世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第18章Part6

Jos?Arcadio restored Meme’s bedroom and had the velvet curtains cleaned and mended along with the damask on the canopy of the viceregal bed, and he put to use once more the abandoned bathroom where the cement pool was blackened by a fibrous and rough coating. He restricted his vest-pocket empire of worn, exotic clothing, false perfumes, and cheap jewelry to those places. The only thing that seemed to worry him in the rest of the house were the saints on the family altar, which he burned down to ashes one afternoon in a bonfire he lighted in the courtyard. He would sleep until past eleven o’clock. He would go to the bathroom in a shabby robe with golden dragons on it and a pair of slippers with yellow tassels, and there he would officiate at a rite which for its care and length recalled Remedios the Beauty. Before bathing he would perfume the pool with the salts that he carried in three alabaster flacons. He did not bathe himself with the gourd but would plunge into the fragrant waters and remain there for two hours floating on his back, lulled by the coolness and by the memory of Amaranta. A few days after arriving he put aside his taffeta suit, which in addition to being too hot for the town was the only one that he had, and he exchanged it for some tight-fitting pants very similar to those worn by Pietro Crespi during his dance lessons and a silk shirt woven with thread from living caterpillars and with his initials embroidered over the heart. Twice a week he would wash the complete change in the tub and would wear his robe until it dried because he had nothing else to put on. He never ate at home. He would go out when the heat of siesta time had eased and would not return until well into the night. Then he would continue his anxious pacing, breathing like a cat and thinking about Amaranta. She and the frightful look of the saints in the glow of the nocturnal lamp were the two memories he retained of the house. Many times during the hallucinating Roman August he had opened his eyes in the middle of his sleep and had seen Amaranta rising out of a marble-edged pool with her lace petticoats and the bandage on her hand, idealized by the anxiety of exile. Unlike Aureliano Jos?who tried to drown that image in the bloody bog of war, he tried to keep it alive in the sink of concupiscence while he entertained his mother with the endless fable of his pontifical vocation. It never occurred either to him or to Fernanda to think that their correspondence was an exchange of fantasies. Jos?Arcadio, who left the seminary as soon as he reached Rome, continued nourishing the legend of theology and canon law so as not to jeopardize the fabulous inheritance of which his mother’s delirious letters spoke and which would rescue him from the misery and sordidness he shared with two friends in a Trastevere garret. When he received Fernanda’s last letter, dictated by the foreboding of imminent death, he put the leftovers of his false splendor into a suitcase and crossed the ocean in the hold of a ship where immigrants were crammed together like cattle in a slaughterhouse, eating cold macaroni and wormy cheese. Before he read Fernanda’s will, which was nothing but a detailed and tardy recapitulation of her misfortunes, the broken-down furniture and the weeds on the porch had indicated that he had fallen into a trap from which he would never escape, exiled forever from the diamond light and timeless air of the Roman spring. During the crushing insomnia brought on by his asthma he would measure and remeasure the depth of his misfortune as he went through the shadowy house where the senile fussing of ?rsula had instilled a fear of the world in him. In order to be sure that she would not lose him in the shadows, she had assigned him a corner of the bedroom, the only one where he would be safe from the dead people who wandered through the house after sundown.
“If you do anything bad,??rsula would tell him, “the saints will let me know.?The terror-filled nights of his childhood were reduced to that corner where he would remain motionless until it was time to go to bed, perspiring with fear on a stool under the watchful and glacial eyes of the tattletale saints. It was useless torture because even at that time he already had a terror of everything around him and he was prepared to be frightened at anything he met in life: women on the street, who would ruin his blood; the women in the house, who bore children with the tail of a pig; fighting cocks, who brought on the death of men and remorse for the rest of one’s life; firearms, which with the mere touch would bring down twenty years of war; uncertain ventures, which led only to disillusionment and madness—everything, in short, everything that God had created in His infinite goodness and that the devil had perverted. When he awakened, pressed in the vise of his nightmares, the light in the window and the caresses of Amaranta in the bath and the pleasure of being powdered between the legs with a silk puff would release him from the terror. Even ?rsula was different under the radiant light in the garden because there she did not talk about fearful things but would brush his teeth with charcoal powder so that he would have the radiant smile of a Pope, and she would cut and polish his nails so that the pilgrims who came to Rome from all over the world would be startled at the beauty of the Pope’s hands as he blessed them, and she would comb his hair like that of a Pope, and she would sprinkle his body and his clothing with toilet water so that his body and his clothes would have the fragrance of a Pope. In the courtyard of Castel Gandolfo he had seen the Pope on a balcony making the same speech in seven languages for a crowd of pilgrims and the only thing, indeed, that had drawn his attention was the whiteness of his hands, which seemed to have been soaked in lye, the dazzling shine of his summer clothing, and the hidden breath of cologne.

