Chapter 15 Chapter Fourteen
Meme's last vacation coincided with the funeral of Colonel Aureliano.In a house with closed doors and windows, there is no room for pleasure.People talk in whispers, eat in silence, pray three times a day, and even the clavichord played during nap time in the heat takes on a mournful tone.Although Fernanda harbored hostility towards the colonel in her heart, she was deeply moved by the solemn ceremony of the government in memory of the dead enemy, and she was the one who instituted the strict funeral protocol.Aureliano Segundo slept at home as usual while his daughter was on vacation.Fernanda must have done something to regain her rights as a legal wife, because Meme had a newborn baby sister the following year.Against the mother's objections, the child was named Amaranta Úrsula.
Meme has finished her studies.At a gala organized to celebrate her graduation, for her skillful performance of seventeenth-century folk themes.The certificate certifying her as a clavichord was passed.At the same time, this party also announced the end of the mourning period.It was not her skill that the guests marveled at, but her rare duality.
Her frivolous, even childish temper seemed unsuited for any serious activity, but when she sat down at the clavichord, she became a completely different girl, the kind of accidental solemnity that made her happy. She has the bearing of a grown-up.She is always like this.
In fact she had no obvious talent, but in keeping with her mother's wishes, she achieved the highest grades through relentless practice.You can force her to learn any other profession, and the result will be just as good.From an early age she had hated Fernanda's ruthlessness and her habit of deciding other people's affairs.But, as long as she didn't contradict her mother's obstinacy, she could even make far greater sacrifices than the clavichord lessons.In her graduation letter she felt that the parchment, with its rich Gothic capitals, had at last freed her from an obligation which she had accepted more for comfort than obedience.She thought that from now on, even that stiff Fernanda would never come to ask about this musical instrument that even the nuns regarded as a fossil in the museum.For the first few years she thought her calculations had been wrong, for after half the city had been put to sleep not only in the drawing room but at all the charity galas, school meetings and patriotic commemorations in Macondo, she The mother continued to invite all the new guests she thought would appreciate her daughter's skills.It was only during the period of mourning after Amaranta's death, when the doors and windows were closed for a while, that Meme was able to close her clavichord, and she could forget the key in any wardrobe without any trouble, Finan Tatsuya wouldn't bother to ask when and whose fault it was that he misplaced the key.Meimei endured each performance with the same tenacity that she dedicated herself to learning the piano.This is the price of her freedom.Satisfied with her daughter's obedience, Fernanda was even more proud of the admiration her skills aroused, so she never objected to the house full of Meme's girlfriends.There was never any objection to his daughter going to the plantation for an afternoon with Aureliano Segundo or with other trusted ladies or going to the cinema, as long as the film was approved by Father Antonio Isabel from the pulpit .It was during these entertainments that Meme's true love was revealed.Her happiness lies at the other end of the discipline, in the noisy and festive gatherings, and in the gossiping to lovers.During the long hours locked in the room with their girlfriends, they learn to smoke and talk about men.
Once they accidentally drank three bottles of rum, and finally stripped naked, measuring and gesticulating each other's body parts.Meme will never forget the night when she came home chewing licorice root and saw Fernanda and Amaranta eating dinner without talking to each other. sat down.That day, she spent two hours terrified in a girlfriend's room. She burst into tears from laughter and cried from fear.Behind the ecstasy she found a strange sense of fearlessness.This feeling of fearlessness is what drove her to run away from school and tell her mother, in one way or another, that she could survive the boredom of playing the clavichord.Meimei sat at the head of the dining table, drinking chicken soup.The chicken soup, when she drank it, was like a panacea for revival, when she saw Fernanda and Amaranta surrounded by an aura of hostility to reality.It was with difficulty that she refrained from accusing them to their face of affectation, poverty of spirit, and pompous insanity.From the second time she came home for the holidays, she knew that her father was staying at home just for show.She knew Fernanda as well as her father, and when she managed to get to know Petra Cote, she felt that he was right.She herself would have preferred to be the daughter of her father's mistress.
In her stupor and drunkenness, she thought happily that if she had spoken her mind at that time, it would have been a lot of fun.Her genuine pleasure at her own mischief was discovered by Fernanda.
"What's the matter with you?" she asked.
"Nothing," Meme replied, "and now I realize how much I love you both."
Amaranta was taken aback by the apparent hostility in her words, but Fernanda was deeply moved.When Meme woke up in the middle of the night with a splitting headache and was spitting out bitter juice, Fernanda really went crazy.She gave Meme a small bottle of beaver oil, applied poultices to her stomach, and put ice packs on her head.She forced Meme to obey the orders of the strange new French doctor: to eat a prescribed diet and not to go out for five days.
