IT RAINED FOR four years, eleven months, and two days. There were periods of drizzle¹ during which everyone put on his full dress a convalescent look to celebrate the clearing, but the people soon grew accustomed to interpret the pauses as a sign of redoubled rain. The sky crumbled² into a set of destructive storms and out of the north came hurricanes that scattered³ roofs about and knocked down walls and uprooted⁴ every last plant of the banana groves⁵. Just as during the insomnia⁶ plague, as úrsula came to remember during those days, the calamity⁷ itself inspired defenses against boredom⁸. Aureli-ano Segun-do was one of those who worked hardest not to be conquered by idleness. He had gone home for some minor⁹ matter on the night that Mr. Brown unleashed¹⁰ the storm, and Fernanda tried to help him with a half-blown-out umbrella that she found in a closet. "I don't need it," he said. "I'll stay until it clears." That was not, of course, an ironclad promise, but he would accomplish it literally¹¹. Since his clothes were at Petra Cotes's, every three days he would take off what he had on and wait in his shorts until they washed. In order not to become bored, he dedicated¹² himself to the task of repairing the many things that needed fixing in the house. He adjusted hinges, oiled locks, screwed knockers tight, and planed doorjambs. For several months he was seen wandering about with a toolbox that the gypsies must have left behind in José Arcadio Buendía's days, and no one knew whether because of the involuntary exercise, the winter tedium¹³ or the imposed abstinence, but his belly¹⁴ was deflating little by little like a wineskin and his face of a beatific¹⁵ tortoise was becoming less bloodshot and his double chin less prominent until he became less pachydermic all over and was able to tie his own shoes again. Watching him putting in latches¹⁶ and repairing clocks, Fernanda wondered whether or not he too might be falling into the vice¹⁷ of building so that he could take apart like Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía and his little gold fishes, Amaranta and her shroud¹⁸ and her buttons, José Arca-dio and the parchments, and úrsula and her memories. But that was not the case. The worst part was that the rain was affecting everything and the driest of machines would have flowers popping out among their gears they were not oiled every three days, and the threads in brocades rusted¹⁹, and wet clothing would break out in a rash of saffron-colored moss²⁰. The air was so damp that fish could have come in through the doors and swum out the windows, floating through the atmosphere in the rooms. One morning úrsula woke up feeling that she was reaching her end in a placid²¹ swoon and she had already asked them to take her to Father Antonio Isabel, even if it had to be on a stretcher, when Santa Sofía de la Piedad discovered that her back was paved with leeches²². She took them off one by one, crushing them with a firebrand before they bled her to death. It was necessary to dig canals to get the water out of the house and rid it of the frogs and snails²³ so that they could dry the floors and take the bricks from under the bedposts and walk in shoes once more. Occupied with the many small details that called for his attention, Aureli-ano Segun-do did not realize that he was getting old until one afternoon when he found himself contemplating²⁴ the premature²⁵ dusk from a rocking chair and thinking about Petra Cotes without quivering. There would have been no problem in going back to Fernan-da's insipid²⁶ love, because her beauty had become solemn with age, but the rain had spared him from all emergencies of passion and had filled him with the spongy serenity²⁷ of a lack of appetite. He amused himself thinking about the things that he could have done in other times with that rain which had already lasted a year. He had been one of the first to bring zinc²⁸ sheets to Macon-do, much earlier than their popularization by the banana company, simply to roof Petra Cotes's bedroom with them and to take pleasure in the feeling of deep intimacy²⁹ that the sprinkling of the rain produced at that time. But even those wild memories of his mad youth left him unmoved, just as during his last debauch³⁰ he had exhausted³¹ his quota³² of salaciousness and all he had left was the marvelous gift of being able to remember it without bitterness or repentance³³. It might have been thought that the deluge³⁴ had given him the opportunity to sit and reflect and that the business of the pliers and the oilcan had awakened³⁵ in him the tardy³⁶ yearning³⁷ of so many useful trades that he might have followed in his life and did not; but neither case was true, because the temptation of a sedentary domesticity that was besieging³⁸ him was not the result of any rediscovery or moral lesion. it came from much farther off, unearthed³⁹ by the rain's pitchfork from the days when in Melquíades' room he would read the prodigious⁴⁰ fables⁴¹ about flying carpets and whales that fed on entire ships and their crews. It was during those days that in a moment of carelessness little Aureli-ano appeared on the porch and his grandfather recognized the secret of his identity. He cut his hair, dressed him taught him not to be afraid of people, and very soon it was evident that he was a legitimate⁴² Aureli-ano Buendía, with his high cheekbones, his startled look, and his solitary⁴³ air. It was a relief for Fernanda. For some time she had measured the extent of her pridefulness, but she could not find any way to remedy it because the more she thought of solutions the less rational they seemed to her. If she had known that Aureli-ano Segun-do was going to take things the way he did, with the fine pleasure of a grandfather, she would not have taken so many turns or got so mixed up, but would have freed herself from mortification⁴⁴ the year before Amaranta úrsula, who already had her second teeth, thought of her nephew as a scurrying⁴⁵ toy who was a consolation⁴⁶ for the tedium of the rain. Aureli-ano Segun-do remembered then the English ency-clopedia that no one had since touched in Meme's old room. He began to show the children the pictures, especially those of animals, and later on the maps and photographs remote countries and famous people. Since he did not know any English and could identify only the most famous cities and people, he would invent names and legends to satisfy the children's insatiable curiosity.

