Chapter 17 Chapter Sixteen
It rained for four years, eleven months and two days.During this period, there were also days of drizzle, when all the people put on festive costumes, showing a smiley face recovering from a long illness, and celebrated the rain and the clear sky.But they soon got used to seeing this temporary drizzle as a harbinger of further intensification of the storm.Now, just after a thunderstorm, the overcast sky has finally lifted some of its weight.Hurricane gusts from the north lifted roofs, knocked down walls, and uprooted the last saplings on the plantation.During those days, Úrsula recalled her former insomnia.As happened during the insomnia epidemic, the catastrophe itself continued to reveal ways to cope with the monotony of life.In order not to be overwhelmed by the leisure life with nothing to do, Aureliano Segundo was the most dedicated person.On the night when Mr. Brown was in charge of the storm, Aureliano Segundo came to the house to deal with a small incident. Fernanda found a broken umbrella that was falling apart in the cupboard and wanted him to go back to his mistress's house. "No," he said, "I'm going to stay here until the weather clears!" Of course, his words were not an irrevocable promise, but he kept it almost to the letter.His clothes were kept at Petra Kotter's house, so he had to take off his clothes every three days and put on his underpants, waiting for someone to wash them for him.In order not to be bored, he set about repairing many broken things in the house.He repaired the hinges, oiled the locks, tightened the knocker screws and knocked the deadbolts.For several months, he was seen walking around with a toolbox.This toolbox may have been forgotten by the gypsies in José Arcadio Buendía's time.No one knew whether it was because of this kind of unconscious sports, or because of winter boredom, or because of forced abstinence, his stomach gradually shrunk like a leather bag, and his peaceful tortoise face was no longer so rosy. The fleshy jaw was less bulging, and even his whole body was less bloated, and he was able to tie his own shoes again.Fernanda watched him fix bolts and clocks and wondered if he too had fallen into the habit of repeated creations, just as Colonel Aureliano made little goldfishes and Amaranta nailed buttons and embroidered shrouds. Cloth, José Arcadio the Second flipped through the parchments and Úrsula recalled the past.But it is not.The bad thing is that the continuous rain has made everything messy, and even the driest machinery, if it is not oiled every three days, will have mildew between the gears; rusted, and saffron moss grew on wet clothes.The air was so moist that even fish could have come in through the door and out the window to swim in the air of the room.When Úrsula awoke one morning, she felt that she was about to die in a kind of peaceful stupor.When Santa Sofía de la Peda discovered that Úrsula's back was covered with leeches, Úrsula asked that she be taken to Father Antonio Isabel even on a stretcher.Santa Sofía de la Peda stripped her off one by one and charred her with charcoal before the leeches drank her blood dry.Back then, homes had to be ditched to drain water, get rid of toads and snails, and dry the ground, remove bricks from the foot of the bed, and walk in shoes again.Aureliano Segundo was so happy to see so many trivial things that required his attention that he didn't realize that he was growing old, so that one afternoon, he sat in the rocking chair and admired the premature twilight, thinking of looked at Petra Kotter but was unmoved.At this moment, if he wanted to relive that dull love with Fernanda, he would have no problem, because her beauty was fixed with the maturity of her body.But the rain had freed him from his urgency and brought him a spongy calm of asceticism.He wondered with great interest what he might have done in the past when he had encountered such a heavy rain that had lasted nearly a year.He was one of the first to bring zinc strips to Macondo long before it was fashionable for the banana company to use zinc strips for roofs.However, it was only used to roof Petra Cotes' room, and Aureliano Segundo enjoyed it because the sound of the rain made them feel more intimate.But even these remembrances of the madness of his absurd youth could not excite him, as if that last orgy had exhausted all his lusts and left him only one Wonderful reward: enabling him to recall these past events without pain or regret.Perhaps it was thought that the storm had given him a chance to sit and think; that his running about with tongs and oil-pots had aroused in him a belated desire to do some useful work, and to discover in There were so many things he could have done in his life that he didn't do.But neither the former nor the latter hit the mark, because what prompted him to stay at home and do housework with peace of mind was not what he was thinking about now or what lessons he had learned.This desire comes from the more