After carefully examining Meme for more than two hours, the French doctor came to the vague conclusion that she was suffering from a disorder peculiar to women.Meme lost her courage, and fell into a pitiful state of depression, from which there was nothing left to do but bear with her.Úrsula was completely blind, but was still active and conscious.She was the only one who intuitively came up with an accurate diagnosis. "The way I see it," she thought, "is a drunken thing." But instead of dismissing the idea, she blamed herself for thinking too lightly.Segundo Aureliano felt a throbbing pain at the sight of Meme's exhaustion and despondency, and he swore he would pay more attention to her in the future.In this way, a happy friendship arose between father and daughter, which freed Aureliano Segundo for a time from the loneliness that arose from the inability to enjoy pleasure and Meme from Fernanda's love. guardianship without provoking that seemingly inevitable family crisis.Aureliano Segundo put aside his promise in order to be with Meme.
Take her to the movies or to the circus.He spends most of his free time with her.In the previous period, he was so fat that he couldn't even tie his shoelaces by himself.In addition, he was overly accommodating to various desires, and his temper began to become irritable.Now that he had found his daughter, the former jovial disposition returned to him.The enjoyment of being with his daughter made him gradually break away from his profligate habits.Meimei has already reached the age of cardamom.She was not beautiful, any more than Amaranta had never been beautiful, but she was pleasant, simple and frank, and had the advantage of making one feel at first sight.Meme also had a modern spirit that irritated Fernanda's outmoded ideas of frugality and undisguised miserliness; on the contrary, Aureliano Segundo was happy to maintain this spirit in his daughter.It was he who decided to take his daughter out of the room where she had lived since she was a child, where the ghastly eyes of the holy figures had always terrified little Meme.He furnished a room for his daughter, with a queen-size episcopal bed, a spacious dresser, and velvet curtains, without realizing that he was furnishing a replica of Petra Kotter's bedroom.He was so generous to Meme that he didn't know how much he gave her, because Meme paid for it out of his own pocket.Plus, he's showing Meme all the latest beauty tech that's been trickling down to the offices of the Banana Company.Meme's room was full of small cloth bags containing pumice stones for her nails, hair curlers, tooth brighteners, eye drops to soften the eyes, and many other novelty cosmetic and beauty products, even Fernanda Whenever I walked into Meme's room, I was shocked and annoyed that her daughter's dresser was exactly like the French girls.But during this period, half of Fernanda's time was devoted to her little daughter, Amaranta Úrsula, who was wayward and sickly, and the other half to exciting correspondence with the invisible doctor.So when she found out that father and daughter were colluding, the only guarantee she wanted from Aureliano Segundo was that she would never take Meme to Petra Cotes' house.There was no point in getting a warning, because his mistress hated the intimacy between her husband and his daughter so much that she didn't want to know anything about Meme.An inexplicable fear tormented her, as if her instinct told her that if Meme thought about it, she could get something that Fernanda couldn't: take away the love that she had felt secure enough to last forever.For the first time Aureliano Segundo had to endure the stern face and the sarcastic sarcasm of his mistress, and he was even afraid that the suitcases he had brought would go back to his wife's house.However, such a thing did not happen.No one knew people better than Petra Cotter knew her lover.She knew that the trunks would stay where they had been brought because if there was one thing Aureliano Segundo hated, it was complicating life by repositioning furniture and moving places.So, the box remained where it was, while Petra Cotter devoted herself to sharpening the only weapon Meme had no match for, determined to get her husband back.This kind of effort is also unnecessary, because Meimei never thought of interfering with her father's affairs. If she really wanted to intervene, she would definitely be helping her father's mistress.She has no time to disturb others.She cleaned the room herself and made the bed, as the nuns had taught her.In the mornings she was busy making her own clothes, either embroidering in the hallway or sewing with Amaranta's old hand-cranked sewing machine.She practiced the clavichord for two hours while others were taking naps, knowing that making a daily sacrifice would reassure Fernanda.With the same motivation, she continued to perform at Christian church bazaars or school evenings, though invitations to such occasions had dwindled.In the evening, she combed, put on light clothes and stiff high boots, and if she had nothing to do with her father, she went to play with her girlfriend's house until supper.At that time, it was rare for Aureliano Segundo not to come to see her so that they could go to the cinema together.
Among Meme's girlfriends are three young American women.They break through the fence of the electrified chicken farm and form friendships with the Macondo girls.One of them was Patricia Brown.To thank Aureliano Segundo for his hospitality, Mr. Brown opened the door of his house for Meme and invited her to a dance at the weekend.This is the only opportunity for Americans to interact with the natives.When Fernanda learned about it, she left Amaranta Úrsula and the invisible doctor aside for a while, and the chaos turned upside down. "Tell me," she said to Meme, "what the colonel in the grave will think about this." Of course, she was seeking Úrsula's support.However, the blind old man is contrary to everyone's expectations. She thinks that there is nothing to blame for Meme's going to the ball and establishing friendship with American girls of the same age, as long as the child sticks to her beliefs and does not become a new girl. Christians will do.Meme understood Great-Grandmother's intentions very well, and on the second day of the ball, she got up earlier than usual in order to go to Mass.Fernanda always opposed this matter, until one day Meme brought news that the Americans wanted to hear her play the clavichord, and she kept silent.The clavichord was taken out of the house again and brought to Mr. Brown's house.
