世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第18章Part3

When she heard about the flight, Fernanda ranted for a whole day as she checked trunks, dressers, and closets, item by item, to make sure that Santa Sofía de la Piedad had not made off with anything. She burned her fingers trying to light a fire for the first time in her life and she had to ask Aureliano to do her the favor of showing her how to make coffee. Fernanda would find her breakfast ready when she arose and she would leave her room again only to get the meal that Aureliano had left covered on the embers for her, which she would carry to the table to eat on linen tablecloths and between candelabra, sitting at the solitary head of the table facing fifteen empty chairs. Even under those circumstances Aureliano and Fernanda did not share their solitude, but both continued living on their own, cleaning their respective rooms while the cobwebs fell like snow on the rose bushes, carpeted the beams, cushioned the walls. It was around that time that Fernanda got the impression that the house was filling up with elves. It was as if things, especially those for everyday use, had developed a faculty for changing location on their own. Fernanda would waste time looking for the shears that she was sure she had put on the bed and after turning everything upside down she would find them on a shelf in the kitchen, where she thought she had not been for four days. Suddenly there was no fork in the silver chest and she would find six on the altar and three in the washroom. That wandering about of things was even more exasperating when she sat down to write. The inkwell that she had placed at her right would be on the left, the blotter would be lost and she would find it two days later under her pillow, and the pages written to Jos?Arcadio would get mixed up with those written to Amaranta ?rsula, and she always had the feeling of mortification that she had put the letters in opposite envelopes, as in fact happened several times. On one occasion she lost her fountain pen. Two weeks later the mailman, who had found it in his bag, returned it. He had been going from house to house looking for its owner. At first she thought it was some business of the invisible doctors, like the disappearance of the pessaries, and she even started a letter to them begging them to leave her alone, but she had to interrupt it to do something and when she went back to her room she not only did not find the letter she had started but she had forgotten the reason for writing it. For a time she thought it was Aureliano. She began to spy on him, to put things in his path trying to catch him when he changed their location, but she was soon convinced that Aureliano never left Melquíades?room except to go to the kitchen or the toilet, and that he was not a man to play tricks. So in the end she believed that it was the mischief of elves and she decided to secure everything in the place where she would use it. She tied the shears to the head of her bed with a long string. She tied the pen and the blotter to the leg of the table, and the glued the inkwell to the top of it to the right of the place where she normally wrote. The problems were not solved overnight, because a few hours after she had tied the string to the shears it was not long enough for her to cut with, as if the elves had shortened it. The same thing happened to her with the string to the pen and even with her own arm which after a short time of writing could not reach the inkwell. Neither Amaranta ?rsula in Brussels nor Jos?Arcadio in Rome ever heard about those insignificant misfortunes. Fernanda told them that she was happy and in reality she was, precisely because she felt free from any compromise, as if life were pulling her once more toward the world of her parents, where one did not suffer with day-to-day problems because they were solved beforehand in one’s imagination. That endless correspondence made her lose her sense of time, especially after Santa Sofía de la Piedad had left. She had been accustomed to keep track of the days, months, and years, using as points of reference the dates set for the return of her children. But when they changed their plans time and time again, the dates became confused, the periods were mislaid, and one day seemed so much like another that one could not feel them pass. Instead of becoming impatient, she felt a deep pleasure in the delay. It did not worry her that many years after announcing the eve of his final vows, Jos?Arcadio was still saying that he was waiting to finish his studies in advanced theology in order to undertake those in diplomacy, because she understood how steep and paved with obstacles was the spiral stairway that led to the throne of Saint Peter. On the other hand, her spirits rose with news that would have been insignificant for other people, such as the fact that her son had seen the Pope. She felt a similar pleasure when Amaranta ?rsula wrote to tell her that her studies would last longer than the time foreseen because her excellent grades had earned her privileges that her father had not taken into account in his calculations.