distant past, from when he drilled in Melquíades' room and read about the magical legends of flying carpets and whales that eat ships and crews, and now the rainstorm has made this desire rushed out.It was during those days that, thanks to Fernanda's negligence, Aureliano Jr. came into the corridor and his grandfather knew his concealed identity.He cut the child's hair, dressed him, and taught him not to be afraid of strangers.It was not long before everyone saw that he was a typical Aureliano Buendia: he had high cheekbones, surprised eyes, and a lonely air.Fernanda also felt relieved.She had long felt that she was being too bossy, but she didn't know how to make it up, because the more she tried to solve it, the more unreasonable it seemed to her.If she had known that Aureliano Segundo would be so happy to be a grandfather and deal with things like this, she would not have gone around so many circles and postponed the solution again and again, and she herself could have gotten rid of this torture a year ago up.For Amaranta Úrsula, who had lost her teeth, this nephew was like an elusive toy, and he was the perfect way to amuse herself in the rainy weather.At that time Aureliano Segundo remembered the English encyclopedia that had been in Meme's room and had never been touched since.At the beginning, he showed the children the pictures in the book, especially the animal pictures; later he showed them maps of many distant countries and pictures of famous people.Because he didn't know English, he couldn't even figure out the names of the most famous cities and the most common celebrities, so he made up some names and stories by himself to satisfy the children's insatiable curiosity.
Fernanda really believed that her husband was waiting for the weather to clear before returning to his mistress.During the first months of rain she had feared that her husband would sneak into her room and that she would have to embarrassingly confess to him that since Amaranta Úrsula was born she had not been in good health. Allow couples to reconcile.This is why she was eager to write letters to the invisible doctors, but such correspondence was often interrupted by postal accidents.During the first few months it was heard that trains were often overturned in storms, when the Invisible Doctor told her in a letter that her letters were often lost.Later, when she lost contact with these unknown correspondents, she seriously conceived and prepared to put on the tiger mask her husband had worn at the bloody carnival and replace it with another. False name, ask the doctor from the banana company to check the body.But a regular visitor to the house with bad news about storms told her that the banana company was demolishing its clinic to move to a place where it didn't rain.As a result, her hopes came to naught, and she had to wait until the rain stopped and the sky cleared and the post office returned to normal.During this period, she tried to find ways to relieve her pain, because she would rather die than be at the mercy of Macondo's only doctor, the weird French doctor who ate donkey grass.She went to Úrsula, trusting that she would know of some kind of palliative remedy to cure her ailment.But Fernanda has a bad habit of not calling things by their names, and always prefers to look far away. She always says the front is the back, the childbirth is the discharge, and the metrorrhagia is the heartburn, so as to make everything less embarrassing. .Therefore, Úrsula naturally concluded that the problem was not with her organs but with her stomach and advised her to take a sachet of the powder on an empty stomach.The storm would have meant nothing to Fernanda if she hadn't been plagued by illness-which is not a shame for a person without prudence-and if she hadn't lost the letter.Because to put it bluntly, her whole life seemed to have been raining.She never changed her schedule, nor did she relax her etiquette and family rules.At that time, in order to keep the diners from getting their feet wet, the dining table was placed on bricks and the chairs were covered with wooden planks. However, she still spread fine linen tablecloths on the dining table, put Chinese tableware on the dining table, and still ordered the dishes for dinner. Candles, because she believes that natural disasters cannot be used as an excuse to relax customs.No one from the family was seen on the street again.If they had followed Fernanda, they would never have taken to the streets again.It had been like this not since it rained, but since a long time ago, because Fernanda thought that the door was invented for Ding to close it, and as for being curious about what happened in the street, that was the business of whores.However, she was the first to look into the street when it was said that the funeral procession of Colonel Gerineldo Márquez was passing, although what she saw from the half-open window at that time made her feel So sad that I regretted my weakness for a long time.