這時，霍·阿卡蒂奧修復了梅梅的臥室，叫人把絲絨窗帷和總督牀上的花帳幔洗乾淨，又整頓了一下浴室；浴室裏水泥浴池的四壁上，不知蒙着一層什麼東西，黑黝黝的，有點毛糙。他只是佔用了臥室和浴室，在裏面塞滿了各種廢物：弄髒的異國小玩意兒、廉價的香水和僞造的首飾。在其他的房間裏，只有家庭祭壇上的聖徒塑像引起他的注意。但不知爲什麼沒中他的意，有一天晚上，他從祭壇上取下那些塑像，搬到院子裏，生起一堆火，把它們都燒成了灰。平時他總是中午十二點起牀。醒來以後，穿上一件繡着金龍的破晨衣，把腳往一雙鑲着金流蘇的拖鞋裏一塞，就走進浴室，在那兒開始舉行自己的沐浴程式，從它的隆重程度和緩慢勁兒來看，好象俏姑娘雷麥黛絲恪守的那套沐浴程式。在下浴池之前，他先從三隻白色小瓶裏倒出三種香精，撒在水中。然後，他不象俏姑娘雷麥黛絲那樣，靠一隻南瓜形容器的幫助來沐浴，而是把身體泡在香氣撲鼻的水裏，仰臥兩小時，清涼的水和對阿瑪蘭塔的回憶簡直使他昏昏欲睡。他回來之後沒過幾天，便脫掉了在這兒穿着嫌熱的塔夫綢西服——那套唯一的禮服，換上一條牛仔褲，就象皮埃特羅·克列斯比去上舞蹈課時繃在腿上的那種褲子，還有一件繡着自己的名字第一個字母的真絲襯衫。他每星期都把這套衣服在浴池裏洗兩次；晾曬的時候，他沒有其他替換的衣服，只好穿着晨衣走來走去。霍·阿卡蒂奧從來不在家裏用午餐。等晌午的炎熱一過，他就上街，直到深夜纔回來，然後又滿臉愁容地在一個個房間裏踱來踱去，氣喘吁吁，思念着阿瑪蘭塔。在家鄉的這座房子裏，只有阿瑪蘭塔和夜燈的微光下聖徒嚇人的眼睛，還保存在他的記憶裏。在羅馬，在一個個虛無縹緲的八月之夜，他不知夢見過阿瑪蘭塔多少次：她穿着一條花邊裙子，手裏拿着一塊頭巾，從大理石浴池裏緩緩站起身來，臉上流露出一個異鄉人的優愁。奧雷連諾上校總是竭力使阿瑪蘭塔的形象沉沒在血腥的戰爭泥沼裏。霍·阿卡蒂奧跟他不同，在母親用一些關於宗教感召的寓言哄騙他的時候，他是一直想把阿瑪蘭塔的形象活生生地保存在感情深處的。無論他或菲蘭達都從未想到過，他們的通信不過是謊言的交換而已。到達羅馬之後不久，霍。 阿卡蒂奧就離開了宗教學校，但他繼續維持着關於自己正在學習神學和宗教法規的假象，爲的是不失掉一份幻想中的遺產——他母親那一封封荒誕的信曾一再提到過這份遺產；那份遺產也許能使他擺脫貧困，把他從特拉斯特維爾的一間小屋子解救出來——他和兩個朋友就寄居在這座小屋的閣樓上。一收到菲蘭達在死亡預感的驅迫下寫的最後一封信，他就把一些破爛的冒牌奢侈品塞進箱子，坐上輪船，遠渡重洋。在船艙裏，僑民們象屠宰場裏的牛似的擠成一堆，吃着冰冷的通心麪和生蛆的乾酪。菲蘭達的遺囑事實上只是一份詳細而又過時的災難清單，他還沒看完這份遺囑，光從倒塌的傢俱和雜草叢生的長廊看來，已經猜到自己掉進了一個不能自拔的陷阱，無論什麼時候，他都再也見不到羅馬春天那璀璨奪目的陽光，呼吸不到它那洋溢着古代文物氣息的空氣了。在折磨人的氣喘引起失眠的夜晚，他反覆衡量自己遭受災難的深度，在陰森森的房子裏走來走去。從前，正是在這座房子裏，烏蘇娜曾用老年人的一套胡言亂語，勾起他對世界的恐懼。由於害怕在一片黑暗中失去霍·阿卡蒂奧，她又讓他養成獨自坐在臥室一個角落裏的習慣。她說，一到天黑，死鬼就會出現。開始在這座房子裏遊蕩，只有那個角落是死鬼不敢看一眼的地方。
“如果你幹什麼壞事，”烏蘇娜嚇唬他，“上帝的僕人立刻會把一切都告訴我。”於是他在那兒度過了童年時代的一個個夜晚，一動不動地坐在一隻小凳上，在聖像那不可捉摸的冰冷目光下，嚇得汗流浹背。其實，這種附加的折磨完全是不必要的，當時霍·阿卡蒂奧早已對他周圍的一切感到恐懼，他下意識地害怕生活中可能遇見的一切，令人惱火的妓女；生出長了豬尾巴嬰兒的家庭婦女；使一些人死亡、又使另一些人不斷受到良心譴責的鬥雞，叫人遭到二十年戰禍的槍炮；以失望和精神錯亂告終的魯莽行動；此外還有上帝無限仁慈地創造出來、又讓魔鬼搞壞了的一切。每天早晨，他一覺醒來總是疲憊不堪，可是阿瑪蘭塔在浴池裏給他洗完了澡，用小塊綢子在他兩腿之間親切地撲上一點滑石粉以後，他夜間的驚恐就被阿瑪蘭塔溫柔的手和窗上的亮光驅散了。在陽光明媚的花園裏，烏蘇娜也儼然變成了另一個人，她不再講些形形色色的鬼怪故事來嚇唬他，而是用碳粉給他刷牙——讓他象羅馬教皇那樣容光煥發；她給他修剪和磨光指甲——讓那些從世界各地彙集在羅馬的朝聖者爲他那雙保持清潔的手感到震驚；她給他灑花露水——讓他身上散發出來的香味不亞於羅馬教皇。他曾有幸目睹教皇在甘多夫城堡宮廷的陽臺上用七種語言向成羣的朝聖者發表演說，但他注意的只是教皇那雙彷彿在漂白劑裏浸過的白淨的手，還有他那一套夏裝和一身淡雅的香水味兒。