世纪文学经典:《百年孤独》第2章Part 3

It was a fine June night, cool and with a moon, and they were awake and frolicking in bed until dawn, indifferent to the breeze that passed through the bedroom, loaded with the weeping of Prudencio Aguilar's kin.
The matter was put down as a duel of honor, but both of them were left with a twinge in their conscience. One night, when she could not sleep, úrsula went out into the courtyard to get some water and she saw Prudencio Aguilar by the water jar. He was livid, a sad expression on his face, trying to cover the hole in his throat with a plug made of esparto grass. It did not bring on fear in her, but pity. She went back to the room and told her husband what she had seen, but he did not think much of it. "This just means that we can't stand the weight of our conscience." Two nights later úrsula saw Prudencio Aguilar again, in the bathroom, using the esparto plug to wash the clotted blood from his throat. On another night she saw him strolling in the rain. José Arcadio Buendía, annoyed by his wife's hallucinations, went out into the courtyard armed with the spear. There was the dead man with his sad expression.
"You go to hell," José Arcadio Buendía shouted at him. "Just as many times as you come back, I'll kill you again."
Prudencio Aguilar did not go away, nor did José Arcadio Buendía dare throw the spear. He never slept well after that. He was tormented by the immense desolation with which the dead man had looked at him through the rain, his deep nostalgia as he yearned for living people, the anxiety with which he searched through the house looking for some water with which to soak his esparto plug. "He must be suffering a great deal," he said to úrsula. "You can see that he's so very lonely." She was so moved that the next time she saw the dead man uncovering the pots on the stove she understood what he was looking for, and from then on she placed water jugs all about the house. One night when he found him washing his wound in his own room, José Anedio Buendía could no longer resist.
"It's all right, Prudencio," he told him. "We're going to leave this town, just as far away as we can go, and we'll never come back. Go in peace now."
That was how they undertook the crossing of the mountains. Several friends of José Arcadio Buendía, young men like him, excited, by the adventure, dismantled their houses and packed up, along with their wives and children, to head toward the land that no one had promised them. Before he left, José Arcadio Buendía buried the spear in the courtyard and, one after the other, he cut the throats of his magnificent fighting cocks, trusting that in that way he could give some measure of peace to Prudencio Aguilar. All that úrsula took along were a trunk with her bridal clothes, a few household utensils, and the small chest with the gold pieces that she had inherited from her father. They did not lay out any definite itinerary. They simply tried to go in a direction opposite to the road to Riohacha so that they would not leave any trace or meet any people they knew. It was an absurd journey. After fourteen months, her stomach corrupted by monkey meat and snake stew, úrsula gave birth to a son who had all of hisfeatures human. She had traveled half of the trip in a hammock that two men carried on their shoulders, because swelling had disfigured her legs and her varicose veins had puffed up like bubbles. Although it was pitiful to see them with their sunken stomachs and languid eyes, the children survived the journey better than their parents, and most of the time it was fun for them. One morning, after almost two years of crossing, they became the first mortals to see the western slopes of the mountain range. From the cloudy summit they saw the immense aquatic expanse of the great swamp as it spread out toward the other side of the world. But they never found the sea. One night, after several months of lost wandering through the swamps, far away now from the last Indians they had met on their way, they camped on the banks of a stony river whose waters were like a torrent of frozen glass. Years later, during the second civil war, Colonel Aureliano Buendía tried to follow that same route in order to take Riohacha bysurprise and after six days of traveling he understood that it was madness. Nevertheless, the night on which they camped beside the river, his father's host had the look of ship-wrecked people with no escape, but their number had grown during the crossing and they were all prepared (and they succeeded) to die of old age. José Arcadio Buendía dreamed that night that right there a noisy city with houses having mirror wails rose up. He asked what city it was and they answered him with a name that he had never heard, that had no meaning at all, but that had a supernatural echo in his dream: Macondo. On the following day he convinced his men that they would never find the sea. He ordered them to cut down the trees to make a clearing beside the river, at the coolest spot on the bank, and there they founded the village.