The young female luthier indeed won the most sincere applause and the warmest congratulations here.Since then, the Americans not only invited her to the ball, but also invited her to swim in the swimming pool every Sunday.In addition, treat her to lunch once a week.Meme learned to swim like a professional, to play tennis, and to eat Virginia ham with pineapple slices.She juggled these dances, swimming pools and tennis courts, and soon spoke English effortlessly.Aureliano Segundo was so overjoyed with his daughter's progress that he bought her a six-volume English encyclopedia from a traveling merchant, full of colored pages, which Meme read in her free time. Book.Reading these books preoccupied her old interest in gossiping lovers or shutting herself in a room with her girlfriend.This is not because someone forced her to do it as a discipline, but because she has no interest in talking about the well-known mysteries.Whenever she thought about the drunkenness, she thought it was a child's adventure, she thought it was funny, she told Aureliano Segundo about it, and he found it even more amusing than her daughter herself. "If your mother knew..." he said, almost breathlessly laughing as he did every time his daughter revealed a secret to him.He made his daughter promise that she would tell him the news of her first love affair with the same confidence.Meme told him that she had taken a liking to a red-haired American who had gone on vacation with her parents. "Good fellow!" Aureliano Segundo said with a smile, "if your mother knew..." But Meme told him that the young man had never heard of him being alive since his return.Meimei's intellectual maturity ensures the family's peace.Aureliano Segundo spent a little more time with Petra Cote.Even though his body and mind were no longer able to enjoy the same fun as before, he never missed an opportunity to initiate such a frenzy.His accordion was out again, and several keys on it were bound with shoelaces.At home, Amaranta was still endlessly embroidering her shroud, while Úrsula was dragged by old age into a dark abyss where the only thing left to be seen was José Arcadio under the chestnut tree. The Phantom of Buendia.Fernanda consolidated her authority. In her monthly letter to her son José Arcadio, Yan Shi no longer lied, but only concealed her correspondence with the invisible doctor.The invisible doctor has diagnosed a benign tumor in her large intestine and is about to perform a telepathic operation on her.
It was said that the peace and happiness that had been accustomed to in the Buendía family might have lasted a long time if the untimely death of Amaranta had not caused a new uproar.This is an unexpected thing.Even though Amaranta was old and far away from everyone, she looked as strong, strong, as good as a rock, as she always was.No one knew what she had been thinking since that afternoon when she finally turned Colonel Gerineldo Márquez down and wept behind closed doors.When she walked out of the room, her tears had dried up.Never had Remedios the Beauty cried so much when she ascended to heaven, when the Aurelianos were murdered, or when Colonel Aureliano died.Colonel Aureliano was the person she admired most in the world, although she only showed this feeling when they saw his body under the chestnut tree.She helped lift him up, dressed him in military attire, shaved his face, shaved his head, and starched his beard better than the Colonel himself could have done in the best days of his life.No one could have guessed that there was any emotion of love in Amaranta's actions, because everyone was used to her expertise in funeral affairs.Fernanda was very angry that Amaranta did not understand the relationship between Catholicism and life, but only about Catholicism and death, as if Catholicism was not a religion but a funeral rite.Amaranta was too entangled in the tangle of memories to pay attention to the subtle implications of these interpretations.The past is still vivid in her memory, but she has passed into her twilight years.When she heard Pietro Crespi's waltzes she felt as ready to cry as when she was young, as if the passing years and the lessons hadn't worked on her at all.The rolls of music that she had thrown into the dustbin on the pretext of being damp and rotted were still turning in her memory, and those hammers continued to strike.She had wanted to drown these memories of dance music in the troubled love affair with her nephew Aureliano José, in the calm male protection of Colonel Gerineldo Márquez. Seek to escape.But she failed to destroy the memory, even with the most desperate acts of old people.It was three years before sending José Arcadio Jr. to the seminary, and Amaranta bathed him and touched him not as a grandmother would to her little grandson, but as a woman would to a man. , as the French girls are said to have done.The same as she herself wanted to do to Pietro Cres deer when she was twelve and fourteen.That's when she saw him in dancing leggings, dancing his wand to the beat of the metronome.Sometimes she suffered from letting that trickle of misfortune trickle down, sometimes she felt so outraged that she had to prick her fingers with needles, but what pained her most, angered her most, and made her feel The sad thing is that love, the fragrant, worm-eaten guava tree, is dying.Inevitably Amaranta thought of Rebeca as Colonel Aureliano thought of the war.But while her brother was able to silence that memory, she could only fuel it.All she had asked God for years was not to punish her by dying before Rebeca.Whenever she passed Rebeca's house and saw that it was getting dilapidated, Amaranta felt happy, thinking that God was listening to her prayers.One afternoon, as she was sewing in the corridor, it occurred to her that she must have been sitting in the same place, in the same position, when the news of Rebeca's death was brought to her, and The light is the same as it is now.So she sat and waited for the news, as if for a letter.For a while she did take the buttons off and put them back on, so as not to make the tedious wait seem unduly long and painful.No one in the family knew that the very fine shroud that Amaranta had woven was for Rebeca.Amaranta was not surprised later when Aureliano Triste told that he saw Rebeca as a ghost, with her skin torn apart and only a few locks of yellow hair on her head, because Triste's ghost was exactly what she had long imagined it would be.She had long since made up her mind to restore Rebeca's body, filling the hollows in her face with paraffin, and making her a wig out of Saint Paul's hair.She will make a beautiful corpse, wrap it in a linen shroud, and wrap the coffin in plush trimmed with purple, and leave it at the mercy of maggots in glorious burials.It was with such vehemence that she made this funeral plan.I can't help but tremble when I think that I will do the same if it is out of deep love.But she was not overwhelmed by the confusion between the two, but still perfected the details of the plan extremely carefully, so that in the end she became not only a funeral expert, but also very accomplished.The only thing that hadn't been taken into account in her terrible plan was the possibility that, despite her prayers to God, she would still die before Rebeca.And so it turned out.
