世纪文学经典:《百年孤独》第12章Part1

DAZZLED BY SO MANY and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macon-do did not know where their amazement began. They stayed up all night looking at the pale electric bulbs fed by the plant that Aureli-ano Triste had brought back when the train made its second trip, and it took time and effort for them to grow accustomed to its obsessive toom-toom. They be. came indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for the character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears of affliction had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many felt that they had been the victims of some new and showy gypsy business and they decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the actedout misfortunes of imaginary beings. Something similar happened with the cylinder phonographs that the merry matrons from France brought with them as a substitute for the antiquated hand organs and that for a time had serious effects on the livelihood of the band of musicians. At first curiosity increased the clientele on the forbidden street and there was even word of respectable ladies who disguised themselves as workers in order to observe the novelty of the phonograph from first hand, but from so much and such close observation they soon reached the conclusion that it was not an enchanted mill as everyone had thought and as the matrons had said, but a mechanical trick that could not be compared with something so moving, so human, and so full of everyday truth as a band of musicians. It was such a serious disappointment that when phonographs became so popular that there was one in every house they were not considered objects for amusement for adults but as something good for children to take apart. On the other hand, when someone from the town had the opportunity to test the crude reality of the telephone installed in the railroad station, which was thought to be a rudimentary version of the phonograph because of its crank, even the most incredulous were upset. It was as if God had decided to put to the test every capacity for surprise and was keeping the inhabitants of Macon-do in a permanent alternation between excitement and disappointment, doubt and revelation, to such an extreme that no one knew for certain where the limits of reality lay. It was an intricate stew of truths and mirages that convulsed the ghost of José Arcadio Buendía under the chestnut tree with impatience and made him wander all through the house even in broad daylight. Ever since the railroad had been officially inaugurated and had begun to arrive with regularity on Wednesdays at eleven o'clock and the primitive wooden station with a desk, a telephone, and a ticket window had been built, on the streets of Macon-do men and women were seen who had adopted everyday and normal customs and manners but who really looked like people out of a circus. In a town that had chafed under the tricks of the gypsies there was no future for those ambulatory acrobats of commerce who with equal effrontery offered a whistling kettle and a daily regime that would assure the salvation of the soul on the seventh day; but from those who let themselves be convinced out of fatigue and the ones who were always unwary, they reaped stupendous benefits. Among those theatrical creatures, wearing riding breeches and leggings, a pith helmet and steel-rimmed glasses, with topaz eyes and the skin of a thin rooster, there arrived in Macon-do on one of so many Wednesdays the chubby and smiling Mr. Herbert, who ate at the house.
No one had noticed him at the table until the first bunch of bananas had been eaten. Aureli-ano Segun-do had come across him by chance as he protested In broken Spanish because there were no rooms at the Hotel Jacob, and as he frequently did with strangers, he took him home. He was in the captive-balloon business, which had taken him halfway around the world with excellent profits, but he had not succeeded in taking anyone up in Macon-do because they considered that invention backward after having seen and tried the gypsies' flying carpets. He was leaving, therefore, on the next train. When they brought to the table the tiger--striped bunch of bananas that they were accustomed to hang in the dining room during lunch, he picked the first piece of fruit without great enthusiasm. But he kept on eating as he spoke, tasting, chewing, more with the distraction of a wise man than with the delight of a good eater, and when he finished the first bunch he asked them to bring him another. Then he took a small case withoptical instruments out of the toolbox that he always carried with him. With the auspicious attention of a diamond merchant he examined the banana meticulously, dissecting it with a special scalpel, weighing the pieces on a pharmacist's scale, and calculating its breadth with a gunsmith's calipers. Then he took a series of instruments out of the chest with which he measured the temperature, the level of humidity in the atmosphere, and the intensity of the light. It was such an intriguing ceremony that no one could eat in peace as everybody waited for Mr. Herbert to pass a final and revealing judgment, but he did not say anything that allowed anyone to guess his intentions.

