世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第14章Part1

MEME'S LAST VACATIONS coincided with the period of mourning for Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía. The shuttered house was no place for parties. They spoke in whispers, ate in silence, recited the rosary three times a day, and even clavichord practice during the heat of siesta time had a funereal echo. In spite of her secret hostility toward the colonel, it was Fernanda who imposed the rigor of that mourning, impressed by the solemnity with which the government exalted the memory of its dead enemy. Aureli-ano Segun-do, as was his custom came back to sleep in the house during his daughter's vacation and Fernanda must have done some. thing to regain her privileges as his legitimate wife because the following year Meme found a newborn little sister who against the wishes of her mother had been baptized with the name Amaranta úrsula.
Meme had finished her course of study. The diploma that certified her as a concert clavichordist was ratified by the virtuosity with which she executed popular melodies of the seventeenth century at the gathering organized to celebrate the completion of her studies and with which the period of mourning came to in end. More than her art, the guests admired her duality. Her frivolous and even slightly infantile character did not seem up to any serious activity, but when she sat down at the clavichord she became a different girl, one whose unforeseen maturity gave her the air of an adult. That was how she had always been. She really did am have any definite vocation, but she had earned the highest grades by means of inflexible discipline simply in order not to annoy her mother. They could have imposed on her an apprenticeship in any other field and the results would have been the same. Since she had been very small she had been troubled by Fernanda's strictness, her custom of deciding in favor of extremes; and she would have been capable of a much more difficult sacrifice than the clavichord lessons merely not to run up against her intransigence. During the graduation ceremonies she had the impression that the parchment with Gothic letters and illuminated capitals was freeing her from a compromise that she had accepted not so much out of obedience as out of convenience, and she thought that from then on not even the insistent Fernanda would worry any more about an instrument that even the nuns looked upon as a museum fossil. During the first years she thought that her calculations were mistaken because after she had put half the town to sleep, not only in the parlor but also at all charitable functions, school ceremonies, and patriotic celebrations that took place in Macon-do, her mother still invited to the house every newcomer whom she thought capable of appreciating her daughter's virtues. Only after the death of Amaranta, when the family shut itself up again in a period of mourning, was Meme able to lock the clavichord and forget the key in some dresser drawer without Fernanda's being annoyed on finding out when and through whose fault it had been lost. Meme bore up under the exhibitions with the same stoicism that she had dedicated to her apprenticeship. It was the price of her freedom. Fernanda was so pleased with her docility and so proud of the admiration that her art inspired that she was never against the house being fall of girl friends, her spending the afternoon in the groves, and going to the movies with Aureli-ano Segun-do or some muted lady as long as the film was approved by Father Antonio Isabel from the pulpit. During those moments of relaxation Meme's real tastes were revealed. Her happiness lay at the other extreme from discipline, in noisy parties, in gossip about lovers, in prolonged sessions with her girl friends, where they learned to smoke and talked about male business, and where they once got their hands on some cane liquor and ended up naked, measuring and comparing the parts of their bodies. Meme would never forget that night when she arrived home chewing licorice lozenges, and without noticing their consternation, sat down at the table where Fernanda and Amaranta were eating dinner without saying a word to each other. She had spent two tremendous hours in the bedroom of a girl friend, weeping with laughter and fear, and beyond an crises she had found the rare feeling of. bravery that she needed in order to run away from school and tell her mother in one way or another that she could use the clavichord as an enema. Sitting at the head of the table, drinking a chicken broth that landed in her stomach like an elixir of resurrection, Meme then saw Fernanda and Amaranta wrapped in an accusatory halo of reality. She had to make a great effort not to throw at them their prissiness, their poverty of spirit their delusions of grandeur. From the time of her second vacation she had known that her father was living at home only in order to keep up appearances, and knowing Fernanda as she did and having arranged later to meet Petra Cotes, she thought that her father was right. She also would have preferred being the daughter of the concubine. In the haziness of the alcohol Meme thought with pleasure about the scandal that would have taken place if she were to express her thoughts at that moment, and the intimate satisfaction of her roguishness was so intense that Fernanda noticed it.
"What's the matter?" she asked.

