Chapter 20

PILAR TERNERA died in her wicker rocking chair during one night of festivities as she watched over the entrance to her paradise. In accordance with her last wishes she was not buried in a coffin but sitting in her rocker, which eight men lowered by ropes into a huge hole dug in the center of the dance floor. The mulatto girls, dressed in black, pale from weeping, invented shadowy rites as they took off their earrings, brooches, and rings and threw them into the pit before it was closed over with a slab that bore neither name nor dates, and that was covered with a pile of Amazonian camellias. After poisoning the animals they closed up the doors and windows with brick and mortar and they scattered out into the world with their wooden trunks that were lined with pictures of saints, prints from magazines, and the portraits of sometime sweethearts, remote and fantastic, who shat diamonds, or ate cannibals, or were crowned playing-card kings on the high seas.
It was the end. In Pilar Ternera's tomb, among the psalm and cheap whore jewelry, the ruins of the past would rot, the little that remained after the wise Catalonian had auctioned off his bookstore and returned to the Mediterranean village where he had been born, overcome by a yearning for a lasting springtime. No one could have foreseen his decision. He had arrived in Macon-do during the splendor of the banana company, fleeing from one of many wars, and nothing more practical had occurred to him than to set up that bookshop of incunabula and first editions in several languages, which casual customers would thumb through cautiously, as if they were junk books, as they waited their turn to have their dreams interpreted in the house across the way. He spent half his life in the back of the store, scribbling in his extracareful hand in purple ink and on pages that he tore out of school notebooks, and no one was sure exactly what he was writing. When Aureli-ano first met him he had two boxes of those motley pages that in some way made one think of Melquíades' parchments, and from that time until he left he had filled a third one, so it was reasonable to believe that he had done nothing else during his stay in Macon-do. The only people with whom he maintained relations were the four friends, whom he had exchanged their tops and kites for books, and he set them to reading Seneca and Ovid while they were still in grammar school. He treated the classical writers a household familiarity, as if they had all been his roommates at some period, and he knew many things that should not have been known, such as the fact that Saint Augustine wore a wool jacket under his habit that he did not take off for fourteen years and that Arnaldo of Villanova, the necromancer, was impotent since childhood because of a scorpion bite. His fervor for the written word was an interweaving of solemn respect and gossipy irreverence. Not even his own manuscripts were safe from that dualism. Having learned Catalan in order to translate them, Alfonso put a roll of pages in his pockets, which were always full of newspaper clippings and manuals for strange trades, and one night he lost them in the house of the little girls who went to bed because of hunger. When the wise old grandfather found out, instead of raising a row as had been feared, he commented, dying with laughter, that it was the natural destiny of literature. On the other hand, there was no human power capable of persuading him not to take along the three boxes when he returned to his native village, and he unleashed a string of Carthaginian curses at the railroad inspectors who tried to ship them as freight until he finally succeeded in keeping them with him in the passenger coach. "The world must be all fucked up," he said then, "when men travel first class and literature goes as freight." That was the last thing he was heard to say. He had spent a dark week on the final preparations for the trip, because as the hour approached his humor was breaking down and things began to be misplaced, and what he put in one place would appear in another, attacked by the same elves that had tormented Fernanda.
"Collons," he would curse. "I shit on Canon Twenty-seven of the Synod of London."
Germán Aureli-ano took care of him. They helped him like a child, fastening his tickets and immigration documents to his pockets with safety pins, making him a detailed list of what he must do from the time he left Macon-do until he landed in Barcelona, but nonetheless he threw away a pair of pants with half of his money in it without realizing it. The night before the trip, after nailing up the boxes and putting his clothing into the same suitcase that he had brought when he first came, he narrowed his clam eyes, pointed with a kind of impudent benediction at the stacks of books with which he had endured during his exile, said to his friends:-
"All that shit there I leave to you people!"
Three months later they received in a large envelope twenty-nine letters and more than fifty pictures that he had accumulated during the leisure of the high seas. Although he did not date them, the order in which he had written the letters was obvious. In the first ones, with his customary good humor, he spoke about the difficulties of the crossing, the urge he had to throw the cargo officer overboard when he would not let him keep the three boxes in his cabin, the clear imbecility of a lady who was terrified at the number thirteen, not out of superstition but because she thought it was a number that had no end, and the bet that he had won during the first dinner because he had recognized in the drinking water on board the taste of the nighttime beets by the springs of Lérida. With the passage of the days, however, the reality of life on board mattered less and less to him and even the most recent and trivial happenings seemed worthy of nostalgia, because as the ship got farther away, his memory began to grow sad. That process of nostalgia was also evident in the pictures. In the first ones he looked happy, with his sport shirt which looked like a hospital jacket and his snowy mane, in an October Caribbean filled with whitecaps. In the last ones he could be seen to be wearing a dark coat and a milk scarf, pale in the face, taciturn from absence on the deck of a mournful ship that had come to be like a sleepwalker on the autumnal seas. Germán and Aureli-ano answered his letters. He wrote so many during the first months that at that time they felt closer to him than when he had been in Macon-do, and they were almost freed from the rancor that he had left behind. At first he told them that everything was just the same, that the pink snails were still in the house where he had been born, that the dry herring still had the same taste on a piece toast, that the waterfalls in the village still took on a perfumed smell at dusk. They were the notebook pages again, woven with the purple scribbling, in which he dedicated a special paragraph to each one. Nevertheless, and although he himself did not seem to notice it, those letters of recuperation and stimulation were slowly changing into pastoral letters of disenchantment. One winter night while the soup was boiling in the fireplace, he missed the heat of the back of his store, the buzzing the sun on the dusty almond trees, the whistle of the train during the lethargy of siesta time, just as in Macon-do he had missed the winter soup in the fireplace, the cries of the coffee vendor, and the fleeting larks of springtime. Upset by two nostalgias facing each other like two mirrors, he lost his marvelous sense of unreality and he ended up recommending to all of them that they leave Macon-do, that they forget everything he had taught them about the world and the human heart, that they shit on Horace, and that wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end.
Gaston had returned to Brussels. Tired of waiting for the airplane, one day he put his indispensable things into a small suitcase, took his file of correspondence, and left with the idea of returning by air before his concession was turned over to a group of German pilots who had presented the provincial authorities with a more ambitious project than his. Since the afternoon of their first love, Aureli-ano and Amaranta úrsula had continued taking advantage of her husband's rare unguarded moments, making love with gagged ardor in chance meetings and almost always interrupted by unexpected returns. But when they saw themselves alone in the house they succumbed to the delirium of lovers who were making up for lost time. It was a mad passion, unhinging, which made Fernanda's bones tremble with horror in her grave and which kept them in a state of perpetual excitement. Amaranta úrsula's shrieks, her songs of agony would break out the same at two in the afternoon on the diningroom table as at two in the morning in the pantry. "What hurts me most," she would say, laughing, "is all the time that we wasted." In the bewilderment of passion she watched the ants devastating the garden, sating their prehistoric hunger with the beam of the house, and she watched the torrents of living lava take over the porch again, but she bothered to fight them only when she found them in her bedroom. Aureli-ano abandoned the parchments, did not leave the house again, and carelessly answered the letters from the wise Catalonian. They lost their sense of reality, the notion of time, the rhythm of daily habits. They closed the doors and windows again so as not to waste time getting undressed and they walked about the house as Remedios the Beauty had wanted to do and they would roll around naked in the mud of the courtyard, and one afternoon they almost drowned as they made love in the cistern. In a short time they did more damage than the red ants: they destroyed the furniture in the parlor, in their madness they tore to shreds the hammock that had resisted the sad bivouac loves of Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía and they disemboweled the mattresses and emptied them on the floor as they suffocated in storms of cotton. Although Aureli-ano was just as ferocious a lover as his rival, it was Amaranta úrsula who ruled in that paradise of disaster with her mad genius and her lyrical voracity, as if she had concentrated in her love the unconquerable energy that her great-great-grandmother had given to the making of little candy animals. And yet, while she was singing with pleasure and dying with laughter over her own inventions, Aureli-ano was becoming more and more absorbed and silent, for his passion was self-centered and burning. Nevertheless, they both reached such extremes of virtuosity that when they became exhausted from excitement, they would take advantage of their fatigue. They would give themselves over to the worship of their bodies, discovering that the rest periods of love had unexplored possibilities, much richer than those of desire. While he would rub Amaranta úrsula's erect breasts with egg whites or smooth her elastic thighs and peach-like stomach with cocoa butter, she would play with Aureli-ano's portentous creature as if it were a doll and would paint clown's eyes on it with her lipstick and give it a Turk's mustache with her eyebrow pencil, and would put on organza bow ties and little tinfoil hats. One night they daubed themselves from head to toe peach jam and licked each other like dogs and made mad love on the floor of the porch, and they were awakened by a torrent of carnivorous ants who were ready to eat them alive.
During the pauses in their delirium, Amaranta úrsula would answer Gaston's letters. She felt him to be so far away and busy that his return seemed impossible to her. In one of his first letters he told that his Partners had actually sent the airplane, but that a shipping agent in Brussels had sent it by mistake to Tanganyika, where it was delivered to the scattered tribe of the Makondos. That mix-up brought on so many difficulties that just to get the plane back might take two years. So Amaranta úrsula dismissed the possibility of an inopportune return. Aureli-ano, for his part, had no other contact with the world except for the letters from the wise Catalonian and the news he had of Gabriel through Mercedes, the silent pharmacist. At first they were real contacts. Gabriel had turned in his return ticket in order to stay in Paris, selling the old newspapers and empty bottles that the chambermaids threw out of a gloomy hotel on the Rue Dauphine. Aureli-ano could visualize him then in a turtleneck sweater which he took off only when the sidewalk Cafés on Montparnasse filled with springtime lovers, and sleeping by day and writing by night in order to confuse hunger in the room that smelled of boiled cauliflower where Rocamadour was to die. Nevertheless, news about him was slowly becoming so uncertain, and the letters from the wise man so sporadic and melancholy, that Aureli-ano grew to think about them as Amaranta úrsula thought about her husband, and both of them remained floating in an empty universe where the only everyday and eternal reality was love.

