世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第11章Part 2

Just as she had foreseen, Aureli-ano Segun-do went back to her house as soon as the honeymoon was over. He brought his usual old friends, a traveling photographer, and the gown and ermine cape soiled with blood that Fernanda had worn during the carnival. In the heat of the merriment that broke out that evening, he had Petra Cotes dress up as queen, crowned her absolute and lifetime ruler of Madagascar, and handed out copies of the picture to his friends, she not only went along with the game, but she felt sorry for him inside, thinking that he must have been very frightened to have conceived of that extravagant means of reconciliation. At seven in the evening, still dressed as the queen, she received him in bed. He had been married scarcely two months, but she realized at once that things were not going well in the nuptial bed, and she had the delicious pleasure of vengeance fulfilled. Two days later, however, when he did not dare return but sent an intermediary to arrange the terms of the separation, she understood that she was going to need more patience than she had foreseen because he seemed ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of appearances. Nor did she get upset that time. Once again she made things easy with a submission that confirmed the generalized belief that she was a poor devil, and the only souvenir she kept of Aureli-ano Segun-do was a pair of patent leather boots, which, according to what he himself had said, were the ones he wanted to wear in his coffin. She kept them wrapped in cloth in the bottom of a trunk and made ready to feed on memories, waiting without despair.
"He has to come sooner or later," she told herself, "even if it's just to put on those boots."
She did not have to wait as long as she had imagined. Actually, Aureli-ano Segun-do understood from the night of his wedding that he would return to the house of Petra Cotes much sooner than when he would have to put on the patent leather boots: Fernanda was a woman who was lost in the world. She had been born and raised in a city six hundred miles away, a gloomy city where on ghostly nights the coaches of the viceroys still rattled through the cobbled streets, Thirty-two belfries tolled a dirge at six in the afternoon. In the manor house, which was paved with tomblike slabs, the sun was never seen. The air had died in the cypresses in the courtyard, in the pale trappings of the bedrooms, in the dripping archways of the garden of perennials. Until puberty Fernanda had no news of the world except for the melancholy piano lessons taken in some neighboring house by someone who for years and years had the drive not to take a siesta. In the room of her sick mother, green and yellow under the powdery light from thewindowpanes, she would listen to the methodical, stubborn, heartless scales and think that that music was in the world while she was being consumed as she wove funeral wreaths. Her mother, perspiring with five-o'clock fever, spoke to her of the splendor of the past. When she was a little girl, on one moonlit night Fernanda saw a beautiful woman dressed in white crossing the garden toward the chapel. What bothered her most about that fleeting vision was that she felt it was exactly like her, as if she had seen herself twenty years in advance. "It was your great-grandmother the queen," her mother told her during a truce in her coughing. "She died of some bad vapors while she was cutting a string of bulbs." Many years later, when she began to feel she was the equal of her great-grandmother, Fernanda doubted her childhood vision, but her mother scolded her disbelief.
"We are immensely rich and powerful," she told her. "One day you will be a queen."

正如她的預料，蜜月一過，奧雷連諾第二就回到了她的家裏，他領來了他的一些老朋友和一位巡迴攝影師，還帶來了菲蘭達在狂歡節穿的衣服和血污的貂皮斗篷。在酒宴的歡聲中，奧雷連諾第二把佩特娜·柯特打扮成女王，宣佈她爲馬達加斯加唯一的終身統治者，給她拍了照，並且把照片贈給了一夥朋友。佩特娜·柯特不僅立即同意參加這場遊戲，而且衷心憐憫自己的情人，覺得他想出這種不太尋常的和解方式，一定費了不少腦筋。晚上七點，她仍然穿着女王的衣服，把奧雷連諾第二接上了牀。他結婚還不到兩個月，可是佩特娜。 柯特立即發覺，他的夫妻生活過得並不美滿，於是她感到了報復以後的一種酣暢。然而，兩天以後，奧雷連諾第二不敢親自前來，只派了一箇中間人來，跟她商談他倆分離的條件，這時佩特娜。 柯特明白自己需要的耐心比預料的更大了，因爲她的情人似乎準備爲了面子而犧牲她。然而，即使這個時候，佩特娜。 柯特也沒改變自己的平靜樣兒。她滿足奧雷連諾第二期望的屈從態度，只是證實了大家對她的認識：她是一個值得同情的、可憐的女人。她留作紀念的只有情人的一雙漆皮鞋——照他自己的說法，他是打算穿着它躺進棺材的。佩特娜。 柯特拿破布把皮鞋包上，放進箱子，就準備耐心等待了。
“他遲早準會回來的，”她向自己說，“哪怕爲了穿這雙皮鞋。”
她並沒有象她預料的等候那麼長久。其實，奧雷連諾第二新婚之夜就已明白，他回到佩特娜·柯特身邊會比穿漆皮鞋的需要早得多：問題在於菲蘭達不象是這個世界的女人。她生長在離海一千公里的一座陰暗城市裏，在幽靈徘徊的黑夜，還可聽見總督的四輪馬車轔轔地駛過鵝卵石街道。每天傍晚六時。這座城市的三十二個鐘樓都響起了淒涼的喪鐘。在一幢墓碑式的石板砌成的莊園房子裏，是從來透不進陽光的。庭院中的柏樹，花園中滴水的晚香玉拱頂，臥室中褪了色的窗帷，都發出死沉沉的氣息。直到少女時代，從外界傳到菲蘭達耳裏的，只有鄰家悒鬱的鋼琴聲，那兒不知什麼人總是年復一年、日復一日地自願放棄午睡的樂趣。母親躺臥病榻，在彩繪玻璃透進的灰撲撲的陽光下，她的面孔顯得又黃又綠；菲蘭達坐在母親牀邊，聽着和諧的、頑強的、勾起愁思的樂曲，以爲這樂曲是從遙遠的世界傳來的，而她卻在這兒疲憊地編織花圈。母親在寒熱病再次發作之後已經滿身是汗，仍然向她講了她們家昔日的顯赫。菲蘭達還完全是個小姑娘的時候，在一個月白風清的夜晚，她看見一個漂亮的白衣女人穿過花園向教堂走去。這個瞬間的幻象特別使她心潮激盪，因爲她突然覺得自己完全象是這個陌生女人，彷彿這個女人就是她自己，只是在二十年後。“這是你的曾祖母——女王，”母親向她解釋，一面咳嗽一面說。“她是在花園裏修剪晚香玉時被它的氣味毒死的。”多年以後，菲蘭達重新感到自己很象曾祖母時，卻懷疑童年時代的幻象，可是母親責備她的多疑。
“我們的財富和權勢是無比的，”母親說。“總有一天，你也會成爲女王。”