百年孤独为什么值得看 世纪文学经典:《百年孤独》第18章Part6

世纪文学经典:《百年孤独》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 o 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 plete 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 o 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 o 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 enty 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 nigares
the light in the window and the caresses of Amaranta in the bath and the pleasure of being powdered beeen 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 b 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.