Suddenly, like the stampede in that world of happy unawareness, came the news of Gaston's return. Aureli-ano and Amaranta úrsula opened their eyes, dug deep into their souls, looked at the letter with their hands on their hearts, understood that they were so close to each other that they preferred death to separation. Then she wrote her husband a letter of contradictory truths in which she repeated her love and said how anxious she was to see him again, but at the same time she admitted as a design of fate the impossibility of living without Aureli-ano. Contrary to what they had expected, Gaston sent them a calm, almost paternal reply, with two whole pages devoted to a warning against the fickleness of passion and a final paragraph with unmistakable wishes for them to be as happy as he had been during his brief conjugal experience. It was such an unforeseen attitude that Amaranta úrsula felt humiliated by the idea that she had given her husband the pretext that he had wanted in order to abandon her to her fate. The rancor was aggravated six months later when Gaston wrote again from Léopoldville, where he had finally recovered the airplane, simply to ask them to ship him the velocipede, which of all that he had left behind in Macon-do was the only thing that had any sentimental value for him. Aureli-ano bore Amaranta úrsula's spite patiently and made an effort to show her that he could be as good a husband in adversity as in prosperity, and the daily needs that besieged them when Gaston's last money ran out created a bond of solidarity between them that was not as dazzling and heady as passion, but that let them make love as much and be as happy as during their uproarious and salacious days. At the time Pilar Ternera died they were expecting a child.
Tormented by the certainty that he was his wife's brother, Aureli-ano ran out to the parish house to search through the moldy and moth-eaten archives for some clue to his parentage. The oldest baptismal certificate that he found was that of Amaranta Buendía, baptized in adolescence by Father Nicanor Reyna during the time when he was trying to prove the existence of God by means of tricks with chocolate. He began to have that feeling that he was one the seventeen Aureli-anos, whose birth certificates he tracked down as he went through four volumes, but the baptism dates were too far back for his age. Seeing him lost in the labyrinths of kinship, trembling with uncertainty, the arthritic priest, who was watching him from his hammock, asked him compassionately what his name was.
"Aureli-ano Buendía," he said.
"Then don't wear yourself out searching," the priest exclaimed with final conviction. "Many years ago there used to be a street here with that name and in those days people had the custom of naming their children after streets."
Aureli-ano trembled with rage.
"So!" he said. "You don't believe it either."
"Believe what?"
"That Colonel Aureli-ano, Buendía fought thirty-two civil wars and lost them all," Aureli-ano answered. "That the army hemmed in and machine-gunned three thousworkers and that their bodies were carried off to be thrown into the sea on a train with two hundred cars."
The priest measured a pitying look.
"Oh, my son," he signed. "It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment."
So Aureli-ano and Amaranta úrsula accepted the version of the basket, not because they believed it, but because it spared them their terror. As the pregnancy advanced they were becoming a single being, they were becoming more and more integrated in the solitude a house that needed only one last breath to be knocked down. They restricted themselves to an essential area, from Fernanda's bedroom, where the charms of sedentary love were visible, to the beginning of the porch, where Amaranta úrsula would sit to sew bootees and bonnets for the newborn baby and Aureli-ano, would answer the occasional letters from the wise Catalonian. The rest of the house was given over to the tenacious assault of destruction. The silver shop, Melquíades' room, the primitive and silent realm of Santa Sofía de la Piedad remained in the depths of a domestic jungle that no one would have had the courage to penetrate. Surrounded by the voracity of nature, Aureli-ano and Amaranta úrsula continued cultivating the oregano and the begonias and defended their world with demarcations of quicklime, building the last trenches in the age-old war between man and ant. Her long and neglected hair, the splotches that were beginning to appear on her face, the swelling of her legs, the deformation of her former lovemaking weasel's body had changed Amaranta úrsula from the youthful creature she had been when she arrived at the house with the cage of luckless canaries and her captive husband, but it did not change the vivacity of her spirit. "Shit," she would say, laughingly. "Who would have thought that we really would end up living like cannibals!" The last thread that joined them to the world was broken on the sixth month of pregnancy when they received a letter that obviously was not from the wise Catalonian. It had been mailed in Barcelona, but the envelope was addressed in conventional blue ink by an official hand and it had the innocent and impersonal look of hostile messages. Aureli-ano snatched it out of Amaranta úrsula's hands as she was about to open it.
"Not this one," he told her. "I don't want to know what it says."
Just as he had sensed, the wise Catalonian did not write again. The stranger's letter, which no one read, was left to the mercy of the moths on the shelf where Fernanda had forgotten her wedding ring on occasion and there it remained, consuming itself in the inner fire of its bad news as the solitary lovers sailed against the tide of those days of the last stages, those impenitent and ill-fated times which were squandered on the useless effort of making them drift toward the desert of disenchantment and oblivion. Aware of that menace, Aureli-ano and Amaranta úrsula spent the hot months holding hands, ending with the love of loyalty for the child who had his beginning in the madness of fornication. At night, holding each other in bed, they were not frightened by the sublunary explosions of the ants or the noise of the moths or the constant and clean whistle of the growth of the weeds in the neighboring rooms. Many times they were awakened by the traffic of the dead. They could hear úrsula fighting against the laws creation to maintain the line, and José Arcadio Buendía searching for the mythical truth of the great inventions, and Fernanda praying, and Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía stupefying himself with the deception of war and the little gold fishes, and Aureli-ano Segun-do dying of solitude in the turmoil of his debauches, and then they learned that dominant obsessions can prevail against death and they were happy again with the certainty that they would go on loving each other in their shape as apparitions long after other species of future animals would steal from the insects the paradise of misery that the insects were finally stealing from man.
One Sunday, at six in the afternoon, Amaranta úrsula felt the pangs of childbirth. The smiling mistress of the little girls who went to bed because of hunger had her get onto the diningroom table, straddled her stomach, and mistreated her with wild gallops until her cries were drowned out by the bellows of a formidable male child. Through her tears Amaranta úrsula could see that he was one of those great Buendías, strong and willful like the José Arcadios, with the open and clairvoyant eyes of the Aureli-anos, and predisposed to begin the race again from the beginning and cleanse it of its pernicious vices and solitary calling, for he was the only one in a century who had been engendered with love.
"He's a real cannibal." she said. "We'll name him Rodrigo."
"No," her husband countered. "We'll name him Aure-liano and he'll win thirty-two wars."
