世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第8章Part 2

The person to whom she said it, who was the first to whom she showed the letter, was the Conservative general José Raquel , mayor of Macondo since the end of the war. "This Aureli-ano," General commented, "what a pity that he's not a Conservative." He really admired him. Like many Conservative civilians, José Raquel had waged war in defense of his party and had earned the title of general on the field of battle, even though he was not a military man by profession. On the contrary, like so many of his fellow party members, he was an antimilitarist. He considered military men unprincipled loafers, ambitious plotters, experts in facing down civilians in order to prosper during times of disorder. Intelligent, pleasant, ruddy-faced, a man who liked to eat and watch cockfights, he had been at one time the most feared adversary of Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía. He succeeded in imposing his authority over the career officers in a wide sector along the coast. One time when he was forced by strategic circumstances toabandon a strong-hold to the forces of Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía, he left two letters for him. In one of them quite long, he invited him to join in a campaign to make war more humane. The other letter was for his wife, who lived in Liberal territory, and he left it with a plea to see that it reached its destination. From then on, even in the bloodiest periods of the war, the two commanders would arrange truces to exchange prisoners. They were pauses with a certain festive atmosphere, which General took advantage of to teach Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía how to play chess. They became great friends. They even came to think about the possibility of coordinating the popular elements of both parties, doing away with the influence of the military men and professional politicians, and setting up a humanitarian regime that would take the best from each doctrine. When the war was over, while Colonel Aureli-ano, Buendía was sneaking about through the narrow trails of permanent sub. version, General was named magistrate of Macondo. He wore civilian clothes, replaced the soldiers with unarmed policemen, enforced the amnesty laws, and helped a few families of Liberals who had been killed in the war. He succeeded in having Macondo raised to the status of a municipality and he was therefore its first mayor, and he created an atmosphere of confidence that made people think of the war as an absurd nightmare of the past. Father Nicanor, consumed by hepatic fever, was replaced by Father Coronel, whom they called "The Pup," a veteran of the first federalist war. Bruno Crespi, who was married to Amparo Mos. cote, and whose shop of toys and musical instruments continued to prosper, built a theater which Spanish companies included in their Itineraries. It was a vast open-air hall with wooden benches, a velvet curtain with Greek masks, and three box offices in the shape of lions' heads, through whose mouths the tickets were sold. It was also about that time that the school was rebuilt. It was put under the charge of Don Melchor Escalona, an old teacher brought from the swamp, who made his lazy students walk on their knees in the lime-coated courtyard and made the students who talked in class eat hot chili with the approval of their parents.
Aureli-ano Segundo and José Arcadio Segundo, the willful twins of Santa Sofía de la Piedad, were the first to sit in the classroom, with their slates, their chalk, and their aluminum jugs with their names on them. Remedios, who inherited her mother's pure beauty, began to be known as Remedios the Beauty. In spite of time, of the superimposed Periods of mourning, and her accumulated afflictions, úrsula resisted growing old. Aided by Santa Sofía de la Piedad, she gave a new drive to her pastry business and in a few years not only recovered the fortune that her son had spent in the war, but she once more stuffed with pure gold the gourds buried in the bedroom. "As long as God gives me life," she would say, "there will always be money in this madhouse." That was how things were when Aureli-ano José deserted the federal troops in Nicaragua, signed on as a crewman on a German ship, and appeared in the kitchen of the house, sturdy as a horse, as dark and long-haired as an Indian, and with a secret determination to marry Amaranta.
When Amaranta, saw him come in, even though he said nothing she knew immediately why he had come back. At the table they did not dare look each other in the face. But two weeks after his return, in the presence of úrsula, he set his eyes on hers and said to her, "I always thought a lot about you." Amaranta avoided him. She guarded against chance meetings. She tried not to become separated from Remedios the Beauty. She was ashamed of the blush that covered her cheeks on the day her nephew asked her how long she intended wearing the black bandage on her hand, for she interpreted it as an allusion to her virginity. When he arrived, she barred the door of her bedroom, but she heard his peaceful snoring in the next room for so many nights that she forgot about the precaution. Early one morning, almost two months after his return, she heard him come into the bedroom. Then, instead of fleeing, instead of shouting as she had thought she would, she let herself be saturated with a soft feeling of relaxation. She felthim slip in under the mosquito netting as he had done when he was a child, as he had always done, and she could not repress her cold sweat and the chattering of her teeth when she realized that he was completely naked. "Go away," she whispered, suffocating with curiosity.