But until the last moment of her life, instead of feeling disappointed, Amaranta felt that she had been freed from all pain, because death had granted her the privilege of giving her death notice many years in advance.It was a hot noon, and shortly after Meimei went to school, she saw Death while she was sewing in the corridor with Death.She recognized it on the spot, there was nothing creepy about death, it was a long-haired woman in a blue dress, looking a bit old-fashioned, the same as Pilar, who had helped them in the kitchen earlier. Ternera looks a bit similar.Several times Fernanda was there but she could not see him, although Death was so real and so human that on one occasion he asked Amaranta to help her with her needle.Death did not tell her when she would die, or whether she would die before Rebeca, but told her to start weaving her own shroud on the sixth of April.Death also gave her permission to make the shroud as intricate and delicate as she wanted, but with the same honesty as she had done for Rebeca.The god of death warned that on the evening of the day when the shroud was finished, she would die without grief, without fear, and without pain.To save as much time as possible, Amaranta ordered fine white, smooth linen yarn and wove it herself into linen.She weaves so carefully that the work alone took four years.Then, she began to embroider.As the work inevitably drew to a close, it dawned on her that only a miracle could delay her work beyond Rebeca's death.But her single-mindedness in the work had given her the composure she needed to admit defeat.It was then that she understood the essence of the vicious circle that Colonel Aureliano had in making those little gold fishes.Now, the whole world shrunk to the surface of her skin, and her heart was free of all pain.She was sad not to have had such a revelation years ago, when she was able to purify those memories and rebuild the world in a new light, and recall without trembling the evening when Pietro The scent of lavender on Crespi's body was also able to save Rebeca from her miserable situation.This is neither out of hatred, nor out of love, but out of an extremely profound understanding of loneliness.The hatred she had detected in Meme's words that night had not shocked her because it hurt her, but felt herself reappearing in another girl.The girl looked so pure, as she should have looked so pure, but the vice of hatred had taken hold of her.However, Amaranta was now fully convinced of her fate and she was not alarmed even though she knew that everything that could change it might have disappeared.Her only goal is to complete her shroud.Instead of procrastinating with unnecessary embroidery, as she had done at the beginning, she hastened the process.There is still one week before the completion of the work, and she estimates that the last stitch will be finished on the night of February 4th, so she suggested to Meimei that the clavichord concert originally scheduled for February 5th be held one day earlier without explaining the reason. But Meimei ignored her.So Amaranta tried everything possible to delay it for another forty-eight hours.She even thought that death was granting her request, because on the night of February 4th, a storm damaged the power plant.Still, at eight o'clock the next morning, she had finished the last stitch on this extremely delicate work that had never been done by a woman.She announced that she was going to die in the evening.She told it not only to her family, but to all her neighbors, because Amaranta felt that she could redeem her humble life by doing one last good thing for the world.She thought, there is nothing better than bringing a letter to the dead.
The news that Amaranta Buendía was going to die in the evening with a letter for the dead had spread throughout Macondo before noon.By three o'clock in the afternoon, there was a box full of letters in the hall.Those who did not want to write sent messages to Amaranta, who wrote down each message in a small notebook with the date and name of the recipient. "Don't worry about it,"
She comforted the bearers by saying, "The first thing I'll do when I get there is ask him and give him your message." It was a farce.Amaranta was not at all flustered or in any pain.Instead, she appears younger because she fulfilled her obligations.She was as straight and slender as ever.She would have looked much younger than her age were it not for the hardened cheekbones and missing teeth.She herself ordered the letters to be placed in a tarred box, and directed how the box should be placed in the tomb to keep it out of moisture.This morning, she invited a carpenter and asked him to measure the size of her coffin.