 

Fernanda really believed that her husband was waiting for it to clear to return to his concubine. During the first months of the rain she was afraid that he would try to slip into her bedroom that she would have to undergo the shame revealing to him that she was incapable⁴⁷ of reconciliation⁴⁸ since the birth of Amaranta úrsula. That was the reason for her anxious correspondence with the invisible doctors, interrupted by frequent disasters of the mail. During the first months when it was learned that the trains were jumping their tracks in the rain, a letter from the invisible doctors told her that hers were not arriving. Later on, when contact with the unknown correspondents was broken, she had seriously thought of putting on the tiger mask that her husband had worn in the bloody⁴⁹ carnival⁵⁰ and having herself examined under a fictitious⁵¹ name by the banana company doctors. But one of the many people who regularly brought unpleasant news of the deluge had told her that the company was dismantling⁵² its dispensaries to move them to where it was not raining. Then she gave up hope. She resigned herself to waiting until the rain stopped and the mail service was back to normal, and in the meantime she sought relief from her secret ailments⁵³ with recourse to her imagination, because she would rather have died than put herself in the hands of the only doctor left in Macon-do, the extravagant⁵⁴ Frenchman who ate grass like a donkey. She drew close to úrsula, trusting that she would know of some palliative for her attacks. But her twisted habit of not calling things by their names made her put first things last and use "expelled" for "gave birth" and "burning" for "flow" so that it would all be less shameful⁵⁵, with the result that úrsula reached the reasonable conclusion that her trouble was intestinal⁵⁶ rather than uterine, and she advised her to take a dose of calomel on an empty stomach. If it had not been for that suffering, which would have had nothing shameful about it for someone who did not suffer as well from shamefulness⁵⁷, and if it had not been for the loss of the letters, the rain would not have bothered Fernanda, because, after all, her whole life had been spent as if it had been raining. She did not change her schedule or modify her ritual. When the table was still raised up on bricks and the chairs put on planks⁵⁸ so that those at the table would not get their feet wet, she still served with linen⁵⁹ tablecloths⁶⁰ and fine chinaware and with lighted candles, because she felt that the calamities⁶² should not be used as a pretext⁶³ for any relaxation⁶⁴ in customs. No one went out into the street any more. If it had depended on Fernanda, they would never have done so, not only since it started raining but since long before that, because she felt that doors had been invented to stay closed that curiosity for what was going on in the street was a matter for harlots. Yet she was the first one to look out when they were told that the funeral procession for Colonel Geri-neldo Márquez was passing by and even though she only watched it through the half-opened window it left her in such a state of affliction that for a long time she repented⁶⁵ in her weakness.

 

She could not have conceived of a more desolate⁶⁶ cortege. They had put the coffin⁶⁷ in an oxcart over which they built a canopy⁶⁸ of banana leaves, but the pressure of the rain was so intense and the streets so muddy that with every step the wheels got stuck and the covering was on the verge⁶⁹ of falling apart. The streams of sad water that fell on the coffin were soaking the flag that had been placed on top which was actually the flag stained with blood and gunpowder⁷⁰ that had been rejected by more honorable veterans. On the coffin they had also placed the saber with tassels⁷¹ of silver and copper⁷², the same one that Colonel Geri-neldo Márquez used to hang on the coat rack in order to go into Amaranta's sewing room unarmed. Behind the cart, some barefoot and all of them with their pants rolled up, splashing in the mud were the last survivors⁷³ of the surrender at Neerlandia carrying a drover's staff in one hand and in the other a wreath of paper flowers that had become discolored in the rain. They appeared like an unreal vision along the street which still bore the name of Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía and they all looked at the house as they passed and turned the corner at the square, where they had to ask for help to move the cart, which was stuck. úrsula had herself carried to the door by Santa Sofía de la Piedad. She followed the difficulties of the procession with such attention that no one doubted that she was seeing it, especially because raised hand of an archangelic messenger was moving with the swaying of the cart.

 

"goodbye, Geri-neldo, my son," she shouted. "Say hello to my people and tell them I'll see them when it stops raining."

 

Aureli-ano Segun-do helped her back to bed and with the same informality with which he always treated her, he asked her the meaning of her farewell.

 

"It's true," she said. "I'm only waiting for the rain to stop in order to die."

 

The condition of the streets alarmed Aureli-ano Segun-do. He finally became worried about the state of his animals and he threw an oilcloth over his head and sent to Petra Cotes's house. He found her in the court-yard, in the water up to her waist, trying to float the corpse⁷⁴ of a horse. Aureli-ano Segun-do helped her with a lever, and the enormous swollen⁷⁵ body gave a turn like a bell and was dragged away by the torrent⁷⁶ of liquid mud. Since the rain began, all that Petra Cotes had done was to clear courtyard of dead animals. During the first weeks she sent messages to Aureli-ano Segun-do for him to take urgent measures and he had answered that there was no rush, that the situation was not alarming, that there would be plenty of time to think about something when it cleared. She sent him word that the horse pastures were being flooded, that the cattle were fleeing to high ground, where there was nothing to eat and where they were at the mercy of jaguars⁷⁷ and sickness. "There's nothing to be done," Aureli-ano Segun-do an-swered her. "Others will be born when it clears." Petra Cates had seen them die in dusters and the was able to butcher only those stuck in the mud. She saw with quiet impotence how the deluge was pitilessly exterminating⁷⁸ a fortune that at one time was considered the largest and most solid in Macon-do, and of which nothing remained but pestilence⁷⁹. When Aureli-ano Segun-do decided⁸⁰ to go see what was going on, he found only the corpse of the horse and a squalid mule⁸¹ in the ruins of the stable. Petra Cotes watched him arrive without surprise, joy, or resentment⁸², and she only allowed herself an ironic⁸³ smile.