A more miserable funeral procession cannot be imagined.The coffin was placed on a bullock cart covered with banana leaves.But the force of the storm was so strong, and the streets were so muddy, that the wheels gave way with every step, and the awning was about to collapse.The dreary rain poured down on the coffin slabs, soaking the banners that covered them.In fact, it is a flag spurned by the most stalwart veterans, covered in blood and dust.Also on the coffin was a saber decorated with copper wire and silk tassels that Colonel Gerineldo Márquez had hung on a coat hook in the hall in order not to bring the weapon into Amaranta's sewing room. That one.Behind the car were the last group of survivors from the surrender of Nyland. They held on to the shaft of the car with one hand and carried paper wreaths faded by the rain with the other, as they pattered through the mud.Their presence on the street that still bore the name of Colonel Aureliano Buendía was like a mirage.When they passed the Buendía house, their eyes were fixed on the house.Turning around the corner of the square, they had to call in help to pull the cart out of the mud.Úrsula was helped by Santa Sofía de la Peda to the gate.She followed the funeral procession so intently, especially as her evangelistically raised hand swayed with the movement of the carriage, that no one doubted that she was indeed watching them.
"Good-bye, Gerineldo, my child," she cried, "greetings to my friends and relatives, and tell them that we shall meet again when the weather is fine."
Aureliano Segundo helped her back to the bed and, as usual, asked her what she meant by her farewell words.
"It's the truth," she said. "I'm waiting for the rain to die now."
The scene on the street reminded Aureliano Segundo.He worried about the fate of the family animals, but it was too late.He took a waxed poncho, threw it over himself, and ran to Petra Kot's house.I saw her in the waist-deep water in the yard, trying to lift a dead horse.Aureliano Segundo stepped forward and helped with a latch.The fat body of the dead horse turned on its back and was swept away by the torrent of mud.All Petra Kote has done since it started raining is clearing the yard of dead animals.During the first few weeks she sent messages to Aureliano Segundo telling him to take urgent precautions.But the answer she received was to tell her not to worry, saying that the situation was not that urgent and that there would be enough time to figure out a solution when the weather cleared. She even asked someone to tell Aureliano Segundo that the ranch had been flooded. The animals have fled to the highlands, where there is nothing to eat, and they can only be at the mercy of tigers and plagues.
"It can't be helped," Aureliano Segundo replied, "they will have babies when the weather is fine." Petra Cote watched the animals die in droves without even having time to drown them in the mire. cattle cut open.She watched helplessly as the storm ruthlessly destroyed this property that used to be the richest and most secure in Macondo, and now there was nothing left of this property but a stench.When Aureliano Segundo decided to come back to see what was going on, all he saw was the dead horse and the scrawny mule standing among the ruins of the barn.Petra Kotter saw him coming, without surprise, joy, or resentment, but a slight mocking smile.
"You came just in time," she said.
She is much older, and only a handful of bones remain.Her predatory eyes were menacing, saddened by long hours of staring into the storm.Aureliano Segundo stayed in her house for more than three months, not because he thought it better than his own, but because he needed so much time to make up his mind to put on the waxed coat again. Poncho. "Don't worry," he said, as in the other house, "let's wait a few more hours for the sky to clear." Time and storms took their toll on his mistress's health, and during the first week he watched He got used to it, and gradually felt that she was still the same as before, so he thought of their unrestrained entertainment, and the situation where her love made the animals multiply wildly.One night during the second week, partly out of love, partly out of pleasure, he woke Petra Cote eagerly by touching her.Petra Cotter didn't respond. "Just sleep peacefully," she muttered, "this is not the time for such things." Aureliano Segundo saw himself and Pepe in the mirror on the ceiling. Tra Cotter's backbone, which seemed to be a string of spools connected by a bunch of withered nerves, felt that she had a point.Of course, this is not a matter of timing, but that the two of them are no longer suitable for this kind of thing.