马孔多居民被许多奇异的发明弄得眼花缭乱，简直来不及表示惊讶。他们望着淡白的电灯，整夜都不睡觉；电机是奥雷连诺·特里斯特第二次乘火车旅行之后带回来的，——它那无休无止的嗡嗡声，要好久才能逐渐习惯。生意兴隆的商人布鲁诺·克列斯比先生，在设有狮头式售票窗口的剧院里放映的电影，搞得马孔多的观众恼火已极，因为他们为之痛哭的人物，在一部影片里死亡和埋葬了，却在另一部影片里活得挺好，而且变成了阿拉伯人。花了两分钱去跟影片人物共命运的观众，忍受不了这种空前的欺骗，把坐椅都砸得稀烂。根据布鲁诺。 克列斯比先生的坚决要求，镇长在一张布告中说明：电影机只是一种放映幻象的机器，观众不应予以粗暴的对待；许多人以为自己受了吉卜赛人新把戏的害，就决定不再去看电影了，因为自己的倒霉事儿已经够多，用不着去为假人假事流泪。快活的法国艺妓带来的留声机也出现了类似的情况，此种留声机代替了过时的手风琴，使得地方乐队的收入受到了损失，最初大家好奇，前来“禁街”（指花天酒地的街道）参观的人很多，甚至传说一些高贵妇女也乔装男人，希望亲眼看看这种神秘的新鲜玩意儿，但她们就近看了半天以后认为：这并不象大家所想的和艺妓们所说的是个“魔磨”，而是安了发条的玩具，它的音乐根本不能跟乐队的音乐相比，因为乐队的音乐是动人的、有人味的，充满了生活的真实。大家对留声机深感失望，尽管它很快得到了广泛的推广，每个家庭都有一架，但毕竟不是供成年人消遣，而是给孩子们拆来拆去玩耍的。不过，镇上的什么人见到了火车站上的电话机，面对这种严峻的现实，最顽固的怀疑论者也动摇了。这种电话机有一个需要转动的长把手，因此大家最初把它看作是一种原始的留声机。上帝似乎决定试验一下马孔多居民们惊愕的限度，让他们经常处于高兴与失望、怀疑和承认的交替之中，以致没有一个人能够肯定他说现实的限度究竟在哪里。这是现实和幻想的混合，犹如栗树下面霍·阿·布恩蒂亚不安的幽灵甚至大白天也在房子里踱来踱去。铁路正式通车之后，每个星期三的十一点钟，一列火车开始准时到达，车站上建立了一座房子——一个简陋的木亭，里面有一张桌子和一台电话机，还有一个售票的小窗口；马孔多街道上出现了外来的男男女女，他们装做是从事一般买卖的普通人，但是很象杂技演员。这些沿街表演的流动杂技演员，也鼓簧弄舌地硬要别人观看啸叫的铁锅，并且传授大斋第七天拯救灵魂的摄生方法。（注：指节欲规则，节欲方法）在已经厌恶吉卜赛把戏的这个市镇上，这些杂技演员是无法指望成功的，但他们还是想尽巧招赚了不少钱，主要靠那些被他们说得厌烦的人和容易上当的人。在一个星期三，有一位笑容可掬的矮小的赫伯特先生，和这些杂技演员一块儿来到了马孔多，然后在布恩蒂亚家里吃饭。他穿着马裤，系着护腿套，戴着软木头盔和钢边眼镜；眼镜后面是黄玉似的眼睛。
赫伯特先生在桌边吃完第一串香蕉之前，谁也没有注意他。奥雷连诺第二是在雅各旅馆里偶然遇见他的，他在那儿用半通不通的西班牙语抱怨没有空房间，奥雷连诺第二就象经常对待外来人那样，把他领到家里来了。赫伯特先生有几个气球，他带着它们游历了半个世界，到处都得到极好的收入，但他未能把任何一个马孔多居民升到空中，因为他们看见过和尝试过吉卜赛人的飞毯，就觉得气球是倒退了。因此，赫伯特先生已买好了下一趟列车的车票。一串虎纹香蕉拿上桌子的时候（这种香蕉通常是拿进饭厅供午餐用的），赫伯特先生兴致不大地掰下了第一个香蕉。接着又掰下一个，再掰下一个；他不停地一面谈，一面吃；一面咀嚼，一面品味，但没有食客的喜悦劲儿，只有学者的冷淡神态。吃完了第一串香蕉，他又要了第二串。然后，他从经常带在身边的工具箱里，掏出一个装着精密仪器的小盒子。他以钻石商人的怀疑态度仔细研究了一个香蕉：用专门的柳叶刀从香蕉上剖下一片，放在药秤上称了称它的重量，拿军械技师的卡规量了量它的宽度。随后，他又从箱子里取出另一套仪器，测定温度、空气湿度和阳光强度。这些繁琐的手续是那样引人入胜，以致谁也不能平静地吃，都在等待赫伯特先生发表最后意见，看看究竟是怎么一回事，但他并没有说出一句能够使人猜到他的心思的话来。