 

"It's about time!" she said.

 

She had aged⁸⁴, all skin and bones, and her tapered⁸⁵ eyes of a carnivorous animal had become sad and tame from looking at the rain so much. Aureli-ano Segun-do stayed at her house more than three months, not because he felt better there than in that his family, but because he needed all that time to make the decision to throw the piece of oilcloth back over his head. "There's no rush," he said, as he had said in the other home. "Let's hope that it clears in the next few hours." During the course of the first week he became accustomed to the inroads that time and the rain had made in the health of his concubine, and little by little he was seeing her as she had been before, remembering her jubilant excesses and the delirious⁸⁶ fertility that her love provoked in the animals, and partly through love, partly through interest, one night during the second week he awoke her with urgent caresses⁸⁷. Petra Cotes did not react. "Go back to sleep," she murmured. "These aren't times for things like that." Aureli-ano Segun-do saw himself in the mirrors on the ceiling, saw Petra Cotes's spinal⁸⁸ column like a row of spools⁸⁹ strung together along a cluster of withered⁹⁰ nerves, and he saw that she was right, not because the times but because of themselves, who were no longer up to those things.

 

Aureli-ano Segun-do returned home with his trunks, convinced that not only úrsula but all the inhabitants Macon-do were waiting for it to dear in order to die. He had seen them as he passed by, sitting in their parlors⁹¹ with an absorbed look and folded arms, feeling unbroken time pass, relentless⁹³ times, because it was useless to divide it into months and years, and the days into hours, when one could do nothing but contemplate⁹⁴ the rain. The children greeted Aureli-ano Segun-do with excitement because he was playing the asthmatic accordion⁹⁵ for them again. But the concerts did not attract their attention as much as the sessions with the encyclopedia⁹⁶, and once more they got together in Meme's room, where Aureli-ano Segun-do's imagination changed a dirigible into a flying elephant who was looking for a place to sleep among the clouds. On one occasion he came across a man on horseback who in spite of his strange outfit⁹⁷ had a familiar look, after examining him closely he came to the conclusion that it was a picture of Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía. He showed it to Fernanda and she also admitted the resemblance of the horseman not only to the colonel but to everybody in the family, although he was actually a Tartar warrior⁹⁸. Time passed in that way with the Colossus of Rhodes and snake charmers until his wife told him that there were only three pounds of dried meat and a sack rice left in the pantry.

 

Chapter 16 Page 2

 

Chapter 16 Page 2

 

And what do you want me to do about it?" he asked.

 

"I don't know," Fernanda answered. "That's men's business."

 

"Well," Aureli-ano Segun-do said, "something will be done when it clears."

 