"Go away or I'll scream." But Aureli-ano José knew then what he had to do, because he was no longer a child but a barracks animal. Starting with that night the dull, inconsequential battles began again and would go on until dawn. "I'm your aunt," Amaranta murmured, spent. "It's almost as if I were your mother, not just because of my age but because the only thing I didn't do for you was nurse you." Aureli-ano would escape at dawn and come back early in the morning on the next day, each time more excited by the proof that she had not barred the door. He had nit stopped desiring her for a single instant. He found her in the dark bedrooms of captured towns, especially in the most abject ones, and he would make her materialize in the smell of dry blood on the bandages of the wounded, in the instantaneous terror of the danger of death, at all times and in all places. He had fled from her in an attempt to wipe out her memory, not only through distance but by means of a muddled fury that his companions at arms tookto be boldness, but the more her image wallowed in the dunghill of the war, the more the war resembled Amaranta. That was how he suffered in exile, looking for a way of killing her with, his own death, until he heard some old man tell the tale of the man who had married his aunt, who was also his cousin, and whose son ended up being his own grandfather.
"Can a person marry his own aunt?" he asked, startled.
"He not only can do that, a soldier answered him. "but we're fighting this war against the priests so that a person can marry his own mother."
Two weeks later he deserted. He found Amaranta more withered than in his memory, more melancholy and shy, and now really turning the last corner of maturity, but more feverish than ever in the darkness of her bedroom and more challenging than ever in the aggressiveness of her resistance. "You're a brute," Amaranta would tell him as she was harried by his hounds. "You can't do that to a poor aunt unless you have a special dispensation from the Pope." Aureli-ano, José promised to go to Rome, he promised to go across Europe on his knees to kiss the sandals of the Pontiff just so that she would lower her drawbridge.
"It's not just that," Amaranta retorted. "Any children will be born with the tail of a pig."
Aureli-ano José was deaf to all arguments.
"I don't care if they're born as armadillos," he begged.