More than three years had passed since Santa Sofía de la Piedad had brought him the grammar when Aureliano succeeded in translating the first sheet. It was not a useless chore. but it was only a first step along a road whose length it was impossible to predict, because the text in Spanish did not mean anything: the lines were in code. Aureliano lacked the means to establish the keys that would permit him to dig them out, but since Melquíades had told him that the books he needed to get to the bottom of the parchments were in the wise Catalonian’s store, he decided to speak to Fernanda so that she would let him get them. In the room devoured by rubble, whose unchecked proliferation had finally defeated it, he thought about the best way to frame the request, but when he found Fernanda taking her meal from the embers, which was his only chance to speak to her, the laboriously formulated request stuck in his throat and he lost his voice. That was the only time that he watched her. He listened to her steps in the bedroom. He heard her on her way to the door to await the letters from her children and to give hers to the mailman, and he listened until late at night to the harsh, impassioned scratching of her pen on the paper before hearing the sound of the light switch and the murmur of her prayers in the darkness. Only then did he go to sleep, trusting that on the following day the awaited opportunity would come. He became so inspired with the idea that permission would be granted that one morning he cut his hair, which at that time reached down to his shoulders, shaved off his tangled beard, put on some tight-fitting pants and a shirt with an artificial collar that he had inherited from he did not know whom, and waited in the kitchen for Fernanda to get her breakfast. The woman of every day, the one with her head held high and with a stony gait, did not arrive, but an old woman of supernatural beauty with a yellowed ermine cape, a crown of gilded cardboard, and the languid look of a person who wept in secret. Actually, ever since she had found it in Aureliano Segundo’s trunks, Fernanda had put on the moth-eaten queen’s dress many times. Anyone who could have seen her in front of the mirror, in ecstasy over her own regal gestures, would have had reason to think that she was mad. But she was not. She had simply turned the royal regalia into a device for her memory. The first time that she put it on she could not help a knot from forming in her heart and her eyes filling with tears because at that moment she smelled once more the odor of shoe polish on the boots of the officer who came to get her at her house to make her a queen, and her soul brightened with the nostalgia of her lost dreams. She felt so old, so worn out, so far away from the best moments of her life that she even yearned for those that she remembered as the worst, and only then did she discover how much she missed the whiff of oregano on the porch and the smell of the roses at dusk, and even the bestial nature of the parvenus. Her heart of compressed ash, which had resisted the most telling blows of daily reality without strain, fell apart with the first waves of nostalgia. The need to feel sad was becoming a vice as the years eroded her. She became human in her solitude. Nevertheless, the morning on which she entered the kitchen and found a cup of coffee offered her by a pale and bony adolescent with a hallucinated glow in his eyes, the claws of ridicule tore at her. Not only did she refuse him permission, but from then on she carried the keys to the house in the pocket where she kept the unused pessaries. It was a useless precaution because if he had wanted to, Aureliano could have escaped and even returned to the house without being seen. But the prolonged captivity, the uncertainty of the world, the habit of obedience had dried up the seeds of rebellion in his heart. So that he went back to his enclosure, reading and rereading the parchments and listening until very late at night to Fernanda sobbing in her bedroom. One morning he went to light the fire as usual and on the extinguished ashes he found the food that he had left for her the day before. Then he looked into her bedroom and saw her lying on the bed covered with the ermine cape, more beautiful than ever and with her skin turned into an ivory casing. Four months later, when Jos?Arcadio arrived, he found her intact.

知道聖索菲婭。 德拉佩德走了，菲蘭達喋喋不休地嘮叨了整整一天；她翻遍了所有的箱子、五斗櫥和櫃子，把所有的東西一件一件地查看一遍，這才確信自己的婆婆沒有順手拿走什麼東西。然後，她有生以來第一次試着生爐子，不料燙痛了手指。她不得不請奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞幫忙，給她示範一下怎樣煮咖啡。不久，奧雷連諾。 布恩蒂亞只好把廚房裏所有的事都承擔起來。每天一起牀，菲蘭達就發現早餐已經擺在桌上，剛吃過早餐。她便回臥室去，直到午餐時刻才又露面，爲的是拿奧雷連諾。 布恩蒂亞給她留下的吃食，吃食是放在散發着木炭餘熱的爐子上的。她把幾樣簡單的食物拿到餐廳裏，在兩個枝形燭臺之間，在鋪着亞麻桌布的餐桌前面，她端坐下來用餐，桌子兩旁放着十五把空椅子。雖然房子裏只剩下了奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞和菲蘭達兩個人，可是每人依然生活在自己的孤獨之中。他們只是收拾各自的臥室，其他一切地方都漸漸佈滿了蜘蛛網，它們繞在玫瑰花叢上，貼在牆壁上，甚至房樑上都有一層密密的蜘蛛網。就在這些日子，菲蘭達心裏產生了一種感覺，彷彿他們的房間裏出現了家神。各樣東西，特別是少了它們一天也過不了的，彷彿都長了腿。一把剪刀可以使菲蘭達找上好幾個小時，但她深信剪刀明明是放在牀上的，直到她翻遍整個牀鋪之後，纔在廚房的隔板上發現它，儘管她覺得自己已經整整四天沒跨進廚房一步了。要不就是盒子裏的餐叉又突然失蹤，第二天，祭壇上卻放着六把，洗臉盆裏又冒出三把。各樣東西好象跟她捉迷藏，特別是他坐下來寫信時，這種遊戲更使她冒火。剛剛放在右邊的墨水瓶卻移到了左邊，鎮紙乾脆從桌子上不翼而飛，三天之後，她卻在自己的枕頭底下找到了它，她寫給霍。 阿卡蒂奧的信，也不知怎的裝進了寫給阿瑪蘭塔。 烏蘇娜的信封。菲蘭達生活在令人膽戰心驚的恐懼之中， 她總是套錯信封，就象先前不止一次發生過的那樣。有一次，她的一枝羽毛筆突然不見了。過了十五天，一個郵差卻把它送了口來——他在自己的口袋裏發現了這枝筆，爲了尋找它的主人，他一家一家地送信，不知在身上帶了多久。