After cutting the umbilical cord, the midwife began to use a cloth to take off the blue grease that covered his body as Aureli-ano held up a lamp. Only when they turned him on his stomach did they see that he had something more than other men, and they leaned over to examine him. It was the tail of a pig.
They were not alarmed. Aureli-ano Amaranta úrsula were not aware of the family precedent, nor did they remember úrsula's frightening admonitions, and the midwife pacified them with the idea that the tail could be cut off when the child got his second teeth. Then they had no time to think about it again, because Amaranta úrsula was bleeding in an uncontainable torrent. They tried to help her with applications of spider webs and balls of ash, but it was like trying to hold back a spring with one's hands. During the first hours she tried to maintain her good humor. She took the frightened Aureli-ano by the hand and begged him not to worry, because people like her were not made to die against their will, and she exploded with laughter at the ferocious remedies of the midwife. But as Aureli-ano's hope abandoned him she was becoming less visible, as if the light on her were fading away, until she sank into drowsiness. At dawn on Monday they brought a woman who recited cauterizing prayers that were infallible for man and beast beside her bed, but Amaranta úrsula's passionate blood was insensible to any artifice that did not come from love. In the afternoon, after twenty-four hours of desperation, they knew that she was dead because the flow had stopped without remedies and her profile became sharp and the blotches on her face evaporated in a halo of alabaster and she smiled again.
Aureli-ano did not understuntil then how much he loved his friends, how much he missed them, and how much he would have given to be with them at that moment. He put the child in the basket that his mother had prepared for him, covered the face of the corpse with a blanket, wandered aimlessly through the town, searching for an entrance that went back to the past. He knocked at the door of the pharmacy, where he had not visited lately, and he found a carpenter shop. The old woman who opened the door with a lamp in her hand took pity on his delirium and insisted that, no, there had never been a pharmacy there, nor had she ever known a woman with a thin neck and sleepy eyes named Mercedes. He wept, leaning his brow against the door of the wise Catalonian's former bookstore, conscious that he was paying with his tardy sobs for a death that he had refused to weep for on time so as not to break the spell of love. He smashed his fists against the cement wall of The Golden Child, calling for Pilar Ternera, indifferent to the luminous orange disks that were crossing the sky and that so many times on holiday nights he had contemplated with childish fascination from the courtyard of the curlews. In the last open salon of the tumbledown red-light district an accordion group was playing the songs of Rafael Escalona, the bishop's nephew, heir to the secrets of Francisco the Man. The bartender, who had a withered and somewhat crumpled arm because he had raised it against his mother, invited Aureli-ano to have a bottle of cane liquor, and Aureli-ano then bought him one. The bartender spoke to him about the misfortune of his arm. Aureli-ano spoke to about the misfortune of his heart, withered and somewhat crumpled for having been raised against his sister. They ended up weeping together and Aureli-ano felt for a moment that the pain was over. But when he was alone again in the last dawn of Macon-do, he opened up his arms in the middle of the square, ready to wake up the whole world, and he shouted with all his might:
"Friends are a bunch of bastards!"
Nigromanta rescued him from a pool of vomit and tears. She took him to her room, cleaned him up, made him drink a cup of broth. Thinking that it would console him, she took a piece of charcoal and erased the innumerable loves that he still owed her for, and she voluntarily brought up her own most solitary sadnesses so as not to leave him alone in his weeping. When he awoke, after a dull and brief sleep, Aureli-ano recovered the awareness of his headache. He opened his eyes and remembered the child.
Aureli-ano, had never been more lucid in any act of his life as when he forgot about his dead ones and the pain of his dead ones and nailed up the doors and windows again with Fernanda's crossed boards so as not to be disturbed by any temptations of the world, for he knew then that his fate was written in Melquíades' parchments. He found them intact among the prehistoric plants and steaming puddles and luminous insects that had removed all trace of man's passage on earth from the room, and he did not have the calmness to bring them out into the light, but right there, standing, without the slightest difficulty, as if they had been written in Spanish and were being read under the dazzling splendor of high noon, he began to decipher them aloud. It was the history of the family, written by Melquíades, down to the most trivial details, one hundred years ahead of time. He had written it in Sanskrit, which was his mother tongue, and he had encoded the even lines in the private cipher of the Emperor Augustus and the odd ones in a Lacedemonian military code. The final protection, which Aureli-ano had begun to glimpse when he let himself be confused by the love Amaranta úrsula, was based on the fact that Melquíades had not put events in the order of man's conventional time, but had concentrated a century of daily episodes in such a way that they coexisted in one instant. Fascinated by the discovery, Aureli-ano, read aloud without skipping the chanted encyclicals that Melquíades himself had made Arcadio listen to and that were in reality the prediction his execution, he found the announcement of the birth of the most beautiful woman in the world who was rising up to heaven in body and soul, and he found the origin of the posthumous twins who gave up deciphering the parchments, not simply through incapacity and lack of drive, but also because their attempts were premature. At that point, impatient to know his own origin, Aureli-ano skipped ahead. Then the wind began, warm, incipient, full of voices from the past, the murmurs of ancient geraniums, sighs of disenchantment that preceded the most tenacious nostalgia. He did not notice it because at that moment he was discovering the first indications of his own being in a lascivious grandfather who let himself be frivolously dragged along across a hallucinated plateau in search of a beautiful woman who would not make him happy. Aureli-ano recognized him, he pursued the hidden paths of his descent, and he found the instant of his own conception among the scorpions and the yellow butterflies in a sunset bathroom where a mechanic satisfied his lust on a woman who was giving herself out of rebellion. He was so absorbed that he did not feel the second surge of wind either as its cyclonic strength tore the doors and windows off their hinges, pulled off the roof of the east wing, and uprooted the foundations. Only then did he discover that Amaranta úrsula was not his sister but his aunt, and that Sir Francis Drake had attacked Riohacha only so that they could seek each other through the most intricate labyrinths of blood until they would engender the mythological animal that was to bring the line to an end. Macon-do was already a fearful whirlwind of dust and rubble being spun about by the wrath of the biblical hurricane when Aureli-ano skipped eleven pages so as not to lose time with facts he knew only too well, and he began to decipher the instant that he was living, deciphering it as he lived it, prophesying himself in the act deciphering the last page of the parchments, as if he were looking into a speaking mirror. Then he skipped again to anticipate the predictions and ascertain the date and circumstances of his death. Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureli-ano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.

