世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第12章Part1

DAZZLED BY SO MANY and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macon-do did not know where their amazement began. They stayed up all night looking at the pale electric bulbs fed by the plant that Aureli-ano 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 actedout 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 Macon-do 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 José 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 Macon-do 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 Macon-do 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. Aureli-ano Segun-do 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 Macon-do 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 withoptical 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.

馬孔多居民被許多奇異的發明弄得眼花繚亂，簡直來不及表示驚訝。他們望着淡白的電燈，整夜都不睡覺；電機是奧雷連諾·特里斯特第二次乘火車旅行之後帶回來的，——它那無休無止的嗡嗡聲，要好久才能逐漸習慣。生意興隆的商人布魯諾·克列斯比先生，在設有獅頭式售票窗口的劇院裏放映的電影，搞得馬孔多的觀衆惱火已極，因爲他們爲之痛哭的人物，在一部影片裏死亡和埋葬了，卻在另一部影片裏活得挺好，而且變成了阿拉伯人。花了兩分錢去跟影片人物共命運的觀衆，忍受不了這種空前的欺騙，把坐椅都砸得稀爛。根據布魯諾。 克列斯比先生的堅決要求，鎮長在一張佈告中說明：電影機只是一種放映幻象的機器，觀衆不應予以粗暴的對待；許多人以爲自己受了吉卜賽人新把戲的害，就決定不再去看電影了，因爲自己的倒黴事兒已經夠多，用不着去爲假人假事流淚。快活的法國藝妓帶來的留聲機也出現了類似的情況，此種留聲機代替了過時的手風琴，使得地方樂隊的收入受到了損失，最初大家好奇，前來“禁街”（指花天酒地的街道）參觀的人很多，甚至傳說一些高貴婦女也喬裝男人，希望親眼看看這種神祕的新鮮玩意兒，但她們就近看了半天以後認爲：這並不象大家所想的和藝妓們所說的是個“魔磨”，而是安了發條的玩具，它的音樂根本不能跟樂隊的音樂相比，因爲樂隊的音樂是動人的、有人味的，充滿了生活的真實。大家對留聲機深感失望，儘管它很快得到了廣泛的推廣，每個家庭都有一架，但畢竟不是供成年人消遣，而是給孩子們拆來拆去玩耍的。不過，鎮上的什麼人見到了火車站上的電話機，面對這種嚴峻的現實，最頑固的懷疑論者也動搖了。這種電話機有一個需要轉動的長把手，因此大家最初把它看作是一種原始的留聲機。上帝似乎決定試驗一下馬孔多居民們驚愕的限度，讓他們經常處於高興與失望、懷疑和承認的交替之中，以致沒有一個人能夠肯定他說現實的限度究竟在哪裏。這是現實和幻想的混合，猶如慄樹下面霍·阿·布恩蒂亞不安的幽靈甚至大白天也在房子裏踱來踱去。鐵路正式通車之後，每個星期三的十一點鐘，一列火車開始準時到達，車站上建立了一座房子——一個簡陋的木亭，裏面有一張桌子和一臺電話機，還有一個售票的小窗口；馬孔多街道上出現了外來的男男女女，他們裝做是從事一般買賣的普通人，但是很象雜技演員。這些沿街表演的流動雜技演員，也鼓簧弄舌地硬要別人觀看嘯叫的鐵鍋，並且傳授大齋第七天拯救靈魂的攝生方法。（注：指節慾規則，節慾方法）在已經厭惡吉卜賽把戲的這個市鎮上，這些雜技演員是無法指望成功的，但他們還是想盡巧招賺了不少錢，主要靠那些被他們說得厭煩的人和容易上當的人。在一個星期三，有一位笑容可掬的矮小的赫伯特先生，和這些雜技演員一塊兒來到了馬孔多，然後在布恩蒂亞家裏吃飯。他穿着馬褲，繫着護腿套，戴着軟木頭盔和鋼邊眼鏡；眼鏡後面是黃玉似的眼睛。
赫伯特先生在桌邊吃完第一串香蕉之前，誰也沒有注意他。奧雷連諾第二是在雅各旅館裏偶然遇見他的，他在那兒用半通不通的西班牙語抱怨沒有空房間，奧雷連諾第二就象經常對待外來人那樣，把他領到家裏來了。赫伯特先生有幾個氣球，他帶着它們遊歷了半個世界，到處都得到極好的收入，但他未能把任何一個馬孔多居民升到空中，因爲他們看見過和嘗試過吉卜賽人的飛毯，就覺得氣球是倒退了。因此，赫伯特先生已買好了下一趟列車的車票。一串虎紋香蕉拿上桌子的時候（這種香蕉通常是拿進飯廳供午餐用的），赫伯特先生興致不大地掰下了第一個香蕉。接着又掰下一個，再掰下一個；他不停地一面談，一面吃；一面咀嚼，一面品味，但沒有食客的喜悅勁兒，只有學者的冷淡神態。吃完了第一串香蕉，他又要了第二串。然後，他從經常帶在身邊的工具箱裏，掏出一個裝着精密儀器的小盒子。他以鑽石商人的懷疑態度仔細研究了一個香蕉：用專門的柳葉刀從香蕉上剖下一片，放在藥秤上稱了稱它的重量，拿軍械技師的卡規量了量它的寬度。隨後，他又從箱子裏取出另一套儀器，測定溫度、空氣溼度和陽光強度。這些繁瑣的手續是那樣引人入勝，以致誰也不能平靜地吃，都在等待赫伯特先生髮表最後意見，看看究竟是怎麼一回事，但他並沒有說出一句能夠使人猜到他的心思的話來。