世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第13章Part8
Amaranta was weaving her shroud. Fernanda did not understand why she would write occasional letters to Meme and even send her gifts and on the other hand did not even want to hear about José Arcadio. "They'll die without knowing why," Amaranta answered when she was asked through úrsula, and that answer planted an enigma in Fernanda's heart that she was never able to clarify. Tall, broad-shouldered, proud, always dressed in abundant petticoats with the lace and in air of distinction that resisted the years and bad memories, Amaranta seemed to carry the cross of ashes of virginity on her forehead. In reality she carried it on her hand in the black bandage, which she did not take off even to sleep and which she washed and ironed herself. Her life was spent in weaving her shroud. It might have been said that she wove during the day and unwove during the night, and not with any hope of defeating solitude in that way, but, quite the contrary, in order to nurture it.
The greatest worry that Fernanda had during her years of abandonment was that Meme would come to spend her first vacation and not find Aureli-ano Segun-do at home. His congestion had put an end to that fear. When Meme returned, her parents had made an agreement that not only would the girl think that Aureli-ano Segun-do was still a domesticated husband but also that she would not notice the sadness of the house. Every year for two months Aureli-ano Segun-do played his role of an exemplary husband and he organized parties with ice cream and cookies which the gay and lively school-girl enhanced with the clavichord. It was obvious from then on that she had inherited very little of her mother's character. She seemed more of a second version of Amaranta when the latter had not known bitterness and was arousing the house with her dance steps at the age of twelve or fourteen before her secret passion for Pietro Crespi was to twist the direction of her heart in the end. But unlike Amaranta, unlike all of them, Meme still did not reveal the solitary fate of the family and she seemed entirely in conformity with the world, even when she would shut herself up in the parlor at two in the afternoon to practice the clavichord with an inflexible discipline. It was obvious that she liked the house, that she spent the whole year dreaming about the excitement of the young people her arrival brought around, and that she was not far removed from the festive vocation and hospitable excesses of her father. The first sign of that calamitous inheritance was revealed on her third vacation, when Meme appeared at the house with four nuns and sixty-eight classmates whom she had invited to spend a week with her family on her own Initiative and without any previous warning.
"How awful!" Fernanda lamented. "This child is as much of a barbarian as her father!"
阿瑪蘭塔仍在縫製自己的殮衣。菲蘭達無法明白，爲什麼阿瑪蘭塔不時寫信給梅梅，甚至給她捎去東西，但卻不願聽聽霍·阿卡蒂奧的消息，菲蘭達通過烏蘇娜向她問到這一點的時候，阿瑪蘭塔就回答說：“他們都會莫名其妙死掉的。”菲蘭達就把阿瑪蘭塔的回答當作一個謎記在心裏，這個謎是她永遠無法猜破的。高挑、筆挺、傲慢的阿瑪蘭塔，經常穿着泡沫一樣雪白輕柔的裙子，儘管年歲已高、往事沉痛，仍有一副優越的樣兒，她的額上似乎也有自己的灰十字——處女的標記。她真有這樣的標記，不過是在手上——在黑色繃帶下面；阿瑪蘭塔即便夜間也不取掉這個繃帶，有時親自拿它洗呀熨呀。阿瑪蘭塔是在縫製殮衣中生活的。可以看出，她白天縫，晚上拆，但這不是爲了擺脫孤獨，恰恰相反，而是爲了保持孤獨。
在跟丈夫分離的日子裏，菲蘭達最苦惱的是：梅梅回來度假的時候，在家裏看不見奧雷連諾第二。他的昏厥結束了她的這種擔憂。到梅梅回來時，她的父母已達成了協議，姑娘不僅相信奧雷連諾第二彷彿仍然是個忠順的丈夫，甚至不會發現家裏的悲哀。每一年，奧雷連諾第二都要連續兩月扮演一個模範丈夫，把朋友們聚集起來，拿冰淇淋和甜餅款待他們；愉快活潑的姑娘梅梅彈琴助興。當時已經看出，她很少繼承母親的性格。梅梅更象是第二個阿瑪蘭塔——十二歲至十四歲時的阿瑪蘭塔，當時阿瑪蘭塔還不知道悲哀，她那輕盈的舞步曾給家中帶來生氣，直到她對皮埃特羅·克列斯比的戀情使她的心永遠離開了正軌。但是，梅梅跟阿瑪蘭塔不同，跟布恩蒂亞家所有其他的人都不同，她還沒有表現出這家人命定的孤獨感，她似乎完全滿意周圍的世界，即使下午兩點她把自己關在客廳裏堅毅地練習彈琴的時候。十分顯然，她喜歡這個家，她整年都在幻想年輕小夥子見到她時的熱烈場面，她也象父親那樣喜歡娛樂和漫無節制地接待客人。這種不幸的遺傳性是在第三個暑假中初次表現出來的，當時梅梅自作主張，也沒預先通知，就把四個修女和六十八個女同學帶到家裏，讓她們在這兒玩一個星期。
“多倒黴！”菲蘭達悲嘆地說，“這孩子象她父親一樣冒失！”