 

 

一个节日的晚上，皮拉.苔列娜守着她那个“天堂”*入口的时候，在一把藤制的摇椅里去世了。遵照死者临终的意愿，八条汉子没有把她装进棺材，而让她直接坐在摇椅里，放进了一个很大的墓穴，墓穴就挖在跳舞场的中央。几个泪流满面、脸色苍白的混血女人，穿上丧服，开始履行魔术般的仪式。她们摘下自己的耳环、胸针和戒指，把它们丢进墓坑，拿一块没有刻上名字和日期的大石板盖住坑穴，而在石板上用亚马孙河畔的山茶花堆起了一座小丘。然后，混血女人们用毒药毒死祭奠用的牲畜，又用砖瓦堵住门窗，便各奔东西了；她们手里提着自己的小木箱，箱盖背面裱糊着石印的圣徒画像、杂志上的彩色图片，以及为时不长、不能置信、幻想出来的情人照片，这些情人看上去有的象金刚大汉，有的象食人野兽，有的象纸牌上漫游公海的加冕国王。

*指妓院。

这就是结局。在皮拉·苔列娜的坟墓里，在妓女的廉价首饰中间，时代的遗物——马孔多还剩下的一点儿残渣——即将腐烂了。在这之前，博学的加泰隆尼亚人就拍卖了自己的书店，回到地中海边的家乡去了，因为他非常怀念家乡真正漫长的春天。谁也没有料到这老头儿会走，他是在香蕉公司鼎盛时期，为了逃避战争来到马孔多的。他开设了出售各种文字原版书的书店，就再也想不出其他更有益的事情来干了。偶尔有些顾客，在没有轮到他们进入书店对面那座房子去圆梦之前，都顺便到这里来消磨时间，他们总是有点担心地翻阅着一本本书，好象这些书都是从垃圾堆里拾来的。博学的加泰隆尼亚人每天总有半天泡在书店后面一个闷热的小房间里，用紫墨水在一张张练习簿纸上写满了歪歪斜斜的草体字，可是谁也无法肯定他说出他究竟写了些什么。老头儿和奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚初次认识时,已经积满了两箱乱糟糟的练习簿纸，它们有点象梅尔加德斯的羊皮纸手稿。老头儿临走，又拿练习簿纸装满了第三箱。由此可以推测，博学的加泰隆尼亚人住在马孔多的时候，没有干过其他任何事情。同他保持关系的只有四个朋友，他们早在学校念书时·博学的加泰隆尼亚人就要他们把陀螺和纸蛇当作抵押品·借书给他们看，并使他们爱上了塞尼加*和奥维德*的作品。他对待古典作家一向随随便便、不拘礼节，好象早先曾跟他们在一个房间里生活过。他了解这一类人的许多隐秘事情。而这些事情似乎是谁也不知道的，比如：圣奥古斯丁*穿在修士长袍里的那件羊毛背心，整整十四年没脱下来过，巫师阿纳尔多·德维拉诺瓦*早在童年时代就被蝎子螫了一下，是一个阳萎者。博学的加泰隆尼亚人对待别人的论著有时严肃、尊重，有时又极不礼貌。他对待自己写的东西也是这种双重的态度。那个叫阿尔丰索的人，为了把老头儿的手稿译成西班牙文，曾专门攻读过加泰隆尼亚语言。有一次他随手把加泰隆尼亚人的一叠稿纸放进了自己的口袋——他的口袋里总是被一些剪报和特殊职业的指南塞得胀鼓鼓的，可是有一天晚上，在一个妓院里，在一群由于饥饿不得不出卖内体的女孩子身边，他不慎丢失了所有的稿纸。博学的加泰隆尼亚人发觉这件事以后，并没有象阿尔丰索担心的那样大事张扬，反倒哈哈大笑地说：“这是文学自然而然的命运。”但他要随身带着三箱手稿回家，朋友们怎么也说服不了他。铁路检查员要他将箱子拿去托运时，他更忍不住出口伤人，满嘴迦太基*流行的骂人话，直到检查员同意他把箱子留在旅客车厢里，他才安静下来。“一旦到了人们只顾自己乘头等车厢，却用货车车厢装运书籍的那一天，就是世界末日的来临，”他在出发前这么嘀咕了一句，就再也不吭声了。最后的准备花了他整整一个星期，对博学购加泰隆尼亚人来说，这是黑暗的一周——随着出发时间的迫近，他的情绪越来越坏，不时忘记自己打算要做的事，明明放在一个地方的东西，不知怎的突然出现在另一个地方，他以为准是那些折磨过他的家神挪动了它们的位置。

