世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第18章Part8

The discovery of the treasure was like a deflagration. Instead of returning to Rome with the sudden fortune, which had been his dream maturing in misery, Jos?Arcadio converted the house into a decadent paradise. He replaced the curtains and the canopy of the bed with new velvet, and he had the bathroom floor covered with paving stones and the walls with tiles. The cupboard in the dining room was filled with fruit preserves, hams, and pickles, and the unused pantry was opened again for the storage of wines and liqueurs which Jos?Arcadio himself brought from the railroad station in crates marked with his name. One night he and the four oldest children had a party that lasted until dawn. At six in the morning they came out naked from the bedroom, drained the pool, and filled it with champagne. They jumped in en masse, swimming like birds flying through a sky gilded with fragrant bubbles, while Jos?Arcadio, floated on his back on the edge of the festivities, remembering Amaranta with his eyes open. He remained that way, wrapped up in himself, thinking about the bitterness of his equivocal pleasures until after the children had become tired and gone in a troop to the bedroom. where they tore down the curtains to dry themselves, and in the disorder they broke the rock crystal mirror into four pieces and destroyed the canopy of the bed in the tumult of lying down. When Jos?Arcadio came back from the bathroom, he found them sleeping in a naked heap in the shipwrecked bedroom. Inflamed, not so much because of the damage as because of the disgust and pity that he felt for himself in the emptiness of the saturnalia, he armed himself with an ecclesiastical cat-o-nine-tails that he kept in the bottom of his trunk along with a hair-shirt and other instruments of mortification and penance, and drove the children out of the house, howling like a madman and whipping them without mercy as a person would not even have done to a pack of coyotes. He was done in, with an attack of asthma that lasted for several days and that gave him the look of a man on his deathbed. On the third night of torture, overcome by asphyxiation, he went to Aureliano’s room to ask him the favor of buying some powders to inhale at a nearby drugstore. So it was that Aureliano, went out for a second time. He had to go only two blocks to reach the small pharmacy with dusty windows and ceramic bottles with labels in Latin where a girl with the stealthy beauty of a serpent of the Nile gave him the medicine the name of which Jos?Arcadio had written down on a piece of paper. The second view of the deserted town, barely illuminated by the yellowish bulbs of the street lights, did not awaken in Aureliano any more curiosity than the first. Jos?Arcadio, had come to think that he had run away, when he reappeared, panting a little because of his haste, dragging legs that enclosure and lack of mobility had made weak and heavy. His indifference toward the world was so certain that a few days later Jos?Arcadio violated the promise he had made to his mother and left him free to go out whenever he wanted to.
“I have nothing to do outside,?Aureliano answered him.

寶藏的發現彷彿是黑夜中迸發的一片亮光。然而，霍。 阿卡蒂奧並沒有去實現自己窮困時代夢寐以求的理想，也沒有帶着這突然降臨的財富回羅馬去，卻把父母的房子變成了一片荒棄的樂土。他更新了臥室裏的絲絨窗簾和天蓋形花帳幔，又叫人在浴室裏用石板鋪地，用瓷磚砌牆。餐廳裏擺滿了糖漬水果、熏製臘味和醋醃食物。關閉的儲藏室又啓開了，裏面放着葡萄酒和蜜酒；這些飲料都裝在一隻只箱子裏，箱子是他親自從火車站領回來的，上面寫着霍·阿卡蒂奧的名字。有一天夜裏，他跟自己的四個寵兒舉行了一次盛大的酒宴，酒宴一直持續到天亮。早晨六點，他們光着身子走出臥室，把浴池裏的水放掉，裝滿了香檳酒。男孩們一齊撲進浴池，好似一羣小鳥在佈滿一層香氣泡的金黃色天空中嬉戲。霍。 阿卡蒂奧仰臥一旁，沒有參加他們喧囂的歡樂。他盡情地漂着，沉浸在自己的思緒中，睜着眼睛懷念阿瑪蘭塔。男孩們很快就玩累了。他們一窩蜂似地擁進臥室，在那兒扯下絲絨窗簾，把它們當作毛巾擦乾身子，又打打鬧鬧地砸碎了一面水晶玻璃鏡子，然後大家一下子爬到牀上，在一片混亂中掀掉天蓋形花帳幔。霍。 阿卡蒂奧回來時，只見他們縮作一團，象睡在一艘沉船的殘骸之間，他不由得火冒三丈，倒不是由於他面前出現的一片毀滅景象，而是出於對自己的可憐和厭惡，一場破壞性的縱酒把他的心都劫掠一空了。霍·阿卡蒂奧記得，在一隻箱子底兒上，跟粗毛衣服以及禁絕肉慾和懺悔用的各種鐵器一起，存放着一些藤條。他連忙抄起一根藤條，瘋子般地大聲號叫，使出對付豺狼也不可能使出的狼勁抽打自己的這些寵兒，把一羣野男孩趕出了房子。臥室裏只剩了他一個人，他累得喘不過氣來，氣喘病又發作了，這次發作持續了好幾天。等到發作過去，霍。 阿卡蒂奧已經奄奄一息。在受盡折磨的第三天，他就再也不能忍受了，晚上來到奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞的房間裏，請他幫忙到附近哪一家藥房去爲他買一些止喘粉。這是奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞第二次上街。他只跑了兩條街道便找到一家小藥房，蒙着灰塵的櫥窗裏擺滿了一隻只貼有拉丁文標籤的陶瓷瓶。一個象尼羅河水蛇那樣神祕而美麗的姑娘，按照霍·阿卡蒂奧記在一片小紙上的藥名，把藥賣給了他。這一次，在微弱的淡黃燈光下，大街的空寂景象也沒激起奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞絲毫的好奇心。霍·阿卡蒂奧正在思索奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞會不會逃跑，不料他氣急敗壞地回來了，拖着兩條因爲長時間奔波已經軟弱無力的腿。奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞對周圍的世界顯然漫不經心，過了幾天，霍·阿卡蒂奧就不顧母親的囑咐，准許他想上街就上街了。
“我沒有什麼事情需要上街。”他回答。