这是一个美妙的六月的夜晚，月光皎洁，凉爽宜人。他俩通古未睡，在床上折腾，根本没去理会穿过卧室的轻风，风儿带来了普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔亲人的哭声。
人们把这桩事情说成是光荣的决斗，可是两夫妇却感到了良心的谴责。有一天夜里，乌苏娜还没睡觉，出去喝水，在院子里的大土罐旁边看见了普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔。他脸色死白、十分悲伤，试图用一块麻屑堵住喉部正在流血的伤口。看见死人，乌苏娜感到的不是恐惧，而是怜悯。她回到卧室里，把这件怪事告诉了丈夫，可是丈夫并不重视她的话。“死人是不会走出坟墓的，”他说。“这不过是咱们受到良心的责备。”过了两夜，乌苏娜在浴室里遇见普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔——他正在用麻屑擦洗脖子上的凝血。另一个夜晚，她发现他在雨下徘徊。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚讨厌妻子的幻象，就带着标枪到院子里去。死人照旧悲伤地立在那儿。
“滚开！”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚向他吆喝。“你回来多少次，我就要打死你多少次。”
普鲁登希奥没有离开，而霍·阿·布恩蒂亚却不敢拿标枪向他掷去。从那时起，他就无法安稳地睡觉了。他老是痛苦地想起死人穿过雨丝望着他的无限凄凉的眼神，想起死人眼里流露的对活人的深切怀念，想起普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔四处张望。寻找水来浸湿一块麻屑的不安神情。“大概，他很痛苦，”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚向妻子说。“看来，他很孤独。”乌苏娜那么怜悯死人，下一次遇见时，她发现他盯着炉灶上的铁锅，以为他在寻找什么，于是就在整个房子里到处都给他摆了一罐罐水。那一夜，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚看见死人在他自己的卧室里洗伤口，于是就屈服了。
“好吧，普鲁登希奥，”他说。“我们尽量离开这个村子远一些，决不再回这儿来了。现在，你就安心走吧。”
就这样，他们打算翻过山岭到海边去。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的几个朋友，象他一样年轻，也想去冒险，离开自己的家，带着妻室儿女去寻找土地……渺茫的土地。在离开村子之前，霍。阿·布恩蒂亚把标枪埋在院子里，接二连三砍掉了自己所有斗鸡的脑袋，希望以这样的牺牲给普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔一些安慰。乌苏娜带走的只是一口放着嫁妆的箱子、一点儿家庭用具、以及藏放父亲遗产——金币——的一只盒子。谁也没有预先想好一定的路线。他们决定朝着与列奥阿察相反的方向前进，以免遇见任何熟人，从而无影无踪地消失。这是一次荒唐可笑的旅行。过了一年零两个月，乌苏娜虽然用猴内和蛇汤毁坏了自己的肚子，却终于生下了一个儿子，婴儿身体各部完全没有牲畜的征状。因她脚肿，脚上的静脉胀得象囊似的，整整一半的路程，她都不得不躺在两个男人抬着的担架上面。孩子们比父母更容易忍受艰难困苦，他们大部分时间都鲜蹦活跳，尽管样儿可怜——两眼深陷，肚子瘪瘪的。有一天早晨，在几乎两年的流浪以后，他们成了第一批看见山岭西坡的人。从云雾遮蔽的山岭上，他们望见了一片河流纵横的辽阔地带——直伸到天边的巨大沼泽。可是他们始终没有到达海边。在沼泽地里流浪了几个月，路上没有遇见一个人，有一天夜晚，他们就在一条多石的河岸上扎营，这里的河水很象凝固的液体玻璃。多年以后，在第二次国内战争时期，奥雷连诺打算循着这条路线突然占领列奥阿察，可是六天以后他才明白，他的打算纯粹是发疯。然而那夭晚上，在河边扎营以后，他父亲的旅伴们虽然很象遇到船舶失事的人，但是旅途上他们的人数增多了，大伙儿都准备活到老（这一点他们做到了）。夜里，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚做了个梦，营地上仿佛矗立起一座热闹的城市，房屋的墙壁都用晶莹夺目的透明材料砌成。他打听这是什么城市，听到的回答是一个陌生的、毫无意义的名字，可是这个名字在梦里却异常响亮动听：马孔多。翌日，他就告诉自己的人，他们绝对找不到海了。他叫大伙儿砍倒树木，在河边最凉爽的地方开辟一块空地，在空地上建起了一座村庄。