*塞尼加（公元前4年？一公元65年），罗马政治家、哲学家及悲剧作家。

*奥维德（公元前43年？——公元17年），罗马诗人。

*圣奥古斯丁（354一430年〕，早期基督教会的领袖之一。

*阿纳尔多·德维拉诺瓦（1235一一1313年），著名的加泰隆尼亚炼丹术土、医生和神学者。

*迦太基，非洲北部古国，在今突尼斯附近，公元前146年为罗马人所灭。

“兔崽子们！我诅咒伦敦教会的第二十七条教规。”他骂道。

杰尔曼和奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚照顾他，就象关心孩子一样关心他：把车票和迁移证分放在他的两个口袋里，用别针别住袋口，又为他列了一张详细的表格，记明他从马孔多动身到巴塞罗那的路上应该做的一切；尽管如此，博学的加泰隆尼亚人还是出了个纸漏，连他自己也没发觉，竟把一只口袋里揣着一半现款的裤子扔进了污水坑。启程前夕，等到一只只箱子已经钉上，一件件零星什物也放进了他带到马孔多来的那只箱子里，他就合上蛤壳似的眼脸，然后做了一个带有亵渎上帝意味的祝福手势，指着那些曾经帮助他经受了乡愁的书，对朋友们说：

“这堆旧书我就留在这儿了。”

三个月后，他寄来了一个大邮包，里面有二十九封信和五十张照片，这些都是他在公海上利用闲暇逐渐积累起来的。虽说博学的加泰隆尼亚人没在上面注明日期，但也不难理解，这些邮件是按照怎样的顺序编排的。在开头的几封信中，他以惯有的幽默笔调介绍了旅途上的种种经历：他说到一个货物检验员不同意他把箱子放在船舱里时，他真恨不得把那个家伙扔到海里去：他又说到一位太太简直是惊人的愚蠢，只要提到“十三”这个数字，她就会心惊肉跳——这倒不是出于迷信，而是因为她认为这是个不圆满的数字；他还说到在船上吃第一顿晚饭的时候，他赢了一场赌博，他辨出船上的饮水有莱里达(莱里达，西班牙地名)泉水的味道，散发出每天夜晚从莱里达市郊飘来的甜菜气息。可是，随着时光的流逝，他对船上的生活越来越感到乏味，每当回忆起马孔多发生的那些事情，即使是最近的、最平淡的琐事，也会勾起他的怀旧情绪：船走得越远，他的回忆就越伤感。这种怀旧情绪的不断加深，从照片上也透露了出来。在最初的几张照片上，他看上去是那样幸福，穿着一件白衬衫，留着一头银发，背景是加勒比海，海面上照例飞溅着十月的浪花。在以后的一些照片上，他已换上了深色大衣，围着一条绸围巾，这时，他脸色苍白，一副心不在焉的模样，仁立在一条无名船的甲板上，这条船刚刚脱离夜间的险境，徘徊在秋天的公海上。杰尔曼和奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚都给老头儿回了信。在开始的几个月里，老头儿也经常来信，使他的两个朋友觉得他仿佛就生活在他们身边，比在马孔多时离他们更近；他的远别在他们心里引起的痛苦，也几乎消失得无影无踪。他在信里告诉他们，说一切犹如以往，家乡的小屋里至今还保存着那只粉红色的贝壳；面包馅里夹一片熏鱼片，吃起来还是那种味道；家乡的小溪每天晚上依然芳香怡人。在两个朋友面前重又出现那一张张练习簿纸，上面歪歪斜斜地写满了紫色草体字，他们每一个人都单独收到了一些。这些信洋溢着一个久病痊愈者那样的振奋精神，们连博学的加泰隆尼亚人自个儿也没有觉察到，它们渐渐变成了一首首灰心丧气的田园诗。冬天的晚上，每当壁炉里的汤锅咝咝冒气时，老头儿就不禁怀念起马孔多书店后面暖融融的小房间，怀念起阳光照射下沙沙作响的灰蒙蒙的杏树叶丛，怀念起令人昏昏欲睡的晌午突然传来的轮船汽笛声，正象他在马孔多的时候那样，曾缅怀家乡壁炉里嗤嗤冒气的汤锅，街上咖啡豆小贩的叫卖声和春天里飞来飞去的百灵鸟。这两种怀旧病犹如两面彼此对立着的镜子，相互映照，折磨着他，使他失去了自己那种心驰神往的幻想。于是他劝朋友们离开马孔多，劝他们忘掉他给他们说过的关于世界和人类感情的一切看法，唾弃贺拉斯（公元前65一8年，罗马诗人及讽刺家) 的学说，告诫他们不管走到哪儿，都要永远记住：过去是虚假的，往事是不能返回的，每一个消逝的春天都一去不复返了，最狂热、最坚贞的爱情也只是一种过眼烟云似的感情。阿尔伐罗第一个听从老头儿的劝告离开马孔多，他卖掉了一切东西，甚至把他家院子里那只驯养来戏弄路人的美洲豹都卖了，才为自己购得一张没有终点站的通票。不久他便从中间站上寄来一些标满惊叹号的明信片，描述了车窗外一掠而过的瞬息情景，这些描述好象是一首被他撕成碎片、丢置脑后的长诗篇：黑人在路易斯安那*棉花种植园里若隐若现；骏马在肯塔基*绿色草原上奔驰；亚利桑那*的夕阳照着一对希腊情人，还有一个穿红绒线衣、用水彩描绘密执安湖*泊四周景物的姑娘，向他挥动着画笔—— 在这种招呼中，并没有告别，而只有希望，因为姑娘并不知道这辆列车将一去不复返。过了一些日子，一个星期六，阿尔丰索和杰尔曼也走了，他们打算在下一周的星期一回来，但是从此谁也没有再听到他们的消息，在博学的加泰隆尼亚人离开之后过了一年，他的朋友中只有加布里埃尔还留在马孔多，他犹疑不决地待了下来，继续利用加泰隆尼亚人不固定的恩赐，参加一家法国杂志组织的竞赛，解答有关的题目。竞赛的一等奖是一次巴黎之行。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚也订了这份杂志，便帮他填写一张张印着题目的表格。他有时在自己家里，但更多的时间是在加布里埃尔暗中的情妇梅尔塞德斯的药房里干这件事，那是马孔多唯一完好的药房，里面摆着陶制药罐，空气中弥漫着缬草的气息。城里只有这家药房幸存下来。市镇的破坏总是不见结束，这种破坏是无休无止的，好象每一刹那间都会完全结束，但最后总是没有结束。市镇透渐变成了一片废墟，所以，加布里埃尔在竞赛中终于获胜，带着两件换洗衣服、一双皮鞋和一套拉伯雷全集，准备前往巴黎的时候，他只好不停地向司机招手，让他把列车停在马孔多车站上。此时，古老的土耳其人街也变成了荒芜的一隅，最后一批阿拉伯人已把最后一码斜纹布卖掉多年，在那晦暗的橱窗里只剩下了一些无头的人体模型；这些阿拉伯人依然按照千年相传的习俗，坐在自己的店铺门口静静地等候着死神。在那有着种族偏见、盛产醋汁黄瓜的边远地区——在亚拉巴马*的普拉特维尔城*，也许帕特里西亚·布劳恩还在一夜一夜地给自己的孙子们讲述这座香蕉公司的小镇，没想到它如今已变成一片杂草丛生的平原。那个代替安格尔神父的教士——他的名字谁也不想弄清楚，——受到风湿和精疑引起的失眠症的折磨，一夜一夜地躺在吊床上，等待上帝的恩赐。跟他作伴的蜥蜴和老鼠，昼夜不停地互相厮杀，争夺教堂的统治权。在这个连鸟儿都嫌弃的市镇上，持续不断的炎热和灰尘使人呼吸都感到困难，房子里红蚂蚁的闹声，也使奥雷连诺· 布恩蒂亚和阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜每夜都难以成眠。他们受到孤独和爱情的折磨，但他们毕竟是人世间唯一幸福的人，是大地上最幸福的人。