Aureliano Segundo returned home with his box, convinced that not only Úrsula but all the inhabitants of Macondo were waiting for the weather to clear up and die.On the way home, he saw people in the city with their arms crossed, sitting intently in the hall, feeling the passage of time.This is undomesticated time, it is no longer necessary to divide it into months and years, and it is no longer necessary for electricity to divide day and night into hours, because people can do nothing but watch the rain.The children welcomed Aureliano Segundo with joy, and he played the accordion for the children again, who was suffering from asthma.However, his playing did not attract the children as much as he explained the encyclopedia, so he and the children gathered in Meme's room again.Here, Aureliano Segundo used his imagination to describe the spaceship as a flying elephant looking for a place to sleep in the sea of clouds.
On one occasion, he spotted a man on horseback who, despite his exotic attire, looked familiar, looked left and right for a long time, and finally concluded that it belonged to Colonel Aureliano Buendía. portrait.He showed the portrait again to Fernanda, who, too, thought that the rider looked like not only the colonel, but everyone in the family, even though it was actually a Tatar warrior.In this way, he passed the time among Rhodes' giant statue and the snake, until his wife told him that there were only six kilograms of bacon and a sack of rice left in the barn.
"What do you want me to do now?" he asked.
"I don't know that," replied Fernanda, "it's a men's business."
"Well, there will always be a solution when the weather clears," said Aureliano Segundo.
Although he can only eat a little lean meat and a little rice for lunch, he is still more interested in the encyclopedia than in household chores. "Nothing can be done now," he used to say, "it won't rain forever." The more he procrastinated to solve the shortage of food in the barn, the more angry Fernanda became. strong.Her usual complaints and complaints, which were rarely seen, finally burst out like an irresistible flood that burst a dam.One morning, at first, the complaints were like a monotonous refrain played by a guitar, and as the day wore on, the voices grew higher, the words became more and more fluent.Aureliano Segundo did not hear her nagging until the next day.After breakfast that day, he was confused by a beeping that was faster and sharper than the sound of rain. It was Fernanda who was walking up and down the house, telling her pain that she had been educated to The queen turned out to be a maid in a lunatic asylum, and her husband was so idle, blindly worshipped, indulged in sensuality, lying on his back all day, waiting for the bread to fall from the sky, while she was dying of exhaustion ridge, desperately maintaining a family propped up with pins, preventing it from sinking, from getting up early to going to bed every day, there are always so many things to do, and so many things to endure and deal with, until it is two hours before going to bed. Her eyes seemed to be covered with powdered glass, but no one ever said "Good morning, Fernanda" to her, or asked "Did you sleep well, Fernanda"; Out of politeness, she had asked her why she was so pale, or why her eye circles were purple when she woke up, but of course she didn't expect such things from this family, because after all, they regarded her as a They looked at her as a dishcloth for holding pots and dolls painted on the wall. They said bad things about her everywhere, called her a false saint, a hypocrite, and a woman, even Amaran Tha, may she rest in peace, and she used to say that she was the kind of woman who confuses the rectum with the beginning of the fast, merciful Lord, what is that, but she endured it willingly according to the will of God, but , she couldn't stand that villain, José Arcadio Segundo, who said that the house was ruined by letting a goblin through the door, you think, a goblin who likes to point fingers, my God, A fashionable woman with hurtful words, isn’t that the same as the military police sent by the government to kill workers? Tell me, he can’t say this about anyone, but he is talking about her. The adopted daughter of the Duke of Alva, her family is so prominent that even the wives of the presidents will be scared to death. Hereditary nobles like her have the right to use eleven Spanish surnames to sign. In this city of scumbags, she is the only one. Her unruly husband, who would not panic at the sight of sixteen cutlery, would have died laughing at the sight, and would have said that so many spoons, forks, knives, and spoons were not for Christians, but for Christians. The centipede uses it. In addition, only she can know when to pour white wine with her eyes closed, which side to pour it from, and which kind of wine glass to pour it into, and when to pour red wine, which side to pour it from, and which