She was standing in the hall, as if she was making clothes from body measurements.In the hours before she died, she was so full of energy that Fernanda thought she was playing a trick on everyone.Úrsula had no doubt that Amaranta had received the foretelling of death from the experience of the Buendía family who always died without illness.But in any case Úrsula was apprehensive, afraid that in the rush to carry the letters, in the panic of the bewildered senders trying to get them delivered early, Amaranta would be buried alive.So she made a desperate effort to quarrel loudly with the influx of people to drive them out, and by four o'clock in the afternoon she had finally achieved her goal.At this time, Amaranta had just distributed her things among the poor, and all that was left was a change of clothes in which she was going to die and a pair of ordinary velveteen slippers on the stately, unpolished wooden coffin.She did not miss this point, she remembered that when Colonel Aureliano Buendía died, she had to buy him a new pair of slippers because there were only one pair of slippers left in the workshop.Just before five o'clock Aureliano Segundo came to see Meme to the concert and he was surprised to find that the house was ready for the funeral.If anyone seemed alive at this moment, it was the unflappable Amaranta.She still has enough time to peel off the calluses on her hands and feet.Aureliano Segundo said good-bye to Meme sarcastically, bid her farewell and promised her that next Saturday there would be a celebration of the Resurrection.At five o'clock Father Antonio Isabel, interested in hearing that Amaranta Buendía was receiving letters for the dead, arrived with the Eucharist.He waited for more than a quarter of an hour before the woman who was about to be buried came out of the bathroom.When he saw Amaranta in her long white muslin nightgown, with her hair hanging down her back, the old vicar thought it was a mockery and sent the page away.But he wanted to use this opportunity to make Amaranta, who had been silent for twenty years, make a confession.Amaranta retorted bluntly that she didn't need any kind of spiritual help because her conscience was clean.Fernanda made a fuss about it.Whether anyone listened or not, she asked aloud what a terrible crime it must be for Amaranta to die in blasphemy rather than to confess with embarrassment.Then Amaranta lay down and insisted that Úrsula publicly testify to her virginity.
"No one thinks anything!" Úrsula shouted so that Fernanda could hear her. "Amaranta Buendia left this world exactly as she came!"
Amaranta never got up again.She leaned on the big pillow, as if she was really sick.
She braided her own long braids and coiled them over her ears, just as Death had told her to do in her coffin.Then she asked Úrsula for a mirror and for the first time in more than forty years she saw her own face marred by time and suffering.She was amazed at how much the face resembled the image she had imagined in her mind.The silence in the room gave Úrsula an idea that it was getting dark.
"Say goodbye to Fernanda," Úrsula begged, "a minute of reconciliation is worth more than a lifetime of friendship!"
"It's not worth the trouble," retorted Amaranta.
When the makeshift stage was lit and the second half of the show began, Meme couldn't help but think of Amaranta.Halfway through the performance of the piece, someone told her the news in her ear, and the performance stopped abruptly.When Aureliano Segundo reached the house, he had to push his way through the crowd to see the old maid's body.Ugly and badly painted, with a black bandage around her wrist and an elaborate shroud, she sat in the hall with the mail box.
After nine nights of prayers for Amaranta, Úrsula never got up again.Santa Sofia de la Peda took care of her.She brought food and carmine water for washing to her bedroom, and told her all the big and small things that happened in Macondo.Aureliano Segundo often visited her and brought her clothes.Úrsula kept these clothes by the bed, along with the other essentials of daily life.It didn't take long for her to build a small world within reach.Úrsula finally aroused a deep tenderness for little Amaranta Úrsula, who looked like her, and she taught her to read.Her sanity, her ability to take care of herself, gave the impression that she had been naturally overwhelmed by a hundred years of age.However, despite her apparent failure of eyesight, no one suspected that she was completely blind.At this time, she had plenty of time and peace of mind to pay attention to the life at home, so she was the first to discover Meimei's secret.
"Come here," she said to Meme, "it's just the two of us now, and tell me, poor old woman, about you."
Meimei giggled a few times, avoiding talking to her.Úrsula did not insist, but she finally confirmed her suspicions when Meme did not visit her again.She knew that Meimei washed and tidied up earlier than usual, and while waiting for the time to go out to the street, she couldn't even calm down for a minute.She knew that Meimei had been tossing and turning all night on the bed in the next room, being tormented by a hovering butterfly.On one occasion, Úrsula heard from her that she was going to find Aureliano Segundo, but Úrsula was surprised that Fernanda's ability to associate was so low that it didn't even occur when her husband came home to inquire about her daughter. Suspect.Long before the night when Fernanda found out that her daughter had kissed a man in the movie theater and started a row at home, Meme had acted in that secretive, urgent, anxious way.
Meme was so conceited at that time that she blamed Úrsula for revealing about her.
In fact, it was her who poked the bottom.For a long time, her actions revealed a lot of flaws, and even people who were sleeping would be awakened by her.Fernanda found out so late because her own secret relationship with the invisible doctor had confused her.Nevertheless, she found her daughter's prolonged reticence, unnatural panic, changeable moods, and contradictory behavior.She was determined to keep a close watch on her daughter secretly.She let Meme go out with her usual mates, helped her get dressed for the Saturday dance, and never asked her a single inappropriate question that might raise her alarm.She already has a lot of evidence that Meimei's words and deeds are inconsistent, but she still doesn't show any doubts, waiting for the decisive moment.One evening Meme told her that she was going to the movies with her father.After a while Fernanda heard from the direction of Petra Cote's house the firecrackers of a lively party and the distinctive sound of Aureliano Segundo's accordion.So, she got dressed and went to the cinema.In the dim front seat she recognized her daughter.Distraught by the confirmation of her conjecture, she could not see the man who was kissing her daughter, but she heard the man's trembling voice amidst the gimmicks and deafening laughter of the audience. "It's a pity, my dear," she said, and she dragged Meme out of the hall involuntarily.In order to make her look ugly, he also dragged her through the bustling Turk Street.Then, lock her in the room.
At six o'clock the next afternoon, Fernanda recognized the voice of the man who had come to visit her.He was a young man with a sallow complexion and dark, sad eyes that would not have frightened poor Fernanda so much if she had ever seen a gypsy.The young man had a dreamy look which would have been enough for any woman who was not so hard-hearted to understand Fernanda's daughter.The young man was wearing very old linen clothes, the uppers of his shoes were covered with several layers of white zinc leather, and he was holding a straw hat with a narrow brim that he bought only last Saturday.他一生中从没有，也将永远不会象现在这样担惊受怕。但是他所持的尊严和自制，使他并不显得卑躬屈膝。
他那端庄的仪容只是由于干粗活而显得脏黑的手和起了毛刺的指甲才稍见逊色。然而，菲南达只膘了他一眼就凭直觉看出他是个工匠。
她知道他穿的是仅有的一套星期日外出作客的衣服，衬衫里面的皮肤上生着香蕉公司里传播过的那种疥疮。没让他讲话，甚至连门也没让他跨进，因为不一会儿屋子里就飞满了黄蝴蝶，她不得不把门关了起来。
“走开！”她冲着他说，“您完全不该到正正经经的规矩人这儿来拣什么便宣。”