（以上“*”均为美国城名。）

有一天，等候飞机等得不耐烦的加斯东，把一些必需的东西和所有的信件装进一个箱子，暂时离开马孔多回布鲁塞尔去了，他打算把特许证和执照交给一个德国飞机设计师之后，就乘飞机回来，那个德国飞机设计师向政府当局提供了一项比加斯东自己的设计更宏伟的设计规划。于是，奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚和阿玛兰塔，乌苏娜在第一夜的爱情之后，开始利用加斯东外出的难得机会相聚，但这些相聚总是笼罩着危险的气氛，几乎总是被加斯东要突然归来的消息所打断。他们只好竭力克制自己的冲动。他俩只是单独在一起时，才置身于长期受到压抑的狂热的爱情中。这是一种失去理智、找害身体的情欲，这种情欲使他们始终处于兴奋的状态，甚至使得坟墓里的菲兰达惊得发抖。每天下午两点，在午餐桌旁，每天半夜两点，在储藏室里。都可听到阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜的号叫声和声嘶力竭的歌声。“我觉得最可惜的是咱们白白失去了那么多的好时光，”她对奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚笑着说。她瞧见蚂蚁正在把花园劫掠一空，正在用屋子里的梁柱解除它们初次感到的饥饿；她还瞧见它们象迸发的熔岩似的重新在长廊里川流不息，然而被情欲弄得麻木不仁的阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜，直到蚂蚁出现在她的卧室里，她才动手去消灭它们。此时，奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚也搁下羊皮纸手稿，不离开房子一步，只是偶尔给博学的加泰隆尼亚人写回信。一对情人失去了现实感和时间观念，搞乱了每天习惯的生活节奏。为了避免在宽衣解带上浪费不必要的时间，他们关上门窗，就象俏姑娘雷麦黛丝一直向往的那副走路模样，在屋里走来走去，赤裸裸地躺在院子的水塘里。有一次在浴室的池子里亲热时，差一点被水淹死。他们在短时期内给房子造成的损害比蚂蚁还大：弄坏了客厅里的家具，撑破了那张坚韧地经受了奥雷连诺上校行军中一些风流韵事的吊床，最后甚至拆散了床垫，把里面的蕊子掏出来放在地板上，以便在棉絮团上相亲相爱。虽说奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚作为一个情人，在疯狂的爱情上并不逊于暂时离开的加斯东，但在极乐世界中造成家中一片惨状的却是阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜和她特别轻率的创造才能以及难以满足的情欲。她在爱情上倾注了不可遏止的一切精力，就象当年她的高祖母勤奋地制作糖动物一样。阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜望着自己的发明，常常快活得唱起歌来，笑得忘乎所以，奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚却变得越来越若有所思、沉默寡言，因为他的爱是一种自我陶醉的、使一切化为乌有的爱。不过，他俩都掌握了爱情上的高度技巧，在他们炽热的激情耗尽之后，他们在疲倦中都得到了能够得到的一切。

阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜总是在头脑清醒的时刻给加斯东复信。在她看来，他是陌生而遥远的，根本没有想到他可能回来。在最初的一封信里，他告诉她说，他的合伙人确实给他发过飞机，只是布鲁塞尔的海上办事处把飞机错发到坦噶尼喀转交给了马孔多出生的一些人了。这种混乱造成了一大堆麻烦，单是取回飞机就可能花上两年时间。于是阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜排除了丈夫突然回来的可能性。此时，奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚跟外界的联系，除了同博学的加泰隆尼亚人通信之外，只有从郁郁寡欢的药房女店主梅尔塞德斯那儿了解到加布里埃尔的消息。起先这种消息还是实在的。为了留在巴黎，加布里埃尔把回来的飞机票兑换成一些钱，又卖掉了在多芬街上一家阴暗的旅馆门外捡到的旧报纸和空瓶子。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚不难想到朋友的样子：现在他穿的是一件高领绒线衫，只有到了春天蒙帕纳斯＊路边咖啡馆里坐满一对对情人时，他才会从身上脱下这件绒线衫，为了对付饥饿，他在一个散发着花椰菜气味的小房间里，白天睡觉，晚上写东西，据说罗卡马杜尔＊就是在那个房间里结束一生的。但是没过多久，加布里埃尔的消息渐渐渺茫了，博学的加泰隆尼亚人的来信也渐渐稀少了，内容也忧郁了·奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚对他们两人的思念不知不觉跟阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜对她丈夫的思念一样了。一对情人沉浸在环顾无人的世界中，对他们来说，每天唯一的、永恒的现实就是爱情。

＊法国地名。

＊罗卡马杜尔，现代阿根廷作家胡里奥·柯塔萨尔一部长篇小说中的人物。

忽然，在他俩幸福得失去知觉的这个王国里，箭一般地射来了加斯东将要回来的消息。奥雷连诺，布恩蒂亚和阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜睁着眼睛，面面相觑，他们搁心自问时，才明白他俩已经结为一体，宁死也不愿分离了。

于是，阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜给丈夫写了一封信，信的内容充满了矛盾：她向加斯东保证说，她很爱他，十分希望重新见到他，但同时又承认她怎样受到了命运的不幸安排，没有奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚，她就活不下去，跟他俩的担忧相反，加斯东回了一封平静的信，几乎象是父亲写的信，整整两页纸提醒他们防止变化无常的感情，信的结尾毫不含糊地祝愿他俩幸福，就象他自己在短暂的夫妻生活中感到的那样。加斯东的行为完全出乎阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜的意料。她认为自己给了丈大托词，使丈夫抛弃了她，任命运去支配她。她觉得自己受到了侮辱。半年以后，加斯东从利奥波德维尔＊又写了封信给她，说他终于重新找回了飞机，信里除了要她把他的自行车寄去之外，并没有什么其他内容，因为在他看来，他留在马孔多的一切，只有自行车才是唯一珍贵的。这封信使她更加恼火，奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚耐心地劝慰大发雷霆的阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜，竭力向她表示他能成为一个跟她同甘共苦的好丈夫，加斯东留下的钱快要用完时，各种日常的操心事就落到了他俩身上，一种休戚与共的感情把他俩紧紧地联结在一起——这种感情虽然没有那种令人目眩、吞噬一切的情欲力量，却能使他俩象情欲最炽烈时那样相亲相爱，无比幸福。在皮拉·苔列娜去肚的时候，他们已经在等待自己的孩子了。