side to pour it from. In what kind of glass, unlike that "bump" Amaranta, may she rest in peace, who only knows to drink white wine during the day and red wine at night, the only one on the whole coast who can boast that she always uses a golden potty to relieve her hands However, that Colonel Aureliano, may he rest in peace, dared to ask her with the vicious heart of a Masonic, why she enjoys this privilege, does she release a meteorite instead of a stool, you guys Thinking about it, she said such a thing. Later, her own daughter Renata broke into her bedroom recklessly, saw her stool, and she came out and said that the bedpan was really made of gold, and there were many patterns carved on it. , but insideIt's full of feces, human feces, and worse than other people's feces, because it's goblin feces. Come to think of it, this is her disordered daughter, so she never treats the rest of the family like that. Fantastic, but she still has the right to expect a little respect from her husband anyway, because, for better or worse, he is her sacramental spouse, her head and legal aggressor, exactly It was his free and noble will to take her out of her father's house, where she never had to live or suffer, and where she weaved wreaths of palm fronds for amusement, Because her adoptive father had written an autographed letter with his seal of the ring stamped on the cover. This letter was to show that his adopted daughter's hands could not do trivial things in this world except to play the clavichord. However, she The bewildered husband accepted all these warnings and instructions, led her out of the house, and brought her into this suffocatingly hot hellish black cauldron, before she could finish her Pentecost fast, Her husband took those nomad boxes and the libertine's accordion, and went out to hang out with some unlucky woman, really, just look at that woman's ass, well, let's just say, just look Just look at the twists and turns of her mare's buttocks, and you can fully guess that she is...a woman who is completely different from Fernanda. Whether Fernanda lives in a palace, or sleeps in a pigsty, or at a table It's still on the bed, it's all Mrs., a wife who has children. She has always feared the gods, followed the rules of God, and obeyed the will of God. Of course, with her, you can't juggle or live a loose life like that woman. Yes, and of course that woman can do everything like a French girl, and even worse than a French girl, because you think, those French girls at least honestly hang a red light on the door, so that Dirty things, imagine how the only daughter of Madame Renata Agode and Mr. Fernando del Carpio's favorite, especially this Mr. Fernando, who is of course also a charming woman, can do it. And the venerable saint, one of the great men of Christianity, a gentleman of the Holy Sepulchre, who can claim the privilege directly from God, that he will be intact in the tomb, and his skin will be as smooth as a bride's satin , His eyes are as bright as emeralds.
"That's not true," interrupted Aureliano Segundo, "he was already rotting and stinking when they brought him up."
He listened patiently to her all day, until he caught her making a mistake.
Fernanda ignored him, but lowered her voice.At dinner that night, the irritating nagging drowned out the noisy voice again.Aureliano Segundo kept his head down, ate very little, and went back to his bedroom early after eating.When eating breakfast the next day, Fernanda was shaking all over, as if she hadn't slept well at night, and it seemed that her anger had completely dissipated.But when her husband asked her if she could have a warm egg, instead of simply answering that he had run out of eggs in the last week, she gave the men a bad rap, saying they spent all day He only knows how to play with his belly button, but he wants to eat skylark liver when he eats.Aureliano Segundo took the children to read the encyclopedia as usual, and Fernanda pretended to tidy up Meme's room, but in fact she wanted him to listen to her chatter.Of course, he still had the audacity to tell those poor children that the portrait of Colonel Aureliano had been printed in the encyclopedia.In the afternoon, when the children were taking their naps, Aureliano Segundo was sitting in the corridor and Fernanda followed there, buzzing around him like a hemp fly, tormenting him and making him angry.
She muttered: Of course, there is nothing else to eat in the house but stones, and her husband sits quietly and enjoys the rain like the Sultan of Persia, because he is just a man. Philistine, a dependent man, a good-for-nothing fool, more sluggish than a puff puff, living on women all the time, who thinks he's married to Jonah's wife, just talk about the whale She will be at peace with the story.Aureliano Segundo listened to her like a deaf man for two hours and did not interrupt her until it was almost dark when he could not bear the tormenting hum.
