百年孤独为什么值得看 世纪文学经典:《百年孤独》第5章Part 4

世纪文学经典:《百年孤独》第5章Part 4  

A greater obstacle
as impassable as it was unforeseen
obliged a new and indefinite postponement. One week before the date set for the wedding
little Remedios woke up in the middle of the night soaked in a hot broth which had exploded in her insides with a kind of tearing belch
and she died three days later
poisoned by her own blood
with a pair of ins crossed in her stomach. Amarante suffered a crisis of conscience. She had begged God with such fervor for something fearful to happen so that she would not have to poison Rebeca that she felt guilty of Remedios' death. That was not the obstacle that she had begged for so much. Remedios had brought a breath of merriment to the house. She had settled down with her husband in a room near the workshop
which she decorated with the dolls and toys of her recent childhood
and her merry vitality overflowed the four walls of the bedroom and went like a whirlwind of good health along the porch with the begonias: She would start singing at dawn. She was the only person who dared intervene in the arguments beeen Rebeca and Amaranta. She plunged into the fatiguing chore of taking care of José Arcadio Buendía. She would bring him his food
she would help him with his daily necessities
wash him with soap and a scrubbing brush
keep his hair and beard free of lice and nits
keep the palm shelter in good condition and reinforce it with waterproof canvas in stormy weather. In her last months she had succeeded in municating with him in phrases of rudimentary Latin. When the son of Aureliano and Pilar Ternera was born and brought to the house and baptized in an intimate ceremony with the name Aureliano José
Remedios decided that he would be considered their oldest child. Her maternal instinct surprised úrsula. Aureliano
for his part
found in her the justification that he needed to live. He worked all day in his workshop and Remedios would bring him a cup of black coffee in the middle of the morning. They would both visit the Moscotes every night. Aureliano would play endless games of dominoes with his father-in-law while Remedios chatted with her sisters or talked to her mother about more important things. The link with the Buendías consolidated Don Apolinar Moscote's authority in the town. On frequent trips to the capital of the province he succeeded in getting the government to build a school so that Arcadio
who had inherited the educational enthusiasm of his grandfather
could take charge of it. Through persuasion he managed to get the majority of houses painted blue in time for the date of national independence. At the urging of Father Nicanor
he arranged for the transfer of Catarino's store to a back street and he closed down several scandalous establishments that prospered in the center of town. Once he returned with six policemen armed with rifles to whom he entrusted the maintenance of order
and no one remembered the original agreement not to have armed men in the town. Aureliano enjoyed his father-in-law's efficiency. "You're going to get as fat as he is
"his friends would say to him. But his sedentary life
which accentuated his cheekbones and concentrated the sparkle of his eyes
did not increase his weight or alter the parsimony of his character
but
on the contrary
it hardened on his lips the straight line of solitary meditation and implacable decision. So deep was the affection that he and his wife had succeeded in arousing in both their families that when Remedios announced that she was going to have a child. even Rebeca and Amaranta declared a truce in order to knit items in blue wool if it was to be a boy and in pink wool in case it was a girl. She was the last person Arcadio thought about a few years later when he faced the firing squad.
úrsula ordered a mourning period of closed doors and windows
with no one entering or leaving except on matters of utmost necessity. She prohibited any talking aloud for a year and she put Remedios' daguerreotype in the place where her body had been laid out
with a black ribbon around it and an oil lamp that was always kept lighted. Future generations
who never let the lamp go out
would be puzzled at that girl in a pleated skirt
white boots
and with an andy band around her head
and they were never able to connect her with the standard image of a great-grandmother. Amaranta took charge of Aureliano José. She adopted him as a son who would share her solitude and relieve her from the involutary laudanum that her mad beseeching had thrown into Remedios' coffee. Pietro Crespi would tiptoe in at dusk
with a black ribbon on his hat
and he would pay a silent visit to Rebeca
who seemed to be bleeding to death inside the black dress with sleeves down to her wrists. Just the idea of thinking about a new date for the wedding would have been so irreverent that the engagement turned into an eternal relationship
a fatigued love that no one worried about again
as if the lovers
who in other days had sabotaged the lamps in order to kiss
had been abandoned to the free will of death. Having lost her bearings
pletely demoralized
Rebeca began eating earth again.
Suddenly-when the mourning had gone on so long that the needlepoint sessions began again-someone pushed open the street door at o in the afternoon in the mortal silence of the heat and the braces in the foundation shook with such force that Amaranta and her friends sewing on the porch
Rebeca sucking her finger in her bedroom
úrsula in the kitchen
Aureliano in the workshop
and even José Arcadio Buendía under the solitary chestnut tree had the impression that an earthquake was breaking up the house. A huge man had arrived. His square shoulders barely fitted through the doorways. He was wearing a medal of Our Lady of Help around his bison neck
his arms and chest were pletely covered with cryptic tattooing
and on his right wrist was the tight copper bracelet of the ni?osen-cruz amulet. His skin was tanned by the salt of the open air
his hair was short and straight like the mane of a mule
his jaws were of iron
and he wore a sad smile. He had a belt on that was ice as thick as the cinch of a horse
boots with leggings and spurs and iron on the heels
and his presence gave the quaking impression of a seismic tremor. He went through the parlor and the living room
carrying some half-worn saddlebags in his hand
and he appeared like a thunderclap on the porch with the begonias where Amaranta and her friends were paralyzed
their needles in the air. "Hello
" he said to them in a tired voice
threw the saddlebags on a worktable
and went by on his way to the back of the house. "Hello
" he said to the startled Rebecca
who saw him pass by the door of her bedroom. "Hello
" he said to Aureliano
who was at his silversmith's bench with all five senses alert. He did not linger with anyone. He went directly to the kitchen and there he stopped for the first time at the end of a trip that had begun of the other side of the world. "Hello
" he said. úrsula stood for a fraction of a second with her mouth open
looked into his eyes
gave a cry
and flung her arms around his neck
shouting and weeping with joy. It was José Arcadio. He was returning as poor as when he had left
to such an extreme that úrsula had to give him o pesos to pay for the rental of his horse. He spoke a Spanish that was larded with sailor slang. They asked where he had been and he answered: "Out there." He hung his hammock in the room they assigned him and slept for three days. When he woke up
after eating sixteen raw eggs
he went directly to Catarino's store
where his monumental size provoked a panic of curiosity among the women. He called for music and cane liquor for everyone
to be put on his bill. He would Indian-wrestle with five men at the same time. "It can't be done
" they said
convinced that they would not be able to move his arm. "He has ni?os-en-cruz." Catarino
who did not believe in magical tricks of strength
bet him elve pesos that he could not move the counter. José Arcadio pulled it out of its place
lifted it over his head
and put it in the street. It took eleven men to put it back. In the heat of the party he exhibited his unusual masculinity on the bar
pletely covered with tattoos of words in several languages interined in blue and red. To the women who were besieging him and coveting him he put the question as to who would pay the most. The one who had the most money offered him enty pesos. Then he proposed raffling himself off among them at ten pesos a chance. It was a fantastic price because the most sought-after woman earned eight pesos a night
but they all accepted. They wrote their names on fourteen pieces of paper which they put into a hat and each woman took one out. When there were only o pieces left to draw
it was established to whom they belonged.