＊扎伊尔城名。

怀孕期间，阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜曾想用鱼脊骨编制一些项链去卖，可是除了梅尔塞德斯买去大约一打之外，其他主顾一个也没找到。奥雷连诺·布思蒂亚这才第一回明白过来，他那语言上的才能、渊博的知识以及罕见的记性（他能把那些似乎是他不熟悉的遥远的地方和各种琐碎事情一一记住），都跟他妻子收藏的世代相传的首饰箱一样无用，想当初单是箱里首饰的价值大概就抵得上马孔多最后一批居民的全部存款。但他俩终于奇迹般地活了下来。阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜既没有失去良好的情绪，也没有失去爱情上的创造才能，却养成了饭后坐在长廊上的习惯，仿佛要把晌午时刻昏昏欲睡、浮想联翩的神态保持下去似的，奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚总是陪伴着她。有时他俩就那么默默无语、面对面地坐到深夜，彼此凝望着休息。在这种恰然自得的沉静中，他俩的爱情仍跟早先在响声不停的廖战中一样炽烈。只是渺茫的未来使他俩的心灵总是转向过去。他俩常常忆起失去的天堂中连绵不断的雨景；他们怎样在院子的水塘里僻哩啪啦地戏水，怎样打死一只只蜥蝎，把它们挂在乌苏娜身上；怎样跟乌苏娜老太婆逗乐，假装要活埋她的样子。这些回忆向他们揭示了一条真理，从他们能够记事的那一刻起，他俩在一块儿就始终是幸福的。阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜想起，有一天午后，她走进首饰作坊，菲兰达向她悦，小奥雷连诺不知是谁家的孩子，他是从一个漂在河上的柳条筐里捡来的。在他俩看来，这个解释不足为信，但是他俩没有更可靠的材料来代替这种说法，在探讨了一切可能性之后，他俩深信不疑的一点是，菲兰达决不可能是奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚的母亲。阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜倾向于这样一种看法：他可能是佩特娜·柯特生的儿子，但关于这个妇人的情况，她记得的仅仅是各种污秽丑恶的流言蜚语，所以这种猜测在他们心里不免引起反感。

他怀疑自己可能是妻子的弟弟，这种想法不时折磨着他，使他忍不住钻到神父的屋子里去，在那些潮气侵蚀、虫子至坏的文献中，寻找自己的出身的可靠线索。他发现，一本最老的出生登记簿上提到一个奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚，说他在少年时代曾受过尼康诺.莱茵纳神父的洗礼，又说他当时曾想通过玩巧克力把戏来证明上帝的存在，奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚顿时产生一线希望，以为他自己可能就是十七个奥雷连诺当中的一个，他在四大本厚书里寻出这十七个奥雷连诺受洗礼的记录，但他们受洗礼的日期，离他的年龄实在太远，正在一旁受着风湿痛折磨的神父，从自己的吊床上望见奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚激动得不住地哆嗦，被血统的问题搞得晕头转向，便同情地问他叫什么名字。

“奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚，”他说。

“那么，你就不要白白地折磨自己了，”神父满有把握地大声说：“多年以前，这儿就有一条街用过这个名称，当时的人都习惯用街名来给自己的儿女起名字。”

奥雷连诺不觉气得浑身颤抖。

“哼！”他说。“这么说，你也不相信罗。”

“相信什么？”

“奥雷连诺上校发动过三十二次国内战争，但每一次都失败了，”奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚回答。“政府军包围并打死了三千多工人，后来又用一列二百节车厢的火车把尸体运走，扔到了海里。”

神父以充满怜悯的目光打量了他一眼。

“哎，我的孩子，”他叹息道，“对我来讲，单是相信我们两人这会儿还活着，就足够了。”

这样，奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚和阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜只好默认关于柳条筐的说法，这倒不是因为他们相信它的真实性，而是它能把他们从苦恼的恐惧中解脱出来。随着阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜腹中胎儿的逐渐成长，他们越来越协调一致，在这座只需最后一阵风就会倒塌的房子里，他们越来越习惯于孤独的生活。他们把自己的活动限制在一个最小的空间里，这空间从菲兰达的卧室开始，直到长廊的一角。他们在菲兰达的卧室里，已经感到了夫妇生活的欢乐。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚给博学的加泰隆尼亚人写回信时。阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜就在长廊上为未来的婴儿编织毛线袜和小便帽。然而，房子的其他部分在破坏力的不断冲击下都已摇摇欲坠，首饰作坊、梅尔加德斯的房间、圣索菲娅·德拉佩德那个原始的寂静王国，都陷在房子的深处，就象陷在一片茂密的丛林里，谁也没有足够的勇气走进这片丛林。贪得无厌的大自然从四面八方包围着奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚和阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜，他们继续栽种牛至草和秋海棠，用生石灰划一条分界线，围住自己的世界，在早已开始的蚂蚁和人的战斗中筑起最后一个堡垒。这时。阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜头发很长，没有梳理，脸上现出黑斑，两腿浮肿，她那古希腊人似的柔和体形也由于怀孕变丑了，已经不象她提着一笼不合心意的金丝雀、带着俘获的丈夫回到家里的那一天那么年轻了，但依然保持着原来的振奋精神。“真见鬼！”她笑着说，“谁能想到，咱们最后竟会象野兽一样生活！”在阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜怀孕的第六个月，他们跟外界的最后一点联系也中断了，当时他们收到一封信，看得出这封信不是出自博学的加泰隆尼亚人之手。它是从巴塞罗那寄出的，但信封上的地址却是用蓝墨水写的，笔迹工整，有点象官方的通知。信的样子普普通通，无可指摘，但又好象是不怀好意的人寄来的，阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜正准备拆信，奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚却从她手里夺了过去。

“我不要看，”他说。“我不想知道信里写的什么。”

正象他预感的那样，博学的加泰隆尼亚人再也写不了信了。陌生人的这封来信，结果谁也没看，就躺在菲兰达有一次忘记订婚戒指的那块搁板上，留给蛀虫去啮食，让噩耗的烈火把它慢慢烧掉。这时，一对与世隔绝的情人，正驾着一叶扁舟，逆时代潮流而行。这是一个将使他们生命终止的时代，一个将置他们子死地的不可抗拒的时代，这个时代正在竭尽全力地把这一对情人引到使他们灭绝的沙漠里去。由于意识到这种危险，奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚和阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜同舟共济地度过了最后的几个月，他们忠诚相爱地等着那个在他们失去理智的情欲中受胎的儿子出世。夜里，他们相互依偎地躺在床上时，既不怕蚂蚁在月光下发出的响声，也不怕蛀虫的活动声，更不怕隔壁房间里正在滋长的杂草那清晰可闻、接连不断的沙沙声，他们常常被死者掀起的嘈杂声惊醒。他们听到，乌苏娜为了维护自己的天堂，怎样跟自然规律进行斗争；霍·阿·布恩蒂亚怎样毫无结果地寻求伟大发明的真啼；菲兰达怎样吟诵祷文；失望、战争和小金鱼怎样使奥雷连诺上校陷入牲畜般的境地；奥雷连诺第二又怎样在欢乐的酒宴方兴未艾时孤独地死去。于是他俩懂得人的爱情是高于一切的、不可抑制的，它能够战胜死亡，他俩重又感到自己无比幸福。他俩坚信自己将要继续相爱下去，坚信任他们变成幽灵时，在昆虫很快就要从他们这儿夺去可怜的天堂、未来其它一些生物又要从昆虫那儿夺去这个天堂时，他们仍将久久地相爱下去。