"Please stop talking, please!" he begged.
However, Fernanda's voice became louder and louder. "Why don't I say it," she said, "whoever doesn't want to hear it is fucked!" At that moment Aureliano Segundo could no longer control himself.He stood up slowly, as if he just wanted to stretch his muscles, and then, with just the right amount of exasperation, he took his pots of begonias, bracken, and oregano and smashed them to the ground.Fernanda was horrified, because she hadn't actually known the power of her sarcasm at the time, but now it was too late for whatever she tried to do.
Aureliano Segundo, swayed by an irresistible urge to vent his grievances, smashed the glass case and, without haste, took out the dishes one by one and smashed them to pieces.Then, as methodically and calmly as he had when he had covered the walls with banknotes, he put Bohemian glassware, hand-painted vases, pictures of maiden roses on a boat, mirrors in gilt frames, and Everything breakable from the hall to the barn was taken out and smashed against the walls.After Sheng, he also moved a large tank from the kitchen to the center of the yard, and smashed it with a bang.Then he washed his hands, put on the waxed poncho and went out.Before midnight, he returned with some hard bacon, some bags of wormy rice, corn, and bunches of shriveled bananas.Since then, they have never been short of food.
Amaranta Úrsula and Aureliano Jr. must have been happy to recall these rainy days.Despite Fernanda's strict discipline, they often play in the mud in the yard.Sometimes they caught a lizard and for the fun of breaking its legs off.Sometimes, while Santa Sofía de la Peda was not looking, she sprinkled the white powder from the butterfly's wings into the soup, playing poison.Ursula was their favorite toy.They treated her like a big old doll, covered her in brightly colored rags, painted her face with soot and rouge, and walked around with her in their arms.Once, they almost plucked Úrsula's eyeball out with the pruning shears as they used to pick out the eyes of toads.Nothing made them laugh more than Ursula's nonsense.In fact, something must have gone wrong in Úrsula's head during the third year of rain, because she gradually lost her sense of reality and often confused what was happening before her eyes with what happened a long time ago, to the point that there was Once, she actually wept for three days and three nights for the death of Petronilla Iguaran, who was her great-grandmother who had lived for more than a century.She was so confused that she thought of Aureliano Jr. as the son of the colonel who was taken to know ice, and of José Arcadio, who was still at the seminary, as a follower of the gypsy. The eldest son who ran away.She told so many stories about her family that the children learned to visit her with imaginary friends and relatives.These relatives and friends are not only long dead, but also people from different eras.Úrsula sat on the bed, her hair covered with dirt, her face covered with a red kerchief, and she felt happy among the relatives and friends that the children made up for her.Children's descriptions are often detailed, as if they really knew these people.Úrsula talked with her predecessors about the days before her own birth, rejoiced that they had brought her news, and wept with them for those who died much later than they were.
The children soon discovered that one of the questions Úrsula kept asking during the deadly interviews was to find out who sent a life-size plaster statue of St. Joseph to their home during the war Let them keep it through the rainy season.This reminded Aureliano Segundo of the fortune that only Úrsula knew where it was buried.However, Aureliano Segundo tried to ask her around the bush, but in vain, because in the labyrinth of Úrsula's delirium, it seemed that there was still a sane place left, enough to guard the gold that could only be hidden. Secrets revealed by the true master.Úrsula was very shrewd and very strict. When Aureliano Segundo trained a friend who had been with him to go to Úrsula pretending to be the owner of the property, she used very detailed instructions. And the question full of traps entangled him to nowhere.
