世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第12章Part4
"Oh, all right," she said. "But be careful, those tiles are rotten."
The stranger's face had a pained expression of stupor and he seemed to be battling silently against his primary instincts so as not to break up the mirage. Remedios the Beauty thought that he was suffering from the fear that the tiles would break and she bathed herself more quickly than usual so that the man would not be in danger. While she was pouring water from the, cistern she told him that the roof was in that state because she thought that the bed of leaves had been rotted by the rain and that was what was filling the bathroom with scorpions. The stranger thought that her small talk was a way of covering her complaisance, so that when she began to soap herself he gave into temptation and went a step further.
"Let me soap you," he murmured.
"Thank you for your good intentions," she said, "but my two hands are quite enough."
"Even if it's just your back," the foreigner begged.
"That would be silly," she said. "People never soap their backs."
Then, while she was drying herself, the stranger begged her, with his eyes full of tears, to marry him. She answered him sincerely that she would never marry a man who was so simple that he had wasted almost an hour and even went without lunch just to see a woman taking a bath. Finally, when she put on her cassock, the man could not bear the proof that, indeed, she was not wearing anything underneath, as everyone had suspected, and he felt himself marked forever with the white-hot iron of that secret. Then he took two more tiles off in order to drop down into the bathroom.
"It's very high," she warned him in fright. "You'll kill yourself!"
“哦，好吧，”她說，“可你得小心點兒，屋頂完全腐朽啦。”
陌個人臉上露出驚異和痛苦的表情，他似乎在悶不作聲地跟原始本能搏鬥，生怕奇妙的幻景消失。俏姑娘雷麥黛絲卻以爲他怕屋頂塌下，就儘量比平常洗得快些，不願讓這個人長久處在危險之中。姑娘一面沖洗身子，一面向他說，這屋頂的狀況很糟，因爲瓦上鋪的樹葉被雨水淋得腐爛了，蠍子也就鑽進浴室來了。陌生人以爲她嘀嘀咕咕是在掩飾她的青睞，所以她在身上擦肥皂時，他就耐不住想碰碰運氣。
“讓我給你擦肥皂吧，”他嘟嚷說。
“謝謝你的好意，”她回答，“可我的兩隻手完全夠啦。”
“嗨，哪怕光給你擦擦背也好，”陌生人懇求。
“爲啥？”她覺得奇怪。“哪兒見過用肥皂擦背的？”
接着，當地擦乾身子的時候，陌生人淚汪汪地央求她嫁給他。她坦率地回答他說，她決不嫁給一個憨頭憨腦的人，因爲他浪費了幾乎一個小時，連飯都不吃，光是爲了觀看一個洗澡的女人。俏姑娘雷麥黛絲最後穿上肥大衣服時，陌生人親眼看見，正象許多人的猜測，她的確是把衣服直接套在光身上的，他認爲這個祕密完全得到了證實。他又挪開兩塊瓦，打算跳進浴室。
“這兒挺高，”姑娘驚駭地警告他，“你會摔死的！”
