世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第10章Part 5
The guests toasted in a chorus. Then the man of the house played the accordion, fireworks were set off, and drums celebrated the event throughout the town. At dawn the guests, soaked in champagne, sacrificed six cows and put them in the street at the disposal of the crowd. No one was scandalized. Since Aureli-ano Segun-do had taken charge of the house those festivities were a common thing, even when there was no motive as proper as the birth of a Pope. In a few years, without effort, simply by luck, he had accumulated one of the largest fortunes in the swamp thanks to the supernatural proliferation of his animals. His mares would bear triplets, his hens laid twice a day, and his hogs fattened with such speed that no one could explain such disorderly fecundity except through the use of black magic. "Save something now," úrsula would tell her wild great-grandson. "This luck is not going to last all your life." But Aureli-ano Segun-do paid no attention to her. The more he opened champagne to soak his friends, the more wildly his animals gave birth and the more he was convinced that his lucky star was not a matter of his conduct but an influence of Petra Cotes, his concubine, whose love had the virtue of exasperating nature. So convinced was he that this was the origin of his fortune that he never kept Petra Cotes far away from his breeding grounds and even when he married and had children he continued living with her with the consent of Fernanda. Solid, monumental like his grandfathers, but with a joie de vivre and an irresistible good humor that they did not have, Aureli-ano Segun-do scarcely had time to look after his animals. All he had to do was to take Petra Cores to his breeding grounds and have her ride across his land in order to have every animal marked with his brand succumb to the irremediable plague of proliferation.
Like all the good things that occurred in his long life, that tremendous fortune had its origins in chance. Until the end of the wars Petra Cotes continued to support herself with the returns from her raffles and Aureli-ano Segun-do was able to sack úrsula's savings from time to time. They were a frivolous couple, with no other worries except going to bed every night, even on forbidden days, and frolicking there until dawn. "That woman has been your ruination," úrsula would shout at her great-grandson when she saw him coming into the house like a sleepwalker. "She's got you so bewitched that one of these days I'm going to see you twisting around with colic and with a toad in your belly." José Arcadio Segun-do, who took a long time to discover that he had been supplanted, was unable to understand his brother's passion. He remembered Petra Cotes as an ordinary woman, rather lazy in bed, and completely lacking in any resources for lovemaking. Deaf to úrsula's clamor and the teasing of his brother, Aureli-ano Segun-do only thought at that time of finding a trade that would allow him to maintain a house for Petra Cotes, and to die with her, on top of her and underneath her, during a night of feverish license. When Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía opened up his workshop again, seduced at last by the peaceful charms of old age, Aureli-ano Segun-do thought that it would be good business to devote himself to the manufacture of little gold fishes. He spent many hours in the hot room watching how the hard sheets of metal, worked by the colonel with the inconceivable patience of disillusionment, were slowly being converted into golden scales. The work seemed so laborious to him and the thought of Petra Cotes was so persistent and pressing that after three weeks he disappeared from the workshop. It was during that time that it occurred to Petra Cotes to raffle off rabbits. They reproduced and grew up so fast that there was barely time to sell the tickets for the raffle. At first Aureli-ano Segun-do did not notice the alarming proportions of the proliferation. But one night, when nobody in town wanted to hear about the rabbit raffle any more, he heard a noise by the courtyard door. "Don't get worried," Petra, Cotes said. "It's only the rabbits." They could not sleep, tormented by the uproar of the animals. At dawn Aureli-ano Segun-do opened the door and saw the courtyard paved with rabbits, blue in the glow of dawn. Petra Cotes, dying with laughter, could not resist the temptation of teasing him.
"Those are the ones who were born last night," she aid.
"Oh my God!" he said. "Why don't you raffle off cows?"
A few days later, in an attempt to clean out her courtyard, Petra Cotes exchanged the rabbits for a cow, who two months later gave birth to triplets. That was how things began. Overnight Aureli-ano Segun-do be. came the owner of land and livestock and he barely had time to enlarge his overflowing barns and pigpens. It was a delirious prosperity that even made him laugh, and he could not help doing crazy things to release his good humor. "Cease, cows, life is short," he would shout. úrsula wondered what entanglements he had got into, whether he might be stealing, whether he had become a rustler, and every time she saw him uncorking champagne just for the pleasure of pouring the foam over his head, she would shout at him and scold him for the waste. It annoyed him so much that one day when he awoke in a merry mood, Aureli-ano Segun-do appeared with a chest full of money, a can of paste, and a brush, and singing at the top of his lungs the old songs of Francisco the Man, he papered the house inside and out and from top to bottom, with one-peso banknotes. The old mansion, painted white since the time they had brought the pianola, took on the strange look of a mosque. In the midst of the excitement of the family the scandalization of úrsula, the joy of the people cramming the street to watch that apotheosis of squandering. Aureli-ano Segun-do finished by papering the house from the front to the kitchen, including bathrooms and bedrooms, and threw the leftover bills into the courtyard.
"Now," he said in a final way, "I hope that nobody in this house ever talks to me about money again."
客人們一齊乾杯。然後，家主拉手風琴，焰火飛上天空，慶祝的鼓聲響徹了全鎮。黎明，喝夠了酒的客人們宰了六頭牛犢，送到街上去給人羣享用，這並沒有使家裏的人見怪。因爲，自從奧雷連諾第二當家以來，即使沒有“教皇誕生”的正當理由，這樣的酒宴也是尋常的事。在幾年中，奧雷連諾第二沒費吹灰之力，光憑好運——家畜和家禽神奇的繁殖力，就成了沼澤地帶最富裕的居民之一。他的母馬一胎生三匹小駒，母雞一日下兩個蛋，豬玀長起膘來那麼神速，除了魔法的作用，誰也無法說明這是什麼原因。“把錢存起來吧，”烏蘇娜向輕浮的曾孫子反覆說。“這樣的好運氣是不會跟隨你一輩子的。”可是，奧雷連諾第二沒有理睬她的話。他越用香檳酒款待自己的朋友，他的牲畜越無限制地繁殖，他就越相信自己的鴻運並不取決於他的行爲，而全靠他的情婦佩特娜。 柯特，因爲她的愛情具有激發生物繁殖的功能。他深信這是他發財致富的根源，就竭力讓佩特娜·柯特跟他的畜羣離得近些；奧雷連諾第二結了婚，有了孩子，但他徵得妻子的同意，仍然繼續跟情婦相會，他象祖輩一樣長得魁梧、高大，但他具有祖輩沒有的樂觀精神和討人喜歡的魅力，所以幾乎沒有時間照料自己的家畜。他要乾的事 兒就是把佩特娜·柯特帶到畜欄去，或者跟她一塊兒在牧場上騎着馬踢，讓每一隻打上他的標記的牲畜都染上醫治不好的“繁殖病”。
象他在漫長的一生中碰到的各種好事一樣，這一大筆財富來得也是突然的。戰爭還沒結束的時候，佩特娜。 柯特靠賣彩票過活，而奧雷連諾第二卻不時去偷烏蘇娜的積蓄。這是一對輕浮的情人，兩人只操心一件事兒：每夜睡在一起，即使在禁忌的日子裏，也在牀上玩樂到天亮。“這個女人會把你毀掉的，”烏蘇娜看見他象夢遊者似的拖着腿子回到家裏，就向他叫嚷。“她攪昏了你的腦袋，總有一天我會看見你病得打滾，就象肚子裏有一隻箍蛤蟆，”霍·阿卡蒂奧第二過了很久才發現自己有了個替身，但他無法理解兄弟爲什麼那樣火熱。據他記得，佩特娜。 柯特是個平平常常的女人，在牀上相當疏懶，毫無魅力。可是奧雷連諾第二根本不聽烏蘇娜的嚷叫和兄弟的嘲笑，只想找個職業來跟佩特娜·柯特維持一個家，在一個發狂的夜裏跟她一塊兒死掉，並且死在她的懷裏。當奧雷連諾上校終於迷上了晚年的寧靜生活，重新打開作坊的時候，奧雷連諾第二以爲製作小金魚也許是有利可圖的事。他在悶熱的房間裏一呆就是幾個小時，觀察幻想破滅的上校以難以理解的耐心給堅硬的金屬板加工，使金屬板逐漸變成了閃閃爍爍的鱗片。奧雷連諾第二覺得這個活兒挺苦，而又不斷地渴念佩特娜·柯特，過了三個星期他就從作坊裏消失了。正好這時，他帶了幾隻兔子給情婦，讓她用兔子抽彩。兔子開始以異常的速度繁殖、長大，佩特娜，柯特幾乎來不及賣掉彩票，開頭，奧雷連諾第二沒有發現令人驚訝的繁殖數量。可是鎮上的人不再過問兔子彩票的時候，有一天夜裏，他卻被牆外院子裏的鬧聲驚醒了。“別怕，”佩特娜。 柯特說，“這是兔子。”可是兩人都被牆外不停的鬧聲搞得十分苦惱，再也合不了眼。次日早晨，奧雷連諾第二打開房門，看見整個院子都擠滿了兔子——在旭日照耀下，兔毛顯得藍幽幽的。佩特娜·柯特瘋子似的哈哈大笑，忍不住跟他開玩笑。
“這些都是昨兒夜裏生的，”她說。
“我的天！”奧雷連諾第二叫道：“你爲什麼不拿母牛來試一試呢？”
幾天以後，佩特娜·柯特清除了院子，拿兔子換成一頭母牛；過了兩個月，這頭母牛一胎生了三頭牛犢。一切就從這兒開了頭。眨眼間，奧雷連諾第二就成了牧場和畜羣的主人，幾乎來不及擴充馬廄和擠得滿滿的豬圈，這極度的繁榮象是一場夢，甚至使他放聲大笑起來，他不得不用古怪的舉動來表露自己的愉快。“多生一些吧，母牛，生命短促呀！”他喊叫起來。烏蘇娜懷疑她的曾孫子是不是做了什麼見不得人的事：也許當了小偷，或者盜竊了別人的牲畜：每一次，她看見他打開香濱酒瓶，光是爲了拿泡沫澆在自己頭上取樂，她就向他叫嚷，斥責他浪費。烏蘇娜的責難使他不能忍受，有一天黎明，他神氣活現地回到家裏，拿着一箱鈔票、一罐漿糊和一把刷子，高聲地唱着弗蘭西斯科人的古老歌曲，把整座房子——裏裏外外和上上下下——都糊上每張一比索的鈔票。自從搬進自動鋼琴之後，這座舊房子一直是刷成白色的，現在卻古里古怪的象座清真寺了，烏蘇娜和家中的人氣得直嚷，擠滿街道的人大聲地歡呼這種極度的浪費，這時奧雷連諾第二已把所有的地方——從房屋正面到廚房，包括浴室和臥室——裱糊完畢，把剩下的鈔票扔到院裏。
“現在，”他最後說，“我希望這座房子裏的人再也不會向我提到錢的事啦。”