Aureliano Segundo was convinced that Úrsula was going to take this secret to his grave, so he hired a team of diggers under the pretext that he wanted to dig drainage ditches in the front and back yards.He also himself made a thorough search for nearly three months, using small iron rods and various other instruments for detecting metals, but found nothing even resembling gold.Later he enlisted the help of Pilar Ternera, hoping that she could see her cards better than the earth-digger.However, Pilar Ternera explained at the beginning that it would be useless to think of anything if Úrsula hadn't signed it.However, she confirmed the existence of the property, and gave a precise number of seven thousand two hundred and fourteen gold coins, which were packed in three canvas bags with copper wire protective nets on the outside.The specific burial location is within a circle with Ursula's bed as the center and a radius of 122 meters.But she reminded that the muddy ground would not be dug out until after the rain had stopped and three consecutive June days had passed, when the scorching sun would turn the muddy ground into dust.So much mysterious data, in the eyes of Aureliano Segundo, was simply too much like the legend of spiritualism, so, regardless of whether it was August at that time, he would have to wait at least another three years to meet the conditions stipulated in the prophecy. Still sticking to my attempts.The first thing that astonished him and puzzled him even more was his confirmation that the distance from Úrsula's bed to the wall of the backyard was exactly one hundred and twenty-two meters.When Fernanda saw him measuring the land, she worried that he might be a lunatic like his twin brother; however, when she saw him order the diggers to deepen the gutter by another meter, she thought he was more than Crazy is even worse.Aureliano Segundo was fascinated by the treasure-hunting delirium comparable only to that of his great-grandfather, who was in search of inventions.Aureliano Segundo had lost the last bit of fat and the resemblance to his twin brother was becoming more and more obvious.It's not just his thin body, it's his impassive and thoughtful look.He no longer cared about his children, he was covered in mud all day long, and he didn't have a fixed time for eating, he just squatted in the corner of the kitchen and started eating whenever he wanted.Sometimes Santa Sofía de la Peda asked him something by chance, and he didn't bother to answer.Fernanda never dreamed that he would work so hard, so when she saw him working, she felt that his recklessness was diligence, his greed was selflessness, and his stubbornness was perseverance.Therefore, she felt sorry and guilty for scolding him for being lazy and slovenly.But Aureliano Segundo did not want her sympathy and reconciliation at that time.After digging the front and back yards, he turned the garden soil back and forth twice in the neck-deep swamp full of dead branches and leaves.He drilled a deep hole in the foundation on the east side of the house. One night, the family suddenly woke up and felt as if a catastrophe was imminent, because the ground was trembling and there was a frightening creaking sound coming from the ground. Squeaking, it turned out that three rooms were collapsing, and a large and chilling crack stretched from the corridor to Fernanda's bedroom.Aureliano Segundo did not stop the treasure hunt because of this.Even when his last hope was in vain, and the only thing that seemed to make any sense was the proof of the card prophecy, he just patched up the hole-ridden foundations, filled the big crack with mortar, and went on again. Continue digging on the west side of the dwelling.He was still digging there until the second week of June the following year.At this time, the rain began to fall smaller and smaller, the thick clouds gradually dispersed, and it seemed that the weather was about to turn fine.Sure enough, at two o'clock on a Friday afternoon, a round of honest, bright red, rough red sun like broken bricks illuminated the world, and the sunshine was almost as fresh as running water.Since then, there has been no rain in ten years.