He was more interested in the encyclopedia than In the domestic problem, even when he had to content himself with a scrap⁹⁹ of meat and a little rice for lunch. "It's impossible to do anything now," he would say. "It can't rain for the rest of our lives." while the urgencies of the pantry grew greater, Fernanda's indignation also grew, until her eventual¹⁰⁰ protests, her infrequent outbursts came forth¹⁰¹ in an uncontained, unchained torrent that begin one morning like the monotonous¹⁰² drone of a guitar and as the day advanced rose in pitch, richer and more splendid. Aureli-ano Segun-do was not aware of the singsong until the following day after breakfast when he felt himself being bothered by a buzzing that was by then more fluid and louder than the sound of the rain, and it was Fernanda, who was walking throughout the house complaining that they had raised her to be a queen only to have her end up as a servant in a madhouse, with a lazy, idola-trous, libertine¹⁰³ husband who lay on his back waiting for bread to rain down from heaven while she was straining her kidneys trying to keep afloat a home held together with pins where there was so much to do, so much to bear up under and repair from the time God gave his morning sunlight until it was time to go to bed that when she got there eyes were full of ground glass, and yet no one ever said to her, "Good morning, Fernanda, did you sleep well?" Nor had they asked her, even out of courtesy, why she was so pale or why she awoke with purple rings under her eyes in spite of the fact that she expected it, of course, from a family that had always considered her a nuisance, an old rag, a booby painted on the wall, and who were always going around saying things against her behind her back, call-ing her church mouse, calling her Pharisee, calling her crafty¹⁰⁴, and even Amaranta, may she rest in peace, had said aloud that she was one of those people who could not tell their rectums from their ashes, God have mercy, such words, and she had tolerated everything with resig-nation because of the Holy Father, but she had not been able to tolerate it any more when that evil José Arcadio Segun-do said that the damnation of the family had come when it opened its doors to a stuck-up highlander¹⁰⁶, just imagine, a bossy¹⁰⁷ highlander, Lord save us, a highlander daughter of evil spit of the same stripe as the highlanders the government sent to kill workers, you tell me, and he was referring to no one but her, the godchild of the Duke of Alba, a lady of such lineage that she made the liver of presidents' wives quiver, a noble dame¹⁰⁸ of fine blood like her, who had the right to sign eleven peninsular names and who was the only mortal creature in that town full of bastards¹⁰⁹ who did not feel all confused at the sight of sixteen pieces of silverware, so that her adulterous husband could die of laughter afterward¹¹⁰ and say that so many knives and forks spoons were not meant for a human being but for a centipede, and the only one who could tell with her eyes closed when the white wine was served and on what side and in which glass and when the red wine and on what side in which glass, and not like that peasant of an Amaranta, may she rest in peace, who thought that white wine was served in the daytime and red wine at night, and the only one on the whole coast who could take pride in the fact that she took care of her bodily needs only in golden chamberpots, so that Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía, may he rest in peace, could have the effrontery¹¹¹ to ask her with his Masonic Ill humor where she had received that privilege wheth-er she did not shit shit but shat sweet basil, just imag-ine, with those very words, and so that Renata, own daughter, who through an oversight¹¹² had seen her stool in the bedroom, had answered that even if the pot was all gold and with a coat of arms, what was inside was pure shit, physical shit, and worse even than any other kind because it was stuck-up highland¹⁰⁵ shit, just imagine, her own daughter, so that she never had any illusions about the rest of the family, but in any case she had the right to expect a little more consideration from her husband because, for better or for worse, he was her consecrated¹¹³ spouse¹¹⁴ her helpmate, her legal despoiler¹¹⁵, who took upon himself of his own free and sovereign will the grave responsibility taking her away from her paternal¹¹⁶ home, where she never wanted for or suffered from anything, where she wove funeral wreaths as a pastime, since godfather had sent a letter his signature and the stamp of his ring on the sealing wax simply to say that the hands of his goddaughter were not meant for tasks of this world except to play the clavichord¹¹⁷, and, nevertheless, her insane husband had taken her from her home with all manner of admoni-tions and warnings and had brought her to that frying pan of hell where a person could not breathe because of the heat, and before she had completed her Pentecostal fast he had gone off with his wandering trunks and his wastrel's accordion to loaf in adultery with a wretch¹¹⁸ of whom it was only enough to see her behind, well, that's been said, to see her wiggle her mare's behind in order to guess that she was a, that she was a, just the opposite of her, who was a lady in a palace or a pigsty¹¹⁹, at the table or in bed, a lady of breeding, God-fearing, obeying His laws and submissive to His wishes, whom he could not perform, naturally, the acrobatics¹²⁰ and trampish antics that he did with the other one, who, of course, was ready for anything like the French matrons, and even worse, if one considers well, because they at least had the honesty to put a red light at their door, swinishness like that, just imagine, and that was all that was needed by the only and beloved daughter of Do?a Renata Argote and Don Fernando del Carpio, and especially the latter, an upright man, a fine Christian¹²¹, a Knight¹²² of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher¹²³, those who receive direct from God the privilege of remaining intact in their graves with their skin smooth like the cheeks of a bride and their eyes alive and clear like emeralds.

 

"That's not true," Aureli-ano Segun-do interrupted her. "He was already beginning to smell when they brought him here."

 

He had the patience to listen to her for a whole day until he caught her in a slip. Fernanda did not pay him any mind, but she lowered her voice. That night at dinner the exasperating¹²⁴ buzzing of the singsong had conquered the sound of the rain. Aureli-ano, Segun-do ate very little, with his head down, and he went to his room early. At breakfast on the following day Fernanda was trembling, with a look of not having slept well, and she seemed completely exhausted by her rancor¹²⁵. Nevertheless, when her husband asked if it was not possible to have a soft-boiled egg, she did not answer simply that they had run out of eggs the week before, but she worked up a violent diatribe¹²⁶ against men who spent their time contemplating their navels then had the gall¹²⁷ to ask for larks¹²⁸' livers at the table. Aureli-ano Segun-do took the children to look at the encyclopedia, as always, and Fer-nanda pretended to straighten out Meme's room just so that he could listen to her muttering, of course, that it certainly took cheek for him to tell the poor innocents that there was a picture of Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía in the encyclopedia. During the afternoon, while the children were having their nap, Aureli-ano Segun-do sat on the porch and Fernanda pursued him even there, provoking him, tormenting¹²⁹ him, hovering¹³⁰ about him with her implacable horsefly buzzing, saying that, of course, while there was nothing to eat except stones, her husband was sitting there like a sultan of Persia, watching it rain, because that was all he was, a slob, a sponge, a good-for-nothing, softer than cotton batting, used to living off women and convinced that he had married Jonah's wife, who was so content with the story of the whale. Aureli-ano Segun-do listened to her for more than two hours, impassive, as if he were deaf. He did not interrupt her until late in the afternoon, when he could no longer bear the echo of the bass¹³¹ drum that was tormenting his head.

 

"Please shut up," he begged.

