世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第1章Part 9

José Arcadio, the older of the children, was fourteen. He had a square head, thick hair, and his father's character. Although he had the same impulse for growth and physical strength, it was early evident that he lacked imagination. He had been conceived and born during the difficult crossing of the mountains, before the founding of Macondo, and his parents gave thanks to heaven when they saw he had no animal features. Aureliano, the first human being to be born in Macondo, would be six years old in March. He was silent and withdrawn. He had wept in his mother's womb and had been born with his eyes open. As they were cutting the umbilical cord, he moved his head from side to side, taking in the things in the room and examining the faces of the people with a fearless curiosity. Then, indifferent to those who came close to look at him, he kept his attention concentrated on the palm roof, which looked as if it were about to collapse under the tremendous pressure of the rain. úrsula did not remember the intensity of that look again until one day when little Aureliano, at the age of three, went into the kitchen at the moment she was taking a pot of boiling soup from the stove and putting it on the table. The child, Perplexed, said from the doorway, "It's going to spill." The pot was firmly placed in the center of the table, but just as soon as the child made his announcement, it began an unmistakable movement toward the edge, as if impelled by some inner dynamism, and it fell and broke on the floor. úrsula, alarmed, told her husband about the episode, but he interpreted it as a natural phenomenon. That was the way he always was alien to the existence of his sons, partly because he considered childhood as a period of mental insufficiency, and partly because he was always too absorbed in his fantastic speculations.
But since the afternoon when he called the children in to help him unpack the things in the laboratory, he gave them his best hours. In the small separate room, where the walls were gradually being covered by strange maps and fabulous drawings, he taught them to read and write and do sums, and he spoke to them about the wonders of the world, not only where his learning had extended, but forcing the limits of his imagination to extremes. It was in that way that the boys ended up learning that in the southern extremes of Africa there were men so intelligent and peaceful that their only pastime was to sit and think, and that it was possible to cross the Aegean Sea on foot by jumping from island to island all the way to the port of Salonika. Those hallucinating sessions remained printed on the memories of the boys in such a way that many years later, a second before the regular army officer gave the firing squad the command to fire, Colonel Aureliano Buendía saw once more that warm March afternoon on which his father had interrupted the lesson in physics and stood fascinated, with his hand in the air and his eyes motionless, listening to the distant pipes, drums, and jingles of the gypsies, who were coming to the village once more, announcing the latest and most startling discovery of the sages of Memphis.
They were new gypsies, young men and women who knew only their own language, handsome specimens with oily skins and intelligent hands, whose dances and music sowed a panic of uproarious joy through the streets, with parrots painted all colors reciting Italian arias, and a hen who laid a hundred golden eggs to the sound of a tambourine, and a trained monkey who read minds, and the multi-use machine that could be used at the same time to sew on buttons and reduce fevers, and the apparatus to make a person forget his bad memories, and a poultice to lose time, and a thousand more inventions so ingenious and unusual that José Arcadio Buendía must have wanted to invent a memory machine so that he could remember them all. In an instant they transformed the village. The inhabitants of Macondo found themselves lost is their own streets, confused by the crowded fair.

大兒子霍·網卡蒂奧滿了十四歲，長着方方的腦袋和蓬鬆的頭髮，性情象他父親一樣執拗。他雖有父親那樣的體力，可能長得象父親一般魁偉，但他顯然缺乏父親那樣的想象力。他是在馬孔多建村之前翻山越嶺的艱難途程中誕生的。父母確信孩子沒有任何牲畜的特徵，都感謝上帝。奧雷連諾是在馬孔多出生的第一個人，三月間該滿六歲了。這孩子性情孤僻、沉默寡言。他在母親肚子裏就哭哭啼啼，是睜着眼睛出世的。人家給他割掉臍帶的時候，他把腦袋扭來扭去，彷彿探察屋裏的東西，並且好奇地瞅着周圍的人，一點兒山不害怕。隨後，對於走到跟前來瞧他的人，他就不感興趣了，而把自己的注意力集中在棕擱葉鋪蓋的房頂上；在傾盆大雨下，房頂每分鐘都有塌下的危險。烏蘇娜記得後來還看見過孩子的這種緊張的神情。有一天，三歲的小孩兒奧雷連諾走進廚房，她正巧把一鍋煮沸的湯從爐竈拿到桌上。孩子猶豫不決地站在門檻邊，驚惶地說：“馬上就要摔下啦。”湯鍋是穩穩地放在桌子中央的，可是孩子剛說出這句話，它彷彿受到內力推動似的，開始制止不住地移到桌邊，然後掉到地上摔得粉碎。不安的烏蘇娜把這樁事情告訴丈夫，可他把這種事情說成是自然現象。經常都是這樣：霍·阿·布恩蒂亞不關心孩子的生活，一方面是因爲他認爲童年是智力不成熟的時期，另一方面是因爲他一頭扎進了荒唐的研究。

但是，從他招呼孩丁們幫他取出箱子裏的試驗儀器的那夭下午起，他就把他最好的時間用在他們身上了。在僻靜的小室牆壁上，難子置信的地圖和稀奇古怪的圖表越來越多；在這間小寶裏，他教孩子們讀書、寫字和計算：同時，不僅依靠自己掌握的知識，而已廣泛利用自己無限的想象力，向孩子們介紹世界上的奇蹟。孩子們由此知道，非洲南端有一種聰明、溫和的人，他們的消遣就是坐着靜思，而愛琴海是可以步行過去的，從一個島嶼跳上另一個島嶼，一直可以到達薩洛尼卡港。這些荒誕不經的夜談深深地印在孩子們的腦海裏，多年以後，政府軍的軍官命令行刑隊開槍之前的片刻間，奧雷連諾上校重新憶起了那個暖和的三月的下午，當時他的父親聽到遠處吉卜賽人的笛鼓聲，就中斷了物理課，兩眼一動不動，舉着手愣住了；這些吉卜賽人再一次來到村裏，將向村民介紹孟菲斯學者們驚人的最新發明。
這是另一批吉卜賽人。男男女女部都挺年青，只說本族話，是一羣皮膚油亮、雙手靈巧的漂亮人物。他們載歌載舞，興高采烈，鬧嚷嚷地經過街頭，帶來了各樣東西：會唱意大利抒情歌曲的彩色鸚鵝；隨着鼓聲一次至少能下一百隻金蛋的母雞；能夠猜出人意的猴子；既能縫鈕釦、又能退燒的多用機器；能夠使人忘卻辛酸往事的器械，能夠幫助消磨時間的膏藥，此外還有其他許多巧妙非凡的發明，以致霍·阿·布恩蒂亞打算髮明一種記憶機器，好把這一切全都記住。瞬息間，村子裏的面貌就完全改觀人人羣熙攘，鬧鬧喧喧，馬孔多的居民在自己的街道上也迷失了方向。