一个星期日，傍晚六点，阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜感到一阵临产的剧病。笑容可掬的助产婆领着几个由于饥饿而出来干活的小女孩，把阿玛兰塔·鸟苏娜抬到餐桌上，然后叉开双腿，骑在她的肚子上，不断用野蛮的动作折磨产妇，直到一个健壮小男孩的哭声代替了产妇的叫喊声。阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜噙着泪水的眼睛看见了一个真正的布恩蒂亚，就象那些名叫霍.阿卡蒂奥的人一样，婴几明澈的眼睛又酷似那些名叫奥雷连诺的人；这孩子命中注定将要重新为这个家族奠定基础，将要驱除这个家族固有的致命缺陷和孤独性格，因为他是百年里诞生的所有的布恩蒂亚当中唯一由于爱情而受胎的婴儿。

“他是一个真正吃人的野兽，”阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜说。“咱们就管他叫罗德里格吧。”

“不，”她的丈夫不同意。“咱们还是管他叫奥雷连诺，他将赢得三十二次战争的胜利。”

在给婴儿剪掉脐带之后，助产婆开始用一块布擦拭他小身体上一层蓝莹莹的胎毛，奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚为她掌着灯。他们把婴儿肚子朝下地翻过身来时，忽然发现他长着一个别人没有的东西；他们俯身一看，竟然是一条猪尾巴！

奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚和阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜并没有惊慌失措，他俩不知道布恩蒂亚家族中是否有过类似的现象，也早已忘记乌苏娜曾发出过的可怕的警告了，而助产婆的一番话使他们完全放了心。她说，等到小孩脱去乳牙以后，也许可以割掉这条无用的尾巴。然后，他们就再也没有时间去考虑这件事了，因为阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜开始大出血，血如泉涌，怎么也止不住。助产婆在产妇的出血口上撒了一些蜘蛛网和灰未，但这就象用手指按住喷泉口一样毫无用处。起先，阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜还竭力保持镇静，她拉着惊恐万状的奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚的手，求他不要难过——因为象她这么一个人，是心甘情愿地来到这个世界，也是心甘情愿离开这个世界的，——她望着助产婆的忙劲，不由得发出爽朗的笑声。但是奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚渐渐丧失了希望，因为她的脸色暗淡下来，好象亮光正从她脸上移开，最后，她陷入了沉睡状态。星期一黎明，人们领来一个女人，这女人开始在她床边大声念止血的涛词，据说这种祷词对人和牲畜同样灵验，可是阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜殷红的鲜血，对于任何同爱情无关的妙方都毫无知觉。晚上，在充满绝望的二十四小时之后，他们眼看着阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜死去了，象泉水一般喷涌的鲜血已经流尽。她伪侧影变得轮廓分明，脸上仿佛回光返照，已不见痛苦的神色，嘴角边似乎还挂着一丝微笑。

直到此刻，奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚才感到自己多么热爱自已的朋友们，多么需要他们，为了在这一瞬间能和他们相处一起，他是愿意付出任何代价的。他把婴儿安放在阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜生前准备的摇篮里，又用被子蒙住死者的脸，然后就独自在空旷的小镇上踯躅，寻找通往昔日的小径，他先是敲那家药房的门。他已经好久没来这儿了，发现药房所在地变成了木器作坊，给他开门的是一个老太婆，手里提着一盏灯。她深表同情地原谅他敲错了门，但执拗地肯定说，这儿不是药房，从来不曾有过药居，她有生以来从没见过一个名叫梅尔塞德斯的、脖子纤细、睡眠惺怪的女人。当他把额头靠在博学的加泰隆尼亚人昔日的书店门上时，禁不住啜泣起来，他懊悔自己当初不愿摆脱爱情的迷惑，没能及时为博学的加泰隆尼亚人的逝世哀悼，如今只能献上一串串悔恨的眼泪。他又挥动拳头猛击“金童”的水泥围墙，不住地呼唤着皮拉·苔列娜。此时，他根本没有注意到天上掠过一长列闪闪发光的橙黄色小圆盘，而他过去曾在院子里怀着儿童的天真，不知多少次观看过这种小圆盘。在荒芜的妓院区里，在最后一个完好无损的沙龙里，几个拉手风琴的正在演奏弗兰西斯科人的秘密继承者———个主教的侄女——拉法埃尔·埃斯卡洛娜的歌曲。沙龙主人的一只手枯萎了，仿佛被烧过了，原来有一次他竟敢举手揍他的母亲。他邀奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚共饮一瓶酒，奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚也请他喝了一瓶。沙龙主人向他讲了讲他那只手遭到的不幸，奥雷连诺· 布恩蒂亚也向沙龙主人谈了谈他心灵的创伤，他的心也枯萎了，仿佛也被烧过了，因为他竟敢爱上了自己的姑姑。临了，他们两人都扑籁簌地掉下了眼泪，奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚感到自己的痛苦霎那间消失了。但他独自一人沐浴在马孔多历史上最后的晨曦中，站在广场中央的时候，禁不住张开手臂，象要唤醒整个世界似的，发自内心地高喊道：

“所有的朋友原来全是些狗崽子！”

最后，尼格罗曼塔把他从一汪泪水和一堆呕出的东西中拖了出来。她把他带到自己的房间里，把他身上擦干净，又让他喝了一碗热汤·想到自己的关心能够安慰他，尼格罗曼塔便一笔勾销了他至今还没偿还她的多日情场之账，故意提起自己最忧愁、最痛苦的心事，免得奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚独自一人哭泣。翌日拂晓，在短暂地沉睡了一觉之后，奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚醒了过来，他首先感到的是可怕的头痛，然后睁开眼睛，想起了自已的孩子。

谁知婴儿已不在摇篮里了。刹那间，一阵喜悦涌上奥雷连诺．布恩蒂亚的心头——他想，也许阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜从死亡中复活过来，把儿子领去照顾了。可是，她依然躺在被子下面，僵硬得象一大块行头。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚还依稀地记得，他回到家里时，卧室的门是开着的。他穿过早晨散发着牛至草香味的长廊，走进餐厅，只见分娩以后，那只大锅，那条血迹班斑的垫被，那块装灰用的瓦片，那块铺在桌子上的尿布，那条放在尿布中央、绕在一起的婴儿脐带，还有旁边的那些剪刀和带子，全都没有拿走。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚心想，也许是助产婆昨夜回来把婴儿抱走了。这个推测给了他集中思想所需的片刻喘息的机会，他