世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第8章Part 1

SITTNG IN THE WICKER ROCKING chair with her interrupted work in her lap, Amaranta watched Aureliano, José , 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 José 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, Aureli-ano José 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. Aureli-ano José 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 úrsula one afternoon when she went into the granary as they were starting to kiss. "Do you love your aunt a lot?" she asked Aureli-ano José in an innocent way. He answered that he did. "That's good of you," úrsula 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. Aureli-ano José, 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 Aureli-ano 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 Aureli-ano 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 úrsula 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 Aureli-ano Buendía, come to the door right now." úrsula Jumped out of bed and went to the door in her night-gown 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 Aureli-ano José had gone with his father.
Ten days after a joint communiqué by the government and the opposition announced the end of the war, there was news of the first armed uprising of Colonel Aureli-ano 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 Aureli-ano Buendía so that he could go on with the war. But úrsula did not bother to dig it up because it was rumored in those days that Colonel Aureli-ano 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 úrsula and Amaranta had added new mourning to the past period, unexpected news arrived. Colonel Aureli-ano 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 úrsula 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," úrsula exclaimed on reading it. "If he follows this path he'll spend Christmas at the ends of the earth."

阿瑪蘭塔坐在柳條搖椅裏，把刺繡活兒放在膝上，望着奧雷連諾。 霍塞；他給臉頰和下巴都塗滿了肥皂沫，就在皮帶上磨剃刀，有生以來第一次剖臉了。他爲了把淺色的茸毛修成一撮胡於，竟將一個小疹皰弄出了血，而且割破了上脣，然而一切完畢之後，他還是原來的樣兒；複雜的刮臉手續使阿瑪蘭塔覺得，正是從這時起，奧雷連諾·霍塞長大成人了。
“奧雷連諾（注：指奧雷連諾上校長）象你現在這個歲數的時候，跟你一模一樣，”她說。“你已經是個男子漢啦。”
其實，他很早很早以前就成爲男子漢了，那時阿瑪蘭塔還把他當做一個孩子，在浴室裏照常當着他的面脫衣服。從皮拉。苔列娜把孩子交給她撫養以來，她是慣於這麼做的。第一次，他感到興趣的只是她那兩個乳房之間的深凹之處，他甚至那麼天真地問阿瑪蘭塔，她爲什麼是那種樣兒，她回答說：“刨呀，刨呀，就刨出坑凹啦。”——接着用手錶示如何刨法。過了許久，她在皮埃特羅·克列斯比死後恢復了常態，又跟奧雷連諾。霍塞一塊兒洗澡，他已經不去注意那個深凹之處，可是她那酥軟的乳房和褐色的乳頭卻使他奇怪地發頗。他繼續觀察她，逐漸發現了她那最最隱祕的奇蹟，而且由於這種宜觀，他覺得自己的皮膚起了一層雞皮疙瘩，就象她的皮膚接觸冷水時出現的那種疙瘩。奧雷連諾·霍塞還是個小孩兒的時候，就養成了天剛微明就從自己的吊鋪鑽進阿瑪蘭塔臥榻的習慣，因爲趴她接觸可以驅除他對黑暗的恐懼。然而，自從那一大他注意到了她的裸體之後，促使他從蚊帳下面鑽進阿瑪蘭塔臥榻的，已經不是對黑暗的恐懼，而是渴望黎明時聞到她那溫暖的氣息了。有一天拂曉時——這件事正好發生在阿瑪蘭塔拒絕了格休列爾多·馬克斯上校的時候——奧雷連諾。霍塞醒了過來，覺得自己喘不過氣。他感到阿瑪蘭塔的手指，活象急切、貪婪的小蟲子，悄悄地摸他的肚子。奧雷連諾·霍塞假裝睡着了，翻身仰臥，讓她的手指摸起來更方便一些。這一夜，他和阿瑪蘭塔建立了狼狽爲奸的牢固關係，儘管兩人都裝作不知道兩人已經知道的事，正象其中一個知道另一個已經明白一切那樣。現在，奧雷連諾·霍塞不聽到音樂鐘響起十二點的華爾茲舞曲就不能人睡，而這個容顏已衰的女人呢，除非她養大的夢遊者鑽進她的蚊帳，並且成爲她治療孤獨病的臨時藥劑，她就沒有片刻的安寧。隨後，他倆不僅赤身露體地一塊兒睡覺，弄得疲憊不堪，而且白天也在房中各處互相追逐，或者關在臥寶裏，經常處於無法止息的興奮狀態。有一天下午，烏蘇娜差點兒發現了他們的祕密——她突然走進庫房，他倆剛剛開始接吻。“你很愛自己的姑姑吧？”她天真地問了孫子一句。他作了肯定的回答，“你幹得好呀！”烏蘇娜說着，量出了做麪包的麪粉，就回廚房去了。這下子使得阿瑪蘭塔清醒了過來。她明白自己作得過頭了，已經不光是跟小孩子玩玩接吻的遊戲，還陷進了戀愛的泥潭，這種戀愛是危險的、沒有好結果的，於是她馬上堅決地結束了這種勾當。這時完成了軍事訓練的奧雷連諾·霍塞，不得不忍受這件事情的痛苦，開始住在兵營裏。每逢星期六，他都和士兵們一塊兒去卡塔林諾遊藝場。他過早成熟，而且陷入了孤獨，就向那些發出萎謝的花味兒的女人尋求安慰：在黑暗中，他把她們理想化，而且憑熱烈的想象把她們當做阿瑪蘭塔。
過了不久，傳到馬孔多的戰爭消息就變得互相矛盾了。儘管政府本身公開承認起義者取得了接二連三的勝利，可是馬孔多的起義軍官們仍然擁有難免投降的機密情報。四月初，有個特使來找格林列爾多·馬克斯上校。他證實，自由黨領袖們的確跟內部地區起義部隊的頭頭們進行了談判，很快就要和政府簽署下述條件的停戰協定：自由黨人取得三個部長職位，在議會裏成爲少數派；赦免放下武器的起義者。特使帶來了奧雷連諾上校十分機密的指示：他不同意停戰條件。他命令格林列爾多·馬克斯上校挑選五個最可靠的人，準備跟他們一起離開國內。命令是極端祕密地執行的。在正式宣佈停戰之前一個星期，各種互相矛盾的謠言涌到馬孔多的時候，奧雷連諾上校和十個忠於他的軍官，其中包括羅克·卡尼瑟洛上校，在夜色的掩護下，祕密地來到了馬孔多，造散了警備隊，埋藏了武器，銷燬了檔案。黎明時分，他們同格林列爾多·馬克斯上校和他的五個人一起離開了馬孔多。這次行動是迅捷無聲的，烏蘇娜直到最後一分鐘才知道情況，當時不知是誰輕輕地敲了敲她的臥室窗子，低聲說：“如果你想見見奧雪連諾上校，就趕快出來。”烏蘇娜從牀上一躍而起，穿着睡衣奔到街上，可是已經看不見什麼人，只聽到黑暗裏傳來疾馳的馬蹄聲 ——支馬隊在塵土飛揚中離開了馬孔多。烏蘇娜第二天才發現，奧雷連諾·霍塞跟他父親一塊兒走了。
政府和反對派發表了結束戰爭的聯合公報之後十天，傳來了奧雷連諾上校在西部邊境發動第一次起義的消息。起義部隊人數不多，裝備很差，不到一個星期就潰敗了。但在一，年之中，正當自由黨人和保守黨人儘量讓全國相信他們的和解時，奧雷連諾上校又組織了七次武裝起義。有一天夜嘔，他隊一條縱帆船上向列奧阿察開炮，列奧阿察警備隊的回答是：把城內最著名的十四個自由黨人從牀上拖出，就地槍決。奧雷連諾上校佔領了邊境的海關哨所兩個多星期，從那幾向全國發出了開始全民戰爭的號召。另一次，他在叢林裏遊蕩了三個月，柯算實現一個最荒唐的計劃——在原始叢林墾走過將近一千五百公里，到首都郊區去展開軍事行動。有一次，他出現在距離馬孔多下到二十公里的地方，可是政府軍把他逼進了山裏——到了距離一個魔區很近的地方，許多年前他的父親曾在那兒發現過西班牙大帆船的骨架。
就在這時，維希塔香死了。她是象她希望的那樣自然死亡的，由於害怕失眠症使她過早死去，她曾離開了自己的家鄉。這個印第安女人的遺願，是要烏蘇娜從她牀下的小箱子裏掏出她二十多年的積蓄，送給奧雷連諾上校去支援戰爭。可是，烏蘇娜並沒去碰這些錢，因爲聽說奧雷連諾上校似乎在省城附近登陸時犧牲了。大家認爲，關於他已死亡的正式報導——最近兩年中的第四次——是可靠的，因爲幾乎六個月來再也沒有聽到他的消息。儘管以前的大事還沒過期，烏蘇娜和阿瑪蘭塔又宣佈了新的喪事，然而今人震驚的消息卻突然傳到了馬孔多。奧雷連諾上校還話着，可是顯然停止了跟本國政府的戰鬥，而同加勒比海其他國這節節勝利的聯邦主義者聯合了起來。他已改名換姓，離噶自己的國家越來越遠。後來知道，他當時的理想是把中美洲所有聯邦主義者的力量聯合起來，推翻整個大陸——從阿拉斯加到巴塔戈尼亞（注：阿根廷地名）——的保守派政府。烏蘇娜直接從兒子那裏接到了第一個信息，是他離開馬孔多幾年之後捎來的——那是一封揉皺了的。字跡模糊的信，一直從古巴的聖地亞哥經過不同的手傳遞來的。
“我們永遠失去奧雷連諾啦，”烏蘇娜讀了信，悅道。“如果他這樣走下去，再過一年就到天邊啦。”