世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第7章Part 9

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. úrsula 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 úrsula 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," úrsula 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.

儘管奧雷連諾上校是凱旋歸來的，但是表面的順利並沒有迷惑住他。政府軍未經抵抗就放棄了他們的陣地，這就給同情自由黨的居民造成勝利的幻覺，這種幻覺雖然是不該消除的，但是起義的人知道真情，奧雷連諾上校則比他們任何人都更清楚。他統率了五千多名士兵，控制了沿海兩州，但他明白自己被截斷了與其他地區的聯繫，給擠到了海濱，處於十分含糊的政治地位，所以，當他下令修復政府軍大炮毀壞的教堂鐘樓時，難怪患病的尼康諾神父在牀上說：“真是怪事——基督教徒毀掉教堂，共濟會員卻下令重建。”爲了尋求出路，奧雷連諾上校一連幾個小時呆在電報室裏，跟其他起義部隊的指揮官商量，而每次離開電報室，他都越來越相信戰爭陷入了絕境。每當得到起義者勝利的消息，他們都興高采烈地告訴人民，可是奧雷連諾上校在地圖上測度了這些勝利的真實價值之後，卻相信他的部隊正在深入叢林，而且爲了防禦瘧疾和蚊子，正在朝着與現實相反的方向前進。“咱們正在失去時間，”他向自己的軍官們抱怨說。“黨內的那些蠢貨爲自己祈求國會裏的席位，咱們還要失去時間。”在他不久以前等待槍決的房間裏懸着一個吊鋪，每當不眠之夜仰臥鋪上時，奧雷連諾上校都往想象那些身穿黑色衣服的法學家——他們如何在冰冷的清晨走出總統的府邸，把大衣領子翻到耳邊，搓着雙手，竊竊私語，並且躲到昏暗的通宵咖啡館去，反覆推測：總統說“是”的時候，真正想說什麼；總統說“不”的時候，又真正想說什麼，他們甚至猜測：總統所說的跟他所想的完全相反時，他所想的究竟是什麼；然而與此同時，他奧雷連諾上校卻在三十五度的酷熱裏驅趕蚊子，感到可怕的黎明正在一股腦兒地逼近：隨着黎明的到來，他不得不向自己的部隊發出跳海的命令。

在這樣一個充滿疑慮的夜晚，聽到皮拉·苔列娜跟士兵們在院子裏唱歌，他就請她占卜。“當心你的嘴巴，”皮拉·苔列娜攤開紙牌，然後又把紙牌收攏起來，擺弄了三次才說，“我不知道這是什麼意思，但徵兆是很明顯的。當心你的嘴巴。”過了兩天，有人把一杯無糖的咖啡給一個勤務兵，這個勤務兵把它傳給另一個勤務兵，第二個勤務兵又拿它傳給第三個勤務兵，傳來傳去，最後出現在奧雷連諾上校的辦公室裏。上校並沒有要咖啡，可是既然有人把它送來了，他拿起來就喝。咖啡裏放了若干足以毒死一匹牲口的士的寧。奧雷連諾上校給擡回家去的時候，身體都變得僵直了，舌頭也從嘴裏吐了出來。烏蘇娜從死神手裏搶救兒子。她用催吐劑清除他胃裏的東西，拿暖和的長毛絨被子把他裹了起來，餵了他兩天蛋白，直到他的身體恢復正常的溫度。第四天，上校脫離了危險。由於烏蘇娜和軍官們的堅持，他不顧自己的願望繼續在牀上躺了整整一個星期。在這些日子裏，他才知道他寫的詩沒有燒掉。“我不想慌里慌張，”烏蘇娜解釋說。“那天晚上我生爐子的時候，我對自己說：最好等到人家把他的屍體擡回來的時候吧。”在療養中，周圍是雷麥黛絲的落滿塵土的玩具，奧雷連諾上校重讀自己的詩稿，想起了自己一生中那些決定性的時刻。他又開始寫詩。躺臥病榻使他脫離了陷入絕境的、變化無常的戰爭，他就用押韻的詩歌分析了他同死亡鬥爭的經驗。他的頭腦逐漸清楚，能夠思前想後了。有天晚上，他問格林列爾多·馬克斯上校：
“請你告訴我，朋友，你是爲什麼戰鬥呀？”
“能有什麼其他原因呢？”格林列爾多·馬克斯上校回答。“爲了偉大的自由黨唄。”
“你很幸福，因爲你知道爲什麼戰鬥，”他回答，“而我現在才明白，我是由於驕傲才參加戰鬥的。”
“這不好，”格林列爾多·馬克斯說。