他叫马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚，土生土长的马贡多人。在香蕉公司的厂里当机修工学徒。一天下午，梅梅同帕特里夏·布朗想我辆汽车在种植园里兜风，偶然结识了他。因为司机病了，马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚被指定给她们俩开车，而梅梅终于实现了坐在驾驶盘旁边，就近察看操作过程的愿望。马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚跟正式司机不同，还为她做了操作示范。这是梅梅开始经常光顾布朗先生家的那个时候，那时人们认为女人开汽车是不体面的，所以梅梅也就满足于理论性的介绍，好几个月都没有再去看马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚。后来，她想起那次兜风时，除了那双粗糙的手，他那种男性的美曾引起她的注目，但那是在她同帕特里夏·布朗议论他那略带傲气的自信神态让她讨厌之后。认识他后的第一个星期六，梅梅同父亲去电影院，在那里她重新见到了马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚。他穿着那身出客穿的麻布衣服坐在离他们不远的地方。梅梅发现他对影片并不感兴趣，却不时地回过头来瞅她，而且与其说为了看她几眼，不如说想让她觉着他在瞅着她。梅梅讨厌这种粗鲁的伎俩。最后，马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚来到奥雷良诺第二跟前向他打招呼，只是这个时候，梅梅才发觉他们两人是认识的。原来他曾在奥雷良诺·特里斯特的那家简陋的电厂做过工，他以下属对上司的态度对待她父亲。知道了这一层关系，梅梅就减轻了因他的高傲而产生的不满。他们俩从未单独会过面，除了寒暄以外也没谈过一句话。有天晚上她做了个梦，梦见他把她从一次海难中救起，而她非但不感激，反而感到恼怒。这象是给马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚提供了一个他所希望得到的机会，而梅梅渴望的事恰恰与此相反，这不仅对马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚而言，而且对所有有意于她的男子都是这样。因此，梦醒之后她是那样的忿恨，非但不厌恶他，反而产生了一种迫切想见他的不可克制的愿望。经过一个星期，她的这种焦渴之情愈发强烈了。到了星期六，她心急火燎的，马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚在电影院向她打招呼时，她使足了劲才没让他看出她的心快跳出口了。她既快活又恼恨，这种杂乱的感觉把她搞糊涂了，第一次向他伸出了手。只是在这时马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚才得以同她握了手。刹那间梅梅就盾悔她的一时冲动，但是这种后悔立刻又变成了冷酷的满足，因为这时她发现他的手也是冰凉和汗湿的。那天晚上，梅梅发现自己如果不向马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚表明他的渴望是一种虚荣，她就一刻也得不到安宁，整整一个星期她一直为此焦躁不安。她想尽了一切法子，想叫帕特里夏·布朗带她去找习厣辆汽车，可都没有成功。最后，她借口要见识见识新型号的汽车，靠了当时在马贡多度假的那个红头发美国人帮忙把她带到了厂里。从她见到马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚的那刻起，梅梅就不再自欺欺人了。她明白自己实际上已经忍受不了想同他单独呆在一起的强烈愿望的折磨了。然而，叫她生气的是马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚一见她来到就猜中了她的来意。
“我是来看新型号汽车的。”梅梅说。
“这是个很好的借口。”他说。
梅梅发现自己正在受着他傲慢之火的烧灼，于是拚命寻找一个杀他威风的办法，可是他不给她时间思考。“别害怕，”他轻声对她说，“一个女人为一位男子而发疯，并不是头一次。”她感到太孤单无靠了，没看新型号汽车就离开了工厂。整整一个晚上，她在床上从这一头到那一头翻来复去地睡不着，忿恨地痛哭着。那个红头发的美国人倒真的开始对她感兴趣了，可在她看来，他却是个乳臭未干的娃娃。这个时候，她发觉在见到马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚之前总先看到很多的黄色的蝴蝶。这些蝴蝶她以前也见过，特别是在机修厂里，那时她以为它们是被油漆气味引来的。有一次在昏暗的电影院里她也感到有蝴蝶在她头上扑翅转悠。但是当马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚象一个只有她才能从人群中认出来的幽灵开始追求她的时候，她才知道这些黄蝴蝶同他有关。马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚总是出现在音乐会、电影院或大弥撒的人群中，丽她用不着见他本人就能发现他，因为蝴蝶会告诉她的。有一次，奥雷良诺第二对这些蝴蝶令人窒息的扑腾实在耐不住了，梅梅想把秘密告诉他，就象她曾经答应过他的那样。但是，她的本能告诉她，这一次他不会象往常那样笑着说：“要是你妈妈知道的话该说些什么啦。”一天上午，菲南达和梅梅正在修剪玫瑰花，做母亲的突然慷叫了一声，把梅梅从她站着的地方拖开，原来这里正是俏姑娘雷梅苔丝在花园里升天的位置。菲南达刹那间觉得那次奇迹要在她女儿身上重演了，因为突然有一群扑扇着翅膀的东西扰乱了她的思想。这是一群蝴蝶。梅梅看到这群象是突然从阳光里生出来的蝴蝶，心中不由一怔。这时，马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚拎着一包东西走进来了，据说这是帕特里夏·布朗送的礼物。梅梅强压下脸上的红晕，控制住自己的忧伤，甚至还自然地笑了笑，请他把那包东西放在栏杆上，因为她的手指是脏的，都沾了泥。菲南达只是看到这个男人的皮肤胆汁太多而发黄，直到几个月后把他赶出家门时，她都没有想起自己曾经见过这个人。
“这人真是少见，”菲南达说，“看他的脸色象是快要死了。”
