百年孤独这本书怎么样 世纪文学经典:《百年孤独》第19章Part1

世纪文学经典:《百年孤独》第19章Part1  

Chapter 19
AMARANTA ?RSULA returned with the angels of December
driven on a sailor’s breeze
leading her husband by a silk rope tied around his neck. She appeared without warning
wearing an ivory-colored dress
a string of pearls that reached almost to her knees
emerald and topaz rings
and with her straight hair in a smooth bun held behind her ears by swallow-tail brooches. The man whom she had married six months before was a thin
older Fleming with the look of a sailor about him. She had only to push open the door to the parlor to realize that her absence had been longer and more destructive than she had imagined.
“Good Lord
?she shouted
more gay than alarmed
“it’s obvious that there’s no woman in this house!?
The baggage would not fit on the porch. Besides Fernanda’s old trunk
which they had sent her off to school with
she had o upright trunks
four large suitcases
a bag for her parasols
eight hatboxes
a gigantic cage with half a hundred canaries
and her husband’s velocipede
broken down in a special case which allowed him to carry it like a cello. She did not even take a day of rest after the long trip. She put on some worn denim overalls that her husband had brought along with other automotive items and set about on a new restoration of the house. She scattered the red ants
who had already taken possession of the porch
brought the rose bushes back to life
uprooted the weeds
and planted ferns
oregano
and begonias again in the pots along the railing. She took charge of a crew of carpenters
locksmiths
and masons
who filled in the cracks in the floor
put doors and windows back on their hinges
repaired the furniture
and white-washed the walls inside and out
so that three months after her arrival one breathed once more the atmosphere of youth and festivity that had existed during the days of the pianola. No one in the house had ever been in a better mood at all hours and under any circumstances
nor had anyone ever been readier to sing and dance and toss all items and customs from the past into the trash. With a sweep of her broom she did away with the funeral mementos and piles of useless trash and articles of superstition that had been piling up in the corners
and the only thing she spared
out of gratitude to ?rsula
was the daguerreotype of Remedios in the parlor. “My
such luxury
?she would shout
dying with laughter. “A fourteen-year-old grandmother!?When one of the masons told her that the house was full of apparitions and that the only way to drive them out was to look for the treasures they had left buried
she replied amid loud laughter that she did not think it was right for men to be superstitious. She was so spontaneous
so emancipated
with such a free and modern spirit
that Aureliano did not know what to do with his body when he saw her arrive. “My
my!?she shouted happily with open arms. “Look at how my darling cannibal has grown!?Before he had a chance to react she had already put a record on the portable phonograph she had brought with her and was trying to teach him the latest dance steps. She made him change the dirty pants that he had inherited from Colonel Aureliano Buendía and gave him some youthful shirts and o-toned shoes
and she would push him into the street when he was spending too much time in Melquíades?room.
Active
small
and indomitable like ?rsula
and almost as pretty and provocative as Remedios the Beauty
she was endowed with a rare instinct for anticipating fashion. When she received pictures of the most recent fashions in the mail
they only proved that she had not been wrong about the models that she designed herself and sewed on Amaranta’s primitive pedal machine. She subscribed to every fashion magazine
art publication. and popular music review published in Europe
and she had only to glance at them to realize that things in the world were going just as she imagined they were. It was inprehensible why a woman with that spirit would have returned to a dead town burdened by dust and heat
and much less with a husband who had more than enough money to live anywhere in the world and who loved her so much that he let himself be led around by her on a silk leash. As time passed
however
her intention to stay was more obvious
because she did not make any plans that were not a long way off
nor did shedo anything that did not have as an aim the search for a fortable life and a peaceful old age in Macondo. The canary cage showed that those aims were made up on the spur of the moment. Remembering that her mother had told her in a letter about the extermination of the birds
she had delayed her trip several months until she found a ship that stopped at the Fortunate Isles and there she chose the finest enty-five pairs of canaries so that she could repopulate the skies of Macondo. That was the most lamentable of her numerous frustrated undertakings. As the birds reproduced Amaranta ?rsula would release them in pairs
and no sooner did they feel themselves free than they fled the town. She tried in vain to awaken love in them by means of the bird cage that ?rsula had built during the first reconstruction of the house. Also in vain were the artificial nests built of esparto grass in the almond trees and the birdseed strewn about the roofs
and arousing the captives so that their songs would dissuade the deserters
because they would take flights on their first attempts and make a turn in the sky
just the time needed to find the direction to the Fortunate Isles.