马贡多已经成了一片废墟。在街头巷尾的泥泞中，有支离破碎的家具，还有长满红色百合花的动物尸骨。这是那些来时轻率、去时匆忙的大批外来居民在逃离马贡多时留下的最后纪念。香蕉热期间仓促建造起来的房子都被遗弃了。香蕉公司拆走了它的设施。昔日用铁丝网围着的香蕉城留下的也只是一堆瓦砾。那里的木房子和荫凉的阳台，过去曾是房主人玩着纸牌度过宁静的下午的地方，仿佛已被预言中提到的、几年后将把马贡多从地球上刮走的那阵大风的前驱一扫而尽了。这阵浩劫之风留下的唯一人迹，就是帕特里夏·布朗忘在一辆陷进蝴蝶花丛中的汽车里的一只手套。霍塞·阿卡迪奥·布恩地亚建村时期考察过的中了魔法的地区，后来曾经是兴旺的香蕉种植园，现在又变成了到处是桔枝烂根的泥沼地。这里有好多年都能看到，在远方的地平线上，那宁静的大海里泛着浪花。奥雷良诺第二穿着干衣服出门察看街面的第一个星期天，心里十分难过。这次浩劫的幸存者，那些在香蕉公司飓风袭击马贡多之前就生活在这里的居民，他们坐在马路中央，沐浴在雨后初晴的阳光之中。他们的皮肤上还长着绿色的苔垢，身上还带有阴雨天留在他们身上的墙旮旯的气味，但是他们心底里看来正在为收回了他们出生的镇子而感到欣慰。土耳其人大街又恢复了从前那副景象，又象当年穿着平底鞋、戴着金耳环的阿拉伯人来到马贡多时一样了。这些阿拉伯人周游世界，用精巧的小玩意儿调换金刚鹦鹉。后来，他们在马贡多找到了结束数千年游牧生活的好地方。但另一方面，大雨使商场里的货物都掉在地上打碎了，在商店门口散了包的商品上都长出了青苔，柜台已被白蚁咬坏，墙壁都被潮气侵蚀，但是第三代的阿拉伯人坐在他们父辈和祖辈坐过的地方，带着和先辈们一样的神态坐着，他们沉默而冷漠，对时间和灾难都木然处之。他们在失眠症结束后是这样，在奥雷良诺上校发动的三十二次战争以后也是这样，始终是一副半死不活的模样。面对赌桌和油炸食品摊的残迹，面对打靶房和圆梦算命的小胡同的瓦砾，阿拉伯人的精神力量实在令人吃惊，所以，奥雷良诺第二象往常一样不拘礼节地问过他们，究竟用了什么神技妙法，能够在暴风雨中免遭伤害？究竟用了什么鬼办法才没有淹死？他挨家挨户地逐人询问。大家都用狡黠的微笑和幻梦似的目光看着他，众口一词地回答说：
“游泳呗。”
佩特拉·科特也许是本地人中唯一具有阿拉伯人心力的人。尽管她眼睁睁地让暴风雨卷走了牛棚马厩的最后一块碎片，但却设法保住了住房。一年来，她曾多次给奥雷良诺第二捎去紧急的口信，可是奥雷良诺第二都回话说，他不知道什么时候能回家，不过他一定能带回一大箱金币，给她铺满卧室的地面。那时，佩特拉·科特在自己内心里寻根究底地探找使她在灾难中幸存的力量，结果找到了一种深思熟虑的、有充分理由的狂怒。怀着这股怒气，她发誓要重整被她的情夫大肆挥霍又被暴风雨摧毁了的家业。她的决心是那样坚不可摧，在她捎去最后一次口信八个月以后，奥雷良诺第二回到她家里的时候，只觅她浑身发绿，蓬头散发，眼睛凹陷，皮肤上长满了疥疮，但是仍然在小纸片上写着数字，准备做抽彩生意。奥雷良诺第二见此情景，不禁目瞪口呆。他面容瘦削，表情严肃，佩特拉·科特简直不相信这个回来找她的就是她一生中的情夫，还以为这是他的孪生兄弟呢。
“你疯啦，”他说，“难道你还想用骨头去开彩吗？”
这时，佩特拉·科特叫他瞧瞧卧室里面。奥雷良诺第二看到了那头母骡。这头母骡虽然同它的女主人一样瘦得皮包骨，但也象她一样充满活力和决心。佩特拉·科特是怀着怒气喂养它的。后来饲草没有了，玉米没有了，连树根也没有了，她就把母骡关在自己的卧室里，喂它吃细棉布床单，波斯挂毯，长毛绒床罩，天鹅绒窗帘和主教式大床上用的用金丝绣了花并饰有真丝流苏的华盖。
Notes:
Notes: