世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第6章Part 1

COLONEL AURELIANO BUENDíA organized thirty--two armed uprisings and he lost them all. He had seventeen male children by seventeen different women and they were exterminated one after the other on a single night before the oldest one had reached the age of thirty-five. He survived fourteen attempts on his life, seventy-three ambushes, and a firing squad. He lived through a dose of strychnine in his coffee that was enough to kill a horse. He refused the Order of Merit, which the President of the Republic awarded him. He rose to be Commander in Chief of the revolutionary forces, with jurisdiction and command from one border to the other, and the man Most feared by the government, but he never let himself be photographed. He declined the lifetime pension offered him after the war and until old age he made his living from the little gold fishes that he manufactured in his workshop in Macondo. Although he always fought at the head of his men, the only wound that he received was the one he gave himself after signing the Treaty of Neerlandia, which put an end to almost twenty years of civil war. He shot himself in the chest with a pistol and the bullet came out through his back without damaging any vital organ. The only thing left of all that was a street that bore his name in Macondo. And yet, as he declared a few years before he died of old age, he had not expected any of that on the dawn he left with his twenty-one men to join the forces of General Victorio Medina.
"We leave Macondo in your care." was all that he said to Arcadio before leaving. "We leave it to you in good shape, try to have it in better shape when we return."
Arcadio gave a very personal interpretation to the instructions. He invented a uniform with the braid and epaulets of a marshal, inspired by the prints in one of Melquíades' books, and around his waist he buckled the saber with gold tassels that had belonged to the executed captain. He set up the two artillery pieces at the entrance to town, put uniforms on his former pupils, who had been amused by his fiery proclamations, and let them wander through the streets armed in order to give outsiders an impression of invulnerability. It was a doubleedged deception, for the government did not dare attack the place for ten months, but when it did it unleashed such a large force against it that resistance was liquidated in a half hour. From the first day of his rule Arcadio revealed his predilection for decrees. He would read as many as four a day in order to decree and institute everything that came into his head. He imposed obligatory military service for men over eighteen, declared to be public property any animals walking the streets after six in the evening, and made men who were overage wear red armbands. He sequestered Father Nicanor in the parish house under pain of execution and prohibited him from saying mass or ringing the bells unless it was for a Liberal victory. In order that no one would doubt the severity of his aims, he ordered a firing squad organized in the square and had it shoot at a scarecrow. At first no one took him seriously. They were, after all, schoolchildren playing at being grownups. But one night, when Arcadio went into Catarino's store, the trumpeter in the group greeted him with a fanfare that made the customers laugh and Arcadio had him shot for disrespect for the authorities. People who protested were put on bread and water with their ankles in a set of stocks that he had set up in a schoolroom. "You murderer!" úrsula would shout at him every time she learned of some new arbitrary act. "When Aureliano finds out he's going to shoot you and I'll be the first one to be glad." But it was of no use. Arcadio continued tightening the tourniquet with unnecessary rigor until he became the cruelest ruler that Macondo had ever known. "Now let them suffer the difference," Don Apolinar Moscote said on one occasion. "This is the Liberal paradise." Arcadio found out about it. At the head of a patrol he assaulted the house, destroyed the furniture, flogged the daughters, and dragged out Don Apolinar Moscote. When úrsula burst into the courtyard of headquarters, after having gone through the town shouting shame and brandishing with rage a pitch-covered whip, Arcadio himself was preparing to give the squad the command to fire.
"I dare you to, bastard!" úrsula shouted.

奧雷連諾上校發動了三十二次武裝起義，三十二次都遭到了失敗。他跟十六個女人生了十七個兒子，這些兒子都在一個晚上接二連三被殺死了，其中最大的還不滿三十五歲。他自己遭到過十四次暗殺、七十二次埋伏和一次槍決，但都倖免於難。他喝了一杯摻有士的寧（注：一種毒藥）的咖啡，劑量足以毒死一匹馬，可他也活過來了。他拒絕了共和國總統授予他的榮譽勳章。他曾升爲革命軍總司令，在全國廣大地區擁有生殺予奪之權，成了政府最畏懼的人物，但他從來沒有讓人給他拍過照。戰爭結束以後，他拒絕了政府給他的終身養老金，直到年老都在馬孔多作坊裏製作小金魚爲生。儘管他作戰時經常身先士卒，但他唯一的傷卻是他親手造成的，那是結束二十年內戰的尼蘭德投降書籤訂之後的事。他用手槍朝自己的胸膛開了一槍，子彈穿過脊背，可是沒有擊中要害。這一切的結果不過是馬紮多的一條街道拿他命了名。然而，據他自己壽終之前不久承認，那天早晨，他率領二十一人的隊伍離開馬孔多，去投奔維克多里奧·麥丁納將軍的部隊時，他是沒有想到這些的。
“我們把這個鎮子交給你了，”他離開時向阿卡蒂奧說。“你瞧，我們是把它好好兒交給你的，到我們回來的時候，它該更好了。”
阿卡蒂奧對這個指示作了十分獨特的解釋。他看了梅爾加德斯書裏的彩色插圖，受到啓發，就給自己設計了一套制服，制服上面配了元帥的飾帶和肩章，並且在腰邊掛了一把帶有金色穗子的軍刀；這把軍刀本來是屬於那個已經被槍決的上尉的。然後，他在市鎮人口處安了兩門大炮，鼓動他以往的學生，叫他們穿上軍服，把他們武裝起來，讓他們耀武揚威地走過街頭，使人從旁看出這個鎮子是堅不可摧的。其實，這個鬼把戲未必有用：的確，幾乎整整一年，政府不敢發出進攻馬孔多的命令，可是最終決定大舉猛攻這個鎮子時，半小時之內就把抵抗鎮壓下去了。阿卡蒂奧在執掌政權之初，對發號施令表現了很大的愛好。有時，他一天發佈四項命令，想幹什麼就幹什麼。他規定年滿十八歲的人都須服兵役，宣佈晚上六時以後出現在街上的牲畜爲公共財產，強迫中年男人戴上紅臂章。他把尼康諾神父關在家裏，禁止外出，否則槍斃：只有在慶祝自由黨勝利時，才準做彌撒、敲鐘。爲了讓大家知道他並不想說着玩玩，他命令一隊士兵在廣場上向稻草人練習射擊。起初，誰也沒有認真看待這些。歸根到底，這些士兵不過是假裝大人的小學生。有一天晚上，阿卡蒂奧走進卡塔林諾遊藝場的時候，樂隊小號手故意用軍號聲歡迎他，引起了鬨堂大笑。阿卡蒂奧認爲這個號手不尊重新的當局，下令把他槍斃了。那些敢於反對的人，他下令給他們戴上腳鐐，把他們關在學校教室裏，只讓他們喝水、吃麪包。“你是殺人犯！”烏蘇娜每次聽到他的橫行霸道，都向他叫嚷。“奧雷連諾知道的時候，他會槍斃你，我第一個高興。”然而一切都是枉然。阿卡蒂奧繼續加強這種毫無必要的酷烈手段，終於成了馬孔多不曾有過的暴君。“現在，鎮上的人感到不同啦，”阿·摩斯柯特有一次說。“這就是自由黨的天堂。”這些話傳到了阿卡蒂奧耳裏。他領着一隊巡邏兵，闖進阿。摩斯柯特的住所，砸毀傢俱，抽打他的幾個女兒，而把過去的鎮長沿着街道朝兵營拖去。烏蘇娜知道了這伴事情，非常慚愧，狂喊亂叫，憤怒地揮着樹脂浸透的鞭子，撒腿奔過市鎮；當她衝進兵營院子的時候，士兵們已經站好了槍斃阿·摩斯柯特先生的隊列，阿卡蒂奧準備親自發出“開槍”的命令。
“你敢，雜種！”烏蘇娜叫道。