世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第11章Part 6

"Don't bother me," he said. "I'm busy."
"Open up," úrsula insisted in a normal voice. "This has nothing to do with the celebration."
Then Colonel Aureli-ano 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 Aureli-ano and the last name of their mothers. The three days that they stayed in the house, to the satisfaction of úrsula and the scandal of Fernanda, were like a state war. Amaranta searched among old papers for the ledger where úrsula 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 Macon-do at the head of twenty-one men on his way to afanciful rebellion until he returned for the last time wrapped in a blanket stiff with blood could have been reconstructed. Aureli-ano Segun-do 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 Aureli-ano 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 Even the withdrawn José Arcadio Segun-do offered them an afternoon of cockfights, which was at the point of ending in tragedy because several of the Aureli-anos were so expert in matters of the cockpit that they spotted Father Antonio Isabel's tricks at once. Aureli-ano Segun-do, 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 Aureli-ano 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," úrsula 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. Aureli-ano Triste, with the cross of ashes on his forehead, set up on the edge of town the ice factory that José Arcadio Buendía had dreamed of in his inventive delirium.
Some months after his arrival, when he was already well-known and well-liked, Aureli-ano 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 thelast 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 Aureli-ano 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. Aureli-ano 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, Aureli-ano Triste barely noticed that the woman was aiming an antiquated pistol at him.
"I beg your pardon," he murmured.

“別打擾我，”他說。“我正忙着咧。”
“開門，”烏蘇娜的聲音聽起來挺平靜。“這跟慶祝會沒啥關係。”
於是，奧雷連諾上校挪開門閂，使看見了十六個男人，面貌、體型和膚色各不相同，但是都有一副孤僻模樣兒；根據這模樣兒，在地球上任何地方都能馬上認出他們的身份。這些人都是他的兒子。他們是被慶祝會的傳聞吸引來的，來自沿海地帶最遙遠的角落，事先並沒有彼此商量，甚至互相還不認識。他們全都自豪地取了“奧雷連諾”這個名字，加上自己母親的姓，新來的人使烏蘇娜高興，卻叫菲蘭達惱怒，他們在這座房子裏度過的三天中，把一切翻了個底兒朝天，彷彿這裏發生了一場大戰，阿瑪蘭塔在舊紙堆裏找到了一個筆記本兒，烏蘇娜曾在裏面記下了這些人的名字。生日、洗禮日以及住址。藉助這份名冊，可以憶起二十年戰爭，從這份冊子上，可以知道上校長時期的生活：從那天早晨他率領二十個人離開馬孔多人追蹤起義的怪影起，到他裹着凝血的毛毯最後口到家裏爲止。奧雷連諾第二沒有放過機會用香擯酒和字風琴熱烈歡迎親戚們，這個歡迎會可以說是對那個倒黴狂歡節的回答。客人們把家中一半的盤碟變成了碎片；他們追趕一頭公牛，打算縛住它的腿時，又把玫瑰花叢踩壞了，並且開槍打死了所有的母雞，強迫阿瑪蘭塔跳皮埃侍羅。克列斯比悒鬱的華爾茲舞，要俏姑娘雷麥黛絲穿上男人的短褲衩，爬上一根抹了油脂的竿子，甚至把一隻骯髒的豬放進飯廳，絆倒了菲蘭達；然而，誰也沒有抱怨這些破壞，因爲顛覆整座房子的地震是能治病的，奧雷連諾上校最初不信任地接待他的一羣兒子，甚至懷疑其中幾個的出身，但對他們的怪誕行爲感到開心，在他們離開之前，給了每人一條小金魚。孤僻的霍。 阿卡蒂奧第二卻邀請他們參加鬥雞，結果幾乎釀成悲劇，因爲許多奧雷連諾都是鬥雞的行家，馬上就識破了安東尼奧·伊薩貝爾神父的欺騙勾當。奧雷連諾第二看出，親戚衆多，大可歡宴取樂，就建議他們留下來跟他一塊兒幹活，接受這個建議的只有奧雷連諾·特里斯特一人，他是一個身軀高大的混血兒，具有祖父那樣的毅力和探索精神；他曾遊歷半個世界尋求幸福，住在哪兒都是無所謂的。其他的奧雷連諾雖然還沒結婚，但都認爲自己的命運已經註定。他們都是能工巧匠、家庭主角、愛好和平的人。星期三，大齋的前一天，上校的兒子們重新分散到沿海各地去之前，阿瑪蘭塔要他們穿上禮拜日的衣服，跟她一塊兒到教堂去。他們多半由幹好玩，不是因爲篤信宗教，給帶到了聖壇欄杆跟前，安東尼奧·伊薩貝爾神父在每人額上用聖灰畫了個十字。回家之後，其中最小的一個打算擦掉十字，可是發現額上的記號是擦不掉的，就象其他兄弟額上的記號一樣。他們使用了冷水和肥皂、沙子和擦刷、浮石和鹼水，始終消滅不了額上的十字。相反地，阿瑪蘭塔和教堂裏其餘的人，毫不費勁就把自己的十字擦掉了。“那樣更好嘛，”烏蘇娜跟他們分別時說。“從現在起，每一個人都能知道你們是誰了，”他們結隊離開，前面是奏樂的，並且放鞭炮，給全鎮留下一個印象，彷彿布恩蒂亞家族擁有足以延續許多世紀的後代。奧雷連諾·特里斯特在鎮郊建了一座冰廠，這是發瘋的發明家霍·阿。 布思蒂亞夢想過的。
奧雷連諾·特里斯特來到馬孔多之後幾個月，大家都已認識他、喜歡他，他就在鎮上到處尋找合適的住所，想把母親和一個沒有結婚的妹妹（她不是上校的女兒）接來；他感到興趣的是廣場角落上一間不合格局的破舊大房子，這房子好象無人居住。他打聽誰是房子的主人，有人告訴他說：這房子是不屬於任何人的，從前住在裏面的是個孤零零的寡婦，用泥土和牆上的石灰充飢，在她死前的最後幾年，有人在街上只見過她兩次，她戴了一頂彆着小朵假花的帽子，穿了一雙舊式銀色鞋子，經過廣場，到郵局上給一個主教寄信。奧雷連諾。 特里斯特打聽出來，跟寡婦住在一起的只有一個冷酷的女僕，這女僕殺死鑽到房裏的狗、貓和一切牲畜，把它們的屍體扔到銜上，讓全鎮的人都聞到腐臭氣味。自從太陽把她扔出的最後一個屍體變成了乾屍，已過了那麼多的時間，以致大家相信：女主人和女僕在戰爭結束之前很久就死了，如果說房子還立在那兒，那只是因爲早已沒有嚴峻的冬天和暴風。門上的鉸鏈已經鏽蝕，房門彷彿是靠蛛網繫住的，窗框由於潮溼而膨脹了，長廊洋灰地面的裂縫裏長出了雜草和野花，晰蠍和各種蟲十爬來爬去——一切都似乎證明這兒起碼五十年沒有住人了。其實，性急的奧雷連諾。 特里斯特無需這麼多的證明就會鑽進屋子去的。他用肩膀把大門一推，一根朽木就無聲地掉到他的腳邊， 隨着塌下的是一團塵土和白蟻窩。奧雷連諾·特里斯特停在門檻邊，等待塵霧散去，接着便在屋子中央看見一個極度衰竭的女人，仍穿着前一世紀的衣服，禿頭上有幾根黃髮，眼睛依然漂亮，但是最後一點希望的火星已經熄滅，由於孤獨的生活，她的臉上已經佈滿了皺紋。 看見另一個世界的這種幻影，奧雷連諾·特里斯特異常驚愕，好不容易纔看出這女人正拿一支舊式手槍瞄準他。
“請您原諒，”他低聲說。