世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第3章Part 5

At the beginning of the road into the swamp they put up a sign that said MACONDO and another larger one on the main street that said GOD EXISTS. In All the houses keys to memorizing objects and feelings had been written. But the system demanded so much vigilance and moral strength that many succumbed to the spell of an imaginary reality, one invented by themselves, which was less practical for them but more comforting. Pilar Ternera was the one who contributed most to popularize that mystification when she conceived the trick of reading the past in cards as she had read the future before. By means of that recourse the insomniacs began to live in a world built on the uncertain alternatives of the cards, where a father was remembered faintly as the dark man who had arrived at the beginning of April and a mother was remembered only as the dark woman who wore a gold ring on her left hand, and where a birth date was reduced to the last Tuesday on which a lark sang in the laurel tree. Defeated by those practices ofconsolation, José Arcadio Buendía then decided to build the memory machine that he had desired once in order to remember the marvelous inventions of the gypsies. The artifact was based on the possibility of reviewing every morning, from beginning to end, the totality of knowledge acquired during one's life. He conceived of it as a spinning dictionary that a person placed on the axis could operate by means of a lever, so that in a very few hours there would pass before his eyes the notions most necessary for life. He had succeeded in writing almost fourteen thousand entries when along the road from the swamp a strange-looking old man with the sad sleepers' bell appeared, carrying a bulging suitcase tied with a rope and pulling a cart covered with black cloth. He went straight to the house of José Arcadio Buendía.
Visitación did not recognize him when she opened the door and she thought he had come with the idea of selling something, unaware that nothing could be sold in a town that was sinking irrevocably into the quick-sand of forgetfulness. He was a decrepit man. Although his voice was also broken by uncertainty and his hands seemed to doubt the existence of things, it was evident that he came from the world where men could still sleep and remember. José Arcadio Buendía found him sitting in the living room fanning himself with a patched black hat as he read with compassionate attention the signs pasted to the walls. He greeted him with a broad show of affection, afraid that he had known him at another time and that he did not remember him now. But the visitor was aware of his falseness, He felt himself forgotten, not with the irremediable forgetfulness of the heart, but with a different kind of forgetfulness, which was more cruel and irrevocable and which he knew very well because it was the forgetfulness of death.
Then he understood. He opened the suitcase crammed with indecipherable objects and from among then he took out a little case with many flasks. He gave José Arcadio Buendía a drink of a gentle color and the light went on in his memory. His eyes became moist from weeping even before he noticed himself in an absurd living room where objects were labeled and before he was ashamed of the solemn nonsense written on the walls, and even before he recognized the newcomer with a dazzling glow of joy. It was Melquíades.

市鎮入口的地方掛了一塊脾子：“馬孔多”，中心大街上掛了另一塊較大的牌子：“”上帝存在“。所有的房屋都畫上了各種符號，讓人記起各種東西。然而，這一套辦法需要密切的注意力，還要耗費很在的精神，所以許多人就陷入自己的幻想世界，——這對他們是不太實際的，卻是更有安慰的。推廣這種自欺的辦法，最起勁的是皮拉·苔列娜，她想出一種用紙牌測知過去的把戲，就象她以前用紙牌預卜未來一樣。由於她那些巧妙的謊言，失眠的馬孔多居民就處於紙牌推測的世界，這些推測含糊不清，互相矛盾，面在這個世界中，只能模糊地想起你的父親是個黑髮男人，是四月初來到這兒的；母親是個黝黑的女人，左手戴着一枚金戒指，你出生的日期是某月的最後一個星期二，那一天百靈鳥在月桂樹上歌唱。霍·阿·布恩蒂亞被這種安慰的辦法擊敗了，他爲了對抗，決定造出一種記憶機器，此種機器是他以前打算製造出來記住吉卜賽人的一切奇異發明的，機器的作用原理就是每天重複在生活中獲得的全部知識。霍·阿·布恩蒂亞把這種機械設想成一本旋轉的字典，人呆在旋轉軸上，利用把手操縱字典，——這樣，生活所需的一切知識短時間內就在眼前經過，他已寫好了幾乎一萬四千張條目卡，這時，從沼澤地帶伸來的路上，出現一個樣子古怪的老人兒，搖着悲哀的鈴鐺，拎着一隻繩子繫住的、脹鼓鼓的箱子，拉着一輛用黑布遮住的小車子。他徑直朝霍·阿·布恩蒂亞的房子走來。
維希塔香給老頭兒開了門，卻不認得他，把他當成一個商人，老頭兒還沒聽說這個市鎮絕望地陷進了健忘症的漩渦，不知道在這兒是賣不出什麼東西的。這是一個老朽的人。儘管他的嗓音猶豫地發顫，雙乎摸摸索索的，但他顯然是從另一個世界來的，那裏的人既能睡覺，又能記憶。霍·阿·布恩蒂亞出來接見老頭兒的時候，老頭兒正坐在客廳裏，拿破舊的黑帽子扇着，露出同情的樣兒，注意地念了念貼在牆上的字條。霍·阿·布恩蒂亞非常恭敬地接待他，擔心自己從前認識這個人，現在卻把他給忘了。然而客人識破了他的佯裝，感到自己被他忘卻了，——他知道這不是心中暫時的忘卻，而是另一種更加冷酷的、徹底的忘卻，也就是死的忘卻。
接着，他一切都明白了。他打開那隻塞滿了不知什麼東西的箱子，從中掏出一個放着許多小瓶子的小盒子。他把一小瓶顏色可愛的藥水遞給房主人，房主人把它喝了，馬上恍然大悟。霍·阿·布恩蒂亞兩眼噙滿悲哀的淚水，然後纔看出自己是在荒謬可笑的房間裏，這兒的一切東西都貼上了字條；他羞愧地看了看牆上一本正經的蠢話，最後才興高采烈地認出客人就是梅爾加德斯。