這些活是烏蘇娜向一個人說的，而且她首先拿信給他看——這個人就是保守黨的霍塞·拉凱爾·蒙卡達將軍，他在戰爭結束之後當上了馬孔多鎮長，“唉，這個奧雷連諾，可惜他不是保守黨人，”蒙卡達將軍說。他確實欽佩奧雷連諾上校。象保守黨的許多丈職人員一樣，霍塞·拉凱爾·蒙卡達爲了捍衛黨的利益，參加了戰爭，在戰場上獲得了將軍頭銜，儘管他不是職業軍人。相反地，象他的許多黨內同事一樣，他是堅決反對軍閥的。他認爲軍閥是不講道義的二流於、陰謀家和投機分子；爲了混水摸魚，他們騷擾百姓。霍塞·拉凱爾·蒙卡達將軍聰明、樂觀，喜歡吃喝和觀看鬥雞，有一段時間是奧雷連諾上校最危險的敵人。他在沿海廣大地區初出茅廬的軍人中間很有威望。有一次從戰略考慮，他不得不把一個要塞讓給奧雷連諾上校的部隊，離開時給奧雷連諾上校冒下了兩封信。在一封較長的信裏，他建議共同組織一次用人道辦法進行戰爭的運動。另一封信是給住在起義者佔領區的將軍夫人的，在所附的一張字條上，將軍要求把信轉給收信人。從那時起，即使在最血腥的戰爭時期，兩位指揮官也簽訂了交換俘虜的休戰協議。蒙卡達將軍利用這些充滿了節口氣氛的戰個間隙，還教奧雷連諾上校下象棋。他倆成了好朋友，甚至考慮能否讓兩黨的普通成員一致行動，消除軍閥和職業政客的影響，建立人道主義制度，採用兩黨綱領中一切最好的東西。戰爭結束之後，奧雷連諾上校暗中進行曲折、持久的破壞活動，而蒙卡達將軍卻當上馬孔多鎮長。蒙卡達將軍又穿上了便服，用沒有武器的警察代替了士兵，執行特赦法令，幫助一些戰死的自由黨人的家庭。他宣佈馬孔多爲自治區的中心，從鎮長升爲區長以後，在鎮上創造了平靜生活的氣氛，使得人們想起戰爭就象想起遙遠的、毫無意義的噩夢。被肝病徹底摧垮的尼康諾神父，己由科隆涅爾神父代替，這是第一次聯邦戰爭中的老兵，馬孔多的人管他叫“嘮叨鬼”。布魯諾·克列斯比跟安芭蘿·摩斯柯特結了婚，他的玩具店象以往一樣生意興隆，而且他在鎮上建了一座劇場，西班牙劇團也把馬孔多包括在巡迴演出的路線之內。劇場是一座寬敞的無頂建築物，場內擺着木板凳，掛着絲絨幕，幕上有希臘人的頭像；門票是在三個獅頭大的售票處——通過張得很大的嘴巴——出售的。那時，學校也重新建成，由沼澤地帶另一個市鎮來的老教師梅爾喬爾·艾斯卡隆納先生管理；他讓懶學生在鋪了鵝卵石的院子裏爬，而給在課堂上說話的學牛吃辛辣的印度胡椒——這一切都得到父母們的贊成。
奧雷連諾第二和霍。阿卡蒂奧第二——聖索菲婭。德拉佩德的任性的孿生子，是最先帶着石板、粉筆以及標上本人名字的鋁杯進教室的；繼承了母親姿色的雷麥黛絲，已經開始成爲聞名的“俏姑娘雷麥黛絲”。儘管年歲已高、憂慮重重，而且不斷辦理喪事，烏蘇哪仍不服老。在聖索菲怔。德拉佩德協助下，她使糖果點心的生產有了新的規模——幾年之中，她不僅恢復了兒子花在戰爭上的財產，而且裝滿了幾葫蘆純金，把它們藏在臥室裏。“只要上帝讓我活下去，”她常說，“這個瘋人院裏總有充足的錢。”正當家庭處在這種情況下的時候，奧雷連諾·霍塞從尼加拉瓜的聯邦軍隊裏開了小差，在德國船上當了一名水手，回到了家中的廚房裏——他象牲口一樣粗壯，象印第安人一樣黝黑、長髮，而且懷着跟阿瑪蘭塔結婚的打算。
阿瑪蘭塔一看見他，就立即明白他是爲什麼回來的，儘管他還沒說什麼。在桌邊吃飯時，他倆不敢對視。可是回家之後兩個星期，在烏蘇娜面前，奧雷連諾·霍塞竟盯着阿瑪蘭塔的眼睛，說：“我經常都想着你。”阿瑪蘭塔竭力迴避他，不跟他見面，總跟俏姑娘雷麥黛絲呆在一起。有一次，奧雷連諾·霍塞問阿瑪蘭塔，她打算把手上的黑色繃帶纏到什麼時候，阿瑪蘭塔認爲侄子的話是在暗示她的處女生活，竟紅了臉，但也怪自己不該紅臉。從奧雷連諾·霍塞口來以後，她就開始閂上自己的臥窒門，可是連夜都聽到他在隔壁房間裏平靜地打鼾，後來她就把這種預防措施忘記了。在他回來之後約莫兩個月，有一夭清晨，阿瑪蘭塔聽到他走進她的臥室，這時，她既沒逃跑，也沒叫嚷，而是發呆，感到鬆快，她覺得他鑽進了蚊帳，就象他還是小孩幾時那樣，就象他往常那樣，於是她的身體滲出了冷汗；當她發現他赤身露體的時候，她的牙齒止不住地磕碰起來。
“走開，”她驚得喘不上氣，低聲說。“走開，要不我就叫啦。”可是現在奧雷連諾·霍塞知道該怎麼辦，因爲他已經不是一個孩子，而是兵營裏的野獸了。從這一夜起，他倆之間毫無給果的搏鬥重新開始，直到天亮。“我是你的姑姑，”阿瑪蘭塔氣喘吁吁地低聲說，“差不多是你的母親，不僅因爲我的年齡，也許只是沒有給你餵過奶。”黎明，奧雷連諾走了，準備夜裏再來，而且每次看見沒有閂上的房門。他就越來越起勁。因他從來沒有停止過對她的慾念。在佔領的城鎮裏，在漆黑的臥室裏，——特別是在最下賤的臥室裏——他遇見過她：在傷者繃帶上的凝血氣味中，在面臨致命危險的片刻恐怖中，在任何時候和任何地方，她的形象都出現在他的眼前。他從家中出走、本來是想不僅藉助於遙遠的距離，而且藉助於令人發麻的殘忍（他的戰友們把這種殘忍叫做“無畏”），永遠忘掉她：但在戰爭的糞堆裏，他越污損她的形象，戰爭就越使他想起她。他就這樣在流亡中飽經痛苦，尋求死亡，希望在死亡中擺脫阿瑪蘭塔，可是有一次卻聽到了有個老頭兒講的曠古奇聞，說是有個人跟自己的姑姑結了婚，那個姑姑又算是他的表姐，而他的兒子原來是他自己的祖父（注：一種亂婚）。
“難道可以跟親姑姑結婚嗎？”驚異的奧雷連諾·霍塞問道。
“不僅可以跟姑姑結婚，”有個士兵胡說八道地回答他。“要不，咱們爲啥反對教士？每個人甚至可以跟自己的母親結婚嘛。”
這場談話之後過了兩個星期，奧雷連諾·霍塞就開了小差。他覺得，阿瑪蘭塔比以前更蒼白了，也更抑鬱和拘謹了，已經成熟到了頭，但在臥室的黑暗裏，她卻比以前更加熱情。雖然勇敢地抗拒，但又在激勵他。“你是野獸，”被他追逼的阿瑪蘭塔說。“難道你不知道，只有得到羅馬教皇的許可才能跟姑姑結婚？”奧雷連諾。霍塞答應前往羅馬，爬過整個歐洲，去吻教皇的靴子，只要阿瑪蘭塔放下自己的吊橋。
“問題不光是許可，”阿瑪蘭塔反駁。“這樣生下的孩子都有豬尾巴。”
對她所說的道理，奧雷連諾·霍塞根本聽不進去。
“哪怕生下鱷龜也行，”他說。