 

Fernanda, quite the contrary, raised her pitch. "I don't have any reason to shut up," she said. "Anyone who doesn't want to listen to me can go someplace else." Then Aureli-ano Segun-do lost control. He stood up unhurriedly, as if he only intended to stretch, and with a perfectly¹³² regulated and methodical fury he grabbed the pots with the begonias one after the other, those with the ferns, the oregano, and one after the other he smashed them onto the floor. Fernanda was frightened because until then she had really not had a clear indication of the tremendous inner force of her singsong, but it was too late for any attempt at rectification¹³³. Intoxicated¹³⁴ by the uncontained torrent of relief, Aureli-ano Segun-do broke the glass on the china closet and piece by piece, without hurrying, he took out the chinaware and shattered it on the floor. Systematically¹³⁵, serenely¹³⁶, in the same parsimonious¹³⁷ way in which he had papered the house with banknotes, he then set about smashing the Bohemian crystal ware⁶¹ against the walls, the hand-painted vases, the pictures of maidens¹³⁸ in flower-laden boats, the mirrors in their gilded¹³⁹ frames, everything that was breakable, from parlor⁹² to pantry, and he finished with the large earthen jar in the kitchen, which exploded in the middle of the courtyard with a hollow boom. Then he washed his hands, threw the oilcloth over himself, and before midnight he returned with a few strings¹⁴⁰ of dried meat, several bags of rice, corn with weevils, and some emaciated¹⁴¹ bunches of bananas. From then on there was no more lack of food.

 

Amaranta úrsula little Aureli-ano would remember the rains as a happy time. In spite of Fernanda's strictness, they would splash in the puddles¹⁴² in the courtyard, catch lizards¹⁴³ and dissect¹⁴⁴ them, and pretend that they were poisoning the soup with dust from butterfly wings when Santa Sofía de la Piedad was not looking úrsula was their most amusing plaything. They looked upon her as a big,. broken-down doll that they carried back and forth from one corner to another wrapped in colored cloth and with her face painted with soot¹⁴⁵ and annatto, and once they were on the point of plucking out her eyes with the pruning¹⁴⁶ shears¹⁴⁷ as they had done with the frogs. Nothing gave them as much excitement as the wanderings of her mind. Something, indeed, must have happened to her mind during the third year of the rain, for she was gradually losing her sense of reality and confusing present time with remote periods of her life to the point where, on one occasion, she spent three days weeping deeply over the death of Petronila Iguarán, her great-grandmother, buried for over a century. She sank into such an insane state of confusion that she thought little Aureli-ano was her son the colonel during the time he was taken to see ice, and that the José Arcadio who was at that time in the seminary was her firstborn who had gone off with the gypsies. She spoke¹⁴⁸ so much about the family that the children learned to make up imaginary visits with beings who had not only been dead for a long time, but who had existed at different times. Sitting on the bed, her hair covered with ashes and her face wrapped in a red kerchief, úrsula was happy in the midst of the unreal relatives whom the children described in all detail, as if they had really known them. úrsula would converse¹⁴⁹ with her forebears about events that took place before her own existence, enjoying the news they gave her, and she would weep with them over deaths that were much more recent than the guests themselves. The children did not take long to notice that in the course of those ghostly visits úrsula would always ask a question destined¹⁵⁰ to establish the one who had brought a life-size plaster Saint Joseph to the house to be kept until the rains stopped. It was in that way that Aureli-ano Segun-do remembered the fortune buried in some place that only úrsula knew, but the questions and astute¹⁵¹ maneuvering¹⁵² that occurred to him were no use because in the labyrinth¹⁵³ of her madness she seemed to preserve enough of a margin¹⁵⁴ of lucidity¹⁵⁵ to keep the secret which she would reveal only to the one who could prove that he was the real owner of the buried gold. She was so skillful and strict that when Aureli-ano Segun-do instructed one of his carousing¹⁵⁶ companions to pass himself off as the owner of the fortune, she got all caught up in a minute interrogation sown with subtle traps.

 