起先，菲蘭達心想，這些東西的失蹤就跟宮託的丟失一樣，是那些沒有見過的醫生耍的花招，她正開始寫信請他們不要打擾她，因爲有點急事要做，寫了半句就停了筆，等她回到屋裏，信卻不知去向，她自己甚至把寫信的意圖都給忘記了。有一陣，她曾懷疑奧雷連諾。 布恩蒂亞。她開始跟蹤他，在他走過的地方悄悄扔下各種東西，指望他藏起它們的時候，當場把他抓住，但她很快確信，奧雷連諾。布恩蒂亞從梅爾加德斯房間裏出來，只去廚房和廁所，而且相信他是個不會開玩笑的人。於是菲蘭達認爲，這一切都是家神玩的把戲，便決定把每樣東西固定在它們應當放的地方。她用幾根長繩把剪刀縛在牀頭上，把一小盒羽毛筆和鎮紙投在桌子腳上，又把墨水瓶粘在桌面上經常放紙的地方的右面。可是，她並沒有獲得自己希望的效果：只要她做針線活，兩三小時以後伸手就拿不到剪刀了，似乎家神縮短了那根縛住剪刀的繩子。那根拴住鎮紙的繩子也發生了同樣的情況，甚至菲蘭達自己的手也是如此，只要她一提起筆來寫信，過了一會兒，手就夠不到墨水瓶了。無論布魯塞爾的阿瑪蘭塔·烏蘇娜，或者羅馬的霍·阿卡蒂奧，一點都不知道她這些不愉快的事，她給他們寫信，說她十分幸福，事實上她也確實是幸福的，她覺得自己掉了一切責任，彷彿又回到了孃家似的，不必跟日常瑣事打交道了，因爲所有這些小問題都解決了——在想象中解決了。菲蘭達沒完沒了地寫信，漸漸失去了時間觀念，這種現象在聖索菲婭。 德拉佩德走後特別明顯。菲蘭達一向都有計算年月日的習慣，她把兒女回家的預定日期當做計算的起點。誰知兒子和女兒開始一次又一次地推遲自己的歸來，日期弄亂了，期限搞錯了，日子不知如何算起，連日子正在一天天過去的感覺也沒有了。不過這些延期並沒有使菲蘭達冒火，反而使她心裏感到很高興。甚至霍·阿卡蒂奧向她說，他希望修完高等神學課程之後再學習外交課程，她也沒有見怪，儘管幾年以前他已經寫過信，說他很快就要履行返回馬孔多的誓言；她知道，要想爬到聖徒彼得（耶穌十二門徒之一。）的地位是困難重重的，這個梯子彎彎曲曲，又高又陡，可不好爬。再譬如兒子告訴她，說他看見了教皇，就連這種在別人看來最平常的消息，也使她感到欣喜若狂。女兒寫信告訴她說，由於學習成績突出，她獲得了父親頂想不到的那種優惠待遇，可以超過規定的期限繼續留在布魯塞爾求學，這就更使菲蘭達高興了。
從聖索菲婭·德拉佩德爲奧雷連諾。 布恩蒂亞買回一本梵文語法書的那一天起，時間不覺過了三年多，奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞才譯出一頁羊皮紙手稿，毫無疑問，他在從事一項浩大的工程，但在那條長度無法測量的道路上，他只是邁開了第一步，因爲翻譯成西班牙文一時還毫無希望——那都是些用密碼寫成的詩。奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞並沒有掌握什麼原始資料，以便找到破譯這種密碼的線索，他不由得想起梅爾加德斯曾說過，在博學的加泰隆尼亞人那家書店裏，還有一些能使他洞悉羊皮紙手稿深刻含義的書，他決定跟菲蘭達談一次，要求菲蘭達讓他去找這些書。他的房間裏垃圾成堆，垃圾堆正以驚人的速度擴大，差不多已經佔滿了所有的空間；奧雷連諾。 布恩蒂亞斟酌了這次談話的每個字眼，考慮最有說服力的表達方式。預測各種最有利的情況。可是，他在廚房裏遇見正從爐子上取下食物的菲蘭達時——他沒有跟菲蘭達見面的其他機會，——他事先想好的那些話一下子都卡在喉嚨裏了，一聲也沒吭。他開始第一次跟蹤菲蘭達，窺伺她在臥室裏走動，傾聽他怎樣走到門口從郵差手裏接過兒女的來信，然後把自己的信交給郵差；一到深夜，他就留神偷聽羽毛筆在紙上生硬的沙沙聲，直到菲蘭達啪的一聲關了燈，開始喃喃祈禱，奧雷連諾。 布恩蒂亞這才入睡，相信翌日會給他帶來希望的機會。他一心一意指望得到菲蘭達的允許，有一天早晨，他剪短了自己已經披到了肩上的頭髮，刮掉了一綹綹鬍子，穿上一條牛仔褲和一件不知從誰那兒繼承的扣領襯衫，走到廚房裏去等候菲蘭達來取吃食。但他遇見的不是從前每天出現在他面前的那個女人——一個高傲地昂首闊步的女人，而是一個異常美麗的老太婆，她身穿一件發黃的銀鼠皮袍，頭戴一頂硬紙板做成的金色王冠，一副倦怠模樣兒，似乎在這之前還獨自哭了好一陣。自從菲蘭達在奧雷連諾第二的箱子裏發現了這套蟲子蛀壞的女王服裝，她就經常把它穿在自己身上。凡是看見她在鏡子前面轉動身子，欣賞她那女王儀客的人，都毫無疑問地會把她當成一個瘋子，但她並沒有瘋。對她來說，女王的服裝只是成了她憶起往事的工具。她頭一次把它穿上以後，不由得感到心裏一陣辛酸，熱淚盈眶，她好象又聞到了軍人皮靴上散發出來的靴油味，那軍人跟在她身後，想把她扮成一個女王；她滿心懷念失去的幻想。但她感到自己已經那麼衰老，那麼憔悴，離開那些最美好的生活時刻已經那麼遙遠，她甚至懷念起了她一直認爲最黑暗的日子，這時她才明白自己多麼需要風兒吹過長廊帶來的牛至草味兒，需要黃昏時分玫瑰花叢裏嫋嫋升起的煙塵，甚至需要禽獸一般魯莽的外國人，她的心——凝成一團的灰燼——雖然順利地頂住了日常憂慮的沉重打擊，卻在懷舊的初次衝擊下破碎了。她渴望在悲痛中尋求喜悅；隨着歲月的流逝，這種渴求只是使菲蘭達的心靈更加空虛，於是這種渴求也成了一種禍害。從此，孤獨就使她變得越來越象家裏其他的人了。然而那天早晨，她走進廚房，那個臉色蒼白、瘦骨鱗峋、眼露驚訝的年輕人遞給她一杯咖啡時，她不由得爲自己的怪誕模樣深感羞愧。菲蘭達不但拒絕奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞的要求，還把房子的鑰匙藏在那隻放着宮託的祕密口袋裏。這實在是一種多餘的防範措施，因爲奧雷連諾。布恩蒂亞只要願意，隨時都可以溜出房子去，並且神不知鬼不覺地回來。但他過了多年孤獨的生活，對周圍的世界毫不信任，何況又養成了屈從的習慣，也就喪失了反抗的精神。他回到自己的斗室，一面繼續研究羊皮紙手稿，一面傾聽深夜裏菲蘭達臥室時裏傳來的沉重的嘆息聲，有一天早晨，他照例到廚房裏去生爐子，卻在冷卻了的灰燼上，發現昨夜爲菲蘭達留下的午餐動也沒有動過。他忍不住朝她的臥室裏瞥了一眼，只見菲蘭達挺直身子躺在牀上，蓋着那件銀鼠皮袍，顯得從未有過的美麗，皮膚變得象大理石那樣光滑潔白。四個月以後，霍·阿卡蒂奧回到馬孔多時，看見她就是這副模樣。