百年孤独为什么值得看 世纪文学经典:《百年孤独》第3章Part 6

世纪文学经典:《百年孤独》第3章Part 6  

While Macondo was celebrating the recovery of its memory
José Arcadio Buendía and Melquíades dusted off their old friendship. The gypsy was inclined to stay in the town. He really had been through death
but he had returned because he could not bear the solitude. Repudiated by his tribe
having lost all of his supernatural faculties because of his faithfulness to life
he decided to take refuge in that corner of the world which had still not been discovered by death
dedicated to the operation of a daguerreotype laboratory. José Arcadio Buendía had never heard of that invention. But when he saw himself and his whole family fastened onto a sheet of iridescent metal for an eternity
he was mute with stupefaction. That was the date of the oxidized daguerreotype in which José Arcadio Buendía appeared with his bristly and graying hair
his card board collar attached to his shirt by a copper button
and an expression of startled solemnity
whom úrsula described
dying with laughter
as a "frightened general." José Arcadio Buendía was
in fact
frightened on that dear December morning when the daguerreotype was made
for he was thinking that people were slowly wearing away while his image would endure an a metallic plaque. Through a curious reversal of custom
it was úrsula who got that idea out of his head
as it was also she who fot her ancient bitterness and decided that Melquíades would stay on in the house
although she never permitted them to make a daguerreotype of her because (according to her very words) she did not want to survive as a laughingstock for her grandchildren. That morning she dressed the children in their best clothes
powdered their faces
and gave a spoonful of marrow syrup to each one so that they would all remain absolutely motionless during the nearly o minutes in front of Melquíades fantastic camera. In the family daguerreotype
the only one that ever existed
Aureliano appeared dressed in black velvet beeen Amaranta and Rebeca. He had the same languor and the same clairvoyant look that he would have years later as he faced the firing squad. But he still had not sensed the premonition of his fate. He was an expert silversmith
praised all over the swampland for the delicacy of his work. In the workshop
which he shared with Melquíades' mad laboratory
he could barely be heard breathing. He seemed to be taking refuge in some other time
while his father and the gypsy with shouts interpreted the predictions of Nostradamus amidst a noise of flasks and trays and the disaster of spilled acids and silver bromide that was lost in the ists and turns it gave at every instant. That dedication to his work
the good judgment with which he directed his attention
had allowed Aureliano to earn in a short time more money than úrsula had with her delicious candy fauna
but everybody thought it strange that he was now a fullgrown man and had not known a woman. It was true that he had never had one.
Several months later saw the return of Francisco the Man
as ancient vagabond who was almost o hundred years old and who frequently passed through Macondo distributing songs that he posed himself. In them Francisco the Man told in great detail the things that had happened in the towns along his route
from Manaure to the edge of the swamp
so that if anyone had a message to send or an event to make public
he would pay him o cents to include it in his repertory. That was how úrsula learned of the death of her mother
as a simple consequence of listening to the songs in the hope that they would say something about her son José Arcadio. Francisco the Man
called that because he had once defeated the devil in a duel of improvisation
and whose real name no one knew
disappeared from Macondo during the insomnia plague and one night he appeared suddenly in Catarino's store. The whole town went to listen to him to find out what had happened in the world. On that occasion there arrived with him a woman who was so fat that four Indians had to carry her in a rocking chair
and an adolescent mulatto girl with a forlorn look who protected her from the sun with an umbrella. Aureliano went to Catarino's store that night. He found Francisco the Man
like a monolithic chameleon
sitting in the midst of a circle of bystanders. He was singing the news with his old
out-of-tune voice
acpanying himself with the same archaic accordion that Sir Walter Raleigh had given him in the Guianas and keeping time with his great walking feet that were cracked from saltpeter. In front of a door at the rear through which men were going and ing
the matron of the rocking chair was sitting and fanning herself in silence. Catarino
with a felt rose behind his ear
was selling the gathering mugs of fermented cane juice
and he took advantage of the occasion to go over to the men and put his hand on them where he should not have. Toward midnight the heat was unbearable. Aureliano listened to the news to the end without hearing anything that was of interest to his family. He was getting ready to go home when the matron signaled him with her hand.
"You go in too." she told him. "It only costs enty cents."