Convinced that úrsula would carry the secret to her grave, Aureli-ano Segun-do hired a crew of diggers under the pretext that they were making some drainage canals in the courtyard and the backyard, and he himself took soundings in the earth with iron bars and all manner of metal-detectors without finding anything that resembled gold in three months of exhaustive exploration. Later on he went to Pilar Ternera with the hope that the cards would we more than the diggers, but she began by explaining that any attempt would be useless unless úrsula cut the cards. On the other hand, she confirmed the existence of the treasure the precision of its consisting of seven thousand two hundred fourteen coins buried in three canvas sacks reinforced with copper wire within a circle with a radius¹⁵⁷ of three hundred eighty--eight feet with úrsula's bed as the center, but she warned that it would not be found until it stopped raining and the suns of three consecutive¹⁵⁸ Junes had changed the piles of mud into dust. The profusion¹⁵⁹ and meticulous¹⁶⁰ vagueness of the information seemed to Aureli-ano Segun-do so similar to the tales of spiritualists that he kept on with his enterprise in spite of the fact that they were in August and they would have to wait at least three years in order to satisfy the conditions of the prediction. The first thing that startled him, even though it increased his confusion at the same time, was the fact that it was precisely¹⁶¹ three hundred eighty-eight feet from úrsula's bed to the backyard wall. Fernanda feared that he was as crazy as his twin brother when she saw him taking the measurements, even more when he told the digging crew to make the ditches three feet deeper. Overcome by an exploratory delirium¹⁶² comparable only to that of his great-grandfather when he was searching for the route of inventions, Aureli-ano Segun-do lost the last layers of fat that he had left and the old resemblance to his twin brother was becoming accentuated¹⁶³ again, not only because of his slim figure, but also because of the distant air and the withdrawn¹⁶⁴ attitude. He no longer bothered with the children. He ate at odd hours, muddled¹⁶⁵ from head to toe, and he did so in a corner in the kitchen, barely answering the occasional questions asked by Santa Sofía de la Piedad. Seeing him work that way, as she had never dreamed him capable of doing, Fernanda thought that his stubbornness was diligence, his greed abnegation, and his thickheadedness perseverance¹⁶⁶, and her insides tightened¹⁶⁷ with remorse¹⁶⁸ over the virulence¹⁶⁹ with which she had attacked his idleness. But Aureli-ano Segun-do was in no mood for merciful reconciliations¹⁷⁰ at that time. Sunk up to his neck in a morass¹⁷¹ of dead brandies and rotting flowers, he flung the dirt of the garden all about after having finished with the courtyard and the backyard, and he excavated¹⁷² so deeply under the foundations of the east wing of the house that one night they woke up in terror at what seemed to be an earthquake, as much because of the trembling as the fearful underground creaking. Three of the rooms were collapsing¹⁷³ a frightening crack had opened up from the porch to Fernanda's room. Aureli-ano Segun-do did not give up the search because of that. Even when his last hopes had been extinguished the only thing that seemed to make any sense was what the cards had predicted, he reinforced the jagged foundation, repaired the crack with mortar¹⁷⁴, and continued on the side to the west. He was still there on the second week of the following June when the rain began to abate¹⁷⁵ and the clouds began to lift and it was obvious from one moment to the next that it was going to clear. That was what happened. On Friday at two in the afternoon the world lighted up with a crazy crimson¹⁷⁶ sun as harsh as brick dust and almost as cool as water, it did not rain again for ten years.

 

Macon-do was in ruins. In the swampy¹⁷⁷ streets there were the remains¹⁷⁸ of furniture, animal skeletons covered with red lilies, the last memories of the hordes¹⁷⁹ of newcomers who had fled Macon-do as wildly as they had arrived. The houses that had been built with such haste during the banana fever had been abandoned. The banana company tore down its installations. All that remained of the former wiredin city were the ruins. The wooden houses, the cool terraces for breezy card-playing afternoons, seemed to have been blown away in an anticipation¹⁸⁰ of the prophetic wind that years later would wipe Macon-do off the face of the earth. The only human trace left by that voracious¹⁸¹ blast was a glove belonging to Patricia Brown in an automobile¹⁸² smothered¹⁸³ in wild pansies. The enchanted¹⁸⁴ region explored by José Arcadio Buendía in the days of the founding, where later on the banana plantations¹⁸⁵ flourished, was a bog¹⁸⁶ of rotting roots, on the horizon of which one could manage to see the silent foam¹⁸⁷ of the sea. Aureli-ano Segun-do went through a crisis of affliction on the first Sunday that he put on dry clothes and went out to renew his acquaintance with the town. The survivors of the catastrophe¹⁸⁸, the same ones who had been living in Macon-do before it had been struck by the banana company hurricane, were sitting in the middle of the street enjoying their first sunshine. They still had the green of the algae¹⁸⁹ on their skin and the musty smell of a corner that had been stamped on them by the rain, but in their hearts they seemed happy to have recovered the town in which they had been born. The Street of the Turks was again what it had been earlier, in the days when the Arabs with slippers¹⁹⁰ and rings in their ears were going about the world swapping¹⁹¹ knickknacks for macaws and had found in Macon-do a good bend in the road where they could find respite¹⁹² from their age--old lot as wanderers. Having crossed through to the other side of the rain. the merchandise in the booths was falling apart, the cloths spread over the doors were splotched with mold, the counters undermined by termites¹⁹³, the walls eaten away by dampness, but the Arabs of the third generation were sitting in the same place and in the same position as their fathers and grandfathers, taciturn, dauntless, invulnerable to time and disaster, as alive or as dead as they had been after the insomnia plague and Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía's thirty-two wars. Their strength of spirit in the face of ruins of the gaming tables, the fritter stands, the shooting galleries, and the alley¹⁹⁴ where they interpreted dreams and predicted the future made Aureli-ano Segun-do ask them with his usual informality what mysterious resources they had relied upon so as not to have gone awash in the storm, the devil they had done so as not to drown, and one after the other, from door to door, they returned a crafty smile and a dreamy look, and without any previous consultation¹⁹⁵ they all gave the answer:

 

"Swimming."

 

Petra Cotes was perhaps the only native who had an Arab heart. She had seen the final destruction of her stables, her barns dragged off by the storm. but she had managed to keep her house standing¹⁹⁶. During the second year she had sent pressing messages to Aureli-ano Segun-do and he had answered that he did not know when he would go back to her house, but that in any case he would bring along a box of gold coins to pave the bedroom floor with. At that time she had dug deep into her heart, searching for the strength that would allow her to survive the misfortune, and she had discovered a reflective and just rage with which she had sworn to restore the fortune squandered¹⁹⁷ by her lover and then wiped out by the deluge. It was such an unbreakable decision that Aureli-ano Segun-do went back to her house eight months after the last message found her green disheveled, sunken eyelids¹⁹⁸ and skin spangled with mange, but she was writing out numbers on small pieces of paper to make a raffle¹⁹⁹. Aureli-ano Segun-do was astonished, and he was so dirty and so solemn that Petra Cotes almost believed that the one who had come to see her was not the lover of all her life but his twin brother.

 

"You're crazy," he told her. "Unless you plan to raffle off bones."

 

Then she told him to look in the bedroom and Aureli-ano Segun-do saw the mule. Its skin was clinging to its bones like that of its mistress, but it was just as alive and resolute²⁰⁰ as she. Petra Cotes had fed it with her wrath²⁰¹, and when there was no more hay or corn or roots, she had given it shelter in her own bedroom and fed it on the percale sheets, the Persian rugs, the plush bedspreads, the velvet²⁰² drapes, and the canopy embroidered²⁰³ with gold thread and silk tassels on the episcopal bed.

 

这样过了许久，老头儿似乎不在家里了；大家见过他的只是那天晚上，他很热心地想把钢琴修好；还有就是那个星期四，他腋下夹着一个丝瓜瓤和毛巾裹着的一块棕榈肥皂，跟阿卡蒂奥到河边去。在那个星期四，阿卡蒂奥叫梅尔加德斯去洗澡之前，奥雷连诺听到老头儿叨咕说：“我在新加坡沙滩上患热病死啦。”这一次，梅尔加德斯走到水里的时候，到了不该去的地方；次日早晨，在下游几公里的地方才找到了他；他躺在明晃晃的河湾浅滩上，一只孤零零的秃鹫站在他的肚子上。乌苏娜哀悼这个吉卜赛人超过了自己的亲父，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚却不顾她的愤然反对，禁止掩埋尸体。“梅尔加德斯是不朽的，他自己就说过复活的奥秘。”说着，他点燃废弃了的熔铁炉，把盛着水银的铁锅放在炉子上，让铁锅在尸体旁边沸腾起来，尸体就逐渐布满了蓝色气泡。阿·摩斯柯特先生大胆地提醒霍·阿·布恩蒂亚说，淹死的人不埋掉是危害公共卫生的。“绝对不会，因为他是活的，”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚反驳，并且继续用水银热气熏了整整七十二小时；到这个时候，尸体已经开始象蓝白色的蓓蕾一样裂开，发出细微的咝咝声，屋子里弥漫了腐臭的气味。

 

这时，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚才允许掩埋尸体，但是不能马马虎虎地埋掉，而要用对待马孔多最大的恩人的礼仪下葬。这是全镇第一次人数最多的葬礼，只有一百年后格兰德大娘的葬礼才勉强超过了它。在划作坟场的空地中间挖了个坑，人们把吉卜赛人放入坑内，并且立了一块石碑，上面刻着人们唯一知道的名字：梅尔加德斯。

 

然后，人们连续几夜为他守灵。左邻右舍的人聚在院子里喝咖啡、玩纸牌、说笑话，一直闹嘈嘈的，阿玛兰塔趁机向皮埃特罗·克列斯比表白了爱情；在这以前几个星期，他已经跟雷贝卡订了婚；在从前阿拉伯人用小玩意儿交换鹦鹉的地方，如今他开了一家乐器和自动玩具店，这地方就是大家知道的“土耳其人街”，这意大利人满头油光闪亮的容发，总要引起娘儿们难以遏止的赞叹，但他把阿玛兰塔看成一个淘气的小姑娘，对她并不认真。

 

“我有个弟弟，”他向她说，“他就要来店里帮我的忙了。”

 

阿玛兰塔觉得自己受了屈辱，气虎虎地回答他说，她决定不管怎样都要阻挠姐姐的婚姻，即使她自己的尸体不得不躺在房门跟前。

 

皮埃特罗·克列斯比被这威胁吓了一跳，忍不住把它告诉了雷贝卡。结果，由于乌苏娜太忙而一直推迟的旅行，不到一个星期就准备好了。阿玛兰塔没有抗拒，可是跟雷贝卡分手时，却在她耳边说：

 

“你别做梦！哪怕他们把我发配到天涯海角，我也要想方设法使你结不了婚，即使我不得不杀死你。”

 

由于乌苏娜不在，而无影无踪的梅尔加德斯仍在各个房间里神秘地游荡，这座房子就显得又大又空了。

 

雷贝卡负责料理家务，印第安女人经管面包房。傍晚，皮埃特罗·克列斯比带着熏衣草的清香来到的时候，手里总要拿着一件自动玩具当做礼物，未婚妻就在大客厅里接待他；为了避免流言蜚语，她把门窗全都敞开。这种预防措施是多余的，因为意大利人举止谦恭，虽然这个姑娘不过一年就要成为他的妻子，可他连她的手都不碰一下。

 

这座房子逐渐摆满了各种稀奇古怪的玩具。自动芭蕾舞女演员，八音盒，杂耍猴子，跑马，铃鼓小丑--皮埃特罗·克列斯比带来的这些丰富多采的自动玩具，驱除了霍·阿·布恩蒂亚自从梅尔加德斯去世以来的悲伤，使他回到了自己研究炼金术的时代。这时，他又生活在一个乐园里了，这儿满是开了膛的动物和拆散的机械；他想改进它们，让它们按照钟摆的原理不停地动。

 

