边,无耻地仰着面孔;总统拿自己的像章赠给他们,让他们戴在翻领上面,并且归还他们一面沾满尘土和鲜血的旗帜,让他们能把它放在自己的棺材上。其他最体面的老兵,仍在社会慈善团体的照顾下等待养老金的消息;其中一些人饿得要死,另一些人继续在恼怒中过着晚年生活,并且在光荣的粪堆里慢慢地腐烂。因此,奥雷连诺上校前来找他,主张誓死点燃无情的战火,推翻外国侵略者支持的腐败透顶的可耻的政府时,格林列尔多简直无法压抑自己怜悯的感情。
  “唉,奥雷连诺,”他叹了口气。“我知道你老了,可我今天才明白,你比看上去老得多了。”


执素衣

ZxID:13389413


等级: 内阁元老
举报 只看该作者 11楼  发表于: 2013-10-10 0



Chapter 11
THE MARRIAGE was on the point of breaking up after two months because Aureliano Segundo, in an attempt to placate Petra Cotes, had a picture taken of her dressed as the Queen of Madagascar. When Fernanda found out about it she repacked her bridal trunks and left Macondo without saying good-bye. Aureliano Segundo caught up with her on the swamp road. After much pleading and promises of reform he succeeded in getting her to come home and he abandoned his concubine.
   Petra Cotes, aware of her strength, showed no signs of worry. She had made a man of him. While he was still a child she had drawn him out of Melquíades?room, his head full of fantastic ideas and lacking any contact with reality, and she had given him a place in the world. Nature had made him reserved and withdrawn. with tendencies toward solitary meditation, and she had molded an opposite character in him, one that was vital, expansive, open, and she had injected him with a joy for living and a pleasure in spending and celebrating until she had converted him inside and out, into the man she had dreamed of for herself ever since adolescence. Then he married, as all sons marry sooner or later. He did not dare tell her the news. He assumed an attitude that was quite childish under the circumstances, feigning anger and imaginary resentment so that Petra Cotes would be the one who would bring about the break. One day, when Aureliano Segundo reproached her unjustly, she eluded the trap and put things in their proper place.
   “What it all means,?she said, “is that you want to marry the queen.?
   Aureliano Segundo, ashamed, pretended an attack of rage, said that he was misunderstood and abused, and did not visit her again. Petra Cotes, without losing her poise of a wild beast in repose for a single instant, heard the music and the fireworks from the wedding, the wild bustle of the celebration as if all of it were nothing but some new piece of mischief on the part of Aureliano Segundo. Those who pitied her fate were calmed with a smile. “Don’t worry,?she told them. “Queens run errands for me.?To a neighbor woman who brought her a set of candles so that she could light up the picture of her lost lover with them, she said with an enigmatic security:
   “The only candle that will make him come is always lighted.?
   Just as she had foreseen, Aureliano Segundo went back to her house as soon as the honeymoon was over. He brought his usual old friends, a traveling photographer, and the gown and ermine cape soiled with blood that Fernanda had worn during the carnival. In the heat of the merriment that broke out that evening, he had Petra Cotes dress up as queen, crowned her absolute and lifetime ruler of Madagascar, and handed out copies of the picture to his friends, she not only went along with the game, but she felt sorry for him inside, thinking that he must have been very frightened to have conceived of that extravagant means of reconciliation. At seven in the evening, still dressed as the queen, she received him in bed. He had been married scarcely two months, but she realized at once that things were not going well in the nuptial bed, and she had the delicious pleasure of vengeance fulfilled. Two days later, however, when he did not dare return but sent an intermediary to arrange the terms of the separation, she understood that she was going to need more patience than she had foreseen because he seemed ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of appearances. Nor did she get upset that time. Once again she made things easy with a submission that confirmed the generalized belief that she was a poor devil, and the only souvenir she kept of Aureliano Segundo was a pair of patent leather boots, which, according to what he himself had said, were the ones he wanted to wear in his coffin. She kept them wrapped in cloth in the bottom of a trunk and made ready to feed on memories, waiting without despair.
   “He has to come sooner or later,?she told herself, “even if it’s just to put on those boots.?
   She did not have to wait as long as she had imagined. Actually, Aureliano Segundo understood from the night of his wedding that he would return to the house of Petra Cotes much sooner than when he would have to put on the patent leather boots: Fernanda was a woman who was lost in the world. She had been born and raised in a city six hundred miles away, a gloomy city where on ghostly nights the coaches of the viceroys still rattled through the cobbled streets, Thirty-two belfries tolled a dirge at six in the afternoon. In the manor house, which was paved with tomblike slabs, the sun was never seen. The air had died in the cypresses in the courtyard, in the pale trappings of the bedrooms, in the dripping archways of the garden of perennials. Until puberty Fernanda had no news of the world except for the melancholy piano lessons taken in some neighboring house by someone who for years and years had the drive not to take a siesta. In the room of her sick mother, green and yellow under the powdery light from the windowpanes, she would listen to the methodical, stubborn, heartless scales and think that that music was in the world while she was being consumed as she wove funeral wreaths. Her mother, perspiring with five-o’clock fever, spoke to her of the splendor of the past. When she was a little girl, on one moonlit night Fernanda saw a beautiful woman dressed in white crossing the garden toward the chapel. What bothered her most about that fleeting vision was that she felt it was exactly like her, as if she had seen herself twenty years in advance. “It was your great-grandmother the queen,?her mother told her during a truce in her coughing. “She died of some bad vapors while she was cutting a string of bulbs.?Many years later, when she began to feel she was the equal of her great-grandmother, Fernanda doubted her childhood vision, but her mother scolded her disbelief.
   “We are immensely rich and powerful,?she told her. “One day you will be a queen.?
   She believed it, even though they were sitting at the long table with a linen tablecloth and silver service to have a cup of watered chocolate and a sweet bun. Until the day of her wedding she dreamed about a legendary kingdom, in spite of the fact that her father, Don Fernando, had to mortgage the house in order to buy her trousseau. It was not innocence or delusions of grandeur. That was how they had brought her up. Since she had had the use of reason she remembered having done her duty in a gold pot with the family crest on it. She left the house for the first time at the age of twelve in a coach and horses that had to travel only two blocks to take her to the convent. Her classmates were surprised that she sat apart from them in a chair with a very high back and that she would not even mingle with them during recess. “She’s different,?the nuns would explain. “She’s going to be a queen.?Her schoolmates believed this because she was already the most beautiful, distinguished, and discreet girl they had ever seen. At the end of eight years, after having learned to write Latin poetry, play the clavichord, talk about falconry with gentlemen and apologetics, with archbishops, discuss affairs of state with foreign rulers and affairs of God with the Pope, she returned to her parents?home to weave funeral wreaths. She found it despoiled. All that was left was the furniture that was absolutely necessary, the silver candelabra and table service, for the everyday utensils had been sold one by one to underwrite the costs of her education. Her mother had succumbed to five-o’clock fever. Her father, Don Fernando, dressed in black with a stiff collar and a gold watch chain, would give her a silver coin on Mondays for the household expenses, and the funeral wreaths finished the week before would be taken away. He spent most of his time shut up in his study and the few times that he went out he would return to recite the rosary with her. She had intimate friendships with no one. She had never heard mention of the wars that were bleeding the country. She continued her piano lessons at three in the afternoon. She had even began to lose the illusion of being a queen when two peremptory raps of the knocker sounded at the door and she opened it to a well-groomed military officer with ceremonious manners who had a scar on his cheek and a gold medal on his chest. He closeted himself with her father in the study. Two hours later her father came to get her in the sewing room. “Get your things together,?he told her. “You have to take a long trip.?That was how they took her to Macondo. In one single day, with a brutal slap, life threw on top of her the whole weight of a reality that her parents had kept hidden from her for many years. When she returned home she shut herself up in her room to weep, indifferent to Don Fernando’s pleas and explanations as he tried to erase the scars of that strange joke. She had sworn to herself never to leave her bedroom until she died when Aureliano Segundo came to get her. It was an act of impossible fate, because in the confusion of her indignation, in the fury of her shame, she had lied to him so that he would never know her real identity. The only real clues that Aureliano Segundo had when he left to look for her were her unmistakable highland accent and her trade as a weaver of funeral wreaths. He searched for her without cease. With the fierce temerity with which Jos?Arcadio Buendía had crossed the mountains to found Macondo, with the blind pride with which Colonel Aureliano Buendía had undertaken his fruitless wars, with the mad tenacity with which ?rsula watched over the survival of the line, Aureliano Segundo looked for Fernanda, without a single moment of respite. When he asked where they sold funeral wreaths they took him from house to house so that he could choose the best ones. When he asked for the most beautiful woman who had ever been seen on this earth, all the women brought him their daughters. He became lost in misty byways, in times reserved for oblivion, in labyrinths of disappointment. He crossed a yellow plain where the echo repeated one’s thoughts and where anxiety brought on premonitory mirages. After sterile weeks he came to an unknown city where all the bells were tolling a dirge. Although he had never seen them and no one had ever described them to him he immediately recognized the walls eaten away by bone salt, the broken-down wooden balconies gutted by fungus, and nailed to the outside door, almost erased by rain, the saddest cardboard sign in the world: Funeral Wreaths for Sale. From that moment until the icy morning when Fernanda left her house under the care of the Mother Superior there was barely enough time for the nuns to sew her trousseau and in six trunks put the candelabra, the silver service, and the gold chamberpot along with the countless and useless remains of a family catastrophe that had been two centuries late in its fulfillment. Don Fernando declined the invitation to go along. He promised to go later when he had cleared up his affairs, and from the moment when he gave his daughter his blessing he shut himself up in his study again to write out the announcements with mournful sketches and the family coat of arms, which would be the first human contact that Fernanda and her father would have had in all their lives. That was the real date of her birth for her. For Aureliano Segundo it was almost simultaneously the beginning and the end of happiness.
   Fernanda carried a delicate calendar with small golden keys on which her spiritual adviser had marked in purple ink the dates of venereal abstinence. Not counting Holy week, Sundays, holy days of obligation, first Fridays, retreats, sacrifices, and cyclical impediments, her effective year was reduced to forty-two days that were spread out through a web of purple crosses. Aureliano Segundo, convinced that time would break up that hostile network, prolonged the wedding celebration beyond the expected time. Tired of throwing out so many empty brandy and champagne bottles so that they would not clutter up the house and at the same time intrigued by the fact that the newlyweds slept at different times and in separate rooms while the fireworks and music and the slaughtering of cattle went on, ?rsula remembered her own experience and wondered whether Fernanda might have a chastity belt too which would sooner or later provoke jokes in the town and give rise to a tragedy. But Fernanda confessed to her that she was just letting two weeks go by before allowing the first contact with her husband. Indeed, when the period was over, she opened her bedroom with a resignation worthy of an expiatory victim and Aureliano Segundo saw the most beautiful woman on earth, with her glorious eyes of a frightened animal and her long, copper-colored hair spread out across the pillow. He was so fascinated with that vision that it took him a moment to realize that Fernanda was wearing a white nightgown that reached down to her ankles, with long sleeves and with a large, round buttonhole, delicately trimmed, at the level of her lower stomach. Aureliano Segundo could not suppress an explosion of laughter.
   “That’s the most obscene thing I’ve ever seen in my life,?he shouted with a laugh that rang through the house. “I married a Sister of Charity.?
   A month later, unsuccessful in getting his wife to take off her nightgown, he had the picture taken of Petra Cotes dressed as a queen. Later on, when he succeeded in getting Fernanda to come back home, she gave in to his urges in the fever of reconciliation, but she could not give him the repose he had dreamed about when he went to fetch her in the city with the thirty-two belfries. Aureliano Segundo found only a deep feeling of desolation in her. One night, a short time before their first child was born, Fernanda realized that her husband had returned in secret to the bed of Petra Cotes.
   “That’s what happened,?he admitted. And he explained in a tone of prostrated resignation: “I had to do it so that the animals would keep on breeding.?
   He needed a little time to convince her about such a strange expedient, but when he finally did so by means of proofs that seemed irrefutable, the only promise that Fernanda demanded from him was that he should not be surprised by death in his concubine’s bed. In that way the three of them continued living without bothering each other. Aureliano Segundo, punctual and loving with both of them. Petra Cotes, strutting because of the reconciliation, and Fernanda, pretending that she did not know the truth.
   The pact did not succeed, however, in incorporating Fernanda into the family. ?rsula insisted in vain that she take off the woolen ruff which she would have on when she got up from making love and which made the neighbors whisper. She could not convince her to use the bathroom or the night lavatory and sell the gold chamberpot to Colonel Aureliano Buendía so that he could convert it into little fishes. Amaranta felt so uncomfortable with her defective diction and her habit of using euphemisms to designate everything that she would always speak gibberish in front of her.
   “Thifisif.?she would say, “ifisif onefos ofosif thofosif whosufu cantantant statantand thefesef smufumellu ofosif therisir owfisown shifisifit.?
   One day, irritated by the mockery, Fernanda wanted to know what Amaranta was saying, and she did not use euphemisms in answering her.
   “I was saying,?she told her, “that you’re one of those people who mix up their ass and their ashes.?
   From that time on they did not speak to each other again. When circumstances demanded it they would send notes. In spite of the visible hostility of the family, Fernanda did not give up her drive to impose the customs of her ancestors. She put an end to the custom of eating in the kitchen and whenever anyone was hungry, and she imposed the obligation of doing it at regular hours at the large table in the dining room, covered with a linen cloth and with silver candlesticks and table service. The solemnity of an act which ?rsula had considered the most simple one of daily life created a tense atmosphere against which the silent Jos?Arcadio Segundo rebelled before anyone else. But the custom was imposed, the same as that of reciting the rosary before dinner, and it drew the attention of the neighbors, who soon spread the rumor that the Buendías did not sit down to the table like other mortals but had changed the act of eating into a kind of high mass. Even ?rsula’s superstitions, with origins that came more from an inspiration of the moment than from tradition, came into conflict with those of Fernanda, who had inherited them from her parents and kept them defined and catalogued for every occasion. As long as ?rsula had full use of her faculties some of the old customs survived and the life of the family kept some quality of her impulsiveness, but when she lost her sight and the weight of her years relegated her to a corner, the circle of rigidity begun by Fernanda from the moment she arrived finally closed completely and no one but she determined the destiny of the family. The business in pastries and small candy animals that Santa Sofía de la Piedad had kept up because of ?rsula’s wishes was considered an unworthy activity by Fernanda and she lost no time in putting a stop to it. The doors of the house, wide open from dawn until bedtime, were closed during siesta time under the pretext that the sun heated up the bedrooms and in the end they were closed for good. The aloe branch and loaf of bread that had been hanging over the door since the days of the founding were replaced by a niche with the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Colonel Aureliano, Buendía became aware somehow of those changes and foresaw their consequences. “We’re becoming people of quality,?he protested. “At this rate we’ll end up fighting against the Conservative regime again, but this time to install a king in its place.?Fernanda very tactfully tried not to cross his path. Within herself she was bothered by his independent spirit his resistance to all kinds of social rigidity. She was exasperated by his mugs of coffee at five in the morning, the disorder of his workshop, his frayed blanket, and his custom of sitting in the street door at dusk. But she had to tolerate that one loose piece in the family machinery because she was sure that the old colonel was an animal who had been tamed by the years and by disappointment and who, in a burst of senile rebellion, was quite capable of uprooting the foundations of the house. When her husband decided to give their first son the name of his great-grandfather, she did not dare oppose him because she had been there only a year. But when the first daughter was bom she expressed her unreserved determination to name her Renata after her mother. ?rsula had decided to call her Remedios. After a tense argument, in which Aureliano Segundo acted as the laughing go-between, they baptized her with the name Renata Remedios, but Fernanda went on calling her just Renata while her husband’s family and everyone in town called her Meme, a diminutive of Remedios.
   At first Fernanda did not talk about her family, but in time she began to idealize her father. She spoke of him at the table as an exceptional being who had renounced all forms of vanity and was on his way to becoming a saint. Aureliano Segundo, startled at that unbridled glorification of his father-in-law, could not resist the temptation to make small jokes behind his wife’s back. The rest of the family followed his example. Even ?rsula, who was extremely careful to preserve family harmony and who suffered in secret from the domestic friction, once allowed herself the liberty of saying that her little great-great-grandson had his pontifical future assured because he was “the grandson of a saint and the son of a queen and a rustler.?In spite of that conspiracy of smiles, the children became accustomed to think of their grandfather as a legendary being who wrote them pious verses in his letters and every Christmas sent them a box of gifts that barely fitted through the outside door. Actually they were the last remains of his lordly inheritance. They used them to build an altar of life-size saints in the children’s bedroom, saints with glass eyes that gave them a disquietingly lifelike look, whose artistically embroidered clothing was better than that worn by any inhabitant of Macondo. Little by little the funereal splendor of the ancient and icy mansion was being transformed into the splendor of the House of Buendía. “They’ve already sent us the whole family cemetery,?Aureliano Segundo commented one day. “All we need now are the weeping willows and the tombstones.?Although nothing ever arrived in the boxes that the children could play with, they would spend all year waiting for December because, after all, the antique and always unpredictable gifts were something, new in the house. On the tenth Christmas, when little Jos?Arcadio was getting ready to go to the seminary, the enormous box from their grandfather arrived earlier than usual, nailed tight and protected with pitch, and addressed in the usual Gothic letters to the Very Distinguished Lady Do?a Fernanda del Carpio de Buendía. While she read the letter in her room the children hastened to open the box. Aided as was customary by Aureliano Segundo, they broke the seals, opened the cover, took out the protective sawdust, and found inside a long lead chest closed by copper bolts. Aureliano Segundo took out the eight bolts as the children watched impatiently, and he barely had time to give a cry and push the children aside when be raised the lead cover and saw Don Fernando, dressed in black and with a crucifix on his chest, his skin broken out in pestilential sores and cooking slowly in a frothy stew with bubbles like live pearls.
   A short time after the birth of their daughter, the unexpected jubilee for Colonel Aureliano, Buendía, ordered by the government to celebrate another anniversary of the Treaty of Neerlandia, was announced. It was a decision so out of line with official policy that the colonel spoke out violently against it and rejected the homage. “It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of the word ‘jubilee,??he said. “But whatever it means, it has to be a trick.?The small goldsmith shop was filled with emissaries. Much older and more solemn, the lawyers in dark suits who in other days had flapped about the colonel like crows had returned. When he saw them appear the same as the other time, when they came to put a stop to the war, he could not bear the cynicism of their praise. He ordered them to leave him in peace, insisting that he was not a hero of the nation as they said but an artisan without memories whose only dream was to die of fatigue in the oblivion and misery of his little gold fishes. What made him most indignant was the word that the president of the republic himself planned to be present at the ceremonies in Macondo in order to decorate him with the Order of Merit. Colonel Aureliano, Buendía had him told, word for word, that he was eagerly awaiting that tardy but deserved occasion in order to take a shot at him, not as payment for the arbitrary acts and anachronisms of his regime, but for his lack of respect for an old man who had not done anyone any harm. Such was the vehemence with which he made the threat that the president of the republic canceled his trip at the last moment and sent the decoration with a personal representative. Colonel Gerineldo Márquez, besieged by pressures of all kinds, left his bed of a paralytic in order to persuade his former companion in arms. When the latter saw the rocking chair carried by four men appear and saw the friend who had shared his victories and defeats since youth sitting in it among some large pillows, he did not have a single doubt but that he was making that effort in order to express his solidarity. But when he discovered the real motive for his visit he had them take him out of the workshop.
   “Now I’m convinced too late,?he told him, “that I would have done you a great favor if I’d let them shoot you.?
   So the jubilee was celebrated without the attendance of any members of the family. Chance had it that it also coincided with carnival week, but no one could get the stubborn idea out of Colonel Aureliano Buendía’s head that the coincidence had been foreseen by the government in order to heighten the cruelty of the mockery. From his lonely workshop he could hear the martial music, the artillery salutes, the tolling of the Te Deum, and a few phrases of the speeches delivered in front of the house as they named the street after him. His eyes grew moist with indignation, with angry impotence, and for the first time since his defeat it pained him not to have the strength of youth so that he could begin a bloody war that would wipe out the last vestiges of the Conservative regime. The echoes of the homage had not died down when ?rsula knocked at the workshop door.
   “Don’t bother me,?he said. “I’m busy.?
   “Open up,??rsula insisted in a normal voice. “This has nothing to do with the celebration.?
   Then Colonel Aureliano Buendía took down the bar and saw at the door seventeen men of the most varied appearance, of all types and colors, but all with a solitary air that would have been enough to identify them anywhere on earth. They were his sons. Without any previous agreement, without knowing each other, they had arrived from the most distant corners of the coast, captivated by the talk of the jubilee. They all bore with pride the name Aureliano and the last name of their mothers. The three days that they stayed in the house, to the satisfaction of ?rsula and the scandal of Fernanda, were like a state war. Amaranta searched among old papers for the ledger where ?rsula had written down the names and birth and baptism dates of all of them, and beside the space for each one she added his present address. That list could well have served as a recapitulation of twenty years of war. From it the nocturnal itinerary of the colonel from the dawn he left Macondo at the head of twenty-one men on his way to a fanciful rebellion until he returned for the last time wrapped in a blanket stiff with blood could have been reconstructed. Aureliano Segundo did not let the chance go by to regale his cousins with a thunderous champagne and accordion party that was interpreted as a tardy adjustment of accounts with the carnival, which went awry because of the jubilee. They smashed half of the dishes, they destroyed the rose bushes as they chased a bull they were trying to hog-tie, they killed the hens by shooting them, they made Amaranta dance the sad waltzes of Pietro Crespi, they got Remedios the Beauty to put on a pair of men’s pants and climb a greased pole, and in the dining room they turned loose a pig daubed with lard, which prostrated Fernanda, but no one regretted the destruction because the house shook with a healthy earthquake. Colonel Aureliano Buendía who at first received them with mistrust and even doubted the parentage of some, was amused by their wildness, and before they left he gave each one a little gold fish. Even the withdrawn Jos?Arcadio Segundo offered them an afternoon of cockfights, which was at the point of ending in tragedy because several of the Aurelianos were so expert in matters of the cockpit that they spotted Father Antonio Isabel’s tricks at once. Aureliano Segundo, who saw the limitless prospect of wild times offered by those mad relatives, decided that they should all stay and work for him. The only one who accepted was Aureliano Triste, a big mulatto with the drive and explorer’s spirit of his grandfather. He had already tested his fortune in half the world and it did not matter to him where he stayed. The others, even though they were unmarried, considered their destinies established. They were all skillful craftsmen, the men of their houses, peace-loving people. The Ash Wednesday before they went back to scatter out along the coast, Amaranta got them to put on Sunday clothes and accompany her to church. More amused than devout, they let themselves be led to the altar rail where Father Antonio Isabel made the sign of the cross in ashes on them. Back at the house, when the youngest tried to clean his forehead, he discovered that the mark was indelible and so were those of his brothers. They tried soap and water, earth and a scrubbing brush, and lastly a pumice stone and lye, but they could not remove the crosses. On the other hand, Amaranta and the others who had gone to mass took it off without any trouble. “It’s better that way,??rsula stated as she said goodbye to them. “From now on everyone will know who you are.?They went off in a troop, preceded by a band of musicians and shooting off fireworks, and they left behind in the town an impression that the Buendía line had enough seed for many centuries. Aureliano Triste, with the cross of ashes on his forehead, set up on the edge of town the ice factory that Jos?Arcadio Buendía had dreamed of in his inventive delirium.
   Some months after his arrival, when he was already well-known and well-liked, Aureliano Triste went about looking for a house so that he could send for his mother and an unmarried sister (who was not the colonel’s daughter), and he became interested in the run-down big house that looked abandoned on a corner of the square. He asked who owned it. Someone told him that it did not belong to anyone, that in former times a solitary widow who fed on earth and whitewash from the walls had lived there, and that in her last years she was seen only twice on the street with a hat of tiny artificial flowers and shoes the color of old silver when she crossed the square to the post office to mail a letter to the Bishop. They told him that her only companion was a pitiless servant woman who killed dogs and cats and any animal that got into the house and threw their corpses into the middle of the street in order to annoy people with the rotten stench. So much time had passed since the sun had mummified the empty skin of the last animal that everybody took it for granted that the lady of the house and the maid had died long before the wars were over, and that if the house was still standing it was because in recent years there had not been a rough winter or destructive wind. The hinges had crumbled with rust, the doors were held up only by clouds of cobwebs, the windows were soldered shut by dampness, and the floor was broken by grass and wildflowers and in the cracks lizards and all manner of vermin had their nests, all of which seemed to confirm the notion that there had not been a human being there for at least half a century. The impulsive Aureliano Triste did not need such proof to proceed. He pushed on the main door with his shoulder and the worm-eaten wooden frame fell down noiselessly amid a dull cataclysm of dust and termite nests. Aureliano Triste stood on the threshold waiting for the dust to clear and then he saw in the center of the room the squalid woman, still dressed in clothing of the past century, with a few yellow threads on her bald head, and with two large eyes, still beautiful, in which the last stars of hope had gone out, and the skin of her face was wrinkled by the aridity of solitude. Shaken by that vision from another world, Aureliano Triste barely noticed that the woman was aiming an antiquated pistol at him.
   “I beg your pardon,?he murmured.
   She remained motionless in the center of the room filled with knickknacks, examining inch by inch the giant with square shoulders and with a tattoo of ashes on his forehead, and through the haze of dust she saw him in the haze of other times with a double-barreled shotgun on his shoulder and a string of rabbits in his hand.
   “For the love of God,?she said in a low voice, it’s not right for them to come to me with that memory now.?
   “I want to rent the house,?Aureliano Triste said.
   The woman then raised the pistol, aiming with a firm wrist at the cross of ashes, and she held the trigger with a determination against which there was no appeal.
   “Get out,?she ordered.
   That night at dinner Aureliano Triste told the family about the episode and ?rsula wept with consternation. “Holy God!?she exclaimed, clutching her head with her hands. “She’s still alive!?Time, wars, the countless everyday disasters had made her forget about Rebeca. The only one who had not lost for a single minute the awareness that she was alive and rotting in her wormhole was the implacable and aging Amaranta. She thought of her at dawn, when the ice of her heart awakened her in her solitary bed, and she thought of her when she soaped her withered breasts and her lean stomach, and when she put on the white stiff-starched petticoats and corsets of old age, and when she changed the black bandage of terrible expiation on her hand. Always, at every moment, asleep and awake, during the most sublime and most abject moments, Amaranta thought about Rebeca, because solitude had made a selection in her memory and had burned the dimming piles of nostalgic waste that life had accumulated in her heart, and had purified, magnified and eternalized the others, the most bitter ones. Remedios the Beauty knew about Rebeca’s existence from her. Every time they passed the run-down house she would tell her about an unpleasant incident, a tale of hate, trying in that way to make her extended rancor be shared by her niece and consequently prolonged beyond death, but her plan did not work because Remedios was immune to any kind of passionate feelings and much less to those of others. ?rsula, on the other hand, who had suffered through a process opposite to Amaranta’s, recalled Rebeca with a memory free of impurities, for the image of the pitiful child brought to the house with the bag containing her parents?bones prevailed over the offense that had made her unworthy to be connected to the family tree any longer. Aureliano Segundo decided that they would have to bring her to the house and take care of her, but his good intentions were frustrated by the firm intransigence of Rebeca, who had needed many years of suffering and misery in order to attain the privileges of solitude and who was not disposed to renounce them in exchange for an old age disturbed by the false attractions of charity.
   In February, when the sixteen sons of Colonel Aureliano Buendía returned, still marked with the cross of ashes, Aureliano Triste spoke to them about Rebeca in the tumult of the celebration and in half a day they restored the appearance of the house, changing doors and windows, painting the front with gay colors, bracing walls and pouring fresh cement on the floor, but they could not get any authorization to continue the work inside. Rebeca did not even come to the door. She let them finish the mad restoration, then calculated what it had cost and sent Argénida, her old servant who was still with her, to them with a handful of coins that had been withdrawn from circulation after the last war and that Rebeca thought were still worth something it was then that they saw to what a fantastic point her separation from the world had arrived and they understood that it would be impossible to rescue her from her stubborn enclosure while she still had a breath of life in her.
   On the second visit by the sons of Colonel Aureliano Buendía to Macondo, another of them, Aureliano Centeno, stayed on to work with Aureliano Triste. He was one of the first who had been brought to the house for baptism and ?rsula and Amaranta remembered him very well because in a few hours he had destroyed every breakable object that passed through his hands. Time had moderated his early impulse for growth and he was a man of average height marked by smallpox scars, but his amazing power for manual destruction remained intact. He broke so many plates, even without touching them, that Fernanda decided to buy him a set of pewterware before he did away with the last pieces of her expensive china, and even the resistant metal plates were soon dented and twisted. But to make up for that irremediable power, which was exasperating even for him, he had a cordiality that won the immediate confidence of others and a stupendous capacity for work. In a short time he had increased the production of ice to such a degree that it was too much for the local market and Aureliano Triste had to think about the possibility of expanding the business to other towns in the swamp. It was then that he thought of the decisive step, not only for the modernization of his business but to link the town with the rest of the world.
   “We have to bring in the railroad,?he said.
   That was the first time that the word had ever been heard in Macondo. Looking at the sketch that Aureliano Triste drew on the table and that was a direct descendent of the plans with which Jos?Arcadio Buendía had illustrated his project for solar warfare, ?rsula confirmed her impression that time was going in a circle. But unlike his forebear, Aureliano Triste did not lose any sleep or appetite nor did he torment anyone with crises of ill humor, but he considered the most harebrained of projects as immediate possibilities, made rational calculations about costs and dates, and brought them off without any intermediate exasperation. If Aureliano Segundo had something of his great-grandfather in him and lacked something of Colonel Aureliano Buendía, it was an absolute indifference to mockery, and he gave the money to bring the railroad with the same lighthearted air with which he had given it for his brother’s absurd navigation project. Aureliano Triste consulted the calendar and left the following Wednesday, planning to return after the rains had passed. There was no more news of him. Aureliano Centeno, overwhelmed by the abundance of the factory, had already begun to experiment with the production of ice with a base of fruit juices instead of water, and without knowing it or thinking about it, he conceived the essential fundamentals for the invention of sherbet. In that way he planned to diversify the production of an enterprise he considered his own, because his brother showed no signs of returning after the rains had passed and a whole summer had gone by with no news of him. At the start of another winter, however, a woman who was washing clothes in the river during the hottest time of the day ran screaming down the main street in an alarming state of commotion.
   “It’s coming,?she finally explained. “Something frightful, like a kitchen dragging a village behind it.?
   At that moment the town was shaken by a whistle with a fearful echo and a loud, panting respiration. During the previous weeks they had seen the gangs who were laying ties and tracks and no one paid attention to them because they thought it was some new trick of the gypsies, coming back with whistles and tambourines and their age-old and discredited song and dance about the qualities of some concoction put together by journeyman geniuses of Jerusalem. But when they recovered from the noise of the whistles and the snorting, all the inhabitants ran out into the street and saw Aureliano Triste waving from the locomotive, and in a trance they saw the flower-bedecked train which was arriving for the first time eight months late. The innocent yellow train that was to bring so many ambiguities and certainties, so many pleasant and unpleasant moments, so many changes, calamities, and feelings of nostalgia to Macondo.



第十一章

  过了两个月,他俩的夫妻关系几乎完结,因为奥雷连诺第二为了安慰佩特娜·柯特,给她拍了一张穿着马达加斯加女工服装的照片。菲兰达知道这桩事情以后,把自己的嫁妆放同箱子,没跟任何人告别一声,就离开了马孔多。经过长时间卑躬屈节的央求,奥雷连诺第二答应改正错误,才把妻子请回家里,于是又和情妇分手了。
  佩特娜.柯特相信自己的力量,没有表露任何忧虑。因为奥雷连诺第二是靠她成为男子汉大丈夫的。她把他弄出梅尔枷德斯的卧室时,他还是个小孩子,跟现实生活没有接触,满脑子幻想,是她使他在世上订一席之地的。他生来沉默、孤僻,喜欢独个儿冥思苦想,而她却使他形成了完全相反的性格:活泼开朗,容易与人接近:她使他有了生活乐趣,让他养成了寻欢作乐和挥霍无度的习惯,终于把他彻底地变成了她从少女时代就幻想的男人。后来他结婚了——凡是男人迟早都要结婚嘛。他很久都不敢把他准备结婚的事告诉她。在这桩事儿上,他的作法完全象个孩子:他经常冤枉地指责她,想些话来气她,希望她自己跟他决裂。有一天,奥雷连诺第二又不公正地责备她时,她绕过了他的圈套,作了恰当的回答。
  “把事儿说穿吧,”佩特娜·柯特说,“你想跟女王结婚。”
  奥雷连诺第二假装恼怒,说他受到了误解和冤枉,就不再来她家里了。佩特娜·柯特一刻也没失去野兽休息时的那种平静,听着传到她耳里的婚宴上的乐曲声、铜号声和发狂的喧声,仿佛这一切不过是奥雷连诺第二又一次的瞎胡闹罢了。有人对她表示同情的必然产物,社会主义是现代社会生产力发展的最终目标和,她却泰然自若地微笑作答。“甭担心,”她向他们说。“女王是听我指挥的。”有个女邻居劝她在失去的情人像前点起蜡烛祈祷,她却自信而神秘地说:
  “让他回来的那支蜡烛,是永远不熄灭的。”
  正如她的预料,蜜月一过,奥雷连诺第二就回到了她的家里,他领来了他的一些老朋友和一位巡回摄影师,还带来了菲兰达在狂欢节穿的衣服和血污的貂皮斗篷。在酒宴的欢声中,奥雷连诺第二把佩特娜·柯特打扮成女王,宣布她为马达加斯加唯一的终身统治者,给她拍了照,并且把照片赠给了一伙朋友。佩特娜·柯特不仅立即同意参加这场游戏,而且衷心怜悯自己的情人,觉得他想出这种不太寻常的和解方式,一定费了不少脑筋。晚上七点,她仍然穿着女王的衣服,把奥雷连诺第二接上了床。他结婚还不到两个月,可是佩特娜.柯特立即发觉,他的夫妻生活过得并不美满,于是她感到了报复以后的一种酣畅。然而,两天以后,奥雷连诺第二不敢亲自前来,只派了一个中间人来,跟她商谈他俩分离的条件,这时佩特娜.柯特明白自己需要的耐心比预料的更大了,因为她的情人似乎准备为了面子而牺牲她。然而,即使这个时候,佩特娜.柯特也没改变自己的平静样儿。她满足奥雷连诺第二期望的屈从态度,只是证实了大家对她的认识:她是一个值得同情的、可怜的女人。她留作纪念的只有情人的一双漆皮鞋——照他自己的说法,他是打算穿着它躺进棺材的。佩特娜.柯特拿破布把皮鞋包上,放进箱子,就准备耐心等待了。
  “他迟早准会回来的,”她向自己说,“哪怕为了穿这双皮鞋。”
  她并没有象她预料的等候那么长久。其实,奥雷连诺第二新婚之夜就已明白,他回到佩特娜·柯特身边会比穿漆皮鞋的需要早得多:问题在于菲兰达不象是这个世界的女人。她生长在离海一千公里的一座阴暗城市里,在幽灵徘徊的黑夜,还可听见总督的四轮马车辚辚地驶过鹅卵石街道。每天傍晚六时。这座城市的三十二个钟楼都响起了凄凉的丧钟。在一幢墓碑式的石板砌成的庄园房子里,是从来透不进阳光的。庭院中的柏树,花园中滴水的晚香玉拱顶,卧室中褪了色的窗帷,都发出死沉沉的气息。直到少女时代,从外界传到菲兰达耳里的,只有邻家悒郁的钢琴声,那儿不知什么人总是年复一年、日复一日地自愿放弃午睡的乐趣。母亲躺卧病榻,在彩绘玻璃透进的灰扑扑的阳光下,她的面孔显得又黄又绿;菲兰达坐在母亲床边,听着和谐的、顽强的、勾起愁思的乐曲,以为这乐曲是从遥远的世界传来的,而她却在这儿疲惫地编织花圈。母亲在寒热病再次发作之后已经满身是汗,仍然向她讲了她们家昔日的显赫。菲兰达还完全是个小姑娘的时候,在一个月白风清的夜晚,她看见一个漂亮的白衣女人穿过花园向教堂走去。这个瞬间的幻象特别使她心潮激荡,因为她突然觉得自己完全象是这个陌生女人,仿佛这个女人就是她自己,只是在二十年后。“这是你的曾祖母——女王,”母亲向她解释,一面咳嗽一面说。“她是在花园里修剪晚香玉时被它的气味毒死的。”多年以后,菲兰达重新感到自己很象曾祖母时,却怀疑童年时代的幻象,可是母亲责备她的多疑。
  “我们的财富和权势是无比的,”母亲说。“总有一天,你也会成为女王。”
  菲兰达相信她的说法,虽然她们坐在铺着亚麻布桌布、摆着银制餐具的长桌旁边,可是每人通常只有一杯巧克力茶和一个甜面包。菲兰达直到结婚之日都在幻想传奇的王国,尽管她的父亲唐(注:西班牙人用的尊称,含义为先生).菲兰达为了给她购置嫁妆,不得不把房子抵押出去。这种幻想不是由于天真或者狂妄产生的,而是由于家庭教育。从菲兰达记事的时候起,她就经常在刻着家徽的金便盆里撒尿。满十二岁时,她第一次离家去修道院学校上学,家里的人竟让她坐上一辆轻便马车,虽然距离只有两个街区。班上的同学觉得奇怪的是,她独个儿坐在一把远离大家的高背椅子上,甚至课间休息时也不跟大家在一起。“她跟你们不同,”一个修女向她们解释。“她会成为一个女王。”她的女同学们相信这一点,因为当时她已经是个最美丽、最高贵、最文雅的姑娘,是她们从来没有见过的。过了八年,她已学会:写拉丁文诗歌,弹旧式钢琴,跟绅士们谈论鹰猎,跟大主教畅谈护教学(注:基督教神学的一个部门)跟外国执政者议论国务,跟教皇讨论宗教事务;然后回到父母家中,重新开始编织花圈。她发现家中已经空空如也。房子里只剩下最必要的家具、枝形烛台和银制餐具,其余的东西都已逐渐卖掉——因为需要为她缴纳学费。她的母亲已经患寒热病死了。
  父亲唐.菲兰达穿着硬领黑衣服,胸前挂着金表链,每星期一都给她一枚银币作为家庭开销,把她在一星期中编织的花圈带走。大多数日子他都关在书房里,偶尔进城,总在六时以前赶回家中,跟女儿一起祈祷。菲兰达从来不跟任何人交往,从没听说国家正在经历流血的战争,从没停止倾听每天的钢琴声。她已经失去了成为女王的希望,有一天忽然听到有人在门坏上急促地敲了两下:菲兰达给一个穿著考究的军官开了门;这人恭恭敬敬,脸颊上有一块伤疤,胸前有一块金质奖章。他和她父亲在书房里呆了一阵。过了两小时,唐·菲兰达就到她的房间里来了。“准备吧,”他说。“你得去作远途旅行啦。”他们就这样把她送到了马孔多;在那儿,她一下子碰到了她的父母向她隐瞒了多年的严酷的现实。从那儿回家以后,她呆在自己的房间里哭了半天,不顾唐·菲兰达的恳求和解释,因为他想医治空前的侮辱给她的心灵造成的创伤。菲兰达已经决定至死不离自己的卧室,奥雷连诺第二却来找她了。他大概运气好,因为菲兰达在羞恼之中,为了使他永不可能知道她的真正身份,是向他撒了谎的。奥雷连诺第二去寻找她的时候,仅仅掌握了两个可靠的特征:她那山地人的特殊口音和编织花圈的职业。他毫不惜力地寻找她,一分钟也不泄气地寻找她,象霍·阿·布恩蓓亚翻过山岭、建立马孔多村那么蛮勇,象奥雷连诺上校进行无益的战争那么盲目骄傲,象乌苏娜争取本族的生存那么顽强。他向人家打听哪几出售花圈,人家就领着他从一个店铺到另一个店铺,让他能够挑选最好的花圈。他向人家打听哪儿有世间最美的女人,所有的母亲都带他去见自己的女儿。他在雾茫茫的峡谷里游荡,在往事的禁区里徘徊,在绝望的迷宫里摸索。他经过黄橙橙的沙漠,那里的回声重复了他的思想,焦急的心情产生了幢幢幻象。经过几个星期毫无结果的寻找,他到了一座陌生的城市,那里所有的钟都在敲着丧钟。尽管他从没见过这些钟,根本没有听到过它们的声音,但他立即认出了北风侵蚀的墙垣、腐朽发黑的木阳台、门上钉着的一块纸板,纸板上写着几乎被雨水冲掉的、世上最凄凉的字儿:”出售花圈。”从这一时刻起,直到菲兰达在女修道院长照顾下永远离开家庭的那个冰冷的早晨,相隔的时间很短,修女们好不容易给菲兰达缝好了嫁妆,用六口箱子装上了枝形烛台、银质餐具、金便盆,此外还有长达两个世纪的家庭灾难中留下的许多废物。唐·菲兰达拒绝了陪送女儿的建议,他答应,偿清了一切债务,稍抠一些就去马孔多;于是,给女儿祝福之后,他马上又关在书房里了,后来,他从书房里给她寄去一封封短信,信纸上有惨淡的小花饰和族徽——这些信函建立了父女之间的某种精神联系。对菲兰达来说,离家的日子成了她真正诞生的日子。对奥音连诺第二来说,这一天几乎同时成了他幸福的开端和结束。菲兰达带来了一份印有金色小花朵的日历,她的忏悔神父在日历里用紫色墨水标明了夫妻同床的禁忌日子。除了圣洁周(注:复活节前的一周年)、礼拜日、每月第一个星期五、弥撒日、斋戒日、祭祀日以及患病的日子,在蛛网一般的紫色××中,一年只剩四十二夭有用的日子了,奥雷连诺第二相信时间能够破坏这种蛛网,就不顾规矩延长婚期。香摈酒和白兰地酒空瓶子是那么多,乌苏娜为了不让它们堆满屋子,不得不没完没了地往外扔,搞得厌烦极了,但她同时觉得奇怪,新婚夫妇总在不同的时刻和不同的房间睡觉,而鞭炮声禾口乐曲声却没停息,杀猪宰羊仍在继续,于是她就想起了自己的经验,询问菲兰达是否也有“贞洁裤”,因为它迟早会在镇上引起笑话,造成悲剧。然而菲兰达表示,她只等待婚礼过了两周就跟大夫第一次同寝。的确,这个期限一过,她就打开了自己的卧室门,准备成为赎罪的牺牲品了,奥雷连诺第二也就看见了世间最美的女人,她那明亮的眼睛活象惊恐的扁角鹿,铜色的长发披散在枕头上。奥雷连诺第二被这种景象弄得神魂颠倒,过了一会才发现,菲兰达穿着一件长及脚踝的白色睡衣,袖子颇长,跟肚腹下部一般高的地方,有一个纱得十分精巧的又大又圆的窟窿。奥雷连诺第二忍不住哈哈大笑。
  “这是我生乎见到的最讨厌的玩意儿了,”他的笑声响彻了整座房子。“我娶了个修女啦。”
  过了一个月,始终未能让妻子脱掉她的睡衣,他就去给佩特娜·柯特拍摄穿着女王服装的照片。后来,他把菲兰达弄回了家,她在和解的热情下服从了他的欲望,可是未能给他满足,他前往三十二座钟楼的城市寻找她的时候,是梦想这种满足的。奥雷连诺第二在她身上只感到深切的失望。在他俩的头生子出世之前不久,有一天夜里,菲兰达已经明白大夫瞒着她回到佩特娜·柯特怀里去了。
  “正是这样,”他承认,然后用无可奈何的屈从口吻解释:“为了让牲畜继续繁殖,我必须那么干。”
  当然,她是过了一会儿才相信这种古怪解释的;可是,奥雷连诺第二向她提出似乎无可辩驳的证据,终于达到自己的目的时,菲兰达只求他答应一点:别让自己死在情人床上。他们三人就这样继续过活,互不干扰。奥雷连诺第二对两个女人都很殷勤、温存,佩特娜·柯特庆幸自己的胜利,而菲兰达则假装不知道真情。
  不过,菲兰达虽和大夫达成了协议,却跟布恩蒂亚家中其余的人始终找不到共同语言。每一次,如果夜间和丈夫同了床,早晨她总是穿上一件黑色毛衣,乌苏娜要她把它脱掉,也投做到。这件毛衣已经引起邻人的窃窃私语。乌苏娜要她使用浴室和厕所,劝她把金便盆卖给奥雷连诺上校去做金鱼,她也不干,她那不正确的发音和说话婉转的习惯,使得阿玛兰塔感到很不舒服,阿玛兰塔经常在她面前瞎说一通。
  “Thifislf,”阿玛兰塔说,“ifisif onesif thofosif whosufu Cantantant statantand thefesef Smufumellu ofosiftherisir owfisown shifi sifit.”
  有一次,菲兰达被这种显然的愚弄惹恼了,就问这些莫名其妙的话是什么意思,阿玛兰塔毫不委婉地回答:
  “我说,你是一个把情欲和斋戒混在一起的人。”
  从那一天起,她俩彼此就不说话了。如果有什么非谈不可,两人就写字条,或者通过中间人。菲兰达不顾丈夫的家庭对她显然的敌视,仍想让布恩蒂亚一家人接受她的祖先那些高尚的凤习。这家人本来有个习惯,无论谁饿了,就到厨房里去吃饭,菲兰达却让大家结束这个习惯,按照严格规定的时间在饭厅里的大桌上用餐;桌子铺上雪白的桌布,摆上枝形烛台和银质餐具。乌苏娜一直认为,吃饭是日常生活中一件最简单的事儿,现在竟变成了隆重的仪式,出现了难以忍受的紧张空气,甚至沉默寡言的霍。阿卡蒂奥第二首先起来反对。然而,新的秩序取得了胜利,就象另一个新办法——晚饭之前必须祈祷——一样;这些都引起了左邻右舍的注意,很快就在传说,布恩蒂亚一家人不象其他凡人那样坐在桌边吃饭,而把进餐变成了一种祈祷仪式。乌苏娜灵机一动产生的、并非传统的迷信,甚至也跟菲兰达从父母那儿继承下来的迷信发生了矛盾——在任何情况下,这种迷信都是永远不变的、硬性规定的。乌苏娜迹能充分运用自己的五种感觉时,一切旧的习惯仍然如昔,家庭生活仍旧受到她的决定性影响:但她也丧失了视觉,过高的年岁使她不得不摆脱家庭事务的时候,菲兰达来到了这儿,在这房子周围竖立了森严的壁垒,那就只有她能决定家庭的命运了。按照鸟苏娜的愿望,圣索菲娅·德拉佩德是在继续经营糖果点心和糖动物生意的,菲兰达却认为这是一种不体面的事情,毫不迟疑就把它结束了。往常从早到晚敞开的房门,借口太阳晒得卧空太热,首先在个休时关上了,最后就永远关上了。马孔多村建立时挂在门媚上的一束芦荟和稻穗,换成了一个壁龛,里面供本着耶稣的心脏。奥雷连诺上校看见这些变化,就预见到了它们的后果。“咱们正在变成贵族,”他断定说。“这样,咱们又要对保守党政府发动战争啦,但这一次只是用一个国王来代替它。”菲兰达很有分寸地竭力避免跟他发生冲突。他保持独立自主的精神,他反对她那些死板的规矩,当然使她心中恼火。由于他每天清晨五点的一杯咖啡,由于作坊里一团杂乱,由于他那磨出窟窿的斗篷,由于他每天傍晚坐在临街门前的习惯,她简直气极了。可是,菲兰达不得不容忍家庭机器上这个松了的零件,因为她心里明白,老上校是一只被年岁和绝望制服了的野兽,一旦兽性发作,完全能够彻底摧毁房屋的根基。她的丈夫希望他俩的头生子取曾祖父的名字时,她还不敢反对,因为她那时在这个家庭里才生活了一年。但是,他俩的第一个女儿出世时,菲兰达就直截了当他说要把女儿取名叫雷纳塔,借以纪念自己的母亲。乌苏娜却决定把这小女儿叫做雷麦黛丝。在激烈的争辩中,奥雷连诺第二扮演了一个滑稽可笑的中间人,最后才把女儿叫做雷纳塔·雷麦黛丝。可是母亲叫她雷纳塔,其余的人则叫她梅梅——雷麦黛丝的爱称。
  最初,菲兰达缄口不提自己的父母,但她后来开始塑造了父亲的理想化的形象,在饭厅里,她不时谈到他,把池描绘成独特的人物,说他放弃了尘世的虚荣,正在逐渐变成一个圣徒。奥雷连诺第二听到妻子无限美化他的岳父,耐不住在她背后来个小动作,开开玩笑。其余的人也仿效他的样子。即使乌苏娜热心维护家庭的和睦,对家庭纠葛暗中感到痛苦,但她有一次也说她的玄孙会当上教皇,因为他是“圣徒的外孙,女玉和窃贼的儿子。”尽管大家诡橘地讥笑,奥雷连诺第二的孩子们仍然惯于把他们的外祖父想象成一个传奇式的人物,他常在给他们的信里写上几句虏诚的诗,而且每逢圣诞节都给他们捎来一箱礼品,箱子挺大,勉强才能搬进房门。其实,唐.菲兰达怯给外孙们的是他的家产中最后剩下的东西。在孩子们的卧室里,用这些东西塔了一个圣坛,圣坛上有等身圣像,玻璃眼睛使得这些圣像栩栩如生,有点吓人,而圣像身上绣得十分精雅的衣服比马孔多任何居民的衣服都好。古老、阴森的宫邱中陪葬品似的堂皇设备,逐渐移到了布恩蒂亚家敞亮的房子里。“他们把整个家族墓地都送给咱们啦,”奥雷连诺第二有一回说。:‘缺少的只是垂柳和墓碑。”尽管外祖父的箱子里从来没有什么可以玩耍的东西,孩子们却整年都在急切地等待十二月的来临,因为那些经常料想不到的老古董毕竟丰富了他们的生活。在第十个圣诞节,年轻的霍。阿卡蒂奥正准备去进神学院的时候,外祖父的一口大箱子就比往常更早地到达了;这口箱子钉得很牢,接缝的地方抹上了防潮树脂;哥特字写的收件人姓名是菲兰达·德卡皮奥太太。菲兰达在卧室里读信的时候,孩子们慌忙打开箱了。协助他们的照例是奥雷连诺第二。他们刮去树脂。拔掉钉子,取掉一层防护的锯屑,发现了一只用铜螺钉旋紧的长箱子,旋掉了全部六颗螺钉、奥雷连诺第二惊叫一声,几乎来不及把孩子们推开,因为在揭开的铅盖下面,他看见了唐·菲兰达。唐·菲兰达身穿黑色衣服,胸前有一个那稣蒙难像,他焖在滚冒泡的蛆水里,皮肤咋嚓嚓地裂开,发出一股恶臭。
  雷纳塔出生之后不久,因为尼兰德停战协定的又一个周年纪念,政府突然命令为奥雷连诺上校举行庆祝会。这样的决定跟政府的政策是不一致的,上校毫不犹豫地反对它,拒绝参加庆祝仪式。“我第一次听到‘庆祝’这个词儿,”他说。“但不管它的含义如何,这显然是个骗局。”狭窄的首饰作坊里挤满了各式各样的使者。以前象鸟鸦一样在上校周围打转的那些律师又来了,他们穿着黑色礼服,比以前老得多、庄严得多。上校见到他们,就想起他们为了结束战争而来找他的那个时候,简直无法忍受他们那种无耻的吹棒。他要他们别打扰他,说他不是他们所谓的民族英雄,而是一个失去记忆的普通手艺人,他唯一希望的是被人忘却,穷困度日,在自己的金鱼中间劳累至死。最使他气愤的是这么一个消息:共和国总统准备亲临马孔多的庆祝会,想要授予他荣誉勋章。奥雷连诺上校叫人一字不差地转告总统:他正在急切地等待这种姗姗来迟的机会,好把一粒子弹射进总统的脑门——这不是为了惩罚政府的专横暴戾,而是为了惩罚他不尊重一个无害于人的老头儿。他的恐吓是那么厉害,以致共和国总统在最后一分钟取消了旅行,派私人代表给他送来了勋章。格林列尔多·马克斯上校在备种压力的包围下,离开了他的病榻,希望说服老战友。奥雷连诺上校看见四人抬着的摇椅和坐在摇椅大垫子上的老朋友时,他一分钟也没怀疑,青年时代就跟他共尝胜败苦乐的格林列尔多·马克斯上校克服了自己的疾病,唯一的目的就是支持他作出的决定。但他知道了来访的真实原因之后,就叫来人把摇椅和格林列尔乡·马克斯上校一起抬出作坊。
  “现在我认识得太迟了,”他向格林列尔多·马克斯说。“当初如果我让他们熗毙了你,就是为你做了一件天大的好事。”
  就这样,庆祝会举行的时候,布恩蒂亚家没有任何人参加。庆祝会和狂欢节相遇是十分偶然的,可是谁也无法排除奥雷连诺上校脑海里的执拗想法,他认为这种巧合也是政府的预谋,目的是加重对他的奚落。在僻静的作坊里,他听到了军乐声、礼炮声和钟声,也听到了房子前面片断的演说声,因为人家正以他的名字给街道命名,面发表一通演说。奥雷连诺上校气得没有办法,眼里噙满了泪水,自从失败以来,他第一次感到遗憾的是,他已没有青年时代的勇气,去发动流血的战争,消灭保守制度最后的遗迹。庆祝的喧闹还没停息,乌苏娜就来敲作坊的门。
  “别打扰我,”他说。“我正忙着咧。”
  “开门,”乌苏娜的声音听起来挺平静。“这跟庆祝会没啥关系。”
  于是,奥雷连诺上校挪开门闩,使看见了十六个男人,面貌、体型和肤色各不相同,但是都有一副孤僻模样儿;根据这模样儿,在地球上任何地方都能马上认出他们的身份。这些人都是他的儿子。他们是被庆祝会的传闻吸引来的,来自沿海地带最遥远的角落,事先并没有彼此商量,甚至互相还不认识。他们全都自豪地取了“奥雷连诺”这个名字,加上自己母亲的姓,新来的人使乌苏娜高兴,却叫菲兰达恼怒,他们在这座房子里度过的三天中,把一切翻了个底儿朝天,仿佛这里发生了一场大战,阿玛兰塔在旧纸堆里找到了一个笔记本儿,乌苏娜曾在里面记下了这些人的名字。生日、洗礼日以及住址。借助这份名册,可以忆起二十年战争,从这份册子上,可以知道上校长时期的生活:从那天早晨他率领二十个人离开马孔多人追踪起义的怪影起,到他裹着凝血的毛毯最后口到家里为止。奥雷连诺第二没有放过机会用香摈酒和字风琴热烈欢迎亲戚们,这个欢迎会可以说是对那个倒霉狂欢节的回答。客人们把家中一半的盘碟变成了碎片;他们追赶一头公牛,打算缚住它的腿时,又把玫瑰花丛踩坏了,并且开熗打死了所有的母鸡,强迫阿玛兰塔跳皮埃侍罗。克列斯比悒郁的华尔兹舞,要俏姑娘雷麦黛丝穿上男人的短裤衩,爬上一根抹了油脂的竿子,甚至把一只肮脏的猪放进饭厅,绊倒了菲兰达;然而,谁也没有抱怨这些破坏,因为颠覆整座房子的地震是能治病的,奥雷连诺上校最初不信任地接待他的一群儿子,甚至怀疑其中几个的出身,但对他们的怪诞行为感到开心,在他们离开之前,给了每人一条小金鱼。孤僻的霍.阿卡蒂奥第二却邀请他们参加斗鸡,结果几乎酿成悲剧,因为许多奥雷连诺都是斗鸡的行家,马上就识破了安东尼奥·伊萨贝尔神父的欺骗勾当。奥雷连诺第二看出,亲戚众多,大可欢宴取乐,就建议他们留下来跟他一块儿干活,接受这个建议的只有奥雷连诺·特里斯特一人,他是一个身躯高大的混血儿,具有祖父那样的毅力和探索精神;他曾游历半个世界寻求幸福,住在哪儿都是无所谓的。其他的奥雷连诺虽然还没结婚,但都认为自己的命运已经注定。他们都是能工巧匠、家庭主角、爱好和平的人。星期三,大斋的前一天,上校的儿子们重新分散到沿海各地去之前,阿玛兰塔要他们穿上礼拜日的衣服,跟她一块儿到教堂去。他们多半由干好玩,不是因为笃信宗教,给带到了圣坛栏杆跟前,安东尼奥·伊萨贝尔神父在每人额上用圣灰画了个十字。回家之后,其中最小的一个打算擦掉十字,可是发现额上的记号是擦不掉的,就象其他兄弟额上的记号一样。他们使用了冷水和肥皂、沙子和擦刷、浮石和碱水,始终消灭不了额上的十字。相反地,阿玛兰塔和教堂里其余的人,毫不费劲就把自己的十字擦掉了。“那样更好嘛,”乌苏娜跟他们分别时说。“从现在起,每一个人都能知道你们是谁了,”他们结队离开,前面是奏乐的,并且放鞭炮,给全镇留下一个印象,仿佛布恩蒂亚家族拥有足以延续许多世纪的后代。奥雷连诺·特里斯特在镇郊建了一座冰厂,这是发疯的发明家霍·阿.布思蒂亚梦想过的。
  奥雷连诺·特里斯特来到马孔多之后几个月,大家都已认识他、喜欢他,他就在镇上到处寻找合适的住所,想把母亲和一个没有结婚的妹妹(她不是上校的女儿)接来;他感到兴趣的是广场角落上一间不合格局的破旧大房子,这房子好象无人居住。他打听谁是房子的主人,有人告诉他说:这房子是不属于任何人的,从前住在里面的是个孤零零的寡妇,用泥土和墙上的石灰充饥,在她死前的最后几年,有人在街上只见过她两次,她戴了一顶别着小朵假花的帽子,穿了一双旧式银色鞋子,经过广场,到邮局上给一个主教寄信。奥雷连诺.特里斯特打听出来,跟寡妇住在一起的只有一个冷酷的女仆,这女仆杀死钻到房里的狗、猫和一切牲畜,把它们的尸体扔到衔上,让全镇的人都闻到腐臭气味。自从太阳把她扔出的最后一个尸体变成了干尸,已过了那么多的时间,以致大家相信:女主人和女仆在战争结束之前很久就死了,如果说房子还立在那儿,那只是因为早已没有严峻的冬天和暴风。门上的铰链已经锈蚀,房门仿佛是靠蛛网系住的,窗框由于潮湿而膨胀了,长廊洋灰地面的裂缝里长出了杂草和野花,晰蝎和各种虫十爬来爬去——一切都似乎证明这儿起码五十年没有住人了。其实,性急的奥雷连诺.特里斯特无需这么多的证明就会钻进屋子去的。他用肩膀把大门一推,一根朽木就无声地掉到他的脚边,随着塌下的是一团尘土和白蚁窝。奥雷连诺·特里斯特停在门槛边,等待尘雾散去,接着便在屋子中央看见一个极度衰竭的女人,仍穿着前一世纪的衣服,秃头上有几根黄发,眼睛依然漂亮,但是最后一点希望的火星已经熄灭,由于孤独的生活,她的脸上已经布满了皱纹。
  看见另一个世界的这种幻影,奥雷连诺·特里斯特异常惊愕,好不容易才看出这女人正拿一支旧式手熗瞄准他。
  “请您原谅,”他低声说。
  她仍然纹丝不动地站在堆满了破旧东西的房间当中,仔细地审视这个肩膀宽阔、额上划了十字的大汉,透过一片尘雾,她看见他立在昔日的迷雾里:背上挎着一杆双筒熗,手里拎着一串兔子。
  “不,看在上帝面上,”她用嘶哑的声音说。“现在让我回忆过去的事就太残酷啦。”
  “我想租一间房子,”奥雷连诺·特里斯特说。
  于是,妇人重新举起手熗,稳稳地对准他的灰十字,毅然决然地扣住扳机。
  “滚出去!”她命令道。
  傍晚,吃晚饭时,奥雷连诺·特里斯特把这桩事情告诉家里的人,乌苏娜惊骇地哭了,“天啊,”她抓住脑袋,叫道。“她还活着!”
  时光,战争,日常的许多灾难,使她忘记了雷贝卡。时时刻刻感到雷贝卡还活着的,只有铁石心肠的、衰老的阿玛兰塔一个人。每天早晨,当她在孤单的床上怀着冰冷的心醒来时,她想到雷贝卡;当她用肥皂擦洗萎缩的胸脯和千瘪的肚子时,她想到雷贝卡;当她穿上浆硬的白色裙子和老妇的紧身胸衣时,她想到雷贝卡;当她在手上更换赎罪的黑色绷带时,她也想到雷贝卡。经常,任何时候,在最高尚的时刻和最卑贱的时刻,不管她是否睡着了,她都想到雷贝卡;孤独的日子使她清理了往事的回忆:抛弃了实际生活在她心中积聚的一大堆引起愁思的垃圾,而使另一些最痛苦的回忆变得更加纯净和永恒起来:俏姑娘雷麦黛丝是从她那儿知道雷贝卡的。每一次,她俩经过破旧的房子时,阿玛兰塔都要絮絮叨叨地把雷贝卡的一些令人不愉快的或者可耻的事情说给她听,企图用这个办法促使俏姑娘同样憎恨雷贝卡,让这种积怨在她阿玛兰塔死后也延续下去,但是她的企图最终遭到了失败,因为俏姑娘雷麦黛丝对于情场纠葛是无动于衷的,尤其是别人的情场纠葛。然而,乌苏娜一想到雷贝卡就会产生与阿玛兰塔相反的感觉:她脑海里的雷贝卡没有一点坏处。这个可怜的小姑娘是同她父母的骸骨袋子一起来到马孔多的,她的形象胜过了别人对她的中伤,尽管有入说她不配成为布恩蒂亚家族的人。奥雷连诺第二认为,他们应当把她接回家来,并且照顾她,可是由于雷贝卡的顽固不化,他的良好愿望没有实现:她为了获得孤身独处的特权,已过了多年贫苦的生活,就不愿拿这种特权去换取别人施舍之下的晚年了,去换取别人假惺惺的安慰了。
  二月间,奥雷连诺上校的十六个儿子重新来到马孔多的时候(他们脸上仍有灰十字).奥雷连诺·特里斯特在热闹的酒宴上向他们谈到了雷贝卡;接着,在几小时之内,他们就恢复了她的房屋外表,更换了门窗,把门面漆成了鲜艳的颜色,用撑条加固了墙壁,给地面重新抹上水泥,可是他们没有获得进屋干活的许可。雷贝卡连门边都没去。她等他们结束了仓促的修缮工作,算了算修理费,就吩咐仍然跟她住在一起的老佣人阿金尼达拿了一把钱币去给他们——这些钱币自从最后一次战争以来已经停止流通,可是雷贝卡仍然认为它们有用。大家这才看出,她和世界之间隔着一条多深的鸿沟;而且明白,只要她还有一点生命的迹象,让她脱离顽固的隐居生活是不可能的。
  在奥雷连诺上校的儿子们第二次来到之后,其中还有一个奥雷连诺.森腾诺定居马孔多,开始跟奥雷连诺·特里斯特一块儿工作。奥雷连诺·森腾诺是送到家里来命名的第一批孩子当中的一个,乌苏娜和阿玛兰塔清楚地记得他,因为他在几小时之内就把他手边碰到的每一件易碎的东西都毁坏了,时光抑制了他最初不断往上长的倾向,现在他是一个中等身材的人,脸上有天花的痕迹,但他身上神奇的毁灭力量仍象从前一样。他打碎了那么多的盘碟,甚至打碎了没有碰着的盘碟,以致菲兰达在他还没毁掉最后剩下的贵重器皿之前,就慌忙给他买了一套锡锱器皿,但是坚固的金属碟子很快出现了凹痕和歪扭现象。这种难以改变的特性甚至使奥雷连诺·森腾诺本人感到气恼,但他见面就令人信任的热情和惊人的工作能力弥补了自己的缺陷。在短时期内,他扩大了冰的生产,甚至超过了本地市场的购买力,于是奥雷连诺·特里斯特不得不考虑到沼泽地带的其他市镇去推销自己的货品,接着,他产生了一种想法,这种想法的实现不仅对他工厂中的生产现代化起着决定性的作用,而且对于建立马孔多和外界的联系也有极大的意义。
  “应当敷设铁路,”奥雷连诺·特里斯特说。
  在马孔多听到“铁路”二字,这是第一次。奥雷连诺·特里斯特在桌上画的草图,简直是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚从前附在太阳战《指南》里的那种图解的“后代”,乌苏娜一见这种草图就相信自己的怀疑是正确的:时间正在循环。但是跟祖先不同,奥雷连诺·特里斯特没有失去睡眠或胃口,也没有对任何人发过脾气。相反地,他考虑最难于置信的计划时,坚信这种计划最近期间就能实现,而且合理地计算实现计划的费用和日期,毫无一点疑虑。
  如果说奥雷连诺第二在什么事情上象曾祖父,而不象奥雷连诺上校,那就是他不善于汲取过去的痛苦教训一他轻率地把钱花在铁路上,犹如从前把钱花在兄弟的荒唐的航行计划上一样。奥雷连诺·特里斯特看了看日历,说明雨季以后回来,就庄星期三离开了。此后再也没有听到他的消息。奥雷连诺·森腾诺被工厂的剩余产品压得喘不上气,开始用果汁代替凉水制冰的试验,意外地为冰淇淋的生产奠定了基础,打算用这个办法使工厂的生产多样化;这个工厂他已经认为是自己的了,因为兄弟没有一点生还的迹象:雨季过去了,整个夏季也过去了,他却沓无音讯,然而,冬初,在一夭当中最热的时侯,一个在河边洗衣服的女人,异常兴奋地奔上市镇大街,狂叫起来:
  “那边来了一个吓人的东西,”她终于说道。“好象安了轮子的厨房,后面拖着一个村镇。”
  在这片刻间,马孔多被可怕的汽笛声和噗哧噗哧的喷气声吓得战粟起来。几个星期之前,许多人曾看见一大群工人铺设枕木和钢轨,可是谁也没去注意,因为大家以为这是吉卜赛人的折把戏——他们又来了,带来了笛鼓和丧失了名誉的古老歌舞,并且吹嘘耶路撒冷天才人物发明的一种古怪药水的优点。可是,马孔多居民们从喧噪的汽笛声和喷气声中清醒过来以后,都涌上街头,看见了从机车上向他们招手致意的奥雷连诺·特里斯特,看见了第一次晚点几个月的五彩缤纷的一列火车。这列样子好看的黄色火车注定要给马孔多带来那么多的怀疑和肯定,带来那么多的好事和坏事,带来那多的变化、灾难和忧愁。


执素衣

ZxID:13389413


等级: 内阁元老
举报 只看该作者 10楼  发表于: 2013-10-10 0



Chapter 10
YEARS LATER on his deathbed Aureliano Segundo would remember the rainy afternoon in June when he went into the bedroom to meet his first son. Even though the child was languid and weepy, with no mark of a Buendía, he did not have to think twice about naming him.
   “We’ll call him Jos?Arcadio,?he said.
   Fernanda del Carpio, the beautiful woman he had married the year before, agreed. ?rsula, on the other hand, could not conceal a vague feeling of doubt. Throughout the long history of the family the insistent repetition of names had made her draw some conclusions that seemed to be certain. While the Aurelianos were withdrawn, but with lucid minds, the Jos?Arcadios were impulsive and enterprising, but they were marked with a tragic sign. The only cases that were impossible to classify were those of Jos?Arcadio Segundo and Aureliano Segundo. They were so much alike and so mischievous during childhood that not even Santa Sofía de la Piedad could tell them apart. On the day of their christening Amaranta put bracelets on them with their respective names and dressed them in different colored clothing marked with each one’s initials, but when they began to go to school they decided to exchange clothing and bracelets and call each other by opposite names. The teacher, Melchor Escalona, used to knowing Jos?Arcadio Segundo by his green shirt, went out of his mind when he discovered that the latter was wearing Aureliano Segundo’s bracelet and that the other one said, nevertheless, that his name was Aureliano Segundo in spite of the fact that he was wearing the white shirt and the bracelet with Jos?Arcadio Segundo’s name. From then on he was never sure who was who. Even when they grew up and life made them different. ?rsula still wondered if they themselves might not have made a mistake in some moment of their intricate game of confusion and had become changed forever. Until the beginning of adolescence they were two synchronized machines. They would wake up at the same time, have the urge to go to the bathroom at the same time, suffer the same upsets in health, and they even dreamed about the same things. In the house, where it was thought that they coordinated their actions with a simple desire to confuse, no one realized what really was happening until one day when Santa Sofía de la Piedad gave one of them a glass of lemonade and as soon as he tasted it the other one said that it needed sugar. Santa Sofía de la Piedad, who had indeed forgotten to put sugar in the lemonade, told ?rsula about it. “That’s what they’re all like,?she said without surprise. “crazy from birth.?In time things became less disordered. The one who came out of the game of confusion with the name of Aureliano Segundo grew to monumental size like his grandfathers, and the one who kept the name of Jos?Arcadio Segundo grew to be bony like the colonel, and the only thing they had in common was the family’s solitary air. Perhaps it was that crossing of stature, names, and character that made ?rsula suspect that they had been shuffled like a deck of cards since childhood.
   The decisive difference was revealed in the midst of the war, when Jos?Arcadio Segundo asked Colonel Gerineldo Márquez to let him see an execution. Against ?rsula’s better judgment his wishes were satisfied. Aureliano Segundo, on the other hand, shuddered at the mere idea of witnessing an execution. He preferred to stay home. At the age of twelve he asked ?rsula what was in the locked room. “Papers,?she answered. “Melquíades?books and the strange things that he wrote in his last years.?Instead of calming him, the answer increased his curiosity. He demanded so much, promised with such insistence that he would not mistreat the things, that ?rsula, gave him the keys. No one had gone into the room again since they had taken Melquíades?body out and had put on the door a padlock whose parts had become fused together with rust. But when Aureliano Segundo opened the windows a familiar light entered that seemed accustomed to lighting the room every day and there was not the slightest trace of dust or cobwebs, with everything swept and clean, better swept and cleaner than on the day of the burial, and the ink had not dried up in the inkwell nor had oxidation diminished the shine of the metals nor had the embers gone out under the water pipe where Jos?Arcadio Buendía had vaporized mercury. On the shelves were the books bound in a cardboard-like material, pale, like tanned human skin, and the manuscripts were intact. In spite of the room’s having been shut up for many years, the air seemed fresher than in the rest of the house. Everything was so recent that several weeks later, when ?rsula went into the room with a pail of water and a brush to wash the floor, there was nothing for her to do. Aureliano Segundo was deep in the reading of a book. Although it had no cover and the title did not appear anywhere, the boy enjoyed the story of a woman who sat at a table and ate nothing but kernels of rice, which she picked up with a pin, and the story of the fisherman who borrowed a weight for his net from a neighbor and when he gave him a fish in payment later it had a diamond in its stomach, and the one about the lamp that fulfilled wishes and about flying carpets. Surprised, he asked ?rsula if all that was true and she answered him that it was, that many years ago the gypsies had brought magic lamps and flying mats to Macondo.
   “What’s happening,?she sighed, “is that the world is slowly coming to an end and those things don’t come here any more.?
   When he finished the book, in which many of the stories had no endings because there were pages missing, Aureliano Segundo set about deciphering the manuscripts. It was impossible. The letters looked like clothes hung out to dry on a line and they looked more like musical notation than writing. One hot noontime, while he was poring over the, manuscripts, he sensed that he was not alone in the room. Against the light from the window, sitting with his hands on his knees, was Melquíades. He was under forty years of age. He was wearing the same old-fashioned vest and the hat that looked like a raven’s wings, and across his pale temples there flowed the grease from his hair that had been melted by the heat, just as Aureliano and Jos?Arcadio had seen him when they were children. Aureliano Segundo recognized him at once, because that hereditary memory had been transmitted from generation to generation and had come to him through the memory of his grandfather.
   “Hello,?Aureliano Segundo said.
   “Hello, young man,?said Melquíades.
   From then on, for several years, they saw each other almost every afternoon. Melquíades talked to him about the world, tried to infuse him with his old wisdom, but he refused to translate the manuscripts. “No one must know their meaning until he has reached one hundred years of age,?he explained. Aureliano kept those meetings secret forever. On one occasion he felt that his private world had fallen apart because ?rsula came in when Melquíades was in the room. But she did not see him.
   “Who were you talking to??she asked him.
   “Nobody,?Aureliano Segundo said.
   “That’s what your great-grandfather did,??rsula, said. “He used to talk to himself too.?
   Jos?Arcadio Segundo, in the meantime, had satisfied his wish to see a shooting. For the rest of his life he would remember the livid flash of the six simultaneous shots-and the echo of the discharge as it broke against the hills and the sad smile and perplexed eyes of the man being shot, who stood erect while his shirt became soaked with blood, and who was still smiling even when they untied him from the post and put him in a box filled with quicklime. “He’s alive,?he thought. “They’re going to bury him alive.?It made such an impression on him that from then on he detested military practices and war, not because of the executions but because of the horrifying custom of burying the victims alive. No one knew then exactly when he began to ring the bells in the church tower and assist Father Antonio Isabel, the successor to “The Pup,?at mass, and take can of the fighting cocks in the courtyard of the parish house. When Colonel Gerineldo Márquez found out he scolded him strongly for learning occupations repudiated by the Liberals. “The fact is,?he answered, “I think I’ve turned out to be a Conservative.?He believed it as if it had been determined by fate. Colonel Gerineldo Márquez, scandalized, told ?rsula about it.
   “It’s better that way,?she approved. “Let’s hope that he becomes a priest so that God will finally come into this house.?
   It was soon discovered that Father Antonio Isabel was preparing him for his first communion. He was teaching him the catechism as he shaved the necks of his roosters. He explained to him with simple examples, as he put the brooding hens into their nests, how it had occurred to God on the second day of creation that chickens would be formed inside of an egg. From that time on the parish priest began to show the signs of senility that would lead him to say years later that the devil had probably won his rebellion against God, and that he was the one who sat on the heavenly throne, without revealing his true identity in order to trap the unwary. Warmed up by the persistence of his mentor, in a few months Jos?Arcadio Segundo came to be as adept in theological tricks used to confuse the devil as he was skilled in the tricks of the cockpit. Amaranta made him a linen suit with a collar and tie, bought him a pair of white shoes, and engraved his name in gilt letters on the ribbon of the candle. Two nights before the first communion, Father Antonio Isabel closeted himself with him in the sacristy to hear his confession with the help of a dictionary of sins. It was such a long list that the aged priest, used to going to bed at six o’clock, fell asleep in his chair before it was over. The interrogation was a revelation for Jos?Arcadio Segundo. It did not surprise him that the priest asked him if he had done bad things with women, and he honestly answered no, but he was upset with the question as to whether he had done them with animals. The first Friday in May he received communion, tortured by curiosity. Later on he asked Petronio, the sickly sexton who lived in the belfry and who, according to what they said, fed himself on bats, about it, and Petronio, answered him: “There are some corrupt Christians who do their business with female donkeys.?Jos?Arcadio Segundo still showed so much curiosity and asked so many questions that Petronio lost his patience.
   “I go Tuesday nights,?he confessed. “if you promise not to tell anyone I’ll take you next Tuesday.?
   Indeed, on the following Tuesday Petronio came down out of the tower with a wooden stool which until then no one had known the use of, and he took Jos?Arcadio Segundo to a nearby pasture. The boy became so taken with those nocturnal raids that it was a long time before he was seen at Catarino’s. He became a cockfight man. “Take those creatures somewhere else,??rsula ordered him the first time she saw him come in with his fine fighting birds. “Roosters have already brought too much bitterness to this house for you to bring us any more.?Jos?Arcadio Segundo took them away without any argument, but he continued breeding them at the house of Pilar Ternera, his grandmother, who gave him everything he needed in exchange for having him in her house. He soon displayed in the cockpit the wisdom that Father Antonio Isabel had given him, and he made enough money not only to enrich his brood but also to look for a man’s satisfactions. ?rsula compared him with his brother at that time and could not understand how the twins, who looked like the same person in childhood, had ended up so differently. Her perplexity did not last very long, for quite soon Aureliano Segundo began to show signs of laziness and dissipation. While he was shut up in Melquíades?room he was drawn into himself the way Colonel Aureliano Buendía had been in his youth. But a short time after the Treaty of Neerlandia, a piece of chance took him out of his withdrawn self and made him face the reality of the world. A young woman who was selling numbers for the raffle of an accordion greeted him with a great deal of familiarity. Aureliano Segundo was not surprised, for he was frequently confused with his brother. But he did not clear up the mistake, not even when the girl tried to soften his heart with sobs, and she ended taking him to her room. She liked him so much from that first meeting that she fixed things so that he would win the accordion in the raffle. At the end of two weeks Aureliano Segundo realized that the woman had been going to bed alternately with him and his brother, thinking that they were the same man, and instead of making things clear, he arranged to prolong the situation. He did not return to Melquíades?room. He would spend his afternoons in the courtyard, learning to play the accordion by ear over the protests of ?rsula, who at that time had forbidden music in the house because of the mourning and who, in addition, despised the accordion as an instrument worthy only of the vagabond heirs of Francisco the Man. Nevertheless, Aureliano Segundo became a virtuoso on the accordion and he still was after he had married and had children and was one of the most respected men in Macondo.
   For almost two months he shared the woman with his brother. He would watch him, mix up his plans, and when he was sure that Jos?Arcadio Segundo was not going to visit their common mistress that night, he would go and sleep with her. One morning he found that he was sick. Two days later he found his brother clinging to a beam in the bathroom, soaked in sweat and with tears pouring down, and then he understood. His brother confessed to him that the woman had sent him away because he had given her what she called a low-life sickness. He also told him how Pilar Ternera had tried to cure him. Aureliano Segundo submitted secretly to the burning baths of permanganate and to diuretic waters, and both were cured separately after three months of secret suffering. Jos?Arcadio Segundo did not see the woman again. Aureliano Segundo obtained her pardon and stayed with her until his death.
   Her name was Petra Cotes. She had arrived in Macondo in the middle of the war with a chalice husband who lived off raffles, and when the man died she kept up the business. She was a clean young mulatto woman with yellow almond-shaped eyes that gave her face the ferocity of a panther, but she had a generous heart and a magnificent vocation for love. When ?rsula realized that Jos?Arcadio Segundo was a cockfight man and that Aureliano Segundo played the accordion at his concubine’s noisy parties, she thought she would go mad with the combination. It was as if the defects of the family and none of the virtues had been concentrated in both. Then she decided that no one again would be called Aureliano or Jos?Arcadio. Yet when Aureliano Segundo had his first son she did not dare go against his will.
   “All right,??rsula said, “but on one condition: I will bring him up.?
   Although she was already a hundred years old and on the point of going blind from cataracts, she still had her physical dynamism, her integrity of character, and her mental balance intact. No one would be better able than she to shape the virtuous man who would restore the prestige of the family, a man who would never have heard talk of war, fighting cocks, bad women, or wild undertakings, four calamities that, according to what ?rsula thought, had determined the downfall. of their line. “This one will be a priest,?she promised solemnly. “And if God gives me life he’ll be Pope someday.?They all laughed when they heard her, not only in the bedroom but all through the house, where Aureliano Segundo’s rowdy friends were gathered. The war, relegated to the attic of bad memories, was momentarily recalled with the popping of champagne bottles.
   “To the health of the Pope,?Aureliano Segundo toasted.
   The guests toasted in a chorus. Then the man of the house played the accordion, fireworks were set off, and drums celebrated the event throughout the town. At dawn the guests, soaked in champagne, sacrificed six cows and put them in the street at the disposal of the crowd. No one was scandalized. Since Aureliano Segundo had taken charge of the house those festivities were a common thing, even when there was no motive as proper as the birth of a Pope. In a few years, without effort, simply by luck, he had accumulated one of the largest fortunes in the swamp thanks to the supernatural proliferation of his animals. His mares would bear triplets, his hens laid twice a day, and his hogs fattened with such speed that no one could explain such disorderly fecundity except through the use of black magic. “Save something now,??rsula would tell her wild great-grandson. “This luck is not going to last all your life.?But Aureliano Segundo paid no attention to her. The more he opened champagne to soak his friends, the more wildly his animals gave birth and the more he was convinced that his lucky star was not a matter of his conduct but an influence of Petra Cotes, his concubine, whose love had the virtue of exasperating nature. So convinced was he that this was the origin of his fortune that he never kept Petra Cotes far away from his breeding grounds and even when he married and had children he continued living with her with the consent of Fernanda. Solid, monumental like his grandfathers, but with a joie de vivre and an irresistible good humor that they did not have, Aureliano Segundo scarcely had time to look after his animals. All he had to do was to take Petra Cores to his breeding grounds and have her ride across his land in order to have every animal marked with his brand succumb to the irremediable plague of proliferation.
   Like all the good things that occurred in his long life, that tremendous fortune had its origins in chance. Until the end of the wars Petra Cotes continued to support herself with the returns from her raffles and Aureliano Segundo was able to sack ?rsula’s savings from time to time. They were a frivolous couple, with no other worries except going to bed every night, even on forbidden days, and frolicking there until dawn. “That woman has been your ruination,??rsula would shout at her great-grandson when she saw him coming into the house like a sleepwalker. “She’s got you so bewitched that one of these days I’m going to see you twisting around with colic and with a toad in your belly.?Jos?Arcadio Segundo, who took a long time to discover that he had been supplanted, was unable to understand his brother’s passion. He remembered Petra Cotes as an ordinary woman, rather lazy in bed, and completely lacking in any resources for lovemaking. Deaf to ?rsula’s clamor and the teasing of his brother, Aureliano Segundo only thought at that time of finding a trade that would allow him to maintain a house for Petra Cotes, and to die with her, on top of her and underneath her, during a night of feverish license. When Colonel Aureliano Buendía opened up his workshop again, seduced at last by the peaceful charms of old age, Aureliano Segundo thought that it would be good business to devote himself to the manufacture of little gold fishes. He spent many hours in the hot room watching how the hard sheets of metal, worked by the colonel with the inconceivable patience of disillusionment, were slowly being converted into golden scales. The work seemed so laborious to him and the thought of Petra Cotes was so persistent and pressing that after three weeks he disappeared from the workshop. It was during that time that it occurred to Petra Cotes to raffle off rabbits. They reproduced and grew up so fast that there was barely time to sell the tickets for the raffle. At first Aureliano Segundo did not notice the alarming proportions of the proliferation. But one night, when nobody in town wanted to hear about the rabbit raffle any more, he heard a noise by the courtyard door. “Don’t get worried,?Petra, Cotes said. “It’s only the rabbits.?They could not sleep, tormented by the uproar of the animals. At dawn Aureliano Segundo opened the door and saw the courtyard paved with rabbits, blue in the glow of dawn. Petra Cotes, dying with laughter, could not resist the temptation of teasing him.
   “Those are the ones who were born last night,?she aid.
   “Oh my God!?he said. “Why don’t you raffle off cows??
   A few days later, in an attempt to clean out her courtyard, Petra Cotes exchanged the rabbits for a cow, who two months later gave birth to triplets. That was how things began. Overnight Aureliano Segundo be. came the owner of land and livestock and he barely had time to enlarge his overflowing barns and pigpens. It was a delirious prosperity that even made him laugh, and he could not help doing crazy things to release his good humor. “Cease, cows, life is short,?he would shout. ?rsula wondered what entanglements he had got into, whether he might be stealing, whether he had become a rustler, and every time she saw him uncorking champagne just for the pleasure of pouring the foam over his head, she would shout at him and scold him for the waste. It annoyed him so much that one day when he awoke in a merry mood, Aureliano Segundo appeared with a chest full of money, a can of paste, and a brush, and singing at the top of his lungs the old songs of Francisco the Man, he papered the house inside and out and from top to bottom, with one-peso banknotes. The old mansion, painted white since the time they had brought the pianola, took on the strange look of a mosque. In the midst of the excitement of the family the scandalization of ?rsula, the joy of the people cramming the street to watch that apotheosis of squandering. Aureliano Segundo finished by papering the house from the front to the kitchen, including bathrooms and bedrooms, and threw the leftover bills into the courtyard.
   “Now,?he said in a final way, “I hope that nobody in this house ever talks to me about money again.?
   That was what happened. ?rsula had the bills taken down, stuck to great cakes of whitewash, and the house was painted white again. “Dear Lord,?she begged, “make us poor again the way we were when we founded this town so that you will not collect for this squandering in the other life.?Her prayers were answered in reverse. One of the workmen removing the bills bumped into an enormous plaster statue of Saint Joseph that someone had left in the house during the last years of the war and the hollow figure broke to pieces on the floor. It had been stuffed with gold coins. No one could remember who had brought that life-sized saint. “Three men brought it,?Amaranta explained. “They asked us to keep it until the rains were over and I told them to put it there in the corner where nobody would bump into it, and there they put it, very carefully, and there it’s been ever since because they never came back for it.?Later on, ?rsula had put candles on it and had prostrated herself before it, not suspecting that instead of a saint she was adoring almost four bundled pounds of gold. The tardy evidence of her involuntary paganism made her even more upset. She spat on the spectacular pile of coins, put them in three canvas sacks, and buried them in a secret place, hoping that sooner or later the three unknown men would come to reclaim them. Much later, during the difficult years of her decrepitude, ?rsula would intervene in the conversations of the many travelers who came by the house at that time and ask them if they had left a plaster Saint Joseph there during the war to be taken care of until the rains passed.
   Things like that which gave ?rsula such consternation, were commonplace in those days. Macondo was swamped in a miraculous prosperity. The adobe houses of the founders had been replaced by brick buildings with wooden blinds and cement floors which made the suffocating heat of two o’clock in the afternoon more bearable. All that remained at that time of Jos?Arcadio Buendía’s ancient village were the dusty almond trees, destined to resist the most arduous of circumstances, and the river of clear water whose prehistoric stones had been pulverized by the frantic hammers of Jos?Arcadio Segundo when he set about opening the channel in order to establish a boat line. It was a mad dream, comparable to those of his great-grandfather, for the rocky riverbed and the numerous rapids prevented navigation from Macondo to the sea. But Jos?Arcadio Segundo, in an unforeseen burst of temerity, stubbornly kept on with the project. Until then he had shown no sign of imagination. Except for his precarious adventure with Petra Cotes, he had never known a woman. ?rsula had considered him the quietest example the family had ever produced in all its history, incapable of standing out even as a handler of fighting cocks, when Colonel Aureliano Buendía told him the story of the Spanish galleon aground eight miles from the sea, the carbonized frame of which he had seen himself during the war. The story, which for so many years had seemed fantastic to so many people, was a revelation for Jos?Arcadio Segundo. He auctioned off his roosters to the highest bidder, recruited men, bought tools, and set about the awesome task of breaking stones, digging canals, clearing away rapids, and even harnessing waterfalls. “I know all of this by heart,??rsula would shout. “It’s as if time had turned around and we were back at the beginning.?When he thought that the river was navigable, Jos?Arcadio Segundo gave his brother a detailed account of his plans and the latter gave him the money he needed for the enterprise. He disappeared for a long time. It had been said that his plan to buy a boat was nothing but a trick to make off with his brother’s money when the news spread that a strange craft was approaching the town. The inhabitants of Macondo, who no longer remembered the colossal undertakings of Jos?Arcadio Buendía, ran to the riverbank and saw with eyes popping in disbelief the arrival of the first and last boat ever to dock in the town. It was nothing but a log raft drawn by thick ropes pulled by twenty men who walked along the bank. In the prow, with a glow of satisfaction in his eyes, Jos?Arcadio Segundo was directing the arduous maneuver. There arrived with him a rich group of splendid matrons who were protecting themselves from the burning sun with gaudy parasols, and wore on their shoulders fine silk kerchiefs, with colored creams on their faces and natural flowers in their hair and golden serpents on their arms and diamonds in their teeth. The log raft was the only vessel that Jos?Arcadio Segundo was able to bring to Macondo, and only once, but he never recognized the failure of his enterprise, but proclaimed his deed as a victory of will power. He gave a scrupulous accounting to his brother and very soon plunged back into the routine of cockfights. The only thing that remained of that unfortunate venture was the breath of renovation that the matrons from France brought, as their magnificent arts transformed traditional methods of love and their sense of social well-being abolished Catarino’s antiquated place and turned the street into a bazaar of Japanese lanterns and nostalgic hand organs. They were the promoters of the bloody carnival that plunged Macondo into delirium for three days and whose only lasting consequence was having given Aureliano Segundo the opportunity to meet Fernanda del Carpio.
   Remedios the Beauty was proclaimed queen. ?rsula, who shuddered at the disquieted beauty of her great-granddaughter, could not prevent the choice. Until then she had succeeded in keeping her off the streets unless it was to go to mass with Amaranta, but she made her cover her face with a black shawl. The most impious men, those who would disguise themselves as priests to say sacrilegious masses in Catarino’s store, would go to church with an aim to see, if only for an instant, the face of Remedios the Beauty, whose legendary good looks were spoken of with alarming excitement throughout the swamp. It was a long time before they were able to do so, and it would have been better for them if they never had, because most of them never recovered their peaceful habits of sleep. The man who made it possible, a foreigner, lost his serenity forever, became involved in the sloughs of abjection and misery, and years later was cut to pieces by a train after he had fallen asleep on the tracks. From the moment he was seen in the church, wearing a green velvet suit and an embroidered vest, no one doubted that he came from far away, perhaps from some distant city outside of the country, attracted by the magical fascination of Remedios the Beauty. He was so handsome, so elegant and dignified, with such presence, that Pietro Crespi would have been a mere fop beside him and many women whispered with spiteful smiles that he was the one who really should have worn the shawl. He did not speak to anyone in Macondo. He appeared at dawn on Sunday like a prince in a fairy tale, riding a horse with silver stirrups and a velvet blanket, and he left town after mass.
   The power of his presence was such that from the first time he was seen in the church everybody took it for granted that a silent and tense duel had been established between him and Remedios the Beauty, a secret pact, an irrevocable challenge that would end not only in love but also in death. On the sixth Sunday the gentleman appeared with a yellow rose in his hand. He heard mass standing, as he always did, and at the end he stepped in front of Remedios the Beauty and offered her the solitary rose. She took it with a natural gesture, as if she had been prepared for that homage, and then she uncovered her face and gave her thanks with a smile. That was all she did. Not only for the gentleman, but for all the men who had the unfortunate privilege of seeing her, that was an eternal instant.
   From then on the gentleman had a band of musicians play beside the window of Remedios the Beauty, sometimes until dawn. Aureliano Segundo was the only one who felt a cordial compassion for him and he tried to break his perseverance. “Don’t waste your time any more,?he told him one night. “The women in this house are worse than mules.?He offered him his friendship, invited him to bathe in champagne, tried to make him understand that the females of his family had insides made of flint, but he could not weaken his obstinacy. Exasperated by the interminable nights of music, Colonel Aureliano Buendía threatened to cure his affliction with a few pistol shots. Nothing made him desist except his own lamentable state of demoralization. From a well-dressed and neat individual he became filthy and ragged. It was rumored that he had abandoned power and fortune in his distant nation, although his origins were actually never known. He became argumentative, a barroom brawler, and he would wake up rolling in his own filth in Catarino’s store. The saddest part of his drama was that Remedios the Beauty did not notice him not even when he appeared in church dressed like a prince. She accepted the yellow rose without the least bit of malice, amused, rather, by the extravagance of the act, and she lifted her shawl to see his face better, not to show hers.
   Actually, Remedios the Beauty was not a creature of this world. Until she was well along in puberty Santa Sofía de la. Piedad had to bathe and dress her, and even when she could take care of herself it was necessary to keep an eye on her so that she would not paint little animals on the walls with a stick daubed in her own excrement. She reached twenty without knowing how to read or write, unable to use the silver at the table, wandering naked through the house because her nature rejected all manner of convention. When the young commander of the guard declared his love for her, she rejected him simply because his frivolity startled her. “See how simple he is,?she told Amaranta. “He says that he’s dying because of me, as if I were a bad case of colic.?When, indeed, they found him dead beside her window, Remedios the Beauty confirmed her first impression.
   “You see,?she commented. “He was a complete Simpleton.?
   It seemed as if some penetrating lucidity permitted her to see the reality of things beyond any formalism. That at least was the point of view of Colonel Aureliano Buendía, for whom Remedios the Beauty was in no way mentally retarded, as was generally believed, but quite the opposite. “It’s as if she’s come back from twenty years of war,?he would say. ?rsula, for her part, thanked God for having awarded the family with a creature of exceptional purity, but at the same time she was disturbed by her beauty, for it seemed a contradictory virtue to her, a diabolical trap at the center of her innocence. It was for that reason that she decided to keep her away from the world, to protect her from all earthly temptation, not knowing that Remedios the Beauty, even from the time when she was in her mother’s womb, was safe from any contagion. It never entered her head that they would elect her beauty queen of the carnival pandemonium. But Aureliano, Segundo, excited at the caprice of disguising himself as a tiger, brought Father Antonio Isabel to the house in order to convince ?rsula that the carnival was not a pagan feast, as she said, but a Catholic tradition. Finally convinced, even though reluctantly, she consented to the coronation.
   The news that Remedios Buendía was going to be the sovereign ruler of the festival went beyond the limits of the swamp in a few hours, reached distant places where the prestige of her beauty was not known, and it aroused the anxiety of those who still thought of her last name as a symbol of subversion. The anxiety was baseless. If anyone had become harmless at that time it was the aging and disillusioned Colonel Aureliano Buendía, who was slowly losing all contact with the reality of the nation. Enclosed in his workshop, his only relationship with the rest of the world was his business in little gold fishes. One of the soldiers who had guarded his house during the first days of peace would go sell them in the villages of the swamp and return loaded down with coins and news. That the Conservative government, he would say, with the backing of the Liberals, was reforming the calendar so that every president could remain in power for a hundred years. That the concordat with the Holy See had finally been signed and a cardinal had come from Rome with a crown of diamonds and a throne of solid gold, and that the Liberal ministers had had their pictures taken on their knees in the act of kissing his ring. That the leading lady of a Spanish company passing through the capital had been kidnapped by a band of masked highwaymen and on the following Sunday she had danced in the nude at the summer house of the president of the republic. “Don’t talk to me about politics,?the colonel would tell him. “Our business is selling little fishes.?The rumor that he did not want to hear anything about the situation in the country because he was growing rich in his workshop made ?rsula laugh when it reached her ears. With her terrible practical sense she could not understand the colonel’s business as he exchanged little fishes for gold coins and then converted the coins into little fishes, and so on, with the result that he had to work all the harder with the more he sold in order to satisfy an exasperating vicious circle. Actually, what interested him was not the business but the work. He needed so much concentration to link scales, fit minute rubies into the eyes, laminate gills, and put on fins that there was not the smallest empty moment left for him to fill with his disillusionment of the war. So absorbing was the attention required by the delicacy of his artistry that in a short time he had aged more than during all the years of the war, and his position had twisted his spine and the close work had used up his eyesight, but the implacable concentration awarded him with a peace of the spirit. The last time he was seen to take an interest in some matter related to the war was when a group of veterans from both parties sought his support for the approval of lifetime pensions, which had always been promised and were always about to be put into effect. “Forget about it,?he told them. “You can see how I refuse my pension in order to get rid of the torture of waiting for it until the day I died.?At first Colonel Gerineldo Márquez would visit him at dusk and they would both sit in the street door and talk about the past. But Amaranta could not bear the memories that that man, whose baldness had plunged him into the abyss of premature old age, aroused in her, and she would torment him with snide remarks until he did not come back except on special occasions and he finally disappeared, extinguished by paralysis. Taciturn, silent, insensible to the new breath of vitality that was shaking the house, Colonel Aureliano Buendía could understand only that the secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude. He would get up at five in the morning after a light sleep, have his eternal mug of bitter coffee in the kitchen, shut himself up all day in the workshop, and at four in the afternoon he would go along the porch dragging a stool, not even noticing the fire of the rose bushes or the brightness of the hour or the persistence of Amaranta, whose melancholy made the noise of a boiling pot, which was perfectly perceptible at dusk, and he would sit in the street door as long as the mosquitoes would allow him to. Someone dared to disturb his solitude once.
   “How are you, Colonel??he asked in passing.
   “Right here,?he answered. “Waiting for my funeral procession to pass.?
   So that the anxiety caused by the public reappearance of his family name, having to do with the coronation of Remedios the Beauty, was baseless. Many people did not think that way, however. Innocent of the tragedy that threatened it, the town poured into the main square in a noisy explosion of merriment. The carnival had reached its highest level of madness and Aureliano Segundo had satisfied at last his dream of dressing up like a tiger and was walking along the wild throng, hoarse from so much roaring, when on the swamp road a parade of several people appeared carrying in a gilded litter the most fascinating woman that imagination could conceive. For a moment the inhabitants of Macondo took off their masks in order to get a better look at the dazzling creature with a crown of emeralds and an ermine cape, who seemed invested with legitimate authority, and was not merely a sovereign of bangles and crepe paper. There were many people who had sufficient insight to suspect that it was a question of provocation. But Aureliano Segundo immediately conquered his perplexity and declared the new arrivals to be guests of honor, and with the wisdom of Solomon he seated Remedios the Beauty and the intruding queen on the same dais. Until midnight the strangers, disguised as bedouins, took part in the delirium and even enriched it with sumptuous fireworks and acrobatic skills that made one think of the art of the gypsies. Suddenly, during the paroxysm of the celebration, someone broke the delicate balance.
   “Long live the Liberal party!?he shouted. “Long live Colonel Aureliano Buendía!?
   The rifle shots drowned out the splendor of the fireworks and the cries of terror drowned out the music and joy turned into panic. Many years later there were those who still insisted that the royal guard of the intruding queen was a squad of regular army soldiers who were concealing government-issue rifles under their rich Moorish robes. The government denied the charge in a special proclamation and promised a complete investigation of the bloody episode. But the truth never came to light, and the version always prevailed that the royal guard, without provocation of any kind, took up combat positions upon a signal from their commander and opened fire without pity on the crowd. When calm was restored, not one of the false bedouins remained in town and there were many dead and wounded lying on the square: nine clowns, four Columbines, seventeen playing-card kings, one devil, three minstrels, two peers of France, and three Japanese empresses. In the confusion of the panic Jos?Arcadio Segundo managed to rescue Remedios the Beauty and Aureliano Segundo carried the intruding queen to the house in his arms, her dress torn and the ermine cape stained with blood. Her name was Fernanda del Carpio. She had been chosen as the most beautiful of the five thousand most beautiful women in the land and they had brought her to Macondo with the promise of naming her Queen of Madagascar. ?rsula took care of her as if she were her own daughter. The town, instead of doubting her innocence, pitied her candor. Six months after the massacre, when the wounded had recovered and the last flowers on the mass grave had withered, Aureliano Segundo went to fetch her from the distant city where she lived with her father and he married her in Macondo with a noisy celebration that lasted twenty days.



第十章

  多年以后,在临终的床上,奥雷连诺第二将会想起六月间一个雨天的下午,他如何到卧室里去看自己的头生子。儿子虽然孱弱、爱哭,一点不象布恩蒂亚家的人,但他毫不犹豫就给儿子取了名字。
  “咱们就叫他霍·阿卡蒂奥吧,”他说。
  菲兰达·德卡皮奥这个标致的女人,是一年前跟奥雷选诺第二结婚的。她同意丈大的意见。相反地,乌苏娜却掩饰不住模糊的不安之感。在漫长的家史中,同样的名字不断重复,使得乌苏娜作出了她觉得确切的结论:所有的奥雷连诺都很孤僻,但有敏锐的头脑,而所有的霍·阿卡蒂奥都好冲动、有胆量,但都打上了必遭灭亡的烙印。不属于这种分类的只有霍·阿卡蒂奥第二和奥雷连诺第二。在儿童时代,他俩那么相似,那么好动,甚至圣索菲娅·德拉佩德自己都分辨不清他们两人。在洗礼日,阿玛兰塔给他们的手腕戴上刻着各人名字的手镯,给他们穿上绣着各人名字的不同颜色的衣服,但他们开始上学的时候,却故意交换了衣服和手镯,甚至彼此用自己的名字称呼对方。教师梅尔乔尔·艾斯卡隆纳惯于凭绿色衬衫认出霍·阿卡蒂奥第二,但他觉得生气的是,竟发现身穿绿色衬衫的孩子戴着刻有“奥雷连诺第二”名字的手镯,而另一个身穿白色衬衫的孩子却说“奥雷连诺第二”是他,尽管他的手镯上刻着“霍·阿卡蒂奥第二”的名字。从那时起,谁也搞不清他们谁是谁了。即使他长大以后,日常生活已使他们变得各不相同,乌苏娜仍旧经常问自己,他们在玩复杂的换装把戏时自个儿会不会弄错了,会不会永远乱了套。在孪生子进入青年时期之前,这是两个同步的机器。他们常常同时醒来,同时想进浴室;他们患同样的病,甚至做同样的梦。家里的人认为,两个孩子协调地行动只是想闹着玩儿,谁也没有精到真正的原因,直到某一天,圣索菲娅给他们每人一杯柠檬水,一个孩子刚刚用嘴沾了沾饮料,另一个孩子就说柠檬水不甜。圣索菲娅·德拉佩德真的忘了在杯子里放糖,就把这个情况告诉乌苏娜。“他们全是一路货,”乌苏娜毫不奇怪地回答。“天生的疯子。”随后,混乱更大了。在换装把戏玩过之后,名叫奥雷连诺第二的孩子,长得象他曾祖父霍·阿·布恩蒂亚一样魁梧,而名叫霍·阿卡蒂奥第二的孩子,却长得象奥雷连诺上校一样瘦削;孪生子唯一共同之点,是全家固有的孤独样儿。也许,正是由于身材、名字和性格上的不一致,乌苏娜以为孪生子在童年时代就搞混了。
  他俩之间的主要区别是在战争最激烈时表现出来的;当时,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二要求格林列尔多·马克斯上校允许他去看看行刑。尽管乌苏娜反对,他的愿望还是得到了满足。恰恰相反,奥雷连诺第二想到去看行刑就浑身哆嗦。他宁肯呆在家里。十二岁时,他向乌苏娜打听一间锁着的房间里有什么东西。“纸儿嘛《恐惧的概念》、《生活道路的各阶段》、《基督教中的修养》、,”她回答,“梅尔加德斯的书,还有他最后几年记的古怪笔记。”这个解释不仅未使奥雷连诺第二平静下来,反而增加了他的好奇。他缠着不放,坚决答应不弄坏任何东西,乌苏娜终于把钥匙给了他。自从梅尔加德斯的尸体抬出房间,门上挂了锁,谁也没有再进去过;门锁生锈的部分已经凝在一起。可是,奥雷连诺第二打开窗子的时候,阳光随着就照进了房间,仿佛每天都是这样,哪儿也看不到一小点尘土或蛛网,一切都显得整齐、干净,甚至比安葬那一天还整齐干净;墨水瓶里装满了墨水,没有生锈的金属闪着光彩,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚熬水银的熔铁炉仍然有火。书架上立着一些书,精装布面由于时间过久已经翘起,象晒过的皮肤那样黝黑,若干手稿还完整无损地放在那儿。这个房间尽管锁了多年,但这里的空气似乎比其他的房间还新鲜。一切都是那么井然有序。过了几个星期,乌苏娜拿着水桶和刷子来擦洗地板的时候,她发现这儿没有什么可干的。奥雷连诺第二埋头阅读一本书。他不知道书名,因为封面已经没有了,但这并不妨碍他欣赏书中的故事:有个故事讲的是一个女人,她坐在桌边只顾吃饭,每一粒饭她都用大头针挑起来吃;另一个故事讲的是一个渔夫,他向邻人借了做鱼网用的铅锤,然后拿一条鱼酬谢他,而这条鱼的肚子里却有一枚大钻石;还有一个故事讲的是能够满足任何愿望的幻灯和飞毯。他觉得惊异就问乌苏娜,这一切是不是真的,她回答说,这些都是真的,许多年前吉卜赛人曾把幻灯和飞毯带到马孔多。
  “问题是,”她叹了口气,“世界正在逐渐走向末日,那些个东西再也不会到马孔多来啦。”
  书中的许多故事都没有结尾,因为书页残缺不全。奥雷连诺第二看完了书,决心识破梅尔加德斯的手稿,但这是不可能的。一页页手稿犹如挂在绳于上晾干的衣服,上面的字儿更象乐谱,而不象普通的文字。一个炎热的响午,奥雷连诺第二正在努力研究手稿的时候,觉得房间里不止他一个人。梅尔加德斯双手放在膝上,坐在明晃晃的窗子跟前。他看上去不到四十岁,仍然穿着那件旧式背心,戴着那顶帽馅宛似乌鸦翅膀的帽子,苍白的鬓角流着汗水,好象暑热熔化的脂肪,——这吉卜赛人正象奥雷连诺上校和霍·阿卡蒂奥儿童时代看见的那个样子。奥雷连诺第二立刻认出了老头儿,因为老头儿的形象是布恩蒂亚家一代一代传下来的,从祖辈一直传给了他。
  “您好,”奥雷连诺第二说。
  “您好,年轻人,”梅尔加德斯说。
  从那时起,在几年中,他们几乎每天下午见面。梅尔加德斯告诉他天下大事,打算把自己过时的才智传给他,可是不愿向他解释自己的手稿。“在手稿满一百年以前,谁也不该知道这儿写些什么,”他说。奥雷连诺第二永远保守这些会见的秘密。有一次,乌苏娜走进房间,凑巧梅尔加德斯也在,惊骇的奥雷连诺第二就以为他那孤独的世界马上就要毁灭了。然而乌苏娜没有看见吉卜赛人。
  “你在跟谁说话呀?”她问。
  “没跟谁,”奥雷连诺第二回答。
  “你的曾祖父就是这样,”乌苏娜说。“他也老是自言自语。”
  这时,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二实现了参观行刑的愿望。他至死记得同时射出的六发子弹的淡蓝色闪光,记得熗声在山野里的回响,记得犯人惨淡的微笑和茫然的目光,虽然鲜血已经浸透了他的衬衫,但他仍然立在那儿;虽然人家已经把他解下柱子、放进一口装满石灰的大箱子,但他还在继续微笑。“他没死,”霍·阿卡蒂奥第二想道,“他们在活埋他。”孩子得到了那样的印象,从那时起他就厌恶军事操练和战争了——不是因为行刑,而是由于刽子手经常活埋犯人。后来,谁也没有发觉,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二开始在钟楼上敲钟,帮助“唠叨鬼”的继任者——安东尼奥.伊萨贝尔神父举行弥撒,在教堂院子里照料斗鸡。格林川尔多·马克斯。上校发现这种情形以后,把霍·阿卡蒂奥第二狠狠地骂了一顿,因为他干的是自由党人厌恶的事情。“其实,”霍.阿卡蒂奥第二说,“我觉得我会成为保守党人。”他相信这是命中注定的。恼怒的格林列尔多·马克斯上校把这桩事情告诉了乌苏娜。
  “那更好,”她赞成曾孙子的行为。“但愿他成为牧师,上帝终归就会保佑咱们家了。”
  她很快知道,安东尼奥·伊萨贝尔神父准备让霍·阿卡蒂奥第二参加第一次圣餐礼。神父一面修剪斗鸡脖子上的毛,一面给他讲教义要则。当他两人一起把抱蛋的母鸡放进窝里的时候,神父就用简单的例子向他解释,在创世的第二天,上帝是如何决定在卵里孵出小鸡的。那时,安东尼奥·伊萨贝尔神父已经开始显出老年痴呆病的初步症状;几年以后,他竟胡言乱语地说,仿佛魔鬼向上帝造反时取得了胜利,登上了天国的王位,而且为了把那些冒失的人诱入圈套,没向任何人暴露他那真正的身份。在这个良师坚持不懈的教导下,经过几个月工夫,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二不仅成了一个利用神学奥秘挫败魔鬼的行家,而且成了一个斗鸡专家,阿玛兰塔给他缝了一件有硬领和领结的亚麻布衣服,给他买了一双白色鞋子,并且在他的领结上用金线绣了他的名字。在圣餐礼之前的两个夜晚,安东尼奥·伊萨贝尔神父把自己和霍·阿卡蒂奥第二关在圣器室里,按照一份罪孽录听取他的忏悔。罪孽录那么长,惯于六时上床就寝的老神父,还没查问完毕就在椅子上睡着了。对霍·阿卡蒂奥第二来说,这样的查问也是一种启示,神父问他是否跟女人干过坏事时,他并不觉得奇怪,他老实地回答说“没有”;但是问他是否跟牲畜干过坏事,他就感到大惑不解了。这孩子在五月里的第一个星期五接受了圣餐,在好奇心的驱使下,就跑去找患病的教堂工友佩特罗里奥解释;这人是住在钟楼里的,听说他以蝙蝠充饥,佩特罗里奥回答他说:“有些浪荡的基督徒是跟母驴干这类事儿的。”霍·阿卡蒂奥第二的好奇心没有得到满足,他就继续提出许多问题,使得佩特罗里奥终于失去了耐心。
  “我自己是每个星期二晚上都要去的,”他坦白说,“如果你答应不告诉任何人,下星期二我就带你去。”
  果然,下星期二,佩特罗里奥拿着一只小木凳,从钟楼上下来了(在这以前,谁也不知道小木凳有这种用处),并且把霍.阿卡蒂奥第二领到最近的一个畜栏,小伙子那样喜欢这种夜袭,以致很长一段时间没去卡塔林诺游艺场。他成了一个饲养斗鸡的专家,“把这些鸡拿到别处去吧,”他第一次把良种斗鸡带到家里的时候,乌苏娜向他下了命令。“这些鸡给咱们家的痛苦已经够多了,不准你再把它们带回来。”霍·阿卡蒂奥第二没有争辩就带走了自己的斗鸡,但他继续在祖母皮拉·苔列娜家里饲养,祖母为了把孙子留在自己身边,给了他一切方便。很快,他在斗鸡场上成功地运用了安东尼奥·伊萨贝尔神父救他的伎俩,捞到了不少钱,不仅够他补充鸡舍,而且可以满足他享乐的需要。乌苏娜拿霍·阿卡蒂奥第二跟他的兄弟相比,怎么也弄不明白,儿童时代两个一模一样的孪生子竟会变成这样不同的人。她的困惑没有延续多久,因为奥雷连诺第二很快地表现了懒惰和放荡的倾向。当他关在梅尔加德斯房间里的时候,他是个闭门深思的人,象奥雷连诺上校年轻时一样。但在尼兰德协定签订之前不久,一件偶然的事使他离开了僻静的斗室,面对现实生活了。有一次,一个出售手风琴彩票的女人,突然十分亲热地招呼他。他并不觉得奇怪,因为人家经常把他错看成他的兄弟,但是,她想用哭泣来使他心软的时候,或者把他领进她的卧室的时候,他都没有挑明她的错误。在这次邂逅之后,她拼命缠着他不放,甚至在彩票上弄了鬼,让他在开彩时得到手风琴。过了两个星期,奥雷连诺第二发现,这个女人轮流跟他和他的兄弟睡觉,把他们当成了一个人,但他并没有讲明关系,反而竭力隐瞒真情,让这种情况延续下去。现在,他再也不回梅尔加德斯的房间,整天待在院子里,学拉手风琴,把乌苏娜的唠叨当成耳边风;当时由于丧事,乌苏娜是禁止家中出现乐曲声的,而且根本讨厌手风琴,认为它是弗兰西斯科人的后代——流浪乐师的乐器。然而,奥雷连诺第二终于成了个手风琴能手,即使有了妻子和孩子之后,他仍然爱拉手风琴,他是马孔多最受尊敬的人物之一。
  在两个月中,奥雷连诺第二都跟他兄弟共同占有这个女人。他注意兄弟的行踪,搅乱兄弟的计划,相信当天夜里兄弟不会去找共同的情人,他才到她那儿去。一天早晨,他发现自己得了病。过了两天,他遇见兄弟站在浴室里,脑袋靠在墙上,浑身出汗,热泪盈眶;于是,奥雷连诺第二什么都明白了。他的兄弟坦白说,他使那个女人染上了她所谓的花柳病,被她撵出来了。他还说皮拉·苔列娜打算给他医治。奥雷连诺第二开始悄悄地用高锰酸钾热水洗澡,而且服用各种利尿剂。经过三个月隐秘的痛苦,兄弟俩都痊愈了。霍·阿卡蒂奥第二再也没跟那个女人见面。奥雷连诺第二却得到她的谅解,一直到死都跟她在一起。
  她的名字叫佩特娜·柯特。她是战争时期跟一个萍水相逢的丈夫来到马孔多的;丈夫靠卖彩票过活,丈夫死后,她继续经营他的生意。这是个整洁、年轻的混血儿,有一对淡黄色的杏仁眼,这两只眼睛在她脸上增添了豹子似的凶猛神情,但她却有宽厚的心肠和真正的情场本领。乌苏娜知道霍·阿卡蒂奥第二正在饲养斗鸡的时候,奥雷连诺第二却在情妇嚣闹的酒宴上拉手风琴,她羞愧得差点儿疯了。这对孪生子似乎在自己身上集中了家旅的一切缺点,而没继承家族的一点美德。乌苏娜拿定主意,在她的家族中,谁也不准再叫奥雷连诺和霍·阿卡蒂奥了。然而,奥雷连诺第二的头生子出世时,她却没敢反对这个父亲的意愿。
  “我同意。”乌苏娜说,“但是有个条件:得由我来抚养他。”
  尽管乌苏娜已满一百岁,她的眼睛由于白内障快要失明了,但她仍有充沛的精力、严谨的性格和清醒的头脑。她相信,抚养孩子是谁也比不上她的,她能使孩子成为一个有美德的人——这个人将恢复家族的威望,根本就不知道战争、斗鸡、坏女人和胡思乱想;照乌苏娜看来,这是使她家族衰败的四大祸害。“这会是个神父,”她庄严地说。“如果上帝延长我的寿命,我会看见他当上教皇。”她的话不仅在卧室里引起笑声,而且在整座宅子里引起哄堂大笑,因为这一天宅子里挤满了奥雷连诺第二的一帮闹喳喳的朋友。战争已经成为悲惨的回忆,早已忘诸脑后,现在只有香槟酒瓶塞的噗噗声使人偶然想到了它。
  “为教皇的健康干杯!”奥雷连诺第二叫道。
  客人们一齐干杯。然后,家主拉手风琴,焰火飞上天空,庆祝的鼓声响彻了全镇。黎明,喝够了酒的客人们宰了六头牛犊,送到街上去给人群享用,这并没有使家里的人见怪。因为,自从奥雷连诺第二当家以来,即使没有“教皇诞生”的正当理由,这样的酒宴也是寻常的事。在几年中,奥雷连诺第二没费吹灰之力,光凭好运——家畜和家禽神奇的繁殖力,就成了沼泽地带最富裕的居民之一。他的母马一胎生三匹小驹,母鸡一日下两个蛋,猪猡长起膘来那么神速,除了魔法的作用,谁也无法说明这是什么原因。“把钱存起来吧,”乌苏娜向轻浮的曾孙子反复说。“这样的好运气是不会跟随你一辈子的。”可是,奥雷连诺第二没有理睬她的话。他越用香槟酒款待自己的朋友,他的牲畜越无限制地繁殖,他就越相信自己的鸿运并不取决于他的行为,而全靠他的情妇佩特娜.柯特,因为她的爱情具有激发生物繁殖的功能。他深信这是他发财致富的根源,就竭力让佩特娜·柯特跟他的畜群离得近些;奥雷连诺第二结了婚,有了孩子,但他征得妻子的同意,仍然继续跟情妇相会,他象祖辈一样长得魁梧、高大,但他具有祖辈没有的乐观精神和讨人喜欢的魅力,所以几乎没有时间照料自己的家畜。他要干的事儿就是把佩特娜·柯特带到畜栏去,或者跟她一块儿在牧场上骑着马踢,让每一只打上他的标记的牲畜都染上医治不好的“繁殖病”。
  象他在漫长的一生中碰到的各种好事一样,这一大笔财富来得也是突然的。战争还没结束的时候,佩特娜.柯特靠卖彩票过活,而奥雷连诺第二却不时去偷乌苏娜的积蓄。这是一对轻浮的情人,两人只操心一件事儿:每夜睡在一起,即使在禁忌的日子里,也在床上玩乐到天亮。“这个女人会把你毁掉的,”乌苏娜看见他象梦游者似的拖着腿子回到家里,就向他叫嚷。“她搅昏了你的脑袋,总有一天我会看见你病得打滚,就象肚子里有一只箍蛤蟆,”霍·阿卡蒂奥第二过了很久才发现自己有了个替身,但他无法理解兄弟为什么那样火热。据他记得,佩特娜.柯特是个平平常常的女人,在床上相当疏懒,毫无魅力。可是奥雷连诺第二根本不听乌苏娜的嚷叫和兄弟的嘲笑,只想找个职业来跟佩特娜·柯特维持一个家,在一个发狂的夜里跟她一块儿死掉,并且死在她的怀里。当奥雷连诺上校终于迷上了晚年的宁静生活,重新打开作坊的时候,奥雷连诺第二以为制作小金鱼也许是有利可图的事。他在闷热的房间里一呆就是几个小时,观察幻想破灭的上校以难以理解的耐心给坚硬的金属板加工,使金属板逐渐变成了闪闪烁烁的鳞片。奥雷连诺第二觉得这个活儿挺苦,而又不断地渴念佩特娜·柯特,过了三个星期他就从作坊里消失了。正好这时,他带了几只兔子给情妇,让她用兔子抽彩。兔子开始以异常的速度繁殖、长大,佩特娜,柯特几乎来不及卖掉彩票,开头,奥雷连诺第二没有发现令人惊讶的繁殖数量。可是镇上的人不再过问兔子彩票的时候,有一天夜里,他却被墙外院子里的闹声惊醒了。
  “别怕,”佩特娜.柯特说,“这是兔子。”可是两人都被墙外不停的闹声搞得十分苦恼,再也合不了眼。次日早晨,奥雷连诺第二打开房门,看见整个院子都挤满了兔子——在旭日照耀下,兔毛显得蓝幽幽的。佩特娜·柯特疯子似的哈哈大笑,忍不住跟他开玩笑。
  “这些都是昨儿夜里生的,”她说。
  “我的天!”奥雷连诺第二叫道:“你为什么不拿母牛来试一试呢?”
  几天以后,佩特娜·柯特清除了院子,拿兔子换成一头母牛;过了两个月,这头母牛一胎生了三头牛犊。一切就从这儿开了头。眨眼间,奥雷连诺第二就成了牧场和畜群的主人,几乎来不及扩充马厩和挤得满满的猪圈,这极度的繁荣象是一场梦,甚至使他放声大笑起来,他不得不用古怪的举动来表露自己的愉快。“多生一些吧,母牛,生命短促呀!”他喊叫起来。乌苏娜怀疑她的曾孙子是不是做了什么见不得人的事:也许当了小偷,或者盗窃了别人的牲畜:每一次,她看见他打开香滨酒瓶,光是为了拿泡沫浇在自己头上取乐,她就向他叫嚷,斥责他浪费。乌苏娜的责难使他不能忍受,有一天黎明,他神气活现地回到家里,拿着一箱钞票、一罐浆糊和一把刷子,高声地唱着弗兰西斯科人的古老歌曲,把整座房子——里里外外和上上下下——都糊上每张一比索的钞票。自从搬进自动钢琴之后,这座旧房子一直是刷成白色的,现在却古里古怪的象座清真寺了,乌苏娜和家中的人气得直嚷,挤满街道的人大声地欢呼这种极度的浪费,这时奥雷连诺第二已把所有的地方——从房屋正面到厨房,包括浴室和卧室——裱糊完毕,把剩下的钞票扔到院里。
  “现在,”他最后说,“我希望这座房子里的人再也不会向我提到钱的事啦。”
  事情就是这样。乌苏娜叫人从墙上揭下粘着一块块灰泥的钞票,重新把房子刷成白色。“我的上帝,”乌苏娜祷告起来,“让我们变得象从前建村时那么穷吧,免得我们因为浪费在阴间受到惩罚。”她的祷告得到相反的回答。在战争结束之前,不知是谁把圣约瑟的一尊大石膏像拿到了这儿,这塑像被一个工人鲁莽地一撞,就摔在地上粉碎了。石膏像内装满了金币。谁也记不起这尊与真人一般大的圣像是谁拿到这儿的。“三个男人把它带来的,”阿玛兰塔说明。“他们要求我们让它留在这儿,等候雨季过去;我告诉他们把它放在角落里谁也不会碰着的地方;他们小心地把它放在那儿,就一直留在那儿了,因为谁也没有回来取走。”
  后来,乌苏娜曾在圣像面前点起蜡烛,顶礼膜拜:无疑地,她崇拜的不是圣人,而是将近两百公斤黄金。随后发现自己下意识地亵读了圣人,她就更加难过了。随即,她从地上收集了一大堆金币,把它们放进三条口袋,埋在秘密的地方,以为那三个陌生人迟早会来取走。多年以后,在她衰老不堪的困难时期,许多外地人来到她的家里,她总要向他们打听,他们曾否在战争年代把圣约瑟的石膏像放在这儿,说是雨季过了就来取走。
  在那些日子里,这一类使马苏娜操心的事是很平常的。马孔多象神话一样繁荣起来。建村者的土房已经换成了砖房,有遮挡太阳的百叶窗,还有洋灰地,这些都有助于忍受下午两点的焕热。能够使人想起从前霍·阿·布恩蒂亚建立的村子的,只有那些落淌尘土的杏树(这些杏树注定要经受最严峻的考验),还有那清澈的河流。霍·阿卡蒂奥第二打算清理河床,在这条河上开辟航道的时候,石匠们疯狂的鳃子已把河里史前巨蛋似的石头砸得粉碎。霍·阿卡蒂奥第二的打算本来是狂妄的梦想,只能跟霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的幻想相比。可是霍·阿卡蒂奥第二突然心血来潮,轻率地坚持自己的计划。在那以前,他是从来没有想入非非的,除了跟佩特娜·柯特短时间的艳遇,他甚至没有邂逅过其他女人。乌苏娜经常认为,在布恩蒂亚家族的整个历史上,这个曾孙子是它所有后代中最没出总的一个,就连在斗鸡场上也出不了风头,可是有一次,奥雷连诺上校向霍.阿卡蒂奥第二谈到了在离海十二公里的地方搁浅的西班牙大帆船,他在战争年代曾经亲眼见过它那烧成木炭的船骨。这个早就认为是虚构的故事,对霍·阿卡蒂奥第二却是个启示,他拍卖了自己的公鸡,临时雇了一些工人,购置了工具,就开始空前未有的工程:砸碎石头,挖掘河道,清除暗礁,甚至平整险滩。“这些我都背熟啦,”乌苏娜叫嚷。“时光好象在打圈子,我们又回到了开始的时候。”霍·阿卡蒂奥第二认为河流可以通航的时候,他就把自己的计划详细地告诉了兄弟,奥雷连诺第二给了他实现计划所需的钱。在这以后,霍.阿卡蒂奥第二长久消失了踪影。马孔多的人已经在说,买船计划不过是花招,目的是从兄弟身上骗些钱去挥霍,但是突然传说一艘古怪的轮船正在驶近马孔多。马孔多的居民早已忘了霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的伟大创举,这时却奔到河边,难以置信地望着一艘正在靠岸的轮船——这是停泊在马孔多镇的第一艘也是最后一艘轮船。但这不过是巴里萨木扎成的木筏,由二十个男人在岸上用粗绳拖着前进,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二笑盈盈地站在木筏前头,指挥这种复杂的机械动作。跟他一块儿来的还有一大群漂亮的法国艺妓:她们拿花花绿绿的阳伞遮住灼热的阳光,肩上是华丽的丝绸披巾,脸上搽着胭脂和香粉,发上插着鲜花,手上戴着金手镯,牙齿嵌着钻石。巴里萨木筏是霍.阿卡蒂奥第二能够逆流而上带到马孔多来的唯一的航行工具,并且仅有这么一次;然而,他决不承认他的计划遭到了失败,相反地,甚至宣称自己的行动是人类意志对自然力的伟大胜利。他跟兄弟算清了账,每天又去操心他的斗鸡了。这次失败的创举唯一留下来的,是法国艺妓带到马孔多的新的生活气息,她们那种出色的技艺改变了传统的爱情方式。她们宣传的“社会福利”思想正在排除卡塔林诺游艺场,并且把僻静的小街变成了热闹的市场,市场上吊着中国灯笼,手风琴手奏着悒郁的乐曲。正是这些法国女郎发起了血腥的狂欢节,一连三天使整个马孔多陷入了疯狂的状态,也给奥雷连诺第二提供了认识菲兰达.德卡皮奥的机会。
  俏姑娘雷麦黛丝被选为联欢节女王。曾孙女的动人之美是使乌苏娜不寒而栗的,可她无法阻止大家的推选。在这以前,需要去做弥撒的时候,她才让俏姑娘雷麦黛丝跟阿玛兰塔一块儿上街,而且有个条件:姑娘必须用黑色面纱遮住面孔。那些邪恶之徒经常假装神父,在卡塔林诺游艺场里做亵渎神灵的弥撒,他们上教堂去就是为了看看俏姑娘雷麦黛丝的面孔,哪怕看上一眼也好,因为她那神话般的姿色是整个沼泽地带的人有口皆碑的,大家谈起她的美貌来都异常兴奋。但是,好奇的人要看见这张面孔就得长久等待机会,而他们最好不要等待这样的机会,因为大多数人见了这张面孔就无法安心地睡觉了。有个外来的绅士是达到了这一愿望的,但他却陷入了凄凉和痛苦的绝望境地,永远失去了安宁,而且几年以后在轨道上睡着了,竞被夜行的列车碾得粉碎。最初,他穿着绿色丝绒衣服和绣花背心出现在教堂里的时候,谁也不怀疑他是受到俏姑娘雷麦黛丝魅力的诱惑,从很远的地方来的,甚至是从另一个国家来的。他是那么漂亮、端庄,一举一动都是那么文雅、尊严,皮埃特罗·克列斯比跟他相比简直是个不足月的婴儿。许多女人一面嫉妒地微笑,一面叽哩咕噜地说,他倒应当用黑面纱把脸遮上。他没跟马孔多的任何人说话。星期天早晨,他象童话里的王子似的,骑着一匹银蹬绒鞍的骏马来到马孔多,弥撒一完就离开了市镇。
  他第一次走进教堂就引起了大家的注意,人们认为,他和俏姑娘雷麦黛丝之间开始了无声的、紧张的决斗,签订了秘密条约,出现了致命的竞赛,结局不仅是爱情,而且是死亡。在第六个星期天,这青年绅士拿着一朵黄玫瑰来到教堂里。他照旧站着听弥撒,弥撒结束之后,就去拦住俏姑娘雷麦黛丝,向她献上玫瑰。姑娘仿佛正在等候这个礼品似的,十分自然地接过花儿,片刻间微微撩起面纱,向陌生人嫣然一笑表示感谢。这就是她所做的一切。然而,不仅对他,而且对所有不幸在场的男人,这一瞬间都是永远难忘的。
  自此以后,青年绅士就带了一个乐队来到她的窗下,有时一直演奏到天亮。奥雷连诺第二是布恩蒂亚家中唯一衷心同情他的人,试图让他放弃痴心妄想。”不要白白浪费时间了,”有一天夜里他向年轻的绅士说。“这个家庭的女人比母驴还犟。”他向陌生人表示友好,请他痛饮香槟酒,想要让他明白布恩蒂亚家的女人都是铁石心肠,可是始终未能说服他。奥雷连诺上校被这种没完没了的夜间音乐会搅得十分恼火,就恐吓年轻的绅士,说要用手熗治疗他的痛苦。可是,什么也不能促使他放弃自己的打算,除非到了完全绝望的地步。于是,他从一个衣冠楚楚、温文尔雅的青年变成了一个衣衫破烂、肮里肮脏的人。听说,在他那遥远的国度里,他放弃了权势和财富,虽然实际上谁也不知道他的身世。现在,他喜欢惹事生非、寻衅斗殴、狂喝滥饮,天亮时总在卡塔林诺游艺场里。他的悲剧中最惨痛的是,即使当他打扮得象个王子出现在教堂里的时候,俏姑娘雷麦黛丝实际上也没瞧上他。她接受他的黄玫瑰时毫无一点娇态,只是对他异常的举动感到有趣,而她撩起面纱只是为了看清他的面孔,根本不是为了拿自己的脸蛋儿让他欣赏。
  其实,俏姑娘雷麦黛丝并不是这个世界的人。在她脱离儿童时代之后很久,圣索菲娅·德拉佩德还得给她洗澡、穿衣服;即使在她自己能够料理这些事儿的时候,仍要盯住她,免得她用涂抹了自己的粪便的棍儿在墙上画小动物。到二十岁时,她还没学会读书写字,还不会使用餐具,而且赤身露体在屋子里走来走去——她的天性是反对一切规矩的。年轻的军官——卫队长向她求爱时,她拒绝了他,只是因为她对他的轻率感到奇怪。“瞧这个傻瓜,”她向阿玛兰塔说。“他说他要为我死,难道我患了绞肠痧不成?”发现这军官真的死在她的窗下时,俏姑娘雷麦黛丝证实了自己的第一个印象。
  “你瞧,”她说,“一个十足的傻瓜。”
  仿佛有一种超自然的洞察力使她能够撇开一切表面现象,看见事物的本质。这起码是奥雷连诺上校的认识。在他看来,俏姑娘雷麦黛丝决不是别人所谓的呆子,而是相反的人。“她好象经历过二十年战争,”他喜欢这么说。乌苏娜也感谢上帝赐给她家里一个特别纯洁的人,但曾孙女的姿色却使她焦心,她觉得这种姿色不是优点,而是缺点——是她那天真纯朴中坑人的鬼圈套。因此,乌苏娜希望俏姑娘雷麦黛丝远离人群,不受尘世的诱惑,其实她不知道,俏姑娘雷麦黛丝甚至还在娘肚子里时就有了防御任何“传染病”的能力。乌苏娜不能容忍别人把她的曾孙女选为魔鬼集会——所谓“狂欢节”——美的女王、可是,奥雷连诺第二热望扮一只老虎,就把安东尼奥·伊萨贝尔神父邀到家里,请他向乌苏娜解释,狂欢节并不象她认为的是异教徒的节日,而是天主教尊崇的民间习俗。神父终于说服了她,她才勉强同意了这样的加冕。
  俏姑娘雷麦黛丝将要成为节日女工的消息,几小时就传遍了沼泽地带,传到了还不知道这个姑娘超凡之美的遥远地区,使得那些认为布恩蒂亚家族仍然是叛乱象征的人惴惴不安。他们的不安是没有根据的。如果这时谁可以叫做良民,那就是这个衰老、绝望的奥雷连诺上校,他逐渐失去了跟现实生活的联系。他把自己关在作坊里,跟外界唯一的接触就是出售小金鱼。在停战的最初几天派来监视他家的士兵中,有一个人曾经留在他家中,这个人经常拿着小金鱼到沼泽地带的村镇去卖,然后带着金币和消息回来。他说,保守党政府在自由党支持下,准备修订历书,以便每届总统都能掌权一百年。他还说,政府终于跟教廷签订了条约,罗马派来了一位红衣主教,他的教冠嵌满了钻石,他的宝座是纯金作成的;自由党部长们跪在主教面前,吻着他的宝石戒指拍照;在首都巡回演出的西班牙剧团一名女主角,在化妆室里被一伙戴着面罩的强盗抢走了,第二天——星期日——早晨竟在共和国总统的夏宫里跳裸体别跟我谈政治,”上校回答他。“咱们的事就是卖金鱼。”上校一点也不想知道国内的局势,光是呆在自己的作坊里,靠小金鱼发财。这个消息传到乌苏娜耳里,她却笑了起来。她那很讲实际的头脑,简直无法理解上校的生意有什么意义,因为他把金鱼换成金币,然后又把金币变成金鱼,就这样没完没了,卖得越多,活儿就干得越多,继续保持这种恶性循环。其实,奥雷连诺上校感到兴趣的不是生意,而是工作。把鳞片连接起来,将小红宝石嵌入眼眶,精琢鱼鳃,安装鱼尾,这些事情需要他全神贯注,他就没有一点空闲时间去回想战争以及战争的空虚了。首饰技术的精细程度要求他集中注意力,以致在短时期内,奥雷连诺上校比整个战争年代还衰老得快;由于长时间坐着干活,他的背驼了,由于精雕细琢的工作,他的视力弱了,但他却得到了心灵的宁静。奥雷连诺上校最后一次涉及与战争有关的问题,是自由党和保守党的一群老兵来找他的时候,他们要求他帮助弄到政府许诺的终身养老金,因为此种养老金的批准事宜始终没有进展,”忘掉它吧,”奥雷连诺上校说。“你们看:我就放弃了养老金,免得为了盼它而苦恼到死。”起初,格林列尔多·马克斯上校每天黄昏都来看他,两人坐在当街的门口,闲聊往事。可是,阿玛兰塔却忍受不了这个困倦的人在她心里激起的回忆,他那不断扩大的秃顶已经把他推到早衰的深渊,她毫无道理地蔑视他;后来,除了特殊情况,格林列尔多就不来了,终于完全消失了——瘫痪了。奥雷连诺上校沉默、孤僻,对于家中新的生活气息无动于衷;他逐渐明白,安度晚年的秘诀不是别的,而是跟孤独签订体面的协议。每天,他总是昏迷似的睡了一阵之后,早晨五点起床,照例在厨房里喝一杯黑咖啡,就整天关在作坊里,到了下午四点才拖着一条小凳子走过长廊,既没看看火红的玫瑰花丛,也没注意落日的霞光,更没理睬阿玛兰塔傲慢的样几;她那由于苦闷发出的叹息,在黄昏将临的沉寂中,仿佛锅里的沸水十分清晰的声响,然后,奥雷连诺上校就坐在临街的门口,直到蚊子向他扑来的时候,有一次,一个过路的人大胆地打破了他的孤寂。
  “你在作何贵干呀,上校?”
  “在这儿坐坐,”他回答。“等候我的送葬队伍过去。”
  可见,由于俏姑娘雷麦黛丝的加冕,奥雷连诺的名字虽然重新出现在大家嘴里,但这种情况引起的不安却是没有现实根据的,然而许多人却持另外的看法。马孔多的居民们不知道临头的悲剧,都兴高采烈地糜集在市镇广场上。狂欢节的热劲儿已经达到了高潮,奥雷连诺第二终于如愿地扮成了一只老虎,在乱嘈嘈的人群中行进,吼叫得声音都哑了;这时,从沼泽地伸来的道路上突然出现了一大群化装的人:他们用金光闪闪的轿子抬着一个无比美丽的女人。马孔多的居民们一下子摘掉了自己的面具,竭力想看清这个光耀夺目的女人。她戴着绿宝石王冠,披着貂皮斗篷,仿佛真正拥有合法的权力,而不止是一个用金属片和皱纸假扮的女王,不少的人相当敏锐,怀疑这是一个诡计。然而,奥雷连诺第二立即克服了自己的慌乱:他宣布新来的人为贵宾,并且以所罗门王的智慧把俏姑娘雷麦黛丝和冒充的女王放在同一个台座上。到了半夜,扮成贝都英人(注:阿拉伯游牧民族)的外来者参回了狂欢,甚至用壮观的焰火和杂技表演丰富了游艺节目,他们的表演使得大家想起了早已忘却的吉卜赛人的高超技艺。忽然,在狂欢的高潮中有人打破了脆弱的平衡。
  “自由党万岁,”这人叫道。“奥雷连诺上校万岁!”
  熗弹的闪光遮没了焰火的光彩,恐怖的叫声压倒了音乐,狂欢变成了混乱,多年以后人们还说,那个冒牌女王的卫队其实是一小队正规军,在贝都英人华丽的斗篷里面藏着政府发给的卡宾熗。政府在一道特别通告中否定了这一指责,并且答应对这一流血事件进行彻底的调查。可是真相始终未弄清楚。普遍的说法是,女王的卫队没有受到任何挑衅,就在队长的暗示下展开战斗队形,向人群无情地开火。恢复平静以后,镇上已经没有一个假扮的贝都英人,广场上却躺着死者和伤者:九个小丑、四个哥伦比亚人、十六个纸牌老K、一个魔鬼、三个乐师、两个法国绅士和三个日本皇后(注:这些都是化装的人物)。在一片混乱中,霍·阿卡蒂奥第二设法救出了俏姑娘雷麦黛丝,而奥雷连诺第二却把冒牌女王抱回家中,她的衣服已经撕破,貂皮斗篷沾满了血。她叫菲兰达.德卡皮奥,是从全国五千名最美的女人中选出的头号美女,他们答应宣布她为马达加斯加女王,就送她到马孔多来了。乌苏娜照顾她就象照顾亲生女儿一样。镇上的人不仅没有怀疑她的清白无辜,反而同情她的天真。大屠杀之后过了六个月,当伤者已经康复、公墓上最后的花朵已经枯萎时,奥雷连诺第二就到一个遥远的城市去找菲兰达·德卡皮奥,因为她是跟她父亲住在那儿的。随后,他把她带到了马孔多,举行了整整二十天的热闹婚礼。


执素衣

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Chapter 9
COLONEL GERINELDO M?RQUEZ was the first to perceive the emptiness of the war. In his position as civil and military leader of Macondo he would have telegraphic conversations twice a week with Colonel Aureliano Buendía. At first those exchanges would determine the course of a flesh-and-blood war, the perfectly defined outlines of which told them at any moment the exact spot -where it was and the prediction of its future direction. Although he never let himself be pulled into the area of confidences, not even by his closest friends, Colonel Aureliano Buendía still had at that time the familiar tone that made it possible to identify him at the other end of the wire. Many times he would prolong the talk beyond the expected limit and let them drift into comments of a domestic nature. Little by little, however, and as the war became more intense and widespread, his image was fading away into a universe of unreality. The characteristics of his speech were more and more uncertain, and they cam together and combined to form words that were gradually losing all meaning. Colonel Gerineldo Márquez limited himself then to just listening, burdened by the impression that he was in telegraphic contact with a stranger from another world.
   “I understand, Aureliano,?he would conclude on the key. “Long live the Liberal party!?
   He finally lost all contact with the war. What in other times had been a real activity, an irresistible passion of his youth, became a remote point of reference for him: an emptiness. His only refuge was Amaranta’s sewing room. He would visit her every afternoon. He liked to watch her hands as she curled frothy petticoat cloth in the machine that was kept in motion by Remedios the Beauty. They spent many hours without speaking, content with their reciprocal company, but while Amaranta was inwardly pleased in keeping the fire of his devotion alive, he was unaware of the secret designs of that indecipherable heart. When the news of his return reached her, Amaranta had been smothered by anxiety. But when she saw him enter the house in the middle of Colonel Aureliano Buendía’s noisy escort and she saw how he had been mistreated by the rigors of exile, made old by age and oblivion, dirty with sweat and dust, smelling like a herd, ugly, with his left arm in a sling, she felt faint with disillusionment. “My God,?she thought. “This wasn’t the person I was waiting for.?On the following day, however, he came back to the house shaved and clean, with his mustache perfumed with lavender water and without the bloody sling. He brought her a prayerbook bound in mother-of-pearl.
   “How strange men are,?she said, because she could not think of anything else to say. “They spend their lives fighting against priests and then give prayerbooks as gifts.?
   From that time on, even during the most critical days of the war, he visited her every afternoon. Many times, when Remedios the Beauty was not present, it was he who turned the wheel on the sewing machine. Amaranta felt upset by the perseverance, the loyalty, the submissiveness of that man who was invested with so much authority and who nevertheless took off his sidearm in the living room so that he could go into the sewing room without weapons, But for four years he kept repeating his love and she would always find a way to reject him without hurting him, for even though she had not succeeded in loving him she could no longer live without him. Remedios the Beauty, who seemed indifferent to everything and who was thought to be mentally retarded, was not insensitive to so much devotion and she intervened in Colonel Gerineldo Márquez’s favor. Amaranta suddenly discovered that the girl she had raised, who was just entering adolescence, was already the most beautiful creature that had even been seen in Macondo. She felt reborn in her heart the rancor that she had felt in other days for Rebeca, and begging God not to impel her into the extreme state of wishing her dead, she banished her from the sewing room. It was around that time that Colonel Gerineldo Márquez began to feel the boredom of the war. He summoned his reserves of persuasion, his broad and repressed tenderness, ready to give up for Amaranta a glory that had cost him the sacrifice of his best years. But he could not succeed in convincing her. One August afternoon, overcome by the unbearable weight of her own obstinacy, Amaranta locked herself in her bedroom to weep over her solitude unto death after giving her final answer to her tenacious suitor:
   “Let’s forget about each other forever,?she told him. “We’re too old for this sort of thing now.?
   Colonel Gerineldo Márquez had a telegraphic call from Colonel Aureliano Buendía that afternoon. It was a routine conversation which was not going to bring about any break in the stagnant war. At the end, Colonel Gerineldo Márquez looked at the desolate streets, the crystal water on the almond trees, and he found himself lost in solitude.
   “Aureliano,?he said sadly on the key, “it’s raining in Macondo.?
   There was a long silence on the line. Suddenly the apparatus jumped with the pitiless letters from Colonel Aureliano Buendía.
   “Don’t be a jackass, Gerineldo,?the signals said. “It’s natural for it to be raining in August.?
   They had not seen each other for such a long time that Colonel Gerineldo Márquez was upset by the aggressiveness of the reaction. Two months later, however, when Colonel Aureliano Buendía returned to Macondo, his upset was changed to stupefaction. Even ?rsula was surprised at how much he had changed. He came with no noise, no escort, wrapped in a cloak in spite of the heat, and with three mistresses, whom he installed in the same house, where he spent most of his time lying in a hammock. He scarcely read the telegraphic dispatches that reported routine operations. On one occasion Colonel Gerineldo Márquez asked him for instructions for the evacuation of a spot on the border where there was a danger that the conflict would become an international affair.
   “Don’t bother me with trifles,?he ordered him. “Consult Divine Providence.?
   It was perhaps the most critical moment of the war. The Liberal landowners, who had supported the revolution in the beginning, had made secret alliances with the Conservative landowners in order to stop the revision of property titles. The politicians who supplied funds for the war from exile had Publicly repudiated the drastic aims of Colonel Aureliano Buendía, but even that withdrawal of authorization did not seem to bother him. He had not returned to reading his poetry, which filled more than five volumes and lay forgotten at the bottom of his trunk. At night or at siesta time he would call one of his women to his hammock and obtain a rudimentary satisfaction from her, and then he would sleep like a stone that was not concerned by the slightest indication of worry. Only he knew at that time that his confused heart was condemned to uncertainty forever. At first, intoxicated by the glory of his return, by his remarkable victories, he had peeped into the abyss of greatness. He took pleasure in keeping by his right hand the Duke of Marlborough, his great teacher in the art of war, whose attire of skins and tiger claws aroused the respect of adults and the awe of children. It was then that he decided that no human being, not even ?rsula, could come closer to him than ten feet. In the center of the chalk circle that his aides would draw wherever he stopped, and which only he could enter, he would decide with brief orders that had no appeal the fate of the world. The first time that he was in Manaure after the shooting of General Moncada, he hastened to fulfill his victim’s last wish and the widow took the glasses, the medal, the watch, and the ring, but she would not let him in the door.
   “You can’t come in, colonel,?she told him. “You may be in command of your war, but I’m in command of my house.?
   Colonel Aureliano Buendía did not show any sign of anger, but his spirit only calmed down when his bodyguard had sacked the widow’s house and reduced it to ashes. “Watch out for your heart, Aureliano,?Colonel Gerineldo Márquez would say to him then. “You’re rotting alive.?About that time he called together a second assembly of the principal rebel commanders. He found all types: idealists, ambitious people, adventurers, those with social resentments, even common criminals. There was even a former Conservative functionary who had taken refuge in the revolt to escape a judgment for misappropriation of funds. Many of them did not even know why they were fighting in the midst of that motley crowd, whose differences of values were on the verge of causing an internal explosion, one gloomy authority stood out: General Te6filo Vargas. He was a full-blooded Indian, untamed, illiterate, and endowed with quiet wiles and a messianic vocation that aroused a demented fanaticism in his men. Colonel Aureliano Buendía called the meeting with the aim of unifying the rebel command against the maneuvers of the politicians. General Teófilo Vargas came forward with his intentions: in a few hours he shattered the coalition of better-qualified commanders and took charge of the main command. “He’s a wild beast worth watching,?Colonel Aureliano Buendía told his officers. “That man is more dangerous to us than the Minister of War.?Then a very young captain who had always been outstanding for his timidity raised a cautious index finger.
   “It’s quite simple, colonel,?he proposed. “He has to be killed.?
   Colonel Aureliano Buendía was not alarmed by the coldness of the proposition but by the way in which, by a fraction of a second, it had anticipated his own thoughts.
   “Don’t expect me to give an order like that,?he said.
   He did not give it, as a matter of fact. But two weeks later General Teófilo Vargas was cut to bits by machetes in an ambush and Colonel Aureliano Buendía assumed the main command. The same night that his authority was recognized by all the rebel commands, he woke up in a fright, calling for a blanket. An inner coldness which shattered his bones and tortured him even in the heat of the sun would not let him sleep for several months, until it became a habit. The intoxication of power began to break apart under waves of discomfort. Searching for a cure against the chill, he had the young officer who had proposed the murder of General Teófilo Vargas shot. His orders were being carried out even before they were given, even before he thought of them, and they always went much beyond what he would have dared have them do. Lost in the solitude of his immense power, he began to lose direction. He was bothered by the people who cheered him in neighboring villages, and he imagined that they were the same cheers they gave the enemy. Everywhere he met adolescents who looked at him with his own eyes, who spoke to him with his own voice, who greeted him with the same mistrust with which he greeted them, and who said they were his sons. He felt scattered about, multiplied, and more solitary than ever. He was convinced that his own officers were lying to him. He fought with the Duke of Marlborough. “The best friend a person has,?he would say at that time, “is one who has just died.?He was weary of the uncertainty, of the vicious circle of that eternal war that always found him in the same place, but always older, wearier, even more in the position of not knowing why, or how, or even when. There was always someone outside of the chalk circle. Someone who needed money, someone who had a son with whooping cough, or someone who wanted to go off and sleep forever because he could not stand the shit taste of the war in his mouth and who, nevertheless, stood at attention to inform him: “Everything normal, colonel.?And normality was precisely the most fearful part of that infinite war: nothing ever happened. Alone, abandoned by his premonitions, fleeing the chill that was to accompany him until death, he sought a last refuge in Macondo in the warmth of his oldest memories. His indolence was so serious that when they announced the arrival of a commission from his party that was authorized to discuss the stalemate of the war, he rolled over in his hammock without completely waking up.
   “Take them to the whores,?he said.
   They were six lawyers in frock coats and top hats who endured the violent November sun with stiff stoicism. ?rsula put them up in her house. They spent the greater part of the day closeted in the bedroom in hermetic conferences and at dusk they asked for an escort and some accordion players and took over Catarino’s store. “Leave them alone,?Colonel Aureliano Buendía ordered. “After all, I know what they want.?At the beginning of December the long-awaited interview, which many had foreseen as an interminable argument, was resolved in less than an hour.
   In the hot parlor, beside the specter of the pianola shrouded in a white sheet, Colonel Aureliano Buendía did not sit down that time inside the chalk circle that his aides had drawn. He sat in a chair between his political advisers and, wrapped in his woolen blanket, he listened in silence to the brief proposals of the emissaries. They asked first that he renounce the revision of property titles in order to get back the support of the Liberal landowners. They asked, secondly, that he renounce the fight against clerical influence in order to obtain the support of the Catholic masses. They asked, finally, that he renounce the aim of equal rights for natural and illegitimate children in order to preserve the integrity of the home.
   “That means,?Colonel Aureliano Buendía said, smiling when the reading was over, “that all we’re fighting for is power.?
   “They’re tactical changes,?one of the delegates replied. “Right now the main thing is to broaden the popular base of the war. Then we’ll have another look.?
   One of Colonel Aureliano Buendía’s political advisers hastened to intervene.
   “It’s a contradiction?he said. “If these changes are good, it means that the Conservative regime is good. If we succeed in broadening the popular base of the war with them, as you people say, it means that the regime his a broad popular base. It means, in short, that for almost twenty years we’ve been fighting against the sentiments of the nation.?
   He was going to go on, but Colonel Aureliano Buendía stopped him with a signal. “Don’t waste your time, doctor.?he said. “The important thing is that from now on we’ll be fighting only for power.?Still smiling, he took the documents the delegates gave him and made ready to sign them.
   “Since that’s the way it is,?he concluded, “we have no objection to accepting.?
   His men looked at one another in consternation. “Excuse me, colonel,?Colonel Gerineldo Márquez said softly, “but this is a betrayal.?
   Colonel Aureliano Buendía held the inked pen in the air and discharged the whole weight of his authority on him.
   “Surrender your weapons,?he ordered.
   Colonel Gerineldo Márquez stood up and put his sidearms on the table.
   “Report to the barracks,?Colonel Aureliano Buendía ordered him. “Put yourself at the disposition of the revolutionary court.?
   Then he signed the declaration and gave the sheets of paper to the emissaries, saying to them:
   “Here an your papers, gentlemen. I hope you can get some advantage out of them.?
   Two days later, Colonel Gerineldo Márquez, accused of high treason, was condemned to death. Lying in his hammock, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was insensible to the pleas for clemency. On the eve of the execution, disobeying the order not to bother him, ?rsula visited him in his bedroom. Encased in black, invested with a rare solemnity, she stood during the three minutes of the interview. “I know that you’re going to shoot Gerineldo,?she said calmly, “and that I can’t do anything to stop it. But I give you one warning: as soon as I see his body I swear to you by the bones of my father and mother, by the memory of Jos?Arcadio Buendía, I swear to you before God that I will drag you out from wherever you’re hiding and kill you with my own two hands.?Before leaving the room, without waiting for any reply, she concluded:
   “It’s the same as if you’d been born with the tail of a pig.?
   During that interminable night while Colonel Gerineldo Márquez thought about his dead afternoons in Amaranta’s sewing room, Colonel Aureliano Buendía scratched for many hours trying to break the hard shell of his solitude. His only happy moments, since that remote afternoon when his father had taken him to see ice, had taken place in his silver workshop where he passed the time putting little gold fishes together. He had had to start thirty-two wars and had had to violate all of his pacts with death and wallow like a hog in the dungheap of glory in order to discover the privileges of simplicity almost forty years late.
   At dawn, worn out by the tormented vigil, he appeared in the cell an hour before the execution. “The farce is over, old friend,?he said to Colonel Gerineldo Márquez. “Let’s get out of here before the mosquitoes in here execute you.?Colonel Gerineldo Márquez could not repress the disdain that was inspired in him by that attitude.
   “No, Aureliano,?he replied. “I’d rather be dead than see you changed into a bloody tyrant.?
   “You won’t see me,?Colonel Aureliano Buendía said. “Put on your shoes and help me get this shitty war over with.?
   When he said it he did not know that it was easier to start a war than to end one. It took him almost a year of fierce and bloody effort to force the government to propose conditions of peace favorable to the rebels and another year to convince his own partisans of the convenience of accepting them. He went to inconceivable extremes of cruelty to put down the rebellion of his own officers, who resisted and called for victory, and he finally relied on enemy forces to make them submit.
   He was never a greater soldier than at that time. The certainty that he was finally fighting for his own liberation and not for abstract ideals, for slogans that politicians could twist left and right according to the circumstances, filled him with an ardent enthusiasm. Colonel Gerineldo Márquez, who fought for defeat with as much conviction and loyalty as he had previously fought for victory, reproached him for his useless temerity. “Don’t worry,?he would say, smiling. “Dying is much more difficult than one imagines.?In his case it was true. The certainty that his day was assigned gave him a mysterious immunity, an immortality or a fixed period that made him invulnerable to the risks of war and in the end permitted him to win a defeat that was much more difficult, much more bloody and costly than victory.
   In almost twenty years of war, Colonel Aureliano Buendía had been at his house many times, but the state of urgency with which he always arrived, the military retinue that accompanied him everywhere, the aura of legend that glowed about his presence and of which even ?rsula was aware, changed him into a stranger in the end. The last time that he was in Macondo and took a house for his three concubines, he was seen in his own house only on two or three occasions when he had the time to accept an invitation to dine. Remedios the Beauty and the twins, born during the middle of the war, scarcely knew him. Amaranta could not reconcile her image of the brother who had spent his adolescence making little gold fishes with that of the mythical warrior who had placed a distance of ten feet between himself and the rest of humanity. But when the approach of the armistice became known and they thought that he would return changed back into a human being, delivered at last for the hearts of his own people, the family feelings, dormant for such a long time, were reborn stronger than ever.
   “We’ll finally have a man in the house again,??rsula said.
   Amaranta was the first to suspect that they had lost him forever. One week before the armistice, when he entered the house without an escort, preceded by two barefoot orderlies who deposited on the porch the saddle from the mule and the trunk of poetry, all that was left of his former imperial baggage, she saw him pass by the sewing room and she called to him. Colonel Aureliano Buendía had trouble recognizing her.
   “It’s Amaranta,?she said good-humoredly, happy at his return, and she showed him the hand with the black bandage. “Look.?
   Colonel Aureliano Buendía smiled at her the same way as when he had first seen her with the bandage on that remote morning when he had come back to Macondo condemned to death.
   “How awful,?he said, “the way time passes!?
   The regular army had to protect the house. He arrived amid insults, spat upon, accused of having accelerated the war in order to sell it for a better price. He was trembling with fever and cold and his armpits were studded with sores again. Six months before, when she had heard talk about the armistice, ?rsula had opened up and swept out the bridal chamber and had burned myrrh in the corners, thinking that he would come back ready to grow old slowly among Remedios?musty dolls. But actually, during the last two years he had paid his final dues to life, including growing old. When he passed by the silver shop, which ?rsula had prepared with special diligence, he did not even notice that the keys were in the lock. He did not notice the minute, tearing destruction that time had wreaked on the house and that, after such a prolonged absence, would have looked like a disaster to any man who had kept his memories alive. He was not pained by the peeling of the whitewash on the walls or the dirty, cottony cobwebs in the corners or the dust on the begonias or the veins left on the beams by the termites or the moss on the hinges or any of the insidious traps that nostalgia offered him. He sat down on the porch, wrapped in his blanket and with his boots still on, as if only waiting for it to clear, and he spent the whole afternoon watching it rain on the begonias. ?rsula understood then that they would not have him home for long. “If it’s not the war,?she thought, “it can only be death.?It was a supposition that was so neat, so convincing that she identified it as a premonition.
   That night, at dinner, the supposed Aureliano Segundo broke his bread with his right hand and drank his soup with his left. His twin brother, the supposed Jos?Arcadio Segundo, broke his bread with his left hand and drank his soup with his right. So precise was their coordination that they did not look like two brothers sitting opposite each other but like a trick with mirrors. The spectacle that the twins had invented when they became aware that they were equal was repeated in honor of the new arrival. But Colonel Aureliano Buendía did not notice it. He seemed so alien to everything that he did not even notice Remedios the Beauty as she passed by naked on her way to her bedroom. ?rsula was the only one who dared disturb his, abstraction.
   “If you have to go away again,?she said halfway through dinner, “at least try to remember how we were tonight.?
   Then Colonel Aureliano Buendía realized, without surprise, that ?rsula was the only human being who had succeeded in penetrating his misery, and for the first time in many years he looked her in the face. Her skin was leathery, her teeth decayed, her hair faded and colorless, and her look frightened. He compared her with the oldest memory that he had of her, the afternoon when he had the premonition that a pot of boiling soup was going to fall off the table, and he found her broken to pieces. In an instant he discovered the scratches, the welts, the sores, the ulcers, and the scan that had been left on her by more than half a century of daily life, and he saw that those damages did not even arouse a feeling of pity in him. Then he made one last effort to search in his heart for the place where his affection had rotted away and he could not find it. On another occasion, he felt at least a confused sense of shame when he found the smell of ?rsula on his own skin, and more than once he felt her thoughts interfering with his. But all of that had been wiped out by the war. Even Remedios, his wife, at that moment was a hazy image of someone who might have been his daughter. The countless women he had known on the desert of love and who had spread his seed all along the coast had left no trace in his feelings. Most of them had come into his room in the dark and had left before dawn, and on the following day they were nothing but a touch of fatigue in his bodily memory. The only affection that prevailed against time and the war was that which he had felt for his brother Jos?Arcadio when they both were children, and it was not based on love but on complicity.
   “I’m sorry,?he excused himself from ?rsula’s request. “It’s just that the war has done away with everything.?
   During the following days he busied himself destroying all trace of his passage through the world. He stripped the silver shop until all that were left were impersonal objects, he gave his clothes away to the orderlies, and he buried his weapons in the courtyard with the same feeling of penance with which his father had buried the spear that had killed Prudencio Aguilar. He kept only one pistol with one bullet in it. ?rsula did not intervene. The only time she dissuaded him was when he was about to destroy the daguerreotype of Remedios that was kept in the parlor lighted by an eternal lamp. “That picture stopped belonging to you a long time ago,?she told him. “It’s a family relic.?On the eve of the armistice, when no single object that would let him be remembered was left in the house, he took the trunk of poetry to the bakery when Santa Sofía de la Piedad was making ready to light the oven.
   “Light it with this,?he told her, handing her the first roll of yellowish papers. “It will, burn better because they’re very old things.?
   Santa Sofía de la Piedad, the silent one, the condescending one, the one who never contradicted anyone, not even her own children, had the impression that it was a forbidden act.
   “They’re important papers,?she said.
   “Nothing of the sort,?the colonel said. “They’re things that a person writes to himself.?
   “In that case,?she said, “you burn them, colonel.?
   He not only did that, but he broke up the trunk with a hatchet and threw the pieces into the fire. Hours before, Pilar Ternera had come to visit him. After so many years of not seeing her, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was startled at how old and fat she had become and how much she had lost of the splendor of her laugh, but he was also startled at the depths she had reached in her reading of the cards. “Watch out for your mouth,?she told him, and he wondered whether the other time she had told him that during the height of his glory it had not been a surprisingly anticipated vision of his fate. A short time later, when his personal physician finished removing his sores, he asked him, without showing any particular interest, where the exact location of his heart was. The doctor listened with his stethoscope and then painted a circle on his cheat with a piece of cotton dipped in iodine.
   The Tuesday of the armistice dawned warm and rainy. Colonel Aureliano Buendía appeared in the kitchen before five o’clock and had his usual black coffee without sugar. “You came into the world on a day like this,??rsula told him. “Everybody was amazed at your open eyes.?He did not pay any attention because he was listening to the forming of the troops, the sound of the comets, and the voices of command that were shattering the dawn. Even though after so many years of war they should have sounded familiar to him this time he felt the same weakness in his knees and the same tingling in his skin that he had felt in his youth in the presence of a naked woman. He thought confusedly, finally captive in a trap of nostalgia, that perhaps if he had married her he would have been a man without war and without glory, a nameless artisan, a happy animal. That tardy shudder which had not figured in his forethought made his breakfast bitter. At seven in the morning, when Colonel Gerineldo Márquez came to fetch him, in the company of a group of rebel officers, he found him more taciturn than ever, more pensive and solitary. ?rsula tried to throw a new wrap over his shoulders. “What will the government think,?she told him. “They’ll figure that you’ve surrendered because you didn’t have anything left to buy a cloak with.?But he would not accept it. When he was at the door, he let her put an old felt hat of Jos?Arcadio Buendía’s on his head.
   “Aureliano,??rsula said to him then, “Promise me that if you find that it’s a bad hour for you there that you’ll think of your mother.?
   He gave her a distant smile, raising his hand with all his fingers extended, and without saying a word he left the house and faced the shouts, insults, and blasphemies that would follow him until he left the town. ?rsula put the bar on the door, having decided not to take it down for the rest of her life. “We’ll rot in here,?she thought. “We’ll turn to ashes in this house without men, but we won’t give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing us weep.?She spent the whole morning looking for a memory of her son in the most hidden corners, but she could find none.
   The ceremony took place fifteen miles from Macondo in the shade of a gigantic ceiba tree around which the town of Neerlandia would be founded later. The delegates from the government and the party and the commission of the rebels who were laying down their arms were served by a noisy group of novices in white habits who looked like a flock of doves that had been frightened by the rain. Colonel Aureliano Buendía arrived on a muddy mule. He had not shaved, more tormented by the pain of the sores than by the great failure of his dreams, for he had reached the end of all hope, beyond  glory and the nostalgia of glory. In accordance with his arrangements there was no music, no fireworks, no pealing bells, no shouts of victory, or any other manifestation that might alter the mournful character of the armistice. An itinerant photographer who took the only picture of him that could have been preserved was forced to smash his plates without developing them.
   The ceremony lasted only the time necessary to sign the documents. Around the rustic table placed in the center of a patched circus tent where the delegates sat were the last officers who were faithful to Colonel Aureliano Buendía. Before taking the signatures, the personal delegate of the president of the republic tried to read the act of surrender aloud, but Colonel Aureliano Buendía was against it. “Let’s not waste time on formalities,?he said and prepared to sign the papers without reading them. One of his officers then broke the soporific silence of the tent.
   “Colonel,?he said, “please do us the favor of not being the first to sign.?
   Colonel Aureliano Buendía acceded. When the documents went all around the table, in the midst of a silence that was so pure that one could have deciphered the signatures from the scratching of the pen on the paper, the first line was still blank. Colonel Aureliano Buendía prepared to fill it.
   “Colonel,?another of his officers said, “there’s still time for everything to come out right.?
   Without changing his expression, Colonel Aureliano Buendía signed the first copy. He had not finished signing the last one when a rebel colonel appeared in the doorway leading a mule carrying two chests. In spite of his entire youth he had a dry look and a patient expression. He was the treasurer of the revolution in the Macondo region. He had made a difficult journey of six days, pulling along the mule, who was dying of hunger, in order to arrive at the armistice on time. With an exasperating parsimony he took down the chests, opened them, and placed on the table, one by one, seventy-two gold bricks, Everyone had forgotten about the existence of that fortune. In the disorder of the past year, when the central command fell apart and the revolution degenerated into a bloody rivalry of leaders, it was impossible to determine any responsibility. The gold of the revolution, melted into blocks that were then covered with baked clay, was beyond all control. Colonel Aureliano Buendía had the seventy-two gold bricks included in the inventory of surrender and closed the ceremony without allowing any speeches. The filthy adolescent stood opposite him, looking into his eyes with his own calm, syrup-colored eyes.
   “Something else??Colonel Aureliano Buendía asked him.
   The young colonel tightened his mouth.
   “The receipt,?he said.
   Colonel Aureliano Buendía wrote it out in his own hand. Then he had a glass of lemonade and a piece of biscuit that the novices were passing around and retired to a field tent which had been prepared for him in case he wished to rest. There he took off his shirt, sat on the edge of the cot, and at three-fifteen in the afternoon took his pistol and shot himself in the iodine circle that his personal physician had painted on his chest. At that moment in Macondo ?rsula took the cover off the pot of milk on the stove, wondering why it was taking so long to boil, and found it full of worms.
   “They’ve killed Aureliano,?she exclaimed.
   She looked toward the courtyard, obeying a habit of her solitude, and then she saw Jos?Arcadio Buendía, soaking wet and sad in the rain and much older than when he had died. “They shot him in the back,??rsula said more precisely, “and no one was charitable enough to close his eyes.?At dusk through her tears she saw the swift and luminous disks that crossed the sky like an exhalation and she thought that it was a signal of death. She was still under the chestnut tree, sobbing at her husband’s knees, when they brought in Colonel Aureliano Buendía, wrapped in a blanket that was stiff with dry blood and with his eyes open in rage.
   He was out of danger. The bullet had followed such a neat path that the doctor was able to put a cord soaked in iodine in through the chest and withdraw it from the back. “That was my masterpiece,?he said with satisfaction. “It was the only point where a bullet could pass through without harming any vital organ.?Colonel Aureliano Buendía saw himself surrounded by charitable novices who intoned desperate psalms for the repose of his soul and then he was sorry that he had not shot himself in the roof of the mouth as he had considered doing if only to mock the prediction of Pilar Ternera.
   “If I still had the authority,?he told the doctor, “I’d have you shot out of hand. Not for having saved my life but for having made a fool of me.?
   The failure of his death brought back his lost prestige in a few hours. The same people who invented the story that he had sold the war for a room with walls made of gold bricks defined the attempt at suicide as an act of honor and proclaimed him a martyr. Then, when he rejected the Order of Merit awarded him by the president of the republic, even his most bitter enemies filed through the room asking him to withdraw recognition of the armistice and to start a new war. The house was filled with gifts meant as amends. Impressed finally by the massive support of his former comrades in arms, Colonel Aureliano Buendía did not put aside the possibility of pleasing them. On the contrary, at a certain moment he seemed so enthusiastic with the idea of a new war that Colonel Gerineldo Márquez thought that he was only waiting for a pretext to proclaim it. The pretext was offered, in fact, when the president of the republic refused to award any military pensions to former combatants, Liberal or Conservative, until each case was examined by a special commission and the award approved by the congress. “That’s an outrage,?thundered Colonel Aureliano Buendía. “They’ll die of old age waiting for the mail to come.?For the first time he left the rocker that ?rsula had bought for his convalescence, and, walking about the bedroom, he dictated a strong message to the president of the republic. In that telegram which was never made public, he denounced the first violation of the Treaty of Neerlandia and threatened to proclaim war to the death if the assignment of pensions was not resolved within two weeks. His attitude was so just that it allowed him to hope even for the support of former Conservative combatants. But the only reply from the government was the reinforcement of the military guard that had been placed at the door of his house with the pretext of protecting him, and the prohibition of all types of visits, Similar methods were adopted all through the country with other leaders who bore watching. It was an operation that was so timely, drastic, and effective that two months after the armistice, when Colonel Aureliano Buendía had recovered, his most dedicated conspirators were dead or exiled or had been assimilated forever into public administration.
   Colonel Aureliano Buendía left his room in December and it was sufficient for him to look at the porch in order not to think about war again. With a vitality that seemed impossible at her age, ?rsula had rejuvenated the house again. “Now they’re going to see who I am,?she said when she saw that her son was going to live. “There won’t be a better, more open house in all the world than this madhouse.?She had it washed and painted, changed the furniture, restored the garden and planted new flowers, and opened doors and windows so that the dazzling light of summer would penetrate even into the bedrooms. She decreed an end to the numerous superimposed periods of mourning and she herself exchanged her rigorous old gowns for youthful clothing. The music of the pianola again made the house merry. When she heard it, Amaranta thought of Pietro Crespi, his evening gardenia, and his smell of lavender, and in the depths of her withered heart a clean rancor flourished, purified by time. One afternoon when she was trying to put the parlor in order, ?rsula asked for the help of the soldiers who were guarding the house. The young commander of the guard gave them permission. Little by little, ?rsula began assigning them new chores. She invited them to eat, gave them clothing and shoes, and taught them how to read and write. When the government withdrew the guard, one of them continued living in the house and was in her service for many years. On New Year’s Day, driven mad by rebuffs from Remedios the Beauty, the young commander of the guard was found dead under her window.



第九章

  格林列尔多.马克斯上校第一个感到战争的空虚。作为马孔多的军政长官,他跟奥雷连诺上校在电话上每周联系两次。起初,他们在交谈中还能断定战争的进展情况,根据战争的轮廓,能够明了战争处在什么阶段,预先见到战争会往什么方向发展。尽管奥雷连诺上校在最亲密的朋友面前也不吐露胸怀,然而当时他的口吻还是亲切随和的,在线路另一头马上就能听出是他。他经常毫无必要地延长谈话,扯一些家庭琐享。但是,由于战争日益激烈和扩大,他的形象就越来越暗淡和虚幻了。每一次,他说起话来总是越来越含糊,他那断断续续的字眼儿连接在一起几乎没有任何意义。面对这样的情况,格林列尔多·马克斯上校只能难受地倾听,觉得自己是在电话上跟另一个世界的陌生人说话。
  “全明白啦,奥雷连诺,”他按了按电键,结束谈话。“自由党万岁!”
  最后,格林列尔多·马克斯上校完全脱离了战争。从前,战争是他青年时代理想的行动和难以遏制的嗜好,现在却变成了一种遥远的、陌生的东西——空虚。他逃避现实的唯一处所是阿玛兰塔的缝纫室。他每天下午都去那儿。悄姑娘雷麦黛丝转动缝纫机把手的时候,他喜欢欣赏阿玛兰塔如何给雪白的衬裙布打褶子。女主人和客人满足于彼此作伴,默不吭声地度过许多个小时,阿玛兰塔心里高兴的是他那忠贞的火焰没有熄灭。但他却仍不明白她那难以理解的心究竟有什么秘密打算。知道格林列尔多.马克斯上校回到马孔多之后,阿玛兰塔几乎激动死了。然而,当他左手吊着挎带走进来的时候(他只是奥雷连诺上校许多闹嘈嘈的随从人员中间的一个),阿玛兰塔看见离乡背井的艰苦生活把他折磨得多么厉害,荏苒的光阴使他变得多么苍老,看见他肮里肮脏、满脸是汗、浑身尘土、发出马厩气味,看见他样子丑陋,她失望得差点儿昏厥过去。“我的上帝,”她想。“这可不是我等候的那个人呀!”然而,他第二天来的时候,刮了脸,浑身整洁,没有血迹斑斑的绷带,胡子里还发出花露水的味儿。他送给阿玛兰塔一本用珠母钉装钉起来的祈祷书。
  “你真是个怪人,”她说,因为她想不出别的话来。“一辈子反对教士,却拿祈祷书送人。”
  从这时起,即使在战争的危急关头,他每天下午都来看她。有许多次,俏姑娘雷麦黛丝不在的时候,转动缝纫机把手的就是他。他的坚贞不渝和恭顺态度使她受到感动,因为这个拥有大权的人竟在她的面前俯首帖耳,甚至还把自己的军刀和手熗留在客厅里,空手走进她的房间。然而,在这四年中,每当格林列尔多·马克斯上校向她表白爱情时,她总是想法拒绝他,尽管她也没有伤他的面子,因为,她虽还没爱上他,但她没有他已经过不了日子。俏姑娘雷麦黛丝对格林列尔多·马克斯的坚贞颇为感动,突然为他辩护,而以前她对周围的一切完全是无动丁衷的——许多人甚至认为她脑了迟钝。阿玛兰塔忽然发现,她养大的姑娘刚刚进入青春期,却已成了马孔多从未见过的美女。阿玛兰塔觉得自己心里产生了从前对雷贝卡的那种怨恨。她希望这种怨恨不要让她走向极端,而把俏姑娘,雷麦黛丝弄死。接着,她就把这姑娘赶出了自己的房间。正好这个时候,格林列尔多·马克斯上校开始厌恶战争。他准备为阿玛兰塔牺牲自己的荣誉(这种荣誉使他耗去了一生中最好的年华),说尽了好话,表露了长期压抑的无限温情。但他未能说服阿玛兰塔。八月里的一天下午,阿玛兰塔由于自己的顽固而感到十分痛苦,把自己关在卧室里,打算至死都孤身过活了,因为她刚才给坚定的术婚者作了最后的回答。
  “咱们彼此永远忘记吧,”她说,“现在干这种事儿,咱们都太老啦。”
  就在这天下午,奥雷连诺上校叫他去听电话。这是一次通常的交谈,对于停滞不前的战争毫无一点作用。一切都已说完以后,格林列尔多·马克斯上校朝荒凉的街道扫了一眼,看见杏树枝上悬着的水珠,他就感到自己孤独得要死。
  “奥雷连诺,”他在电话上悲切地说,“马孔多正在下雨呵。”
  线路上沉寂了很久。然后,电话机里突然发出奥雷连诺上校生硬的话语。
  “别大惊小怪,格林列尔多,”对方说,“八月间下雨是正常的。”
  很久没有看见朋友的格林列尔多·马克斯上校,对异常生硬的回答感到不安。可是过了两个月,奥雷连诺上校回到马孔多的时候,这种模糊的不安变成了惊异,几乎变成了恐惧。对于儿子的变化,乌苏娜也觉得吃惊。他是不声不响回来的,没有侍从,尽管天气很热,还用斗篷裹着身子;随同他来的是三个情妇,他让她们一块儿住在一间屋子里,大部分时间他都躺在一个吊床上。他难得抽出时间来看战情电报和报告。有一次,格林列尔多.马克斯上校前来向他请示一个边境城镇的撤退问题,因为起义部队继续留在那里可能引起国际纠纷。
  “别拿鸡毛蒜皮的事来打扰我啦,”奥雷连诺上校回答他。“你去请教上帝吧。”
  这大概是战争的紧要关头。最初支持革命的自由派地主,为了阻挠土地所有权的重新审查,跟保守派地主签订了秘密协议。在国外为战争提供经费的那些政客,公开谴责奥雷连诺上校采取的激烈措施,然而这种作法似乎也没有使他担心。他再也不读自己的诗了,这些诗约有五卷,现在放在箱子底儿给忘记了。夜晚或者午休时,他都把一个情妇叫到他的吊床上来,从她身上得到一点儿快乐,然后就睡得象石头一样,没有一点忧虑的迹象。那时只有他一个人知道,他心烦意乱,永远失去了信心。最初,他陶醉于凯旋回国和辉煌的胜利,俯临“伟大”的深渊。他喜欢坐在马博罗①公爵的肖像右方——这是他在战争艺术上的伟大导师,此人的虎皮衣服曾引起成年人的赞赏和孩子们的惊讶。正是那时,他决定不让任何人(甚至乌苏娜)接近他三米远。不管他到了哪儿,他的副官都用粉笔在地上画一个圆圈,他站在圆圈中心(只有他一个人可以站进圆圈),用简短而果断的命令决定世界的命运。熗决蒙卡达将军之后,他刚一到达马诺尔,就赶忙去满足受害者的最后愿望。寡妇收下了眼镜、手表、戒指和女神像,可是不许他跨进门槛。
  “你不能进来,上校,”她说。“你可以指挥你的战争,可是我的家是由我指挥的。”
  ①马博罗(1650一1722),英国将军,1704年在德国西南多瑙河畔的布伦亨村击溃法国军队。
  奥雷连诺上校丝毫没有表示自己的恼怒,但在他的随身卫队抢劫和烧毁了寡妇的房子之后,他的心才平静下来。“提防你的心吧,奥雷连诺,”格林列尔多·马克斯当时警告他。“你在活活地烂掉。”大约这个时候,奥雷连诺上校召开了第二次起义部队指挥官会议。到场的有各式各样的人:空想家、野心家、冒险家、社会渣滓、甚至一般罪犯。其中有一个保守党官员是由于逃避盗用公款的惩罚才参加革命的。许多人根本就不知道他们为什么战斗,在这群形形色色的人中间,不同的信念将会引起内部爆炸,但最惹人注目的却是一个阴沉沉的权势人物——泰菲罗.瓦加斯将军。这是一个纯血统的印第安人,粗野、无知,具有诡谲伎俩和预见才能,善于把他的部下变成极端的宗教狂。奥雷连诺上校打算在会议上把起义部队的指挥统一起来,反对政客们的鬼把戏。可是泰菲罗·瓦加斯将军破坏了他的计划:在几小时内,就瓦解了优秀指挥官的联合,攫取了总指挥权。。这是一头值得注意的野兽,”奥雷连诺上校向自己的军官们说。“对咱们来说,这样的人比政府的陆军部长还危险。”于是,平常以胆怯著称的一个上尉小心地举起了食指。
  “这很简单,上校,”他说。”应当把他杀死。”
  刹那间,这个建议超过了他自己的想法,他感到不安的倒不是这个建议多么残忍,而是实现这个建议的方式。
  “别指望我会发出这样的命令,”他回答。
  他确实没有发出这样的命令。然而两个星期之后,泰菲罗将军中了埋伏,被大砍刀剁成内酱,于是奥雷连诺上校担任了总指挥。就在那天夜里,他的权力得到起义部队所有的指挥官承认以后,他突然惊恐地醒来,大叫大嚷地要人给他一条毛毯。身体内部彻骨的寒冷,在灼热的太阳下也折磨着他,在许多肩里都使他睡不着觉,终于变成一种病症,他原来醉心于权力,现在一阵一阵地对自己感到很不满意了。为了治好寒热病,他下令熗毙劝他杀死泰菲罗·瓦加斯将军的年轻军官。但他还没发出命令,甚至还没想到这种命令,他的部下就那么干了,他们经常超过他自己敢于达到的界线。他虽有无限的权力,可是陷入孤独,开始迷失方向。现在,在他占领的城镇里,群众的欢呼也惹他生气,他觉得这些人也是这样欢迎他的敌人的。在每一个地方,他都遇见一些年轻人,他们用他那样的眼睛看他。用他那样的腔调跟他说话,对他采取他对他们的那种怀疑态度,而且把自己叫做他的儿子。他觉得奇怪——他仿佛变成了许多人,但是更加孤独了。他怀疑自己的军官都在骗他,他对马博罗公爵也冷淡了。“最好的朋友是已经死了的,”当时他喜欢这么说。由于经常多疑,由于连年战争的恶性循环,他已困乏不堪;他绕来绕去,实际上是原地踏步,但却越来越衰老,越来越精疲力尽,越来越不明白:为什么?怎么办?到何时为止?在粉笔划的圆圈外面,经常都站着什么人:有的缺钱;有的儿子患了百日咳;有的希望长眠,因为对肮脏的战争已经感到厌恶;但是有的却鼓起余力,采取“立正,,姿势,报告说:“一切正常,上校。”然而,在绵延不断的战争中,“正常”恰恰是最可怕的:表示毫无进展。奥雷连诺上校陷入孤独,不再产生什么预感,为了摆脱寒热病(这种病一直陪他到死).他打算在马孔多找到最后的栖身之所,在住事的回忆中得到温暖。他的消极情绪是那么严重,有人报告他自由党代表团前来跟他讨论最重要的政治问题时.他只是在吊床上翻了个身,甚至没让自己睁开眼睛。
  “带他们去找妓女吧,”他嘟哝着说。
  代表团成员是六个穿着礼服,戴着高筒帽的律师,以罕见的斯多葛精神忍受了+一月里灼热的太阳。乌苏娜让他们住在她家里。白天的大部分时间,他们都呆在卧室内秘密商量,晚上则要求给他们一个卫队和一个手风琴合奏队,并且包下了整个卡塔林诺游艺场。“别打搅他们,”奥雷连诺上校命令说。“我清楚地知道他们需要什么。”十二月初举行的期待已久的谈判用了不到一个小时,虽然许多人都以为这次谈判会变成没完没了的争论。
  在闷热的客厅里,幽灵似的自动钢琴是用裹尸布一样的白罩单遮住的,奥雷连诺上校的副官们在钢琴旁边用粉笔划了个圈子;可是上校这一次没有走进圈子。他坐在他那些政治顾问之间的椅子上,用毛毯裹着身子,默不作声地倾听代表团简短的建议。他们要求他:第一,不再重新审核土地所有权,以便恢复自由派地主对自由党的支持;第二,不再反对教会势力,以便取得信徒们的支持,第三,不再要求婚生子女和非婚生子女的平等权利,以便维护家庭的圣洁和牢固关系。
  “这就是说,”在建议念完之后,奥雷连诺上校微笑着说,“咱们战斗只是为了权力罗。”
  “从策略上考虑,我们对自己的纲领作了这些修改,”其中一个代表回答。“目前最主要的是扩大我们的群众基础,其他的到时候再说。”
  奥雷连诺上校的一位政治顾问连忙插活。
  “这是跟健全的理性相矛盾的,”他说。“如果你们的修改是好的,那就应当承认保守制度是好的。如果我们凭借你们的修改能够扩大你们所谓的群众基础,那就应当承认保守制度拥有广泛的群众基础。结果我们就得承认,将近二十年来我们是在反对民族利益。”
  他打算继续说下去,可是奥雷连诺上校用字势阻止了他。“别浪费时间了,教授,”他说。“最主要的是,从现在起,我们战斗就只是为了权力啦。”他仍然面带微笑,拿起代表团给他的文件,准备签字。
  “既然如此,”他最后说,“我们就无异议了。”
  他的军官们极度惊愕,面面相觑。
  “原谅我,上校,”格林列尔多·马克斯上校柔和地说。”这是背叛。”
  奥雷连诺上校把蘸了墨水的笔拿在空中,在这个大胆的人身上使出了自己的威风。
  “把你的武器交给我,”他下了命令。
  格林列尔多·马克斯上校站起身来,把武器放在桌上。
  “到兵营去吧,”奥雷连诺上校命令他。“让军事法庭来处置你。”
  然后,他在声明上签了字,把它交还代表团,说:
  “先生们,这是你们的纸儿。我希望你们能够从中捞到一些好处。”
  过了两天,格林列尔多·马克斯上校被控叛国,判处死刑。重新躺上吊床的奥雷连诺上校,根本就不理睬赦免的要求。他命令不让任何人打扰他。行刑的前一天,乌苏娜不顾他的命令,跨进他的卧室。她穿着黑衣服,显得异常庄严,在三分钟的会见中始终没有坐下。“我知道你要熗毙格林列尔多,”她平静地说,”我没有法子阻止你。可我要给你一个警告:只要我看见他的尸体,我就要凭我父母的骸骨发誓,凭霍·阿·布恩蒂亚死后的名声发誓,对天发誓:不管你藏在哪儿,我都要拖你出来,亲手把你打死。”在离开房间之前,她不等口答就下了断语:“你那么干,就象是长了一条猪尾巴出世的。”
  在漫长的黑夜里,正当格林列尔多·马克斯上校想起自己在阿玛兰塔房间里度过的那些黄昏时,奥雷连诺上校却挣扎了许多个小时,企图凿穿孤独的硬壳。自从那个遥远的下午父亲带他去参观冰块以后,命运给他的唯一愉快的时刻是在制作小全鱼的首饰作坊里度过的。他发动过三十二次战争,破坏过自己跟死神的一切协议,象猪一样在“光荣”的粪堆里打滚,然而几乎迟了四十年寸发现普通人的生活是可贵的。
  他就这样一夜未睡,弄得精疲力尽;黎明,距离行刑只有一个小时,他走进了回室。“滑稽戏收场啦,老朋友,”他向格林列尔多·马克斯上校说。“趁咱们那些酒鬼还没熗毙你,咱们离开这儿吧。”格林列尔多·马克斯上校无法掩饰这种行为使他产生的蔑视。
  “不,奥雷连诺,”他回答。“我宁肯死,也不愿看见你变成一个残忍的暴君。”
  “你不会看见的,”奥雷连诺上校说。“穿上你的鞋子,帮助我结束这种讨厌的战争吧。”
  他这么说的时候,还不知道结束战争比发动战争困难得多。为了迫使政府提出有利于起义者的和平条件,他需要进行一年血腥、残酷的战斗;而让自己的人相信接受这些条件的必要性,又需要一年的工夫。他的军官们不愿出卖胜利,发动了起义;他镇压这些起义,残酷到了难以想象的地步,甚至不惜依靠敌人的力量坚决粉碎这些抵抗。
  他决不是当时一个比较出色的军人。他相信他终归是为自身的解放、而不是为抽象的理想和口号进行战斗(政客们善于根据情况不断变换这些口号),所以充满了热情。就象以前为了胜利而坚定不移地作战一样,为失败作战的格林列尔多·马克斯上校指责了奥雷连诺上校不必要的蛮勇。“不用担心,”奥雷连诺上校微笑着说。“死亡比想象的困难得多。”对他来说,确实如此。他相信自己的死期是预先注定了的,这种信心给了他一种神秘的免疫力——在预定的期限之前不死;这种免疫力使他在战争的危险中不受伤害,使他最终能够赢得失败——赢得失败比赢得胜利困难得多,需要更大的流血和牺牲。
  奥雷连诺上校在将近二十年的战争中,曾经多次回到他的家里,可是,他那经常的匆忙状态,卫队簇拥的神气样儿,几乎具有传奇色彩的荣誉光环(甚至乌苏娜对这种光坏也不能漠然视之),终于使他变成了一个陌生人。上一次来到马孔多的时候,他为三个情妇租了一间房子,只抽空应邀回家吃过两三次饭)跟家里的人相见。俏姑娘雷麦黛丝和战争中期出生的孪生子几乎不认得他。阿玛兰塔怎么也无怯使哥哥的形象和传奇勇士的形象一致起来;前者是在制作小金鱼的工作中度过青年时代的,后者却在自己和其他的人之间设置了三米的距离。然而,停战的消息传来的时候,大家以为奥雷连诺上校很快就会回到家里,重新变成一个得到亲人喜爱的普通人,长久蛰伏的亲“人感情也就复苏了,而且比以前更加强烈。
  “咱们家里终于又有一个男人啦,”乌苏娜说。
  阿玛兰塔第一个认为她们已经永远失去了他。停战之前一个星期,他回到了家里:没有侍从,只有两个赤足的勤务兵走在前头,把骡子的鞍俸和翰具以及一小箱诗篇放在廊上——这是奥雷连诺上校往日那种堂皇的行装中唯一剩下的东西;他走过阿玛兰塔房间旁边的时候,她叫了他一声。奥雷连诺上校仿佛想不起在他面前的是谁。
  “我是阿玛兰塔,”她看见哥哥归来感到高兴,亲热地说,并且让他看看缠着黑绷带的手。“瞧吧。”
  奥雷连诺上校就象那个遥远的早晨一样微微一笑,当时他被判处死刑以后回到了马孔多,第一次看见了这个绷带。
  “可怕,”他说,“时间过得多快啊!”
  政府军不得不在宅子前面设置警卫。奥雷连诺上校是在讥笑和唾骂声中口到马孔多的,有人指责他为了较高的售价故意拖延战争。寒热病使他不住地发抖,腋下的脓疮又发作了,六个月以前,乌苏娜听到停战消息的时候,就打开和收拾了儿子的卧室,在各个角落里烧起了没药,以为儿子回来之后就会在雷麦黛丝破旧的玩具中间安度晚年了。其实,在过去的两年中,他已经算清了一生的账,甚至谈不上什么晚年了。他经过乌苏娜拾掇得特别仔细的首饰作坊时,没有发现钥匙是留在锁孔里的。而且在这房子里,时光造成的细微而令人难过的破坏,也没引起他的注意,任何一个记性很好的人,在长久离开之后,看见这些破坏都是会震惊的,可是任何东西都没引起他心中的痛苦:墙上剥落的灰泥,角落里凌乱的蛛网,弃置不顾的秋海棠,白蚁蛀坏的木梁,长了青苔的门框,一怀旧之情给他设置的这些诡谲的陷阶都没使他掉进去。他坐在长廊上,用毛毯裹着身子,也没脱掉靴子,仿佛是顺便到房子里来躲雨的,整个儿下午都瞧着雨水落到秋海棠上。乌苏娜终于明白。她无法长久把他留在家里。“也许还要去打仗。”她想,“如果不是打仗,那就是死。”这种想法是那么明确、可信,乌苏娜认为它是一种预兆。
  傍晚,吃晚饭的时候,奥雷连诺第二右芋拿面包,左手握汤匙。他的孪生兄弟霍·阿卡蒂奥第二呢,左手拿面包,右手握汤匙。两人动作起来是那么协调,仿佛不是面对面坐着的两兄弟,而是一种巧妙的镜子装置。孪生兄弟知道他们两人完全相似,就在那天想出这种表演来欢迎奥雷连诺上校。可是奥雷连诺上校什么也没看见。他对周围的一切是那么疏远,甚至没有注意到赤身露体经过饭厅的俏姑娘雷麦黛丝。只有乌苏娜一人敢于把他从沉思状态中唤醒过来。
  “假如你又要走,”她在晚餐时说。“你起码应当记住今儿晚上我们是什么样子。”
  奥雷连诺上校这时明白,乌苏娜是唯一识破他精神空虚的人,但他并不觉得奇怪。他多年来第一次直勾勾地盯地她的面孔。她的皮肤布满了皱纹,牙齿已经磨损,头发枯萎、稀疏,眼神显得惊恐。他拿她跟老早以前那天下午的乌苏娜比较了一下,当时他曾预言热汤锅将要掉到地上,结果真的掉下去粉碎了。片刻间,他发现了半个多世纪日常的操劳在她身上留下的擦伤、茧子、疮痪和伤疤,这些可悲的痕迹甚至没有引起他一般的怜悯。于是他作了最后的努力,在自己心中寻找善良的感情已经发霉的地方,可是找不到它。从前,他在自己的皮肤上闻到乌苏娜的气味时,起码还有一点羞涩之类的感觉,而且经常觉得他的思想和母亲的思想息息相通,但这一切都被战争消灭了。甚至他的妻子雷麦黛丝,在他心中也只剩下一个陌生姑娘模糊的形象,这姑娘在年龄上是相当于他的女儿的·他在爱情的沙漠上邂逅过许多女人,他和她们在沿海地带撒下了不少种子,但是他的心里却没留下她们的任何痕迹。通常,她们都在黑夜里来找他,黎明前就离去,第二天已经没有什么东西使他想起她们,剩下的只是整个身体上某种困乏的感觉。能够胜过时间和战争的唯一的感情,是他童年时代对哥哥霍·阿卡蒂奥的感情,但它的基础不是爱,而是串通。
  “对不起,”他抱歉地回答乌苏娜的要求。“战争把一切都葬送啦。”
  次日,他就忙于消灭自己留居人世的一切痕迹。在首饰作坊里,他没碰的只是没有他个人烙印的东西;他把自己的衣服赠给了勤务兵,而将武器埋在院子里,悔悟的心情就象他父亲把杀死普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔的标熗埋藏起来那样。他留给自己的只是一支剩了一发子弹的手熗。他想取下客厅里长明灯照着的雷麦黛丝的相片时,乌苏娜才阻止他。“这相片早就不是你的啦,”乌苏娜说。“这是家中的圣物。”停战协定签字前夕,家里几乎没有留下一件东西能够使人想起奥雷连诺上校时,他才把一小箱诗篇拎进面包房,圣索菲娅·德拉佩德正在生炉子。
  “拿这个生火吧,”说着,他把一卷发黄的纸儿递给她。“这种旧东西容易引火。”
  圣索菲娅·德拉佩德是个寡言、随和的人,从不违拗任何人,甚至她自己的孩子,可她觉得奥雷连诺上校叫她做的是一件违禁的事。
  “这是重要的纸儿嘛,”她说。
  “不,”上校回答。“这都是为自个儿写的。”
  “那么,”她说,“你自个儿烧吧,上校。”
  他不仅这么做了,甚至用斧头辟开箱子,把木片扔到火里。几小时前,皮拉·苔列娜来看过他。奥雷连诺上校多年没有跟她见过面,一见她就觉得诧异,她变得又老又胖,笑声也不如从前响亮了:但他同时也感到惊讶,她在纸牌占卜上达到了多深的程度啊!“当心嘴巴,”——这是皮拉·苔列娜提醒过他的,于是他想:前一次,在他名望最高的时候,她的这句话难道不是对他未来命运的惊人预见吗?在跟皮拉·苔列娜见面之后不久,他竭力不表露特殊的兴趣,问了问刚给他的脓疮排了脓的私人医生,心脏的准确位置究竟在哪儿。医生用听诊器听了一听,就用蘸了碘酒的棉花在他胸上画了个圈子。
  星期二——停战协定签订的日子,天气寒冷,下着雨。奥雷连诺上校五点以前来到厨房,照常喝了一杯无糖的咖啡。“你就是在今天这样的日子出生的,”乌苏娜向他说。“你张开的眼睛把大家都吓了一跳。”他没理会她,因为他正在倾听士兵们的脚步声、号声、断续的命令声,这些声音震动了清晨岑寂的空气。经过多年的战争,奥雷连诺上校虽然应当习惯于这样的声音了,可是此刻他却象青年时代第一次看见裸体女人那样感到膝头发软、身体打颤,他终于掉进了怀旧的圈套,心里朦胧地想,如果当时他跟这个女人结了婚,他就会是个既不知道战争、又不知道光荣的人,而是一个无名的手艺人,一个幸运的人了。这种为时已晚的、突然的痛悔败坏了他早餐的胃口。早晨七点,格林列尔多·马克斯上校带着一群起义军官来到他这儿的时候,他显得比平常更沉默、更恨郁、更孤独。乌苏娜试图把一件新斗篷披在他肩上。“政府会咋个想呢,”她说。“他们会以为你连买件斗篷的钱都没有,所以投降嘛。”他没接受斗篷,已经到了门口的时候,看见从天而降的雨水,他才让她把霍·阿卡蒂奥的旧毡戴在他的头上。
  “奥雷连诺,”乌苏娜向他说。“如果你在那儿发现情形不妙,你就想着自己的母亲吧,答应我啊!”
  他向她茫然一笑,发誓似的举起手来,一句话没说就跨出了门槛,去迎接他经过全镇时将要遭到的恐吓、谴责和辱骂。乌苏娜闩上房门,决定至死也不再打开它了。”我们就关在这女修道院里烂掉吧,”她想,“我们宁肯变成灰,也不让那些卑鄙的家伙看见我们的眼泪高兴。”整个早上,她都在房子里——甚至在最秘密的角落里——寻找什么东西,使她能够想到儿子,可是什么也没找到。
  签字仪式是在距离马孔多十五公里的一棵硕大的丝棉树下举行的(后来在这棵大树周围建立了尼兰德镇)。政府和两党代表以及放下武器的起义军官代表团,是由一群嘁嘁喳喳的白衣修女伺候的,她们很象一群雨水惊起的鸽子。奥雷连诺上校是骑着一匹肮脏、脱毛的骡子来的。他没刮脸。他更感到痛苦的是腋下的脓疮,而不是幻想的彻底破灭,因为他已失去了一切希望,放弃了荣誉以及对荣誉的怀念。根据他的愿望,没有朗朗的音乐,没有僻啪的鞭炮,没有隆隆的钟声,没有胜利的欢呼,没有任何能够改变停战的悲凉性质的高兴表现。一位巡口摄影师为奥雷连诺上校拍了一张可能留给后代的照片,底版还没显影就被打碎了。
  仪式延续的时间,正好是签署文件所需的时间。在一个破旧的马戏团帐篷里,当中摆了一张普通的木桌,代表们坐在桌子旁边,周围站着忠于奥雷连诺上校的最后几名军官。在让大家签字之前,共和国总统的私人代表打算宣读投降书,可是奥雷连诺上校反对这样做。“咱们别把时间浪费在形式上了,”说着,他看都不看就准备在文件上签字。这时,他的一名军官打破了帐篷中令人发困的沉寂。
  “上校,”他说,“请你不要第一个签字。”
  奥雷连诺上校表示同意。文件在桌上绕了一圈,在一片沉寂中,从钢笔在纸上划动的声音,甚至可以猜出每个人签的字儿;在这之后,第一行还是空着的。奥雷连诺上校准备填上它。
  “上校,”他的另一个军官说,“你还有免除耻辱的可能嘛。”
  奥雷连诺上校面不改色,在第一份副本上签了字。他还没签完最后一份副本,帐篷门口就出现了一个起义军官,牵着一匹载着两只箱子的骡子。这人虽然十分年轻,却显得沉着和严谨。他是马孔多地区起义部队的财务官。为了及时赶到,他拖着一匹饿得要死的骡子,经历了六天困难的行程。他从骡背上异常小心地取下箱子,把它们打开,接二连三地将七十二块金砖放在桌上。这是大家忘记了的一大笔财产。在最近一年中,中央指挥部上崩瓦解,革命变成了争当头目的血腥的内讧。在一片混乱中,谁也不负什么责任了。起义者的金子铸成了金砖,抹上泥土,就无人监管了。奥雷连诺上校把七十二块金砖也列入了投降书,不容任何商量就签了字。疲惫不堪的青年军官站在他面前,拿糖浆色的宁静的眼睛盯着他的眼睛。
  “还有什么事吗?”奥雷连诺上校问他。
  青年军官咬紧牙齿。
  “收条,”他说。
  奥雷连诺上校亲笔写了一张收条给他。然后,上校喝了一杯柠檬水,吃了一块饼干(二者都是修女给他的),就到准备给他休息的行军帐篷去。他在那儿脱掉了衬衫,坐在床边,下午三点十五分拿起手熗,对准他的私人医生在他胸上用碘酒画的圈子砰地开了一熗。就在这个时刻,在马孔多,乌苏娜揭开炉灶上牛奶锅的盖子,惊异地发现牛奶半天都没煮沸,而且牛奶里有许多虫子。
  “他们把奥雷连诺给打死啦!”她叫了一声。
  然后,她服从孤独中养成的习惯,朝院子里瞥了一眼,便看见了霍·阿·布恩蒂亚;他在雨下淋得透湿,显得愁眉不展,比死的时候老多了。“他是被暗杀的,”她更准确地说。“谁也没有发发慈悲合上他的眼睛。”
  夜里,她透过眼泪看见一个橙黄色的圆盘,仿佛流星一样迅捷地掠过天空,她认为这是死亡的征兆。她仍在粟树下面,伏在丈夫的膝上哭泣。这时他们就把毛毯裹着的奥雷连诺上校抬来了,毛毯已给凝血弄得僵硬。他睁开的眼里燃着怒火。
  他已脱离危险。穿伤是那么清晰、笔直,医生毫不费劲就把一根浸过碘酒的细绳伸进他的胸脯,然后从脊背拉出。“这是我的杰作,”医生满意地说。“这是子弹能够穿过而不会碰到任何要害的唯一部位。”奥雷连诺上校发现自己周围是一些同情他的修女,她们为了安抚他的灵魂,正在唱绝望的圣歌,因此他感到遗憾,竟然没有按照最初的想法朝自己的嘴巴开熗,借以嘲笑皮拉·苔列娜的预言。
  “如果我还有一点权力,”他向医生说,“我会不经审判熗毙了你。这倒不是因为你救了我的命,而是因为你把我变成了一个耻笑的对象。”
  自杀未遂在几小时内就恢复了奥雷连诺上校失去的威望。那些曾经胡说他为了金砖房子而出卖胜利的人,把他自杀的举动看成是崇高的行为,宣布他为殉道者。后来,他拒绝共和国总统颁发给他的荣誉勋章时,甚至自由党内激烈反对他的人也来要求他否决停战条件,重新发动战争。房子里堆满了作为赔罪的礼品,昔日的战友给他的支持虽然迟了一些,但他也受到感动,没有排除满足他们的要求的可能性。相反地,有一段时间,他似乎热中于重新发动战争。格林列尔多·马克斯上校甚至以为:他只是在等待宣战的借口。借口真的找到了,那就是共和国总统拒绝把养老金发给过去的参战人员——自由党人和保守党人,除非他们每人的事情已由专门委员会审查清楚,而且拨款法案获得了国会批准。“这是蛮不讲理,”奥雷连诺上校暴跳如雷地说。“他们还没领到养老金就会老死啦。”他第一次离开乌苏娜买给他养息用的摇椅,在卧室里踱来踱去,口述了一份强硬的电报给共和国总统。在这份从来没有公布的电报里,他谴责总统破坏尼兰德停战协定的条款,并且扬言说,如果养老金的拨款问题在两周内得不到解决,他就要誓死宣战。他的态度是那么公正,甚至可以指望以前保守党作战人员的支持。然而政府唯一的回答是,借口保护奥雷连诺上校,在他的住所门前加强了军事警戒,并且禁止任何人去找他。为了预防万一。政府在全国范围内对其他的起义指挥官也采取了类似的措施。这个行动是那样及时、有力、成功,停战之后过了两个月,当奥雷连诺上校终于康复的时候,他所有最忠实的助手不是死了,就是流放了,或者去为政府效劳了。
  十二月里,奥雷连诺上校走出卧室,一看长廊就已明白,再要发动战争就是枉费心机了。乌苏娜以她充沛的精力(这种精力就她的年岁来说似乎已经不大可能),再一次刷新了整座房子。“现在他们将会知道我是什么样的人了,”她看见儿子已经康复的那一天,说道。“全世界不会有一座比这疯人院更漂亮、更好客的房子了。”她叫人粉刷和油漆了房子,更换了家具,收拾了花园,栽种了新的花卉,敞开了所有的门窗,让夏天耀眼的阳光也射进卧室。然后,她向大家宣布连续不断的丧事已经结束,自己首先脱掉了旧的黑衣服,穿上了年轻人的服装。家里重新响起了自动钢琴愉快的乐曲声。阿玛兰塔听到乐曲声之后,又想起了皮埃特罗·克列斯比,似乎闻到了晚间的栀子花和薰衣草的芳香,她那懊丧的心里又出现了长久以来的哀怨。有一天下午,乌苏娜收拾客厅的时候,请守卫宅子的士兵们帮她的忙。年轻的警卫队长表示了同意。乌苏娜一天一天地给士兵们增添了任务,就开始邀请他们吃饭,给他们衣服和鞋子,教他们读书和写字。后来,政府撤走警卫队时,一个士兵继续住在乌苏娜家里,为她服务了多年。而年轻的军官呢,因为遭到俏姑娘雷麦黛丝的藐视,变得疯疯癫癫,新年初一的早晨死在她的窗下了。


执素衣

ZxID:13389413


等级: 内阁元老
举报 只看该作者 8楼  发表于: 2013-10-10 0


Chapter 8
SITTNG IN THE WICKER ROCKING chair with her interrupted work in her lap, Amaranta watched Aureliano, Jos?, his chin covered with foam, stropping his razor to give himself his first shave. His blackheads bled and he cut his upper lip as he tried to shape a mustache of blond fuzz and when it was all over he looked the same as before, but the laborious process gave Amaranta the feeling that she had begun to grow old at that moment.
   “You look just like Aureliano when he was your age,?she said. “You’re a man now.?
   He had been for a long time, ever since that distant day when Amaranta thought he was still a child and continued getting undressed in front of him in the bathroom as she had always done, as she had been used to doing ever since Pilar Ternera had turned him over to her to finish his upbringing. The first time that he saw her the only thing that drew his attention was the deep depression between her breasts. He was so innocent that he asked her what had happened to her and Amaranta pretended to dig into her breasts with the tips of her fingers and answered: “They gave me some terrible cuts.?Some time later, when she had recovered from Pietro Crespi’s suicide and would bathe with Aureliano Jos?again, he no longer paid attention to the depression but felt a strange trembling at the sight of the splendid breasts with their brown nipples. He kept on examining her, discovering the miracle of her intimacy inch by inch, and he felt his skin tingle as he contemplated the way her skin tingled when it touched the water. Ever since he was a small child he had the custom of leaving his hammock and waking up in Amaranta’s bed, because contact with her was a way of overcoming his fear of the dark. But since that day when he became aware of his own nakedness, it was not fear of the dark that drove him to crawl in under her mosquito netting but an urge to feel Amaranta’s warm breathing at dawn. Early one morning during the time when she refused Colonel Gerineldo Márquez, Aureliano Jos?awoke with the feeling that he could not breathe. He felt Amaranta’s fingers searching across his stomach like warm and anxious little caterpillars. Pretending to sleep, he changed his position to make it easier, and then he felt the hand without the black bandage diving like a blind shellfish into the algae of his anxiety. Although they seemed to ignore what both of them knew and what each one knew that the other knew, from that night on they were yoked together in an inviolable complicity. Aureliano Jos?could not get to sleep until he heard the twelve-o’clock waltz on the parlor dock, and the mature maiden whose skin was beginning to grow sad did not have a moments?rest until she felt slip in under her mosquito netting that sleepwalker whom she had raised, not thinking that he would be a palliative for her solitude. Later they not only slept together, naked, exchanging exhausting caresses, but they would also chase each other into the corners of the house and shut themselves up in the bedrooms at any hour of the day in a permanent state of unrelieved excitement. They were almost discovered by ?rsula one afternoon when she went into the granary as they were starting to kiss. “Do you love your aunt a lot??she asked Aureliano Jos?in an innocent way. He answered that he did. “That’s good of you,??rsula concluded and finished measuring the flour for the bread and returned to the kitchen. That episode drew Amaranta out of her delirium. She realized that she had gone too far, that she was no longer playing kissing games with a child, but was floundering about in an autumnal passion, one that was dangerous and had no future, and she cut it off with one stroke. Aureliano Jos? who was then finishing his military training, finally woke up to reality and went to sleep in the barracks. On Saturdays he would go with the soldiers to Catarino’s store. He was seeking consolation for his abrupt solitude, for his premature adolescence with women who smelled of dead flowers, whom he idealized in the darkness and changed into Amaranta by means of the anxious efforts of his imagination.
   A short time later contradictory news of the war began to come in. While the government itself admitted the progress of the rebellion, the officers in Macondo had confidential reports of the imminence of a negotiated peace. Toward the first of April a special emissary identified himself to Colonel Gerineldo Márquez. He confirmed the fact to him that the leaders of the party had indeed established contact with the rebel leaders in the interior and were on the verge of arranging an armistice in exchange for three cabinet posts for the Liberals, a minority representation in the congress, and a general amnesty for rebels who laid down their arms. The emissary brought a highly confidential order from Colonel Aureliano Buendía, who was not in agreement with the terms of the armistice. Colonel Gerineldo Márquez was to choose five of his best men and prepare to leave the country with them. The order would be carried out with the strictest secrecy. One week before the agreement was announced, and in the midst of a storm of contradictory rumors, Colonel Aureliano Buendía and ten trusted officers, among them Colonel Roque Carnicero, stealthily arrived in Macondo after midnight, dismissed the garrison, buried their weapons, and destroyed their records. By dawn they had left town, along with Colonel Gerineldo Márquez and his five officers. It was such a quick and secret operation that ?rsula did not find out about it until the last moment, when someone tapped on her bedroom window and whispered, “If you want to see Colonel Aureliano Buendía, come to the door right now.??rsula Jumped out of bed and went to the door in her nightgown and she was just able to see the horsemen who were leaving town gallop off in a mute cloud of dust. Only on the following day did she discover that Aureliano Jos?had gone with his father.
   Ten days after a joint communiqu?by the government and the opposition announced the end of the war, there was news of the first armed uprising of Colonel Aureliano Buendía on the western border. His small and poorly armed force was scattered in less than a week. But during that year, while Liberals and Conservatives tried to make the country believe in reconciliation, he attempted seven other revolts. One night he bombarded Riohacha from a schooner and the garrison dragged out of bed and shot the fourteen best-known Liberals in the town as a reprisal. For more than two weeks he held a customs post on the border and from there sent the nation a call to general war. Another of his expectations was lost for three months in the jungle in a mad attempt to cross more than a thousand miles of virgin territory in order to proclaim war on the outskirts of the capital. On one occasion he was lea than fifteen miles away from Macondo and was obliged by government patrols to hide in the mountains, very close to the enchanted region where his father had found the fossil of a Spanish galleon many years before.
   Visitación died around that time. She had the pleasure of dying a natural death after having renounced a throne out of fear of insomnia, and her last wish was that they should dig up the wages she had saved for more than twenty years under her bed and send the money to Colonel Aureliano Buendía so that he could go on with the war. But ?rsula did not bother to dig it up because it was rumored in those days that Colonel Aureliano Buendía had been killed in a landing near the provincial capital. The official announcement—the fourth in less than two years—was considered true for almost six months because nothing further was heard of him. Suddenly, when ?rsula and Amaranta had added new mourning to the past period, unexpected news arrived. Colonel Aureliano Buendía was alive, but apparently he had stopped harassing the government of his country and had joined with the victorious federalism of other republics of the Caribbean. He would show up under different names farther and farther away from his own country. Later it would be learned that the idea that was working on him at the time was the unification of the federalist forms of Central America in order to wipe out conservative regimes from Alaska to Patagonia. The first direct news that ?rsula received from him, several years after his departure, was a wrinkled and faded letter that had arrived, passing through various hands, from Santiago, Cuba.
   “We’ve lost him forever,??rsula exclaimed on reading it. “If he follows this path he’ll spend Christmas at the ends of the earth.?
   The person to whom she said it, who was the first to whom she showed the letter, was the Conservative general Jos?Raquel Moncada, mayor of Macondo since the end of the war. “This Aureliano,?General Moncada commented, “what a pity that he’s not a Conservative.?He really admired him. Like many Conservative civilians, Jos?Raquel Moncada had waged war in defense of his party and had earned the title of general on the field of battle, even though he was not a military man by profession. On the contrary, like so many of his fellow party members, he was an antimilitarist. He considered military men unprincipled loafers, ambitious plotters, experts in facing down civilians in order to prosper during times of disorder. Intelligent, pleasant, ruddy-faced, a man who liked to eat and watch cockfights, he had been at one time the most feared adversary of Colonel Aureliano Buendía. He succeeded in imposing his authority over the career officers in a wide sector along the coast. One time when he was forced by strategic circumstances to abandon a stronghold to the forces of Colonel Aureliano Buendía, he left two letters for him. In one of them quite long, he invited him to join in a campaign to make war more humane. The other letter was for his wife, who lived in Liberal territory, and he left it with a plea to see that it reached its destination. From then on, even in the bloodiest periods of the war, the two commanders would arrange truces to exchange prisoners. They were pauses with a certain festive atmosphere, which General Moncada took advantage of to teach Colonel Aureliano Buendía how to play chess. They became great friends. They even came to think about the possibility of coordinating the popular elements of both parties, doing away with the influence of the military men and professional politicians, and setting up a humanitarian regime that would take the best from each doctrine. When the war was over, while Colonel Aureliano, Buendía was sneaking about through the narrow trails of permanent sub. version, General Moncada was named magistrate of Macondo. He wore civilian clothes, replaced the soldiers with unarmed policemen, enforced the amnesty laws, and helped a few families of Liberals who had been killed in the war. He succeeded in having Macondo raised to the status of a municipality and he was therefore its first mayor, and he created an atmosphere of confidence that made people think of the war as an absurd nightmare of the past. Father Nicanor, consumed by hepatic fever, was replaced by Father Coronel, whom they called “The Pup,?a veteran of the first federalist war. Bruno Crespi, who was married to Amparo Mos. cote, and whose shop of toys and musical instruments continued to prosper, built a theater which Spanish companies included in their Itineraries. It was a vast open-air hall with wooden benches, a velvet curtain with Greek masks, and three box offices in the shape of lions?heads, through whose mouths the tickets were sold. It was also about that time that the school was rebuilt. It was put under the charge of Don Melchor Escalona, an old teacher brought from the swamp, who made his lazy students walk on their knees in the lime-coated courtyard and made the students who talked in class eat hot chili with the approval of their parents. Aureliano Segundo and Jos?Arcadio Segundo, the willful twins of Santa Sofía de la Piedad, were the first to sit in the classroom, with their slates, their chalk, and their aluminum jugs with their names on them. Remedios, who inherited her mother’s pure beauty, began to be known as Remedios the Beauty. In spite of time, of the superimposed Periods of mourning, and her accumulated afflictions, ?rsula resisted growing old. Aided by Santa Sofía de la Piedad, she gave a new drive to her pastry business and in a few years not only recovered the fortune that her son had spent in the war, but she once more stuffed with pure gold the gourds buried in the bedroom. “As long as God gives me life,?she would say, “there will always be money in this madhouse.?That was how things were when Aureliano Jos?deserted the federal troops in Nicaragua, signed on as a crewman on a German ship, and appeared in the kitchen of the house, sturdy as a horse, as dark and long-haired as an Indian, and with a secret determination to marry Amaranta.
   When Amaranta, saw him come in, even though he said nothing she knew immediately why he had come back. At the table they did not dare look each other in the face. But two weeks after his return, in the presence of ?rsula, he set his eyes on hers and said to her, “I always thought a lot about you.?Amaranta avoided him. She guarded against chance meetings. She tried not to become separated from Remedios the Beauty. She was ashamed of the blush that covered her cheeks on the day her nephew asked her how long she intended wearing the black bandage on her hand, for she interpreted it as an allusion to her virginity. When he arrived, she barred the door of her bedroom, but she heard his peaceful snoring in the next room for so many nights that she forgot about the precaution. Early one morning, almost two months after his return, she heard him come into the bedroom. Then, instead of fleeing, instead of shouting as she had thought she would, she let herself be saturated with a soft feeling of relaxation. She felt him slip in under the mosquito netting as he had done when he was a child, as he had always done, and she could not repress her cold sweat and the chattering of her teeth when she realized that he was completely naked. “Go away,?she whispered, suffocating with curiosity. “Go away or I’ll scream.?But Aureliano Jos?knew then what he had to do, because he was no longer a child but a barracks animal. Starting with that night the dull, inconsequential battles began again and would go on until dawn. “I’m your aunt,?Amaranta murmured, spent. “It’s almost as if I were your mother, not just because of my age but because the only thing I didn’t do for you was nurse you.?Aureliano would escape at dawn and come back early in the morning on the next day, each time more excited by the proof that she had not barred the door. He had nit stopped desiring her for a single instant. He found her in the dark bedrooms of captured towns, especially in the most abject ones, and he would make her materialize in the smell of dry blood on the bandages of the wounded, in the instantaneous terror of the danger of death, at all times and in all places. He had fled from her in an attempt to wipe out her memory, not only through distance but by means of a muddled fury that his companions at arms took to be boldness, but the more her image wallowed in the dunghill of the war, the more the war resembled Amaranta. That was how he suffered in exile, looking for a way of killing her with, his own death, until he heard some old man tell the tale of the man who had married his aunt, who was also his cousin, and whose son ended up being his own grandfather.
   “Can a person marry his own aunt??he asked, startled.
   “He not only can do that, a soldier answered him. “but we’re fighting this war against the priests so that a person can marry his own mother.?
   Two weeks later he deserted. He found Amaranta more withered than in his memory, more melancholy and shy, and now really turning the last corner of maturity, but more feverish than ever in the darkness of her bedroom and more challenging than ever in the aggressiveness of her resistance. “You’re a brute,?Amaranta would tell him as she was harried by his hounds. “You can’t do that to a poor aunt unless you have a special dispensation from the Pope.?Aureliano, Jos?promised to go to Rome, he promised to go across Europe on his knees to kiss the sandals of the Pontiff just so that she would lower her drawbridge.
   “It’s not just that,?Amaranta retorted. “Any children will be born with the tail of a pig.?
   Aureliano Jos?was deaf to all arguments.
   “I don’t care if they’re born as armadillos,?he begged.
   Early one morning, vanquished by the unbearable pain of repressed virility, he went to Catarino’s. He found a woman with flaccid breasts, affectionate and cheap, who calmed his stomach for some time. He tried to apply the treatment of disdain to Amaranta. He would see her on the porch working at the sewing machine, which she had learned to operate with admirable skill, and he would not even speak to her. Amaranta felt freed of a reef, and she herself did not understand why she started thinking again at that time about Colonel Gerineldo Márquez, why she remembered with such nostalgia the afternoons of Chinese checkers, and why she even desired him as the man in her bedroom. Aureliano, Jos?did not realize how much ground he had lost on, the night he could no longer bear the farce of indifference and went back to Amaranta’s room. She rejected him with an inflexible and unmistakable determination, and she barred the door of her bedroom forever.
   A few months after the return of Aureliano Jos?an exuberant woman perfumed with jasmine appeared at the house with a boy of five. She stated that he was the son of Colonel Aureliano Buendía and that she had brought him to ?rsula to be baptized. No one doubted the origins of that nameless child: he looked exactly like the colonel at the time he was taken to see ice for the first time. The woman said that he had been born with his eyes open, looking at people with the judgment of an adult, and that she was frightened by his way of staring at things without blinking. “He’s identical,??rsula said. “The only thing missing is for him to make chairs rock by simply looking at them.?They christened him Aureliano and with his mother’s last name, since the law did not permit a person to bear his father’s name until he had recognized him. General Moncada was the godfather. Although Amaranta insisted that he be left so that she could take over his upbringing, his mother was against it. ?rsula at that time did not know about the custom of sending virgins to the bedrooms of soldiers in the same way that hens are turned loose with fine roosters, but in the course of that year she found out: nine more sons of Colonel Aureliano Buendía were brought to the house to be baptized. The oldest, a strange dark boy with green eyes, who was not at all like his father’s family, was over ten years old. They brought children of all ages, all colors, but all males and all with a look of solitude that left no doubt as to the relationship. Only two stood out in the group. One, large for his age, made smithereens out of the flowerpots and china because his hands seemed to have the property of breaking everything they touched. The other was a blond boy with the same light eyes as his mother, whose hair had been left to grow long and curly like that of a woman. He entered the house with a great deal of familiarity, as if he had been raised there, and he went directly to a chest in ?rsula’s bedroom and demanded, “I want the mechanical ballerina.??rsula was startled. She opened the chest, searched among the ancient and dusty articles left from the days of Melquíades, and wrapped in a pair of stockings she found the mechanical ballerina that Pietro Crespi had brought to the house once and that everyone had forgotten about. In less than twelve years they baptized with the name Aureliano and the last name of the mother all the sons that the colonel had implanted up and down his theater of war: seventeen. At first ?rsula would fill their pockets with money and Amaranta tried to have them stay. But they finally limited themselves to giving them presents and serving as godmothers. “We’ve done our duty by baptizing them,??rsula would say, jotting down in a ledger the name and address of the mother and the place and date of birth of the child. “Aureliano needs well-kept accounts so that he can decide things when he comes back.?During lunch, commenting with General Moncada about that disconcerting proliferation, she expressed the desire for Colonel Aureliano Buendía to come back someday and gather all of his sons together in the house.
   “Don’t worry, dear friend,?General Moncada said enigmatically. “He’ll come sooner than you suspect.?
   What General Moncada knew and what he did not wish to reveal at lunch was that Colonel Aureliano Buendía was already on his way to head up the most prolonged, radical, and bloody rebellion of all those he had started up till then.
   The situation again became as tense as it had been during the months that preceded the first war. The cockfights, instituted by the mayor himself, were suspended. Captain Aquiles Ricardo, the commander of the garrison, took over the exercise of municipal power. The Liberals looked upon him as a provocateur. “Something terrible is going to happen,??rsula would say to Aureliano Jos? “Don’t go out into the street after six o’clock.?The entreaties were useless. Aureliano Jos? just like Arcadio in other times, had ceased to belong to her. It was as if his return home, the possibility of existing without concerning himself with everyday necessities, had awakened in him the lewd and lazy leanings of his uncle Jos?Arcadio. His passion for Amaranta had been extinguished without leaving any scars. He would drift around, playing pool, easing his solitude with occasional women, sacking the hiding places where ?rsula had forgotten her money. He ended up coming home only to change his clothes. “They’re all alike,??rsula lamented. “At first they behave very well, they’re obedient and prompt and they don’t seem capable of killing a fly, but as soon as their beards appear they go to ruin.?Unlike Arcadio, who had never known his real origins, he found out that he was the son of Pilar Ternera, who had hung up a hammock so that he could take his siesta in her house. More than mother and son, they were accomplices in solitude. Pilar Ternera had lost the trail of all hope. Her laugh had taken on the tones of an organ, her breasts had succumbed to the tedium of endless caressing, her stomach and her thighs had been the victims of her irrevocable fate as a shared woman, but her heart grew old without bitterness. Fat, talkative, with the airs of a matron in disgrace, she renounced the sterile illusions of her cards and found peace and consolation in other people’s loves. In the house where Aureliano Jos?took his siesta, the girls from the neighborhood would receive their casual lovers. “Lend me your room, Pilar,?they would simply say when they were already inside. “Of course,?Pilar would answer. And if anyone was present she would explain:
   “I’m happy knowing that people are happy in bed.?
   She never charged for the service. She never refused the favor, just as she never refused the countless men who sought her out, even in the twilight of her maturity, without giving her money or love and only occasionally pleasure. Her five daughters, who inherited a burning seed, had been lost on the byways of life since adolescence. Of the two sons she managed to raise, one died fighting in the forces of Colonel Aureliano Buendía and the other was wounded and captured at the age of fourteen when he tried to steal a crate of chickens in a town in the swamp. In a certain way, Aureliano Jos?was the tall, dark man who had been promised her for half a century by the king of hearts, and like all men sent by the cards he reached her heart when he was already stamped with the mark of death. She saw it in the cards.
   “Don’t go out tonight,?she told him. “Stay and sleep here because Carmelita Montiel is getting tired of asking me to put her in your room.?
   Aureliano Jos?did not catch the deep feeling of begging that was in the offer.
   “Tell her to wait for me at midnight?he said. He went to the theater, where a Spanish company was putting on The Dagger of the Fox, which was really Zorzilla’s play with the title changed by order of Captain Aquiles Ricardo, because the Liberals called the Conservatives Goths. Only when he handed in his ticket at the door did Aureliano Jos?realize that Captain Aquiles Ricardo and two soldiers armed with rifles were searching the audience.
   “Be careful, captain,?Aureliano Jos?warned him. “The man hasn’t been born yet who can lay hands on me.?The captain tried to search him forcibly and Aureliano Jos? who was unarmed, began to run. The soldiers disobeyed the order to shoot. “He’s a Buendía,?one of them explained. Blind with rage, the captain then snatched away the rifle, stepped into the center of the street, and took aim.?
   “Cowards!?he shouted. “I only wish it was Colonel Aureliano Buendía.?
   Carmelita Montiel, a twenty-year-old virgin, had just bathed in orange-blossom water and was strewing rosemary leaves on Pilar Ternera’s bed when the shot rang out. Aureliano Jos?had been destined to find with her the happiness that Amaranta had denied him, to have seven children, and to die in her arms of old age, but the bullet that entered his back and shattered his chest had been directed by a wrong interpretation of the cards. Captain Aquiles Ricardo, who was really the one destined to die that night, did indeed die, four hours before Aureliano Jos? As won as the shot was heard he was brought down by two simultaneous bullets whose origin was never established and a shout of many voices shook the night.
   “Long live the Liberal party! Long live Colonel Aureliano Buendía!?
   At twelve o’clock, when Aureliano, Jos?had bled to death and Carmelita Montiel found that the cards showing her future were blank, more than four hundred men had filed past the theater and discharged their revolvers into the abandoned body of Captain Aquiles Ricardo. A patrol had to use a wheelbarrow to carry the body, which was heavy with lead and fell apart like a water-soaked loaf of bread.
   Annoyed by the outrages of the regular army, General Jos?Raquel Moncada used his political influence, put on his uniform again, and assumed the civil and military leadership of Macondo. He did not expect, however, that his conciliatory attitude would be able to prevent the inevitable. The news in September was contradictory. While the government announced that it was maintaining control throughout the country, the Liberals were receiving secret news of armed uprisings in the interior. The regime would not admit a state of war until it was proclaimed in a decree that had followed a court-martial which had condemned Colonel Aureliano Buendía to death in absentia. The first unit that captured him was ordered to carry the sentence out. “This means he’s come back,??rsula said joyfully to General Moncada. But he himself knew nothing about it.
   Actually, Colonel Aureliano Buendía had been in the country for more than a month. He was preceded by conflicting rumors, supposed to be in the most distant places at the same time, and even General Moncada did not believe in his return until it was officially announced that he had seized two states on the coast. “Congratulations, dear friend,?he told ?rsula, showing her the telegram. “You’ll soon have him here.??rsula was worried then for the first time. “And what will you do??she asked. General Moncada had asked himself that same question many times.
   “The same as he, my friend,?he answered. “I’ll do my duty.?
   At dawn on the first of October Colonel Aureliano Buendía attacked Macondo with a thousand well-armed men and the garrison received orders to resist to the end. At noon, while General Moncada was lunching with ?rsula, a rebel cannon shot that echoed in the whole town blew the front of the municipal treasury to dust. “They’re as well armed as we are,?General Moncada sighed, “but besides that they’re fighting because they want to.?At two o’clock in the afternoon, while the earth trembled with the artillery fire from both sides, he took leave of ?rsula with the certainty that he was fighting a losing battle.
   “I pray to God that you won’t have Aureliano in the house tonight,?he said. “If it does happen that way, give him an embrace for me, because I don’t expect ever to see him again.?
   That night he was captured when he tried to escape from Macondo, after writing a long letter to Colonel Aureliano Buendía in which he reminded him of their common aim to humanize the war and he wished him a final victory over the corruption of the militarists and the ambitions of the politicians in both parties. On the following day Colonel Aureliano Buendía had lunch with him in ?rsula’s house, where he was being held until a revolutionary court-martial decided his fate. It was a friendly gathering. But while the adversaries forgot the war to remember things of the past, ?rsula had the gloomy feeling that her son was an intruder. She had felt it ever since she saw him come in protected by a noisy military retinue, which turned the bedrooms inside out until they were convinced there was no danger. Colonel Aureliano Buendía not only accepted it but he gave strict orders that no one should come closer than ten feet, not even ?rsula, while the members of his escort finished placing guards about the house. He was wearing an ordinary denim uniform with no insignia of any kind and high boots with spurs that were caked with mud and dried blood. On his waist he wore a holster with the flap open and his hand, which was always on the butt of the pistol, revealed the same watchful and resolute tension as his look. His head, with deep recessions in the hairline now, seemed to have been baked in a slow oven. His face, tanned by the salt of the Caribbean, had acquired a metallic hardness. He was preserved against imminent old age by a vitality that had something to do with the coldness of his insides. He was taller than when he had left, paler and bonier, and he showed the first symptoms of resistance to nostalgia. “Good Lord,??rsula said to herself. “Now he looks like a man capable of anything.?He was. The Aztec shawl that he brought Amaranta, the remembrances he spoke of at lunch, the funny stories her told were simple leftovers from his humor of a different time. As soon as the order to bury the dead in a common grave was carried out, he assigned Colonel Roque Carnicero the minion of setting up courts-martial and he went ahead with the exhausting task of imposing radical reforms which would not leave a stone of the reestablished Conservative regime in place. “We have to get ahead of the politicians in the party,?he said to his aides. “When they open their eyes to reality they’ll find accomplished facts.?It was then that he decided to review the titles to land that went back a hundred years and he discovered the legalized outrages of his brother, Jos?Arcadio. He annulled the registrations with a stroke of the pen. As a last gesture of courtesy, he left his affairs for an hour and visited Rebeca to bring her up to date on what he was determined to do.
   In the shadows of her house, the solitary widow who at one time had been the confidante of his repressed loves and whose persistence had saved his life was a specter out of the past. Encased in black down to her knuckles, with her heart turned to ash, she scarcely knew anything about the war. Colonel Aureliano Buendía had the impression that the phosphorescence of her bones was showing through her skin and that she moved in an atmosphere of Saint Elmo’s fire, in a stagnant air where one could still note a hidden smell of gunpowder. He began by advising her to moderate the rigor of her mourning, to ventilate the house, to forgive the world for the death of Jos?Arcadio. But Rebeca was already beyond any vanity. After searching for it uselessly in the taste of earth, in, the perfumed letters from Pietro Crespi, in the tempestuous bed of her husband, she had found peace in that house where memories materialized through the strength of implacable evocation and walked like human beings through the cloistered rooms, Leaning back in her wicker rocking chair, looking at Colonel Aureliano Buendía as if he were the one who looked like a ghost out of the past, Rebeca was not even upset by the news that the lands usurped by Jos?Arcadio would be returned to their rightful owners.
   “Whatever you decide will be done, Aureliano,?she sighed. “I always thought and now I have the proof that you’re a renegade.?
   The revision of the deeds took place at the same time as the summary courts-martial presided over by Colonel Gerineldo Márquez, which ended with the execution of all officers of the regular army who had been taken prisoner by the revolutionaries. The last court-martial was that of Jos?Raquel Moncada. ?rsula intervened. ‘”His government was the best we’ve ever had in Macondo,?she told Colonel Aureliano Buendía. “I don’t have to tell you anything about his good heart, about his affection for us, because you know better than anyone.?Colonel Aureliano Buendía gave her a disapproving look.
   “I can’t take over the job of administering justice,?he replied. “If you have something to say, tell it to the court-martial.?
   ?rsula not only did that she also brought all of the mothers of the revolutionary officers who lived in Macondo to testify. One by one the old women who had been founders of the town, several of whom had taken part in the daring crossing of the mountains, praised the virtues of General Moncada. ?rsula was the last in line. Her gloomy dignity, the weight of her name, the convincing vehemence of her declaration made the scale of justice hesitate for a moment. “You have taken this horrible game very seriously and you have done well because you are doing your duty,?she told the members of the court. “But don’t forget that as long as God gives us life we will still be mothers and no matter how revolutionary you may be, we have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect.?The court retired to deliberate as those words still echoed in the school that had been turned into a barracks. At midnight General Jos?Raquel Moncada was sentenced to death. Colonel Aureliano Buendía, in spite of the violent recriminations of ?rsula, refused to commute the sentence. A short while before dawn he visited the condemned man in the room used as a cell.
   “Remember, old friend,?he told him. “I’m not shooting you. It’s the revolution that’s shooting you.?
   General Moncada did not even get up from the cot when he saw him come in.
   “Go to hell, friend,?he answered.
   Until that moment, ever since his return. Colonel Aureliano Buendía had not given himself the opportunity to see him with his heart. He was startled to see how much he had aged, how his hands shook, and the rather punctilious conformity with which he awaited death, and then he felt a great disgust with himself, which he mingled with the beginnings of pity.
   “You know better than I,?he said, “that all courts-martial are farces and that you’re really paying for the crimes of other people, because this time we’re going to win the war at any price. Wouldn’t you have done the same in my place??
   General Moncada, got up to clean his thick horn-rimmed glasses on his shirttail. “Probably,?he said. “But what worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it’s a natural death.?He laid his glasses on the bed and took off his watch and chain. “What worries me,?he went on, “is that out of so much hatred for the military, out of fighting them so much and thinking about them so much, you’ve ended up as bad as they are. And no ideal in life is worth that much baseness.?He took off his wedding ring and the medal of the Virgin of Help and put them alongside his glasses and watch.
   “At this rate,?he concluded, “you’ll not only be the most despotic and bloody dictator in our history, but you’ll shoot my dear friend ?rsula in an attempt to pacify your conscience.?
   Colonel Aureliano Buendía stood there impassively. General Moncada then gave him the glasses, medal, watch, and ring and he changed his tone.
   “But I didn’t send for you to scold you,?he said. “I wanted to ask you the favor of sending these things to my wife.?
   Colonel Aureliano Buendía put them in his pockets.
   “Is she still in Manaure??
   “She’s still in Manaure,?General Moncada confirmed, “in the same house behind the church where you sent the letter.?
   “I’ll be glad to, Jos?Raquel,?Colonel Aureliano Buendía said.
   When he went out into the blue air of the mist his face grew damp as on some other dawn in the past and only then did he realize that -he had ordered the sentence to be carried out in the courtyard and not at the cemetery wall. The firing squad, drawn up opposite the door, paid him the honors of a head of state.
   “They can bring him out now,?he ordered.



第八章

  阿玛兰塔坐在柳条摇椅里,把刺绣活儿放在膝上,望着奥雷连诺.霍塞;他给脸颊和下巴都涂满了肥皂沫,就在皮带上磨剃刀,有生以来第一次剖脸了。他为了把浅色的茸毛修成一撮胡于,竟将一个小疹疱弄出了血,而且割破了上唇,然而一切完毕之后,他还是原来的样儿;复杂的刮脸手续使阿玛兰塔觉得,正是从这时起,奥雷连诺·霍塞长大成人了。
  “奥雷连诺(注:指奥雷连诺上校长)象你现在这个岁数的时候,跟你一模一样,”她说。“你已经是个男子汉啦。”
  其实,他很早很早以前就成为男子汉了,那时阿玛兰塔还把他当做一个孩子,在浴室里照常当着他的面脱衣服。从皮拉。苔列娜把孩子交给她抚养以来,她是惯于这么做的。第一次,他感到兴趣的只是她那两个乳房之间的深凹之处,他甚至那么天真地问阿玛兰塔,她为什么是那种样儿,她回答说:“刨呀,刨呀,就刨出坑凹啦。”——接着用手表示如何刨法。过了许久,她在皮埃特罗·克列斯比死后恢复了常态,又跟奥雷连诺。霍塞一块儿洗澡,他已经不去注意那个深凹之处,可是她那酥软的乳房和褐色的乳头却使他奇怪地发颇。他继续观察她,逐渐发现了她那最最隐秘的奇迹,而且由于这种宜观,他觉得自己的皮肤起了一层鸡皮疙瘩,就象她的皮肤接触冷水时出现的那种疙瘩。奥雷连诺·霍塞还是个小孩儿的时候,就养成了天刚微明就从自己的吊铺钻进阿玛兰塔卧榻的习惯,因为趴她接触可以驱除他对黑暗的恐惧。然而,自从那一大他注意到了她的裸体之后,促使他从蚊帐下面钻进阿玛兰塔卧榻的,已经不是对黑暗的恐惧,而是渴望黎明时闻到她那温暖的气息了。有一天拂晓时——这件事正好发生在阿玛兰塔拒绝了格休列尔多·马克斯上校的时候——奥雷连诺。霍塞醒了过来,觉得自己喘不过气。他感到阿玛兰塔的手指,活象急切、贪婪的小虫子,悄悄地摸他的肚子。奥雷连诺·霍塞假装睡着了,翻身仰卧,让她的手指摸起来更方便一些。这一夜,他和阿玛兰塔建立了狼狈为奸的牢固关系,尽管两人都装作不知道两人已经知道的事,正象其中一个知道另一个已经明白一切那样。现在,奥雷连诺·霍塞不听到音乐钟响起十二点的华尔兹舞曲就不能人睡,而这个容颜已衰的女人呢,除非她养大的梦游者钻进她的蚊帐,并且成为她治疗孤独病的临时药剂,她就没有片刻的安宁。随后,他俩不仅赤身露体地一块儿睡觉,弄得疲惫不堪,而且白天也在房中各处互相追逐,或者关在卧宝里,经常处于无法止息的兴奋状态。有一天下午,乌苏娜差点儿发现了他们的秘密——她突然走进库房,他俩刚刚开始接吻。“你很爱自己的姑姑吧?”她天真地问了孙子一句。他作了肯定的回答,“你干得好呀!”乌苏娜说着,量出了做面包的面粉,就回厨房去了。这下子使得阿玛兰塔清醒了过来。她明白自己作得过头了,已经不光是跟小孩子玩玩接吻的游戏,还陷进了恋爱的泥潭,这种恋爱是危险的、没有好结果的,于是她马上坚决地结束了这种勾当。这时完成了军事训练的奥雷连诺·霍塞,不得不忍受这件事情的痛苦,开始住在兵营里。每逢星期六,他都和士兵们一块儿去卡塔林诺游艺场。他过早成熟,而且陷入了孤独,就向那些发出萎谢的花味儿的女人寻求安慰:在黑暗中,他把她们理想化,而且凭热烈的想象把她们当做阿玛兰塔。
  过了不久,传到马孔多的战争消息就变得互相矛盾了。尽管政府本身公开承认起义者取得了接二连三的胜利,可是马孔多的起义军官们仍然拥有难免投降的机密情报。四月初,有个特使来找格林列尔多·马克斯上校。他证实,自由党领袖们的确跟内部地区起义部队的头头们进行了谈判知论,或同信仰主义和神秘主义相结合,以使人民停留在愚,很快就要和政府签署下述条件的停战协定:自由党人取得三个部长职位,在议会里成为少数派;赦免放下武器的起义者。特使带来了奥雷连诺上校十分机密的指示:他不同意停战条件。他命令格林列尔多·马克斯上校挑选五个最可靠的人,准备跟他们一起离开国内。命令是极端秘密地执行的。在正式宣布停战之前一个星期,各种互相矛盾的谣言涌到马孔多的时候,奥雷连诺上校和十个忠于他的军官,其中包括罗克·卡尼瑟洛上校,在夜色的掩护下,秘密地来到了马孔多,造散了警备队,埋藏了武器,销毁了档案。黎明时分,他们同格林列尔多·马克斯上校和他的五个人一起离开了马孔多。这次行动是迅捷无声的,乌苏娜直到最后一分钟才知道情况,当时不知是谁轻轻地敲了敲她的卧室窗子,低声说:“如果你想见见奥雪连诺上校,就赶快出来。”乌苏娜从床上一跃而起,穿着睡衣奔到街上,可是已经看不见什么人,只听到黑暗里传来疾驰的马蹄声--支马队在尘土飞扬中离开了马孔多。乌苏娜第二天才发现,奥雷连诺·霍塞跟他父亲一块儿走了。
  政府和反对派发表了结束战争的联合公报之后十天,传来了奥雷连诺上校在西部边境发动第一次起义的消息。起义部队人数不多,装备很差,不到一个星期就溃败了。但在一,年之中,正当自由党人和保守党人尽量让全国相信他们的和解时,奥雷连诺上校又组织了七次武装起义。有一天夜呕,他队一条纵帆船上向列奥阿察开炮,列奥阿察警备队的回答是:把城内最著名的十四个自由党人从床上拖出,就地熗决。奥雷连诺上校占领了边境的海关哨所两个多星期,从那几向全国发出了开始全民战争的号召。另一次,他在丛林里游荡了三个月,柯算实现一个最荒唐的计划——在原始丛林垦走过将近一千五百公里,到首都郊区去展开军事行动。有一次,他出现在距离马孔多下到二十公里的地方,可是政府军把他逼进了山里——到了距离一个魔区很近的地方,许多年前他的父亲曾在那儿发现过西班牙大帆船的骨架。
  就在这时,维希塔香死了。她是象她希望的那样自然死亡的,由于害怕失眠症使她过早死去,她曾离开了自己的家乡。这个印第安女人的遗愿,是要乌苏娜从她床下的小箱子里掏出她二十多年的积蓄,送给奥雷连诺上校去支援战争。可是,乌苏娜并没去碰这些钱,因为听说奥雷连诺上校似乎在省城附近登陆时牺牲了。大家认为,关于他已死亡的正式报导——最近两年中的第四次——是可靠的,因为几乎六个月来再也没有听到他的消息。尽管以前的大事还没过期,乌苏娜和阿玛兰塔又宣布了新的丧事,然而今人震惊的消息却突然传到了马孔多。奥雷连诺上校还话着,可是显然停止了跟本国政府的战斗,而同加勒比海其他国这节节胜利的联邦主义者联合了起来。他已改名换姓,离噶自己的国家越来越远。后来知道,他当时的理想是把中美洲所有联邦主义者的力量联合起来,推翻整个大陆——从阿拉斯加到巴塔戈尼亚(注:阿根廷地名)——的保守派政府。乌苏娜直接从儿子那里接到了第一个信息,是他离开马孔多几年之后捎来的——那是一封揉皱了的。字迹模糊的信,一直从古巴的圣地亚哥经过不同的手传递来的。
  “我们永远失去奥雷连诺啦,”乌苏娜读了信,悦道。“如果他这样走下去,再过一年就到天边啦。”
  这些活是乌苏娜向一个人说的,而且她首先拿信给他看——这个人就是保守党的霍塞·拉凯尔·蒙卡达将军,他在战争结束之后当上了马孔多镇长,“唉,这个奥雷连诺,可惜他不是保守党人,”蒙卡达将军说。他确实钦佩奥雷连诺上校。象保守党的许多丈职人员一样,霍塞·拉凯尔·蒙卡达为了捍卫党的利益,参加了战争,在战场上获得了将军头衔,尽管他不是职业军人。相反地,象他的许多党内同事一样,他是坚决反对军阀的。他认为军阀是不讲道义的二流于、阴谋家和投机分子;为了混水摸鱼,他们骚扰百姓。霍塞·拉凯尔·蒙卡达将军聪明、乐观,喜欢吃喝和观看斗鸡,有一段时间是奥雷连诺上校最危险的敌人。他在沿海广大地区初出茅庐的军人中间很有威望。有一次从战略考虑,他不得不把一个要塞让给奥雷连诺上校的部队,离开时给奥雷连诺上校冒下了两封信。在一封较长的信里,他建议共同组织一次用人道办法进行战争的运动。另一封信是给住在起义者占领区的将军夫人的,在所附的一张字条上,将军要求把信转给收信人。从那时起,即使在最血腥的战争时期,两位指挥官也签订了交换俘虏的休战协议。蒙卡达将军利用这些充满了节口气氛的战个间隙,还教奥雷连诺上校下象棋。他俩成了好朋友,甚至考虑能否让两党的普通成员一致行动,消除军阀和职业政客的影响,建立人道主义制度,采用两党纲领中一切最好的东西。战争结束之后,奥雷连诺上校暗中进行曲折、持久的破坏活动,而蒙卡达将军却当上马孔多镇长。蒙卡达将军又穿上了便服,用没有武器的警察代替了士兵,执行特赦法令,帮助一些战死的自由党人的家庭。他宣布马孔多为自治区的中心,从镇长升为区长以后,在镇上创造了平静生活的气氛,使得人们想起战争就象想起遥远的、毫无意义的噩梦。被肝病彻底摧垮的尼康诺神父,己由科隆涅尔神父代替,这是第一次联邦战争中的老兵,马孔多的人管他叫“唠叨鬼”。布鲁诺·克列斯比跟安芭萝·摩斯柯特结了婚,他的玩具店象以往一样生意兴隆,而且他在镇上建了一座剧场,西班牙剧团也把马孔多包括在巡回演出的路线之内。剧场是一座宽敞的无顶建筑物,场内摆着木板凳,挂着丝绒幕,幕上有希腊人的头像;门票是在三个狮头大的售票处——通过张得很大的嘴巴——出售的。那时,学校也重新建成,由沼泽地带另一个市镇来的老教师梅尔乔尔·艾斯卡隆纳先生管理;他让懒学生在铺了鹅卵石的院子里爬,而给在课堂上说话的学牛吃辛辣的印度胡椒——这一切都得到父母们的赞成。奥雷连诺第二和霍.阿卡蒂奥第二——圣索菲娅.德拉佩德的任性的孪生子,是最先带着石板、粉笔以及标上本人名字的铝杯进教室的;继承了母亲姿色的雷麦黛丝,已经开始成为闻名的“俏姑娘雷麦黛丝”。尽管年岁已高、忧虑重重,而且不断办理丧事,乌苏哪仍不服老。在圣索菲怔。德拉佩德协助下,她使糖果点心的生产有了新的规模——几年之中,她不仅恢复了儿子花在战争上的财产,而且装满了几葫芦纯金,把它们藏在卧室里。“只要上帝让我活下去,”她常说,“这个疯人院里总有充足的钱。”正当家庭处在这种情况下的时候,奥雷连诺·霍塞从尼加拉瓜的联邦军队里开了小差,在德国船上当了一名水手,回到了家中的厨房里——他象牲口一样粗壮,象印第安人一样黝黑、长发,而且怀着跟阿玛兰塔结婚的打算。
  阿玛兰塔一看见他,就立即明白他是为什么回来的,尽管他还没说什么。在桌边吃饭时,他俩不敢对视。可是回家之后两个星期,在乌苏娜面前,奥雷连诺·霍塞竟盯着阿玛兰塔的眼睛,说:”我经常都想着你。”阿玛兰塔竭力回避他,不跟他见面,总跟俏姑娘雷麦黛丝呆在一起。有一次,奥雷连诺·霍塞问阿玛兰塔,她打算把手上的黑色绷带缠到什么时候,阿玛兰塔认为侄子的话是在暗示她的处女生活,竟红了脸,但也怪自己不该红脸。从奥雷连诺·霍塞口来以后,她就开始闩上自己的卧窒门,可是连夜都听到他在隔壁房间里平静地打鼾,后来她就把这种预防措施忘记了。在他回来之后约莫两个月,有一夭清晨,阿玛兰塔听到他走进她的卧室,这时,她既没逃跑,也没叫嚷,而是发呆,感到松快,她觉得他钻进了蚊帐,就象他还是小孩几时那样,就象他往常那样,于是她的身体渗出了冷汗;当她发现他赤身露体的时候,她的牙齿止不住地磕碰起来。“走开,”她惊得喘不上气,低声说。“走开,要不我就叫啦。”可是现在奥雷连诺·霍塞知道该怎么办,因为他已经不是一个孩子,而是兵营里的野兽了。从这一夜起,他俩之间毫无给果的搏斗重新开始,直到天亮。“我是你的姑姑,”阿玛兰塔气喘吁吁地低声说,“差不多是你的母亲,不仅因为我的年龄,也许只是没有给你喂过奶。”黎明,奥雷连诺走了,准备夜里再来,而且每次看见没有闩上的房门.他就越来越起劲。因他从来没有停止过对她的欲念。在占领的城镇里,在漆黑的卧室里,——特别是在最下贱的卧室里——他遇见过她:在伤者绷带上的凝血气味中,在面临致命危险的片刻恐怖中,在任何时候和任何地方,她的形象都出现在他的眼前。他从家中出走、本来是想不仅借助于遥远的距离,而且借助于令人发麻的残忍(他的战友们把这种残忍叫做“无畏”),永远忘掉她:但在战争的粪堆里,他越污损她的形象,战争就越使他想起她。他就这样在流亡中饱经痛苦,寻求死亡,希望在死亡中摆脱阿玛兰塔,可是有一次却听到了有个老头儿讲的旷古奇闻,说是有个人跟自己的姑姑结了婚,那个姑姑又算是他的表姐,而他的儿子原来是他自己的祖父(注:一种乱婚)。
  “难道可以跟亲姑姑结婚吗?”惊异的奥雷连诺·霍塞问道。
  “不仅可以跟姑姑结婚,”有个士兵胡说八道地回答他。“要不,咱们为啥反对教士?每个人甚至可以跟自己的母亲结婚嘛。”
  这场谈话之后过了两个星期,奥雷连诺·霍塞就开了小差。他觉得,阿玛兰塔比以前更苍白了,也更抑郁和拘谨了,已经成熟到了头,但在卧室的黑暗里,她却比以前更加热情。虽然勇敢地抗拒,但又在激励他。“你是野兽,”被他追逼的阿玛兰塔说。“难道你不知道,只有得到罗马教皇的许可才能跟姑姑结婚?”奥雷连诺。霍塞答应前往罗马,爬过整个欧洲,去吻教皇的靴子,只要阿玛兰塔放下自己的吊桥。
  “问题不光是许可,”阿玛兰塔反驳。“这样生下的孩子都有猪尾巴。”
  对她所说的道理,奥雷连诺·霍塞根本听不进去。
  “哪怕生下鳄龟也行,”他说。
  有一天清晨,他因欲望没有得到满足而觉得难受,就到卡塔林诺游艺场去。他在那儿找了一个廉价、温柔、乳房下垂的女人,这女人暂时缓和了他的苦恼。现在,他想用假装的轻蔑未制服阿玛兰塔了,他走过长廊时,看见她在缝纫机上异常灵巧地干活,他连一句话也没跟她说。阿玛兰塔觉得如释重负,她自己也不明白怎么回事,突然下新想到了格休列尔多·马克斯上校,怀念起了晚间下棋的情景,她甚至希望在自己的卧宗里看见上校了。奥雷连诺.霍塞没有料到,由于自己错误的策略,他失去了许多机会。有一大夜里,他再也不能扮演无所谓的角色了,就来到了阿玛兰塔的房间。她怀着不可动摇的决心拒绝了他,永远门上了门。
  奥雷连诺。霍寒回来之后过了几个月,一个身姿优美、发出茉莉花香的女人来到马孔多乌苏娜家里,还带来了一个约莫五岁购孩子,女人说这孩子是奥雷连诺上校的儿子,希望乌苏娜给他命名。这无名孩子的出身没有引起仟何人的怀疑:他正象当年第一次去参观冰块的上校。女人说,孩子是张开眼睛出世的,而且带者成年人的神情观察周围的人,他一眨不眨地凝视东西的习惯,叫她感到惊异。“跟他父亲一模一样,”乌苏娜说。“只差一点:他的父亲只要用眼睛一瞧,椅了就会自己移动。”孩子给命名为奥雷连诺,随母亲的姓,——根据法律,他不能随父亲的姓。除非父亲承认他。教父是蒙卡达将军。阿玛兰塔要术把孩子留给她抚养,可是孩子的母亲不同意。
  就象拿母鸡跟良种公鸡交配一样,让姑娘去跟著名的军人睡觉,这种风习是乌苏娜从没听说过的,们在这一年中,她坚决相信确有这种风习,因为奥雷连诺上校的其他九个儿子也送来请她命名。其中母大的已经超过十岁,是个黑发、绿眼的古怪孩子,一点也不象父亲。送来的孩子有各种年龄的,各种肤色的,然而总是男孩,全部显得那么孤僻,那就无可怀疑他们和布恩蒂亚家的血统关系了。在一连中该子中,乌苏娜记住的只有两个。一个高大得跟年岁不相称的小孩儿,把她的一些花瓶和若下碟子变成了一堆碎片.因为他的手似乎具有碰到什么就粉碎什么的特性。另一个是金发孩子,氏着母亲那样的灰蓝色眼睛,姑娘一般的长鬃发。他毫不腼腆地走进房来,仿佛熟悉这里的一切,好象他是在这里长大的,径直走到乌苏哪卧室里的一个柜子跟前,说:“我要自动芭蕾舞女演员,”乌苏娜甚至吓了一跳。她打开柜子,在梅尔加德斯时期留下的、乱七八糟的、沾满尘土的东西中间翻寻了一阵,找到了一双旧长袜裹着的芭蕾裤女演员——这是皮埃特罗·克列斯比有一次拿来的,大家早就把它给忘了,不过十二年工夫,奥雷连诺在南征北战中跟一些女人个在各地的儿子——十七个儿子——都取了奥雷连诺这个名字,都随自己母亲的姓。最初,乌苏娜给他们的衣兜都塞满了钱,而阿玛兰塔总想把孩了留给自己,可是后来,乌苏娜和阿玛兰塔都只送点礼品,充当教母了。“咱们给他们命了名,就尽了责啦,”乌苏娜一面说,一面把每个母亲的姓名和住址、怯子出小的日期和地点记在一本专用册千里。“奥雷连诺应当有一本完整的账,因为他回来以后就得决定孩子们的命运。”在一次午餐中间,乌苏娜跟蒙卡达将军谈论这种引起担忧的繁殖力时,希望奥雷迁诺上校有朝一日能够回来,把他所有的儿子都聚到一座房了里。
  “您不必操心,大娘,”蒙卡达将军神秘地回答。“他会比您预料的回来得早。”
  蒙卡达将军知道一个秘密,不愿在午餐时透露,那就是奥雷连诺上校已在回国的路上,准备领导最长久的、最坚决的、最血腥的起义,一切都超过他迄今发动过的那些起义。
  局势又变得紧张起来,就象第一次战争之前的几个月一样。镇长本人鼓励的斗鸡停止了。警备队长阿基列斯·里十多上尉实际上掌握了民政大权。自由党人说他是个挑拨者。“可怕的事就要发生啦,”乌苏娜向奥雷连诺·霍塞说。“晚上六点以后不要上街。”她的哀求没有用处。奥雷连诺·霍塞象往日的阿卡蒂奥一样,不再属于她了。看来,他回到家里,能够无忧无虑地生活,又有了他的怕怕霍·阿卡蒂奥那种好色和懒惰的倾向。奥雷连诺.霍塞对阿玛兰塔的热情已经媳灭,在他心中没有留下任何创痕。他仿佛是在随波逐流:玩台球,随便找些女人解闷,去摸乌苏娜密藏积蓄的地方;有时回家看看:也只是为了换换衣服。“他们都是一个样,”乌苏娜抱怨说。“起初,他们规矩、听话、正经,好象连苍蝇都不欺负,可只要一长胡子,马上就去作孽啦。”阿卡蒂奥始终都不知道自己的真实出身,奥雷连诺.霍塞却跟他不同,知道他的母亲是皮拉.苔列娜。她甚至在自个儿屋里悬了个吊铺给他睡午觉。他俩不仅是母亲和儿子,而且是孤独中的伙伴。在皮拉·苔列娜心中,最后一点希望的火星也熄灭了。她的笑声已经低得象风琴的音响;她的乳房已经由于别人胡乱的抚弄而耷拉下去;她的肚子和大腿也象妓女一样,遭到了百般的蹂躏;不过,她的心虽已衰老,却无痛苦。她身体发胖,喜欢叨咕,成了不讨人喜欢的女人,已经不再用纸牌顶卜毫无结果的希望,而在别人的爱情里寻求安宁和慰藉了。奥雷连诺·霍塞午休的房子,是邻居姑娘们和临时的情人幽会之所。“借用一下你的房间吧,皮拉,”她们走进房间,不客气他说。“请吧,”皮拉回答。如果是成双结对而来的,她就补上一句:“看见别人在床上快活,我也快活嘛。”
  替人效劳,她向来不收报酬。她从不拒绝别人的要求,就象她从不拒绝男人一样;即使她到了青春已过的时候,这些男人也追求她,尽管他们既不给她钱,也不给她爱情,只是偶尔给她一点快乐。皮拉·苔列娜的五个女儿象母亲一样热情,还是小姑娘的时候就走上了曲折的人生道路。从她养大的两个儿子中,一个在奥雷连诺上校的旗帜下战死了,另一个满十四岁时,因为企图在沼泽地带购另一个市镇上偷一篮鸡,受了伤,被捉走了。在一定程度上,奥雷连诺·霍塞就是半个世乡己中“红桃老K”向她预示的那个高大、黝黑的男人,但他象纸牌许诺给她的其他一切男人一样,钻到她的心里人迟了,因为死神已在他的身上打上了标记。皮拉·苔列娜在纸牌上是看出了这一点的。
  “今晚别出去,”她向他说。“就睡在这儿,卡梅丽达,蒙蒂埃尔早就要我让她到你的房间里去了。”
  奥雷连诺·霍塞没有理解母亲话里的深刻涵义。
  “告诉她半夜等我吧,”他回答。
  接着他就前往剧场,西班牙剧团在那儿演出戏剧《狐狸的短剑》,实际上这是索利拉的一出悲剧,可是阿基列斯·里卡多上尉下令把剧名改了,因为自由党人把保守党人叫做“哥特人”。奥雷连诺·霍塞在剧场门口拿出戏票时发现,阿基列斯·里卡多带若两名持熗的士兵正在搜查入场的人。“当心点吧,上尉,”奥孟连诺·霍塞提出警告,“能够向我举手的人还没出世咧。”上尉试图强迫搜查他,没带武器的奥雷连诺·霍塞拔腿就跑。士兵们没有服从开熗的命令。“他是布恩蒂亚家的人嘛,”其中一个士兵解释。于是,狂怒的上尉拿起一支步熗,冲到街道中间,立即瞄准。
  “全是胆小鬼!”他怒吼起来。“哪怕这是奥雷连诺上校,我也不伯!”
  卡梅丽达·蒙蒂埃尔是个二十岁的姑娘,刚在自己身上洒了花露水,把迷迭香花瓣撒在皮拉·苔列娜床上,就听到了熗声。从纸牌的占卜看来,奥雷连诺·霍塞注定要跟她一块儿得到幸福(阿玛兰塔曾经拒绝给他这种幸福),有七个孩子,他年老以后将会死在她的怀里,可是贯穿他的脊背到胸膛的上一颗子弹,显然不太理解纸牌的顶示。然而,注定要在这天夜里死亡的阿基列斯.里卡多上尉真的死了,而且比奥雷连诺。霍塞早死四个小时,熗声一响,上尉也倒下了,不知是谁向他射出了两颗子弹,而且许多人的叫喊声震动了夜间的空气。
  “自由党万岁!奥雷连诺上校万岁!”
  夜里十二点,当奥雷连诺·霍塞流血致死,卡梅丽达。蒙蒂埃尔发现纸牌向她预示的未来十分渺茫的时候,有四百多人在剧场前面经过,又用手熗朝阿基列斯·里卡多的尸体叭叭地射出一些子弹。把满身铅弹的沉重尸体搬上车子,需要好几个士兵,这个尸体象浸湿的面包一样瓦解了。
  对政府军的卑劣行怪感到恼怒的霍塞.拉凯尔.蒙卡达将军,运用自己的政治影响,重新穿上制服,掌握了马孔多的军政权力。但他并不指望自己调和的态度能够防止不可避免的事情。九月里的消息是互相矛盾的。政府声称控制了全国,而自由党人却接到了内部地区武装起义的秘密情报。只有在宣布军事法庭缺席判决奥雷连诺上校死刑时,政府当局才承认故争状态。哪一个警备队首先逮住上校,就由哪一个警备队执行判决。“可见,他回来啦,”乌苏娜向蒙卡达将军高兴地说。然而,蒙卡达将军还没有这样的情报。
  其实,奥雷连诺上校一个多月前已经回国。他的回国引起了各种各样的谣言;根据这些谣言,他同时出现在相距几百公里的好几个地方,所以,在政府宣布奥雷连诺上校占领了沿海两州之前,甚至蒙卡达将军自己也不相信他已回国。“祝贺您,大娘,”蒙卡达将军向乌苏娜说,并且拿电报给她看。“您很快就能在这里见到他了。”这时乌苏娜才第一次感到不安。“可您怎么办呢?”她问。蒙卡达将军已经多次向自己提出过这个问题。
  “像他一样:履行自己的职责。”
  十月一日拂晓,奥雷连诺上校率领一千名装备精良的士兵进攻马扎多。警备队奉命抵抗到底。晌午,蒙卡达将军跟乌苏娜一起吃饭时,起义者的排炮像雷一样在整个市镇上空隆隆地响,把地方金库的门面轰毁了。“他们的武器不次于我们,”蒙卡达将军说,“而且战斗意志更强。”下午两点,双方的炮击震撼大地的时候,将军就跟乌苏娜告别了,他完全相信自己正在进行一场注定失败的战斗。
  “奥雷连诺上校也许今晚就在这座房子里了,”他说。“如果真是那样,请您替我拥抱他,因为我以为再也见不到他了。”
  这天夜里,蒙卡达将军打算逃出马扎多的时候被捕;他事先写好了一封给奥雷连诺上校的长信,信中提到了他俩想使战争变得更加人道的共同心愿,并且希望他在对军阀的腐败和两党政客的野心的斗争中,取得最后胜利。第二天,奥雷连诺上校就跟蒙卡达将军在乌苏娜女排宅子里共进午餐了,因为将军是拘押在这儿,等待革命军事法庭决定他的命运的。这是一次友好的聚会。然而,当两个敌对者忘掉战争、回忆往事的时候,乌苏娜摆脱不了一种阴暗的感觉:他的儿子是像强盗一样回国的。他带着人数很多的卫队刚一跨进宅子的门槛,她就产生了这种感觉,因为卫队士兵为了弄清有没有什么危险,把所有的房间都翻了个底儿朝天。奥雷连诺上校不但允许这么干,而且用不容反驳的声调发出命令,在房子周围没有安好哨兵之前,不准住任何人(甚至乌苏娜)靠近他。他身上穿着没有任何等级标志的粗布军服,脚上穿着污泥和凝血弄脏的高统马靴。挂在腰边的大口径手熗皮套是解开钮扣的,在他那一直紧张地握着熗柄的手指上,可以看出他的眼神里流露的那种警觉和决心。他的头现在已有明显的秃顶,仿佛在文火上烤干了。加勒比海咸水浸过的面孔,已经像金属那样硬梆梆的。他在用干劲来抵御不可避免的衰老,而这种干劲跟他内心的冷酷有密切的关系。现在,他显得比从前更高、更苍白、更瘦了,第一次使人看出,他在尽量压抑对亲人的感情。“我的天,”不安的乌苏娜想道。“他像一个啥事都干得出来的人啦!”他确实成了这样的人。他带给阿玛兰塔的阿兹特克披中,他在餐桌边的回忆,他所讲的奇闻趣事,只是使人稍微想起昔日的奥雷连诺。还没来得及把花者葬入公墓,他就指示罗克·卡尼瑟洛上校赶紧成立军事法庭,自己却去开始进行繁重而激烈的改革,以便彻底摧毁保守制度摇摇欲坠的大厦。“咱们必须赶在自由党政客们前面,”他向自己的助手们说。“当他们最终用清醒的眼光看待周围的现实时,一切都已干好了。”正是在这个时候,他决定重新审核最近五年间登记的土地所有权,而已发现了法律认可的、他的哥哥霍·阿卡蒂奥掠夺的土地。他大笔一挥就注销了登记。接着,为了表示最后的礼貌,他把一切事情延搁了一个小时,去向雷贝卡说明自己的决定。
  这个孤伶伶的寡妇往日曾经知道他那隐秘的爱情,而且她的顽强救过他的命;但在晦暗的客厅里,上校觉得她简直像个幽灵。这个女人裹着一件长到脚边的黑衣服,早已心灰意冷,大概一点也不知道战争的情况。他觉得,她的骨骼发出的磷光透过了皮肤,她就在充满磷火的空气中浮动了;在这水潭一样凝滞的空气里,还感觉得到轻微的火药味。奥雷连诺上校首先劝她节哀,打开窗子,为霍·阿卡蒂奥之死原谅别人。可是,雷贝卡已不需要空虚的、尘世的欢乐。她曾在泥土的酸涩气味中寻求欢乐,在皮埃特罗·克列斯比洒了香水的信中寻求欢乐,在丈夫的床上寻求欢乐,但都枉然,最后才在这座房子里得到宁静;在这里,在她的幻想中,往日的形象重新变成了活人,经常在与世隔绝的房间里徘徊。雷贝卡仰身靠在柳条摇椅里,仔细地审视着奥雷连诺上校,仿佛他是一个鬼怪;听说霍·阿卡蒂奥侵占的土地将要归还原主,她也没有表现任何激动。
  “你愿咋办就咋办,奥雷连诺,”她叹口气说。“你不爱自己的亲人,我一直这么认为,现在看来我并没有弄错。”
  土地所有权的重新审核和军事法庭的审理是同时进行的,法庭由格休列尔多·马克斯上校主持,处决了所有被俘的政府军军官。最后审讯的是霍塞·拉凯尔·蒙卡达将军。乌苏娜为他辩护。“他是我们马孔多最好的一个镇长,”她向奥雷连诺上校说。“我不用说他的好心肠,不用说他对咱们家的热爱,因为你知道得比谁都清楚。”奥雷连诺上校谴责地瞥了她一眼。
  “我无权裁决,”他回答说。“如果你有什么要说,就向军事法庭说吧。”
  乌苏娜不仅自己亲自出动,还把在马孔多出生的那些起义军官的母亲带来作证。这些最老的市镇居民——其中一些甚至参加过翻山越岭的大胆的进军——一个接一个地夸奖蒙卡达将军的美德。乌苏娜是这支队伍的最后一名。她那悲伤而尊严的神情,她那名字的分量,她那话里的信心,使得审判的天平迟疑了片刻。“你们玩弄这种恐怖的把戏是很认真的,你们做得对嘛,因为你们在履行自己的职责,”她向法庭成员们说,“可是你们不要忘记:只要我们活在世上,我们就是你们的母亲,你们无论多么革命,一旦不尊重我们,我们都有权脱下你们的裤子,用皮带狠狠地抽。”法庭成员退下去商量的时候,这些话还在已经变成营房的教室里发出回声。半夜,霍塞·拉凯尔·蒙卡达将军被判死刑。尽管乌苏娜强烈谴责,奥雷连诺上校仍然拒绝减轻刑罚。天亮之前不久,他在往常当作囚室的房间里探望了判死刑的人。
  “记住,老朋友,”奥雷连诺上校向他说,“不是我要熗毙你,是革命要熗毙你。”
  蒙卡达将军看见他进屋的时候,甚至没有从床上站起身来。
  “见鬼去吧,朋友,”他回答。
  自从回来直到现在,奥雷连诺上校都不让自己同情地望这个将军一眼。现在,他惊异地看见将军衰老的样子、颤抖的双手以及等待死亡的顺从态度,他就对自己感到深刻的鄙视。但他把这种鄙视跟刚刚出现的怜悯混到了一起。
  “你比我更清楚,”他说,“任何军事法庭都是鬼把戏,实际上,你是替别人的罪恶受到惩罚。这一次,我们决定不惜任何代价赢得战争。难道你处在我的地位不这么干吗?”
  蒙卡达将军站起来,用衬衣下摆擦了擦很厚的玳瑁眼镜。
  “大概如此,”他说,“可我痛心的不是你打算熗毙我,因为归根到底,对于我们这样的人来说,这是一种自然死亡。”他把眼镜放在床上,取下手表和表链。“使我伤心的是,”他继续说,“你那么憎恨军阀,不断跟他们战斗,经常咒骂他们,结果你像他们一样坏。世界上任何理想都是不能为这种卑劣行为辩护的。”他摘下订婚戒指和救命女神像,把它们跟眼镜和手表放在一起。
  “如果这样继续下去,”他最后说,“你不但会成为我国历史上最专横暴戾的独裁者,而且会熗杀我敬爱的乌苏娜,那样你才安心。”
  奥雷连诺上校无动于衷地站在那儿。于是,蒙卡达将军把眼镜、女神像、手表和戒指交给他,用另一种声调说:
  “但我叫你来,不是这了骂你,我想请你把这些东西交给我的妻子。”
  奥雷连诺上校把东西都放进自己的衣兜。
  “她还在马诺尔吗?”
  “还在马诺尔,”蒙卡达将军回答。“就在教堂后面那座房子里,你前次送信去的那个地方。”
  “我很高兴效劳,霍塞·拉凯尔,”奥雷连诺上校说。
  当他走进街上浅蓝色的雾霭里时,他的面孔一下子就湿润了,正像过去的那天黎明一样;这时,他才明白自己为什么下令在兵营院子里、而不在墓地墙边执行判决。站在房门对面的行刑队向他致敬,犹如对待国家元首似的。
  “现在,你们可以把他押出来了,”他下了命令。


执素衣

ZxID:13389413


等级: 内阁元老
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Chapter 7
THE WAR was over in May. Two weeks before the government made the official announcement in a high-sounding proclamation, which promised merciless punishment for those who had started the rebellion, Colonel Aureliano Buendía fell prisoner just as he was about to reach the western frontier disguised as an Indian witch doctor. Of the twenty-one men who had followed him to war, fourteen fell in combat, six were wounded, and only one accompanied him at the moment of final defeat: Colonel Gerineldo Márquez. The news of his capture was announced in Macondo with a special proclamation. “He’s alive,??rsula told her husband. “Let’s pray to God for his enemies to show him clemency.?After three days of weeping, one afternoon as she was stirring some sweet milk candy in the kitchen she heard her son’s voice clearly in her ear. “It was Aureliano, ?she shouted, running toward the chestnut tree to tell her husband the news. “I don’t know how the miracle took place, but he’s alive and we’re going to see him very soon.?She took it for granted. She had the floors of the house scrubbed and changed the position of the furniture. One week later a rumor from somewhere that was not supported by any proclamation gave dramatic confirmation to the prediction. Colonel Aureliano Buendía had been condemned to death and the sentence would be carried out in Macondo as a lesson to the population. On Monday, at ten-thirty in the morning, Amaranta was dressing Aureliano Jos?when she heard the sound of a distant troop and the blast of a cornet one second before ?rsula burst into the room with the shout: “They’re bringing him now!?The troop struggled to subdue the overflowing crowd with their rifle butts. ?rsula and Amaranta ran to the corner, pushing their way through, and then they saw him. He looked like a beggar. His clothing was torn, his hair and beard were tangled, and he was barefoot. He was walking without feeling the burning dust, his hands tied behind his back with a rope that a mounted officer had attached to the head of his horse. Along with him, also ragged and defeated, they were bringing Colonel Gerineldo Márquez. They were not sad. They seemed more disturbed by the crowd that was shouting all kinds of insults at the troops.
   “My son!??rsula shouted in the midst of the uproar, and she slapped the soldier who tried to hold her back. The officer’s horse reared. Then Colonel Aureliano Buendía stopped, tremulous, avoided the arms of his mother, and fixed a stern look on her eyes.
   “Go home, Mama,?he said. “Get permission from the authorities to come see me in jail.?
   He looked at Amaranta, who stood indecisively two steps behind ?rsula, and he smiled as he asked her, “What happened to your hand??Amaranta raised the hand with the black bandage. “A burn,?she said, and took ?rsula away so that the horses would not run her down. The troop took off. A special guard surrounded the prisoners and took them to the jail at a trot.
   At dusk ?rsula visited Colonel Aureliano Buendía in jail. She had tried to get permission through Don Apolinar Moscote, but he had lost all authority in the face of the military omnipotence. Father Nicanor was in bed with hepatic fever. The parents of Colonel Gerineldo Márquez, who had not been condemned to death, had tried to see him and were driven off with rifle butts. Facing the impossibility of finding anyone to intervene, convinced that her son would be shot at dawn, ?rsula wrapped up the things she wanted to bring him and went to the jail alone.
   “I am the mother of Colonel Aureliano Buendía,?she announced.
   The sentries blocked her way. “I’m going in in any case,??rsula warned them. “So if you have orders to shoot, start right in.?She pushed one of them aside and went into the former classroom, where a group of half-dressed soldiers were oiling their weapons. An officer in a field uniform, ruddy-faced, with very thick glasses and ceremonious manners, signaled to the sentries to withdraw.
   “I am the mother of Colonel Aureliano Buendía,??rsula repeated.
   “You must mean,?the officer corrected with a friendly smile, “that you are the mother of Mister Aureliano Buendía.??rsula recognized in his affected way of speaking the languid cadence of the stuck-up people from the highlands.
   “As you say, mister,?she accepted, “just as long as I can see him.?
   There were superior orders that prohibited visits to prisoners condemned to death, but the officer assumed the responsibility of letting her have a fifteen-minute stay. ?rsula showed him what she had in the bundle: a change of clean clothing, the short boots that her son had worn at his wedding, and the sweet milk candy that she had kept for him since the day she had sensed his return. She found Colonel Aureliano Buendía in the room that was used as a cell, lying on a cot with his arms spread out because his armpits were paved with sores. They had allowed him to shave. The thick mustache with twisted ends accentuated the sharp angles of his cheekbones. He looked paler to ?rsula than when he had left, a little taller, and more solitary than ever. He knew all about the details of the house: Pietro Crespi’s suicide, Arcadio’s arbitrary acts and execution. the dauntlessness of Jos?Arcadio Buendía underneath the chestnut tree. He knew that Amaranta had consecrated her virginal widowhood to the rearing of Aureliano Jos?and that the latter was beginning to show signs of quite good judgment and that he had learned to read and write at the same time he had learned to speak. From the moment In which she entered the room ?rsula felt inhibited by the maturity of her son, by his aura of command, by the glow of authority that radiated from his skin. She was surprised that he was so well-informed. “You knew all along that I was a wizard,?he joked. And he added in a serious tone, “This morning, when they brought me here, I had the impression that I had already been through all that before.?In fact, while the crowd was roaring alongside him, he had been concentrating his thoughts, startled at how the town had aged. The leaves of the almond trees were broken. The houses, painted blue, then painted red, had ended up with an indefinable coloration.
   “What did you expect???rsula sighed. “Time passes.?
   “That’s how it goes,?Aureliano admitted, “but not so much.?
   In that way the long-awaited visit, for which both had prepared questions and had even anticipated answers, was once more the usual everyday conversation. When the guard announced the end of the visit, Aureliano took out a roll of sweaty papers from under the cot. They were his poetry, the poems inspired by Remedios, which he had taken with him when he left, and those he had written later on during chance pauses in the war. “Promise me that no one will read them,?he said. “Light the oven with them this very night.??rsula promised and stood up to kiss him good-bye.
   “I brought you a revolver,?she murmured.
   Colonel Aureliano Buendía saw that the sentry could not see. “It won’t do me any good,?he said in a low voice, “but give it to me in case they search you on the way out.??rsula took the revolver out of her bodice and put it under the mattress of the cot. “And don’t say good-bye,?he concluded with emphatic calmness. “Don’t beg or bow down to anyone. Pretend that they shot me a long time ago.??rsula bit her lip so as not to cry.
   “Put some hot stones on those sores,?she said.
   She turned halfway around and left the room. Colonel Aureliano Buendía remained standing, thoughtful, until the door closed. Then he lay down again with his arms open. Since the beginning of adolescence, when he had begun to be aware of his premonitions, he thought that death would be announced with a definite, unequivocal, irrevocable signal, but there were only a few hours left before he would die and the signal had not come. On a certain occasion a very beautiful woman had come into his camp in Tucurinca and asked the sentries?permission to see him. They let her through because they were aware of the fanaticism of mothers, who sent their daughters to the bedrooms of the most famous warriors, according to what they said, to improve the breed. That night Colonel Aureliano Buendía was finishing the poem about the man who is lost in the rain when the girl came into his room. He turned his back to her to put the sheet of paper into the locked drawer where he kept his poetry. And then he sensed it. He grasped the pistol in the drawer without turning his head.
   “Please don’t shoot,?he said.
   When he turned around holding his Pistol, the girl had lowered hers and did not know what to do. In that way he had avoided four out of eleven traps. On the other hand, someone who was never caught entered the revolutionary headquarters one night in Manaure and stabbed to death his close friend Colonel Magnífico Visbal, to whom he had given his cot so that he could sweat out a fever. A few yards away, sleeping in a hammock in the same room. he was not aware of anything. His efforts to systematize his premonitions were useless. They would come suddenly in a wave of supernatural lucidity, like an absolute and momentaneous conviction, but they could not be grasped. On occasion they were so natural that he identified them as premonitions only after they had been fulfilled. Frequently they were nothing but ordinary bits of superstition. But when they condemned him to death and asked him to state his last wish, he did not have the least difficulty in identifying the premonition that inspired his answer.
   “I ask that the sentence be carried out in Macondo,?he said.
   The president of the court-martial was annoyed. “Don’t be clever, Buendía,? he told him. “That’s just a trick to gain more time.?
   “If you don’t fulfill it, that will be your worry.?the colonel said, “but that’s my last wish.?
   Since then the premonitions had abandoned him. The day when ?rsula visited him in jail, after a great deal of thinking he came to the conclusion that perhaps death would not be announced that time because it did not depend on chance but on the will of his executioners. He spent the night awake, tormented by the pain of his sores. A little before dawn he heard steps in the hallway. “They’re coming,?he said to himself, and for no reason he thought of Jos?Arcadio Buendía, who at that moment was thinking about him under the dreary dawn of the chestnut tree. He did not feel fear or nostalgia, but an intestinal rage at the idea that this artificial death would not let him see the end of so many things that he had left unfinished. The door opened and a sentry came in with a mug of coffee. On the following day at the same hour he would still be doing what he was then, raging with the pain in his armpits, and the same thing happened. On Thursday he shared the sweet milk candy with the guards and put on his clean clothes, which were tight for him, and the patent leather boots. By Friday they had still not shot him.
   Actually, they did not dare carry out the sentence. The rebelliousness of the town made the military men think that the execution of Colonel Aureliano Buendía might have serious political consequences not only in Macondo but throughout the area of the swamp, so they consulted the authorities in the capital of the province. On Saturday night, while they were waiting for an answer Captain Roque Carnicero went with some other officers to Catarino’s place. Only one woman, practically threatened, dared take him to her room. “They don’t want to go to bed with a man they know is going to die,?she confessed to him. “No one knows how it will come, but everybody is going around saying that the officer who shoots Colonel Aureliano Buendía and all the soldiers in the squad, one by one, will be murdered, with no escape, sooner or later, even if they hide at the ends of the earth.?Captain Roque Carnicero mentioned it to the other officers and they told their superiors. On Sunday, although no one had revealed it openly, although no action on the part of the military had disturbed the tense calm of those days, the whole town knew that the officers were ready to use any manner of pretext to avoid responsibility for the execution. The official order arrived in the Monday mail: the execution was to be carried out within twenty-four hours. That night the officers put seven slips of paper into a cap, and Captain Roque Carnicero’s unpeaceful fate was foreseen by his name on the prize slip. “Bad luck doesn’t have any chinks in it,?he said with deep bitterness. “I was born a son of a bitch and I’m going to die a son of a bitch.?At five in the morning he chose the squad by lot, formed it in the courtyard, and woke up the condemned man with a premonitory phrase.
   “Let’s go, Buendía,?he told him. “Our time has come.?
   “So that’s what it was,?the colonel replied. “I was dreaming that my sores had burst.?
   Rebeca Buendía got up at three in the morning when she learned that Aureliano would be shot. She stayed in the bedroom in the dark, watching the cemetery wall through the half-opened window as the bed on which she sat shook with Jos?Arcadio’s snoring. She had waited all week with the same hidden persistence with which during different times she had waited for Pietro Crespi’s letters. “They won’t shoot him here,?Jos?Arcadio, told her. “They’ll shoot him at midnight in the barracks so that no one will know who made up the squad, and they’ll bury him right there.?Rebeca kept on waiting. “They’re stupid enough to shoot him here,?she said. She was so certain that she had foreseen the way she would open the door to wave good-bye. “They won’t bring him through the streets,?Jos?Arcadio insisted, with six scared soldiers and knowing that the people are ready for anything.?Indifferent to her husband’s logic, Rebeca stayed by the window.
   “You’ll see that they’re just stupid enough,?she said.
   On Tuesday, at five-in the. morning, Jos?Arcadio had drunk his coffee and let the dogs out when Rebeca closed the window and held onto the head of the bed so as not to fall down. “There, they’re bringing him,?she sighed. “He’s so handsome.?Jos?Arcadio looked out the window and saw him. tremulous in the light of dawn. He already had his back to the wall and his hands were on his hips because the burning knots in his armpits would not let him lower them. “A person fucks himself up so much,?Colonel Aureliano Buendía said. “Fucks himself up so much just so that six weak fairies can kill him and he can’t do anything about it.?He repeated it with so much rage that it almost seemed to be fervor, and Captain Roque Carnicero was touched, because he thought he was praying. When the squad took aim, the rage had materialized into a viscous and bitter substance that put his tongue to sleep and made him close his eyes. Then the aluminum glow of dawn disappeared and he saw himself again in short pants, wearing a tie around his neck, and he saw his father leading him into the tent on a splendid afternoon, and he saw the ice. When he heard the shout he thought that it was the final command to the squad. He opened his eyes with a shudder of curiosity, expecting to meet the incandescent trajectory of the bullets, but he only saw Captain Roque Carnicero with his arms in the air and Jos?Arcadio crossing the street with his fearsome shotgun ready to go off.
   “Don’t shoot,?the captain said to Jos?Arcadio. “You were sent by Divine Providence.?
   Another war began right there. Captain Roque Carnicero and his six men left with Colonel Aureliano Buendía to free the revolutionary general Victorio Medina, who had been condemned to death in Riohacha. They thought they could save time by crossing the mountains along the trail that Jos?Arcadio Buendía had followed to found Macondo, but before a week was out they were convinced that it was an impossible undertaking. So they had to follow the dangerous route over the outcroppings; with no other munitions but what the firing squad had. They would camp near the towns and one of them, with a small gold fish in his hand, would go in disguise in broad daylight to contact the dormant Liberals, who would go out hunting on the following morning and never return. When they saw Riohacha from a ridge in the mountains, General Victorio Medina had been shot. Colonel Aureliano Buendía’s men proclaimed him chief of the revolutionary forces of the Caribbean coast with the rank of general. He assumed the position but refused the promotion and took the stand that he would never accept it as long as the Conservative regime was in power. At the end of three months they had succeeded in arming more than a thousand men, but they were wiped out. The survivors reached the eastern frontier. The next thing that was heard of them was that they had landed on Cabo de la Vela, coming from the smaller islands of the Antilles, and a message from the government was sent all over by telegraph and included in jubilant proclamations throughout the country announcing the death of Colonel Aureliano Buendía. But two days later a multiple telegram which almost overtook the previous one announced another uprising on the southern plains. That was how the legend of the ubiquitous Colonel Aureliano Buendía, began. Simultaneous and contradictory information declared him victorious in Villanueva. defeated in Guacamayal, devoured by Motilón Indians, dead in a village in the swamp, and up in arms again in Urumita. The Liberal leaders, who at that moment were negotiating for participation in the congress, branded him in adventurer who did not represent the party. The national government placed him in the category of a bandit and put a price of five thousand pesos on his head. After sixteen defeats, Colonel Aureliano Buendía left Guajira with two thousand well-armed Indians and the garrison, which was taken by surprise as it slept, abandoned Riohacha. He established his headquarters there and proclaimed total war against the regime. The first message he received from the government was a threat to shoot Colonel Gerineldo Márquez within forty-eight hours if he did not withdraw with his forces to the eastern frontier. Colonel Roque Carnicero, who was his chief of staff then, gave him the telegram with a look of consternation, but he read it with unforeseen joy.
   “How wonderful!?he exclaimed. “We have a telegraph office in Macondo now.?
   His reply was definitive. In three months he expected to establish his headquarters in Macondo. If he did not find Colonel Gerineldo Márquez alive at that time he would shoot out of hand all of the officers he held prisoner at that moment starting with the generals, and he would give orders to his subordinates to do the same for the rest of the war. Three months later, when he entered Macondo in triumph, the first embrace he received on the swamp road was that of Colonel Gerineldo Márquez.
   The house was full of children. ?rsula had taken in Santa Sofía de la Piedad with her older daughter and a pair of twins, who had been born five months after Arcadio had been shot. Contrary to the victim’s last wishes, she baptized the girl with the name of Remedios. I’m sure that was what Arcadio meant,?she alleged. “We won’t call her ?rsula, because a person suffers too much with that name.?The twins were named Jos?Arcadio Segundo and Aureliano Segundo. Amaranta took care of them all. She put small wooden chairs in the living room and established a nursery with other children from neighboring families. When Colonel Aureliano Buendía returned in the midst of exploding rockets and ringing bells, a children’s chorus welcomed him to the house. Aureliano Jos? tall like his grandfather, dressed as a revolutionary officer, gave him military honors.
   Not all the news was good. A year after the flight of Colonel Aureliano Buendía, Jos?Arcadio and Rebeca went to live in the house Arcadio had built. No one knew about his intervention to halt the execution. In the new house, located on the best corner of the square, in the shade of an almond tree that was honored by three nests of redbreasts, with a large door for visitors and four windows for light, they set up a hospitable home. Rebeca’s old friends, among them four of the Moscote sisters who were still single, once more took up the sessions of embroidery that had been interrupted years before on the porch with the begonias. Jos?Arcadio continued to profit from the usurped lands, the title to which was recognized by the Conservative government. Every afternoon he could be seen returning on horseback, with his hunting dogs and his double-barreled shotgun and a string of rabbits hanging from his saddle. One September afternoon, with the threat of a storm, he returned home earlier than usual. He greeted Rebeca in the dining room, tied the dogs up in the courtyard, hung the rabbits up in the kitchen to be salted later, and went to the bedroom to change his clothes. Rebeca later declared that when her husband went into the bedroom she was locked in the bathroom and did not hear anything. It was a difficult version to believe, but there was no other more plausible, and no one could think of any motive for Rebeca to murder the man who had made her happy. That was perhaps the only mystery that was never cleared up in Macondo. As soon as Jos?Arcadio closed the bedroom door the sound of a pistol shot echoed through the house. A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room, went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendía house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlor, hugging the walls so as not to stain the rugs, went on to the other living room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-room table, went along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under Amaranta’s chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson to Aureliano Jos?, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where ?rsula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread.
   “Holy Mother of God!??rsula shouted.
   She followed the thread of blood back along its course, and in search of its origin she went through the pantry, along the begonia porch where Aureliano Jos?was chanting that three plus three is six and six plus three is nine, and she crossed the dining room and the living rooms and followed straight down the street, and she turned first to the right and then to the left to the Street of the Turks, forgetting that she was still wearing her baking apron and her house slippers, and she came out onto the square and went into the door of a house where she had never been, and she pushed open the bedroom door and was almost suffocated by the smell of burned gunpowder, and she found Jos?Arcadio lying face down on the ground on top of the leggings he had just taken off, and she saw the starting point of the thread of blood that had already stopped flowing out of his right ear. They found no wound on his body nor could they locate the weapon. Nor was it possible to remove the smell of powder from the corpse. First they washed him three times with soap and a scrubbing brush, and they rubbed him with salt and vinegar, then with ashes and lemon, and finally they put him in a barrel of lye and let him stay for six hours. They scrubbed him so much that the arabesques of his tattooing began to fade. When they thought of the desperate measure of seasoning him with pepper, cumin seeds, and laurel leaves and boiling him for a whole day over a slow fire, he had already begun to decompose and they had to bury him hastily. They sealed him hermetically in a special coffin seven and a half feet long and four feet wide, reinforced inside with iron plates and fastened together with steel bolts, and even then the smell could be perceived on the streets through which the funeral procession passed. Father Nicanor, with his liver enlarged and tight as a drum, gave him his blessing from bed. Although in the months that followed they reinforced the grave with walls about it, between which they threw compressed ash, sawdust, and quicklime, the cemetery still smelled of powder for many years after, until the engineers from the banana company covered the grave over with a shell of concrete. As soon as they took the body out, Rebeca closed the doors of her house and buried herself alive, covered with a thick crust of disdain that no earthly temptation was ever able to break. She went out into the street on one occasion, when she was very old, with shoes the color of old silver and a hat made of tiny flowers, during the time that the Wandering Jew passed through town and brought on a heat wave that was so intense that birds broke through window screens to come to die in the bedrooms. The last time anyone saw her alive was when with one shot she killed a thief who was trying to force the door of her house. Except for Argénida, her servant and confidante, no one ever had any more contact with her after that. At one time it was discovered that she was writing letters to the Bishop, whom she claimed as a first cousin. but it was never said whether she received any reply. The town forgot about her.
   In spite of his triumphal return, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was not enthusiastic over the looks of things. The government troops abandoned their positions without resistance and that aroused an illusion of victory among the Liberal population that it was not right to destroy, but the revolutionaries knew the truth, Colonel Aureliano Buendía better than any of them. Although at that moment he had more than five thousand men under his command and held two coastal states, he had the feeling of being hemmed in against the sea and caught in a situation that was so confused that when he ordered the restoration of the church steeple, which had been knocked down by army cannon fire, Father Nicanor commented from his sickbed: “This is silly; the defenders of the faith of Christ destroy the church and the Masons order it rebuilt.?Looking for a loophole through which he could escape, he spent hours on end in the telegraph office conferring with the commanders of other towns, and every time he would emerge with the firmest impression that the war was at a stalemate. When news of fresh liberal victories was received it was celebrated with jubilant proclamations, but he would measure the real extent of them on the map and could see that his forces were penetrating into the jungle, defending themselves against malaria and mosquitoes, advancing in the opposite direction from reality. “We’re wasting time,?he would complain to his officers. “We’re wasting time while the bastards in the party are begging for seats in congress.?Lying awake at night, stretched out on his back in a hammock in the same room where he had awaited death, he would evoke the image of lawyers dressed in black leaving the presidential palace in the icy cold of early morning with their coat collars turned up about their ears, rubbing their hands, whispering, taking refuge in dreary early-morning cafés to speculate over what the president had meant when he said yes, or what he had meant when he said no, and even to imagine what the president was thinking when he said something quite different, as he chased away mosquitoes at a temperature of ninety-five degrees, feeling the approach of the fearsome dawn when he would have to give his men the command to jump into the sea.
   One night of uncertainty, when Pilar Ternera was singing in the courtyard with the soldiers, he asked her to read the future in her cards. “Watch out for your mouth,?was all that Pilar Ternera brought out after spreading and picking up the cards three times. “I don’t know what it means, but the sign is very clear. Watch out for your mouth.?Two days later someone gave an orderly a mug of black coffee and the orderly passed it on to someone else and that one to someone else until, hand to hand, it reached Colonel Aureliano Buendía office. He had not asked for any coffee, but since it was there the colonel drank it. It had a dose of nux vomica strong enough to kill a horse. When they took him home he was stiff and arched and his tongue was sticking out between his teeth. ?rsula fought against death over him. After cleaning out his stomach with emetics, she wrapped him in hot blankets and fed him egg whites for two days until his harrowed body recovered its normal temperature. On the fourth day he was out of danger. Against his will, pressured by ?rsula and his officers, he stayed in bed for another week. Only then did he learn that his verses had not been burned. “I didn’t want to be hasty,??rsula explained to him. “That night when I went to light the oven I said to myself that it would be better to wait until they brought the body.?In the haze of convalescence, surrounded by Remedios?dusty dolls, Colonel Aureliano Buendía, brought back the decisive periods of his existence by reading his poetry. He started writing again. For many hours, balancing on the edge of the surprises of a war with no future, in rhymed verse he resolved his experience on the shores of death. Then his thoughts became so clear that he was able to examine them forward and backward. One night he asked Colonel Gerineldo Márquez:
   “Tell me something, old friend: why are you fighting??
   “What other reason could there be??Colonel Gerineldo Márquez answered. “For the great liberal party.?
   “You’re lucky because you know why,?he answered. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve come to realize only just now that I’m fighting because of pride.?
   “That’s bad,?Colonel Gerineldo Márquez said. Colonel Aureliano Buendía was amused at his alarm. “Naturally,?he said. “But in any case, it’s better than not knowing why you’re fighting.?He looked him in the eyes and added with a smile:
   “Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn’t have any meaning for anyone.?
   His pride had prevented him from making contact with the armed groups in the interior of the country until the leaders of the party publicly rectified their declaration that he was a bandit. He knew, however, that as soon as he put those scruples aside he would break the vicious circle of the war. Convalescence gave him time to reflect. Then he succeeded in getting ?rsula to give him the rest of her buried inheritance and her substantial savings. He named Colonel Gerineldo Márquez civil and military leader of Macondo and he went off to make contact with the rebel groups in the interior.
   Colonel Gerineldo Márquez was not only the man closest to Colonel Aureliano Buendía, but ?rsula received him as a member of the family. Fragile, timid, with natural good manners, he was, however, better suited for war than for government. His political advisers easily entangled him in theoretical labyrinths, But he succeeded in giving Macondo the atmosphere of rural peace that Colonel Aureliano, Buendía dreamed of so that he could die of old age making little gold fishes. Although he lived in his parents?house he would have lunch at ?rsula’s two or three times a week. He initiated Aureliano Jos?in the use of firearms, gave him early military instruction, and for several months took him to live in the barracks, with ?rsula’s consent, so that he could become a man. Many years before, when he was still almost a child, Gerineldo Márquez had declared his love for Amaranta. At that time she was so illusioned with her lonely passion for Pietro Crespi that she laughed at him. Gerineldo Márquez waited. On a certain occasion he sent Amaranta a note from jail asking her to embroider a dozen batiste handkerchiefs with his father’s initials on them. He sent her the money. A week later Amaranta, brought the dozen handkerchiefs to him in jail along with the money and they spent several hours talking about the past. “When I get out of here I’m going to marry you,?Gerineldo Márquez told her when she left. Amaranta laughed but she kept on thinking about him while she taught the children to read and she tried to revive her juvenile passion for Pietro Crespi. On Saturday, visiting days for the prisoners, she would stop by the house of Gerineldo Márquez’s parents and accompany them to the jail. On one of those Saturdays ?rsula was surprised to see her in the kitchen, waiting for the biscuits to come out of the oven so that she could pick the best ones and cap them in a napkin that she had embroidered for the occasion.
   “Marry him,?she told her. “You’ll have a hard time finding another man like him.?
   Amaranta feigned a reaction of displeasure.
   “I don’t have to go around hunting for men,?she answered. “I’m taking these biscuits to Gerineldo because I’m sorry that sooner or later they’re going to shoot him.?
   She said it without thinking, but that was the time that the government had announced its threat to shoot Colonel Gerineldo Márquez if the rebel forces did not surrender Riohacha. The visits stopped. Amaranta shut herself up to weep, overwhelmed by a feeling of guilt similar to the one that had tormented her when Remedios died, as if once more her careless words had been responsible for a death. Her mother consoled her. She inured her that Colonel Aureliano Buendía would do something to prevent the execution and promised that she would take charge of attracting Gerineldo Márquez herself when the war was over. She fulfilled her promise before the imagined time. When Gerineldo Márquez returned to the house, invested with his new dignity of civil and military leader, she received him as a son, thought of delightful bits of flattery to hold him there, and prayed with all her soul that he would remember his plan to marry Amaranta. Her pleas seemed to be answered. On the days that he would have lunch at the house, Colonel Gerineldo Márquez would linger on the begonia porch playing Chinese checkers with Amaranta. ?rsula would bring them coffee and milk and biscuits and would take over the children so that they would not bother them. Amaranta was really making an effort to kindle in her heart the forgotten ashes of her youthful passion. With an anxiety that came to be intolerable, she waited for the lunch days, the afternoons of Chinese checkers, and time flew by in the company of the warrior with a nostalgic name whose fingers trembled imperceptibly as he moved the pieces. But the day on which Colonel Gerineldo Márquez repeated his wish to marry her, she rejected him.
   “I’m not going to marry anyone,?she told him, “much less you. You love Aureliano so much that you want to marry me because you can’t marry him.?
   Colonel Gerineldo Márquez was a patient man. “I’ll keep on insisting,?he said. “Sooner or later I’ll convince you.?He kept on visiting the house. Shut up in her bedroom biting back her secret tears, Amaranta put her fingers in her ears so as not to bear the voice of the suitor as he gave ?rsula the latest war news, and in spite of the fact that she was dying to see him she had the strength not to go out and meet him.
   At that time Colonel Aureliano Buendía took the time to send a detailed account to Macondo every two weeks. But only once, almost eight months after he had left, did he write to ?rsula. A special messenger brought a sealed envelope to the house with a sheet of paper inside bearing the colonel’s delicate hand: Take good care of Papa because he is going to die. ?rsula became alarmed. “If Aureliano says so it’s because Aureliano knows,?she said. And she had them help her take Jos?Arcadio Buendía to his bedroom. Not only was he as heavy as ever, but during his prolonged stay under the chestnut tree he had developed the faculty of being able to increase his weight at will, to such a degree that seven men were unable to lift him and they had to drag him to the bed. A smell of tender mushrooms, of wood-flower fungus, of old and concentrated outdoors impregnated the air of the bedroom as it was breathed by the colossal old man weather-beaten by the sun and the rain. The next morning he was not in his bed. In spite of his undiminished strength, Jos?Arcadio Buendía was in no condition to resist. It was all the same to him. If he went back to the chestnut tree it was not because he wanted to but because of a habit of his body. ?rsula took care of him, fed him, brought him news of Aureliano. But actually, the only person with whom he was able to have contact for a long time was Prudencio Aguilar. Almost pulverized at that time by the decrepitude of death, Prudencio Aguilar would come twice a day to chat with him. They talked about fighting cocks. They promised each other to set up a breeding farm for magnificent birds, not so much to enjoy their victories, which they would not need then, as to have something to do on the tedious Sundays of death. It was Prudencio Aguilar who cleaned him fed him and brought him splendid news of an unknown person called Aureliano who was a colonel in the war. When he was alone, Jos?Arcadio Buendía consoled himself with the dream of the infinite rooms. He dreamed that he was getting out of bed, opening the door and going into an identical room with the same bed with a wrought-iron head, the same wicker chair, and the same small picture of the Virgin of Help on the back wall. From that room he would go into another that was just the same, the door of which would open into another that was just the same, the door of which would open into another one just the same, and then into another exactly alike, and so on to infinity. He liked to go from room to room. As in a gallery of parallel mirrors, until Prudencio Aguilar would touch him on the shoulder. Then he would go back from room to room, walking in reverse, going back over his trail, and he would find Prudencio Aguilar in the room of reality. But one night, two weeks after they took him to his bed, Prudencio Aguilar touched his shoulder in an intermediate room and he stayed there forever, thinking that it was the real room. On the following morning ?rsula was bringing him his breakfast when she saw a man coming along the hall. He was short and stocky, with a black suit on and a hat that was also black, enormous, pulled down to his taciturn eyes. “Good Lord,??rsula thought, “I could have sworn it was Melquíades.?It was Cataure, Visitación’s brother, who had left the house fleeing from the insomnia plague and of whom there had never been any news. Visitación asked him why he had come back, and he answered her in their solemn language:
   “I have come for the exequies of the king.?
   Then they went into Jos?Arcadio Buendía’s room, shook him as hard as they could, shouted in his ear, put a mirror in front of his nostrils, but they could not awaken him. A short time later, when the carpenter was taking measurements for the coffin, through the window they saw a light rain of tiny yellow flowers falling. They fell on the town all through the night in a silent storm, and they covered the roofs and blocked the doors and smothered the animals who dept outdoors. So many flowers fell from the sky that in the morning the streets were carpeted with a compact cushion and they had to clear them away with shovels and rakes so that the funeral procession could pass by.


第七章

  五月里,战争结束了。政府在言过其实的公告中正式宣布了这个消息,说要严惩叛乱的祸首;在这之前两个星期,奥雷连诺上校穿上印第安巫医的衣服,几乎已经到达西部边境,但是遭到了逮捕。他出去作战的时候,带了二十一个人,其中十四人阵亡,六人负伤,在最后一次战斗中跟他一起的只有一个人——格林列尔多·马克斯上校。奥雷连诺上校被捕的消息是特别在马孔多宣布的。“他还活着,”乌苏娜向丈夫说。“但愿敌人对他发发慈悲。”她为儿子痛哭了三天,到了第四天下午,她在厨房里制作奶油蜜饯时,清楚地听到了儿子的声音。“这是奥雷连诺,”她一面叫,一面跑去把消息告诉丈夫。“我不知道这个奇迹是咋个出现的,可他还活着,咱们很快就会见到他啦。”乌苏娜相信这是肯定的。她吩咐擦洗了家里的地板,重新布置了家具。过了一个星期,不知从哪儿来的消息(这一次没有发表公告),可悲地证实了她的预言。奥雷连诺已经判处死刑,将在马孔多执行,借以恐吓该镇居民。星期一早上,约莫十点半钟,阿玛兰塔正在给奥雷连诺·霍塞穿衣服,乱七八糟的喧哗声和号声忽然从远处传到她耳里,过了片刻,乌苏娜冲进屋来叫道:“他们把他押来啦!”在蜂拥的人群中,士兵们用熗托开辟道路,乌苏娜和阿玛兰塔挤过密集的人群,到了邻近的一条街上,便看见了奥雷连诺。奥雷连诺象个叫花子,光着脚丫,衣服褴楼,满脸胡子,蓬头垢面。他行进的时候,并没感到灼热的尘土烫脚。他的双手是用绳子捆绑在背后的,绳端攥在一个骑马的军官手里。跟他一起押着前进的是格林列尔多·马克斯上校,也是衣衫破烂、肮里肮脏的样子。他们并不垂头丧气,甚至对群众的行为感到激动,因为人们都在臭骂押解的士兵。
  “我的儿子!”在一片嘈杂中发出了乌苏娜的号陶声。她推开一个打算阻挡她的士兵。军官骑的马直立起来。奥雷连诺上校战栗一下,就停住脚步,避开母亲的手,坚定地盯着她的眼睛。
  “回家去吧,妈妈,,他说。“请求当局允许,到牢里去看我吧。”
  他把视线转向踌躇地站在乌苏娜背后的阿玛兰塔身上,向她微微一笑,问道:“你的手怎么啦?”阿玛兰塔举起缠着黑色绷带的手。“烧伤,”她说,然后把乌苏娜拖到一边对马克思的单纯批判,也区别于同情和自称为马克思主义的,离马远些。士兵们朝天开了熗。骑兵队围着俘虏,朝兵营小跑而去。
  傍晚,乌苏娜前来探望奥雷连诺上校。她本想在阿·摩斯柯特先生帮助下预先得到允许,可是现在全部仅力都集中在军人手里,他的话没有任何分量。尼康诺神父肝病发作,已经躺在床上了。格林列尔多.马克斯上校没有判处死刑,他的双亲算看望儿子,但是卫兵却用熗托把他俩赶走了。乌苏娜看出无法找中间人帮忙,而且相信天一亮奥雷连诺就会处决,于是就把她想给他的东西包上,独个儿前往兵营。
  卫兵拦住了她。“我非进去不可,”乌苏娜说。“所以,你们要是奉命开熗,那就马上开熗吧,”她使劲推开其中一个士兵,跨进往日的教室,那儿有几个半裸的士兵正在擦熗。一个身穿行军服的军官,戴着一副厚厚的眼镜,脸色红润,彬彬有礼,向跟随她奔进来的卫兵们打了个手势,他们就退出去了。
  “我是奥雷连诺上校的母亲,”乌苏娜重说一遍。
  “您想说的是,大娘,”军官和蔼地一笑,纠正她的说法。“您是奥雷连诺先生的母亲吧。”
  在他文雅的话里,乌苏娜听出了山地人——卡恰柯人慢吞吞的调子。
  “就算是‘先生’吧,”她说,“只要我能见到他。”
  根据上面的命令,探望死刑犯人是禁止的,但是军官自愿承担责任,允许乌苏娜十五分钟的会见。乌苏娜给他看了看她带来的一包东西:一套干净衣服,儿子结婚时穿过的一双皮鞋,她感到他要回来的那一天为他准备的奶油蜜饯。她在经常当作囚室的房间里发现了奥雷连诺上校。他伸开双手躺在那儿,因为他的腋下长了脓疮。他们已经让他刮了脸。浓密、燃卷的胡子使得颧骨更加突出。乌苏娜觉得,他比以前苍白,个子稍高了一些,但是显得更孤僻了。他知道家中发生的一切事情:知道皮埃特罗·克列斯比自杀;知道阿卡蒂奥专横暴戾,遭到处决;知道霍·阿·布恩蒂亚在粟树下的怪状,他也知道阿玛兰塔把她寡妇似的青春年华用来抚养奥雷连诺.霍塞;知道奥雷连诺·霍塞表现了非凡的智慧,刚开始说话就学会了读书写字。从跨进房间的片刻起,乌苏娜就感到拘束——儿子已经长大成人了,他那整个魁梧的身躯都显出极大的威力。她觉得奇怪的是,他对一切都很熟悉。“您知道:您的儿子是个有预见的人嘛,”他打趣地说。接着严肃地补充一句:“今天早上他们把我押来的时候,我仿佛早就知道这一切了。”
  实际上,人群正在周围怒吼的时候,他是思绪万千的,看见这个市镇总共一年就已衰老,他就觉得惊异。杏树上的叶子凋落了。刷成蓝色的房屋,时而改成红色,时而又改成蓝色,最后变成了混沌不清的颜色。
  “你有啥希望吗?”她叹了口气。“时间就要到了。”
  “当然,”奥雷连诺回答。“不过……”
  这次会见是两人都等了很久的;两人都准备了问题,甚至思量过可能得到的回答,但谈来谈去还是谈些家常。卫兵宣布十五分钟已过的时候,奥雷连诺从行军床的垫子下面取出一卷汗渍的纸页。这是他写的诗。其中一些诗是他献给雷麦黛丝的,离家时带走了;另一些诗是他后来在短暂的战斗间隙中写成的。“答应我吧,别让任何人看见它们,”他说。“今儿晚上就拿它们生炉子。”乌苏娜答应之后就站起身来,吻别儿子。
  “我给你带来了一支手熗,”她低声说。
  奥雷连诺上校相信卫兵没有看见,于是同样低声地回答:“我拿它干什么呢?不过,给我吧,要不然,你出去的时候,他们还会发现。”乌苏娜从怀里掏出手熗,奥雷连诺上校把它塞在床垫下面。“现在,不必向我告别了,”他用特别平静的声调说。“不要恳求任何人,不要在别人面前卑躬屈节。你就当别人早就把我熗毙了。”乌苏娜咬紧嘴唇,忍住泪水。
  “拿热石头贴着脓疮(注:这是治疗脓疮的土法子),”说着,她一转身就走出了房间。
  奥雷连诺上校继续站着深思,直到房门关上。接着他又躺下,伸开两只胳膊。从他进入青年时代起,他就觉得自己有预见的才能,经常相信:死神如果临近,是会以某种准确无误的、无可辩驳的朕兆预示他的,现在距离处决的时间只剩几小时了,而这种朕兆根本没有出现。从前有一次,一个十分漂亮的女人走进他在土库林卡的营地,要求卫兵允许她跟他见面。卫兵让她通过了,因为大家都知道,有些狂热的母亲欢喜叫自己的女儿跟最著名的指挥官睡觉,据她们自己解释,这可改良“品种”。那天晚上,奥雷连诺上校正在写一首诗,描述一个雨下迷路的人,这个女人忽然闯进屋来。上校打算把写好的纸页锁在他存放诗作的书桌抽屉里,就朝客人转过背去。他马上有所感觉。他头都没回,就突然拿起抽屉里的手熗,说道:
  “请别开熗吧。”
  他握着手熗猝然转过身去时,女人已经放下了自己的手熗,茫然失措地站着。在十一次谋杀中,他避免了四次这样的谋杀。不过,也有另一种情况:一个陌生人(此人后来没有逮住)悄悄溜进起义者在马诺尔的营地。用匕首刺死了他的密友——乌格尼菲柯·维斯巴尔上校。马格尼菲柯·维斯巴尔上校患了疟疾,奥雷连诺上校暂时把自己的吊铺让给了他。奥雷连诺上校自己就睡在旁边的吊铺上,什么也不知道。他想一切都凭预感,那是无用的。预感常常突然出现,仿佛是上帝的启示,也象是瞬刻间不可理解的某种信心。预感有时是完全不易察觉的,只是在应验以后,奥雷连诺上校才忽然醒悟自己曾有这种预感。有时,预感十分明确,却没应验。他经常把预感和一般的迷信混淆起来。然而,当法庭庭长向他宣读死刑判决,问他的最后希望时,他马上觉得有一种预感在暗示他作出如下的回答:
  “我要求在马孔多执行判决。”
  庭长生气了,说道:“你别耍滑头骗人,奥雷连诺。这不过是赢得时间的军事计谋。”
  “你不愿意,那是你的事,”上校回答,“可这是我的最后希望。”
  从那以后,他的预感就不太灵了。那一天,乌苏娜在狱里探望他的时候,他经过长久思考得出结论,这一次,死神很可能不会马上来临,因为死神的来临取决于刽子手的意志,他被自己的脓疮弄得很苦,整夜都没睡着。黎明前不久,走廊上响起了脚步声。“他们来啦,”奥雷连诺自言自语地说,他不知为什么突然想起了霍·阿·布恩蒂亚;就在这一片刻,在黎明前的晦暗里,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚蜷缩在粟树下面的板凳上,大概也想到了他。奥雷连诺上校心里既没有留恋,也没有恐惧,只有深沉的恼怒,因他想到,由于这种过早的死亡,他看不到自己来不及完成的一切事情如何完成了……牢门打开,一个士兵拿着一杯咖啡走了进来。第二天,也在这个时刻,奥雷连诺上校腋下照旧痛得难受的时候,同样的情况又重复了一遍。星期四,他把乌苏娜带来的蜜饯分给了卫兵们,穿上了他觉得太紧的干净衣服和漆皮鞋。到了星期五,他们仍然没有熗毙他。
  问题在于,军事当局不敢执行判决。全镇的愤怒情绪使他们想到,处决奥雷连诺上校,不仅在马孔多,而且在整个沼泽地带,都会引起严重的政治后果。因此,他们就向省城请示。星期六晚上,还没接到回答的时候,罗克·卡尼瑟洛上尉和其他几名军官一起前往卡塔林诺游艺场。在所有的娘儿们中,只有一个被他吓怕了的同意把他领进她的房间。“她们都不愿意跟就要死的人睡觉,”她解释说。“谁也不知道这是怎么回事,可是周围的人都说,熗决奥雷连诺上校的军官和行刑队所有的士兵,或早或迟准会接二连三地遭到暗杀,即使他们躲到天涯海角。”罗克·卡尼瑟洛上尉向其他的军官提到了这一点,他们又报告了上级。星期日,军事当局一点没有破坏马孔多紧张的宁静空气,虽然谁也没有向谁公开谈到什么,但是全镇的人已经知道,军官们不想承担责任,准备利用一切借口避免参加行刑。星期一,邮局送来了书面命令:判决必须在二十四小时之内执行。晚上,军官们把七张写上自己名字的纸片扔在一顶军帽里抽彩,罗克.卡尼瑟洛倒霉的运气使他中了彩。“命运是无法逃避的,”上尉深感苦恼说。“我生为婊子的儿子,死也为婊子的儿子。”早晨五时,也用抓阄儿的办法,他挑选了一队士兵,让他们排列在院子里,用例行的话叫醒了判处死刑的人。
  “走吧,奥雷连诺,”他说。“时刻到啦。”
  “哦!原来如此,”上校回答。“我梦见我的脓疮溃烂啦。”
  自从知道奥雷连诺要遭熗决,雷贝卡每天都是清晨三点起床。卧室里一片漆黑,霍·阿卡蒂奥的鼾声把床铺震得直颤,她却坐在床上,透过微开的窗子观察墓地的墙壁。她坚持不懈地暗暗等了一个星期,就象过去等待皮埃特罗·克列斯比的信函一样。“他们不会在这儿熗毙他的,”霍·阿卡蒂奥向她说。为了不让别人知道谁开的熗,他们会利用深夜在兵营里处决他,并且埋在那儿。”雷贝卡继续等待。“那帮无耻的坏蛋准会在这儿熗毙他,”她回答。她很相信这一点,甚至想把房门稍微打开一些,以便向死刑犯挥手告别。“他们不会只让六名胆怯的士兵押着他走过街道的,”霍·阿卡蒂奥坚持说道。“因为他们知道老百姓什么都干得出来。”雷贝卡对丈夫所说的道理听而不闻,继续守在窗口。
  “你会看见这帮坏蛋多么可耻,”她说。
  星期二早晨五点钟,霍·阿卡蒂奥喝完咖啡,放出狗去的时候,雷贝卡突然关上窗子,抓住床头,免得跌倒。“他们带他来啦,”她叹息一声。“他多神气啊。”霍·阿卡蒂奥看了看窗外,突然战栗一下;在惨白的晨光中,他瞧见了弟弟,弟弟穿着他霍.阿卡蒂奥年轻时穿过的裤子。奥雷连诺已经双手叉腰站在墙边,腋下火烧火燎的脓疮妨碍他把手放下。“挨苦受累,受尽折磨,”奥雷连诺上校自言自语地说,“都是为了让这六个杂种把你打死,而你毫无办法。”他一再重复这句话,而罗克·卡尼瑟洛上尉却把他的愤怒当成宗教热情,以为他在祈祷,因而深受感动。士兵们举熗瞄准的时候,奥雷连诺上校的怒火止息了,嘴里出现了一种粘滞、苦涩的东西,使得他的舌头麻木了,两眼也闭上了。铝色的晨光忽然消失,他又看见自己是个穿着裤衩、扎着领结的孩子,看见父亲在一个晴朗的下午带他去吉卜赛人的帐篷,于是他瞧见了冰块。当他听到一声喊叫时,他以为这是上尉给行刑队的最后命令。他惊奇地睁开眼来,料想他的视线会遇见下降的弹道,但他只发现罗克·卡尼瑟洛上尉与霍·阿卡蒂奥,前者举着双手呆立不动,后者拿着准备射击的可怕的猎熗跑过街道。
  “别开熗,”上尉向霍·阿卡蒂奥说,“你是上帝派来的嘛。”
  从这时起,又开始了一场战争。罗克·卡尼瑟洛上尉和六名士兵,跟奥雷连诺上校一起前去营救在列奥阿察判处死刑的革命将军维克多里奥·麦丁纳。为了赢得时间,他们决定沿着霍·阿·布恩蒂亚建立马孔多村之前经过的道路,翻过山岭。可是没过一个星期,他们就已明白这是作不到的事。最后,他们不得不从山上危险的地方悄悄地过去,虽然他们的子弹寥寥无几,——只有士兵们领来行刑的那一些。他们将在城镇附近扎营,派一个人乔装打扮,手里拿着一条小金鱼,天一亮就到路上去溜达,跟潜伏的自由党人建立联系:这些自由党人清晨出来“打猎”,是从来都不回去的。可是,当他从山梁上终于望见列奥阿察的时候,维克多里奥·麦丁纳将军已被熗决了。奥雷连诺上校的追随者宣布他为加勒比海沿岸革命军总司令,头衔是将军。他同意接受这个职位,可是拒绝了将军头衔,并且说定在推翻保守党政府之前不接受这个头衔。在三个月当中,他武装了一千多人,可是几乎都牺牲了。幸存的人越过了东部边境。随后知道,他们离开了安的列斯群岛(注:在西印度群岛),在维拉角登陆,重新回到国内;在这之后不久,政府的报喜电报就发到全国各地,宣布奥雷连诺上校死亡。又过了两天,一份挺长的电报几乎赶上了前一份电报,报告了南部平原上新的起义。因此产生了奥雷连诺上校无处不在的传说。同一时间传来了互相矛盾的消息:上校在比利亚努埃瓦取得了胜利;在古阿卡马耶尔遭到了失败;被摩蒂龙部落的印第安人吃掉;死于沼泽地带的一个村庄;重新在乌鲁米特发动了起义。这时,自由党领袖正在跟政府举行关于容许自由党人进入国会的谈判,宣布他为冒险分子,不能代表他们的党。政府把他算做强盗,悬赏五千比索取他的首级。在十六次失败以后,奥雷连诺上校率领两千装备很好的印第安人,离开瓜希拉,进攻列奥阿察,惊惶失措的警备队逃出了这个城市。奥雷连诺把司令部设在列奥阿察,宣布了反对保守党人的全民战争。政府给他的第一个正式回电向他威胁说,如果起义部队不撤到东部边境,四十八小时之后就要熗决格林列尔多·马克斯上校。罗克·卡尼瑟洛上校这时已经成了参谋长,他把这份电报交给总司令的时候,神色十分沮丧,可是奥雷连诺看了电报却意外地高兴。
  “好极了!”他惊叫一声。“咱们马孔多有了电报局啦!”
  奥雷连诺上校的答复是坚决的:过三个月,他打算把自己的司令部迁到马孔多。那时,如果他没有看见格林列尔多·马克斯上校活着,他将不经审讯熗毙所有被俘的军官,首先拿被俘的将军开刀,而且他将命令部下直到战争结束都这样干。三个月以后,奥雷连诺的军队胜利地进入马孔多时,在通往沼泽地带的道路上,拥抱他的第一个人就是格林列尔多·马克斯上校。
  布恩蒂亚家里挤满了孩子。乌苏娜收留了圣索菲娅.德拉佩德以及她的一个大女儿和一对孪生子,这对孪生子是阿卡蒂奥熗毙之后过了五个月出世的。乌苏娜不顾他的最后愿望,把小姑娘取名叫雷麦黛丝。“我相信这是阿卡蒂奥的意思,”她辩解地说。“咱们没有叫她乌苏娜,因为她取了这个名字就会苦一辈子。”孪生子叫做霍.阿卡蒂奥第二和奥雷连诺第二。阿玛兰塔自愿照顾这几个孩子。她在客厅里摆了一些小木椅,再把左邻右舍的孩子聚集起来,成立了一个托儿所。在僻啪的爆竹声和当当的钟声中,奥雷连诺上校进城的时候,一个儿童合唱队在家宅门口欢迎他。奥雷连诺·霍塞象他祖父一样高大,穿着革命军的军官制服,按照规矩向奥雷连诺行了军礼。
  并非一切消息都是好的。奥雷连诺上校逃脱熗毙之后过了一年,霍.阿卡蒂奥和雷贝卡就迁进了阿卡蒂奥建成的房子。谁也不知道霍.阿卡蒂奥救了上校的命,新房子座落在市镇广场最好的地方,在一棵杏树的浓荫下面;知更鸟在树上筑了三个巢:房子有一道正门和四扇窗子。夫妇俩把这儿搞成了一个好客之家。雷贝卡的老朋友,其中包括摩斯柯特家的四姊妹(她们至今还没结婚).又到这儿来一起绣花了,她们的聚会是几年前在秋海棠长廊上中断的。霍·阿卡蒂奥继续使用侵占的土地,保守党政府承认了他的土地所有权,每天傍晚都可看见他骑着马回来,后面是一群猎犬:他带着一支双筒熗,鞍上系着一串野兔。九月里的一天,快要临头的暴雨使他不得不比平常早一点回家。他在饭厅里跟雷贝卡打了个招呼,把狗拴在院里,将兔子拿进厨房去等着腌起来,就到卧室去换衣服。后来,据雷贝卡说,丈夫走进卧室的时候,她在浴室里洗澡,什么也不知道。这种说法是值得怀疑的,可是谁也想不出其它更近情理的原因,借以说明雷贝卡为什么要打死一个使她幸福的人。这大概是马孔多始终没有揭穿的唯一秘密。霍·阿卡蒂奥刚刚带上卧室的门,室内就响起了手熗声。门下溢出一股血,穿过客厅,流到街上,沿着凹凸不平的人行道前进,流下石阶,爬上街沿,顺着土耳其人街奔驰,往右一弯,然后朝左一拐,径直踅向布恩蒂亚的房子,在关着的房门下面挤了进去,绕过客厅,贴着墙壁(免得弄脏地毯),穿过起居室,在饭厅的食桌旁边画了条曲线,沿着秋海棠长廊婉蜒行进,悄悄地溜过阿玛兰塔的椅子下面(她正在教奥雷连诺·霍塞学习算术),穿过库房,进了厨房(乌苏娜正在那儿准备打碎三十六只鸡蛋来做面包)。
  “我的圣母!”乌苏娜一声惊叫。
  于是,她朝着血液流来的方向往回走,想弄清楚血是从哪儿来的:她穿过库房,经过秋海棠长廊(奥雷连诺·霍塞正在那儿大声念:3十3=6,6十3=9),过了饭厅和客厅,沿着街道一直前进,然后往右拐,再向左拐,到了土耳其人街;她一直没有发觉,她是系着围裙、穿着拖鞋走过市镇的;然后,她到了市镇广场,走进她从来没有来过的房子,推开卧室的门,一股火药味呛得她喘不过气来;接着,她瞧见了趴在地板上的儿子,身体压着他已脱掉的长统皮靴;而且她还看见,已经停止流动的一股血,是从他的右耳开始的。在霍·阿卡蒂奥的尸体上,没有发现一点伤痕,无法确定他是被什么武器打死的。让尸体摆脱强烈的火药味,也没办到,虽然先用刷子和肥皂擦了三次,然后又用盐和醋擦,随后又用灰和柠檬汁擦,最后拿一桶碱水把它泡了六个小时。这样反复擦来擦去,皮肤上所刺的奇异花纹就明显地褪色了。他们采取极端的办法——给尸体加上胡椒、茴香和月桂树叶,放在微火上焖了整整一天,尸体已经开始腐烂,他们才不得不把它慌忙埋掉。死人是密封在特制棺材里的,棺材长二米三十公分,宽一米十公分,内部用铁皮加固,并且拿钢质螺钉拧紧。但是尽管如此,送葬队伍在街上行进的时候,还能闻到火药味。尼康诺神父肝脏肿得象个鼓似的,在床上给死者作了祈祷。随后,他们又给坟围了几层砖,在所有的间隙里填满灰渣、锯屑和生石灰,但是许多年里坟墓依然发出火药味,直到香蕉公司的工程师们给坟堆浇上一层钢筋混凝土,棺材刚刚抬出,雷贝卡就闩上房门,与世隔绝了,她穿上了藐视整个世界的“甲胄”,这身“甲胄”是世上的任何诱惑力都穿不透的。她只有一次走上街头,那时她已经是个老妇,穿着一双旧的银色鞋子,戴着一顶小花帽。当时,一个流浪的犹太人经过马孔多,带来了那么酷烈的热浪,以致鸟儿都从窗上的铁丝网钻到屋里,掉到地上死了。雷贝卡活着的时候,人家最后一次看见她是在那天夜里,当时她用准确的射击打死了一个企图撬她房门的小偷。后来,除了她的女佣人和心腹朋友阿金尼达,谁也没有遇见过她。有个时候,有人说她曾写信给一个主教(她认为他是她的表兄),可是没有听说她收到过回信。镇上的人都把她给忘了。
  尽管奥雷连诺上校是凯旋归来的,但是表面的顺利并没有迷惑住他。政府军未经抵抗就放弃了他们的阵地,这就给同情自由党的居民造成胜利的幻觉,这种幻觉虽然是不该消除的,但是起义的人知道真情,奥雷连诺上校则比他们任何人都更清楚。他统率了五千多名士兵,控制了沿海两州,但他明白自己被截断了与其他地区的联系,给挤到了海滨,处于十分含糊的政治地位,所以,当他下令修复政府军大炮毁坏的教堂钟楼时,难怪患病的尼康诺神父在床上说:“真是怪事——基督教徒毁掉教堂,共济会员却下令重建。”为了寻求出路,奥雷连诺上校一连几个小时呆在电报室里,跟其他起义部队的指挥官商量,而每次离开电报室,他都越来越相信战争陷入了绝境。每当得到起义者胜利的消息,他们都兴高采烈地告诉人民,可是奥雷连诺上校在地图上测度了这些胜利的真实价值之后,却相信他的部队正在深入丛林,而且为了防御疟疾和蚊子,正在朝着与现实相反的方向前进。“咱们正在失去时间,”他向自己的军官们抱怨说。“党内的那些蠢货为自己祈求国会里的席位,咱们还要失去时间。”在他不久以前等待熗决的房间里悬着一个吊铺,每当不眠之夜仰卧铺上时,奥雷连诺上校都往想象那些身穿黑色衣服的法学家——他们如何在冰冷的清晨走出总统的府邸,把大衣领子翻到耳边,搓着双手,窃窃私语,并且躲到昏暗的通宵咖啡馆去,反复推测:总统说“是”的时候,真正想说什么;总统说“不”的时候,又真正想说什么,他们甚至猜测:总统所说的跟他所想的完全相反时,他所想的究竟是什么;然而与此同时,他奥雷连诺上校却在三十五度的酷热里驱赶蚊子,感到可怕的黎明正在一股脑儿地逼近:随着黎明的到来,他不得不向自己的部队发出跳海的命令。
  在这样一个充满疑虑的夜晚,听到皮拉·苔列娜跟士兵们在院子里唱歌,他就请她占卜。“当心你的嘴巴,”皮拉·苔列娜摊开纸牌,然后又把纸牌收拢起来,摆弄了三次才说,“我不知道这是什么意思,但征兆是很明显的。当心你的嘴巴。”过了两天,有人把一杯无糖的咖啡给一个勤务兵,这个勤务兵把它传给另一个勤务兵,第二个勤务兵又拿它传给第三个勤务兵,传来传去,最后出现在奥雷连诺上校的办公室里。上校并没有要咖啡,可是既然有人把它送来了,他拿起来就喝。咖啡里放了若干足以毒死一匹牲口的士的宁。奥雷连诺上校给抬回家去的时候,身体都变得僵直了,舌头也从嘴里吐了出来。乌苏娜从死神手里抢救儿子。她用催吐剂清除他胃里的东西,拿暖和的长毛绒被子把他裹了起来,喂了他两天蛋白,直到他的身体恢复正常的温度。第四天,上校脱离了危险。由于乌苏娜和军官们的坚持,他不顾自己的愿望继续在床上躺了整整一个星期。在这些日子里,他才知道他写的诗没有烧掉。“我不想慌里慌张,”乌苏娜解释说。“那天晚上我生炉子的时候,我对自己说:最好等到人家把他的尸体抬回来的时候吧。”在疗养中,周围是雷麦黛丝的落满尘土的玩具,奥雷连诺上校重读自己的诗稿,想起了自己一生中那些决定性的时刻。他又开始写诗。躺卧病榻使他脱离了陷入绝境的、变化无常的战争,他就用押韵的诗歌分析了他同死亡斗争的经验。他的头脑逐渐清楚,能够思前想后了。有天晚上,他问格林列尔多·马克斯上校:
  “请你告诉我,朋友,你是为什么战斗呀?”
  “能有什么其他原因呢?”格林列尔多·马克斯上校回答。“为了伟大的自由党呗。”
  “你很幸福,因为你知道为什么战斗,”他回答,“而我现在才明白,我是由于骄傲才参加战斗的。”
  “这不好,”格林列尔多·马克斯说。
  奥雷连诺上校对格林列尔多的惊讶感到开心。
  “当然不好,”奥雷连诺说,“但无论如何,最好是不知道为什么战斗,”他盯着战友的眼睛,微微一笑,补充说道:“或者象你一样为了某些事情进行战斗,而那些事情对任何人都没有任何意义。”
  以前,他的骄傲是不让他跟内部地区的起义部队取得联系的,除非自由党领袖公开纠正把他称做强盗的声明。然而奥雷连诺上校知道:只要他放弃了自尊心,他就能中止战争的恶性循环。卧床疗养使他有了时间反复思量。他劝乌苏娜把她可观的积蓄和密藏的盒子中剩余的金子都交给了他,任命格林列尔多·马克斯上校为马孔多的军政长官,就离开市镇去跟内部地区的起义部队建立联系了。
  格林列尔多·马克斯上校不仅是奥雷连诺上校最信任的人,乌苏娜还把他当做家里的成员。他温和、腼腆,生来文雅,但他更适于打仗,而不适于坐办公室。他的那些政治顾问讲起理论来,轻而易举就能把他弄得糊里糊涂。然而,他却在马孔多创造了田园般的宁静气氛,奥雷连诺曾希望在这样的环境里制作小金鱼,度过晚年,死在这里。尽管格林列尔多.马克斯上校住在自己的父母家里,他却每星期在乌苏娜家中吃两三顿午饭。他过早地教奥雷连诺.霍塞使用武器,叫他接受军事训练,并且在得到乌苏娜的允许之后,让他在兵营里住了几个月,使他能够成为一个男子汉。多年以前,格林列尔多.马克斯几乎还是孩子的时候,就向阿玛兰塔表过爱。那时,她对皮埃特罗.克列斯比怀着单相思,所以光是讥笑他。格林列尔多.马克斯决定等待。有一次,他还在狱中时,捎了一封信给阿玛兰塔,要求她给一打麻纱手绢绣上他父亲的简写姓名。他还寄了钱给她。过了一个星期,阿玛兰塔把绣好的手绢和钱带到狱里去给他,两人回忆往事,谈了很久。“从这儿出去以后,我要跟你结婚,”格林列尔多.马克斯跟她分手时说。阿玛兰塔笑了起来,可是教孩子们读书的时候,她一直惦念着他,打算恢复她对皮埃特罗.克列斯比的那种青春的热情。每逢星期六,探监的日子,她都到格林列尔多·马克斯父母家中,跟他们一块儿到牢里去。有个星期六,乌苏娜在厨房里遇见了女儿——她正在等候饼干出炉,挑选最好的,用一块手绢包上;这块手绢是她专门绣来派这个用场的。
  “你就嫁给他吧,”乌苏娜劝她。“你未必能够再遇见这样的人啦。”
  阿玛兰塔露出轻蔑的神态。
  “我不需要追求男人,”她回答。“我送饼干给格林列尔多,是我怜悯他,因为他迟早会熗毙的。”
  她说到熗毙,连她自己都不相信真会发生这样的事,可是政府恰在这时公开声称,如果叛军下交出列奥阿察,他们就要处决格林列尔多·马克斯上校。不准探监了。阿玛兰塔躲在卧室里流泪,感到内疚,就象雷麦黛丝死的时候那样,仿佛她那不吉祥的话再一次招来了死神,母亲安慰她,肯定地说,奥雷连诺上校一定会想法阻止行刑;她还答应:战争一旦结束,她自己会把格林列尔多招来。乌苏娜早于所说的期限履行了自己的诺言。格林列尔多·马克斯担任军政长官以后,重新来到她们家中时,乌苏娜欢迎他就象欢迎亲生儿子似的,不住地奉承他,竭力把他留在家里,衷心地祈求上帝,希望格林列尔多想起自己跟阿玛兰塔结婚的打算。乌苏娜的祈求似乎得到了回答。格林列尔多·马克斯上校到布恩蒂亚家里吃饭的日子里,他总留在秋海棠长廊上跟阿玛兰塔下跳棋。乌苏娜给他俩送上咖啡和饼干,亲自注意不让孩子打扰他俩的幽会。阿玛兰塔真的竭力让自己青春的热情死灰复燃。现在,她怀着越来越难受的焦急心情,等待格林列尔多·马克斯上校在食桌边出现,等待傍晚跟他下棋。跟这个军人在一块儿,时间是过得飞快的;这人有一个富于诗意的名字*,他的指头移动棋子稍微有点儿颤抖。但是,格林列尔多·马克斯重新向阿玛兰塔求婚的那一天,她又拒绝了他。
  *格林列尔多,西班牙民间诗歌中的人物,国王的女儿爱上的一个少年侍卫。
  “我不嫁给任何人,”阿玛兰塔说,“尤其是你。你那样爱奥雷连诺,你想跟我结婚,只是因为你不能跟他结婚。”
  格林列尔多·马克斯是个有耐心的人。“我可以等,”他说。“我迟早能够说服你。”于是,他继续到这个家里来作客。阿玛兰塔把自己关在卧室里,忍住暗中的呻吟,拿手指塞住耳朵,免得听到求婚者告诉乌苏娜最新战况的声音,尽管她想见他想得要死,但她还是竭力忍住不出去见他。
  这时,奥雷连诺上校还有足够的空闲时间,每两周都向马孔多发来详细情报,但他只有一次写信给乌苏娜,大约在他离开马孔多八个月之后。一位专派的信差送来一封盖了火漆大印的信,里面有一小张纸,纸上是上校规整的笔迹:“当心爸爸——他快要死啦,”乌苏娜惊慌起来:“既然奥雷连诺那么说,可见他知道。”于是,她请人帮她把霍·阿·布恩蒂亚搬进卧室。他不仅象从前那样重,而且长年累月朱在栗树下面,练成了随意增加体重的本领,以致七个男人都无法把他从板凳上抬起,只好将他拖到床上去。这个身躯高大、日晒雨淋的老头儿一住进卧室,室内的空气就充满了开花的栗树和菌类植物的浓烈气味和年深月久的潮气。第二天早晨,他的床铺就空了。乌苏娜找遍了所有的房间,发现丈夫又在栗树下面了。于是,他们把他捆在床上。尽管霍.阿·布恩蒂亚力气未衰,但他没有反抗,他对一切都是无所谓的。他回到栗树下去,并不是他有意这么千,而是因为他的身体习惯于那个地方。乌苏娜照顾他,给他吃的,把奥雷连诺的消息告诉他。但是,实际上,他长期接触的只有一个人——普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔。普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔死后已经衰朽不堪,每天都来两次跟他聊天。他俩谈到公鸡,打算一块儿建立一个繁殖场,饲养一些出色的鸟禽——不是为了拿它们的胜利来取乐,因为他俩已经不需要这种胜利了,只是为了在死人国里漫长、沉闷的星期天有点儿消遣。普鲁登希奥.阿吉廖尔给霍.阿.布恩蒂亚擦擦洗洗,给他吃东西,把一个陌生人的好消息告诉他,那人叫做奥雷连诺,是战争中的一名上校。霍.阿.布恩蒂亚独个儿留下的时候,他就在梦中寻求安慰,梦见无穷无尽的房间。他梦见自己从床上站立起来,打开房门,走进另一个同样的房间,这里有同样的床(床头是包上铁皮的),有同样的藤椅,后墙上也有“救命女神”的小画像。从这个房间,他又走进另一个同样的房间,这个房间的门又通向另一个同样的房间,然后又是一个同样的房间,——就这样无穷无尽。他很喜欢从一个房间走进另一个房间——很象走过两排并列镜子之间的一道长廊……随后,普鲁登希奥.阿吉廖尔摸了摸他的肩膀。于是,他逐渐醒来,从一个房间倒退到另一个房间,走完漫长的回头路,直到在真正的房间里见到普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔。可是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚迁到床上之后过了两个星期,有一天夜里,他在最远的一个房间里时,普鲁登希奥。阿吉廖尔摸了摸他的肩膀,他却没有往回走,永远留在那儿了,以为那个房间是真正的房间。第二天早上,乌苏娜送早饭给丈夫的时候,忽然看见一个男人沿着走廊朝她走来。这人矮壮墩实,穿一身黑呢衣服,戴一顶挺大的黑帽子,帽子拉得遮住了悲戚的眼睛。“我的天啦,”乌苏娜想道。“我能发誓,这是梅尔加德斯。”然而这是卡塔乌尔,维希塔香的弟弟,他为了躲避失限症,从这里逃走之后,一直音讯杏无。维希塔香问他为什么回来,他用本族语占庄严而响亮地说:
  “我是来参加国王葬礼的。”
  接着,他们走进霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的房间,开始使劲摇晃他,对着他的耳朵叫喊,把一面镜子拿到他的鼻孔前面,可是始终未能唤醒他。稍迟一些,木匠给死者量棺材尺寸时,看见窗外下起了细微的黄花雨。整整一夜,黄色的花朵象无声的暴雨,在市镇上空纷纷飘落,铺满了所有的房顶,堵塞了房门,遮没了睡在户外的牲畜。天上落下了那么多的黄色花朵,翌日早晨,整个马孔多仿佛铺了一层密实的地毯,所以不得不用铲子和耙子为送葬队伍清除道路。


执素衣

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Chapter 6
COLONEL AURELIANO BUEND?A organized thirty-two armed uprisings and he lost them all. He had seventeen male children by seventeen different women and they were exterminated one after the other on a single night before the oldest one had reached the age of thirty-five. He survived fourteen attempts on his life, seventy-three ambushes, and a firing squad. He lived through a dose of strychnine in his coffee that was enough to kill a horse. He refused the Order of Merit, which the President of the Republic awarded him. He rose to be Commander in Chief of the revolutionary forces, with jurisdiction and command from one border to the other, and the man most feared by the government, but he never let himself be photographed. He declined the lifetime pension offered him after the war and until old age he made his living from the little gold fishes that he manufactured in his workshop in Macondo. Although he always fought at the head of his men, the only wound that he received was the one he gave himself after signing the Treaty of Neerlandia, which put an end to almost twenty years of civil war. He shot himself in the chest with a pistol and the bullet came out through his back without damaging any vital organ. The only thing left of all that was a street that bore his name in Macondo. And yet, as he declared a few years before he died of old age, he had not expected any of that on the dawn he left with his twenty-one men to join the forces of General Victorio Medina.
   “We leave Macondo in your care.?was all that he said to Arcadio before leaving. “We leave it to you in good shape, try to have it in better shape when we return.?
   Arcadio gave a very personal interpretation to the instructions. He invented a uniform with the braid and epaulets of a marshal, inspired by the prints in one of Melquíades?books, and around his waist he buckled the saber with gold tassels that had belonged to the executed captain. He set up the two artillery pieces at the entrance to town, put uniforms on his former pupils, who had been amused by his fiery proclamations, and let them wander through the streets armed in order to give outsiders an impression of invulnerability. It was a double-edged deception, for the government did not dare attack the place for ten months, but when it did it unleashed such a large force against it that resistance was liquidated in a half hour. From the first day of his rule Arcadio revealed his predilection for decrees. He would read as many as four a day in order to decree and institute everything that came into his head. He imposed obligatory military service for men over eighteen, declared to be public property any animals walking the streets after six in the evening, and made men who were overage wear red armbands. He sequestered Father Nicanor in the parish house under pain of execution and prohibited him from saying mass or ringing the bells unless it was for a Liberal victory. In order that no one would doubt the severity of his aims, he ordered a firing squad organized in the square and had it shoot at a scarecrow. At first no one took him seriously. They were, after all, schoolchildren playing at being grown-ups. But one night, when Arcadio went into Catarino’s store, the trumpeter in the group greeted him with a fanfare that made the customers laugh and Arcadio had him shot for disrespect for the authorities. People who protested were put on bread and water with their ankles in a set of stocks that he had set up in a schoolroom. “You murderer!??rsula would shout at him every time she learned of some new arbitrary act. “When Aureliano finds out he’s going to shoot you and I’ll be the first one to be glad.?But it was of no use. Arcadio continued tightening the tourniquet with unnecessary rigor until he became the cruelest ruler that Macondo had ever known. “Now let them suffer the difference,?Don Apolinar Moscote said on one occasion. “This is the Liberal paradise.?Arcadio found out about it. At the head of a patrol he assaulted the house, destroyed the furniture, flogged the daughters, and dragged out Don Apolinar Moscote. When ?rsula burst into the courtyard of headquarters, after having gone through the town shouting shame and brandishing with rage a pitch-covered whip, Arcadio himself was preparing to give the squad the command to fire.
   “I dare you to, bastard!??rsula shouted.
   Before Arcadio had time to read she let go with the first blow of the lash. “I dare you to, murderer!?she shouted. “And kill me too, son of an evil mother. That way I won’t have the eyes to weep for the shame of having raised a monster.?Whipping him without mercy, she chased him to the back of the courtyard, where Arcadio curled up like a snail in its shell. Don Apolinar Moscote was unconscious, tied to the post where previously they had had the scarecrow that had been cut to pieces by shots fired in fun. The boys in the squad scattered, fearful that ?rsula would go after them too. But she did not even look at them. She left Arcadio with his uniform torn, roaring with pain and rage, and she untied Don Apolinar Moscote and took him home. Before leaving the headquarters she released the prisoners from the stocks.
   From that time on she was the one who ruled in the town. She reestablished Sunday masses, suspended the use of red armbands, and abrogated the harebrained decrees. But in spite of her strength, she still wept over her unfortunate fate. She felt so much alone that she sought the useless company of her husband, who had been forgotten under the chestnut tree. “Look what we’ve come to,?she would tell him as the June rains threatened to knock the shelter down. “Look at the empty house, our children scattered all over the world, and the two of us alone again, the same as in the beginning.?Jos?Arcadio Buendía, sunk in an abyss of unawareness, was deaf to her lamentations. At the beginning of his madness he would announce his daily needs with urgent Latin phrases. In fleeting clear spells of lucidity, when Amaranta would bring him his meals he would tell her what bothered him most and would accept her sucking glasses and mustard plasters in a docile way. But at the time when ?rsula went to lament by his side he had lost all contact with reality. She would bathe him bit by bit as he sat on his stool while she gave him news of the family. “Aureliano went to war more than four months ago and we haven’t heard anything about him,?she would say, scrubbing his back with a soaped brush. “Jos?Arcadio came back a big man, taller than you, and all covered with needle-work, but he only brought shame to our house.?She thought she noticed, however, that her husband would grow sad with the bad news. Then she decided to lie to him. ‘Rou won’t believe what I’m going to tell you,?she said as she threw ashes over his excrement in order to pick it up with the shovel. “God willed that Jos?Arcadio and Rebeca should get married, and now they’re very happy.?She got to be so sincere in the deception that she ended up by consoling herself with her own lies. “Arcadio is a serious man now,?she said, “and very brave, and a fine-looking young man with his uniform and saber.?It was like speaking to a dead man, for Jos?Arcadio Buendía was already beyond the reach of any worry. But she insisted. He seemed so peaceful, so indifferent to everything that she decided to release him. He did not even move from his stool. He stayed there, exposed to the sun and the rain, as if the thongs were unnecessary, for a dominion superior to any visible bond kept him tied to the trunk of the chestnut tree. Toward August, when winter began to last forever, ?rsula was finally able to give him a piece of news that sounded like the truth.
   “Would you believe it that good luck is still pouring down on us??she told him. “Amaranta and the pianola Italian are going to get married.?
   Amaranta and Pietro Crespi had, in fact, deepened their friendship, protected by ?rsula, who this time did not think it necessary to watch over the visits. It was a twilight engagement. The Italian would arrive at dusk, with a gardenia in his buttonhole, and he would translate Petrarch’s sonnets for Amaranta. They would sit on the porch, suffocated by the oregano and the roses, he reading and she sewing lace cuffs, indifferent to the shocks and bad news of the war, until the mosquitoes made them take refuge in the parlor. Amaranta’s sensibility, her discreet but enveloping tenderness had been wearing an invisible web about her fianc? which he had to push aside materially with his pale and ringless fingers in order to leave the house at eight o’clock. They had put together a delightful album with the postcards that Pietro Crespi received from Italy. They were pictures of lovers in lonely parks, with vignettes of hearts pierced with arrows and golden ribbons held by doves. “I’ve been to this park in Florence,?Pietro Crespi would say, going through the cards. “A person can put out his hand and the birds will come to feed.?Sometimes, over a watercolor of Venice, nostalgia would transform the smell of mud and putrefying shellfish of the canals into the warm aroma of flowers. Amaranta would sigh, laugh, and dream of a second homeland of handsome men and beautiful women who spoke a childlike language with ancient cities of whose past grandeur only the cats among the rubble remained. After crossing the ocean in search of it, after having confused passion with the vehement stroking of Rebeca, Pietro Crespi had found love. Happiness was accompanied by prosperity. His warehouse at that time occupied almost a whole block and it was a hothouse of fantasy, with reproductions of the bell tower of Florence that told time with a concert of carillons, and music boxes from Sorrento and compacts from China that sang five-note melodies when they were opened, and all the musical instruments imaginable and all the mechanical toys that could be conceived. Bruno Crespi, his younger brother, was in charge of the store because Pietro Crespi barely had enough time to take care of the music school. Thanks to him the Street of the Turks, with its dazzling display of knickknacks, became a melodic oasis where one could forget Arcadio’s arbitrary acts and the distant nightmare of the war. When ?rsula ordered the revival of Sunday mass, Pietro Crespi donated a German harmonium to the church, organized a children’s chorus, and prepared a Gregorian repertory that added a note of splendor to Father Nicanor’s quiet rite. No one doubted that he would make Amaranta a fortunate mate. Not pushing their feelings, letting themselves be borne along by the natural flow of their hearth they reached a point where all that was left to do was set a wedding date. They did not encounter any obstacles. ?rsula accused herself inwardly of having twisted Rebecca’s destiny with repeated postponements and she was not about to add more remorse. The rigor of the mourning for Remedios had been relegated to the background by the mortifications of the war, Aureliano’s absence, Arcadio’s brutality, and the expulsion of Jos?Arcadio and Rebeca. With the imminence of the wedding, Pietro Crespi had hinted that Aureliano Jos? in whom he had stirred up a love that was almost filial, would be considered their oldest child. Everything made Amaranta think that she was heading toward a smooth happiness. But unlike Rebeca, she did not reveal the slightest anxiety. With the same patience with which she dyed tablecloths, sewed lace masterpieces, and embroidered needlepoint peacocks, she waited for Pietro Crespi to be unable to bear the urges of his heart and more. Her day came with the ill-fated October rains. Pietro Crespi took the sewing basket from her lap and he told her, “We’ll get married next month.?Amaranta did not tremble at the contact with his icy hands. She withdrew hers like a timid little animal and went back to her work.
   “Don’t be simple, Crespi.?She smiled. “I wouldn’t marry you even if I were dead.?
   Pietro Crespi lost control of himself. He wept shamelessly, almost breaking his fingers with desperation, but he could not break her down. “Don’t waste your time,?was all that Amaranta said. “If you really love me so much, don’t set foot in this house again.??rsula thought she would go mad with shame. Pietro Crespi exhausted all manner of pleas. He went through incredible extremes of humiliation. He wept one whole afternoon in ?rsula’s lap and she would have sold her soul in order to comfort him. On rainy nights he could be seen prowling about the house with an umbrella, waiting for a light in Amaranta’s bedroom. He was never better dressed than at that time. His august head of a tormented emperor had acquired a strange air of grandeur. He begged Amaranta’s friends, the ones who sewed with her on the porch, to try to persuade her. He neglected his business. He would spend the day in the rear of the store writing wild notes, which he would send to Amaranta with flower petals and dried butterflies, and which she would return unopened. He would shut himself up for hours on end to play the zither. One night he sang. Macondo woke up in a kind of angelic stupor that was caused by a zither that deserved more than this world and a voice that led one to believe that no other person on earth could feel such love. Pietro Crespi then saw the lights go on in every window in town except that of Amaranta. On November second, All Souls?Day, his brother opened the store and found all the lamps lighted, all the music boxes opened, and all the docks striking an interminable hour, and in the midst of that mad concert he found Pietro Crespi at the desk in the rear with his wrists cut by a razor and his hands thrust into a basin of benzoin.
   ?rsula decreed that the wake would be in her house. Father Nicanor was against a religious ceremony and burial in consecrated ground. ?rsula stood up to him. “In a way that neither you nor I can understand, that man was a saint,?she said. “So I am going to bury him, against your wishes, beside Melquíades?grave.?She did it with the support of the whole town and with a magnificent funeral. Amaranta did not leave her bedroom. From her bed she heard ?rsula’s weeping, the steps and whispers of the multitude that invaded the house, the wailing of the mourners, and then a deep silence that smelled of trampled flowers. For a long time she kept on smelling Pietro Crespi’s lavender breath at dusk, but she had the strength not to succumb to delirium. ?rsula abandoned her. She did not even raise her eyes to pity her on the afternoon when Amaranta went into the kitchen and put her hand into the coals of the stove until it hurt her so much that she felt no more pain but instead smelled the pestilence of her own singed flesh. It was a stupid cure for her remorse. For several days she went about the house with her hand in a pot of egg whites, and when the burns healed it appeared as if the whites had also scarred over the sores on her heart. The only external trace that the tragedy left was the bandage of black gauze that she put on her burned hand and that she wore until her death.
   Arcadio gave a rare display of generosity by decreeing official mourning for Pietro Crespi. ?rsula interpreted it as the return of the strayed lamb. But she was mistaken. She had lost Arcadio, not when he had put on his military uniform, but from the beginning. She thought she had raised him as a son, as she had raised Rebeca, with no privileges or discrimination. Nevertheless, Arcadio was a solitary and frightened child during the insomnia plague, in the midst of ?rsula’s utilitarian fervor, during the delirium of Jos?Arcadio Buendía, the hermetism of Aureliano, and the mortal rivalry between Amaranta and Rebeca. Aureliano had taught him to read and write, thinking about other things, as he would have done with a stranger. He gave him his clothing so that Visitación could take it in when it was ready to be thrown away. Arcadio suffered from shoes that were too large, from his patched pants, from his female buttocks. He never succeeded in communicating with anyone better than he did with Visitación and Cataure in their language. Melquíades was the only one who really was concerned with him as he made him listen to his incomprehensible texts and gave him lessons in the art of daguerreotype. No one imagined how much he wept in secret and the desperation with which he tried to revive Melquíades with the useless study of his papers. The school, where they paid attention to him and respected him, and then power, with his endless decrees and his glorious uniform, freed him from the weight of an old bitterness. One night in Catarino’s store someone dared tell him, “you don’t deserve the last name you carry.?Contrary to what everyone expected, Arcadio did not have him shot.
   “To my great honor,?he said, “I am not a Buendía.?
   Those who knew the secret of his parentage thought that the answer meant that he too was aware of it, but he had really never been. Pilar Ternera, his mother, who had made his blood boil in the darkroom, was as much an irresistible obsession for him as she had been first for Jos?Arcadio and then for Aureliano. In spite of her having lost her charms and the splendor of her laugh, he sought her out and found her by the trail of her smell of smoke. A short time before the war, one noon when she was later than usual in coming for her younger son at school, Arcadio was waiting for her in the room where he was accustomed to take his siesta and where he later set up the stocks. While the child played in the courtyard, he waited in his hammock, trembling with anxiety, knowing that Pillar Ternera would have to pass through there. She arrived. Arcadio grabbed her by the wrist and tried to pull her into the hammock. “I can’t, I can’t,?Pilar Ternera said in horror. “You can’t imagine how much I would like to make you happy, but as God is my witness I can’t.?Arcadio took her by the waist with his tremendous hereditary strength and he felt the world disappear with the contact of her skin. “Don’t play the saint,?he said. “After all, everybody knows that you’re a whore.?Pilar overcame the disgust that her miserable fate inspired in her.
   “The children will find out,?she murmured. “It will be better if you leave the bar off the door tonight.?
   Arcadio waited for her that night trembling with fever in his hammock. He waited without sleeping, listening to the aroused crickets in the endless hours of early morning and the implacable telling of time by the curlews, more and more convinced that he had been deceived. Suddenly, when anxiety had broken down into rage, the door opened. A few months later, facing the firing squad, Arcadio would relive the wandering steps in the classroom, the stumbling against benches, and finally the bulk of a body in the shadows of the room and the breathing of air that was pumped by a heart that was not his. He stretched out his hand and found another hand with two rings on the same finger about to go astray in the darkness. He felt the structure of the veins, the pulse of its misfortune, and felt the damp palm with a lifeline cut off at the base of the thumb by the claws of death. Then he realized that this was not the woman he was waiting for, because she did not smell of smoke but of flower lotion, and she had inflated, blind breasts with nipples like. a man’s, a sex as stony and round as a nut, and the chaotic tenderness of excited inexperience. She was a virgin and she had the unlikely name of Santa Sofía de la Piedad. Pilar Ternera had paid her fifty pesos, half of her life savings, to do what she was doing. Arcadio, had seen her many times working in her parents?small food store but he had never taken a good look at her because she had that rare virtue of never existing completely except at the opportune moment. But from that day on he huddled like a cat in the warmth of her armpit She would go to the school at siesta time with the consent of her parents, to whom Pilar Ternera hid paid the other half of her savings. Later on, when the government troops dislodged them from the place where they had made love, they did it among the cans of lard and sacks of corn in the back of the store. About the time that Arcadio was named civil and military leader they had a daughter.
   The only relatives who knew about it were Jos?Arcadio and Rebeca, with whom Arcadio maintained close relations at that time, based not so much on kinship as on complicity. Jos?Arcadio had put his neck into the marital yoke. Rebeca’s firm character, the voracity of her stomach, her tenacious ambition absorbed the tremendous energy of her husband, who had been changed from a lazy, woman-chasing man into an enormous work animal. They kept a clean and neat house. Rebeca would open it wide at dawn and the wind from the graveyard would come in through the windows and go out through the doors to the yard and leave the whitewashed walls and furniture tanned by the saltpeter of the dead. Her hunger for earth, the cloc-cloc of her parents?bones, the impatience of her blood as it faced Pietro Crespi’s passivity were relegated to the attic of her memory. All day long she would embroider beside the window, withdrawn from the uneasiness of the war, until the ceramic pots would begin to vibrate in the cupboard and she would get up to warm the meal, much before the appearance, first, of the mangy hounds, and then of the colossus in leggings and spurs with a double-barreled shotgun, who sometimes carried a deer on his shoulder and almost always a string of rabbits or wild ducks. One afternoon, at the beginning of his rule, Arcadio paid them a surprise visit. They had not seen him since they had left the house, but he seemed so friendly and familiar that they invited him to share the stew.
   Only when they were having coffee did Arcadio reveal the motive behind his visit: he had received a complaint against Jos?Arcadio. It was said that he had begun by plowing his own yard and had gone straight ahead into neighboring lands, knocking down fences and buildings with his oxen until he took forcible possession of the best plots of land around. On the peasants whom he had not despoiled because he was not interested in their lands, he levied a contribution which he collected every Saturday with his hunting dogs and his double-barreled shotgun. He did not deny it. He based his right on the fact that the usurped lands had been distributed by Jos?Arcadio Buendía at the time of the founding, and he thought it possible to prove that his father had been crazy ever since that time, for he had disposed of a patrimony that really belonged to the family. It was an unnecessary allegation, because Arcadio had not come to do justice. He simply offered to set up a registry office so that Jos?Arcadio could legalize his title to the usurped land, under the condition that he delegate to the local government the right to collect the contributions. They made an agreement. Years later, when Colonel Aureliano Buendía examined the titles to property, he found registered in his brother’s name all of the land between the hill where his yard was on up to the horizon, including the cemetery, and discovered that during the eleven months of his rule, Arcadio had collected not only the money of the contributions, but had also collected fees from people for the right to bury their dead in Jos?Arcadio’s land.
   It took ?rsula several months to find out what was already public knowledge because people hid it from her so as not to increase her suffering. At first she suspected it. “Arcadio is building a house,?she confided with feigned pride to her husband as she tried to put a spoonful of calabash syrup into his mouth. Nevertheless, she involuntarily sighed and said, “I don’t know why, but all this has a bad smell to me.?Later on, when she found out that Arcadio had not only built a house but had ordered some Viennese furniture, she confirmed her suspicion that he was using public funds. “You’re the shame of our family name,?she shouted at him one Sunday after mass when she saw him in his new house playing cards with his officers. Arcadio paid no attention to her. Only then did ?rsula know that he had a six-month-old daughter and that Santa Sofía de la Piedad, with whom he was living outside of marriage, was pregnant again. She decided to write to Colonel Aureliano Buendía, wherever he was, to bring him up to date on the situation. But the fast-moving events of those days not only prevented her plans from being carried out, they made her regret having conceived them. The war, which until then had been only a word to designate a vague and remote circumstance, became a concrete and dramatic reality. Around the end of February an old woman with an ashen look arrived in Macondo riding a donkey loaded down with brooms. She seemed so inoffensive that the sentries let her pass without any questions as another vendor, one of the many who often arrived from the towns in the swamp. She went directly to the barracks. Arcadio received her in the place where the classroom used to be and which at that time had been transformed into a kind of rearguard encampment, with roiled hammocks hanging on hooks and mats piled up in the corners, and rifles and carbines and even hunting shotguns scattered on the floor. The old woman stiffened into a military salute before identifying herself:
   “I am Colonel Gregorio Stevenson.?
   He brought bad news. The last centers of Liberal resistance, according to what he said, were being wiped out. Colonel Aureliano Buendía, whom he had left fighting in retreat near Riohacha, had given him a message for Arcadio. He should surrender the town without resistance on the condition that the lives and property of Liberals would be respected. Arcadio examined that strange messenger who could have been a fugitive grandmother with a look of pity.
   “You have brought something in writing, naturally,?he said.
   “Naturally,?the emissary answered, “I have brought nothing of the sort. It’s easy to understand that under the present circumstances a person can’t carry anything that would compromise him.?
   As he was speaking he reached into his bodice and took out a small gold fish. “I think that this will be sufficient,?he said. Arcadio could see that indeed it was one of the little fishes made by Colonel Aureliano Buendía. But anyone could have bought it before the war or stolen it, and it had no merit as a safe-conduct pass. The messenger even went to the extreme of violating a military secret so that they would believe his identity. He revealed that he was on a mission to Cura?ao, where he hoped to recruit exiles from all over the Caribbean and acquire arms and supplies sufficient to attempt a landing at the end of the year. With faith in that plan, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was not in favor of any useless sacrifices at that time. But Arcadio was inflexible. He had the prisoner put into the stocks until he could prove his identity and he resolved to defend the town to the death.
   He did not have long to wait. The news of the Liberal defeat was more and more concrete. Toward the end of March, before a dawn of premature rain, the tense calm of the previous weeks was abruptly broken by the desperate sounds of a cornet and a cannon shot that knocked down the steeple of the church. Actually, Arcadio’s decision to resist was madness. He had only fifty poorly armed men with a ration of twenty cartridges apiece. But among them, his former pupils, excited by the high-sounding proclamations, the determination reigned to sacrifice their skins for a lost cause. In the midst of the tramping of boots, contradictory commands, cannon shots that made the earth tremble, wild shooting, and the senseless sound of cornets, the supposed Colonel Stevenson managed to speak to Arcadio. “Don’t let me undergo the indignity of dying in the stocks in these women’s clothes,?he said to him. “If I have to die, let me die fighting.?He succeeded in convincing him. Arcadio ordered them to give him a weapon and twenty cartridges, and he left him with five men to defend headquarters while he went off with his staff to head up the resistance. He did not get to the road to the swamp. The barricades had been broken and the defenders were openly fighting in the streets, first until they used up their ration of rifle bullets, then with pistols against rifles, and finally hand to hand. With the imminence of defeat, some women went into the street armed with sticks and kitchen knives. In that confusion Arcadio found Amaranta, who was looking for him like a madwoman, in her nightgown and with two old pistols that had belonged to Jos?Arcadio Buendía. He gave his rifle to an officer who had been disarmed in the fight and escaped with Amaranta through a nearby street to take her home. ?rsula was, in the doorway waiting, indifferent to the cannon shots that had opened up a hole in the front of the house next door. The rain was letting up, but the streets were as slippery and as smooth as melted soap, and one had to guess distances in the darkness. Arcadio left Amaranta with ?rsula and made an attempt to face two soldiers who had opened up with heavy firing from the corner. The old pistols that had been kept for many years in the bureau did not work. Protecting Arcadio with her body, ?rsula tried to drag him toward the house.
   “Come along in the name of God,?she shouted at him. “There’s been enough madness!?
   The soldiers aimed at them.
   “Let go of that man, ma’am,?one of them shouted, “or we won’t be responsible!?
   Arcadio pushed ?rsula toward the house and surrendered. A short time later the shooting stopped and the bells began to toll. The resistance had been wiped out in less than half an hour. Not a single one of Arcadio’s men had survived the attack, but before dying they had killed three hundred soldiers. The last stronghold was the barracks. Before being attacked, the supposed Colonel Gregorio Stevenson had freed the prisoners and ordered his men to go out and fight in the street. The extraordinary mobility and accurate aim with which he placed his twenty cartridges gave the impression that the barracks was well-defended, and the attackers blew it to pieces with cannon fire. The captain who directed the operation was startled to find the rubble deserted and a single dead man in his undershorts with an empty rifle still clutched in an arm that had been blown completely off. He had a woman’s full head of hair held at the neck with a comb and on his neck a chain with a small gold fish. When he turned him over with the tip of his boot and put the light on his face, the captain was perplexed. “Jesus Christ,?he exclaimed. Other officers came over.
   “Look where this fellow turned up,?the captain said. “It’s Gregorio Stevenson.?
   At dawn, after a summary court martial, Arcadio was shot against the wall of the cemetery. In the last two hours of his life he did not manage to understand why the fear that had tormented him since childhood had disappeared. Impassive. without even worrying about making a show of his recent bravery, he listened to the interminable charges of the accusation. He thought about ?rsula, who at that hour must have been under the chestnut tree having coffee with Jos?Arcadio Buendía. He thought about his eight-month-old daughter, who still had no name, and about the child who was going to be born in August. He thought about Santa Sofía de la Piedad, whom he had left the night before salting down a deer for next day’s lunch, and he missed her hair pouring over her shoulders and her eyelashes, which looked as if they were artificial. He thought about his people without sentimentality, with a strict dosing of his accounts with life, beginning to understand how much he really loved the people he hated most. The president of the court-martial began his final speech when Arcadio realized that two hours had passed. “Even if the proven charges did not have merit enough,?the president was saying, “the irresponsible and criminal boldness with which the accused drove his subordinates on to a useless death would be enough to deserve capital punishment.?In the shattered schoolhouse where for the first time he had felt the security of power, a few feet from the room where he had come to know the uncertainty of love, Arcadio found the formality of death ridiculous. Death really did not matter to him but life did, and therefore the sensation he felt when they gave their decision was not a feeling of fear but of nostalgia. He did not speak until they asked him for his last request.
   “Tell my wife,?he answered in a well-modulated voice, “to give the girl the name of ?rsula.?He paused and said it again: “?rsula, like her grandmother. And tell her also that if the child that is to be born is a boy, they should name him Jos?Arcadio, not for his uncle, but for his grandfather.?
   Before they took him to the execution wall Father Nicanor tried to attend him. “I have nothing to repent,?Arcadio said, and he put himself under the orders of the squad after drinking a cup of black coffee. The leader of the squad, a specialist in summary executions, had a name that had much more about it than chance: Captain Roque Carnicero, which meant butcher. On the way to the cemetery, under the persistent drizzle, Arcadio saw that a radiant Wednesday was breaking out on the horizon. His nostalgia disappeared with the mist and left an immense curiosity in its place. Only when they ordered him to put his back to the wall did Arcadio see Rebeca, with wet hair and a pink flowered dress, opening wide the door. He made an effort to get her to recognize him. And Rebeca did take a casual look toward the wall and was paralyzed with stupor, barely able to react and wave good-bye to Arcadio. Arcadio answered her the same way. At that instant the smoking mouths of the rifles were aimed at him and letter by letter he heard the encyclicals that Melquíades had chanted and he heard the lost steps of Santa Sofía de la Piedad, a virgin, in the classroom, and in his nose he felt the same icy hardness that had drawn his attention in the nostrils of the corpse of Remedios. “Oh, God damn it!?he managed to think. “I forgot to say that if it was a girl they should name her Remedios.?Then, all accumulated in the rip of a claw, he felt again all the terror that had tormented him in his life. The captain gave the order to fire. Arcadio barely had time to put out his chest and raise his head, not understanding where the hot liquid that burned his thighs was pouring from.
   “Bastards!?he shouted. “Long live the Liberal Party!?



第六章

  奥雷连诺上校发动了三十二次武装起义,三十二次都遭到了失败。他跟十六个女人生了十七个儿子,这些儿子都在一个晚上接二连三被杀死了,其中最大的还不满三十五岁。他自己遭到过十四次暗杀、七十二次埋伏和一次熗决,但都幸免于难。他喝了一杯掺有士的宁(注:一种毒药)的咖啡,剂量足以毒死一匹马,可他也活过来了。他拒绝了共和国总统授予他的荣誉勋章。他曾升为革命军总司令,在全国广大地区拥有生杀予夺之权,成了政府最畏惧的人物,但他从来没有让人给他拍过照。战争结束以后,他拒绝了政府给他的终身养老金,直到年老都在马孔多作坊里制作小金鱼为生。尽管他作战时经常身先士卒,但他唯一的伤却是他亲手造成的,那是结束二十年内战的尼兰德投降书签订之后的事。他用手熗朝自己的胸膛开了一熗,子弹穿过脊背,可是没有击中要害。这一切的结果不过是马扎多的一条街道拿他命了名。
  然而,据他自己寿终之前不久承认,那天早晨,他率领二十一人的队伍离开马孔多,去投奔维克多里奥·麦丁纳将军的部队时,他是没有想到这些的。
  “我们把这个镇子交给你了,”他离开时向阿卡蒂奥说。“你瞧,我们是把它好好儿交给你的,到我们回来的时候,它该更好了。”
  阿卡蒂奥对这个指示作了十分独特的解释。他看了梅尔加德斯书里的彩色插图,受到启发,就给自己设计了一套制服,制服上面配了元帅的饰带和肩章,并且在腰边挂了一把带有金色穗子的军刀;这把军刀本来是属于那个已经被熗决的上尉的。然后立于个别的实在,个别事物是虚假的。后者的主要代表是托,他在市镇人口处安了两门大炮,鼓动他以往的学生,叫他们穿上军服,把他们武装起来,让他们耀武扬威地走过街头,使人从旁看出这个镇子是坚不可摧的。其实,这个鬼把戏未必有用:的确,几乎整整一年,政府不敢发出进攻马孔多的命令,可是最终决定大举猛攻这个镇子时,半小时之内就把抵抗镇压下去了。阿卡蒂奥在执掌政权之初,对发号施令表现了很大的爱好。有时,他一天发布四项命令,想干什么就干什么。他规定年满十八岁的人都须服兵役,宣布晚上六时以后出现在街上的牲畜为公共财产,强迫中年男人戴上红臂章。他把尼康诺神父关在家里,禁止外出,否则熗毙:只有在庆祝自由党胜利时,才准做弥撒、敲钟。为了让大家知道他并不想说着玩玩,他命令一队士兵在广场上向稻草人练习射击。起初,谁也没有认真看待这些。归根到底,这些士兵不过是假装大人的小学生。有一天晚上,阿卡蒂奥走进卡塔林诺游艺场的时候,乐队小号手故意用军号声欢迎他,引起了哄堂大笑。阿卡蒂奥认为这个号手不尊重新的当局,下令把他熗毙了。那些敢于反对的人,他下令给他们戴上脚镣,把他们关在学校教室里,只让他们喝水、吃面包。“你是杀人犯!”乌苏娜每次听到他的横行霸道,都向他叫嚷。“奥雷连诺知道的时候,他会熗毙你,我第一个高兴。”然而一切都是枉然。阿卡蒂奥继续加强这种毫无必要的酷烈手段,终于成了马孔多不曾有过的暴君。“现在,镇上的人感到不同啦,”阿·摩斯柯特有一次说。“这就是自由党的天堂。”这些话传到了阿卡蒂奥耳里。他领着一队巡逻兵,闯进阿.摩斯柯特的住所,砸毁家具,抽打他的几个女儿,而把过去的镇长沿着街道朝兵营拖去。乌苏娜知道了这伴事情,非常惭愧,狂喊乱叫,愤怒地挥着树脂浸透的鞭子,撒腿奔过市镇;当她冲进兵营院子的时候,士兵们已经站好了熗毙阿·摩斯柯特先生的队列,阿卡蒂奥准备亲自发出“开熗”的命令。
  “你敢,杂种!”乌苏娜叫道。
  阿卡蒂奥还没清醒过来,她已拿粗大的牛筋鞭给了他一下子。“你敢,杀人犯,”她喝道。“你也杀死我吧,你这婊子养的。那样,我起码用不着因为喂大了你这个怪物而惭愧得流泪了。”她无情地追着阿卡蒂奥抽打,直到他躲在院中最远的一个角落里,象蜗牛似的蜷缩在那儿。绑在柱子上的阿·摩斯柯特先生已经失去知觉,在这之前,柱子上挂着一个被子弹打穿了许多窟窿的稻草人。行刑的小伙子们四散奔逃,生怕乌苏娜也拿他们出气。可她看都不看他们一眼。阿卡蒂奥的制服已经扯破,他又痛又恼,大声狂叫;乌苏娜把他撇在一边,就去松开阿·摩斯柯特先生,领他回家。但在离开兵营之前,她把戴着脚镣的犯人都给放了。
  从这时起,乌苏娜开始掌管这个市镇。她恢复了星期日的弥撒,取消了红色臂章,宣布阿卡蒂奥轻率的命令无效。乌苏娜虽然表现勇敢,心中却悲叹自己的命运。她感到自己那么孤独闻工作者,人格主义代表人物。曾创办《精神杂志》。把人格,就去找被忘在栗树下的丈夫,向他无用地诉苦。“你瞧,咱们到了什么地步啦,”她向他说;周围是六月里的雨声,雨水很有冲毁棕榈棚的危险。“咱们的房子空啦,儿女们四分五散啦,象最初那样,又是咱们两人了。”可是,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚精神错乱,对她的抱怨听而不闻。最初丧失理智的时候,他还用半通不通的拉丁语说说日常生活的需要。在短暂的神志清醒当中,阿玛兰塔给他送饮食来的时候,他还向她诉说自己最大的痛苦,顺从地让她给他拨火罐、抹芥末膏。可是,乌苏娜开始到栗树下来诉苦时,他已失去了跟现实生活的一切联系。他坐在板凳上,乌苏娜一点一点地给他擦身,同时就谈家里的事。“奥雷连诺出去打仗,已经四个多月啦,我们一点都不知道他的消息,”她一面说,一面用抹了肥皂的刷子给丈夫擦背。“霍·阿卡蒂奥回来了,长得比你还高,全身刺满了花纹,可他只给我们家丢脸。”她觉得坏消息会使丈夫伤心,于是决定向他撒谎。“你别相信我刚才告诉你的话吧,”说着,她拿灰撒在他的粪便上,然后用铲子把它铲了起来。“感谢上帝,霍·阿卡蒂奥和雷贝卡结婚啦,现在他们挺幸福。”她学会了把假话说得十分逼真,自己也终于在捏造中寻得安慰。“阿卡蒂奥已经是个正经的人,很勇敢,穿上制服挺神气,还配带了一把军刀。”这等于跟死人说话,因为已经没有什么能使霍·阿·布恩蒂亚愉快和悲哀了。可是,乌苏娜继续跟丈夫唠叨。他是那么驯顺,对一切都很冷淡,她就决定给他松绑。松了绳子的霍·阿·布恩蒂亚,在板凳上动都不动一下。他就那么日晒雨淋,仿佛绳子没有任何意义,因为有一种比眼睛能够看见的绳索更强大的力量把他拴在粟树上。八月间,大家已经开始觉得战争将要永远拖延下去的时候,乌苏娜终于把她认为真实的消息告诉了大夫。
  “好运气总是跟着咱们的,”她说。“阿玛兰塔和摆弄自动钢琴的意大利人快要结婚啦!”
  在乌苏娜的信任下,阿玛兰塔和皮埃特罗·克列斯比的友好关系确实发展很快;现在,意大利人来访时,乌苏娜认为没有心要在场监视了。这是一种黄昏的幽会。皮埃特罗·克列斯比总是傍晚才来,钮扣孔眼里插一朵栀子花,把佩特拉克的十四行诗翻译给阿玛兰塔听。他俩坐在充满了玫瑰花和牛至花馨香的长廊上:他念诗,她就绣制花边袖口,两人都把战争的惊扰和变化抛到脑后;她的敏感、审慎和掩藏的温情,仿佛蛛网一样把未婚夫缠绕起来,每当晚上八时他起身离开的时候,他都不得不用没戴戒指的苍白手指拨开这些看不见的蛛网,他跟阿玛兰塔·起做了一个精美的明信画片册,这些明信画片都是他从意大利带来的。在每张明信片上,都有一对情人呆在公园绿树丛中的僻静角落里,还有一些小花饰--箭穿的红心或者两只鸽子用嘴衔着的一条金色丝带。“我去过佛罗伦萨的这个公园,”皮埃特罗·克列斯比翻阅着画片说。“只要伸出下去,鸟儿就会飞来啄食。”有时,看到一幅威尼斯水彩画,他的怀乡之情会把水沟里的淤泥气味和海中贝壳的腐臭昧儿变成鲜花的香气。阿玛兰塔一面叹息一面笑,并且憧憬着那个国家,那里的男男女女都挺漂亮,说起话来象孩子,那里有古老的城市,它们往日的宏伟建筑只剩下了在瓦砾堆里乱刨的几只小猫。皮埃特罗·克列斯比漂洋过海追求爱情,并且把雷贝卡的感情冲动跟爱情混为一谈,但他总算得到了爱情,慌忙热情地吻她。幸福的爱情带来了生意的兴隆。皮埃特罗·克列斯比的店铺已经占了几乎整整一条街道,变成了幻想的温室--这里可以看到精确复制的佛罗伦萨钟楼上的自鸣钟,它用乐曲报告时刻;索伦托的八音盒和中国的扑粉盒,此种扑粉盒一开盖子,就会奏出五个音符的曲子;此外还有各种难以想象的乐器和自动玩具。他把商店交给弟弟布兽诺·克列斯比经管,因为他需要有充分的时间照顾音乐学校。由于他的经营,各种玩物令人目眩的上耳其人街变成了一个仙境,人们一到这里就忘掉了阿卡蒂奥的专横暴戾,忘掉了战争的噩梦。根据乌苏娜的嘱咐,星期日的弥撒恢复以后,皮埃特罗·克列斯比送给教堂一架德国风琴,组织了一个儿童合唱队,并且教他们练会格里戈里的圣歌--这给尼康诺神父简单的礼拜仪式增添了一些光彩。大家相信,阿玛兰塔跟这意大利人结婚是会幸福的。他俩并不催促自己的感情,而让感情平稳、自然地发展,终于到了只待确定婚期的地步。他俩没有遇到任何阻碍。乌苏娜心中谴责自己的是,一再拖延婚期曾把雷贝卡的生活搞得很不象样,所以她就不想再增加良心的不安了。由于战争的灾难、奥雷连诺的出走、阿卡蒂奥的暴虐、霍·阿卡蒂奥和雷贝卡的被逐,雷麦黛丝的丧事就给放到了次要地位。皮埃特罗·克列斯比相信婚礼非举行不可,甚至暗示要把奥雷连诺·霍塞认做自己的大儿子,因为他对这个孩子充满了父爱。一切都使人想到,阿玛兰塔已经游近了宁静的海湾,就要过美满幸福的生活了。但她跟雷贝卡相反,没有表现一点急躁。犹如绣制桌布的图案、缝制精美的金银花边、刺绣孔雀那样,她平静地等待皮埃特罗·克列斯比再也无法忍受的内心煎熬。这种时刻跟十月的暴雨一块儿来临了。皮埃特罗·克列斯比从阿玛兰塔膝上拿开刺绣篮于,双手握住她的一只手。“我不能再等了,”他说。“咱们下个月结婚吧。”接触他那冰凉的手,她甚至没有颤栗一下。她象一只不驯服的小野兽,缩回手来,重新干活。
  “别天真了,克列斯比,”阿玛兰塔微笑着说。“我死也不会嫁给你。”
  皮埃特罗·克列斯比失去了自制。他毫不害臊地哭了起来,在绝望中差点儿扭断了手指,可是无法动摇她的决心。“别白费时间了,”阿玛兰塔回答他。“如果你真的那么爱我,你就不要再跨过这座房子的门坎。”乌苏娜羞愧得无地自容。皮埃特罗·克列斯比说尽了哀求的话。他卑屈到了不可思议的地步。整个下午,他都在乌苏娜怀里痛哭流涕,乌苏娜宁愿掏出心来安慰他。雨天的晚上,他总撑着一把绸伞在房子周围徘徊,观望阿玛兰塔窗子里有没有灯光。皮埃特罗·克列斯比从来不象这几天穿得那么讲究。他虽象个落难的皇帝,但头饰还是挺有气派的。见到阿玛兰塔的女友--常在长廊上绣花的那些女人,他就恳求她们设法让她回心转意。他抛弃了自己的一切事情,整天整天地呆在商店后面的房间里,写出一封封发狂的信,夹进一些花瓣和蝴蝶标本,寄给阿玛兰塔;她根本没有拆阅就把一封封信原壁退回。他把自己关在屋子里弹齐特拉琴,一弹就是几个小时。有一天夜里,他唱起歌来,马孔多的人闻声惊醒,被齐特拉琴神奇的乐曲声迷住了,因为这种乐曲声不可能是这个世界上的;他们也给充满爱情的歌声迷住了,因为比这更强烈的爱情在人世间是不可能想象的。然而,皮埃特罗·克列斯比看见了全镇各个窗户的灯光,只是没有看兄阿玛兰塔窗子里的灯光。十一月二日,万灵节那一夭,他的弟弟打开店门,发现所有的灯都是亮着的,所有的八音盒都奏着乐曲,所有的钟都在没完没了地报告时刻;在这乱七八槽的交响乐中,他发现皮埃特罗·克列斯比伏在爪屋的写字台上--他手腕上的静脉已给刀子割断,两只手都放在盛满安息香树胶的盟洗盆中。
  乌苏娜吩咐把灵枢放在她的家里,尼康诺神父既反对为自杀者举行宗教仪式,也反对把人埋在圣地。乌苏娜跟神父争论起来。“这个人成了圣徒,”她说。“这是怎么一回事,你我都不了解。不管你想咋办,我都要把他埋在梅尔加德斯旁边。”举行了隆重的葬礼之后,在全镇的人一致同意下,她就那样做了。阿玛兰塔没有走出卧室。她从自己的床铺上,听到了乌苏娜的号啕声、人们的脚步声和低低的谈话声,以及哭灵女人的数落声,然后是一片深沉的寂静,寂静中充满了踩烂的花朵的气味。在颇长一段时间里。阿玛兰塔每到晚上都还感到薰衣草的味儿,但她竭力不让自己精神错乱。乌苏娜不理睬她了。那天傍晚,阿玛兰塔走进厨房,把一只手放在炉灶的炭火上,过了一会儿,她感到的已经不只是疼痛,而是烧焦的肉发出的臭味了,这时,乌苏娜连眼睛都不扬一扬,一点也不怜悯女儿。这是对付良心不安的人最激烈的办法。一连几天,阿玛兰塔都在家中把手放在一只盛着蛋清的盆子里,的伤就逐渐痊愈了,而且在蛋清的良好作用下,她心灵的创伤也好了。这场悲剧留下的唯一痕迹,是缠在她那的伤的手上的黑色绷带,她至死都是把它缠在手上的。
  阿卡蒂奥表现了意外的宽厚态度,发布了正式哀悼皮埃特罗·克列斯比的命令。乌苏娜认为这是浪子回头的举动,但她想错了。她失去了他,根本不是从他穿上军服时开始的,而是老早开始的,她认为,她把他当做自己的孙子抚养成人,就象养育雷贝卡一样,既没优待他,也没亏待他。然而,阿卡蒂奥却长成了个乖僻、胆怯的孩子,因为在他童年的时候,正好失眠症广泛流行,乌苏娜大兴土木,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚精神错乱,奥雷连诺遁居家门,阿玛兰塔和雷贝卡彼此仇视。奥雷连诺教他读书写字时,仿佛对待一个陌生人似的,他心中所想的完全是另一码事。他拿自己的衣服给阿卡蒂奥(让维希塔香加以修改),因为这些衣服准备扔掉了。阿卡蒂奥感到苦恼的是一双不合脚的大鞋、裤子上的补丁以及女人的屁股。他跟维希塔香和卡塔乌尔谈话时,多半是用他们的语言。唯一真正关心他的人是梅尔加德斯:这老头儿把令人不解的笔记念给他听,教他照相术。谁也没有猜到,他在大家面前如何掩饰自己的痛苦,如何哀悼老头儿的去世;他翻阅老头儿的笔记,拼命寻找使这吉卜赛人复活的办法,但是毫无结果。在学校里,他受到大家的尊敬;掌握市镇大权以后,他穿上神气的军服,发布严厉的命令,他那经常落落寡欢的感觉才消失了。有天晚上在卡塔林诺游艺场里,有人大胆地向他说:“你配不上你现在的这个姓。”出乎大家的预料,阿卡蒂奥没有熗毙这个鲁莽的人。
  “我不是布恩蒂亚家的人,”他说,“那倒荣幸得很。”
  了解他那出身秘密的人听了这个回答,以为他一切都明白了,其实他永远都不知道谁是他的父母。象霍·阿卡蒂奥和奥雷连诺一样,他对自己的母亲皮拉·苔列娜感到一种不可遏止的欲望:当她走进他正在修饰照相底版的暗室时,他那血管里的热血竟然沸腾起来。尽管皮拉·苔列娜已经失去魅力,已经没有朗朗的笑声,他还是寻烟的苦味找到她。战前不久,有一天中午,比往常稍迟一些,她到学校里去找自己的小儿子。阿卡蒂奥在房间里等候她--平常他都在这儿睡午觉,后来他命令把这儿变成把拘留室。孩子在院子里玩耍,他却躺在吊床上急躁得发颤,因他知道皮拉·苔列娜准会经过这个房间。她来了。阿卡蒂奥一把抓住她的手,试图把她拉上吊床。“我不能,我不能,”皮拉·苔列娜惊恐地说。“你不知道,我多想让你快活,可是上帝作证,我不能。”阿卡蒂奥用他祖传的膂力拦腰把她抱住,一接触她的身体,他的两眼都开始模糊了,“别装圣女啦,”他说。“大家都知道你是个婊子。”皮拉·苔列娜竭力忍受悲惨的命运在她身上引起的厌恶。
  “孩子们会看见的,”她低声说。“今儿晚上你最好不要闩上房门。”
  夜里,他在吊床上等她,火烧火燎地急得直颤。他没合眼,仔细倾听蟋蟀不住地鸣叫,而且麻鹬象时刻表那样准时地叫了起来,他越来越相信自己受骗了。他的渴望刚要变成愤怒的当儿,房门忽然打开。几个月以后,站在行刑队面前的时候,阿卡蒂奥将会忆起这些时刻:他首先听到的是邻室黑暗中摸摸索索的脚步声,有人撞到凳子的磕绊声,然后漆黑里出现了一个人影,此人怦怦直跳的心脏把空气都给震动了。他伸出一只手去,碰到了另一只手,这只手的一个指头上戴着两只戒指。他伸手抓住那一只手正是时候,要不然,那一只手又会给黑暗吞没了。他感到了对方手上的筋脉和脉搏的猛烈跳动,觉得这个手掌是湿漉漉的,在大拇指的根部,生命线被一条歪斜的死亡线切断了。他这才明白,这并不是他等待的女人,因为她身上发出的不是烟的苦昧,而是花儿的芳香,她有丰满的胸脯和男人一样扁扁的乳头。她的温存有点儿手忙脚乱,她的兴奋显得缺乏经验。她是个处女,有一个完全不可思议的名字--圣索菲娅·德拉佩德。皮拉·苔列娜拿自己的一半积蓄--五十比索给了她,让她来干现在所干的事儿。阿卡蒂奥不止一次看见这个姑娘在食品店里帮助自己的父母,但是从来没有注意过她,因为她有一种罕见的本领:除非碰上机会,否则你是找不到她的。可是从这一夜起,她就象只小猫似的蜷缩在他那暖和的腋下了。她得到父母的同意,经常在午睡时到学校里来,因为皮拉·苔列娜把自己的另一半积蓄给了她的父母。后来,政府军把阿卡蒂奥和圣索菲娅·德拉佩德撵出学校,他俩就在店铺后屋的黄油罐头和玉米袋子之间幽会了。到阿卡蒂奥担任市镇军政长官的时候,他俩有了一个女儿。
  知道这件事情的亲戚只有霍·阿卡蒂奥和雷贝卡,这时,阿卡蒂奥是跟他俩保持着密切关系的,这种关系的基础与其说是亲人的感情,不如说是共同的利益。霍·阿卡蒂奥被家庭的重担压得弯着脖子。雷贝卡的坚强性格,她那不知满足的情欲,她那顽固的虚荣心,遏制了丈大桀骜不驯的脾气--他从一个懒汉和色鬼变成了一头力气挺大的、干活的牲口。他俩家里一片整洁。每天早晨,雷贝卡都把窗子完全敞开,风儿从墓地吹进房间,通过房门刮到院里,在墙上和家具上都留下薄薄一层灰尘。吃土的欲望,父母骸骨的声响,她的急不可耐和皮埃特罗·克列斯比的消极等待,--所有这些都给抛到脑后了。雷贝卡整天都在窗前绣花,毫不忧虑战争,直到食厨里的瓶瓶罐罐开始震动的时候,她才站起身来做午饭;然后出现了满身污泥的几条猎狗,它们后面是一个拿着双筒熗、穿着马靴的大汉;有时,他肩上是一只鹿,但他经常拎回来的是一串野兔或野鸭。阿卡蒂奥开始掌权的时候,有一天下午突然前来看望雷贝卡和她丈夫。自从他俩离家之后,阿卡蒂奥就没有跟他俩见过面,但他显得那么友好、亲密,他们就请他尝尝烤肉。
  开始喝咖啡时,阿卡蒂奥才说出自己来访的真正目的:他接到了别人对霍·阿卡蒂奥的控告。有人抱怨说,霍·阿卡蒂奥除了耕种自己的地段,还向邻接的土地扩张;他用自己的牛撞倒了别人的篱笆,毁坏了别人的棚子,强占了周围最好的耕地。那些没有遭到他掠夺的农民--他不需要他们的土地--他就向他们收税。每逢星期六,他都肩挎双筒熗,带着一群狗去强征税款。霍·阿卡蒂奥一点也不否认。他强词夺理地说,他侵占的土地是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚在马孔多建村时分配的,他能证明:他的父亲当时已经疯了,把事实上属于布恩蒂亚家的地段给了别人。这是没有必要的辩解,因为阿卡蒂奥根本不是来裁决的。他主张成立一个登记处,让霍·阿卡蒂奥侵占的土地合法化,条件是霍·阿卡蒂奥必须让地方当局代替他收税。事情就这样商定。过了几年,奥雷连诺上校重新审查土地所有权时发现,从他哥哥家所在的山丘直到目力所及之处,包括墓地在内的全部土地都是记在他哥哥名下的,而且阿卡蒂奥在掌权的十一个月中,在自己的衣兜里不仅塞满了税款,还有他允许人家在霍·阿卡蒂奥土地上埋葬死人所收的费用。
  过了几个月,乌苏娜才发现了大家都已知道的情况,因为人家不愿增加她的痛苦,是把这种情况瞒着她的。起初,她产生了怀疑。“阿卡蒂奥在给自己盖房子啦,”她试图拿一匙南瓜粥喂到丈夫嘴里,假装骄傲地告诉他。但她忍不住叹气:“我不知道为啥,这些都不合我的意。”随后,她知道阿卡蒂奥不仅盖成了房子。甚至给自己订购了维也纳家具,她就怀疑他动用了公款。有个星期天做完弥撒回来,她看见他在新房子里跟自己的军官们玩纸牌。“你是咱们家的耻辱,”她向他叫嚷。阿卡蒂奥没有理睬她。乌苏娜这时才知道,他有一个刚满半岁的女儿,跟他非法同居的圣索菲娅·德拉佩德又怀了孕。乌苏娜决定写信给奥雷连诺上校,不管他在哪儿,把这些情况告诉他,然而随后几天事态的发展,不但阻止了她实现自己的计划,甚至使她感到后悔。对马孔多的居民来说,“战争”至今不过是一个词儿,表示一种模糊的、遥远的事情,现在成了具体的、明显的现实了。二月底,一个老妇骑着一头毛驴,驴背。上载着一些笤帚,来到马孔多镇口。她的模样是完全没有恶意的,哨兵没问什么就让她通行了,他们以为她不过是从沼泽地来的一个女商贩,老妇迳直走向兵营。阿卡蒂奥在以前的教室里接见她,这教室现在变成了后方营地:到处都可看见卷着的或者悬在铁环上的吊铺,各个角落都堆着草席,地上乱七八糟地扔着步熗、卡宾熗、甚至猎熗。老妇采取“立正”姿势,行了个军礼,然后自我介绍:
  “我是格列戈里奥·史蒂文森上校。”
  他带来了不好的消息。据他说,自由党人进行抵抗的最后几个据点已给消灭了。奥雷连诺上校正在一面战斗,一面撤离列奥阿察,派他带着使命来见阿卡蒂奥,说明马孔多无需抵抗就得放弃,条件是自由党人的生命财产必须得到保障。阿卡蒂奥轻蔑地打量古怪的信使,这人是不难被看成一个可怜老妇的。
  “你当然带有书面指示罗,”他说。
  “不,”使者回答,“我没带任何这类东西。每个人都明白,在目前情况下,身边是不能有任何招惹麻烦的东西的。”
  说着,他从怀里掏出一条小金鱼来放在桌上。“我认为这就够了,”他说。阿卡蒂奥看出,这确实是奥雷连诺上校所做的小金鱼。不过,这个东西也可能是谁在战前就买去或偷去的,因此不能作为证件。为了证明自己的身份,使者甚至不惜泄露军事秘密。他说,他带着重要使命潜往库拉索岛,希望在那儿招募加勒比海岛上的流亡者,弄到足够的武器和装备,打算年底登陆。奥雷连诺上校对这个计划很有信心,所以认为目前不该作无益的牺牲。可是阿卡蒂奥十分固执,命令把使者拘押起来,弄清了此人的身份再说:而且,他誓死要保卫马孔多镇。
  没等多久。自由党人失败的消息就越来越可信了。三月底的一天晚上,不合节令的雨水提前泼到马孔多街上的时候,前几个星期紧张的宁静突然被撕心裂肺的号声冲破了,接着,隆隆的炮击摧毁了教堂的钟楼。其实决定抵抗纯粹是疯狂的打算。阿卡蒂奥指挥的总共是五十个人,装备很差,每人顶多只有二十发子弹。诚然,在这些人当中有他学校里的学生,在他漂亮的号召激励之下,他们准备为了毫无希望的事情牺牲自己的性命。炮声隆隆,震天动地,只能听到零乱的射击声、靴子的践踏声、矛盾的命令声、毫无意义的号声;这时,自称史蒂文森上校的人,终于跟阿卡蒂奥谈了一次话。“别让我戴着镣铐、穿着女人的衣服可耻地死,”他说,“如果我非死不可,那就让我在战斗中死吧,”他的话说服了阿卡蒂奥。阿卡蒂奥命令自己的人给了他一支熗和二十发子弹,让他和五个人留下来保卫兵营,自己就带着参谋人员去指挥战斗。阿卡蒂奥还没走到通往沼地的路上,马孔多镇口的防栅就被摧毁了,保卫市镇的人已在街上作战,从一座房子跑到另一座房子;起初,子弹没有打完时,他们拿步熗射击,然后就用手熗对付敌人的步熗了,最后发生了白刃战。失败的危急情况迫使许多妇女都拿着棍捧和菜刀奔到街上。在一片混乱中,阿卡蒂奥看见了阿玛兰塔,她正在找他:她穿着一个睡衣,手里握着霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的两支旧式手熗,活象一个疯子。阿卡蒂奥把步熗交给一个在战斗中失掉武器的军官,带着阿玛兰塔穿过近旁的一条小街,想把她送回家去。乌苏娜不顾炮弹的呼啸,在门口等候,其中一发炮弹把邻舍的正面打穿了一个窟窿。雨停了街道滑溜溜的,好似融化的肥皂,在夜的黑暗里只能摸索前进。阿卡蒂奥把阿玛兰塔交给乌苏娜,转身就向两个敌兵射击,因为那两个敌兵正从旁边的角落里向他开火。在橱里放了多年的手熗没有打响。乌苏娜用身体挡住阿卡蒂奥,打算把他推到房子里去。“去吧,看在上帝份上,”她向他叫道。“胡闹够啦!”
  敌兵向他俩瞄准。
  “放开这个人,老大娘,”一个士兵吆喝,“要不,我们就不管三七二十一了!”
  阿卡蒂奥推开乌苏娜,投降了。过了一阵,熗声停息,钟声响了起来。总共半小时,抵抗就被镇压下去了。阿卡蒂奥的人没有一个幸存。但在牺牲之前,他们勇敢地抗击了三百名敌兵。兵营成了他们的最后一个据点。政府军已经准备猛攻。自称格列戈里奥·史蒂文森的人,释放了囚犯,命令自己的人离开兵营,到街上去战斗。他从几个窗口射击,异常灵活,准确无误,打完了自己的二十发子弹使人觉得这个兵营是有防御力量的,于是进攻者就用大炮摧毁了它。指挥作战的上尉惊讶地发现,瓦砾堆里只有一个穿着衬裤的死人。炮弹打断的一只手还握着一支步熗,弹夹已经空了;死人的头发又密又长,好象女人的头发,用梳子别在脑后;他的脖子上挂着一根链条,链条上有条小金鱼。上尉用靴尖翻过尸体,一看死者的面孔,就惊得发呆了。“我的上帝!”他叫了一声。其他的军官走拢过来。
  “你们瞧,他钻到哪儿来啦,”上尉说,“这是格列戈里奥·史蒂文森呀。”
  黎明时分,根据战地军事法庭的判决,阿卡蒂奥在墓地的墙壁前面被熗决了。在一生的最后两小时里,他还没弄明白,他从童年时代起满怀的恐惧为什么消失了。他倾听他的各项罪行时是十分平静的,完全不是因为打算表现不久之前产生的勇气。他想起了乌苏娜--这时,她大概跟霍·阿·布恩蒂亚一起,正在栗树下面喝咖啡。他想起了还没取名的八个月的女儿,想起了八月间就要出生的孩子。他想起了圣索菲娅·德拉佩德,想起了昨天晚上他出来打仗时,她为了第二天的午餐而把鹿肉腌起来的情景,他记起了她那披到两肩的头发和又浓又长的睫毛,那样的睫毛仿佛是人造的。他怀念亲人时并没有感伤情绪,只是严峻地总结了自己的一生,开始明白自己实际上多么喜爱自己最憎恨的人。法庭庭长作出最后判决时,阿卡蒂奥还没发现两个小时已经过去了。“即使列举的罪行没有充分的罪证,”庭长说,“但是根据被告不负责任地把自己的部下推向毫无意义的死亡的鲁莽行为,已经足以判决被告的死刑。”在炮火毁掉的学校里,他曾第一次有过掌权以后的安全感,而在离这儿几米远的一个房间里,他也曾模糊地尝到过爱情的滋味,所以他觉得这一套死亡的程序太可笑了。其实,对他来说,死亡是没有意义的,生命才是重要的。因此,听到判决之后,他感到的不是恐惧,而是留恋。他一句话没说,直到庭长问他还有什么最后的要求。
  “请告诉我老婆,”他用响亮的声音回答。“让她把女儿取名叫乌苏娜,”停了停又说:“象祖母一样叫做乌苏娜。也请告诉她,如果将要出生的是个男孩,就管他叫霍·阿卡蒂奥,但这不是为了尊敬我的大伯,而是为了尊敬我的祖父。”
  在阿卡蒂奥给带到墙边之前,尼康诺神父打算让他忏悔。“我没有什么忏悔的,”阿卡蒂奥说,然后喝了一杯黑咖啡,就听凭行刑队处置了。行刑队长是个“立即执行”的专家,他的名字并不偶然,叫做罗克·卡尼瑟洛上尉,意思就是“屠夫”。毛毛丽不停地下了起来,阿卡蒂奥走向墓地的时候,望见天际出现了星期二灿烂的晨光。他的留恋也随着夜雾消散了,留下的是无限的好奇。行刑队命令他背向墙壁站立时,他才发现了雷贝卡--她满头湿发,穿一件带有粉红色小花朵的衣服,正把窗子打开。他竭力引起她的注意。的确,雷贝卡突然朝墙壁这边瞥了一眼,就惊恐得愣住了,然后勉强向他招手告别。阿卡蒂奥也向她挥了挥手。在这片刻间,几支步熗黑乎乎的熗口瞄准了他,接着,他听到了梅尔加德斯一字一句朗诵的教皇通谕,听到了小姑娘圣索菲娅·德拉佩德在教室里摸索的脚步声,感到自己的鼻子冰冷、发硬,就象他曾觉得惊异的雷麦黛丝尸体的鼻子。“嗨,他妈的,”他还来得及想了一下,“我忘了说,如果生下的是个女孩,就管她叫雷麦黛丝吧。”接着,他平生的恐惧感又突然向他袭来,象一次毁灭性的打击,上尉发出了开熗的命令。阿卡蒂奥几乎来不及挺起胸膛和抬起脑袋,就不知从哪儿涌出一股热乎乎的液体,顺着大腿往下直流。


执素衣

ZxID:13389413


等级: 内阁元老
举报 只看该作者 5楼  发表于: 2013-10-10 0


Chapter 5
AURELIANO BUEND?A and Remedios Moscote were married one Sunday in March before the altar Father Nicanor Reyna had set up in the parlor. It was the culmination of four weeks of shocks in the Moscote household because little Remedios had reached puberty before getting over the habits of childhood. In spite of the fact that her mother had taught her about the changes of adolescence, one February afternoon she burst shouting into the living room, where her sisters were chatting with Aureliano, and showed them her panties, smeared with a chocolate-colored paste. A month for the wedding was agreed upon. There was barely enough time to teach her how to wash herself, get dressed by herself, and understand the fundamental business of a home. They made her urinate over hot bricks in order to cure her of the habit of wetting her bed. It took a good deal of work to convince her of the inviolability of the marital secret, for Remedios was so confused and at the same time so amazed at the revelation that she wanted to talk to everybody about the details of the wedding night. It was a fatiguing effort, but on the date set for the ceremony the child was as adept in the ways of the world as any of her sisters. Don Apolinar Moscote escorted her by the arm down the street that was decorated with flowers and wreaths amidst the explosion of rockets and the music of several bands, and she waved with her hand and gave her thanks with a smile to those who wished her good luck from the windows. Aureliano, dressed in black, wearing the same patent leather boots with metal fasteners that he would have on a few years later as he faced the firing squad, had an intense paleness and a hard lump in his throat when he met the bride at the door of the house and led her to the altar. She behaved as naturally, with such discretion, that she did not lose her composure, not even when Aureliano dropped the ring as he tried to put it on her finger. In the midst of the. murmurs and confusion of the guests, she kept her arm with the fingerless lace glove held up and remained like that with her ring finger ready until the bridegroom managed to stop the ring with his foot before it rolled to the door, and came back blushing to the altar. Her mother and sisters suffered so much from the fear that the child would do something wrong during the ceremony that in the end they were the ones who committed the impertinence of picking her up to kiss her. From that day on the sense of responsibility, the natural grace, the calm control that Remedios would have in the face of adverse circumstances was revealed. It was she who, on her own initiative, put aside the largest piece that she had cut from the wedding cake and took it on a plate with a fork to Jos?Arcadio Buendía. Tied to the trunk of the chestnut tree, huddled on a wooden stool underneath the palm shelter, the enormous old man, discolored by the sun and rain, made a vague smile of gratitude and at the piece of cake with his fingers, mumbling an unintelligible psalm. The only unhappy person in that noisy celebration, which lasted until dawn on Monday, was Rebeca Buendía. It was her own frustrated party. By an arrangement of ?rsula’s, her marriage was to be celebrated on the same day, but that Friday Pietro Crespi received a letter with the news of his mother’s imminent death. The wedding was postponed. Pietro Crespi left for the capital of the province an hour after receiving the letter, and on the road he missed his mother, who arrived punctually Saturday night and at Aureliano’s wedding sang the sad aria that she had prepared for the wedding of her son. Pietro Crespi returned on Sunday midnight to sweep up the ashes of the party, after having worn out five horses on the road in an attempt to be in time for his wedding. It was never discovered who wrote the letter. Tormented by ?rsula, Amaranta wept with indignation and swore her innocence in front of the altar, which the carpenters had not finished dismantling.
   Father Nicanor Reyna—whom Don Apolinar Moscote had brought from the swamp to officiate at the wedding—was an old man hardened by the ingratitude of his ministry. His skin was sad, with the bones almost exposed, and he had a pronounced round stomach and the expression of an old angel, which came more from, simplicity than from goodness. He had planned to return to his pariah after the wedding, but he was appalled at the hardness of the inhabitants of Macondo, who were prospering in the midst of scandal, subject to the natural law, without baptizing their children or sanctifying their festivals. Thinking that no land needed the seed of God so much, he decided to stay on for another week to Christianize both circumcised and gentile, legalize concubinage, and give the sacraments to the dying. But no one paid any attention to him. They would answer him that they had been many years without a priest, arranging the business of their souls directly with God, and that they had lost the evil of original sin. Tired of preaching in the open, Father Nicanor decided to undertake the building of a church, the largest in the world, with life-size saints and stained-glass windows on the sides, so that people would come from Rome to honor God in the center of impiety. He went everywhere begging alms with a copper dish. They gave him a large amount, but he wanted more, because the church had to have a bell that would raise the drowned up to the surface of the water. He pleaded so much that he lost his voice. His bones began to fill with sounds. One Saturday, not even having collected the price of the doors, he fell into a desperate confusion. He improvised an altar in the square and on Sunday he went through the town with a small bell, as in the days of insomnia, calling people to an open-air mass. Many went out of curiosity. Others from nostalgia. Others so that God would not take the disdain for His intermediary as a personal insult. So that at eight in the morning half the town was in the square, where Father Nicanor chanted the gospels in a voice that had been lacerated by his pleading. At the end, when the congregation began to break up, he raised his arms signaling for attention.
   “Just a moment,?he said. “Now we shall witness an undeniable proof of the infinite power of God.?
   The boy who had helped him with the mass brought him a cup of thick and steaming chocolate, which he drank without pausing to breathe. Then he wiped his lips with a handkerchief that he drew from his sleeve, extended his arms, and closed his eyes. Thereupon Father Nicanor rose six inches above the level of the ground. It was a convincing measure. He went among the houses for several days repeating the demonstration of levitation by means of chocolate while the acolyte collected so much money in a bag that in less than a month he began the construction of the church. No one doubted the divine origin of the demonstration except Jos?Arcadio Buendía, who without changing expression watched the troop of people who gathered around the chestnut tree one morning to witness the revelation once more. He merely stretched on his stool a little and shrugged his shoulders when Father Nicanor began to rise up from the ground along with the chair he was sitting on.
   “Hoc est simplicissimus,?Jos?Arcadio Buendía said. “Homo iste statum quartum materiae invenit.?
   Father Nicanor raised his hands and the four legs of the chair all landed on the ground at the same time. “Nego,?he said. “Factum hoc existentiam Dei probat sine dubio.?
   Thus it was discovered that Jos?Arcadio Buendía’s devilish jargon was Latin. Father Nicanor took advantage of the circumstance of his being the only person who had been able to communicate with him to try to inject the faith into his twisted mind. Every afternoon he would sit by the chestnut tree preaching in Latin, but Jos?Arcadio Buendía insisted on rejecting rhetorical tricks and the transmutation of chocolate, and he demanded the daguerreotype of God as the only proof. Father Nicanor then brought him medals and pictures and even a reproduction of the Veronica, but Jos?Arcadio Buendía rejected them as artistic objects without any scientific basis. He was so stubborn that Father Nicanor gave up his attempts at evangelization and continued visiting him out of humanitarian feelings. But then it was Jos?Arcadio Buendía who took the lead and tried to break down the priest’s faith with rationalist tricks. On a certain occasion when Father Nicanor brought a checker set to the chestnut tree and invited him to a game, Jos?Arcadio Buendía would not accept, because according to him he could never understand the sense of a contest in which the two adversaries have agreed upon the rules. Father Nicanor, who had never seen checkers played that way, could not play it again. Ever more startled at Jos?Arcadio Buendía’s lucidity, he asked him how it was possible that they had him tied to a tree.
   “Hoc est simplicissimus,?he replied. “Because I’m Crazy.?
   From then on, concerned about his own faith, the priest did not come back to visit him and dedicated himself to hurrying along the building of the church. Rebeca felt her hopes being reborn. Her future was predicated on the completion of the work, for one Sunday when Father Nicanor was lunching at the house and the whole family sitting at the table spoke of the solemnity and splendor that religious ceremonies would acquire when the church was built, Amaranta said: “The luckiest one will be Rebeca.?And since Rebeca did not understand what she meant, she explained it to her with an innocent smile:
   “You’re going to be the one who will inaugurate the church with your wedding.?
   Rebeca tried to forestall any comments. The way the construction was going the church would not be built before another ten years. Father Nicanor did not agree: the growing generosity of the faithful permitted him to make more optimistic calculations. To the mute Indignation of Rebeca, who could not finish her lunch, ?rsula celebrated Amaranta’s idea and contributed a considerable sum for the work to move faster. Father Nicanor felt that with another contribution like that the church would be ready within three years. From then on Rebeca did not say another word to Amaranta, convinced that her initiative had not the innocence that she attempted to give it. “That was the least serious thing I could have done,?Amaranta answered her during the violent argument they had that night. “In that way I won’t have to kill you for three years.?Rebeca accepted the challenge.
   When Pietro Crespi found out about the new postponement, he went through a crisis of disappointment, but Rebeca gave him a final proof of her loyalty. “We’ll elope whenever you say,?she told him. Pietro Crespi, however, was not a man of adventure. He lacked the impulsive character of his fiancée and he considered respect for one’s given word as a wealth that should not be squandered. Then Rebeca turned to more audacious methods. A mysterious wind blew out the lamps in the parlor and ?rsula surprised the lovers kissing in the dark. Pietro Crespi gave her some confused explanations about the poor quality of modern pitch lamps and he even helped her install a more secure system of illumination for the room. But the fuel failed again or the wicks became clogged and ?rsula found Rebeca sitting on her fiancé’s lap. This time she would accept no explanation. She turned the responsibility of the bakery over to the Indian woman and sat in a rocking chair to watch over the young people during the visits, ready to win out over maneuvers that had already been old when she was a girl. “Poor Mama,?Rebeca would say with mock indignation, seeing ?rsula yawn during the boredom of the visits. “When she dies she’ll go off to her reward in that rocking chair.?After three months of supervised love, fatigued by the slow progress of the construction, which he went to inspect every day, Pietro Crespi decided to give Father Nicanor the money he needed to finish the church. Amaranta did not grow impatient. As she conversed with her girl friends every afternoon when they came to embroider on the porch, she tried to think of new subterfuges. A mistake in calculation spoiled the one she considered the most effective: removing the mothballs that Rebeca had put in her wedding dress before she put it away in the bedroom dresser. She did it when two months were left for the completion of the church. But Rebeca was so impatient with the approach of the wedding that she wanted to get the dress ready earlier than Amaranta had foreseen. When she opened the dresser and unfolded first the papers and then the protective cloth, she found the fabric of the dress and the stitches of the veil and even the crown of orange blossoms perforated by moths. Although she was sure that she had put a handful of mothballs in the wrappings, the disaster seemed so natural that she did not dare blame Amaranta. There was less than a month until the wedding, but Amparo Moscote promised to sew a new dress within a week. Amaranta felt faint that rainy noontime when Amparo came to the house wrapped in the froth of needlework for Rebeca to have the final fitting of the dress. She lost her voice and a thread of cold sweat ran down the path of her spine. For long months she had trembled with fright waiting for that hour, because if she had not been able to conceive the ultimate obstacle to Rebeca’s wedding, she was sure that at the last moment, when all the resources of her imagination had failed, she would have the courage to poison her. That afternoon, while Rebeca was suffocating with heat inside the armor of thread that Amparo Moscote was putting about her body with thousands of pins and infinite patience, Amaranta made several mistakes in her crocheting and pricked her finger with the needle, but she decided with frightful coldness that the date would be the last Friday before the wedding and the method would be a dose of laudanum in her coffee.
   A greater obstacle, as impassable as it was unforeseen, obliged a new and indefinite postponement. One week before the date set for the wedding, little Remedios woke up in the middle of the night soaked in a hot broth which had exploded in her insides with a kind of tearing belch, and she died three days later, poisoned by her own blood, with a pair of twins crossed in her stomach. Amarante suffered a crisis of conscience. She had begged God with such fervor for something fearful to happen so that she would not have to poison Rebeca that she felt guilty of Remedios?death. That was not the obstacle that she had begged for so much. Remedios had brought a breath of merriment to the house. She had settled down with her husband in a room near the workshop, which she decorated with the dolls and toys of her recent childhood, and her merry vitality overflowed the four walls of the bedroom and went like a whirlwind of good health along the porch with the begonias: She would start singing at dawn. She was the only person who dared intervene in the arguments between Rebeca and Amaranta. She plunged into the fatiguing chore of taking care of Jos?Arcadio Buendía. She would bring him his food, she would help him with his daily necessities, wash him with soap and a scrubbing brush, keep his hair and beard free of lice and nits, keep the palm shelter in good condition and reinforce it with waterproof canvas in stormy weather. In her last months she had succeeded in communicating with him in phrases of rudimentary Latin. When the son of Aureliano and Pilar Ternera was born and brought to the house and baptized in an intimate ceremony with the name Aureliano Jos? Remedios decided that he would be considered their oldest child. Her maternal instinct surprised ?rsula. Aureliano, for his part, found in her the justification that he needed to live. He worked all day in his workshop and Remedios would bring him a cup of black coffee in the middle of the morning. They would both visit the Moscotes every night. Aureliano would play endless games of dominoes with his father-in-law while Remedios chatted with her sisters or talked to her mother about more important things. The link with the Buendías consolidated Don Apolinar Moscote’s authority in the town. On frequent trips to the capital of the province he succeeded in getting the government to build a school so that Arcadio, who had inherited the educational enthusiasm of his grandfather, could take charge of it. Through persuasion he managed to get the majority of houses painted blue in time for the date of national independence. At the urging of Father Nicanor, he arranged for the transfer of Catarino’s store to a back street and he closed down several scandalous establishments that prospered in the center of town. Once he returned with six policemen armed with rifles to whom he entrusted the maintenance of order, and no one remembered the original agreement not to have armed men in the town. Aureliano enjoyed his father-in-law’s efficiency. “You’re going to get as fat as he is,?his friends would say to him. But his sedentary life, which accentuated his cheekbones and concentrated the sparkle of his eyes, did not increase his weight or alter the parsimony of his character, but, on the contrary, it hardened on his lips the straight line of solitary meditation and implacable decision. So deep was the affection that he and his wife had succeeded in arousing in both their families that when Remedios announced that she was going to have a child. even Rebeca and Amaranta declared a truce in order to knit items in blue wool if it was to be a boy and in pink wool in case it was a girl. She was the last person Arcadio thought about a few years later when he faced the firing squad.
   ?rsula ordered a mourning period of closed doors and windows, with no one entering or leaving except on matters of utmost necessity. She prohibited any talking aloud for a year and she put Remedios?daguerreotype in the place where her body had been laid out, with a black ribbon around it and an oil lamp that was always kept lighted. Future generations, who never let the lamp go out, would be puzzled at that girl in a pleated skirt, white boots, and with an organdy band around her head, and they were never able to connect her with the standard image of a great-grandmother. Amaranta took charge of Aureliano Jos? She adopted him as a son who would share her solitude and relieve her from the involutary laudanum that her mad beseeching had thrown into Remedios?coffee. Pietro Crespi would tiptoe in at dusk, with a black ribbon on his hat, and he would pay a silent visit to Rebeca, who seemed to be bleeding to death inside the black dress with sleeves down to her wrists. Just the idea of thinking about a new date for the wedding would have been so irreverent that the engagement turned into an eternal relationship, a fatigued love that no one worried about again, as if the lovers, who in other days had sabotaged the lamps in order to kiss, had been abandoned to the free will of death. Having lost her bearings, completely demoralized, Rebeca began eating earth again.
   Suddenly—when the mourning had gone on so long that the needlepoint sessions began again—someone pushed open the street door at two in the afternoon in the mortal silence of the heat and the braces in the foundation shook with such force that Amaranta and her friends sewing on the porch, Rebeca sucking her finger in her bedroom, ?rsula in the kitchen, Aureliano in the workshop, and even Jos?Arcadio Buendía under the solitary chestnut tree had the impression that an earthquake was breaking up the house. A huge man had arrived. His square shoulders barely fitted through the doorways. He was wearing a medal of Our Lady of Help around his bison neck, his arms and chest were completely covered with cryptic tattooing, and on his right wrist was the tight copper bracelet of the ni?os-en-cruz amulet. His skin was tanned by the salt of the open air, his hair was short and straight like the mane of a mule, his jaws were of iron, and he wore a sad smile. He had a belt on that was twice as thick as the cinch of a horse, boots with leggings and spurs and iron on the heels, and his presence gave the quaking impression of a seismic tremor. He went through the parlor and the living room, carrying some half-worn saddlebags in his hand, and he appeared like a thunderclap on the porch with the begonias where Amaranta and her friends were paralyzed, their needles in the air. “Hello,?he said to them in a tired voice, threw the saddlebags on a worktable, and went by on his way to the back of the house. “Hello,?he said to the startled Rebecca, who saw him pass by the door of her bedroom. “Hello,?he said to Aureliano, who was at his silversmith’s bench with all five senses alert. He did not linger with anyone. He went directly to the kitchen and there he stopped for the first time at the end of a trip that had begun of the other side of the world. “Hello,?he said. ?rsula stood for a fraction of a second with her mouth open, looked into his eyes, gave a cry, and flung her arms around his neck, shouting and weeping with joy. It was Jos?Arcadio. He was returning as poor as when he had left, to such an extreme that ?rsula had to give him two pesos to pay for the rental of his horse. He spoke a Spanish that was larded with sailor slang. They asked where he had been and he answered: “Out there.?He hung his hammock in the room they assigned him and slept for three days. When he woke up, after eating sixteen raw eggs, he went directly to Catarino’s store, where his monumental size provoked a panic of curiosity among the women. He called for music and cane liquor for everyone, to be put on his bill. He would Indian-wrestle with five men at the same time. “It can’t be done,?they said, convinced that they would not be able to move his arm. “He has ni?os-en-cruz.?Catarino, who did not believe in magical tricks of strength, bet him twelve pesos that he could not move the counter. Jos?Arcadio pulled it out of its place, lifted it over his head, and put it in the street. It took eleven men to put it back. In the heat of the party he exhibited his unusual masculinity on the bar, completely covered with tattoos of words in several languages intertwined in blue and red. To the women who were besieging him and coveting him he put the question as to who would pay the most. The one who had the most money offered him twenty pesos. Then he proposed raffling himself off among them at ten pesos a chance. It was a fantastic price because the most sought-after woman earned eight pesos a night, but they all accepted. They wrote their names on fourteen pieces of paper which they put into a hat and each woman took one out. When there were only two pieces left to draw, it was established to whom they belonged.
   “Five pesos more from each one,?Jos?Arcadio proposed, “and I’ll share myself with both.
   He made his living that way. He had been around the world sixty-five times, enlisted in a crew of sailors without a country. The women who went to bed with him that night in Catarino’s store brought him naked into the dance salon so that people could see that there was not a square inch of his body that was not tattooed, front and back, and from his neck to his toes. He did not succeed in becoming incorporated into the family. He slept all day and spent the night in the red-light district, making bets on his strength. On the rare occasions when ?rsula got him to sit down at the table, he gave signs of radiant good humor, especially when he told about his adventures in remote countries. He had been shipwrecked and spent two weeks adrift in the Sea of Japan, feeding on the body of a comrade who had succumbed to sunstroke and whose extremely salty flesh as it cooked in the sun had a sweet and granular taste. Under a bright noonday sun in the Gulf of Bengal his ship had killed a sea dragon, in the stomach of which they found the helmet, the buckles, and the weapons of a Crusader. In the Caribbean he had seen the ghost of the pirate ship of Victor Hugues, with its sails torn by the winds of death, the masts chewed by sea worms, and still looking for the course to Guadeloupe. ?rsula would weep at the table as if she were reading the letters that had never arrived and in which Jos?Arcadio told about his deeds and misadventures. “And there was so much of a home here for you, my son,?she would sob, “and so much food thrown to the hogs!?But underneath it an she could not conceive that the boy the gypsies took away was the same lout who would eat half a suckling pig for lunch and whose flatulence withered the flowers. Something similar took place with the rest of the family. Amaranta could not conceal the repugnance that she felt at the table because of his bestial belching. Arcadio, who never knew the secret of their relationship, scarcely answered the questions that he asked with the obvious idea of gaining his affection. Aureliano tried to relive the times when they slept in the same room, tried to revive the complicity of childhood, but Jos?Arcadio had forgotten about it, because life at sea had saturated his memory with too many things to remember. Only Rebeca succumbed to the first impact. The day that she saw him pass by her bedroom she thought that Pietro Crespi was a sugary dandy next to that protomale whose volcanic breathing could be heard all over the house. She tried to get near him under any pretext. On a certain occasion Jos?Arcadio looked at her body with shameless attention and said to her “You’re a woman, little sister.?Rebeca lost control of herself. She went back to eating earth and the whitewash on the walls with the avidity of previous days, and she sucked her finger with so much anxiety that she developed a callus on her thumb. She vomited up a green liquid with dead leeches in it. She spent nights awake shaking with fever, fighting against delirium, waiting until the house shook with the return of Jos?Arcadio at dawn. One afternoon, when everyone was having a siesta, she could no longer resist and went to his bedroom. She found him in his shorts, lying in the hammock that he had hung from the beams with a ship’s hawser. She was so impressed by his enormous motley nakedness that she felt an impulse to retreat. “Excuse me,?she said, “I didn’t know you were here.?But she lowered her voice so as not to wake anyone up. “Come here,?he said. Rebeca obeyed. She stopped beside the hammock in an icy sweat, feeling knots forming in her intestines, while Jos?Arcadio stroked her ankles with the tips of his fingers, then her calves, then her thighs, murmuring: “Oh, little sister, little sister.?She had to make a supernatural effort not to die when a startlingly regulated cyclonic power lifted her up by the waist and despoiled her of her intimacy with three clashes of its claws and quartered her like a little bird. She managed to thank God for having been born before she lost herself in the inconceivable pleasure of that unbearable pain, splashing in the steaming marsh of the hammock which absorbed the explosion of blood like a blotter.
   Three days later they were married during the five-o’clock mass. Jos?Arcadio had gone to Pietro Crespi’s store the day before. He found him giving a zither lesson and did not draw him aside to speak to him. “I’m going to marry Rebeca,?he told him. Pietro Crespi turned pale, gave the zither to one of his pupils, and dismissed the class. When they were alone in the room that was crowded with musical instruments and mechanical toys, Pietro Crespi said:
   “She’s your sister.?
   “I don’t care,?Jos?Arcadio replied.
   Pietro Crespi mopped his brow with the handkerchief that was soaked in lavender.
   “It’s against nature,?he explained, “and besides, it’s against the law.?
   Jos?Arcadio grew impatient, not so much at the argument as over Pietro Crespi’s paleness.
   “Fuck nature two times over,?he said. “And I’ve come to tell you not to bother going to ask Rebeca anything.?
   But his brutal deportment broke down when he saw Pietro Crespi’s eyes grow moist.
   “Now,?he said to him in a different tone, “if you really like the family, there’s Amaranta for you.?
   Father Nicanor revealed in his Sunday sermon that Jos?Arcadio and Rebeca were not brother and sister. ?rsula never forgave what she considered an inconceivable lack of respect and when they came back from church she forbade the newlyweds to set foot in the house again. For her it was as if they were dead. So they rented a house across from the cemetery and established themselves there with no other furniture but Jos?Arcadio’s hammock. On their wedding night a scorpion that had got into her slipper bit Rebeca on the foot. Her tongue went to sleep, but that did not stop them from spending a scandalous honeymoon. The neighbors were startled by the cries that woke up the whole district as many as eight times in a single night and three times during siesta, and they prayed that such wild passion would not disturb the peace of the dead.
   Aureliano was the only one who was concerned about them. He bought them some furniture and gave them some money until Jos?Arcadio recovered his sense of reality and began to work the no-man’s-land that bordered the courtyard of the house. Amaranta, on the other hand, never did overcome her rancor against Rebeca, even though life offered her a satisfaction of which she had not dreamed: at the initiative of ?rsula, who did not know how to repair the shame, Pietro Crespi continued having lunch at the house on Tuesdays, rising above his defeat with a serene dignity. He still wore the black ribbon on his hat as a sign of respect for the family, and he took pleasure in showing his affection for ?rsula by bringing her exotic gifts: Portuguese sardines, Turkish rose marmalade, and on one occasion a lovely Manila shawl. Amaranta looked after him with a loving diligence. She anticipated his wants, pulled out the threads on the cuffs of his shirt, and embroidered a dozen handkerchiefs with his initials for his birthday. On Tuesdays, after lunch, while she would embroider on the porch, he would keep her happy company. For Pietro Crespi, that woman whom he always had considered and treated as a child was a revelation. Although her temperament lacked grace, she had a rare sensibility for appreciating the things of the world and had a secret tenderness. One Tuesday, when no one doubted that sooner or later it had to happen, Pietro Crespi asked her to marry him. She did not stop her work. She waited for the hot blush to leave her ears and gave her voice a serene stress of maturity.
   “Of course, Crespi,?she said. “But when we know each other better. It’s never good to be hasty in things.?
   ?rsula was confused. In spite of the esteem she had for Pietro Crespi, she could not tell whether his decision was good or bad from the moral point of view after his prolonged and famous engagement to Rebeca. But she finally accepted it as an unqualified fact because no one shared her doubts. Aureliano, who was the man of the house, confused her further with his enigmatic and final opinion:
   “These are not times to go around thinking about weddings.?
   That opinion, which ?rsula understood only some months later, was the only sincere one that Aureliano could express at that moment, not only with respect to marriage, but to anything that was not war. He himself, facing a firing squad, would not understand too well the concatenation of the series of subtle but irrevocable accidents that brought him to that point. The death of Remedios had not produced the despair that he had feared. It was, rather, a dull feeling of rage that grades ally dissolved in a solitary and passive frustration similar to the one he had felt during the time he was resigned to living without a woman. He plunged into his work again, but he kept up the custom of playing dominoes with his father-in-law. In a house bound up in mourning, the nightly conversations consolidated the friendship between the two men. “Get married again. Aurelito,?his father-in-law would tell him. “I have six daughters for you to choose from.?On one occasion on the eve of the elections, Don Apolinar Moscote returned from one of his frequent trips worried about the political situation in the country. The Liberals were determined to go to war. Since Aureliano at that time had very confused notions about the difference between Conservatives and Liberals, his father-in-law gave him some schematic lessons. The Liberals, he said, were Freemasons, bad people, wanting to hang priests, to institute civil marriage and divorce, to recognize the rights of illegitimate children as equal to those of legitimate ones, and to cut the country up into a federal system that would take power away from the supreme authority. The Conservatives, on the other hand, who had received their power directly from God, proposed the establishment of public order and family morality. They were the defenders of the faith of Christ, of the principle of authority, and were not prepared to permit the country to be broken down into autonomous entities. Because of his humanitarian feelings Aureliano sympathized with the Liberal attitude with respect to the rights of natural children, but in any case, he could not understand how people arrived at the extreme of waging war over things that could not be touched with the hand. It seemed an exaggeration to him that for the elections his father-in-law had them send six soldiers armed with rifles under the command of a sergeant to a town with no political passions. They not only arrived, but they went from house to house confiscating hunting weapons, machetes, and even kitchen knives before they distributed among males over twenty-one the blue ballots with the names of the Conservative candidates and the red ballots with the names of the Liberal candidates. On the eve of the elections Don Apolinar Moscote himself read a decree that prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages and the gathering together of more than three people who were not of the same family. The elections took place without incident. At eight o’clock on Sunday morning a wooden ballot box was set up in the square, which was watched over by the six soldiers. The voting was absolutely free, as Aureliano himself was able to attest since he spent almost the entire day with his father-in-law seeing that no one voted more than once. At four in the afternoon a roll of drums in the square announced the closing of the polls and Don Apolinar Moscote sealed the ballot box with a label crossed by his signature. That night, while he played dominoes with Aureliano, he ordered the sergeant to break the seal in order to count the votes. There were almost as many red ballots as blue, but the sergeant left only ten red ones and made up the difference with blue ones. Then they sealed the box again with a new label and the first thing on the following day it was taken to the capital of the province. “The Liberals will go to war,?Aureliano said. Don Apolinar concentrated on his domino pieces. “If you’re saying that because of the switch in ballots, they won’t,?he said. “We left a few red ones in so there won’t be any complaints.?Aureliano understood the disadvantages of being in the opposition. “If I were a Liberal,?he said, “I’d go to war because of those ballots.?His father-in-law looked at him over his glasses.
   “Come now, Aurelito,?he said, “if you were a Liberal, even though you’re my son-in-law, you wouldn’t have seen the switching of the ballots.?
   What really caused indignation in the town was. not the results of the elections but the fact that the soldiers had not returned the weapons. A group of women spoke with Aureliano so that he could obtain the return of their kitchen knives from his father-in-law. Don Apolinar Moscote explained to him, in strictest confidence, that the soldiers had taken the weapons off as proof that the Liberals were preparing for war. The cynicism of the remark alarmed him. He said nothing, but on a certain night when Gerineldo Márquez and Magnífico Visbal were speaking with some other friends about the incident of the knives, they asked him if he was a Liberal or a Conservative. Aureliano did not hesitate.
   “If I have to be something I’ll be a Liberal,?he said, “because the Conservatives are tricky.?
   On the following day, at the urging of his friends, he went to see Dr. Alirio Noguera to be treated for a supposed pain in his liver. He did not even understand the meaning of the subterfuge. Dr. Alirio Noguera had arrived in Macondo a few years before with a medicine chest of tasteless pills and a medical motto that convinced no one: One nail draws another. In reality he was a charlatan. Behind his innocent fa?ade of a doctor without prestige there was hidden a terrorist who with his short legged boots covered the scars that five years in the stocks had left on his legs. Taken prisoner during the first federalist adventure, he managed to escape to Cura?ao disguised in the garment he detested most in this world: a cassock. At the end of a prolonged exile, stirred up by the exciting news that exiles from all over the Caribbean brought to Cura?ao, he set out in a smuggler’s schooner and appeared in Riohacha with the bottles of pills that were nothing but refined sugar and a diploma from the University of Leipzig that he had forged himself. He wept with disappointment. The federalist fervor, which the exiles had pictured as a powder keg about to explode, had dissolved into a vague electoral illusion. Embittered by failure, yearning for a safe place where he could await old age, the false homeopath took refuge in Macondo. In the narrow bottle-crowded room that he rented on one side of the square, he lived several years off the hopelessly ill who, after having tried everything, consoled themselves with sugar pills. His instincts of an agitator remained dormant as long as Don Apolinar Moscote was a figurehead. He passed the time remembering and fighting against asthma. The  approach of the elections was the thread that led him once more to the skein of subversion. He made contact with the young people in the town, who lacked political knowledge, and he embarked on a stealthy campaign of instigation. The numerous red ballots that appeared is the box and that were attributed by Don Apolinar Moscote to the curiosity that came from youth were part of his plan: he made his disciples vote in order to show them that elections were a farce. “The only effective thing,?he would say, “is violence.?The majority of Aureliano’s friends were enthusiastic over the idea of liquidating the Conservative establishment, but no one had dared include him in the plans, not only because of his ties with the magistrate, but because of his solitary and elusive character. It was known, furthermore, that he had voted blue at his father-in-law’s direction. So it was a simple matter of chance that he revealed his political sentiments, and it was purely a matter of curiosity, a caprice, that brought him to visit the doctor for the treatment of a pain that he did not have. In the den that smelled of camphorated cobwebs he found himself facing a kind of dusty iguana whose lungs whistled when he breathed. Before asking him any questions the doctor took him to the window and examined the inside of his lower eyelid. “It’s not there,?Aureliano said, following what they told him. He pushed the tips of his fingers into his liver and added: “Here’s where I have the pain that won’t let me sleep.?Then Dr. Noguera closed the window with the pretext that there was too much sun, and explained to him in simple terms that it was a patriotic duty to assassinate Conservatives. For several days Aureliano carried a small bottle of pills in his shirt pocket. He would take it out every two hours, put three pills in the palm of his hand, and pop them into his mouth for them to be slowly dissolved on his tongue. Don Apolinar Moscote made fun of his faith in homeopathy, but those who were in on the plot recognized another one of their people in him. Almost all of the sons of the founders were implicated, although none of them knew concretely what action they were plotting. Nevertheless, the day the doctor revealed the secret to Aureliano, the latter elicited the whole plan of the conspiracy. Although he was convinced at that time of the urgency of liquidating the Conservative regime, the plot horrified him. Dr. Noguera had a mystique of personal assassination. His system was reduced to coordinating a series of individual actions which in one master stroke covering the whole nation would liquidate the functionaries of the regime along with their respective families, especially the children, in order to exterminate Conservatism at its roots. Don Apolinar Moscote, his wife, and his six daughters, needless to say, were on the list.
   “You’re no Liberal or anything else,?Aureliano told him without getting excited. “You’re nothing but a butcher.?
   “In that case,?the doctor replied with equal calm, “give me back the bottle. You don’t need it any more.?
   Only six months later did Aureliano learn that the doctor had given up on him as a man of action because he was a sentimental person with no future, with a passive character, and a definite solitary vocation. They tried to keep him surrounded, fearing that he would betray the conspiracy. Aureliano calmed them down: he would not say a word, but on the night they went to murder the Moscote family they would find him guarding the door. He showed such a convincing decision that the plan was postponed for an indefinite date. It was during those days that ?rsula asked his opinion about the marriage between Pietro Crespi and Amaranta, and he answered that these were not times to be thinking about such a thing. For a week he had been carrying an old-fashioned pistol under his shirt. He kept his eyes on his friends. In the afternoon he would go have coffee with Jos?Arcadio and Rebeca, who had begun to put their house in order, and from seven o’clock on he would play dominoes with his father-in-law. At lunchtime he was chatting with Arcadio, who was already a huge adolescent, and he found him more and more excited over the imminence of war. In school, where Arcadio had pupils older than himself mixed in with children who were barely beginning to talk, the Liberal fever had caught on. There was talk of shooting Father Nicanor, of turning the church into a school, of instituting free love. Aureliano tried to calm down his drive. He recommended discretion and prudence to him. Deaf to his calm reasoning, to his sense of reality, Arcadio reproached him in public for his weakness of character. Aureliano waited. Finally, in the beginning of December, ?rsula burst into the workshop all upset.
   “War’s broken out!?
   War, in fact, had broken out three months before. Martial law was in effect in the whole country. The only one who knew it immediately was Don Apolinar Moscote, but he did not give the news even to his wife while the army platoon that was to occupy the town by surprise was on its way. They entered noiselessly before dawn, with two pieces of light artillery drawn by mules, and they set up their headquarters in the school. A 6 P.M. curfew was established. A more drastic search than the previous one was undertaken, house by house, and this time they even took farm implements. They dragged out Dr. Noguera, tied him to a tree in the square, and shot him without any due process of law. Father Nicanor tried to impress the military authorities with the miracle of levitation and had his head split open by the butt of a soldier’s rifle. The Liberal exaltation had been extinguished into a silent terror. Aureliano, pale, mysterious, continued playing dominoes with his father-in-law. He understood that in spite of his present title of civil and military leader of the town, Don Apolinar Moscote was once more a figurehead. The decisions were made by the army captain, who each morning collected an extraordinary levy for the defense of public order. Four soldiers under his command snatched a woman who had been bitten by a mad dog from her family and killed her with their rifle butts. One Sunday, two weeks after the occupation, Aureliano entered Gerineldo Márquez’s house and with his usual terseness asked for a mug of coffee without sugar. When the two of them were alone in the kitchen, Aureliano gave his voice an authority that had never been heard before. “Get the boys ready,?he said. “We’re going to war.?Gerineldo Márquez did not believe him.
   “With what weapons??he asked.
   “With theirs,?Aureliano replied.
   Tuesday at midnight in a mad operation, twenty-one men under the age of thirty commanded by Aureliano Buendía, armed with table knives and sharpened tools, took the garrison by surprise, seized the weapons, and in the courtyard executed the captain and the four soldiers who had killed the woman.
   That same night, while the sound of the firing squad could be heard, Arcadio was named civil and military leader of the town. The married rebels barely had time to take leave of their wives, whom they left to their our devices. They left at dawn, cheered by the people who had been liberated from the terror, to join the forces of the revolutionary general Victorio Medina, who, according to the latest reports, was on his way to Manaure. Before leaving, Aureliano brought Don Apolinar Moscote out of a closet. “Rest easy, father-in-law,?he told him. “The new government guarantees on its word of honor your personal safety and that of your family.?Don Apolinar Moscote had trouble identifying that conspirator in high boots and with a rifle slung over his shoulder with the person he had played dominoes with until nine in the evening.
   “This is madness, Aurelito,?he exclaimed.
   “Not madness,?Aureliano said. “War. And don’t call me Aurelito any more. Now I’m Colonel Aureliano Buendía.?



第五章

  根据尼康诺·莱茵纳神父的指示,客厅里搭了个圣坛;三月里的一个星期天,奥雷连诺和雷麦黛丝·摩斯柯特在圣坛前面举行了婚礼。在摩斯柯特家中,这一天是整整一个月不安的结束,因为小雷麦黛丝到了成熟时期,却还没有抛弃儿童的习惯。母亲及时把青春期的变化告诉了她,但在二月间的一个下午,几个姐姐正在客厅里跟奥雷连诺谈话,雷麦黛丝却尖声怪叫地冲进客厅,让大家瞧她的裤子,这裤子已给粘搭搭的褐色东西弄脏了。婚礼定于一月之后举行。教她学会自己洗脸、穿衣、做些最简单的家务,是费了不少时间的。为了治好她尿床的毛病,家里的人就要她在热砖上撒尿。而且,让她保守合欢床上的秘密,也花了不少工夫,因为她一知道初夜的细节,就那么惊异,同时又那么兴奋,甚至想把自己知道的这些细节告诉每一个人。在她身上是伤了不少脑筋的。但是,到了举行婚礼的一天,这姑娘对日常生活的了解就不亚于她的任何一个姐姐了。在噼哩啪啦的花炮声中,在几个乐队的歌曲声中,阿·摩斯柯特先生牵着女儿,走过彩花烂漫的街头,左邻右舍的人从自家的窗口向雷麦黛丝祝贺,她就挥手含笑地表示感谢。奥雷连诺身穿黑呢服装,脚踩金属扣子的漆皮鞋(几年以后,他站在行刑队面前的时候,穿的也是这双皮鞋),在房门前面迎接新娘,把她领到圣坛前去--他紧张得脸色苍白,喉咙发哽。雷麦黛丝举止自然,大大方方;奥雷连诺给她戴戒指时,即使不慎把它掉到地上,她仍镇定自若。宾客们却惊惶失措,周围响起了一片窃窃私语,可是雷麦黛丝把戴着花边手套的手微微举起,伸出无名指,继续泰然自若地等着,直到未婚夫用脚踩住戒指,阻止它滚向房门,然后满脸通红地回到圣坛跟前。雷麦黛丝的母亲和姐姐们生怕她在婚礼上违反规矩,终于很不恰当地暗示她首先去吻未婚夫。正是从这一天起,在不利的情况下,雷麦黛丝都表现了责任心、天生的温厚态度和自制能力。她自动分出一大块结婚蛋糕,连同叉子一起放在盘子里,拿给霍·阿·布恩蒂亚。这个身躯魁梧的老人,蜷缩在棕榈棚下,捆在栗树上,由于日晒雨淋,已经变得十分萎靡,但却感激地微微一笑,双手抓起蛋糕就吃,鼻子里还哼着什么莫名其妙的圣歌。热闹的婚礼一直延续到星期一早晨,婚礼上唯一不幸的人是雷贝卡。她的婚事遭到了破坏。照乌苏娜的安排,雷贝卡是应当在这同一天结婚的,可是皮埃特罗·克列斯比星期五收到一封信,信中说他母亲病危。婚礼也就推延了。收信之后过了一小时,皮埃特罗·克列斯比就回省城去了。她的母亲却在星期六晚上按时到达,路上没有跟他相遇;她甚至在奥雷连诺的婚礼上唱了一支歌儿,这支歌儿本来是她为儿子的婚礼准备的。皮埃特罗·克列斯比打算回来赶上自己的婚礼,路上把五匹马部累得精疲力尽,可是星期天半夜到达时,别人的婚礼就要结束了。那封倒霉的信究竟是谁写的,始终没弄清楚。阿玛兰塔受到乌苏娜的盘问,气得痛哭流涕,在木匠还没拆除的圣坛前面发誓说她没有过错。
  为了举行婚礼,阿·摩斯柯特先生从邻近的城市请来了尼康诺·莱茵纳神父;由于自己的职业得不到奉承,这老头儿总是阴阴沉沉。他的皮肤是浅灰色的,几乎皮包骨,圆鼓鼓的肚子很突出,他那老朽的面孔所显露的与其说是善良,不如说是憨厚。他准备婚礼之后就返回自己的教区,但他见到马孔多居民一切无所顾忌的样子就感到惊愕,因为他们虽然安居乐业,却生活在罪孽之中:他们仅仅服从自然规律,不给孩子们举行洗礼,不承认宗教节日。神父认为这块土地急切需要上帝的种子,就决定在马孔多再留一个星期,以便给行过割礼的人和异教徒举行一次洗礼,让非法的同居合法化,并且给垂死的人一顿圣餐。可是谁也不愿听他的。大家回答他说,他们多年没有教士也过得挺好,可以直接找上帝解决拯救灵魂的问题,而且不会犯不可宽恕之罪。
  尼康诺神父讨厌在旷地上继续布道,决定竭尽全力建筑一座世界上最大的教堂,有圣徒的等身雕像和彩绘玻璃窗,以便罗马来的人也能在无神论者的中心地区向上帝祈祷。他拿着一个铜盘,四处募捐。人行慷慨布施,可是未能满足他的要求,因为教堂要有一个大钟,此种钟声能使淹死的人浮到水面。他向大家苦苦哀求,甚至嗓子都哑了,疲乏得骨头都酸痛了。
  一个星期六,他估量捐款甚至不够做教堂的门,就陷入了绝望状态。星期天,他在市镇广场上搭了个圣坛,象失眠症流行时那样动静中国古代哲学关于运动与静止及其关系的理论。老,拿着一个小铃铛,跑遍了所有的街道,招呼人们去参加旷地弥撒。许多人是出于好奇而来的,另一些人是由于无事可干,还有一些人唯恐上帝把他们藐视神父看做是冒犯他自己。就这样,早上八点钟,全镇一半的人都聚在广场上,尼康诺神父朗诵了福音书,声嘶力竭地恳求大家捐助。弥撒结束时,在场的人己经开始四散,他就举起手来要大家注意。
  “等一下,”他说。“你们马上可以得到上帝威力无穷的确凿证明。”
  协助尼康诺神父做弥撒的一个孩子,端来一杯浓稠、冒气的巧克力茶。神父一下子就把整杯饮料喝光了。然后,他从长袍袖子里掏出一块手帕,擦干了嘴唇,往前伸出双手,闭上了眼睛。接着,尼康诺神父就在地上升高了六英寸。证据是十分令人信服的。在几天中,神父都在镇上来来去去,利用热腾腾的巧克力茶一再重复升空的把戏,小帮手把那么多的钱收到袋子里,不过一个月工夫,教堂的建筑就已动工了。谁都不怀疑尼康诺神父表演的奇迹是上帝在发挥威力。只有霍·阿·布恩蒂亚不以为然。有一天早上,一群人聚在离栗树不远的地方,参观另一次升空表演,他一个人仍然完全无动于衷,看见尼康诺神父连同坐椅一起升到地面上头以后,他只在自己的凳子上微微挺直身子,耸了耸肩。
  “Hocestsimplicissimum(注:拉丁语--这很简单。这个人发现了物质的第四种状态。”)霍·阿·布恩蒂亚说。“Homoistestatumguartummateriaeinvenit.”
  尼康诺神父一举手,椅子的四条小腿同时着地。
  “Nego,”神父反驳说。“FactumhocexistenltiamDeiProbatSinedubio.”(注:拉丁语--我否认。这个事实无可辩驳地证明上帝的存在。)
  大家这才知道,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的鬼活其实是拉丁语。尼康诺神父终于发现了一个能够跟他交谈的人,决定利用这种幸运的情况,向这个精神病人灌输宗教信仰。每天下午他都坐在栗树旁边,用拉丁语传道,可是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚拒不接受他的花言巧语,也不相信他的升空表演,只要求拿上帝的照片当作无可辩驳的唯一证明。于是,尼康诺神父给他拿来了一些圣像和版画,甚至一块印有耶稣像的手帕,然而霍·阿·布恩蒂亚加以拒绝,认为它们都是没有任何科学根据的手工艺品。他是那么顽固,尼康诺神父也就放弃了向他传道的打算,只是出于人道主义感情继续来看望他。这样,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚取得了主动权,试图用理性主义的诡谲道理动摇神父的信仰。有一次,尼康诺神父带来一盒跳棋和棋盘,要霍·阿·布恩蒂亚跟他下棋,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚拒绝了,因为据他解释,敌对双方既然在重要问题上彼此一致,他看不出他们之间的争斗有什么意义。尼康诺神父对于下棋从来没有这种观点,但又无法把他说服。他对霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的智慧越来越惊异,就问他怎么会捆在树上。
  “HocestSimplicicissimum,(注:拉丁语:我是疯子)他回答,“因为我是个疯子。”
  这次谈话之后,神父担心自己的信仰遭到动摇,就不再来看望他了,全神贯注在教堂的建筑上。雷贝卡感到自己又有了希望。她的未来是跟教堂的竣工有关系的,因为有一个星期天,尼康诺神父在她们家中吃午饭的时候,曾在全家的人面前说,教堂建成以后,就能隆重而堂皇地举行宗教仪式了。“最幸运的是雷贝卡,”阿玛兰塔说。因为雷贝卡不明白她的意思,她就天真地微笑着说:
  “因为你可以拿自己的婚礼为教堂揭幕啦。”
  雷贝卡试图阻止这样的议论。她认为建筑进度很慢,教堂最快十年才能竣工。尼康诺神父不同意她的看法:因为信徒们越慷慨,他就越能作出乐观的估计。雷贝卡心中不快,饭也没有吃完,而乌苏娜却赞成阿玛兰塔的想法,答应捐助一大笔款子。加快工程进度。尼康诺神父声称:再有这样一笔捐款,教堂三年就能落成。从那一天起,雷贝卡就不跟阿玛兰塔说一句话了,因为她确信,妹妹心里想的并不象嘴里说的那么单纯。“算啦,我没干更坏的事,”那天晚上她俩之间发生激烈争论时,阿玛兰塔说。“起码最近三年我不必杀死你。”雷贝卡接受了挑战。
  知道又延期了,皮埃特罗·克列斯比陷入了绝望,但是未婚妻最后向他证明了自己的坚贞。“你啥时候愿意,咱们可以离开这儿,”她说。然而皮埃特罗·克列斯比并不是冒险家。他没有未婚妻那种冲动的性格,但是认为妻子的话应当重视。接着,雷贝卡采取了更加放肆的办法。不知哪儿刮来的风吹灭了客厅里的灯,乌苏娜惊异地发现未婚夫妇在黑暗中接吻。皮埃特罗·克列斯比慌乱地向她抱怨新的煤油灯质量太差,甚至答应帮助在客厅里安装更加可靠的照明设备。可是现在,这灯不是煤油完了,就是灯芯卡住了,于是乌苏娜又发现雷贝卡在未婚夫膝上。最后,乌苏娜再也不听任何解释。每逢这个未婚夫来访的时候,乌苏娜都把面包房交给印第安女人照顾,自己坐在摇椅里,观察未婚夫妇的动静,打算探出她年轻时就已司空见惯的花招。“可怜的妈妈,”看见乌苏娜在未婚夫来访时打呵欠,生气的雷贝卡就嘲笑他说。“她准会死在这把摇椅里,得到报应。”过了三个月受到监视的爱情生活,皮埃特罗·克列斯比每天都检查工程状况,对教堂建筑的缓慢感到苦恼,决定捐给尼康诺神父短缺的钱,使他能把事情进行到底。这个消息丝毫没使阿玛兰塔着急。每天下午,女友们聚在长廊上绣花的时候,她一面跟她们聊天,一面琢磨新的诡计。可是她的估计错了,她认为最有效的一个阴谋也就失败了;这个阴谋就是掏出卧室五斗橱里的樟脑球,因为雷贝卡是把结婚的衣服保藏在橱里的。阿玛兰塔是在教堂竣工之前两个月干这件事的。然而婚礼迫近,雷贝卡就急于想准备好自己的服装,时间比阿玛兰塔预料的早得多。雷贝卡拉开衣橱的抽屉,首先揭开几张纸,然后揭起护布,发现缎子衣服、花边头纱、甚至香橙花花冠,都给虫子蛀坏了,变成了粉末。尽管她清楚地记得,她在衣服包卷下面撒了一把樟脑球,但是灾难显得那么偶然,她就不敢责怪阿玛兰塔了。距离婚礼不到一个月,安芭萝·摩斯柯特却答应一星期之内就把新衣服缝好。一个雨天的中午,镇长的女儿抱着一堆泡沫似的绣装走进屋来,让雷贝卡最后试穿的时候,阿玛兰塔差点儿昏厥过去。她说不出话,一股冷汗沿着脊椎往下流。几个月来,阿玛兰塔最怕这个时刻的来临,因她坚信:如果她想不出什么办法来最终阻挠这场婚礼,那么到了一切幻想都已破灭的最后时刻,她就不得不鼓起勇气毒死雷贝卡了。安芭萝·摩斯柯特非常耐心地千针万线缝成的缎子衣服,雷贝卡穿在身上热得直喘气,阿玛兰塔却把毛线衣的针数数错了几次,并且拿织针扎破了自己的手指,但她异常冷静地作出决定:日期--婚礼之前的最后一个星期五,办法--在一杯咖啡里放进一些鸦片酊。
  然而,新的障碍是那么不可预料、难以克服,婚礼又无限期地推迟了。在雷贝卡和皮埃特罗·克列斯比的婚期之前七天,年轻的雷麦黛丝半夜醒来,浑身被内脏里排出的屎尿湿透,还发出一种打嗝似的声音,三天以后就血中毒死了,--有一对双胞胎横梗在她肚子里。阿玛兰塔受到良心的谴责。她曾热烈祈求上帝降下什么灾难,免得她向雷贝卡下毒,现在她对雷麦黛丝之死感到自己有罪了。她祈求的并不是这样的灾难。雷麦黛丝给家里带来了快活的气氛。她跟丈夫住在作坊旁边的房间里,给整个卧室装饰了不久之前童年时代的木偶和玩具,可是她的欢乐溢出了卧室的四壁,象有益健康的和风拂过秋海棠长廊。太阳一出,她就唱歌。家中只有她一个人敢于干预雷贝卡和阿玛兰塔之间的纷争。为了照拂霍·阿·布恩蒂亚,她承担了不轻的劳动。她送吃的给他,拿肥皂和刷子给他擦擦洗洗,注意他的头发和胡子里不止虱子和虱卵,保持棕榈棚的良好状态,遇到雷雨天气,还给棕榈棚遮上一块不透水的帆布。在生前的最后几个月里,她学会了用粗浅的拉丁语跟霍·阿·布恩蒂亚谈话。奥雷连诺和皮拉·苔列娜的孩子出世以后,给领到了家里,在家庭仪式上命名为奥雷连诺·霍塞,雷麦黛丝决定把他认做自己的大儿子。她做母亲的本能使得乌苏娜吃惊。奥雷连诺在个活上更是需要雷麦黛丝的。他整天在作坊里干活,雷麦黛丝每天早晨部给他送去一杯黑咖啡。每天晚上,他俩都去摩斯柯特家里。奥雷连诺和岳父没完没了地玩多米诺骨牌,雷麦黛丝就跟姐姐们聊夭,或者跟母亲一起议论大人的事。跟布恩蒂亚家的亲戚关系,巩固了阿·摩斯柯特在马孔多的威望。他经常去省城,已经说服政府当局在马孔多开办一所学校,由继承了祖父教育热情的阿卡蒂奥管理。为了庆祝国家独立节,阿·摩斯柯特先生通过说服使得大部分房屋都刷成了蓝色。根据尼康诺神父的坚决要求,他命令卡塔林诺游艺场迁到偏僻的街道,并且关闭小镇中心区另外几个花天酒地的场所。有一次,阿·摩斯柯特先生从省城回来,带来了六名持熗的警察,由他们维持社会秩序,甚至谁也没有想起马孔多不留武装人员的最初的协议了。奥雷连诺欢喜岳父的活力。“你会变得象他那么肥胖,’--朋友们向他说。可是,由于经常坐在作坊里,他只是颧骨比较凸出,眼神比较集中,体重却没增加,拘谨的性格也没改变;恰恰相反,嘴边比较明显地出现了笔直的线条--独立思考和坚强决心的征象。奥雷连诺和他的妻子都得到了两家的深爱,所以,当雷麦黛丝说她将有孩子的时候,甚至阿玛兰塔和雷贝卡都暂时停止了扯皮,为孩子加紧编织两种颜色的毛线衣:蓝色的--如果生下的是男孩;粉红色的--如果生下的是女孩。几年以后,奥雷连诺站在行刑队面前的时候,想到的最后一个人就是雷麦黛丝。乌苏娜宣布了严格的丧事,关闭了所有的门窗,如果没有极端的必要,决不允许任何人进出屋子;在一年之中,她禁止大家高声说话;殡丧日停放棺材的地方,墙上挂了雷麦黛丝的厢片,照片周围加了黑色缎带,下面放了一盏长明灯。布恩蒂亚的后代一直是让长明灯永不熄灭的,他们看见这个姑娘的照片就感到杌隍不安;这姑娘身着百褶裙,头戴蝉翼纱花巾,脚上穿了一双白皮鞋,子孙们简直无法把照片上的姑娘跟“曾祖母”本来的形象联系起来。阿玛兰塔自动收养了奥雷连诺·霍塞。她希望拿他当儿子,分担她的孤独,减轻她的痛苦,因为她把疯狂弄来的鸦片酊偶然放到雷麦黛丝的咖啡里了。每天晚上,皮埃特罗·克列斯比都在帽上戴着黑色丝带,踮着脚走进屋来,打算悄悄地探望雷贝卡;她穿着黑色衣服,袖子长到手腕,显得萎靡不振。现在要想确定新的婚期,简直就是亵渎神灵了;他俩虽已订婚,却无法使关系往前推进,他俩的爱情令人讨厌、得不到关心,仿佛这两个灭了灯、在黑暗中接吻的情人只能听凭死神的摆布。雷贝卡失去了希望,精神萎顿,又开始吃土。
  丧事开始之后过了不少时间,刺绣的人又聚在长廊上的时候,在一个死寂的炎热天,下午两点正,忽然有个人猛力推开了房屋的正门,使得整座房子都晃动起来;坐在长廊上的阿玛兰塔和她的女友们,在房间里咂吮手指的雷贝卡,厨房里的乌苏娜,作坊里的奥雷连诺,甚至栗树下的霍·阿·布恩蒂亚--全部觉得地震已经开始,房子就要倒塌了。门槛边出现了一个样子非凡的人。他那宽阔的肩膀勉强才挤过门洞,粗脖子上挂着一个“救命女神”像,胳膊和胸脯都刺满了花纹,右腕紧紧地箍着一个护身的铜镯。他的皮肤被海风吹成了棕褐包,头发又短又直,活象骡子的鬃毛,下巴显得坚毅,神情却很悒郁。他的腰带比马肚带粗一倍,高统皮靴钉了马刺,后跟包了铁皮;他一走动,一切都颤抖起来,犹如地震时一样。他千里拎着一个相当破烂的鞍囊,走过客厅和起居室,象雷霆一样出现在秋海棠长廊上,使得阿玛兰塔和她的女伴们把针拿在空中都呆住了。“哈罗!”--他用疲惫的声音打了个招呼,就把鞍囊扔在她们面前的桌上,继续朝房子深处走去。“哈罗!”他向惶恐地探望室外的雷贝卡说。“哈罗!”--他向全神贯注干活的奥雷连诺说。这人哪儿也没耽搁,一直走到厨房才停了下来,结束了他从世界另一边开始的旅行。“哈罗!”--他说。刹那间,乌苏娜张着嘴巴发楞,然后看了看来人的眼睛,才“噢唷”一声,抱住他的脖子,高兴得又哭又叫。这是霍·阿卡蒂奥。他回家时也象离家时一样穷困,乌苏娜甚至不得不给他两个比索,偿付租马的费用。他说的是两班牙语,其中夹了许多水手行话。大家问他到过哪儿,他只同答:“那儿。”在指定给他的房间里,他悬起吊床,一连睡了三天,醒来以后,他一口气吃了十六只生鸡蛋,就径直去卡塔林诺游艺场,他那粗壮的身抠在好奇的娘儿们中间引起了惊愕。他请在场的人听音乐、喝酒,全都记在他的账上,并且跟五个男人打赌,说他们加在一起也无法把他的手扳到桌上。“不行,”他们相信自己动不了他的手,就说。“因为他身上有魔镯。”卡塔林诺不相信他那神奇的力气,就拿十二个比索跟他打赌,说他搬动不了柜台。可他把柜台从地里拔了起来,举到头上,并且将它放在街上。为了搬回柜台,需要十一个男人。
  在兴味正浓的时候,他让大家参观他那异乎寻常的男性器官,上面刺了蓝色和红色的各种文字。他周围的娘儿们都兴致勃勃,他就问她们谁能多给点钱,一个最有钱的女人给了他二十个比索。接着,他主张拿他抽彩,每张彩票十个比索,看看谁能把他抽到。这个价格是大得惊人的,因为最红的女人一夜才能挣到八个比索,然而大家都同意了。十四张彩票写好之后,都放在一顶帽子里,大家开始抽--每个女人抽一张。最后只剩两张可能抽中的了。
  “每人多给五个比索,”霍·阿卡蒂奥向两个幸运的女人说。“我就让自己在你们之间平分。”
  他就是以此为生的。他充当一名水手,跟其他同样离乡背井的人一起作过六十五次环球航行。那天夜晚在卡塔林诺游艺场里跟他睡觉的女人,把他赤身露体地带到舞厅里给大家参观,他的身体--从面孔到脊背、从脖子到脚后跟--每一平方英寸都刺了花纹。
  霍·阿卡蒂奥几乎不跟家里的人来往,他白天睡觉,夜晚都在妓馆区度过,在少有的情况下,母亲让他坐在家中的桌子旁边时,他才引起了大家的注意,尤其是他谈起自己在遥远地区的那些冒险经历。他遇到过船舶失事,乘着舢板在日本海上漂泊了两个星期,拿中暑死去的同伴的尸体充饥--人肉好好地用盐腌透、晒干,比较粗硬,有点儿甜味。在一个晴朗的晌午,轮船在孟加拉湾航行时,船员们杀死了一条海龙,在它的肚子里,他们发现了十字军骑士的钢盔、钮扣和武器。在加勒比海,他瞧见了维克多·雨果(注:维克多·雨果,法国议会的瓜德罗普岛代表,曾同英国人进行过海盗式的战争。古巴作家阿列科·卡尔宾蒂耶的长篇小说《启蒙时代》就是描写他的。)海盗船的怪影:船帆被致命的飓风撕成了碎片,横桁和桅杆都被海蟑螂咬坏了,轮船仍然驶往瓜德罗普,但却永远迷失了航向。乌苏娜在桌边马上哭了起来,仿佛读了望眼欲穿的信似的,在这些信里,霍·阿卡蒂奥谈到了自己浪迹天涯的冒险遭遇。“咱们这儿有这么大的房子嘛,儿子,”她叹息地说。“而且咱们还把那么多的东西扔给猪吃!”但她怎么也不明白,吉卜赛人带走的这个孩子,已经成了一个野人,一次能吃半只猪崽,猛然呼出一口气就能使花儿枯萎。家里其他的人是有这种感觉的。对于他吃东西时打响嗝的习惯,阿玛兰塔无法掩饰自己的厌恶。阿卡蒂奥从来都不知道自己的出身秘密,对霍·阿卡蒂奥所提的问题只是勉强张张嘴巴,霍·阿卡蒂奥显然力图取得这青年的好感。奥雷连诺打算让哥哥忆起他俩同住一室的那些时光,恢复童年时代的亲密关系,可是霍·阿卡蒂奥把一切都忘到了九霄云外,--海洋生活中的许多事情已经占据了他的脑海。只有雷贝卡一人第一个眼就被击中了。那天晚上,霍·阿卡蒂奥经过她的卧室门前时,她觉得,皮埃特罗·克列斯比跟这个壮汉相比,不过是穿着漂亮的文弱书生;这个壮汉火山爆发似的声音,整座宅子都能听到.她打算利用各种借口跟他相见。有一次,霍·阿卡蒂奥不知羞耻地注意打量她的身姿,说道:“你完全成了个娘儿啦,小妹妹。”雷贝卡失去了自制,又象往日一样,开始贪馋地大吃泥土和墙上的石灰,而且拼命咂吮指头,以致指头上出现了茧子。有一回,她呕吐出了绿色的液体和死了的水蛭。夜里,她不睡觉,哆哆嗦嗦,仿佛患了热病,狂烈挣扎,一直等到天亮时房子震动,霍·阿卡蒂奥来到。有一次午睡的时候,雷贝卡再也按捺不住,就走进了霍·阿卡蒂奥的卧室。她发现他只穿着裤衩躺在一个吊床上,这吊床是用粗大的船索悬在梁上的。他那粗壮、裸露的躯体把她吓了一跳,她想后退。“对不起,”她抱歉地说。“我不知道你在这儿。”可她说得声音很低,不想吵醒别人。“到这儿来吧,”他说。她听从地站在吊床跟前,浑身直冒冷汗,觉得自己五脏六腑都缩紧了,而霍·阿卡蒂奥却用指尖抚摸她的脚踝,然后又抚摸她的小腿,最后又抚摸她的大腿,低声说:“唉,小妹妹,唉,小妹妹。”接着,一种异常准确的、飓风似的强大力量把她拦腰抱起,三两下脱掉了她的衣服,就将她象小鸟儿一样压扁了;这时她作了非凡的努力,才没有一命呜呼。她刚刚感谢上帝让她生在人世,就由于难以忍受的疼痛加上不可思议的快感而失去知觉,同则在吊床上热气腾腾的泥淖里挣扎,这片泥淖犹如吸墨纸吸去了她体内排出的精髓。
  三天之后,他们在晚祷时结婚了。前一天,霍·阿卡蒂奥前往皮埃特罗·克列斯比的商店。这意大利人正在教齐特拉琴,霍·阿卡蒂奥甚至没有把他叫到一边去,就向他说:“我要跟雷贝卡结婚了。”皮埃特罗·克列斯比黯然失色,把齐特拉琴交给一个学生,就宣布下课。屋子里满是乐器和自动玩具,他俩单独留下以后,皮埃特罗·克列斯比说:
  “她是你的妹妹呀!”
  “这不要紧,”霍·阿卡蒂奥说。
  皮埃特罗·克列斯比拿洒了薰衣草香水的手绢擦了擦脑门。
  “这是违反自然的,”他解释说。“此外,也是法律禁止的。”
  让霍·阿卡蒂奥生气的,与其说是皮埃特罗·克列斯比所讲的理由,不如说是他的苍白脸色。
  “我不在乎自然,”他说。“我把一切都告诉你,是让你别为自己操心,也别向雷贝卡问些什么。”
  但是,发现皮埃特罗·克列斯比眼里的泪水之后,他缓和了下来。
  “现在,”他用另一种口吻向他说,“如果你真喜欢这个家庭,那么阿玛兰塔就留给你。”
  尽管尼康诺神父在礼拜日布道时当众宣布,霍·阿卡蒂奥和雷贝卡并不是兄妹,但是乌苏娜根本就不原谅他俩的婚姻。她认为这种对她不尊重的婚姻是不能容忍的,所以就在那一天,在新婚夫妇从教堂回来的时候,她就禁止他俩跨进她家的门坎。在她看来,他俩等于死了。于是,新婚夫妇在墓地对面租了间小房子,住在那儿,除了霍·阿卡蒂奥的吊床,没有其他任何家具。在新婚之夜,藏在新娘鞋子里的蝎子把她的一只脚给螫了,雷贝卡说不出话来,但这并没有妨碍夫妇俩丑恶地度蜜月。邻居们对他俩的叫声十分惊愕,这种叫声一夜吵醒整个街区八次,午睡时吵醒邻居三次,大家都祈求这种放荡的情欲不要破坏死人的安宁。
  只有奥雷连诺关心年轻的夫妇。他给他俩买了一点家具,给了他们一点儿钱,直到霍·阿卡蒂奥恢复了现实感,开始耕耘同他的房子毗连的一块荒地。至于阿玛兰塔,她始终克制不了对雷贝卡的仇恨,虽然生活给了她梦想不到的快乐。乌苏娜不知如何洗刷家里的耻辱,可是按照她的愿望,皮埃特罗·克列斯比每星期二继续在他们家里吃午饭,宽宏大量地忍受了自已的不幸。为了表示对这个家庭的尊重,他仍在帽子上戴着黑带子,高兴地赠送乌苏娜一些外国礼品,如葡萄牙沙丁鱼或者土耳其玫瑰果酱,借以表示自己对她的忠诚;有一次,他甚至赠给她一张漂亮的马尼拉披巾。阿玛兰塔对他既殷勤又温存。她猜到了他的意思,抢先剪掉了他的衬衫袖口上绽开的缝线;为了庆祝他的生日,她在一打手帕上绣了他的简写姓名。每逢星期二,午饭之后,当她正在长廊上刺绣的时候,他都陪着她,尽量使她快活。皮埃特罗·克列斯比一贯把这姑娘看做一个小娃儿,但他在她身上发现了一些新的特点。她不够雅致,然而却有不寻常的见识和潜在的温情。谁也不会怀疑,皮埃特罗克列斯比会向阿玛兰塔求婚的。的确,在一个星期二,他就要求她嫁给他了。她没中止自己的活儿,等耳朵发烧过了之后,才象成年人那样,给自己的嗓音加上一种平静和稳定的调子。
  “当然罗,克列斯比,”她说。“但要等咱们彼此更加了解以后,过急不好嘛。”
  乌苏娜给弄得糊里糊涂。她虽尊重皮埃特罗·克列斯比,但是怎么也闹不明白,从道德观点来说,他的决定不知是好是坏,因为他跟雷贝卡早就订过婚,而他俩的婚事是可耻地告终的。最后,她把他的求婚当成了既成事实--未作任何评价,因为谁也不赞同她的疑虑。家中唯一的男人--奥雷连诺表示神秘、断然的意见,只是加重了她的混乱。
  “现在不是考虑结婚的时候。”
  这句话的含义是乌苏娜几个月以后才理解的,不仅就结婚来说,而且就其他任何事情来说(只有战争除外),它都是奥雷连诺那时能够表达的唯一真实的见解。站在行刑队面前的时候,他自己也不大明白,一连串不可捉摸的、难以避免的偶然事件如何使他到了这个地步。雷麦黛丝之死使他受到的震动,比他担心的事情还小一些。她的死在他心中引起的狂乱感觉,逐渐溶化成了孤独的、消极的失望感,就象他决定不再跟女人来往时的那种感觉,他一头扎进工作,但是保持了跟岳父玩多米诺骨牌的习惯。在这座充满哀悼气氛的房子里,夜间的交谈增强了两个男人的感情。“再结婚吧,奥雷连诺!”岳父向他说。“我还有六个女儿,任你挑选一个。”有一次,在选举之前不久,马孔多镇长公务旅行回来,对国内的政治局势非常忧虑。自由党人准备发动战争。由于当时奥雷连诺时保守党人和自由党人的观念十分模糊,岳父就向他简单地说明了两党之间的区别。他说,自由党人是共济会会员,是坏人,他们主张绞死教土,实行自由的结婚和离婚,承认婚生子和非婚生子的平等权利,并且打算推翻最高政权,把国家分割开来,实行联邦制。相反地,保守党人直接从上帝那儿接受权力,维护稳定的社会秩序和家庭道德,保护基督--政权的基础,不容许国家分崩离析。奥雷连诺出于人道主义精神,同情自由党人有关非婚生子权利的主张,但他不明白的是,由于双手都摸不到的东西,为什么需要走上极端、发动战争。他觉得岳父过于热心了,因为选举期间,在这毫无政治热情的市镇上,他的岳父竟调来了一个军士率领的六名带熗的士兵。士兵们到了这儿,就挨家挨户没收猎熗、砍刀、甚至菜刀,然后向二十一岁以上的男人分发选票:写有保守党候选人姓名的蓝票和写有自由党候选人姓名的红票。选举前一天--星期六,阿·摩斯柯特先生亲自宣读了一项命令:从午夜起,在四十八小时内,禁止出售酒类,如果不是一家人,还禁止三人以上聚在一起。选举之前没有发生事故。星期天上午八时,广场上安了个木制的投票箱,由六名士兵守卫。投票是绝对自由的,奥雷连诺自己就相信这一点,因为他几乎整天站在岳父身边,没有看见任何人多投一次票。午后四时,咚咚的鼓声宣布投票结束,阿·摩斯柯特先生给投票箱贴上了他署名的封条。晚上,跟奥雷连诺玩多米诺骨牌时,他命令军士撕去封条,统计选票。红票跟蓝票几乎相等,可是军士只留下十张红票,加多了蓝票。然后,他们给选票箱贴上新的封条,第二天拂晓,就把它送到省城去了。
  “自由党人就要发动战争啦,”奥雷连诺说。阿·摩斯柯特先生甚至没从自己的筹码上拍起眼来。“如果你以为原因是偷换选票,那就不会发生战争,”他说。“因为选票箱里留下了一些红票,他们就无从抱怨了。”奥雷连诺明白反对党的处境是不利的。“如果我是自由党人,”他说,“我就会由于这种选票的把戏发动战争”岳父从眼镜上方瞥了他一眼。
  “哎,奥雷连诺,”他说,“如果你是自由党人,你就看不到掉换选票的事了,即使你是我的女婿。”
  引起全镇愤怒的不是选举结果,而是士兵们拒绝归还收走的刀子和猎熗。妇女们请求奥雷连诺向岳父说说情,哪怕把菜刀还给她们也成。阿·摩斯柯特先生十分机密地向他说,士兵们已经运走了没收的武器,拿去当作自由党人准备打仗的物证。这种说法的可耻使奥雷连诺吃了一惊。他没吭声,可是有一天晚上,格林列尔多·马克斯和马格尼菲柯·维斯巴尔跟其他几个朋友谈论菜刀的事情时,问他是自由党人还是保守党人,他一分钟也没犹豫。
  “如果非要是个什么人不可,那我宁愿做一个自由党人,因为保守党人是骗子。”
  第二天,根据朋友们的嘱咐,他去见阿里吕奥·诺格拉医生,借口是治肝病。奥雷连诺根本就不明白为什么需要这样撒谎。阿里吕奥·诺格拉医生是几年前来到马孔多的,随身带着一箱无味的药丸;他有一句谁也不懂的医学名言:“以毒攻毒。”
  其实,诺格拉只是个冒牌的医生。从平庸的外表看来,他是个不走运的医生,实际上是个恐怖分子。他那高高的护腿套遮住了五年苦役中脚镣留在脚踝上的伤疤。他在联邦主义者的第一次暴动之后被捕,但他穿上自己最讨厌的衣服--教士的长袍--逃到了库拉索岛(注:在西印度群岛)。在他长时间的流亡之后,加勒比海群岛的政治流亡者把一些愉快消息带到了库拉索岛,使他受到很大的鼓舞,他就坐上一条走私纵帆船,带着一些药瓶到了列奥阿察,瓶子里装的不过是用纯糖做成的药丸,而且他身上还有他亲手伪造的莱比锡大学毕业证书。在列奥阿察,由于绝望,他甚至痛哭了。流亡者们曾把联邦主义者描绘成就要爆炸的火药桶,但在选举之前模糊的幻想中,联邦主义者的热情冷却了。这个伪装的医生由于失败而感到沮丧,现在只想找到一个安全的地方宁静地度过余年,所以就隐居马孔多了。在市镇广场旁边的一座房子里,他租了一个狭小的房间,房间里摆满了小药瓶;他已在这儿住了几年,靠绝望的病人为生一-这些病人用尽了一切办法,只好在糖球里寻求安慰了。阿·摩斯柯特是个有名无实的镇长时,医生的煽动本领还没表现出来。他把一切时间用于回忆往事,并且跟气喘病进行斗争。对他来说,临近的选举是引路的线索,可以帮助他重新找到颠覆活动的纽结。他跟镇上缺乏政治经验的年轻人联系,并且展开了秘密的、不懈的挑唆活动。阿·摩斯柯特先生认为,选票箱里出现许多红色选票是出于年轻人特有的轻率,但这些选票却是诺格拉按照计划让自己的学生们去投的,想让他们自己看看选举不过是无耻的把戏。“有效的是暴力,”他向他们说。奥雷连诺的大多数朋友热衷于消灭保守制度,但他们不敢把自己的计划告诉奥雷连诺,担心的不仅是他跟镇长的亲戚关系,还有他那难以捉摸的孤僻性格。何况大家知道,奥雷连诺根据岳父的嘱咐投了蓝票。所以,只是在一种偶然情况下,他表露了他的政治观点,而且纯粹由于好奇,他才跨出了这疯狂的一步--去找医生治疗他没有的疾病。在猪圈一样肮脏的小房间里,蛛网密布,洋溢着樟脑气味,他看见了一个骸蜥似的衰朽老头儿,他的肺部呼吸时发出咝咝的声音。老医生什么也没问,就把奥雷连诺领到窗口,检查他的下眼皮内部。“不是这儿,”奥雷连诺依照别人给他的嘱咐说,然后用指尖按住肝脏,补充道:“我感到这儿痛,痛得睡不着觉。”于是,诺格拉医生借口室内阳光太强,关上了窗子,言简意赅地向他说明,爱国者的义务就是杀死保守党人。在几天之中,奥雷连诺都在衬衣口袋里带着一只小药瓶。每两小时,他都拿出药瓶来,把三枚药丸倾入手心,一下子将它们投到嘴里,然后在舌头上慢慢地溶化。阿·摩斯柯特先生笑他相信“顺势疗法”,而参加密谋的人却承认他是自己人。马孔多所有老居民的儿子几乎都卷入了阴谋,虽然其中没有一个人清楚地知道,他们面临的究竟是什么行动。然而,医生刚向奥雷连诺吐露了这个秘密,他立即退出了阴谋。尽管奥雷连诺当时相信消灭保守制度是必要的,但是医生的阴谋却使他不寒而栗。阿里吕奥·诺格拉是个人恐怖的信徒。他的计划就是在全国范围内协同一致地同时大肆谋杀,一下子消灭所有的政府官吏和他们的家庭,尤其是他们的男孩子,从而彻底铲除保守主义的根苗。阿·摩斯柯特先生、他的夫人和六个女儿当然都在名单之内。
  “你不是什么自由党人,”奥雷连诺甚至面不改色,向他说道,“你只是一个屠夫。”
  “那么,”医生同样平静地回答他,“把药瓶还我。你再也不需要它了。”
  奥雷连诺半年以后才知道,医生认为他是一个很不适于干事的人,温情脉脉,性格消沉,喜欢孤独。朋友们担心他把阴谋泄露出去,试图吓他一下。奥雷连诺叫他们放心,说他不会向任何人透露一句;可是那天夜里,朋友们前去暗杀摩斯柯特一家人时,他却在门口把守。阴谋分子见他下了决心,就不敢动手,只好不定期地推迟了计划的执行。正是那时,乌苏娜跟儿子商量皮埃特罗·克列斯比和阿玛兰塔的婚事,儿子回答他说现在不是考虑这种事情的时候。已经整整一个星期,奥雷连诺怀里藏着旧式手熗,监视着自己的一伙朋友。现在,午饭以后,他都去霍·阿卡蒂奥和雷贝卡那儿喝咖啡,他俩已把自己的家稍微整顿好了一些;下午六时以后,奥雷连诺都跟岳父玩多米诺骨牌。每天早上,早餐的时候,他都跟已经成了高大青年的阿卡蒂奥聊天,发现这小伙子对于战争显然不可避免而日益高兴。他在自己的学校里也染上了自由主义的热病;在他的学校里,除了刚会说话的小孩儿,还有年岁比老师还大的高个子。他高谈阔论地说:应当熗毙尼康诺神父,把教堂变成学校;应当宣布恋爱自由。奥雷连诺竭力抑制他的激烈情绪,劝他谨慎小心。可是阿卡蒂奥却对他冷静的规劝和健全的想法充耳不闻,当众指责他性格脆弱。奥雷连诺只好等待。十二月上旬,乌苏娜终于惊惶不安地冲进作坊。
  “战争爆发啦!”
  其实,战争已经进行了三个月。全国都处于战时状态。马孔多只有阿·摩斯柯特先生一个人及时知道了这个消息,但他甚至避免把它告诉自己的妻子,直到奉命进入这个市镇的军队突然来临。士兵们是在拂晓之前悄悄地进来的,带着骡子拉的两门轻炮,把指挥所设在学校里,宣布下午六时以后为戒严时间。他们在每座房子里都进行了比前次更严厉的搜查--这一次连农具都给拿走了。他们从房子里拖出诺格拉医生,把他绑在市镇广场的一棵树上,未经审讯就将他熗决了。尼康诺神父试图用“升空”的奇迹影响这帮军人,可是一个士兵却拿熗托敲他的脑袋。自由党人的激烈情绪消失了,变成了无声的恐怖。奥雷连诺脸色苍白,神秘莫测.继续跟岳父玩多米诺骨牌。他明白,阿·摩斯柯特先生虽然拥有市镇军政长官的头衔,但又成了有名无实的镇长。一切都是指挥警备队的一个上尉决定的,他每天早上都想出一种新鲜的特别税,以满足公共秩序保卫者的需要。他的四个士兵从一户人家拖出疯狗咬伤的一个女人,就在街道中间用熗托把她打死了。市镇被占之后过了两周的一个星期天,奥雷连诺走进格林列尔多·马克斯的住所,象往常一样温和地要了一杯无糖的咖啡。他俩单独呆在厨房里的时候,奥雷连诺用他从来没有过的威严口吻说,“叫朋友们准备吧,咱们要去打仗啦。”格林列尔多·马克斯不相信他的话。
  “用什么武器?”他问。
  “用他们的武器,”奥雷连诺回答。
  星期二夜晚,在不顾一切的大胆行动中,二十一个三十岁以下的人,在奥雷连诺的指挥下,拿着菜刀和利器,出其不意地袭击了警备队,夺取了熗支,在广场上熗决了上尉和打死女人的那四个士兵。
  就在那天夜里,广场上还传来行刑队熗声的时候,阿卡蒂奥被任命为马孔多的军政长官。那些已有家室的暴动者几乎没有时间跟妻子告别,就让她们听天由命了。黎明时分,在摆脱了恐怖的居民们欢呼之下,奥雷连诺的队伍离开马孔多,去同革命将军维克多里奥·麦丁纳的部队会合,据最近的消息,他的部队正向马诺尔移动。在离开之前,奥雷连诺从一个衣橱里把阿·摩斯柯特先生拉了出来。“别怕,岳父,”他说,“新政府说话算数,保证您和全家的人身安全。”阿·摩斯柯特先生好不容易才闹明白,这个脚穿高统皮靴、肩挎步熗的暴动分子,就是经常跟他玩多米诺骨牌玩到晚上九点的女婿。
  “奥雷连诺,这是发疯,”他说。
  “这不是发疯,”奥雷连诺说。“这是战争。别再叫我奥雷连诺;从现在起,我是奥雷连诺上校了。”

执素衣

ZxID:13389413


等级: 内阁元老
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Chapter 4
THE NEW HOUSE, white, like a dove, was inaugurated with a dance. ?rsula had got that idea from the afternoon when she saw Rebeca and Amaranta changed into adolescents, and it could almost have been said that the main reason behind the construction was a desire to have a proper place for the girls to receive visitors. In order that nothing would be lacking in splendor she worked like a galley slave as the repairs were under way, so that before they were finished she had ordered costly necessities for the decorations, the table service, and the marvelous invention that was to arouse the astonishment of the town and the jubilation of the young people: the pianola. They delivered it broken down, packed in several boxes that were unloaded along with the Viennese furniture, the Bohemian crystal, the table service from the Indies Company, the tablecloths from Holland, and a rich variety of lamps and candlesticks, hangings and drapes. The import house sent along at its own expense an Italian expert, Pietro Crespi, to assemble and tune the pianola, to instruct the purchasers in its functioning, and to teach them how to dance the latest music printed on its six paper rolls.
   Pietro Crespi was young and blond, the most handsome and well mannered man who had ever been seen in Macondo, so scrupulous in his dress that in spite of the suffocating heat he would work in his brocade vest and heavy coat of dark cloth. Soaked in sweat, keeping a reverent distance from the owners of the house, he spent several weeks shut up is the parlor with a dedication much like that of Aureliano in his silverwork. One morning, without opening the door, without calling anyone to witness the miracle, he placed the first roll in the pianola and the tormenting hammering and the constant noise of wooden lathings ceased in a silence that was startled at the order and neatness of the music. They all ran to the parlor. Jos?Arcadio Buendía was as if struck by lightning, not because of the beauty of the melody, but because of the automatic working of the keys of the pianola, and he set up Melquíades?camera with the hope of getting a daguerreotype of the invisible player. That day the Italian had lunch with them. Rebeca and Amaranta, serving the table, were intimidated by the way in which the angelic man with pale and ringless hands manipulated the utensils. In the living room, next to the parlor, Pietro Crespi taught them how to dance. He showed them the steps without touching them, keeping time with a metronome, under the friendly eye of ?rsula, who did not leave the room for a moment while her daughters had their lesson. Pietro Crespi wore special pants on those days, very elastic and tight, and dancing slippers, “You don’t have to worry so much,?Jos?Arcadio Buendía told her. “The man’s a fairy.?But she did not leave off her vigilance until the apprenticeship was over and the Italian left Macondo. Then they began to organize the party. ?rsula drew up a strict guest list, in which the only ones invited were the descendants of the founders, except for the family of Pilar Ternera, who by then had had two more children by unknown fathers. It was truly a high-class list, except that it was determined by feelings of friendship, for those favored were not only the oldest friends of Jos?Arcadio Buendía’s house since before they undertook the exodus and the founding of Macondo, but also their sons and grandsons, who were the constant companions of Aureliano and Arcadio since infancy, and their daughters, who were the only ones who visited the house to embroider with Rebeca and Amaranta. Don Apolinar Moscote, the benevolent ruler whose activity had been reduced to the maintenance from his scanty resources of two policemen armed with wooden clubs, was a figurehead. In older to support the household expenses his daughters had opened a sewing shop, where they made felt flowers as well as guava delicacies, and wrote love notes to order. But in spite of being modest and hard-working, the most beautiful girls in Iowa, and the most skilled at the new dances, they did not manage to be considered for the party.
   While ?rsula and the girls unpacked furniture, polished silverware, and hung pictures of maidens in boats full of roses, which gave a breath of new life to the naked areas that the masons had built, Jos?Arcadio Buendía stopped his pursuit of the image of God, convinced of His nonexistence, and he took the pianola apart in order to decipher its magical secret. Two days before the party, swamped in a shower of leftover keys and hammers, bungling in the midst of a mix-up of strings that would unroll in one direction and roll up again in the other, he succeeded in a fashion in putting the instrument back together. There had never been as many surprises and as much dashing about as in those days, but the new pitch lamps were lighted on the designated day and hour. The house was opened, still smelling of resin and damp whitewash, and the children and grandchildren of the founders saw the porch with ferns and begonias, the quiet rooms, the garden saturated with the fragrance of the roses, and they gathered together in the parlor, facing the unknown invention that had been covered with a white sheet. Those who were familiar with the piano, popular in other towns in the swamp, felt a little disheartened, but more bitter was ?rsula’s disappointment when she put in the first roll so that Amaranta and Rebeca could begin the dancing and the mechanism did not work. Melquíades, almost blind by then, crumbling with decrepitude, used the arts of his timeless wisdom in an attempt to fix it. Finally Jos?Arcadio Buendía managed, by mistake, to move a device that was stuck and the music came out, first in a burst and then in a flow of mixed-up notes. Beating against the strings that had been put in without order or concert and had been tuned with temerity, the hammers let go. But the stubborn descendants of the twenty-one intrepid people who plowed through the mountains in search of the sea to the west avoided the reefs of the melodic mix-up and the dancing went on until dawn.
   Pietro Crespi came back to repair the pianola. Rebeca and Amaranta helped him put the strings in order and helped him with their laughter at the mix-up of the melodies. It was extremely pleasant and so chaste in its way that ?rsula ceased her vigilance. On the eve of his departure a farewell dance for him was improvised with the pianola and with Rebeca he put on a skillful demonstration of modern dance, Arcadio and Amaranta matched them in grace and skill. But the exhibition was interrupted because Pilar Ternera, who was at the door with the onlookers, had a fight, biting and hair pulling, with a woman who had dared to comment that Arcadio had a woman’s behind. Toward midnight Pietro Crespi took his leave with a sentimental little speech, and he promised to return very soon. Rebeca accompanied him to the door, and having closed up the house and put out the lamps, she went to her room to weep. It was an inconsolable weeping that lasted for several days, the cause of which was not known even by Amaranta. Her hermetism was not odd. Although she seemed expansive and cordial, she had a solitary character and an impenetrable heart. She was a splendid adolescent with long and firm bones, but she still insisted on using the small wooden rocking chair with which she had arrived at the house, reinforced many times and with the arms gone. No one had discovered that even at that age she still had the habit of sucking her finger. That was why she would not lose an opportunity to lock herself in the bathroom and had acquired the habit of sleeping with her face to the wall. On rainy afternoons, embroidering with a group of friends on the begonia porch, she would lose the thread of the conversation and a tear of nostalgia would salt her palate when she saw the strips of damp earth and the piles of mud that the earthworms had pushed up in the garden. Those secret tastes, defeated in the past by oranges and rhubarb, broke out into an irrepressible urge when she began to weep. She went back to eating earth. The first time she did it almost out of curiosity, sure that the bad taste would be the best cure for the temptation. And, in fact, she could not bear the earth in her mouth. But she persevered, overcome by the growing anxiety, and little by little she was getting back her ancestral appetite, the taste of primary minerals, the unbridled satisfaction of what was the original food. She would put handfuls of earth in her pockets, and ate them in small bits without being seen, with a confused feeling of pleasure and rage, as she instructed her girl friends in the most difficult needlepoint and spoke about other men, who did not deserve the sacrifice of having one eat the whitewash on the walls because of them. The handfuls of earth made the only man who deserved that show of degradation less remote and more certain, as if the ground that he walked on with his fine patent leather boots in another part of the world were transmitting to her the weight and the temperature of his blood in a mineral savor that left a harsh aftertaste in her mouth and a sediment of peace in her heart. One afternoon, for no reason, Amparo Moscote asked permission to see the house. Amaranta and Rebeca, disconcerted by the unexpected visit, attended her with a stiff formality. They showed her the remodeled mansion, they had her listen to the rolls on the pianola, and they offered her orange marmalade and crackers. Amparo gave a lesson in dignity, personal charm, and good manners that impressed ?rsula in the few moments that she was present during the visit. After two hours, when the conversation was beginning to wane, Amparo took advantage of Amaranta’s distraction and gave Rebeca a letter. She was able to see the name of the Estimable Se?orita Rebeca Buendía, written in the same methodical hand, with the same green ink, and the same delicacy of words with which the instructions for the operation of the pianola were written, and she folded the letter with the tips of her fingers and hid it in her bosom, looking at Amparo Moscote with an expression of endless and unconditional gratitude and a silent promise of complicity unto death.
   The sudden friendship between Amparo Moscote and Rebeca Buendía awakened the hopes of Aureliano. The memory of little Remedios had not stopped tormenting him, but he had not found a chance to see her. When he would stroll through town with his closest friends, Magnífico Visbal and Gerineldo Márquez—the sons of the founders of the same names—he would look for her in the sewing shop with an anxious glance, but he saw only the older sisters. The presence of Amparo Moscote in the house was like a premonition. “She has to come with her,?Aureliano would say to himself in a low voice. “She has to come.?He repeated it so many times and with such conviction that one afternoon when he was putting together a little gold fish in the work shop, he had the certainty that she had answered his call. Indeed, a short time later he heard the childish voice, and when he looked up his heart froze with terror as he saw the girl at the door, dressed in pink organdy and wearing white boots.
   “You can’t go in there, Remedios, Amparo Moscote said from the hall. They’re working.?
   But Aureliano did not give her time to respond. He picked up the little fish by the chain that came through its mouth and said to her.
   “Come in.?
   Remedios went over and asked some questions about the fish that Aureliano could not answer because he was seized with a sudden attack of asthma. He wanted to stay beside that lily skin forever, beside those emerald eyes, close to that voice that called him “sir?with every question. showing the same respect that she gave her father. Melquíades was in the corner seated at the desk scribbling indecipherable signs. Aureliano hated him. All he could do was tell Remedios that he was going to give her the little fish and the girl was so startled by the offer that she left the workshop as fast as she could. That afternoon Aureliano lost the hidden patience with which he had waited for a chance to see her. He neglected his work. In several desperate efforts of concentration he willed her to appear but Remedios did not respond. He looked for her in her sisters?shop, behind the window shades in her house, in her father’s office, but he found her only in the image that saturated his private and terrible solitude. He would spend whole hours with Rebeca in the parlor listening to the music on the pianola. She was listening to it because it was the music with which Pietro Crespi had taught them how to dance. Aureliano listened to it simply because everything, even music, reminded him of Remedios.
   The house became full of loves Aureliano expressed it in poetry that had no beginning or end. He would write it on the harsh pieces of parchment that Melquíades gave him, on the bathroom walls, on the skin of his arms, and in all of it Remedios would appear transfigured: Remedios in the soporific air of two in the afternoon, Remedios in the soft breath of the roses, Remedios in the water-clock secrets of the moths, Remedios in the steaming morning bread, Remedios everywhere and Remedios forever. Rebeca waited for her love at four in the afternoon, embroidering by the window. She knew that the mailman’s mule arrived only every two weeks, but she always waited for him, convinced that he was going to arrive on some other day by mistake. It happened quite the opposite: once the mule did not come on the usual day. Mad with desperation, Rebeca got up in the middle of the night and ate handfuls of earth in the garden with a suicidal drive, weeping with pain and fury, chewing tender earthworms and chipping her teeth on snail shells. She vomited until dawn. She fell into a state of feverish prostration, lost consciousness, and her heart went into a shameless delirium. ?rsula, scandalized, forced the lock on her trunk and found at the bottom, tied together with pink ribbons, the sixteen perfumed letters and the skeletons of leaves and petals preserved in old books and the dried butterflies that turned to powder at the touch.
   Aureliano was the only one capable of understanding such desolation. That afternoon, while ?rsula was trying to rescue Rebeca from the slough of delirium, he went with Magnífico Visbal and Gerineldo Márquez to Catarino’s store. The establishment had been expanded with a gallery of wooden rooms where single women who smelled of dead flowers lived. A group made up of an accordion and drums played the songs of Francisco the Man, who had not been seen in Macondo for several years. The three friends drank fermented cane juice. Magnífico and Gerineldo, contemporaries of Aureliano but more skilled in the ways of the world, drank methodically with the women seated on their laps. One of the women, withered and with goldwork on her teeth, gave Aureliano a caress that made him shudder. He rejected her. He had discovered that the more he drank the more he thought about Remedios, but he could bear the torture of his recollections better. He did not know exactly when he began to float. He saw his friends and the women sailing in a radiant glow, without weight or mass, saying words that did not come out of their mouths and making mysterious signals that did not correspond to their expressions. Catarino put a hand on his shoulder and said to him: “It’s going on eleven.?Aureliano turned his head, saw the enormous disfigured face with a felt flower behind the ear, and then he lost his memory, as during the times of forgetfulness, and he recovered it on a strange dawn and in a room that was completely foreign, where Pilar Ternera stood in her slip, barefoot, her hair down, holding a lamp over him, startled with disbelief.
   “Aureliano!?
   Aureliano checked his feet and raised his head. He did not know how he had come there, but he knew what his aim was, because he had carried it hidden since infancy in an inviolable backwater of his heart.
   “I’ve come to sleep with you,?he said.
   His clothes were smeared with mud and vomit. Pilar Ternera, who lived alone at that time with her two younger children, did not ask him any questions. She took him to the bed. She cleaned his face with a damp cloth, took of his clothes, and then got completely undressed and lowered the mosquito netting so that her children would not see them if they woke up. She had become tired of waiting for the man who would stay, of the men who left, of the countless men who missed the road to her house, confused by the uncertainty of the cards. During the wait her skin had become wrinkled, her breasts had withered, the coals of her heart had gone out. She felt for Aureliano in the darkness, put her hand on his stomach and kissed him on the neck with a maternal tenderness. “My poor child,?she murmured. Aureliano shuddered. With a calm skill, without the slightest misstep, he left his accumulated grief behind and found Remedios changed into a swamp without horizons, smelling of a raw animal and recently ironed clothes. When he came to the surface he was weeping. First they were involuntary and broken sobs. Then he emptied himself out in an unleashed flow, feeling that something swollen and painful had burst inside of him. She waited, snatching his head with the tips of her fingers, until his body got rid of the dark material that would not let him live. They Pilar Ternera asked him: “Who is it??And Aureliano told her. She let out a laugh that in other times frightened the doves and that now did not even wake up the children. “You’ll have to raise her first,?she mocked, but underneath the mockery Aureliano found a reservoir of understanding. When he went out of the room, leaving behind not only his doubts about his virility but also the bitter weight that his heart had borne for so many months, Pilar Ternera made him a spontaneous promise.
   “I’m going to talk to the girl,?she told him, “and you’ll see what I’ll serve her on the tray.?
   She kept her promise. But it was a bad moment, because the house had lost its peace of former days. When she discovered Rebeca’s passion, which was impossible to keep secret because of her shouts, Amaranta suffered an attack of fever. She also suffered from the barb of a lonely love. Shut up in the bathroom, she would release herself from the torment of a hopeless passion by writing feverish letters, which she finally hid in the bottom of her trunk. ?rsula barely had the strength to take care of the two sick girls. She was unable, after prolonged and insidious interrogations, to ascertain the causes of Amaranta’s prostration. Finally, in another moment of inspiration, she forced the lock on the trunk and found the letters tied with a pink ribbon, swollen with fresh lilies and still wet with tears, addressed and never sent to Pietro Crespi. Weeping with rage, she cursed the day that it had occurred to her to buy the pianola, and she forbade the embroidery lessons and decreed a kind of mourning with no one dead which was to be prolonged until the daughters got over their hopes. Useless was the intervention of Jos?Arcadio Buendía, who had modified his first impression of Pietro Crespi and admired his ability in the manipulation of musical machines. So that when Pilar Ternera told Aureliano that Remedios had decided on marriage, he could see that the news would only give his parents more trouble. Invited to the parlor for a formal interview, Jos?Arcadio Buendía and ?rsula listened stonily to their son’s declaration. When he learned the name of the fiancée, however, Jos?Arcadio Buendía grew red with indignation. “Love is a disease,?he thundered. “With so many pretty and decent girls around, the only thing that occurs to you is to get married to the daughter of our enemy.?But ?rsula agreed with the choice. She confessed her affection for the seven Moscote sisters. for their beauty, their ability for work, their modesty, and their good manners, and she celebrated her son’s prudence. Conquered by his wife’s enthusiasm, Jos?Arcadio Buendía then laid down one condition: Rebeca, who was the one he wanted, would marry Pietro Crespi. ?rsula would take Amaranta on a trip to the capital of the province when she had time, so that contact with different people would alleviate her disappointment. Rebeca got her health back just as soon as she heard of the agreement, and she wrote her fianc?a jubilant letter that she submitted to her parents?approval and put into the mail without the use of any intermediaries. Amaranta pretended to accept the decision and little by little she recovered from her fevers, but she promised herself that Rebeca would marry only over her dead body.
   The following Saturday Jos?Arcadio Buendía put on his dark suit, his celluloid collar, and the deerskin boots that he had worn for the first time the night of the party, and went to ask for the hand of Remedios Moscote. The magistrate and his wife received him, pleased and worried at the same time, for they did not know the reason for the unexpected visit, and then they thought that he was confused about the name of the intended bride. In order to remove the mistake, the mother woke Remedios up and carried her into the living room, still drowsy from sleep. They asked her if it was true that she had decided to get married, and she answered, whimpering, that she only wanted them to let her sleep. Jos?Arcadio Buendía, understanding the distress of the Moscotes, went to clear things up with Aureliano. When he returned, the Moscotes had put on formal clothing, had rearranged the furniture and put fresh flowers in the vases, and were waiting in the company of their older daughters. Overwhelmed by the unpleasantness of the occasion and the bothersome hard collar, Jos?Arcadio Buendía confirmed the fact that Remedios, indeed, was the chosen one. “It doesn’t make sense,?Don Apolinar Moscote said with consternation. “We have six other daughters, all unmarried, and at an age where they deserve it, who would be delighted to be the honorable wife of a gentleman as serious and hard-working as your son, and Aurelito lays his eyes precisely on the one who still wets her bed.?His wife, a well-preserved woman with afflicted eyelids and expression, scolded his mistake. When they finished the fruit punch, they willingly accepted Aureliano’s decision. Except that Se?ora Moscote begged the favor of speaking to ?rsula alone. Intrigued, protesting that they were involving her in men’s affairs, but really feeling deep emotion, ?rsula went to visit her the next day. A half hour later she returned with the news that Remedios had not reached puberty. Aureliano did not consider that a serious barrier. He had waited so long that he could wait as long as was necessary until his bride reached the age of conception.
   The newfound harmony was interrupted by the death of Melquíades. Although it was a foreseeable event, the circumstances were not. A few months after his return, a process of aging had taken place in him that was so rapid and critical that soon he was treated as one of those useless great-grandfathers who wander about the bedrooms like shades, dragging their feet, remembering better times aloud, and whom no one bothers about or remembers really until the morning they find them dead in their bed. At first Jos?Arcadio Buendía helped him in his work, enthusiastic over the novelty of the daguerreotypes and the predictions of Nostradamus. But little by little he began abandoning him to his solitude, for communication was becoming Increasingly difficult. He was losing his sight and his hearing, he seemed to confuse the people he was speaking to with others he had known in remote epochs of mankind, and he would answer questions with a complex hodgepodge of languages. He would walk along groping in the air, although he passed between objects with an inexplicable fluidity, as if be were endowed with some instinct of direction based on an immediate prescience. One day he forgot to put in his false teeth, which at night he left in a glass of water beside his bed, and he never put them in again. When ?rsula undertook the enlargement of the house, she had them build him a special room next to Aureliano’s workshop, far from the noise and bustle of the house, with a window flooded with light and a bookcase where she herself put in order the books that were almost destroyed by dust and moths, the flaky stacks of paper covered with indecipherable signs, and the glass with his false teeth, where some aquatic plants with tiny yellow flowers had taken root. The new place seemed to please Melquíades, because he was never seen any more, not even in the dining room, He only went to Aureliano’s workshop, where he would spend hours on end scribbling his enigmatic literature on the parchments that he had brought with him and that seemed to have been made out of some dry material that crumpled like puff paste. There he ate the meals that Visitación brought him twice a day, although in the last days he lost his appetite and fed only on vegetables. He soon acquired the forlorn look that one sees in vegetarians. His skin became covered with a thin moss, similar to that which flourished on the antique vest that he never took off, and his breath exhaled the odor of a sleeping animal. Aureliano ended up forgetting about him, absorbed in the composition of his poems, but on one occasion he thought he understood something of what Melquíades was saying in his groping monologues, and he paid attention. In reality, the only thing that could be isolated in the rocky paragraphs was the insistent hammering on the word equinox, equinox, equinox, and the name of Alexander von Humboldt. Arcadio got a little closer to him when he began to help Aureliano in his silverwork. Melquíades answered that effort at communication at times by giving forth with phrases in Spanish that had very little to do with reality. One afternoon, however, he seemed to be illuminated by a sudden emotion. Years later, facing the firing squad, Arcadio would remember the trembling with which Melquíades made him listen to several pages of his impenetrable writing, which of course he did not understand, but which when read aloud were like encyclicals being chanted. Then he smiled for the first time in a long while and said in Spanish: “When I die, burn mercury in my room for three days.?Arcadio told that to Jos?Arcadio Buendía and the latter tried to get more explicit information, but he received only one answer: “I have found immortality.?When Melquíades?breathing began to smell, Arcadio took him to bathe in the river on Thursday mornings. He seemed to get better. He would undress and get into the water with the boys, and his mysterious sense of orientation would allow him to avoid the deep and dangerous spots. “We come from the water,?he said on a certain occasion. Much time passed in that way without anyone’s seeing him in the house except on the night when he made a pathetic effort to fix the pianola, and when he would go to the river with Arcadio, carrying under his arm a gourd and a bar of palm oil soap wrapped in a towel. One Thursday before they called him to go to the river, Aureliano heard him say: “I have died of fever on the dunes of Singapore.?That day he went into the water at a bad spot and they did not find him until the following day, a few miles downstream, washed up on a bright bend in the river and with a solitary vulture sitting on his stomach. Over the scandalized protests of ?rsula, who wept with more grief than she had had for her own father, Jos?Arcadio Buendía was opposed to their burying him. “He is immortal,?he said, “and he himself revealed the formula of his resurrection.?He brought out the forgotten water pipe and put a kettle of mercury to boil next to the body, which little by little was filling with blue bubbles. Don Apolinar Moscote ventured to remind him that an unburied drowned man was a danger to public health. “None of that, because he’s alive,?was the answer of Jos?Arcadio Buendía, who finished the seventy-two hours with the mercurial incense as the body was already beginning to burst with a livid fluorescence, the soft whistles of which impregnated the house with a pestilential vapor. Only then did he permit them to bury him, not in any ordinary way, but with the honors reserved for Macondo’s greatest benefactor. It was the first burial and the best-attended one that was ever seen in the town, only surpassed, a century later, by Big Mama’s funeral carnival. They buried him in a grave dug in the center of the plot destined for the cemetery, with a stone on which they wrote the only thing they knew about him: MELQU?ADES. They gave him his nine nights of wake. In the tumult that gathered in the courtyard to drink coffee, tell jokes, and play cards. Amaranta found a chance to confess her love to Pietro Crespi, who a few weeks before had formalized his promise to Rebeca and had set up a store for musical instruments and mechanical toys in the same section where the Arabs had lingered in other times swapping knickknacks for macaws, and which the people called the Street of the Turks. The Italian, whose head covered with patent leather curls aroused in women an irrepressible need to sigh, dealt with Amaranta as with a capricious little girl who was not worth taking seriously.
   “I have a younger brother,?he told her. “He’s coming to help me in the store.?
   Amaranta felt humiliated and told Pietro Crespi with a virulent anger that she was prepared to stop her sister’s wedding even if her own dead body had to lie across the door. The Italian was so impressed by the dramatics of the threat that he could not resist the temptation to mention it to Rebeca. That was how Amaranta’s trip, always put off by ?rsula’s work, was arranged in less than a week. Amaranta put up no resistance, but when she kissed Rebeca good-bye she whispered in her ear:
   “Don’t get your hopes up. Even if they send me to the ends of the earth I’ll find some way of stopping you from getting married, even if I have to kill you.?
   With the absence of ?rsula, with the invisible presence of Melquíades, who continued his stealthy shuffling through the rooms, the house seemed enormous and empty. Rebeca took charge of domestic order, while the Indian woman took care of the bakery. At dusk, when Pietro Crespi would arrive, preceded by a cool breath of lavender and always bringing a toy as a gift, his fiancée would receive the visitor in the main parlor with doors and windows open to be safe from any suspicion. It was an unnecessary precaution, for the Italian had shown himself to be so respectful that he did not even touch the hand of the woman who was going to be his wife within the year. Those visits were filling the house with remarkable toys. Mechanical ballerinas, music boxes, acrobatic monkeys, trotting horses, clowns who played the tambourine: the rich and startling mechanical fauna that Pietro Crespi brought dissipated Jos?Arcadio Buendía’s affliction over the death of Melquíades and carried him back to his old days as an alchemist. He lived at that time in a paradise of disemboweled animals, of mechanisms that had been taken apart in an attempt to perfect them with a system of perpetual motion based upon the principles of the pendulum. Aureliano, for his part, had neglected the workshop in order to teach little Remedios to read and write. At first the child preferred her dolls to the man who would come every afternoon and who was responsible for her being separated from her toys in order to be bathed and dressed and seated in the parlor to receive the visitor. But Aureliano’s patience and devotion finally won her over, up to the point where she would spend many hours with him studying the meaning of the letters and sketching in a notebook with colored pencils little houses with cows in the corral and round suns with yellow rays that hid behind the hills.
   Only Rebeca was unhappy, because of Amaranta’s threat. She knew her sister’s character, the haughtiness of her spirit, and she was frightened by the virulence of her anger. She would spend whole hours sucking her finger in the bathroom, holding herself back with an exhausting iron will so as not to eat earth. In search of some relief for her uncertainty, she called Pilar Ternera to read her future. After a string of conventional vagaries, Pilar Ternera predicted:
   “You will not be happy as long as your parents remain unburied.?
   Rebeca shuddered. As in the memory of a dream she saw herself entering the house as a very small girl, with the trunk and the little rocker, and a bag whose contents she had never known. She remembered a bald gentleman dressed in linen and with his collar closed by a gold button, who had nothing to do with the king of hearts. She remembered a very young and beautiful woman with warm and perfumed hands, who had nothing in common with the jack of diamonds and his rheumatic hands, and who used to put flowers in her hair and take her out walking in the afternoon through a town with green streets.
   “I don’t understand,?she said.
   Pilar Ternera seemed disconcerted:
   “I don’t either, but that’s what the cards say.?
   Rebeca was so preoccupied with the enigma that she told it to Jos?Arcadio Buendía, and he scolded her for believing in the predictions of the cards, but he undertook the silent task of searching closets and trunks, moving furniture and turning over beds and floorboards looking for the bag of bones. He remembered that he had not seen it since the time of the rebuilding. He secretly summoned the masons and one of them revealed that he had walled up the bag in some bedroom because it bothered him in his work. After several days of listening, with their ears against the walls, they perceived the deep cloc-cloc. They penetrated the wall and there were the bones in the intact bag. They buried it the same day in a grave without a stone next to that of Melquíades, and Jos?Arcadio Buendía returned home free of a burden that for a moment had weighed on his conscience as much as the memory of Prudencio Aguilar. When he went through the kitchen he kissed Rebeca on the forehead.
   “Get those bad thoughts out of your head,?he told her. “You’re going to be happy.?
   The friendship with Rebeca opened up to Pilar Ternera the doors of the house, closed by ?rsula since the birth of Arcadio. She would arrive at any hour of the day, like a flock of goats, and would unleash her feverish energy in the hardest tasks. Sometimes she would go into the workshop and help Arcadio sensitize the daguerreotype plates with an efficiency and a tenderness that ended up by confusing him. That woman bothered him. The tan of her skin, her smell of smoke, the disorder of her laughter in the darkroom distracted his attention and made him bump into things.
   On a certain occasion Aureliano was there working on his silver, and Pilar Ternera leaned over the table to admire his laborious patience. Suddenly it happened. Aureliano made sure that Arcadio was in the darkroom before raising his eyes and meeting those of Pilar Ternera, whose thought was perfectly visible, as if exposed to the light of noon.
   “Well,?Aureliano said. “Tell me what it is.?
   Pilar Ternera bit her lips with a sad smile.
   “That you’d be good in a war,?she said. “Where you put your eye, you put your bullet.?
   Aureliano relaxed with the proof of the omen. He went back to concentrate on his work as if nothing had happened, and his voice took on a restful strength.
   “I will recognize him,?he said. “He’ll bear my name.?
   Jos?Arcadio Buendía finally got what he was looking for: he connected the mechanism of the clock to a mechanical ballerina, and the toy danced uninterruptedly to the rhythm of her own music for three days. That discovery excited him much more than any of his other harebrained undertakings. He stopped eating. He stopped sleeping. Only the vigilance and care of Rebeca kept him from being dragged off by his imagination into a state of perpetual delirium from which he would not recover. He would spend the nights walking around the room thinking aloud, searching for a way to apply the principles of the pendulum to oxcarts, to harrows, to everything that was useful when put into motion. The fever of insomnia fatigued him so much that one dawn he could not recognize the old man with white hair and uncertain gestures who came into his bedroom. It was Prudencio Aguilar. When he finally identified him, startled that the dead also aged, Jos?Arcadio Buendía felt himself shaken by nostalgia. “Prudencio,?he exclaimed. “You’ve come from a long way off!?After many years of death the yearning for the living was so intense, the need for company so pressing, so terrifying the neatness of that other death which exists within death, that Prudencio Aguilar had ended up loving his worst enemy. He had spent a great deal of time looking for him. He asked the dead from Riohacha about him, the dead who came from the Upar Valley, those who came from the swamp, and no one could tell him because Macondo was a town that was unknown to the dead until Melquíades arrived and marked it with a small black dot on the motley maps of death. Jos?Arcadio Buendía conversed with Prudencio Aguilar until dawn. A few hours later, worn out by the vigil, he went into Aureliano’s workshop and asked him: “What day is today??Aureliano told him that it was Tuesday. “I was thinking the same thing,?Jos?Arcadio Buendía said, “but suddenly I realized that it’s still Monday, like yesterday. Look at the sky, look at the walls, look at the begonias. Today is Monday too.?Used to his manias, Aureliano paid no attention to him. On the next day, Wednesday, Jos?Arcadio Buendía went back to the workshop. “This is a disaster,?he said. “Look at the air, listen to the buzzing of the sun, the same as yesterday and the day before. Today is Monday too.?That night Pietro Crespi found him on the porch, weeping for Prudencio Aguilar, for Melquíades, for Rebeca’s parents, for his mother and father, for all of those he could remember and who were now alone in death. He gave him a mechanical bear that walked on its hind legs on a tightrope, but he could not distract him from his obsession. He asked him what had happened to the project he had explained to him a few days before about the possibility of building a pendulum machine that would help men to fly and he answered that it was impossible because a pendulum could lift anything into the air but it could not lift itself. On Thursday he appeared in the workshop again with the painful look of plowed ground. “The time machine has broken,?he almost sobbed, “and ?rsula and Amaranta so far away!?Aureliano scolded him like a child and he adopted a contrite air. He spent six hours examining things, trying to find a difference from their appearance on the previous day in the hope of discovering in them some change that would reveal the passage of time. He spent the whole night in bed with his eyes open, calling to Prudencio Aguilar, to Melquíades, to all the dead, so that they would share his distress. But no one came. On Friday. before anyone arose, he watched the appearance of nature again until he did not have the slightest doubt but that it was Monday. Then he grabbed the bar from a door and with the savage violence of his uncommon strength he smashed to dust the equipment in the alchemy laboratory, the daguerreotype room, the silver workshop, shouting like a man possessed in some high-sounding and fluent but completely incomprehensible language. He was about to finish off the rest of the house when Aureliano asked the neighbors for help. Ten men were needed to get him down, fourteen to tie him up, twenty to drag him to the chestnut tree in the courtyard, where they left him tied up, barking in the strange language and giving off a green froth at the mouth. When ?rsula and Amaranta returned he was still tied to the trunk of the chestnut tree by his hands and feet, soaked with rain and in a state of total innocence. They spoke to him and he looked at them without recognizing them, saying things they did not understand. ?rsula untied his wrists and ankles, lacerated by the pressure of the rope, and left him tied only by the waist. Later on they built him a shelter of palm brandies to protect him from the sun and the rain.



第四章

  白得象鸽子的新宅落成之后,举行了一次庆祝舞会。扩建房屋的事是乌苏娜那天下午想到的,因为她发现雷贝卡和阿玛兰塔都已成了大姑娘。其实,大兴土木的主要原因就是希望有个合适的地方便于姑娘们接待客人。为了出色地实现自己的愿望,乌苏娜活象个做苦工的女人,在修建过程中一直艰苦地劳动,甚至在房屋竣工之前,她就靠出售糖果和面包赚了那么多伪钱,以便能够定购许多稀罕和贵重的东西,用作房屋的装饰和设备,其中有一件将会引起全镇惊讶和青年们狂欢的奇异发明一自动钢琴。钢琴是拆放在几口箱子里运到的,一块儿运采的有维也纳家具、波希米亚水晶玻璃器皿、西印度公司餐具、荷兰桌布,还有许多各式各样的灯具、烛台、花瓶、窗帷和地毯。供应这些货色的商号自费派来了一名意大利技师皮埃特罗·克列斯比,由他负责装配和调准钢琴,指导买主如何使用,并且教他们随着六卷录音带上的流行歌曲跳舞。
  皮埃特罗·克列斯比是个头发淡黄的年轻小伙子,马孔多还不曾见过这样漂亮、端庄的男人。他那么注重外表,即使在闷热的天气下工作,也不脱掉锦缎坎肩和黑色厚呢上装。他在客厅里关了几个星期,经常大汗淋淋,全神倾注地埋头工作,就象奥雷连诺干活那样。在房主人面前,他却保持着恰如其分的距离。有一天早晨,皮埃特罗·克列斯比没有打开客厅的门,也没叫任何人来观看奇迹,就把第一卷录音带插入钢琴,讨厌槌子敲击声和经久不息的噪音都突然停止了,在静谧中奇异地响起了和谐和纯正的乐曲。大家跑进客厅。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚惊得发呆,但他觉得奇异的不是美妙的旋律,而是琴键的自动起落。他甚至在房间里安好了梅尔加德斯的照相机,打算把看不见的钢琴手拍摄下来。这天早晨,意大利人跟全家一起进餐。这个天使般的人,双手白皙,没戴戒指,异常老练地使用着刀叉,照顾用膳的雷贝卡和阿玛兰塔一见就有点惊异。在客厅隔壁的大厅里,皮埃特罗·克列斯比开始教她们跳舞。他并不跟姑娘们接触,只用节拍器打着拍子,向她们表演各种舞步;乌苏娜却在旁边彬彬有礼地监视;女儿们学习跳舞的时候,她一分钟也没离开房间。在这些日子里,皮埃特罗·克列斯比穿上了舞鞋和紧绷绷的特殊裤子。
  “你不必那么担心,”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚对妻子说,”因为这人象个娘儿们。”可是,在舞蹈训练结束、意大利人离开马孔多之后,乌苏娜才离开了自己的岗位,接着开始了庆祝的准备工作。乌苏娜拟了一份很有限的客人名单,其中仅仅包括马孔多建村者的家庭成员,皮拉·苔列娜一家人却不在内,因为这时她又跟不知什么男人生了两个儿子。实际上,客人是按门第挑选的,虽然也是由友情决定的:因为被邀请的人都是远征和马孔多建村之前霍·阿·布恩蒂亚家的老朋友和他们的后代;而这些后代从小就是奥雷连诺和阿卡蒂奥的密友,或者是跟雷贝卡和阿玛兰塔一块儿绣花的姑娘。阿·摩斯柯特先生是个温和的镇长,他的权力纯粹是有名无实的,他干的事情就是靠自己的一点儿钱养着两名用木棒武装起来的警察。为了弥补家庭开销,他的女儿们开设了一家缝纫店,同时制作假花和番石榴糖果,甚至根据特殊要求代写情书。尽管这些姑娘朴实、勤劳,是镇上最漂亮的,新式舞比谁都跳得得好,可是她们却没列入舞会客人的名单。
  乌苏娜、阿玛兰塔和雷贝卡拆出裹着的家具,把银器洗刷干净,而且为了在泥瓦匠砌成的光秃秃的墙壁上增加生气,到处挂起了蔷薇船上的少女图;这时,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚却不再继续追踪上帝的影象论战的艺术,古代指在辩论中用以揭露对方议论中的矛盾并,相信上帝是不存在的,而且拆开了自动钢琴,打算识破它那不可思议的秘密。在庆祝舞会之前的两天,他埋在不知哪儿弄来的一大堆螺钉和小槌子里,在乱七八糟的弦线中间瞎忙一气,这些弦线呀,刚从一端把它们伸直,它们立刻又从另一端卷了起来。他好不容易才把乐器重新装配好。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚家里还从来不曾这么忙乱过,但是新的煤油灯正好在规定的日子和规定的时刻亮了。房子还有焦油味和灰浆味,就开了门。马孔多老居民的子孙参观了摆着欧洲碳和秋海棠的长廊,观看了暂时还寂静无声的一间间卧室,欣赏了充满玫瑰芳香的花园,然后簇拥在客厅里用白罩单遮住的一个神奇宝贝周围。自动钢琴在沼泽地带的其他城镇是相当普及的,那些已经见过这种乐器的人就觉得有点扫兴,然而最失望的是乌苏娜:她把第一卷录音带放进钢琴,想让雷贝卡和阿玛兰塔婆娑起舞,钢琴却不动了。梅尔加德斯几乎已经双目失明,衰老已极,却想用往日那种神奇的本事把钢琴修好。最后,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚完全偶然地移动了一下卡住的零件,钢琴就发出了乐曲声,开头是咔嗒咔嗒的声音,然后却涌出混乱不堪的曲调。在随便绷紧、胡乱调好的琴弦上,一个个小槌子不住地瞎敲。可是,翻山越岭寻找过海洋的二十一个勇士顽固的后代,没去理睬杂乱无章的乐曲。舞会一直继续到了黎明。
  为了修理自动钢琴,皮埃特罗·克列斯比回到了马孔多。雷贝卡和阿玛兰塔协助他拾掇琴弦;听到完全走了调的华尔兹舞曲,她们就跟他一块儿嬉笑。意大利人显得那么和蔼、尊严,乌苏娜这一次放弃了监视。在他离开之前,用修好的钢琴举行了一次欢送舞会,皮埃特罗·克列斯比和雷贝卡搭配,表演了现代舞的高超艺术。阿卡蒂奥和阿玛兰塔在优雅和灵巧上可跟他们媲美。然而舞蹈的示范表演不得不中止,因为和其他好奇者一块儿站在门口的皮拉·苔列娜,跟一个女人揪打了起来,那女人竟敢说年轻的阿卡蒂奥长着娘儿们的屁股。已经午夜。皮埃特罗·克列斯比发表了一次动人的告别演说,答应很快回来。雷贝卡把他送到门边;房门关上、灯盏熄灭之后,她回到自己的卧室,流山了热泪。这种无可安慰的痛哭延续了几天,谁都不知原因何在,甚至阿玛兰塔也不明究竟。对于雷贝卡的秘密,家里人并不感到奇怪。雷贝卡表面温和,容易接近,但她性情孤僻,心思叫人捉摸不透。她已经是个漂亮、强健、修长的姑娘,可是照旧喜欢坐在她带来的摇椅里,这个摇椅已经修了不止一次,没有扶手。谁也猜想不到,雷贝卡即使到了这种年岁,仍有咂吮手指的习惯。因此,她经常利用一切方便的机会躲在浴室里,并且惯于面向墙壁睡觉。现在,每逢雨天的下午,她跟女伴们一起在摆着秋海棠的长廊上绣花时,看见园中湿漉漉的小道和蚯蚓垒起的土堆,她会突然中断谈话,怀念的苦泪就会梳到她的嘴角。她一开始痛哭,从前用橙子汁和大黄克服的恶劣嗜好,又不可遏止地在她身上出现了。雷贝卡又开始吃土。她第一次这么做多半出于好奇,以为讨厌的味道将是对付诱惑力的良药。实际上,她立刻就把泥上吐了出来。但她烦恼不堪,就继续自己的尝试,逐渐恢复了对原生矿物(注:未曾氧化的矿物)的癖好。她把土装在衣兜里,一面教女伴们最难的针脚,一面跟她们议论各种各样的男人,说是值不得为他们去大吃泥土和石灰,同时却怀着既愉快又痛苦的模糊感觉,悄悄地把一撮撮泥土吃掉了。这一撮撮泥土似乎能使值得她屈辱牺牲的唯一的男人更加真切,更加跟她接近,仿佛泥土的余味在她嘴里留下了温暖,在她心中留下了慰藉;这泥土的余味跟他那漂亮的漆皮鞋在世界另一头所踩的土地息息相连,她从这种余味中也感觉到了他的脉搏和体温。有一天下午,安芭萝·摩斯柯特无缘无故地要求允许她看看新房子。阿玛兰塔和雷贝卡被这意外的访问弄得很窘,就冷淡而客气地接待她。她们领她看了看改建的房子,让她听了听自动钢琴的乐曲,拿柠檬水和饼干款待她。安芭萝教导她们如何保持自己的尊严、魅力和良好的风度,这给了乌苏娜深刻的印象,尽管乌苏娜在房间里只呆了几分钟。两小时以后,谈话就要结束时,安芭萝利用阿玛兰塔刹那间心神分散的机会,交给雷贝卡一封信。雷贝卡晃眼一看信封上“亲爱的雷贝卡·布恩蒂亚小姐”这个称呼,发现规整的字体、绿色的墨水、漂亮的笔迹,都跟钢琴说明书一样,就用指尖把信摺好,藏到怀里,同时望着安芭萝·摩斯柯特,她的眼神表露了无穷的感谢,仿佛默默地答应跟对方做一辈子的密友。
  安芭萝·摩斯柯特和雷贝卡之间突然产生的友谊,在奥雷连诺心中激起了希望。他仍在苦苦地想念小姑娘雷麦黛丝,可是没有见到她的机会。他跟自己最亲密的朋友马格尼菲柯·维期巴尔和格林列尔多·马克斯(都是马孔多建村者的儿子,名字和父亲相同)一起在镇上溜达时,用渴望的目光在缝纫店里找她,只是发现了她的几个姐姐。安芭萝·摩斯柯特出现在他的家里,就是一个预兆。“她一定会跟安芭萝一块儿来的,”奥雷连诺低声自语,“一定。”他怀着那样的信心多次叨咕这几个字儿,以致有一天下午,他在作坊里装配小金鱼首饰时,忽然相信雷麦黛丝已经响应他的召唤。的确,过了一会儿,他就听到一个孩子的声音;他举眼一看,看见门口的一个姑娘,他的心都惊得缩紧了;这姑娘穿着粉红色玻璃纱衣服和白鞋子。
  “不能到里面去,雷麦黛丝,”安芭萝·摩斯柯特从廊子上叫道。“人家正在干活。”
  然而,奥雷连诺不让姑娘有时间回答,就把链条穿着嘴巴的小金鱼举到空中,说道:
  “进来。”
  雷麦黛丝走了进去,问了问有关金鱼的什么,可是奥雷连诺突然喘不过气,无法回答她的问题。他想永远呆在这个皮肤细嫩的姑娘身边,经常看见这对绿宝石似的眼睛,常常听到这种声音;对于每个问题,这声音都要尊敬地添上“先生”二字,仿佛对待亲父亲一样。梅尔加德斯坐在角落里的桌子旁边,正在潦草地画些难以理解的符号。奥雷连诺讨厌他。他刚要雷麦黛丝把小金鱼拿去作纪念,小姑娘就吓得跑出了作坊。这天下午,奥雷连诺失去了潜在的耐心,他是一直怀着这种耐心伺机跟她相见的。他放下了工作。他多次专心致志地拼命努力,希望再把雷麦黛丝叫来,可她不听。他在她姐姐的缝纫店里找她,在她家的窗帘后面找她,在她父亲的办公室里找她,可是只能在自己心中想到她的形象,这个形象倒也减轻了他那可怕的孤独之感。奥雷连诺一连几小时呆在客厅里,跟雷贝卡一起倾听自动钢琴的华兹舞曲。她听这些乐曲,因为皮埃特罗·克列斯比曾在这种音乐中教她跳舞。奥雷连诺倾听这些乐曲,只是因为一切东西一-甚至音乐一-都使他想起雷麦黛丝。
  家里的人都在谈情说爱。奥雷连诺用无头无尾的诗句倾诉爱情。他把诗句写在梅尔加德斯给他的粗糙的羊皮纸上、浴室墙壁上、自个儿手上,这些诗里都有改了观的雷麦黛丝:晌午闷热空气中的雷麦黛丝;玫瑰清香中的雷麦黛丝;早餐面包腾腾热气中的雷麦黛丝--随时随地都有雷麦黛丝。每天下午四点,雷贝卡一面坐在窗前绣花,一面等候自己的情书。她清楚地知道,运送邮件的骡子前来马孔多每月只有两次,可她时时刻刻都在等它,以为它可能弄错时间,任何一天都会到达。情形恰恰相反:有一次,骡子在规定的日子却没有来。雷贝卡苦恼得发疯,半夜起来,急匆匆地到了花园里,自杀一样贪婪地吞食一撮撮泥土,一面痛苦和愤怒地哭泣,一面嚼着软搭搭的蚯蚓,牙床都给蜗牛壳碎片割伤了。到天亮时,她呕吐了。她陷入了某种狂热、沮丧的状态,失去了知觉,在呓语中无耻地泄露了心中的秘密。恼怒的乌苏娜撬开箱子的锁,在箱子底儿找到了十六封洒上香水的情书,是用粉红色绦带扎上的;还有一些残余的树叶和花瓣,是夹在旧书的书页之间的;此外是些蝴蝶标本,刚一碰就变成了灰。
  雷贝卡的悲观失望,只有奥雷连诺一个人能够理解。那天下午,乌苏娜试图把雷贝卡从昏迷状态中救醒过来的时候,奥雷连诺跟马格尼菲柯·维斯巴尔和格林列尔多·马克斯来到了卡塔林诺游艺场。现在,这个游艺场增建了一排用木板隔开的小房间,住着一个个单身的女人,她们身上发出萎谢的花卉气味。手风琴手和鼓手组成的乐队演奏着弗兰西斯科人的歌曲,这些人已经几年没来马孔多了。三个朋友要了甘蔗酒,马格尼菲柯和格林列尔多是跟奥雷连诺同岁的,但在生活上比他老练,他俩不慌不忙地跟坐在他们膝上的女人喝酒。其中一个容颜枯槁、镶着金牙的女人试图抚摸奥雷连诺一下。可他推开了她。他发现自己喝得越多,就越想念雷麦黛丝,不过愁闷也就减少了。随后,奥雷连诺突然飘荡起来,他自己也不知道什么时候开始飘飘然的;他很快发现,他的朋友和女人也在朦胧的灯光里晃荡,成了混沌、飘忽的形体,他们所说的话,仿佛不是从他们嘴里出来的;他们那种神秘的手势跟他们面部的表情根本就不一致。卡塔林诺把一只手放在奥雷连诺肩上,说:“快十一点啦。”奥雷连诺扭过头去,看见一张模糊、宽大的面孔,还看见这人耳朵后面的一朵假花,然后他就象健忘症流行时那样昏迷过去,直到第二天拂晓才苏醒过来。他到了一个完全陌生的房间--皮拉·苔列娜站在他面前,穿着一件衬衫,光着脚丫,披头散发,拿灯照了照他,不相信地惊叫了一声:
  “原来是奥雷连诺!”
  奥雷连诺站稳脚根,抬起了头。他不知道自己是如何来到这儿的,但是清楚记得自己的目的,因为他从童年时代起就把这个目的密藏在心的深处。
  “我是来跟你睡觉的,”他说。
  奥雷连诺的衣服沾满了污泥和呕吐出来的脏东西。这时,皮拉·苔列娜只和自己的两个小儿子住在一起;她什么也没问他,就把他领到一个床铺,用湿布擦净他的脸,脱掉他的衣服,然后自己也脱得精光,放下蚊帐,免得两个儿子醒来看见。她等待留在原先那个村子的男人,等待离开这个村子的男人,等待那些被她的纸牌占卜弄得蒙头转向的男人,已经等得厌倦了;等呀盼呀,她的皮肤已经打皱了,乳房干瘪了,心里的欲火也熄灭了。皮拉·昔列娜在黑暗中摸到了奥雷连诺,把一只手放在他的肚子上,母亲一般温情地吻了吻他的脖子,低声说:“我可怜的孩子,”奥雷连诺战粟起来。他一点没有迟延,平稳地离开了岩石累累的悲袁的河岸,恍惚觉得雷麦黛丝变成了无边天际的沼泽,这片沼泽洋溢着原始动物的气息,散发出刚刚熨过的床单的味儿,他到了沼泽表面,却哭了。开头,这是不由自主的、断断续续的啜泣,然后,他就难以遏制地泪如泉涌。他心中感到极度的痛苦和难受。她用指尖抚摸着他的头发,等他把似乎使他难以生活下去的隐衷吐露出来。接着,皮拉·苔列娜问道:“她是谁呀?”于是,奥雷连诺告诉了她。她笑了起来;这种笑声往日曾把鸽子吓得飞到空中,现在却没有惊醒她的两个孩子。“你先得把她养大,”--皮拉·苔列娜打趣地说。可是奥雷连诺在这笑语后面觉到了深刻的同情。他走出房间时,不仅不再怀疑自己的男性特征,而且放下了几个月来心中痛苦的重负,因为皮拉·苔列娜突然答应帮他的忙。
  “我跟小姑娘说说,并且把她和盘端给你。瞧着吧。”
  皮拉·苔列娜履行了自己的诺言,但是时机并不合适,因为霍·阿·布恩蒂亚家里失去了往日的宁静。雷贝卡热烈的爱情暴露以后(这种爱情是无法掩藏的,因为雷贝卡在梦中大声地把它吐露了出来),阿玛兰塔忽然患了热病。她也受到爱情的煎熬,但却是单相思。她把自己关在浴室里,写了一封封炽热的信,倾诉空恋的痛苦,可她并没有寄出这些信,只把它们藏在箱子底儿。乌苏娜几乎没有精力同时照顾两个病人。经过长时间巧妙的盘问,她仍然没有弄清阿玛兰塔精神萎靡的原因。最后,她又灵机一动:撬开箱子的锁,发现了一叠用粉红色绦带扎着的信函,其间夹了一些新鲜的百合花,信上泪迹未干;这些信都是写给皮埃特罗·克列斯比的,但是没有寄出。乌苏娜发狂地痛哭流涕,叱骂自己那天心血来潮买了一架自动钢琴,并且禁止姑娘们绣花,宣布一个,没有死人的丧事,直到她的女儿们放弃自己的幻想为止。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚现在改变了原先对皮埃特罗·克列斯比的看法,赞扬他操纵乐器的本领,可是他的干预毫无用处。因此,皮拉·苔列娜向奥雷连诺说,雷麦黛丝同意嫁给他的时候,他虽明白这个消息只会加重父母的痛苦,但他还是决定面对自己的命运。他把父母请到客厅进行正式谈判,他们毫无表情地听了儿子的声明。但是,知道小姑娘的名字以后,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚气得面红筋胀。“你是不是爱得发疯了?”他怒吼起来。“周围有那么多漂亮、体面的姑娘,可你不找别人,偏要跟咱们冤家的女儿结婚?”乌苏娜却赞成儿子的选择。她承认,摩斯柯特的七个女儿都叫她喜欢,因为她们美丽、勤劳、朴实、文雅,而且她夸奖儿子眼力很好。妻子热情洋溢的赞美解除了霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的武装,他只提出一个条件:雷贝卡和皮埃特罗·克列斯比情投意合,她必须嫁给他。而且,乌苏娜能够抽空的时候,可以带着阿玛兰塔到省城去观光观光,跟各种各样的人接触可能减轻她失恋的痛苦。雷贝卡刚一知道父母同意,立刻就康复了,给未婚夫写了一封喜气洋洋的信,请父母过了目,就亲自送去邮寄。阿玛兰塔假装服从父母的决定,热病也渐渐好了,但她在心里赌咒发誓,雷贝卡只有跨过她的尸体才能结婚。
  下一个星期六,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚象舞会那天崭新的打扮一样,穿上黑呢衣服,戴上赛璐珞领子,蹬上鹿皮鞋,去雷麦黛丝·摩斯柯特家为儿子求婚。对于这次突然的访问,镇长夫妇不仅觉得荣幸,而且感到不安,因为不了解来访的原因;他们知道原因之后,又以为霍·阿·布因恩蒂亚把对象的名字弄错了。为了消除误会,母亲从床上抱起雷麦黛丝,抱进了客厅--小姑娘还没完全醒来。父母问她是不是真想嫁人,可她哭着说,她只要他们别打搅她睡觉。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚明白了摩斯柯特夫妇怀疑的缘由,就去要奥雷连诺澄清事实。当他回来的时候,夫妇俩已经改穿了合乎礼节的衣服,把客厅里的家具重新布置了一下,在花瓶以插满了鲜花,跟几个大女儿一起正在等候他。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚显得有点尴尬,而且被硬领弄得相当难受,肯定他说明儿子选中的对象真是雷麦黛丝。“可这是不合情理的,”懊丧的阿·摩斯柯特先生说。“除了她,我们还有六个女儿,她们全是待嫁的姑娘;象您公子这样稳重、勤劳的先生,她们每一个都会高兴地同意成为他的妻子的,可奥雷连诺选中的偏偏是还在尿床的一个。”他的妻子是个保养得很好的女人,神色不爽地责备丈夫说话粗鲁。在喝完果汁之后,夫妇俩被奥雷连诺坚贞不渝的精神感动了,终于表示同意。不过摩斯柯特太太要求跟乌苏娜单独谈谈。乌苏娜埋怨人家不该把她卷入男人的事情,其实很想知道个究竟,第二天就激动而畏怯地到了摩斯柯特家里。半小时后她回来说,雷麦黛丝还没达到成熟的时期。奥雷连诺并不认为这是重要障碍。他已经等了那么久,现在准备再等,要等多久都行,一直等候未婚妻到达能够生育的年龄。
  梅尔加德斯之死破坏了刚刚恢复的平静生活。这件事本身是可以预料到的,然而发生这件事的情况却很突然。梅尔加德斯回来之后过了几个月,他身上就出现了衰老的现象;这种衰老现象发展极快,这吉卜赛人很快就成了一个谁也不需要的老头儿了,这类老头儿总象幽灵似的,在房间里拖着腿子荡来荡去,大声地叨念过去的美好时光;谁也不理睬他们,甚至把他们抛到脑后,直到哪一天早上忽然发现他们死在床上。起初,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚醉心于照相术,并且佩服纳斯特拉达马斯的预言,所以帮助梅尔加德斯干事。可是后来霍·阿·布恩蒂亚就逐渐让他孤独地生活了,因为跟他接触越来越难。梅尔加德斯变得又瞎又聋,糊里糊涂,似乎把跟他谈话的人当成他知道的古人;回答问题时,他用的是稀奇古怪的混杂语言。他在屋子里行走的时候,总是东摸西摸的,尽管他在家具之间移动异常敏捷,仿佛有一种辨别方向的本能,这种本能的基础就是直觉。有一天夜里,他把假牙放在床边的一只水杯里,忘了把它们戴上,以后就再也没戴了。乌苏娜打算扩充房屋时,叫人给梅尔加德斯盖了一间单独的屋子,这间屋子靠近奥雷连诺的作坊,距离拥挤、嘈杂的主宅稍远一些,安了一扇敞亮的大窗子,还有一个书架,乌苏娜亲手把一些东西放在书架上,其中有:老头儿的一些布满尘土、虫子蛀坏的书籍;写满了神秘符号的易碎的纸页;放着假牙的水杯,水杯里已经长出了开着小黄花的水生植物。新的住所显然符合梅尔加德斯的心意,因为他连饭厅都不去了。能够碰见他的地方只有奥雷连诺的作坊,他在那儿一待就是几个小时,在以前带来的羊皮纸上潦草地写满了令人不解的符号;这类羊皮纸仿佛是用一种结实、干燥的材料制成的,象奶油松饼似的分作几层。他是在这作坊里吃饭的--维希塔香每天给他送两次饭--,然而最近以来他胃口不好,只吃蔬菜,所以很快就象素食者那样形容憔悴了。他的皮肤布满了霉斑,很象他从不脱下的那件破旧坎肩上的霉点。他象睡着的牲畜一样,呼出的气有一股臭味。埋头写诗的奥雷连诺,终于不再留意这吉卜赛人在不在旁边,可是有一次梅尔加德斯叽哩咕噜的时候,奥雷连诺觉得自己听懂了什么。他仔细倾听起来。在含混不清的话语中,他唯一能够听出的是象槌子敲击一样不断重复的字儿:“二分点”和一个人名--亚历山大·冯·洪波尔特。阿卡蒂奥帮助奥雷连诺千金银首饰活儿时,比较接近老头儿。阿卡蒂奥试图跟梅尔加德斯聊聊,老头儿有时也用西班牙语说上几句,然而这些话语跟周围的现实没有任何关系。但是有一天下午,吉卜赛人忽然激动起来。若干年以后,阿卡蒂奥站在行刑队面前的时候将会想起,梅尔加德斯浑身战栗,给他念了几页他无法理解的著作;阿卡蒂奥当然不明白这是什么东西,但他觉得吉卜赛人拖长声音朗诵的,似乎是改成了音乐的罗马教皇通谕。梅尔加德斯念完之后,长久以来第一次笑了笑,并且用西班牙语说:“等我死的时候,让人家在我的房间里烧三天水银吧。”阿卡蒂奥把这句话转告了霍·阿·布恩蒂亚,后者试图从老头儿那里得到进一步的解释,可是仅仅得到简短的回答:“我是永生的。”梅尔加德斯呼出的气开始发臭时,阿卡蒂奥每个星期四早上都带他到小河里去洗澡,情况有了好转,梅尔加德斯脱掉衣服,跟孩子们一起走到水里,辨别方向的神秘感觉帮助他绕过了最深、最危险的地方。“我们都是从水里出来的,”有一次他说。
  这样过了许久,老头儿似乎不在家里了;大家见过他的只是那天晚上,他很热心地想把钢琴修好;还有就是那个星期四,他腋下夹着一个丝瓜瓤和毛巾裹着的一块棕榈肥皂,跟阿卡蒂奥到河边去。在那个星期四,阿卡蒂奥叫梅尔加德斯去洗澡之前,奥雷连诺听到老头儿叨咕说:“我在新加坡沙滩上患热病死啦。”这一次,梅尔加德斯走到水里的时候,到了不该去的地方;次日早晨,在下游几公里的地方才找到了他;他躺在明晃晃的河湾浅滩上,一只孤零零的秃鹫站在他的肚子上。乌苏娜哀悼这个吉卜赛人超过了自己的亲父,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚却不顾她的愤然反对,禁止掩埋尸体。“梅尔加德斯是不朽的,他自己就说过复活的奥秘。”说着,他点燃废弃了的熔铁炉,把盛着水银的铁锅放在炉子上,让铁锅在尸体旁边沸腾起来,尸体就逐渐布满了蓝色气泡。阿·摩斯柯特先生大胆地提醒霍·阿·布恩蒂亚说,淹死的人不埋掉是危害公共卫生的。“绝对不会,因为他是活的,”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚反驳,并且继续用水银热气熏了整整七十二小时;到这个时候,尸体已经开始象蓝白色的蓓蕾一样裂开,发出细微的咝咝声,屋子里弥漫了腐臭的气味。这时,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚才允许掩埋尸体,但是不能马马虎虎地埋掉,而要用对待马孔多最大的恩人的礼仪下葬。这是全镇第一次人数最多的葬礼,只有一百年后格兰德大娘的葬礼才勉强超过了它。在划作坟场的空地中间挖了个坑,人们把吉卜赛人放入坑内,并且立了一块石碑,上面刻着人们唯一知道的名字:梅尔加德斯。然后,人们连续几夜为他守灵。左邻右舍的人聚在院子里喝咖啡、玩纸牌、说笑话,一直闹嘈嘈的,阿玛兰塔趁机向皮埃特罗·克列斯比表白了爱情;在这以前几个星期,他已经跟雷贝卡订了婚;在从前阿拉伯人用小玩意儿交换鹦鹉的地方,如今他开了一家乐器和自动玩具店,这地方就是大家知道的“土耳其人街”,这意大利人满头油光闪亮的容发,总要引起娘儿们难以遏止的赞叹,但他把阿玛兰塔看成一个淘气的小姑娘,对她并不认真。
  “我有个弟弟,”他向她说,“他就要来店里帮我的忙了。”
  阿玛兰塔觉得自己受了屈辱,气虎虎地回答他说,她决定不管怎样都要阻挠姐姐的婚姻,即使她自己的尸体不得不躺在房门跟前。皮埃特罗·克列斯比被这威胁吓了一跳,忍不住把它告诉了雷贝卡。结果,由于乌苏娜太忙而一直推迟的旅行,不到一个星期就准备好了。阿玛兰塔没有抗拒,可是跟雷贝卡分手时,却在她耳边说:
  “你别做梦!哪怕他们把我发配到天涯海角,我也要想方设法使你结不了婚,即使我不得不杀死你。”
  由于乌苏娜不在,而无影无踪的梅尔加德斯仍在各个房间里神秘地游荡,这座房子就显得又大又空了。雷贝卡负责料理家务,印第安女人经管面包房。傍晚,皮埃特罗·克列斯比带着熏衣草的清香来到的时候,手里总要拿着一件自动玩具当做礼物,未婚妻就在大客厅里接待他;为了避免流言蜚语,她把门窗全都敞开。这种预防措施是多余的,因为意大利人举止谦恭,虽然这个姑娘不过一年就要成为他的妻子,可他连她的手都不碰一下。这座房子逐渐摆满了各种稀奇古怪的玩具。自动芭蕾舞女演员,八音盒,杂耍猴子,跑马,铃鼓小丑--皮埃特罗·克列斯比带来的这些丰富多采的自动玩具,驱除了霍·阿·布恩蒂亚自从梅尔加德斯去世以来的悲伤,使他回到了自己研究炼金术的时代。这时,他又生活在一个乐园里了,这儿满是开了膛的动物和拆散的机械;他想改进它们,让它们按照钟摆的原理不停地动。奥雷连诺却把作坊抛在一边,开始教小姑娘雷麦黛丝读读写写。起初,小姑娘宁愿要自己的小囡囡,而不愿要每天下午都来的这个陌生男人;他一来到,家里的人就让她放下玩具,给她洗澡、穿上衣服,叫她坐在客厅里接待客人。可是,奥雷连诺的耐心和诚挚终于博得了她的欢心,以致她一连几小时跟他呆在一起,学习写字,用彩色铅笔在小本儿上描画房子和牛栏,画出金光四射的落日。
  感到不幸的只有雷贝卡一个人,她忘不了妹妹的威吓。雷贝卡知道阿玛兰塔的性格和傲慢脾气,害怕凶狠的报复。她一连几小时坐在浴室里咂吮指头,拼命克制重新吃土的欲望。为了摆脱忧虑,她把皮拉·苔列娜叫来,请皮拉·苔列娜用纸牌给她占卜。皮拉·苔列娜照旧含糊不清地说了一通之后,预言说:
  “只要你的父母还没埋葬,你就不会幸福。”
  雷贝卡浑身颤栗。她仿佛想起了很久以前的一场梦,看见自己是个小姑娘,带着一只小箱子、一张木摇椅和一条口袋,走进布恩蒂亚的房子--口袋里是什么东西,她始终都不知道。她想起一个穿着亚麻布衣服的秃顶先生,他的衬衫领子被一个金色钮扣扣得紧紧的,但他一点不象纸牌上的红桃老K。她也想起了一个十分年轻、漂亮的女人,有一双温暖、芬芳的手,但是这双手跟纸牌上那个方块皇后好象患风湿的手毫不相同;这个年轻女人经常把花朵戴在她的头发上,带她到镇上绿树成荫的傍晚的街头去闲逛。
  “我不明白,”雷贝卡说。
  皮拉·苔列娜感到困窘。
  “我也不明白,可这是纸牌说的。”
  雷贝卡对这模糊的预言感到不安,就把它告诉了霍·阿·布恩蒂亚。他责骂她相信纸牌的占卜,可他自己却悄悄地翻箱倒柜,搬动家具,撬起地板,掀开床铺,寻找那只装着骸骨的袋子。据他记得,自从房屋改建以来,他就没有见过那只袋子。他暗中把一些泥瓦匠叫来,其中一个承认他把袋子砌在一间卧室的墙壁里了,因为它妨碍他干活。接连几天,他们都把耳朵贴在每一堵墙壁上仔细倾听,最后才听到深沉的“咔嚓咔嚓”声。他们打通墙壁,骸骨袋子仍然完整无损地放在那儿。同一天,他们就把骸骨埋在一个没有墓碑的坟坑里了,那坟坑距离梅尔加德斯的墓塚不远;霍·阿·布恩蒂亚如释重负地回到家里,因为,对于这件事情,他有时就象想起普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔那么沉痛。他经过厨房时,吻了吻雷贝卡的脑门。
  “别再胡思乱想啦,”他向她说。“你会幸福的。”
  阿卡蒂奥出生之后,乌苏娜就不让皮拉·苔列娜来自己家里了;但是皮拉·苔列娜跟雷贝卡交上了朋友,这家的大门又对她敞开了。她一个人就象一群山羊,一天要来好多次,来了就干最重的家务,非常卖力。有时,她也到作坊里去帮助阿卡蒂奥修照相底片,既勤快又温存,这个青年终于感到不好意思。他的脑瓜都给这个女人搅昏了。她那温暖的皮肤,她身上发出的烟味,以及她在暗室里的狂笑,都分散把他的注意力,使他不断地跟东西相撞。
  有一次,皮拉·苔列娜在作坊里看见正在干首饰活的奥雷连诺,她就倚着他的桌子,赞赏地观察他耐心而精确地工作。事情是突然发生的。奥雷连诺确信阿卡蒂奥是在另一个房间里,然后才朝皮拉·苔列娜扬起眼来,正巧跟她的视线相遇,她眼里的意思就象晌午的太阳那么明朗。
  “唔,”奥雷连诺问道。“什么事哇?”
  皮拉·苔列娜咬紧嘴唇,苦笑了一下。
  “你打仗真行,”她回答。“弹无虚发。”
  奥雷连诺相信自己的预感已经应验,就感到松快了。他又在桌上埋头干活,仿佛什么事情也没发生,他的声音既平静又坚定。
  “我承认他,”他说。“他就取我的名字吧。”
  霍·阿·布恩蒂亚终于达到了自己的目的。他把钟上的发条连接在一个自动芭蕾舞女演员身上,这玩具在本身的音乐伴奏之下不停地舞蹈了三天。这件发明比以往的任何荒唐把戏都叫他激动。他不再吃饭,也不再睡觉。他失去了乌苏娜的照顾和监督,就幻想联翩,永远陷入了如痴似狂的状态,再也不能复原了。他整夜整夜在房间里踱来踱去,喃喃自语,想方设法要把钟摆的原理应用到牛车上,应用到犁铧上,应用到一动就对人有益的一切东西上。失眠症把霍·阿·布恩蒂亚完全搞垮了,有一天早晨,一个头发雪白、步履蹒跚的老头儿走进他的卧室,他也没有认出此人。原来这是普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔。最后弄清楚了客人的身份,发现死人也会衰老,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚非常惊讶,而且产生了怀旧之情。“普鲁登希奥,”他叫道,“你怎么从老远的地方跑到这儿来了?”在死人国里呆了多年,普鲁登希奥强烈怀念活人,急切需要有个伙伴,畏惧阴曹地府另一种死亡的迫近,他终于喜欢自己最凶狠的冤家了。他花了许多时间寻找霍·阿·布恩蒂亚,他向列奥阿察来的死人打听过,向乌帕尔山谷和沼泽地来的死人打听过,可是谁也无法帮助他。因为,梅尔加德斯来到阴间,在死亡簿上用小黑点划了“到”之前,其他的死人还不知道马孔多。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚跟普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔一直谈到夭亮。几小时以后,他由于失眠变得疲惫不堪,走进奥雷连诺的作坊,问道:“今天是星期呀?”奥雷连诺回答他是星期二。“我也那么想,”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚说,“可我突然觉得,今天还是星期一,象昨天一样。你瞧天空,瞧墙壁,瞧秋海棠。今天还是星期一。”奥雷连诺对他的怪里怪气已经习以为常,没有理睬这些话。下一天,星期三,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚又来到作坊。“这简直是一场灾难,”他说。“你瞧瞧空气,听听太阳的声音,一切都跟昨天和前天一模一样。今天还是星期一。”晚上,皮埃特罗·克列斯比遇见他在走廊上流泪:他不太雅观地、抽抽嗒嗒地哭诉普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔,哭诉梅尔加德斯,哭诉雷贝卡的双亲,哭诉自己的爸爸妈妈--哭诉他能想起的、还在阴间孤独生活的人。皮埃特罗·克列斯比给了他一只用后腿走钢丝的“自动狗熊”,可也未能使他摆脱愁思。于是皮埃特罗·克列斯比就问,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚不久以前向他谈到过的计划--使人飞到空中的钟摆机器搞得如何了?霍·阿·布恩蒂亚回答说,制造这种机器是不可能的,因为钟摆能使任何东西升到空中,它自己却不能上。星期四,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚又来到作坊,他的面孔露出了完全的绝望。“时间机器坏啦,”他几乎号啕地说,“乌苏娜和阿玛兰塔又去得那么远!”奥雷连诺骂他象个小孩儿,他就顺从地一声不响了。在六个小时之内,他仔细地观察了各种东西,打算确定它们的样子跟头一天有没有差别,并且坚持不渝地寻找变化,借以证明时间的推移。整个晚上他都睁着眼睛躺在床上,呼唤普鲁登希奥·阿古廖尔、梅尔加德斯和一切死人来分担他的忧虑,可是谁也没来。星期五早晨,家里的人还在睡觉,他又开始研究周围各种东西的形状,最后毫不怀疑这一天还是星期一。接着,他抓住一根门闩,使出浑身非凡的力气,凶猛地砸烂了炼金器具、照相机洗印室和金银首饰作坊,同时,他象着了魔似的,快嘴快舌地尖声叫嚷,但是谁也不懂他叫些什么。他还想毁掉整座房子,可是奥雷连诺马上叫了左邻右舍的人来帮忙。按倒霍·阿·布恩蒂亚,需要十个人;捆起他来,需要十四个人,把他拖到院内大栗树下,需要二十个人;他们拿绳子把他捆在树干上。他仍在用古里古怪的话乱骂,嘴里冒出绿色的唾沫。乌苏娜和阿玛兰塔回来的时候,他的手脚仍然是捆着的,浑身被雨水淋得透湿,但已完全平静、无害了。她们跟他讲话,但他不认得她们,他回答的话也叫人莫名其妙。乌苏娜松开了他已经磨出血来的手腕和脚踝,只留下了捆在腰间的绳子。随后,她们用棕榈枝叶给他搭了个棚子,免得他受到日晒雨淋。


执素衣

ZxID:13389413


等级: 内阁元老
举报 只看该作者 地板   发表于: 2013-10-10 0



Chapter 3
PILAR TERNERA’S son was brought to his grand parents?house two weeks after he was born. ?rsula admitted him grudgingly, conquered once more by the obstinacy of her husband, who could not tolerate the idea that an offshoot of his blood should be adrift, but he imposed the condition that the child should never know his true identity. Although he was given the name Jos?Arcadio, they ended up calling him simply Arcadio so as to avoid confusion. At that time there was so much activity in the town and so much bustle in the house that the care of the children was relegated to a secondary level. They were put in the care of Visitación, a Guajiro Indian woman who had arrived in town with a brother in flight from a plague of insomnia that had been scourging their tribe for several years. They were both so docile and willing to help that ?rsula took them on to help her with her household chores. That was how Arcadio and Amaranta came to speak the Guajiro language before Spanish, and they learned to drink lizard broth and eat spider eggs without ?rsula’s knowing it, for she was too busy with a promising business in candy animals. Macondo had changed. The people who had come with ?rsula spread the news of the good quality of its soil and its privileged position with respect to the swamp, so that from the narrow village of past times it changed into an active town with stores and workshops and a permanent commercial route over which the first Arabs arrived with their baggy pants and rings in their ears, swapping glass beads for macaws. Jos?Arcadio Buendía did not have a moment’s rest. Fascinated by an immediate reality that came to be more fantastic than the vast universe of his imagination, he lost all interest in the alchemist’s laboratory, put to rest the material that had become attenuated with months of manipulation, and went back to being the enterprising man of earlier days when he had decided upon the layout of the streets and the location of the new houses so that no one would enjoy privileges that everyone did not have. He acquired such authority among the new arrivals that foundations were not laid or walls built without his being consulted, and it was decided that he should be the one in charge of the distribution of the land. When the acrobat gypsies returned, with their vagabond carnival transformed now into a gigantic organization of games of luck and chance, they were received with great joy, for it was thought that Jos?Arcadio would be coming back with them. But Jos?Arcadio did not return, nor did they come with the snake-man, who, according to what ?rsula thought, was the only one who could tell them about their son, so the gypsies were not allowed to camp in town or set foot in it in the future, for they were considered the bearers of concupiscence and perversion. Jos?Arcadio Buendía, however, was explicit in maintaining that the old tribe of Melquíades, who had contributed so much to the growth of the village with his age-old wisdom and his fabulous inventions, would always find the gates open. But Melquíades?tribe, according to what the wanderers said, had been wiped off the face of the earth because they had gone beyond the limits of human knowledge.
   Emancipated for the moment at least from the torment of fantasy, Jos?Arcadio Buendía in a short time set up a system of order and work which allowed for only one bit of license: the freeing of the birds, which, since the time of the founding, had made time merry with their flutes, and installing in their place musical clocks in every house. They were wondrous clocks made of carved wood, which the Arabs had traded for macaws and which Jos?Arcadio Buendía had synchronized with such precision that every half hour the town grew merry with the progressive chords of the same song until it reached the climax of a noontime that was as exact and unanimous as a complete waltz. It was also Jos?Arcadio Buendía who decided during those years that they should plant almond trees instead of acacias on the streets, and who discovered, without ever revealing it, a way to make them live forever. Many years later, when Macondo was a field of wooden houses with zinc roofs, the broken and dusty almond trees still stood on the oldest streets, although no one knew who had planted them. While his father was putting the town in order and his mother was increasing their wealth with her marvelous business of candied little roosters and fish, which left the house twice a day strung along sticks of balsa wood, Aureliano spent interminable hours in the abandoned laboratory, learning the art of silverwork by his own experimentation. He had shot up so fast that in a short time the clothing left behind by his brother no longer fit him and he began to wear his father’s, but Visitación had to sew pleats in the shirt and darts in the pants, because Aureliano had not sequined the corpulence of the others. Adolescence had taken away the softness of his voice and had made him silent and definitely solitary, but, on the other hand, it had restored the intense expression that he had had in his eyes when he was born. He concentrated so much on his experiments in silverwork that he scarcely left the laboratory to eat. Worried ever his inner withdrawal, Jos?Arcadio Buendía gave him the keys to the house and a little money, thinking that perhaps he needed a woman. But Aureliano spent the money on muriatic acid to prepare some aqua regia and he beautified the keys by plating them with gold. His excesses were hardly comparable to those of Arcadio and Amaranta, who had already begun to get their second teeth and still went about all day clutching at the Indians?cloaks, stubborn in their decision not to speak Spanish but the Guajiro language. “You shouldn’t complain.??rsula told her husband. “Children inherit their parents?madness.?And as she was lamenting her misfortune, convinced that the wild behavior of her children was something as fearful as a pig’s tail, Aureliano gave her a look that wrapped her in an atmosphere of uncertainty.
   “Somebody is coming,?he told her.
   ?rsula, as she did whenever he made a prediction, tried to break it down with her housewifely logic. It was normal for someone to be coming. Dozens of strangers came through Macondo every day without arousing suspicion or secret ideas. Nevertheless, beyond all logic, Aureliano was sure of his prediction.
   “I don’t know who it will be,?he insisted, “but whoever it is is already on the way.?
   That Sunday, in fact, Rebeca arrived. She was only eleven years old. She had made the difficult trip from Manaure with some hide dealers who had taken on the task of delivering her along with a letter to Jos?Arcadio Buendía, but they could not explain precisely who the person was who had asked the favor. Her entire baggage consisted of a small trunk, a little rocking chair with small hand-painted flowers, and a canvas sack which kept making a cloc-cloc-cloc sound, where she carried her parents?bones. The letter addressed to Jos?Arcadio Buendía was written is very warm terms by someone who still loved him very much in spite of time and distance, and who felt obliged by a basic humanitarian feeling to do the charitable thing and send him that poor unsheltered orphan, who was a second cousin of ?rsula’s and consequently also a relative of Jos?Arcadio Buendía, although farther removed, because she was the daughter of that unforgettable friend Nicanor Ulloa and his very worthy wife Rebeca Montiel, may God keep them in His holy kingdom, whose remains the girl was carrying so that they might be given Christian burial. The names mentioned, as well as the signature on the letter, were perfectly legible, but neither Jos?Arcadio, Buendía nor ?rsula remembered having any relatives with those names, nor did they know anyone by the name of the sender of the letter, much less the remote village of Manaure. It was impossible to obtain any further information from the girl. From the moment she arrived she had been sitting in the rocker, sucking her finger and observing everyone with her large, startled eyes without giving any sign of understanding what they were asking her. She wore a diagonally striped dress that had been dyed black, worn by use, and a pair of scaly patent leather boots. Her hair was held behind her ears with bows of black ribbon. She wore a scapular with the images worn away by sweat, and on her right wrist the fang of a carnivorous animal mounted on a backing of copper as an amulet against the evil eye. Her greenish skin, her stomach, round and tense as a drum. revealed poor health and hunger that were older than she was, but when they gave her something to eat she kept the plate on her knees without tasting anything. They even began to think that she was a deaf-mute until the Indians asked her in their language if she wanted some water and she moved her eyes as if she recognized them and said yes with her head.
   They kept her, because there was nothing else they could do. They decided to call her Rebeca, which according to the letter was her mother’s name, because Aureliano had the patience to read to her the names of all the saints and he did not get a reaction from any one of them. Since there was no cemetery in Macondo at that time, for no one had died up till then, they kept the bag of bones to wait for a worthy place of burial, and for a long time it got in the way everywhere and would be found where least expected, always with its clucking of a broody hen. A long time passed before Rebeca became incorporated into the life of the family. She would sit in her small rocker sucking her finger in the most remote corner of the house. Nothing attracted her attention except the music of the clocks, which she would look for every half hour with her frightened eyes as if she hoped to find it someplace in the air. They could not get her to eat for several days. No one understood why she had not died of hunger until the Indians, who were aware of everything, for they went ceaselessly about the house on their stealthy feet, discovered that Rebeca only liked to eat the damp earth of the courtyard and the cake of whitewash that she picked of the walls with her nails. It was obvious that her parents, or whoever had raised her, had scolded her for that habit because she did it secretively and with a feeling of guilt, trying to put away supplies so that she could eat when no one was looking. From then on they put her under an implacable watch. They threw cow gall onto the courtyard and, rubbed hot chili on the walls, thinking they could defeat her pernicious vice with those methods, but she showed such signs of astuteness and ingenuity to find some earth that ?rsula found herself forced to use more drastic methods. She put some orange juice and rhubarb into a pan that she left in the dew all night and she gave her the dose the following day on an empty stomach. Although no one had told her that it was the specific remedy for the vice of eating earth, she thought that any bitter substance in an empty stomach would have to make the liver react. Rebeca was so rebellious and strong in spite of her frailness that they had to tie her up like a calf to make her swallow the medicine, and they could barely keep back her kicks or bear up under the strange hieroglyphics that she alternated with her bites and spitting, and that, according to what the scandalized Indians said, were the vilest obscenities that one could ever imagine in their language. When ?rsula discovered that, she added whipping to the treatment. It was never established whether it was the rhubarb or the beatings that had effect, or both of them together, but the truth was that in a few weeks Rebeca began to show signs of recovery. She took part in the games of Arcadio and Amaranta, who treated her like an older sister, and she ate heartily, using the utensils properly. It was soon revealed that she spoke Spanish with as much fluency as the Indian language, that she had a remarkable ability for manual work, and that she could sing the waltz of the clocks with some very funny words that she herself had invented. It did not take long for them to consider her another member of the family. She was more affectionate to ?rsula than any of her own children had been, and she called Arcadio, and Amaranta brother and sister, Aureliano uncle, and Jos?Arcadio Buendía grandpa. So that she finally deserved, as much as the others, the name of Rebeca Buendía, the only one that she ever had and that she bore with dignity until her death.
   One night about the time that Rebeca was cured of the vice of eating earth and was brought to sleep in the other children’s room, the Indian woman, who slept with them awoke by chance and heard a strange, intermittent sound in the corner. She got up in alarm, thinking that an animal had come into the room, and then she saw Rebeca in the rocker, sucking her finger and with her eyes lighted up in the darkness like those of a cat. Terrified, exhausted by her fate, Visitación recognized in those eyes the symptoms of the sickness whose threat had obliged her and her brother to exile themselves forever from an age-old kingdom where they had been prince and princess. It was the insomnia plague.
   Cataure, the Indian, was gone from the house by morning. His sister stayed because her fatalistic heart told her that the lethal sickness would follow her, no matter what, to the farthest corner of the earth. No one understood Visitación’s alarm. “If we don’t ever sleep again, so much the better,?Jos?Arcadio Buendía said in good humor. “That way we can get more out of life.?But the Indian woman explained that the most fearsome part of the sickness of insomnia was not the impossibility of sleeping, for the body did not feel any fatigue at all, but its inexorable evolution toward a more critical manifestation: a loss of memory. She meant that when the sick person became used to his state of vigil, the recollection of his childhood began to be erased from his memory, then the name and notion of things, and finally the identity of people and even the awareness of his own being, until he sank into a kind of idiocy that had no past. Jos?Arcadio Buendía, dying with laughter, thought that it was just a question of one of the many illnesses invented by the Indians?superstitions. But ?rsula, just to be safe, took the precaution of isolating Rebeca from the other children.
   After several weeks, when Visitación’s terror seemed to have died down, Jos?Arcadio Buendía found himself rolling over in bed, unable to fall asleep. ?rsula, who had also awakened, asked him what was wrong, and he answered: “I’m thinking about Prudencio Aguilar again.?They did not sleep a minute, but the following day they felt so rested that they forgot about the bad night. Aureliano commented with surprise at lunchtime that he felt very well in spite of the fact that he had spent the whole night in the laboratory gilding a brooch that he planned to give to ?rsula for her birthday. They did not become alarmed until the third day, when no one felt sleepy at bedtime and they realized that they had gone more than fifty hours without sleeping.
   “The children are awake too,?the Indian said with her fatalistic conviction. “Once it gets into a house no one can escape the plague.?
   They had indeed contracted the illness of insomnia. ?rsula, who had learned from her mother the medicinal value of plants, prepared and made them all drink a brew of monkshood, but they could not get to sleep and spent the whole day dreaming on their feet. In that state of hallucinated lucidity, not only did they see the images of their own dreams, but some saw the images dreamed by others. It was as if the house were full of visitors. Sitting in her rocker in a corner of the kitchen, Rebeca dreamed that a man who looked very much like her, dressed in white linen and with his shirt collar closed by a gold button, was bringing her a bouquet of roses. He was accompanied by a woman with delicate hands who took out one rose and put it in the child’s hair. ?rsula understood that the man and woman were Rebeca’s parents, but even though she made a great effort to recognize them, she confirmed her certainty that she had never seen them. In the meantime, through an oversight that Jos?Arcadio Buendía never forgave himself for, the candy animals made in the house were still being sold in the town. Children and adults sucked with delight on the delicious little green roosters of insomnia, the exquisite pink fish of insomnia, and the tender yellow ponies of insomnia, so that dawn on Monday found the whole town awake. No one was alarmed at first. On the contrary, they were happy at not sleeping because there was so much to do in Macondo in those days that there was barely enough time. They worked so hard that soon they had nothing else to do and they could be found at three o’clock in the morning with their arms crossed, counting the notes in the waltz of the clock. Those who wanted to sleep, not from fatigue but because of the nostalgia for dreams, tried all kinds of methods of exhausting themselves. They would gather together to converse endlessly, to tell over and over for hours on end the same jokes, to complicate to the limits of exasperation the story about the capon, which was an endless game in which the narrator asked if they wanted him to tell them the story about the capon, and when they answered yes, the narrator would say that he had not asked them to say yes, but whether they wanted him to tell them the story about the capon, and when they answered no, the narrator told them that he had not asked them to say no, but whether they wanted him to tell them the story about the capon, and when they remained silent the narrator told them that he had not asked them to remain silent but whether they wanted him to tell them the story about the capon, and no one could leave because the narrator would say that he had not asked them to leave but whether they wanted him to tell them the story about the capon, and so on and on in a vicious circle that lasted entire nights.
   When Jos?Arcadio Buendía realized that the plague had invaded the town, he gathered together the heads of families to explain to them what he knew about the sickness of insomnia, and they agreed on methods to prevent the scourge from spreading to other towns in the swamp. That was why they took the bells off the goats, bells that the Arabs had swapped them for macaws, and put them at the entrance to town at the disposal of those who would not listen to the advice and entreaties of the sentinels and insisted on visiting the town. All strangers who passed through the streets of Macondo at that time had to ring their bells so that the sick people would know that they were healthy. They were not allowed to eat or drink anything during their stay, for there was no doubt but that the illness was transmitted by mouth, and all food and drink had been contaminated by insomnia. In that way they kept the plague restricted to the perimeter of the town. So effective was the quarantine that the day came when the emergency situation was accepted as a natural thing and life was organized in such a way that work picked up its rhythm again and no one worried any more about the useless habit of sleeping.
   It was Aureliano who conceived the formula that was to protect them against loss of memory for several months. He discovered it by chance. An expert insomniac, having been one of the first, he had learned the art of silverwork to perfection. One day he was looking for the small anvil that he used for laminating metals and he could not remember its name. His father told him: “Stake.?Aureliano wrote the name on a piece of paper that he pasted to the base of the small anvil: stake. In that way he was sure of not forgetting it in the future. It did not occur to him that this was the first manifestation of a loss of memory, because the object had a difficult name to remember. But a few days later be, discovered that he had trouble remembering almost every object in the laboratory. Then he marked them with their respective names so that all he had to do was read the inscription in order to identify them. When his father told him about his alarm at having forgotten even the most impressive happenings of his childhood, Aureliano explained his method to him, and Jos?Arcadio Buendía put it into practice all through the house and later on imposed it on the whole village. With an inked brush he marked everything with its name: table, chair, clock, door, wall, bed, pan. He went to the corral and marked the animals and plants: cow, goat, pig, hen, cassava, caladium, banana. Little by little, studying the infinite possibilities of a loss of memory, he realized that the day might come when things would be recognized by their inscriptions but that no one would remember their use. Then he was more explicit. The sign that he hung on the neck of the cow was an exemplary proof of the way in which the inhabitants of Macondo were prepared to fight against loss of memory: This is the cow. She must be milked every morning so that she will produce milk, and the milk must be boiled in order to be mixed with coffee to make coffee and milk. Thus they went on living in a reality that was slipping away, momentarily captured by words, but which would escape irremediably when they forgot the values of the written letters.
   At the beginning of the road into the swamp they put up a sign that said MACONDO and another larger one on the main street that said GOD EXISTS. In all the houses keys to memorizing objects and feelings had been written. But the system demanded so much vigilance and moral strength that many succumbed to the spell of an imaginary reality, one invented by themselves, which was less practical for them but more comforting. Pilar Ternera was the one who contributed most to popularize that mystification when she conceived the trick of reading the past in cards as she had read the future before. By means of that recourse the insomniacs began to live in a world built on the uncertain alternatives of the cards, where a father was remembered faintly as the dark man who had arrived at the beginning of April and a mother was remembered only as the dark woman who wore a gold ring on her left hand, and where a birth date was reduced to the last Tuesday on which a lark sang in the laurel tree. Defeated by those practices of consolation, Jos?Arcadio Buendía then decided to build the memory machine that he had desired once in order to remember the marvelous inventions of the gypsies. The artifact was based on the possibility of reviewing every morning, from beginning to end, the totality of knowledge acquired during one’s life. He conceived of it as a spinning dictionary that a person placed on the axis could operate by means of a lever, so that in a very few hours there would pass before his eyes the notions most necessary for life. He had succeeded in writing almost fourteen thousand entries when along the road from the swamp a strange-looking old man with the sad sleepers?bell appeared, carrying a bulging suitcase tied with a rope and pulling a cart covered with black cloth. He went straight to the house of Jos?Arcadio Buendía.
   Visitación did not recognize him when she opened the door and she thought he had come with the idea of selling something, unaware that nothing could be sold in a town that was sinking irrevocably into the quicksand of forgetfulness. He was a decrepit man. Although his voice was also broken by uncertainty and his hands seemed to doubt the existence of things, it was evident that he came from the world where men could still sleep and remember. Jos?Arcadio Buendía found him sitting in the living room fanning himself with a patched black hat as he read with compassionate attention the signs pasted to the walls. He greeted him with a broad show of affection, afraid that he had known him at another time and that he did not remember him now. But the visitor was aware of his falseness, He felt himself forgotten, not with the irremediable forgetfulness of the heart, but with a different kind of forgetfulness, which was more cruel and irrevocable and which he knew very well because it was the forgetfulness of death. Then he understood. He opened the suitcase crammed with indecipherable objects and from among then he took out a little case with many flasks. He gave Jos?Arcadio Buendía a drink of a gentle color and the light went on in his memory. His eyes became moist from weeping even before he noticed himself in an absurd living room where objects were labeled and before he was ashamed of the solemn nonsense written on the walls, and even before he recognized the newcomer with a dazzling glow of joy. It was Melquíades.
   While Macondo was celebrating the recovery of its memory, Jos?Arcadio Buendía and Melquíades dusted off their old friendship. The gypsy was inclined to stay in the town. He really had been through death, but he had returned because he could not bear the solitude. Repudiated by his tribe, having lost all of his supernatural faculties because of his faithfulness to life, he decided to take refuge in that corner of the world which had still not been discovered by death, dedicated to the operation of a daguerreotype laboratory. Jos?Arcadio Buendía had never heard of that invention. But when he saw himself and his whole family fastened onto a sheet of iridescent metal for an eternity, he was mute with stupefaction. That was the date of the oxidized daguerreotype in which Jos?Arcadio Buendía appeared with his bristly and graying hair, his card board collar attached to his shirt by a copper button, and an expression of startled solemnity, whom ?rsula described, dying with laughter, as a “frightened general.?Jos?Arcadio Buendía was, in fact, frightened on that dear December morning when the daguerreotype was made, for he was thinking that people were slowly wearing away while his image would endure an a metallic plaque. Through a curious reversal of custom, it was ?rsula who got that idea out of his head, as it was also she who forgot her ancient bitterness and decided that Melquíades would stay on in the house, although she never permitted them to make a daguerreotype of her because (according to her very words) she did not want to survive as a laughingstock for her grandchildren. That morning she dressed the children in their best clothes, powdered their faces, and gave a spoonful of marrow syrup to each one so that they would all remain absolutely motionless during the nearly two minutes in front of Melquíades fantastic camera. In the family daguerreotype, the only one that ever existed, Aureliano appeared dressed in black velvet between Amaranta and Rebeca. He had the same languor and the same clairvoyant look that he would have years later as he faced the firing squad. But he still had not sensed the premonition of his fate. He was an expert silversmith, praised all over the swampland for the delicacy of his work. In the workshop, which he shared with Melquíades?mad laboratory, he could barely be heard breathing. He seemed to be taking refuge in some other time, while his father and the gypsy with shouts interpreted the predictions of Nostradamus amidst a noise of flasks and trays and the disaster of spilled acids and silver bromide that was lost in the twists and turns it gave at every instant. That dedication to his work, the good judgment with which he directed his attention, had allowed Aureliano to earn in a short time more money than ?rsula had with her delicious candy fauna, but everybody thought it strange that he was now a full-grown man and had not known a woman. It was true that he had never had one.
   Several months later saw the return of Francisco the Man, as ancient vagabond who was almost two hundred years old and who frequently passed through Macondo distributing songs that he composed himself. In them Francisco the Man told in great detail the things that had happened in the towns along his route, from Manaure to the edge of the swamp, so that if anyone had a message to send or an event to make public, he would pay him two cents to include it in his repertory. That was how ?rsula learned of the death of her mother, as a simple consequence of listening to the songs in the hope that they would say something about her son Jos?Arcadio. Francisco the Man, called that because he had once defeated the devil in a duel of improvisation, and whose real name no one knew, disappeared from Macondo during the insomnia plague and one night he appeared suddenly in Catarino’s store. The whole town went to listen to him to find out what had happened in the world. On that occasion there arrived with him a woman who was so fat that four Indians had to carry her in a rocking chair, and an adolescent mulatto girl with a forlorn look who protected her from the sun with an umbrella. Aureliano went to Catarino’s store that night. He found Francisco the Man, like a monolithic chameleon, sitting in the midst of a circle of bystanders. He was singing the news with his old, out-of-tune voice, accompanying himself with the same archaic accordion that Sir Walter Raleigh had given him in the Guianas and keeping time with his great walking feet that were cracked from saltpeter. In front of a door at the rear through which men were going and coming, the matron of the rocking chair was sitting and fanning herself in silence. Catarino, with a felt rose behind his ear, was selling the gathering mugs of fermented cane juice, and he took advantage of the occasion to go over to the men and put his hand on them where he should not have. Toward midnight the heat was unbearable. Aureliano listened to the news to the end without hearing anything that was of interest to his family. He was getting ready to go home when the matron signaled him with her hand.
   “You go in too.?she told him. “It only costs twenty cents.?
   Aureliano threw a coin into the hopper that the matron had in her lap and went into the room without knowing why. The adolescent mulatto girl, with her small bitch’s teats, was naked on the bed. Before Aureliano sixty-three men had passed through the room that night. From being used so much, kneaded with sweat and sighs, the air in the room had begun to turn to mud. The girl took off the soaked sheet and asked Aureliano to hold it by one side. It was as heavy as a piece of canvas. They squeezed it, twisting it at the ends until it regained its natural weight. They turned over the mat and the sweat came out of the other side. Aureliano was anxious for that operation never to end. He knew the theoretical mechanics of love, but he could not stay on his feet because of the weakness of his knees, and although he had goose pimples on his burning skin he could not resist the urgent need to expel the weight of his bowels. When the girl finished fixing up the bed and told him to get undressed, he gave her a confused explanation: “They made me come in. They told me to throw twenty cents into the hopper and hurry up.?The girl understood his confusion. “If you throw in twenty cents more when you go out, you can stay a little longer,?she said softly. Aureliano got undressed, tormented by shame, unable to get rid of the idea that-his nakedness could not stand comparison with that of his brother. In spite of the girl’s efforts he felt more and more indifferent and terribly alone. “I’ll throw in other twenty cents,?he said with a desolate voice. The girl thanked him in silence. Her back was raw. Her skin was stuck to her ribs and her breathing was forced because of an immeasurable exhaustion. Two years before, far away from there, she had fallen asleep without putting out the candle and had awakened surrounded by flames. The house where she lived with the grandmother who had raised her was reduced to ashes. Since then her grandmother carried her from town to town, putting her to bed for twenty cents in order to make up the value of the burned house. According to the girl’s calculations, she still had ten years of seventy men per night, because she also had to pay the expenses of the trip and food for both of them as well as the pay of the Indians who carried the rocking chair. When the matron knocked on the door the second time, Aureliano left the room without having done anything, troubled by a desire to weep. That night he could not sleep, thinking about the girl, with a mixture of desire and pity. He felt an irresistible need to love her and protect her. At dawn, worn out by insomnia and fever, he made the calm decision to marry her in order to free her from the despotism of her grandmother and to enjoy all the nights of satisfaction that she would give the seventy men. But at ten o’clock in the morning, when he reached Catarino’s store, the girl had left town.
   Time mitigated his mad proposal, but it aggravated his feelings of frustration. He took refuge in work. He resigned himself to being a womanless man for all his life in order to hide the shame of his uselessness. In the meantime, Melquíades had printed on his plates everything that was printable in Macondo, and he left the daguerreotype laboratory to the fantasies of Jos?Arcadio Buendía  who had resolved to use it to obtain scientific proof of the existence of God. Through a complicated process of superimposed exposures taken in different parts of the house, he was sure that sooner or later he would get a daguerreotype of God, if He existed, or put an end once and for all to the supposition of His existence. Melquíades got deeper into his interpretations of Nostradamus. He would stay up until very late, suffocating in his faded velvet vest, scribbling with his tiny sparrow hands, whose rings had lost the glow of former times. One night he thought he had found a prediction of the future of Macondo. It was to be a luminous city with great glass houses where there was no trace remaining of the race of the Buendía. “It’s a mistake,?Jos?Arcadio Buendía thundered. “They won’t be houses of glass but of ice, as I dreamed, and there will always be a Buendía, per omnia secula seculorum.??rsula fought to preserve common sense in that extravagant house, having broadened her business of little candy animals with an oven that went all night turning out baskets and more baskets of bread and a prodigious variety of puddings, meringues, and cookies, which disappeared in a few hours on the roads winding through the swamp. She had reached an age where she had a right to rest, but she was nonetheless more and more active. So busy was she in her prosperous enterprises that one afternoon she looked distractedly toward the courtyard while the Indian woman helped her sweeten the dough and she saw two unknown and beautiful adolescent girls doing frame embroidery in the light of the sunset. They were Rebeca and Amaranta. As soon as they had taken off the mourning clothes for their grandmother, which they wore with inflexible rigor for three years, their bright clothes seemed to have given them a new place in the world. Rebeca, contrary to what might have been expected, was the more beautiful. She had a light complexion, large and peaceful eyes, and magical hands that seemed to work out the design of the embroidery with invisible threads. Amaranta, the younger, was somewhat graceless, but she had the natural distinction, the inner tightness of her dead grandmother. Next to them, although he was already revealing the physical drive of his father, Arcadio looked like a child. He set about learning the art of silverwork with Aureliano, who had also taught him how to read and write. ?rsula suddenly realized that the house had become full of people, that her children were on the point of marrying and having children, and that they would be obliged to scatter for lack of space. Then she took out the money she had accumulated over long years of hard labor, made some arrangements with her customers, and undertook the enlargement of the house. She had a formal parlor for visits built, another one that was more comfortable and cool for daily use, a dining room with a table with twelve places where the family could sit with all of their guests, nine bedrooms with windows on the courtyard and a long porch protected from the heat of noon by a rose garden with a railing on which to place pots of ferns and begonias. She had the kitchen enlarged to hold two ovens. The granary where Pilar Ternera had read Jos?Arcadio’s future was torn down and another twice as large built so that there would never be a lack of food in the house. She had baths built is the courtyard in the shade of the chestnut tree, one for the women and another for the men, and in the rear a large stable, a fenced-in chicken yard, a shed for the milk cows, and an aviary open to the four winds so that wandering birds could roost there at their pleasure. Followed by dozens of masons and carpenters, as if she had contracted her husband’s hallucinating fever, ?rsula fixed the position of light and heat and distributed space without the least sense of its limitations. The primitive building of the founders became filled with tools and materials, of workmen exhausted by sweat, who asked everybody please not to molest them, exasperated by the sack of bones that followed them everywhere with its dull rattle. In that discomfort, breathing quicklime and tar, no one could see very well how from the bowels of the earth there was rising not only the largest house is the town, but the most hospitable and cool house that had ever existed in the region of the swamp. Jos?Buendía, trying to surprise Divine Providence in the midst of the cataclysm, was the one who least understood it. The new house was almost finished when ?rsula drew him out of his chimerical world in order to inform him that she had an order to paint the front blue and not white as they had wanted. She showed him the official document. Jos?Arcadio Buendía, without understanding what his wife was talking about, deciphered the signature.
   “Who is this fellow??he asked:
   “The magistrate,??rsula answered disconsolately. They say he’s an authority sent by the government.?
   Don Apolinar Moscote, the magistrate, had arrived in Macondo very quietly. He put up at the Hotel Jacob—built by one of the first Arabs who came to swap knickknacks for macaws—and on the following day he rented a small room with a door on the street two blocks away from the Buendía house. He set up a table and a chair that he had bought from Jacob, nailed up on the wall the shield of the republic that he had brought with him, and on the door he painted the sign: Magistrate. His first order was for all the houses to be painted blue in celebration of the anniversary of national independence. Jos?Arcadio Buendía, with the copy of the order in his hand, found him taking his nap in a hammock he had set up in the narrow office. “Did you write this paper??he asked him. Don Apolinar Moscote, a mature man, timid, with a ruddy complexion, said yes. “By what right??Jos?Arcadio Buendía asked again. Don Apolinar Moscote picked up a paper from the drawer of the table and showed it to him. “I have been named magistrate of this town.?Jos?Arcadio Buendía did not even look at the appointment.
   “In this town we do not give orders with pieces of paper,?he said without losing his calm. “And so that you know it once and for all, we don’t need any judge here because there’s nothing that needs judging.?
   Facing Don Apolinar Moscote, still without raising his voice, he gave a detailed account of how they had founded the village, of how they had distributed the land, opened the roads, and introduced the improvements that necessity required without having bothered the government and without anyone having bothered them. “We are so peaceful that none of us has died even of a natural death,?he said. “You can see that we still don’t have any cemetery.?No once was upset that the government had not helped them. On the contrary, they were happy that up until then it had let them grow in peace, and he hoped that it would continue leaving them that way, because they had not founded a town so that the first upstart who came along would tell them what to do. Don Apolinar had put on his denim jacket, white like his trousers, without losing at any moment the elegance of his gestures.
   “So that if you want to stay here like any other ordinary citizen, you’re quite welcome,?Jos?Arcadio Buendía concluded. “But if you’ve come to cause disorder by making the people paint their houses blue, you can pick up your junk and go back where you came from. Because my house is going to be white, white, like a dove.?
   Don Apolinar Moscote turned pale. He took a step backward and tightened his jaws as he said with a certain affliction:
   “I must warn you that I’m armed.?
   Jos?Arcadio Buendía did not know exactly when his hands regained the useful strength with which he used to pull down horses. He grabbed Don Apolinar Moscote by the lapels and lifted him up to the level of his eyes.
   “I’m doing this,?he said, “because I would rather carry you around alive and not have to keep carrying you around dead for the rest of my life.?
   In that way he carried him through the middle of the street, suspended by the lapels, until he put him down on his two feet on the swamp road. A week later he was back with six barefoot and ragged soldiers, armed with shotguns, and an oxcart in which his wife and seven daughters were traveling. Two other carts arrived later with the furniture, the baggage, and the household utensils. He settled his family in the Hotel Jacob, while he looked for a house, and he went back to open his office under the protection of the soldiers. The founders of Macondo, resolving to expel the invaders, went with their older sons to put themselves at the disposal of Jos?Arcadio Buendía. But he was against it, as he explained, because it was not manly to make trouble for someone in front of his family, and Don Apolinar had returned with his wife and daughters. So he decided to resolve the situation in a pleasant way.
   Aureliano went with him. About that time he had begun to cultivate the black mustache with waxed tips and the somewhat stentorian voice that would characterize him in the war. Unarmed, without paying any attention to the guards, they went into the magistrate’s office. Don Apolinar Moscote did not lose his calm. He introduced them to two of his daughters who happened to be there: Amparo, sixteen, dark like her mother, and Remedios, only nine, a pretty little girl with lily-colored skin and green eyes. They were gracious and well-mannered. As soon as the men came in, before being introduced, they gave them chairs to sit on. But they both remained standing.
   “Very well, my friend,?Jos?Arcadio Buendía said, “you may stay here, not because you have those bandits with shotguns at the door, but out of consideration for your wife and daughters.?
   Don Apolinar Moscote was upset, but Jos?Arcadio Buendía did not give him time to reply. “We only make two conditions,?he went on. “The first: that everyone can paint his house the color he feels like. The second: that the soldiers leave at once. We will guarantee order for you.?The magistrate raised his right hand with all the fingers extended.
   “Your word of honor??
   “The word of your enemy,?Jos?Arcadio Buendía said. And he added in a bitter tone: “Because I must tell you one thing: you and I are still enemies.?
   The soldiers left that same afternoon. A few days later Jos?Arcadio Buendía found a house for the magistrate’s family. Everybody was at peace except Aureliano. The image of Remedios, the magistrate’s younger daughter, who, because of her age, could have been his daughter, kept paining him in some part of his body. It was a physical sensation that almost bothered him when he walked, like a pebble in his shoe.



第三章

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  皮拉·苔列娜的儿子出世以后两个星期,祖父和祖母把他接到了家里。乌苏娜是勉强收留这小孩儿的,因为她又没拗过丈大的固执脾气;想让布恩蒂亚家的后代听天由命,是他不能容忍的。但她提出了个条件:决不让孩子知道自己的真正出身。孩子也取名霍·阿卡蒂奥,可是为了避免混淆不清,大家渐渐地只管他叫阿卡蒂奥了。这时,马孔多事业兴旺,布恩蒂亚家中一片忙碌,孩子们的照顾就降到了次要地位,负责照拂他们的是古阿吉洛部族的一个印第安女人,她是和弟弟一块儿来到马孔多的,借以逃避他们家乡已经猖獗几年的致命传染病——失眠症。姐弟俩都是驯良、勤劳的人,乌苏娜雇用他们帮她做些家务。所以,阿卡蒂奥和阿玛兰塔首先说的是古阿吉洛语,然后才说西班牙语,而且学会喝晰蜴汤、吃蜘蛛蛋,可是乌苏娜根本没有发现这一点,因她制作获利不小的糖鸟糖兽太忙了。马孔多完全改变了面貌。乌苏娜带到这儿来的那些人,到处宣扬马孔多地理位置很好、周围土地肥沃,以致这个小小的村庄很快变戍了一个热闹的市镇,开设了商店和手工业作坊,修筑了永久的商道,第一批阿拉伯人沿着这条道路来到了这儿,他们穿着宽大的裤子,戴着耳环,用玻璃珠项链交换鹦鹉。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚没有一分钟的休息。他对周围的现实生活入了迷,觉得这种生活比他想象的大于世界奇妙得多,于是失去了对炼金试验的任何兴趣,把月复一月变来变去的东西搁在一边,重新成了一个有事业心的、精力充沛的人了,从前,在哪儿铺设街道,在哪儿建筑新的房舍,都是由他决定的,他不让任何人享有别人没有的特权。新来的居民也十分尊敬他,甚至请他划分土地。没有征得他的同意,就不放下一块基石,也不砌上一道墙垣。玩杂技的吉卜赛人回来的时候,他们的活动游艺场现在变成了一个大赌场,受到热烈的欢迎。因为大家都希望霍·阿卡蒂奥也跟他们一块儿回来。但是霍·阿卡蒂奥并没有回来,那个“蛇人”也没有跟他们在一起,照乌苏娜看来,那个“蛇人是唯”一知道能在哪儿找到她的儿子的;因此,他们不让吉卜赛人在马孔多停留,甚至不准他们以后再来这儿:现在他们已经认为吉卜赛人是贪婪佚的化身了。然而霍·阿·布恩蒂亚却认为,古老的梅尔加德斯部族用它多年的知识和奇异的发明大大促进了马孔多的发展,这里的人永远都会张开双臂欢迎他们。可是,照流浪汉们的说法,梅尔加德斯部族已从地面上消失了,因为他们竟敢超越人类知识的限度。
  霍·阿·布恩蒂亚至少暂时摆脱了幻想的折磨以后,在短时期内就有条不紊地整顿好了全镇的劳动生活;平静的空气是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚有一次自己破坏的,当时他放走了马孔多建立之初用响亮的叫声报告时刻的鸟儿,而给每一座房子安了一个音乐钟。这些雕木作成的漂亮的钟,是用鹦鹉向阿拉伯人换来的,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚把它们拨得挺准,每过半小时,它们就奏出同一支华尔兹舞曲的几节曲于让全镇高兴一次,——每一次都是几节新的曲于,到了晌午时分,所有的钟一齐奏出整支华尔兹舞曲,一点几也不走调。在街上栽种杏树,代替槐树,也是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的主意,而且他还发明了一种使这些杏树永远活着的办法(这个办法他至死没有透露)。过了多年,马孔多建筑了一座座锌顶木房的时候,在它最老的街道上仍然挺立着一棵棵杏树,树枝折断,布满尘埃,但谁也记不得这些树是什么人栽的了。
  父亲大力整顿这个市镇,母亲却在振兴家业,制作美妙的糖公鸡和糖鱼,把它们插在巴里萨木棍儿上,每天两次拿到街上去卖,这时,奥雷连诺却在荒弃的试验室里度过漫长的时刻,孜孜不倦地掌握首饰技术。他已经长得挺高,哥哥留下的衣服很快不合他的身材了,他就改穿父亲的衣服,诚然,维希塔香不得不替他把衬衫和裤子改窄一些,因为奥雷连诺比父亲和哥哥都瘦。
  进入少年时期,他的嗓音粗了,他也变得沉默寡言、异常孤僻,但是他的眼睛又经常露出紧张的神色,这种神色在他出生的那一天是使他母亲吃了一惊的。奥雷连诺聚精会神地从事首饰工作,除了吃饭,几乎不到试验室外面去。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚对他的孤僻感到不安,就把房门的钥匙和一点儿钱给了他,以为儿子可能需要出去找找女人。奥雷连诺却拿钱买了盐酸,制成了王水,给钥匙镀了金。可是,奥雷连诺的古怪比不上阿卡蒂奥和阿玛兰塔的古怪。--这两个小家伙的乳齿开始脱落,仍然成天跟在印第安人脚边,揪住他们的衣服下摆,硬要说古阿吉洛语,不说西班牙语。”你怨不了别人,”乌苏娜向大夫说。“孩子的狂劲儿是父母遗传的,”他认为后代的怪诞习惯一点也不比猪尾巴好,就开始抱怨自己倒霉的命运,可是有一次奥色连诺突然拿眼睛盯着她,把她弄得手足无措起来。
  “有人就要来咱们这儿啦,”他说。
  象往常一样,儿子预言什么事情,她就用家庭主妇的逻辑破除他的预言。有人到这儿来,那没有什么特别嘛。每天都有几十个外地人经过马孔多,可这并没有叫人操心,他们来到这儿,并不需要预言。然而,奥雷连诺不顾一切逻辑,相信自己的预言。
  “我不知道来的人是谁,”他坚持说,“可这个人已在路上啦。”
  的确,星期天来了个雷贝卡。她顶多只有十一岁,是跟一些皮货商从马诺尔村来的,经历了艰苦的旅程,这些皮货商受托将这个姑娘连同一封信送到霍·阿·布恩蒂亚家里,但要求他们帮忙的人究竟是推,他们就说不清楚了。这姑娘的全部行李是一只小衣箱、一把画着鲜艳花朵的木制小摇椅以及一个帆布袋;袋子里老是发出“咔嚓、咔嚓、咔嚓”的响声--那儿装的是她父母的骸骨。捎绘霍·间·布恩蒂亚的信是某人用特别亲切的口吻写成的,这人说,尽管时间过久,距离颇远,他还是热爱霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的,觉得自己应当根据基本的人道精神做这件善事--把孤苦伶何的小姑娘送到霍·阿·布恩蒂亚这儿来;这小姑娘是乌苏娜的表侄女,也就是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的亲戚,虽是远房的亲戚;因为她是他难忘的朋友尼康诺尔·乌洛阿和他可敬的妻子雷贝卡·蒙蒂埃尔的亲女儿,他们已去天国,现由这小姑娘把他们的骸骨带去,希望能照基督教的礼仪把它们埋掉。以上两个名字和信未的签名都写得十分清楚,可是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚和乌苏娜都记不得这样的亲戚,也记不起人遥远的马诺尔村捎信来的这个熟人了。从小姑娘身上了解更多的情况是完全不可能的。她一走进屋子,马上坐在自己的摇椅里,开始咂吮指头,两只惊骇的大眼睛望着大家,根本不明白人家问她什么。她穿着染成黑色的斜纹布旧衣服和裂开的漆皮鞋。扎在耳朵后面的两络头发,是用黑蝴蝶系住的。脖子上挂着一只香袋,香袋上有一个汗水弄污的圣像,而右腕上是个铜链条,链条上有一个猛兽的獠牙--防止毒眼的小玩意。她那有点发绿的皮肤和胀鼓鼓、紧绷绷的肚子,证明她健康不佳和经常挨饿,但别人给她拿来吃的,她却一动不动地继续坐着,甚至没有摸一摸放在膝上的盘子。大家已经认为她是个聋哑姑娘,可是印第安人用自己的语言问她想不想喝水,她马上转动眼珠,仿佛认出了他们,肯定地点了点头。
  他们收留了她,因为没有其他办法。他们决定按照信上对她母亲的称呼,也管她叫雷贝卡,因为奥雷连诺虽然不厌其烦地在她面前提到一切圣徒的名字,但她对任何一个名字都无反应。当时马孔多没有墓地,因为还没死过一个人,装着骸骨的袋于就藏了起来,等到有了合适的地方再埋葬,所以长时间里,这袋子总是东藏西放,塞在难以发现的地方,可是经常发出“咔嚓、咔嚓、咔嚓”的响声,就象下蛋的母鸡咯咯直叫。过了很久雷贝卡才跟这家人的生活协调起来。起初她有个习惯:在僻静的屋角里,坐在摇椅上咂吮指头。任何东西都没引起她的注意,不过,每过半小时响起钟声的时候,她都惊骇地四面张望,仿佛想在空中发现这种声音似的。好多天都无法叫她吃饭。谁也不明白她为什么没有饿死,直到熟悉一切的印第安人发现(因为他们在屋子里用无声的脚步不断地来回走动)雷贝卡喜欢吃的只是院子里的泥土和她用指甲从墙上刨下的一块块石灰。显然,由于这个恶劣的习惯,父母或者养育她的人惩罚过她,泥上和石灰她都是偷吃的,她知道不对,而且尽量留存一些,无人在旁时可以自由自在地饱餐一顿。从此,他们对雷贝卡进行了严密的监视,给院子里的泥土浇上牛胆,给房屋的墙壁抹上辛辣的印第安胡椒,恕用这种办法革除姑娘的恶习,但她为了弄到这类吃的,表现了那样的机智和发明才干,使得乌苏娜不得不采取最有效的措施。她把盛着橙子汁和大黄的锅子整夜放在露天里,次日早饭之前拿这种草药给雷贝卡喝。虽然谁也不会建议乌苏娜拿这种混合药剂来治疗不良的泥土嗜好,她还是认为任何苦涩的液体进了空肚子,都会在肝脏里引起反应。雷贝卡尽管样子瘦弱,却十分倔强:要她吃药,就得把她象小牛一样缚住,因为她拼命挣扎,乱抓、乱咬、乱哗,大声叫嚷,今人莫名其妙,据印第安人说,她在骂人,这是古阿吉洛语中最粗鲁的骂人活。乌苏娜知道了这一点,就用鞭挞加强治疗。所以从来无法断定,究竟什么取得了成效--大黄呢,鞭子呢,或者二者一起;大家知道的只有一点,过了几个星期,雷贝卡开始出现康复的征象。现在,她跟阿卡蒂奥和阿玛兰塔一块儿玩耍了,她们拿她当做姐姐;她吃饭有味了,会用刀叉了。随后发现,她说西班牙语象印第安语一样流利,她很能做针线活,还会用自编的可爱歌词照自鸣钟的华尔兹舞曲歌唱。很快,她就似乎成了一个新的家庭成员,她比亲生子女对乌苏娜还亲热;她把阿玛兰塔叫做妹妹,把阿卡蒂奥叫做弟弟,把奥雷连诺称做叔叔,把霍·阿,布恩蒂亚称做伯伯。这么一来,她和其他的人一样就有权叫做雷贝卡·布恩蒂亚了,--这是她唯一的名字,至死都体面地叫这个名字。
  雷贝卡摆脱了恶劣的泥土嗜好,移居阿玛兰塔和阿卡蒂奥的房间之后,有一天夜里,跟孩子们在一起的印第安女人偶然醒来,听到犄角里断续地发出一种古怪的声音。她吃惊地从床上一跃而起,担心什么牲畜钻进了屋子,接着便看见雷贝卡坐在摇椅里,把一个指头塞在嘴里;在黑暗中,她的两只眼睛象猫的眼睛一样闪亮。维希塔香吓得发呆,在姑娘的眼睛里,她发现了某种疾病的征状,这种疾病的威胁曾使她和弟弟永远离开了那个古老的王国,他俩还是那儿的王位继承人咧。这儿也出现了失眠症。
  还没等到天亮,印第安人卡塔乌尔就离开了马孔多。他的姐姐却留了下来,因为宿命论的想法暗示她,致命的疾病反正会跟着她的,不管她逃到多远的地方。然而,谁也不了解维希塔香的不安。“咱们永远不可睡觉吗?那就更好啦,”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚满意他说。“咱们可从生活中得到更多的东西。”可是印第安女人说明:患了这种失眠症,最可怕的不是睡不着觉,因为身体不会感到疲乏;最糟糕的是失眠症必然演变成健忘症。她的意思是说,病人经常处于失眠状态,开头会忘掉童年时代的事儿,然后会忘记东西的名称和用途,最后再也认不得别人,甚至意识不到自己的存在,失去了跟往日的一切联系,陷入一种白痴似的状态。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚哈哈大笑,差点儿没有笑死,他得出结论说,迷信的印第安人捏造了无数的疾病,这就是其中的一种。可是为了预防万一,谨慎的乌苏娜就让雷贝卡跟其他的孩子隔离了。
  过了几个星期,维希塔香的恐惧过去之后,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚夜间突然发现自己在床上翻来复去合不上眼。乌苏娜也没睡着,问他是怎么回事,他回答说:“我又在想普鲁登希奥啦。”他俩一分钟也没睡着,可是早上起来却是精神饱满的,立即忘了恶劣的夜晚。吃早饭时,奥雷连诺惊异地说,他虽在试验室星呆了整整一夜,可是感到自己精神挺好,--他是在试验室里给一枚胸针镀金,打算把它当做生日礼物送给乌苏娜。然而,谁也没有重视这些怪事,直到两天以后,大家仍在床上合不了眼,才知道自己已经五十多个小时没有睡觉了。
  “孩子们也没睡着。这种疫病既然进了这座房子,谁也逃避不了啦,”印第安女人仍用宿命论的口吻说。
  的确,全家的人都息了失眠症,乌苏娜曾从母亲那儿得到一些草药知识,就用乌头熬成汤剂,给全家的人喝了,可是大家仍然不能成眠,而且白天站着也做梦。处在这种半睡半醒的古怪状态中,他们不仅看到自己梦中的形象,而且看到别人梦中的形象。仿佛整座房子都挤满了客人。雷贝卡坐在厨房犄角里的摇椅上,梦见一个很象她的人,这人穿着白色亚麻布衣服,衬衫领子上有一颗金色钮扣,献给她一柬玫瑰花。他的身边站着一个双手细嫩的女人,她拿出一朵玫瑰花来,佩戴在雷贝卡的头发上,乌苏娜明白,这男人和女人是姑娘的父母,可是不管怎样竭力辨认,也不认识他们,终于相信以前是从来没有见过他们的。同时,由于注意不够(这是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚不能原谅自己的),家里制作的糖动物照旧拿到镇上去卖。大人和孩子都快活地吮着有味的绿色公鸡、漂亮的粉红色小鱼、最甜的黄色马儿。这些糖动物似乎也是患了失眠症的。星期一天亮以后,全城的人已经不睡觉了。起初,谁也不担心。许多的人甚至高兴,--因为当时马孔多百业待兴,时间不够。人们那么勤奋地工作,在短时间内就把一切都做完了,现在早晨三点就双臂交叉地坐着,计算自鸣钟的华尔兹舞曲有多少段曲调。想睡的人--井非由于疲乏,而是渴望做梦--采取各种办法把自己弄得精疲力尽,他们聚在一起,不住地絮絮叨叨,一连几小时把同样的奇闻说了又说,大讲特讲白色阉鸡的故事。一直把故事搞得复杂到了极点。这是一种没完没了的玩耍--讲故事的人问其余的人,他们想不想听白色阉鸡的故事,如果他们回答他“是的”,他就说他要求回答的不是“是的”,而是要求回答:他们想不想听白色阉鸡的故事;如果他们回答说“不”,他就说他要求回答的不是“不”,而是要求回答:他们想不想听白色阉鸡的故事;如果大家沉默不语,他就说他要求的不是沉默不语,而是要求回答:他们想不想听白色阉鸡的故事,而且谁也不能走开,因为他说他没有要求他们走开,而是要求回答:他们想不想听白色阉鸡的故事。就这样,一圈一圈的人,整夜整夜说个没完。
  霍·阿·布恩蒂亚知道传染病遍及整个市镇,就把家长们召集起来,告诉他们有关这种失眠症的常识,并且设法防止这种疾病向邻近的城乡蔓延。于是,大家从一只只山羊身上取下了铃铛--用鹦鹉向阿拉伯人换来的铃铛,把它们挂在马孔多人口的地方,供给那些不听岗哨劝阻、硬要进镇的人使用。凡是这时经过马孔多街道的外来人都得摇摇铃铛,让失眠症患者知道来人是健康的。他们在镇上停留的时候,不准吃喝,因为毫无疑问,病从口人嘛,而马孔多的一切食物和饮料都染上了失眠症,采取这些办法,他们就把这种传染病限制在市镇范围之内了。隔离是严格遵守的,大家逐渐习惯了紧急状态。生活重新上了轨道,工作照常进行,谁也不再担心失去了无益的睡眠习惯。
  在几个月中帮助大家跟隐忘症进行斗争的办法,是奥雷连诺发明的。他发现这种办法也很偶然。奥雷连诺是个富有经验的病人--因为他是失眠症的第一批患者之一--完全掌握了首饰技术。有一次,他需要一个平常用来捶平金属的小铁砧,可是记不起它叫什么了。父亲提醒他:“铁砧。”奥雷连诺就把这个名字记在小纸片上,贴在铁砧底儿上。现在,他相信再也不会忘记这个名字了。可他没有想到,这件事儿只是健忘症的第一个表现。过了几天他已觉得,他费了大劲才记起试验室内几乎所有东西的名称。于是,他给每样东西都贴上标签,现在只要一看签条上的字儿,就能确定这是什么东西了。不安的父亲叫苦连天,说他忘了童年时代甚至印象最深的事儿,奥雷连诺就把自己的办法告诉他,于是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚首先在自己家里加以采用,然府在全镇推广。他用小刷子蘸了墨水,给房里的每件东西都写上名称:“桌”、“钟”、“们”、“墙”、“床”、“锅”。然后到畜栏和田地里去,也给牲畜、家禽和植物标上名字:“牛”、“山羊”、“猪”、“鸡”、“木薯”、“香蕉”。人们研究各种健忘的事物时逐渐明白,他们即使根据签条记起了东西的名称,有朝一日也会想不起它的用途。随后,他们就把签条搞得很复杂了。一头乳牛脖子上挂的牌子,清楚他说明马孔多居民是如何跟健忘症作斗争的:“这是一头乳牛。每天早晨挤奶,就可得到牛奶,把牛奶煮沸,掺上咖啡,就可得牛奶咖啡。”就这样,他们生活在经常滑过的现实中,借助字儿能把现实暂时抓住,可是一旦忘了字儿的意义,现实也就难免忘诸脑后了。
  市镇入口的地方挂了一块脾子:“马孔多”,中心大街上挂了另一块较大的牌子:““上帝存在”。所有的房屋都画上了各种符号,让人记起各种东西。然而,这一套办法需要密切的注意力,还要耗费很在的精神,所以许多人就陷入自己的幻想世界,--这对他们是不太实际的,却是更有安慰的。推广这种自欺的办法,最起劲的是皮拉·苔列娜,她想出一种用纸牌测知过去的把戏,就象她以前用纸牌预卜未来一样。由于她那些巧妙的谎言,失眠的马孔多居民就处于纸牌推测的世界,这些推测含糊不清,互相矛盾,面在这个世界中,只能模糊地想起你的父亲是个黑发男人,是四月初来到这儿的;母亲是个黝黑的女人,左手戴着一枚金戒指,你出生的日期是某月的最后一个星期二,那一天百灵鸟在月桂树上歌唱。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚被这种安慰的办法击败了,他为了对抗,决定造出一种记忆机器,此种机器是他以前打算制造出来记住吉卜赛人的一切奇异发明的,机器的作用原理就是每天重复在生活中获得的全部知识。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚把这种机械设想成一本旋转的字典,人呆在旋转轴上,利用把手操纵字典,--这样,生活所需的一切知识短时间内就在眼前经过,他已写好了几乎一万四千张条目卡,这时,从沼泽地带伸来的路上,出现一个样子古怪的老人儿,摇着悲哀的铃铛,拎着一只绳子系住的、胀鼓鼓的箱子,拉着一辆用黑布遮住的小车子。他径直朝霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的房子走来。
  维希塔香给老头儿开了门,却不认得他,把他当成一个商人,老头儿还没听说这个市镇绝望地陷进了健忘症的漩涡,不知道在这儿是卖不出什么东西的。这是一个老朽的人。尽管他的嗓音犹豫地发颤,双乎摸摸索索的,但他显然是从另一个世界来的,那里的人既能睡觉,又能记忆。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚出来接见老头儿的时候,老头儿正坐在客厅里,拿破旧的黑帽子扇着,露出同情的样儿,注意地念了念贴在墙上的字条。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚非常恭敬地接待他,担心自己从前认识这个人,现在却把他给忘了。然而客人识破了他的佯装,感到自己被他忘却了,--他知道这不是心中暂时的忘却,而是另一种更加冷酷的、彻底的忘却,也就是死的忘却。接着,他一切都明白了。他打开那只塞满了不知什么东西的箱子,从中掏出一个放着许多小瓶子的小盒子。他把一小瓶颜色可爱的药水递给房主人,房主人把它喝了,马上恍然大悟。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚两眼噙满悲哀的泪水,然后才看出自己是在荒谬可笑的房间里,这儿的一切东西都贴上了字条;他羞愧地看了看墙上一本正经的蠢话,最后才兴高采烈地认出客人就是梅尔加德斯。
  马孔多庆祝记忆复原的时候,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚和梅尔加德斯恢复了往日的友谊。吉卜赛人打算留居镇上。他的确经历过死亡,但是忍受不了孤独,所以回到这儿来了。因为他忠于现实生活,失去了自己的神奇本领,被他的部族抛弃,他就决定在死神还没发现的这个角落里得到一个宁静的栖身之所,把自己献给银版照相术。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚根本没有听说过这样的发明。可是,当他看见自己和全家的人永远印在彩虹色的金属版上时,他惊得说不出话了;霍·阿·布恩蒂亚有一张锈了的照相底版就是这时的--蓬乱的灰色头发,铜妞扣扣上的浆领衬衫,一本正经的惊异表情。乌苏娜笑得要死,认为他象“吓破了胆的将军。”说真的,在那晴朗的十二月的早晨,梅尔加德斯拍照的时候,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚确实吓坏了:他生怕人像移到金属版上,人就会逐渐消瘦。不管多么反常,乌苏娜这一次却为科学辩护,竭力打消丈夫脑瓜里的荒谬想法。他忘了一切旧怨,决定让梅尔加德斯住在他们家里。然而,乌苏娜自己从不让人给她拍照,因为(据她自己的说法)她不愿留下像来成为子孙的笑柄。那天早晨,她给孩子们穿上好衣服,在他们脸上搽了粉,让每人喝了一匙骨髓汤,使他们能在梅尔加德斯奇异的照相机前面凝然不动地站立几乎两分钟。在这张“全家福”(这是过去留下的唯一的照片)上,奥雷连诺穿着黑色丝绒衣服,站在阿玛兰塔和雷贝卡之间,他的神情倦怠,目光明澈,多年以后,他就是这副神态站在行刑队面前的。可是,照片上的青年当时还没听到命运的召唤,他只是一个能干的首饰匠,由于工作认真,在整个沼泽地带都受到尊重。他的作坊同时是梅尔加德斯的试验室,这儿几乎听不到他的声音。在瓶子的当嘟声和盘子的敲击声中,在接连不断的灾难中:酸溢出来了,溴化银浪费掉了,当他的父亲和吉卜赛人大声争论纳斯特拉达马斯的预言时,奥雷连诺似乎呆在另一个世界里。奥雷连诺忘我地工作,善于维护自己的利益,因此在短时期内,他挣的钱就超过了乌苏娜出售糖动物的收益。大家觉得奇怪的只有一点--他已经是个完全成熟的人,为什么至今不结交女人,的确,他还没有女人。
  过了几个月,那个弗兰西斯科人又来到了马孔多;他是个老流浪汉,差不多两百岁了。他常常路过马孔多,带来自编的歌曲。在这些歌曲中,弗兰西斯科人非常详细地描绘了一些事情,这些事情都发生在他途中经过的地方--从马诺尔村到沼泽地另一边的城乡里,所以,谁想把信息传给熟人,或者想把什么家事公诸于世,只消付两分钱,弗兰西斯科人就可把它列入自己的节目。有一天傍晚,乌苏娜听唱时希望知道儿子的消息,却完全意外地听到了自己母亲的死讯。“弗兰西斯科人”这个绰号的由来,是他在编歌比赛中战胜过魔鬼,他的真名实姓是谁也不知道的;失眠症流行时,他就从马孔多消失了,现在又突然来到了卡塔林诺游艺场。大家都去听他吟唱,了解世界上发生的事儿。跟弗兰西斯科人一起来到马孔多的,有一个妇人和一个年轻的混血姑娘;妇人挺胖,是四个印第安人用摇椅把她抬来的;她头上撑着一把小伞,遮住阳光。混血姑娘却是一副可怜相。这一次,奥雷连诺也来到了卡塔林诺游艺场。弗兰西斯科人端坐在一群听众中间,仿佛一条硕大的变色龙。他用老年人颤抖的声调歌唱,拿华特·赖利在圭亚那给他的那个古老的手风琴伴奏,用步行者的大脚掌打着拍子;他的脚掌已给海盐弄得裂开了。屋子深处看得见另一个房间的门,一个个男人不时挨次进去,摇椅抬来的那个胖妇人坐在门口,默不作声地扇着扇子,卡塔林诺耳后别着一朵假玫瑰,正在卖甘蔗酒,并且利用一切借口走到男人跟前,把手伸到他们身上去摸不该摸的地方。时到午夜,热得难受。奥雷连诺听完一切消息,可是没有发现任何跟自己的家庭有关的事。他已经准备离开,这时那个妇人却用手招呼他。
  “你也进去吧,”她说。“只花两角钱。”
  奥雷连诺把钱扔到胖妇人膝上的一只匣子里,打开了房门,自己也不知道去干什么。床上躺着那个年轻的混血姑娘,浑身赤裸,她的胸脯活象母狗的乳头。在奥雷连诺之前,这儿已经来过六十三个男人,空气中充满了那么多的碳酸气,充满了汗水和叹息的气味,已经变得十分污浊;姑娘取下湿透了的床单,要求奥雷连诺抓住床唯的一头。床单挺重,好象湿帆布。他们抓住床单的两头拧了又拧,它才恢复了正常的重量。然后,他们翻过垫子,汗水却从另一面流了出来。奥雷连诺巴不得把这一切没完没了地干下去。爱情的奥秘他从理论上是知道的,但是他的膝头却在战粟,他勉强才能姑稳脚跟。姑娘拾掇好了床铺,要他脱掉衣服时,他却给她作了混乱的解释:“是他们要我进来的。他们要我把两角钱扔在匣子里,叫我不要耽搁。”姑娘理解他的混乱状态,低声说道:“你出去的时候,再扔两角钱,就可呆得久一点儿。”奥雷连诺羞涩难堪地脱掉了衣服;他总是以为向己的裸体比不上哥哥的裸体。虽然姑娘尽心竭力,他却感到肉己越来越冷漠和孤独。“我再扔两角钱吧,”他完全绝望地咕噜着说。姑娘默不作声地向他表示感谢。她皮包骨头,脊背磨出了血。由于过度疲劳,呼吸沉重、断断续续。两年前,在离马孔多很远的地方,有一天晚上她没熄灭蜡烛就睡着了,醒来的时候,周围一片火焰,她和一个把她养大的老大娘一起居住的房子,烧得精光。从此以后,老大娘就把她带到一个个城镇,让她跟男人睡一次觉捞取两角钱,用来弥补房屋的损失。按照姑娘的计算,她还得再这样生活十年左右,一夜接待七十个男人,因为除了偿债,还得支付她俩的路费和膳食费以及印第安人的抬送费。老大娘第二次敲门的时候,奥雷连诺什么也没做就走出房间,好不容易忍住了泪水,这天夜里,他睡不着觉,老是想着混血姑娘,同时感到怜悯和需要。他渴望爱她和保护她。他被失眠和狂热弄得疲惫不堪,次日早晨就决定跟她结婚,以便把她从老大娘的控制下解救出来,白个儿每夜都得到她给七十个男人的快乐。可是早上十点他来到卡塔林诺游艺场的时候,姑娘已经离开了马孔多。
  时间逐渐冷却了他那热情的、轻率的打算,但是加强了他那希望落空的痛苦感觉。他在工作中寻求解脱。为了掩饰自己不中用的耻辱,他顺人了一辈子打光棍的命运。这时,梅尔加德斯把马孔多一切值得拍照的都拍了照,就将银版照相器材留给霍·阿·布恩蒂亚进行荒唐的试验:后者决定利用银版照相术得到上帝存在的科学证明。他相信,拿屋内不同地方拍的照片进行复杂的加工,如果上帝存在的话,他迟早准会得到上帝的照片,否则就永远结束有关上帝存在的一切臆想。梅尔加德斯却在深入研究纳斯特拉达马斯的理论。他经常坐到很晚,穿着褪了色的丝绒坎肩直喘粗气,用他干瘦的鸟爪在纸上潦草地写着什么;他手上的戒指已经失去往日的光彩。有一天夜晚,他觉得他偶然得到了有关马孔多未来的启示。马孔多将会变成一座辉煌的城市,有许多高大的玻璃房子,城内甚至不会留下布恩蒂亚家的痕迹。“胡说八道,”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚气恼他说。“不是玻璃房子,而是我梦见的那种冰砖房子,并且这儿永远都会有布思蒂亚家的人,Peromniaseculasecul-orumo!”(拉丁语:永远永远)乌苏娜拼命想给这个怪人的住所灌输健全的思想。她添了一个大炉灶,除了生产糖动物,开始烤山整篮整篮的面包和大堆大堆各式各样的布丁、奶油蛋白松饼和饼干--这一切在几小时内就在通往沼泽地的路上卖光了。尽管乌苏娜已经到了应当休息的年岁,但她年复一年变得越来越勤劳了,全神贯注在兴旺的生意上,有一天傍晚,印第安女人正帮她把糖掺在生面里,她漫不经心地望着窗外,突然看见院子里有两个似乎陌生的姑娘,都很年轻、漂亮,正在落日的余晖中绣花。这是雷贝卡和阿玛兰塔。她们刚刚脱掉穿了三年的悼念外祖母的孝服.花衣服完全改变了她们的外貌。出乎一切预料,雷贝卡在姿色上超过了阿玛兰塔,她长着宁静的大眼睛、光洁的皮肤和具有魔力的手:她的手仿佛用看不见的丝线在绣架的布底上刺绣。较小的阿玛兰塔不够雅致,但她从已故的外祖母身上继承了天生的高贵和自尊心。呆在她们旁边的是阿卡蒂奥,他身上虽已显露了父亲的体魄,但看上去还是个孩子。他在奥雷连诺的指导下学习首饰技术,奥雷连诺还教他读书写字。乌苏娜明白,她家里满是成年的人,她的孩子们很快就要结婚,也要养孩子,全家就得分开,因为这座房子不够大家住了。于是,她拿出长年累月艰苦劳动积攒的钱,跟工匠们商量好,开始扩充住宅。她吩咐增建:一间正式客厅--用来接待客人:另一间更舒适、凉爽的大厅--供全家之用,一个饭厅,拥有一张能坐十二人的桌子;九间卧室,窗户都面向庭院;一道长廊,由玫瑰花圃和宽大的栏杆(栏杆上放着一盆盆碳类植物和秋海棠)挡住晌午的阳光。而且,她还决定扩大厨房,安置两个炉灶;拆掉原来的库房(皮拉·苔列娜曾在里面向霍·阿卡蒂奥预言过他的未来),另盖一间大一倍的库房,以便家中经常都有充足的粮食储备。在院子里,在大栗树的浓荫下面,乌苏娜嘱咐搭两个浴棚:一个女浴棚,一个男浴棚,而星后却是宽敞的马厩、铁丝网围住的鸡窝和挤奶棚,此外有个四面敞开的鸟笼,偶然飞来的鸟儿高兴栖息在那儿就栖息在那儿。乌苏娜带领着几十名泥瓦匠和木匠,仿佛染上了大大的“幻想热”,决定光线和空气进人屋子的方位,划分面帆完全不受限。马孔多建村时修盖的这座简陋房子,堆满了各种工具和建筑材料,工人们累得汗流浃背,老是提醒旁人不要妨碍他们干活,而他们总是碰到那只装着骸骨的袋子,它那沉闷的咔嚓声简直叫人恼火。谁也不明白,在这一片混乱中,在生石灰和沥青的气味中,地下怎会立起一座房子,这房子不仅是全镇最大的,而且是沼泽地区最凉爽宜人的。最不理解这一点的是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚,甚至在大变动的高潮中,他也没有放弃突然摄到上帝影像的尝试。新房子快要竣工的时候,乌苏娜把他拉出了幻想的世界,告诉他说,她接到一道命令:房屋正面必须刷成蓝色,不能刷成他们希望的白色。她把正式公文给他看。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚没有马上明白他的妻子说些什么,首先看了看纸儿上的签字。
  “这个人是谁?”他问。
  “镇长,”乌苏娜怏怏不乐地回答。“听说他是政府派来的官儿。”
  阿·摩斯柯特镇长先生是不声不响地来到马孔多的。第一批阿拉伯人来到这儿,用小玩意儿交换鹦鹉的时候,有个阿拉伯人开了一家雅各旅店,阿·摩斯柯特首先住在这个旅店里,第二天才租了一个门朝街的小房间,离布恩蒂亚的房子有两个街区。他在室内摆上从雅各旅店买来的桌子和椅子,把带来的共和国国徽钉在墙上,并且在门上刷了“镇长”二字。他的第一道命令就是要所有的房屋刷成蓝色,借以庆祝国家独立的周年纪念。
  霍·阿·布恩蒂亚拿着复写的命令来找镇长,正碰见他在小办公室的吊床上睡午觉。“这张纸儿是你写的吗?”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚问。阿·摩斯柯特是个上了岁数的人,面色红润,显得胆怯,作了肯定的问答。“凭什么权力?”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚又问。
  阿·摩斯柯特从办公桌抽屉内拿出一张纸来,递给他看。“兹派该员前往上述市镇执行镇长职务。”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚对这委任状看都不看一眼。
  “在这个市镇上,我们不靠纸儿发号施令,”他平静地回答。“请你永远记住:我们不需要别人指手画脚,我们这儿的事用不着别人来管。”
  阿·摩斯柯特先生保持镇定,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚仍然没有提高声音,向他详细他讲了讲:他们如何建村,如何划分土地、开辟道路,做了应做的一切,从来没有麻烦过任何政府。谁也没有来麻烦过他们。“我们是爱好和平的人,我们这儿甚至还没死过人咧。”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚说。“你能看出,马孔多至今没有墓地。”他没有抱怨政府,恰恰相反,他高兴没有人来妨碍他们安宁地发展,希望今后也是如此,因为他们建立马孔多村,不是为了让别人来告诉他们应该怎么办的。阿,摩斯柯特先生穿上象裤子一样白的祖布短上衣,一分钟也没忘记文雅的举止。
  “所以,如果你想留在这个镇上做一个普通的居民,我们完全欢迎。”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚最后说。“可是,如果你来制造混乱,强迫大伙儿把房子刷成蓝色,那你就拿起自己的行李,回到你来的地方去,我的房子将会白得象一只鸽子。”
  阿·摩斯柯特先生脸色发白。他倒退一步,咬紧牙关,有点激动他说:
  “我得警告你,我有武器。”
  霍·阿·布恩蒂亚甚至没有发觉,他的双手刹那问又有了年轻人的力气,从前他靠这种力气曾把牲口按倒在地,他一把揪住阿·摩斯柯特的衣领,把他举到自己眼前。
  “我这么做,”他说,“因为我认为我已到了余年,与其拖一个死人,不如花几分钟拖一个活人。”
  就这样,他把悬在衣领上的阿·摩斯柯特先生沿着街道中间拎了过去,在马孔多到沼泽地的路上他才让他双脚着地。过了一个星期,阿·摩斯柯特又来了,带着六名褴褛、赤足、持熗的士兵,还有一辆牛车,车上坐着他的妻子和七个女儿。随后又来了两辆牛车,载着家具、箱子他和其他家庭用具。镇长暂时把一家人安顿在雅各旅店里,随后找到了房子,才在门外安了两名卫兵,开始办公,马孔多的老居民决定撵走这些不速之客,就带着自己年岁较大的几子去找霍·阿·布恩蒂亚,希望他担任指挥。可是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚反对他们的打算,因为据他解释,阿·摩斯柯特先生既然跟妻子和女儿一起回来了,在他的一家人面前侮辱他,就不是男子汉大丈夫了。事情应当和平解决。
  奥雷连诺自愿陪伴父亲。这时,他已长了尖端翘起的黑胡髭,嗓音洪亮,这种嗓音在战争中是会使他大显威风的。他们没带武器,也没理睬卫兵,径直跨进了镇长办公室,阿·摩斯柯特先生毫不慌乱。他把他们介绍给他的两个女儿;她们是偶然来到办公室的:一个是十六岁的安芭萝,象她母亲一样满头乌发,一个是刚满九岁的雷麦黛丝,这小姑娘挺可爱,皮肤细嫩,两眼发绿。姐妹俩都挺文雅,很讲礼貌。布恩蒂亚父子两人刚刚进来,她俩还没听到介绍,就给客人端来椅子。可是他们不愿坐下。
  “好啦,朋友,”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚说,“我们让你住在这儿,但这并不是因为门外站着几个带熗的强盗,而是由于尊敬你的夫人和女儿。”
  阿·摩斯柯特张口结舌,可是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚没有让他反驳。
  “但是我们必须向你提出两个条件,”他补充说。“第一:每个人想把自己的房子刷成什么颜色就是什么颜色。第二:大兵们立即离开马孔多,镇上的秩序由我们负责。”
  镇长起誓似的举起手来。
  “这是真话?”
  “敌人的话,”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚说。接着又苦楚地添了一句:“因为我得告诉你一点:你和我还是敌人。”
  就在这一天下午,士兵们离开了市镇。过了几天,霍·阿·布恩蒂亚为镇长一家人找到了一座房子。除了奥雷连诺。大家都平静下来。镇长的小女儿雷麦黛丝,就年龄来说,也适于做奥雷连诺的女儿,可是她的形象却留在他的心里,使他经常感到痛苦。这是肉体上的感觉,几乎妨碍他走路,仿佛一块石子掉进了他的鞋里。

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