梅梅的最後一次暑假正碰上奧雷連諾上校的喪期。在門窗遮得嚴嚴實實的房子裏，現在無法狂歡作樂了。大家都輕言細語他說話，默不吭聲地進餐，每天祈禱三次，甚至午休炎熱時刻的鋼琴樂曲聽起來也象送葬曲了。嚴格的服喪是菲蘭達親自規定的；儘管她懷恨奧雷連諾上校，但是政府悼念這個死敵的隆重程度也震動了她。象女兒往常度假時那樣，奧雷連諾第二是在家中過夜的；菲蘭達顯然恢復了她跟丈夫同牀共寢的合法權利，因爲梅梅下一年回來的時候，看見了出生不久的小妹妹；同菲蘭達的願望相悖，這小姑娘取了阿瑪蘭塔·烏蘇娜這個名字。
梅梅結束了自己的學業。她在畢業典禮上出色地演奏了十六世紀的民間樂曲之後，證明她爲“音樂會鋼琴手”的畢業文憑就一致通過了，家中的喪期也就終止了。除了梅梅精湛的演奏技術，客人們更驚歎的是她那不尋常的雙重表現。她那有點孩子氣的輕浮性格，似乎使她不能去做任何正經的事，但她一坐在鋼琴面前就完全變了樣，突然象個大人那麼成熟了。她經常都是如此。其實，梅梅並沒有特殊的音樂才能，但她不願違拗母親，就拼命想在鋼琴演奏上達到高超的境地。不過，如果讓她學習別的東西，她也會同樣成功的。梅梅從小就討厭菲蘭達的嚴峻態度，討厭母親包辦代替的習慣，但只要跟頑固的母親下發生衝突，她是準備作出更大犧牲的。這姑娘在畢業典禮上感到，印上哥特字（注：黑體字）和裝飾字（注：通常是大寫字母）的畢業文憑，彷彿使她擺脫了自己承擔的義務（她承擔這種義務不是由於服從，而是爲了自己的寧靜），以爲從現在起甚至執拗的菲蘭達也不會再想到樂器了，因爲修女們自己已經把它叫做“博物館的老古董”。最初幾年，梅梅覺得自己的想法錯了，因爲，在家庭招待會上，在募捐音樂會上，在學校晚會上，在愛國慶祝會匕儘管她的鋼琴樂曲已把半個市鎮的人弄得昏昏沉沉，菲蘭達仍然繼續把一些陌生人邀到家裏，只要她認爲這些人能夠賞識女兒的才能。阿瑪蘭塔死後，生家暫時又陷入喪事的時候，梅梅才鎖上鋼琴，把鑰匙藏在一個櫥櫃裏，免得母親什麼時候找到它，並且被她丟失。但是在這以前，梅梅象學習彈琴時那樣，堅毅地公開顯示自己的天才。她以此換得自己的自由。菲蘭達喜歡女兒的恭順態度，對女兒的技藝引起的普遍讚賞感到自豪，以致毫不反對梅梅把女友們聚到家裏，或者去種植園遊玩，或者跟奧雷連諾第二以及值得信任的女人去看電影，只要影片是安東尼奧·伊薩貝爾神父在講壇上讚許過的。在娛樂活動中，梅梅表現了真正的興趣。她覺得愉快的事情是跟陳規舊俗毫無關係的：她喜歡熱鬧的社交聚會；喜歡跟女友們長時間坐在僻靜的角落裏，瞎聊誰愛上了椎；學抽香菸，閒談男人的事；有一次甚至喝了三瓶羅木酒（注：甘蔗釀造的烈性酒），然後脫光衣服，拿她們的身體各部進行較量。梅梅永遠不會忘記那個夜晚：菲蘭達和阿瑪蘭塔在飯廳裏默不作聲地吃晚飯時，她嚼着一塊甘蔗糖走了進來，就在桌邊坐下，誰也沒有發現她的反常狀態。在這之前，梅梅在女朋友的臥室裏度過了可怕的兩小時，又哭又笑，嚇得直叫，可是“危機”過去之後，她突然覺得自己有了一股勇氣，有了這種勇氣，她就能夠從寺院學校跑回家裏，隨便向母親說，她能拿鋼琴當作消化劑了。她坐在桌子頂頭，喝着雞湯，這湯好象起死回生的神水流到她的肚裏。梅梅忽然看見菲蘭達和阿瑪蘭塔頭上出現一個表示懲罰的光環。她勉強忍住沒有咒罵她們的假仁假義、精神空虛以及她們對“偉大”的荒謬幻想。梅梅還在第二個暑假期間就已知道，父親住在家中只是爲了裝裝門面。她熟悉菲蘭達，而且想稍遲一些見見佩特娜·柯特。她認爲她的父親是對的，她寧願把他的情婦當做母親。在醉酒的狀態中，梅梅怡然白得地想到，如果她把自己的想法說了出來，馬上就會發生一出醜劇；她暗中的調皮和高興是那麼不平常，終於被菲蘭達發現了。
“你怎麼啦？”菲蘭達問。