奥雷连诺却把作坊抛在一边，开始教小姑娘雷麦黛丝读读写写。起初，小姑娘宁愿要自己的小囡囡，而不愿要每天下午都来的这个陌生男人；他一来到，家里的人就让她放下玩具，给她洗澡、穿上衣服，叫她坐在客厅里接待客人。可是，奥雷连诺的耐心和诚挚终于博得了她的欢心，以致她一连几小时跟他呆在一起，学习写字，用彩色铅笔在小本儿上描画房子和牛栏，画出金光四射的落日。

 

感到不幸的只有雷贝卡一个人，她忘不了妹妹的威吓。雷贝卡知道阿玛兰塔的性格和傲慢脾气，害怕凶狠的报复。她一连几小时坐在浴室里咂吮指头，拼命克制重新吃土的欲望。

 

为了摆脱忧虑，她把皮拉·苔列娜叫来，请皮拉·苔列娜用纸牌给她占卜。皮拉·苔列娜照旧含糊不清地说了一通之后，预言说：

 

“只要你的父母还没埋葬，你就不会幸福。”

 

雷贝卡浑身颤栗。她仿佛想起了很久以前的一场梦，看见自己是个小姑娘，带着一只小箱子、一张木摇椅和一条口袋，走进布恩蒂亚的房子--口袋里是什么东西，她始终都不知道。

 

她想起一个穿着亚麻布衣服的秃顶先生，他的衬衫领子被一个金色钮扣扣得紧紧的，但他一点不象纸牌上的红桃老K。她也想起了一个十分年轻、漂亮的女人，有一双温暖、芬芳的手，但是这双手跟纸牌上那个方块皇后好象患风湿的手毫不相同；这个年轻女人经常把花朵戴在她的头发上，带她到镇上绿树成荫的傍晚的街头去闲逛。

 

“我不明白，”雷贝卡说。

 

皮拉·苔列娜感到困窘。

 

“我也不明白，可这是纸牌说的。”

 

雷贝卡对这模糊的预言感到不安，就把它告诉了霍·阿·布恩蒂亚。

 

他责骂她相信纸牌的占卜，可他自己却悄悄地翻箱倒柜，搬动家具，撬起地板，掀开床铺，寻找那只装着骸骨的袋子。据他记得，自从房屋改建以来，他就没有见过那只袋子。他暗中把一些泥瓦匠叫来，其中一个承认他把袋子砌在一间卧室的墙壁里了，因为它妨碍他干活。

 

接连几天，他们都把耳朵贴在每一堵墙壁上仔细倾听，最后才听到深沉的“咔嚓咔嚓”声。他们打通墙壁，骸骨袋子仍然完整无损地放在那儿。同一天，他们就把骸骨埋在一个没有墓碑的坟坑里了，那坟坑距离梅尔加德斯的墓塚不远；霍·阿·布恩蒂亚如释重负地回到家里，因为，对于这件事情，他有时就象想起普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔那么沉痛。

 

他经过厨房时，吻了吻雷贝卡的脑门。

 

“别再胡思乱想啦，”他向她说。“你会幸福的。”

 

阿卡蒂奥出生之后，乌苏娜就不让皮拉·苔列娜来自己家里了；但是皮拉·苔列娜跟雷贝卡交上了朋友，这家的大门又对她敞开了。她一个人就象一群山羊，一天要来好多次，来了就干最重的家务，非常卖力。

 

有时，她也到作坊里去帮助阿卡蒂奥修照相底片，既勤快又温存，这个青年终于感到不好意思。他的脑瓜都给这个女人搅昏了。她那温暖的皮肤，她身上发出的烟味，以及她在暗室里的狂笑，都分散把他的注意力，使他不断地跟东西相撞。

 

有一次，皮拉·苔列娜在作坊里看见正在干首饰活的奥雷连诺，她就倚着他的桌子，赞赏地观察他耐心而精确地工作。事情是突然发生的。奥雷连诺确信阿卡蒂奥是在另一个房间里，然后才朝皮拉·苔列娜扬起眼来，正巧跟她的视线相遇，她眼里的意思就象晌午的太阳那么明朗。

 

“唔，”奥雷连诺问道。“什么事哇？”

 

皮拉·苔列娜咬紧嘴唇，苦笑了一下。

 

“你打仗真行，”她回答。“弹无虚发。”

 

奥雷连诺相信自己的预感已经应验，就感到松快了。他又在桌上埋头干活，仿佛什么事情也没发生，他的声音既平静又坚定。

 

“我承认他，”他说。“他就取我的名字吧。”

 

霍·阿·布恩蒂亚终于达到了自己的目的。他把钟上的发条连接在一个自动芭蕾舞女演员身上，这玩具在本身的音乐伴奏之下不停地舞蹈了三天。这件发明比以往的任何荒唐把戏都叫他激动。

 

他不再吃饭，也不再睡觉。他失去了乌苏娜的照顾和监督，就幻想联翩，永远陷入了如痴似狂的状态，再也不能复原了。他整夜整夜在房间里踱来踱去，喃喃自语，想方设法要把钟摆的原理应用到牛车上，应用到犁铧上，应用到一动就对人有益的一切东西上。

 

失眠症把霍·阿·布恩蒂亚完全搞垮了，有一天早晨，一个头发雪白、步履蹒跚的老头儿走进他的卧室，他也没有认出此人。原来这是普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔。最后弄清楚了客人的身份，发现死人也会衰老，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚非常惊讶，而且产生了怀旧之情。

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