世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第19章Part1

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 shedo 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.

第 十 九 章
十二月初旬，阿瑪蘭塔。 烏蘇娜一路順風地回來了。她拉着丈夫系在脖子上的絲帶，領他到了家，她是事先沒打招呼便突然出現的；她身穿乳白色衣服，脖子上戴着的那串珍珠幾乎拖到膝蓋，手指上是綠寶石和黃寶石的戒指，光潔、整齊的頭髮梳成一個發轡，用燕尾狀的髮針別在耳後。六個月前同她結婚的男人，年歲較大，瘦瘦的；象個水手，是法蘭德斯人。她一推開客廳的門，就感到自己離開這兒已經很久了。房子破得比想象的更厲害。
“天啊，”她叫了一聲，語氣快活多於驚訝，“顯然，這房子裏沒有女人！”
門廊上放不下她的行李，菲蘭達的那隻舊箱子，是家裏送她上學時給她的，此外還有一對豎着的大木箱、四隻大手提箱、一隻裝陽傘的提包、八個帽盒、一個裝了五十隻金絲雀的大籠子，另外就是丈夫的自行車，這輛自行車是拆開來裝在一隻特製箱子裏的。他象抱大提琴似的抱着箱子走。儘管經過長途跋涉，但她連一天都沒休息。她全身都換上她丈夫夾在自動玩具裏一道帶來的粗布衣服，把這座房子裏裏外外打掃一遍。她掃去了在門廊裏做窩的紅螞蟻，讓玫瑰花叢恢復生機，剷除了雜草，種上羊齒蕨和薄荷，沿着籬笆牆又擺上了一盆盆秋海棠。她叫來一大羣木匠、鎖匠和泥瓦匠，讓他們在地上抹縫，把門窗裝好，將傢俱修復一新，把牆壁裏裏外外粉刷了一遍。就這樣，在她回來三個月以後，人們又可以呼吸到自動鋼琴時代曾經有過的朝氣蓬勃、愉快歡樂的氣息了。在這座房子裏，在任何時候和任何情況下，都不曾有過一個人的情緒比現在還好，也不曾有過一個人比她更想唱，更想跳，更想把一切陳規陋習拋進垃圾堆裏。她用笤帚掃掉了喪葬的祭奠品，掃掉了一堆堆破爛，掃掉了角落裏成年累月堆積起來的迷信用具。出於對烏蘇娜的感激，她留下了一件東西，那就是掛在客廳裏的雷麥黛絲的照片。“啊唷，真逗人，”她這樣喊道，笑得上氣不接下氣。“一個十四歲的姑媽！”一個泥瓦匠告訴她，這座房子裏全是妖怪，要趕走它們只有找到它們埋藏的金銀財寶才行。她笑着回答說，男人不該相信迷信。她那麼天真、灑脫，那麼大方、時新，使奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞見她過來便感到手足無措。“啊唷！啊唷！”她雙臂張開，快活地叫道。“看看我的小鬼頭是怎麼長大的！”沒等他反應過來，她已經在她隨身帶來的手提留聲機上放了一張唱片，打算教他跳最新式的舞。她叫他換下奧雷連諾上校傳給他的髒褲子，送給他一些顏色鮮豔的襯衫和兩色皮鞋，如果他在梅爾加德斯的房間裏呆久了，她就把他推到街上去。
她象烏蘇娜一樣活潑、纖小、難以駕馭，並且幾乎同俏姑娘雷麥黛絲同樣漂亮和誘人。她有一種能夠預測時尚的罕見本能。當她從郵件裏收到最新式的時裝圖片時，旁人不得不讚賞她親自設計的式樣：她用阿瑪蘭塔的老式腳踏縫紉機縫製的衣服和圖片上的完全一樣。她訂閱了歐洲出版的所有時裝雜誌、美術刊物、大衆音樂評論，她經常只要瞟上一眼，便知道世界萬物正按照她的想象發展變化，具有這種氣質的女人，居然要回到這個滿是灰塵、熱得要命的死鎮上來，真是不可理解，何況她有一個殷實的丈夫，錢多得足以在世界上任何地方生活，而且他對她很有感情，甘心讓她牽着絲帶到處走。隨着時光的流逝，她準備久居的意思更加明顯，因爲她的計劃是長遠的，她的打算就是在馬孔多尋求舒適的生活以安度晚年。金絲雀籠子表明她的決定不是突然的。她想起了母親在一封信裏告訴過她關於捕殺鳥類的事情，就把動身的時間推遲了幾個月，直到發現了停泊在幸福島的一隻輪船。她在島上挑選了二十五對最好的金絲雀，這樣她就可以使馬孔多的天空又有飛鳥生存了。這是她無數次失敗中最可悲的一次。鳥兒繁殖以後，阿瑪蘭塔·烏蘇娜卻把它們一對對地放出去；鳥兒們獲得了自由，便立即從小鎮飛走了。她想用烏蘇娜第一次重建房子時所做的鳥籠來喚起鳥兒們的感情，可是沒有成功。她又在杏樹上用蘆草編織了鳥巢，在巢頂撒上鳥食，引誘籠中的鳥兒唱歌，想借它們的歌聲勸阻那些飛出籠子的鳥兒不要遠走高飛，但也失敗了，因爲鳥兒一有機會展開翅膀，便在空中兜一個圈子，辨別了一下幸福島的方向，飛去了。