梅梅心想她母亲对那些蝴蝶一定印象很深。玫瑰修枝完毕后她就洗了手，把那包东西拿到房间里去打开。原来是一种中国玩具，它由五层同心套盒组成。在最里面的小盒子里放着一张由勉强会写字的人费了好大劲涂画成的约会条子：星期六我们在电影院见面。这个盒子在好奇心很强的菲南达伸手可及的栏杆上居然放了这么多时间，梅梅回想起来不免感到后怕。尽管马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚的大胆和机智使她甚为高兴，可他等她赴约的天真更令她感动。那时，梅梅已经得知奥雷良诺第二星期六晚上有约在先，但是这一个星期中那焦渴之火如此炽烈地烤灼着她，到了星期六，她还是说服了父亲，叫他先送她一个人去看戏，等演出结束后再接她回家。电灯亮着的时候，只见有一只夜蝴蝶在她头顶盘旋。预料的事情发生了。电灯熄灭后，马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚便坐到了她身边。梅梅觉得自己在惶恐的泥潭里扑打着，挣扎着，只有那个满身马达油污气的、在暗处几乎认不出来的男人才能把她从这里救出来，如同梦中发生的那样。
“如果您不来的话，”他说，“您就再也见不着我了。”
梅梅感到他的手压在她的膝上，她知道在这一刻，双方都到了六神无主的地步。
“你使我讨厌的是，”她微笑道，“你总是讲恰恰不该讲的话。”
她为了他都快发疯了。她不想睡、不想吃，深深地陷入了孤独之中，连她的父亲也成了一种障碍。她胡乱地编造了一连串假约会来转移菲南达的视线。她不再去看她昀女友了，不管什么时候，什么地方，她都会打破常规去同马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚相会。起初，她讨厌他的粗鲁。第一次在机修厂后面荒凉的草地上单独与他见面时，他毫无怜悯地拖着她走，象对待牲口一样，走得她疲惫不堪。过了一段时间，她才发觉原来那也是温柔的一种方式。于是她坐立不安，没有他就简直不想活了，她神志恍惚，只想沉浸在他那熏人的用碱水洗过的油污气息中。阿玛兰塔去世前不久，梅梅在痴情中突然出现一个清醒的间歇，她为自己不可捉摸的前途不寒而栗。这时，她听说有个女人会用纸牌预卜前途，就偷偷地去拜访她。这女人就是庇拉·特内拉。庇拉·特内拉一见她走进来就看出了她的心思。“坐下吧，”她对梅梅说，“我不用纸牌就算得出布恩地亚家里人的命运。”梅梅一直不知道，也始终没有弄清那个百岁巫婆就是她的曾祖母。对于这一点，就是在庇拉·特内拉用挑逗性的大实话向她指出恋爱时的焦渴只有在床上才能平息下来之后，她也没有相信。这种说法也是马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚的观点，可梅梅坚持不相信这一套。她内心深处猜想这种观点是出于机修匠的不良的恋爱标准。那时她想，一种方式的爱情可以击败另一种方式的爱情，因为食欲得到了满足就会消除饥饿，这是人类的本性。庇拉·特内拉不仅消除了她的错误想法，还为她提供了一张铺着麻布床单的旧床，就在这张床上，当年她孕育了阿卡迪奥，即梅梅的祖父，后来又怀上了奥雷良诺·霍塞。此外，她还教给梅梅熏蒸芥末泥敷剂的方法，用来防止不希望的怀孕，还给了她汤药的配方。可以使她在倒霉的情况下排出“那块心病”。这次见面给梅梅灌注了一种跟喝醉酒那天下午她所感受到的勇气相同的感情。然而，阿玛兰塔的去世迫使她推迟了自己的决定。在祭灵的那九个晚上，她一刻也没有离开过马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚，那时他混在涌进家里来的人群中间。接着便是漫长的丧期和必须实行的幽居。他们俩这才分开了一段时间。这段日子里，她是那样的心神不定，焦急难耐，同时又强压下多少热切的念头，以至当她终于得以出门的第一个下午，便直奔庇拉·特内拉家，毫无抗拒、毫不羞耻、不苟形式地委身于马乌里肖·巴比洛尼皿。她的天性流露得那样自然，她的本能表现得那样灵巧，任何一个比她情人更为多心的男人，都会把她的这种品性误认为是一种纯熟的经历。三个多月中，他们在奥雷良诺第二这位无辜的同谋者的庇护下，每星期幽会两次。奥雷良诺第二只是为了能让女儿摆脱僵硬死板的母亲的管束，才并无恶意地证明女儿一直跟他在一起。
菲南达在电影院里捉住这对年轻人的那天晚上，奥雷良诺第二被良心上的沉重压力压得抬不起头，他相信梅梅理应会向他倾吐心中的秘密，就到菲南达把女儿关在里面的房间去看她。但是梅梅什么都不说。她是那么自信，那么死死抱住自己的孤独不放，奥雷良诺第二感到他们父女之间已经不存在任何联系，而那种同伴加同谋的关系只不过是往昔的幻想而已。他想找马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚谈谈，心想凭着过去是他老板的权威或许会使他放弃自己的目标，但是佩特拉·科特使他相信这些事都取决于女人，这样他就拿不定主意了，而对这次禁闭能否结束他女儿的痛苦儿乎不抱一丝希望。
梅梅一点也没有痛苦的样子。相反，在她隔壁房里，乌苏拉听得出梅梅睡觉很安稳，做事镇定自若，吃饭有条不紊，消化也很正常。
对梅梅惩罚了将近两个月后，唯一使乌苏拉犯疑的是她不象大家那样在早晨洗澡，而是改在晚上七点洗澡。有次她想提醒梅梅当心蝎子，可是梅梅因确信乌苏拉告了她的密而总是回避她，所以她也就不想用高祖母的唠叨话去打搅她了。傍晚，黄蝴蝶总是闯进家里来。
每天晚上，梅梅洗完澡出来，总看到菲南达拼命用喷筒喷洒杀虫药。
“这简直是一场灾难！”她常说，“我这辈子总听人家说夜蝴蝶会招来坏运气的。”有天晚上，梅梅还在洗澡间里，菲南达偶然地踏进她卧室。房间里的蝴蝶多得使她透不过气来，于是她便顺手抓起一块抹布扑打起来。但是当她把女儿在晚上洗澡同散落一地的芥子泥敷剂一联系起来，不由得倒抽了一口凉气。她没有象第一次那样等待一个合适的时机。第二天，她邀请新上任的市长来家里用午餐。这位市长象她一样也是从荒原来这儿沼泽地的。她要求市长晚上在她家后院布置岗哨，因为她觉得有人在偷她家的母鸡。那天晚上，马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚掀起瓦片正要钻进梅梅洗澡间耐，站岗的士兵一枪把他撂倒了。这时候，梅梅正精赤条条的、在蝎子和夜蝴蝶中间被爱情激得浑身颤抖，她在等候马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚，这几个月来她几乎天天晚上都是这样。一颗嵌进马乌里肖·巴比洛尼亚脊梁骨的子弹，使他后半辈子一直蜷缩在床上。他老死在孤独之中，既没有一句怨言，也没有丝毫抗争，更没有丝毫透露真情的念头，大家只知道他是偷鸡贼而嫌弃他而他只是痛苦地回忆着过去，那群黄蝴蝶更是把他折腾得没有片刻的宁静。
Notes:
Notes: