世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第7章Part 4

"Look where this fellow turned up," the captain said. "It's Gregorio Stevenson."
At dawn, after a summary court martial, Arcadio was shot against the wall of the cemetery. In the last two hours of his life he did not manage to understand why the fear that had tormented him since childhood had disappeared. Impassive. without even worrying about making a show of his recent bravery, he listened to the interminable charges of the accusation. He thought about úrsula, who at that hour must have been under the chestnut tree having coffee with José Arcadio Buendía. He thought about his eight-month-old daugh-ter, who still had no name, and about the child who was going to be born in August. He thought about Santa Sofía de la Piedad, whom he had left the night before salting down a deer for next day's lunch, and he missed her hair pouring over her shoulders and her eyelashes, which looked as if they were artificial. He thought about his people without sentimentality, with a strict dosing of his accounts with life, beginning to understand how much he really loved the people he hated most. The president of the court-martial began his final speech when Arcadio realized that two hours had passed. "Even if the proven charges did not have merit enough," the president was saying, "the irresponsible and criminal boldness with which the accused drove his subordinates on to a useless death would be enough to deserve capital punishment." In the shattered schoolhouse where for the first time he had felt the security of power, a few feet from the room where he had come to know the uncertainty of love, Arcadio found the formality of death ridiculous. Death really did not matter to him but life did, and therefore the sensation he felt when they gave their decision was not a feeling of fear but of nostalgia. He did not speak until they asked him for his last request.
"Tell my wife," he answered in a well-modulated voice, "to give the girl the name of úrsula." He paused and said it again: "úrsula, like her grandmother. And tell her also that if the child that is to be born is a boy, they should name him José Arcadio, not for his uncle, but for his grandfather."
Before they took him to the execution wall Father Nicanor tried to attend him. "I have nothing to repent," Arcadio said, and he put himself under the orders of the squad after drinking a cup of black coffee. The leader of the squad, a specialist in summary executions, had a name that had much more about it than chance: Captain Roque Carnicero, which meant butcher. On the way to the cemetery, under the persistent drizzle, Arcadio saw that a radiant Wednesday was breaking out on the horizon. His nostalgia disappeared with the mist and left an immense curiosity in its place. Only when they ordered him to put his back to the wall did Arcadio see Rebeca, with wet hair and a pink flowered dress, opening wide the door. He made an effort to get her to recognize him. And Rebeca did take a casual look toward the wall and was paralyzed with stupor, barely able to react and wave goodbye to Arcadio. Arcadio answered her the same way. At that instant the smoking mouths of the rifles were aimed at him and letter by letter he heard the encyclicals that Melquíades had chanted and he heard the lost steps of Santa Sofía de la Piedad, a virgin, in the classroom, and in his nose he felt the same icy hardness that had drawn his attention in the nostrils of the corpse of Remedios. "Oh, God damn it!" he managed to think. "I forgot to say that if it was a girl they should name her Remedios." Then, all accumulated in the rip of a claw, he felt again all the terror that had tormented him in his life. The captain gave the order to fire. Arcadio barely had time to put out his chest and raise his head, not understanding where the hot liquid that burned his thighs was pouring from.
"Bastards!" he shouted. "Long live the Liberal Party!"

“你們瞧，他鑽到哪兒來啦，”上尉說，“這是格列戈里奧·史蒂文森呀。”
黎明時分，根據戰地軍事法庭的判決，阿卡蒂奧在墓地的牆壁前面被槍決了。在一生的最後兩小時裏，他還沒弄明白，他從童年時代起滿懷的恐懼爲什麼消失了。他傾聽他的各項罪行時是十分平靜的，完全不是因爲打算表現不久之前產生的勇氣。他想起了烏蘇娜——這時，她大概跟霍·阿·布恩蒂亞一起，正在慄樹下面喝咖啡。他想起了還沒取名的八個月的女兒，想起了八月間就要出生的孩子。他想起了聖索菲婭·德拉佩德，想起了昨天晚上他出來打仗時，她爲了第二天的午餐而把鹿肉醃起來的情景，他記起了她那披到兩肩的頭髮和又濃又長的睫毛，那樣的睫毛彷彿是人造的。他懷念親人時並沒有感傷情緒，只是嚴峻地總結了自己的一生，開始明白自己實際上多麼喜愛自己最憎恨的人。法庭庭長作出最後判決時，阿卡蒂奧還沒發現兩個小時已經過去了。“即使列舉的罪行沒有充分的罪證，”庭長說，“但是根據被告不負責任地把自己的部下推向毫無意義的死亡的魯莽行爲，已經足以判決被告的死刑。”在炮火毀掉的學校裏，他曾第一次有過掌權以後的安全感，而在離這兒幾米遠的一個房間裏，他也曾模糊地嚐到過愛情的滋味，所以他覺得這一套死亡的程序太可笑了。其實，對他來說，死亡是沒有意義的，生命纔是重要的。因此，聽到判決之後，他感到的不是恐懼，而是留戀。他一句話沒說，直到庭長問他還有什麼最後的要求。
“請告訴我老婆，”他用響亮的聲音回答。“讓她把女兒取名叫烏蘇娜，”停了停又說：“象祖母一樣叫做烏蘇娜。也請告訴她，如果將要出生的是個男孩，就管他叫霍·阿卡蒂奧，但這不是爲了尊敬我的大伯，而是爲了尊敬我的祖父。”
在阿卡蒂奧給帶到牆邊之前，尼康諾神父打算讓他懺悔。“我沒有什麼懺悔的，”阿卡蒂奧說，然後喝了一杯黑咖啡，就聽憑行刑隊處置了。行刑隊長是個“立即執行”的專家，他的名字並不偶然，叫做羅克·卡尼瑟洛上尉，意思就是“屠夫”。毛毛麗不停地下了起來，阿卡蒂奧走向墓地的時候，望見天際出現了星期二燦爛的晨光。他的留戀也隨着夜霧消散了，留下的是無限的好奇。行刑隊命令他背向牆壁站立時，他才發現了雷貝卡——她滿頭溼發，穿一件帶有粉紅色小花朵的衣服，正把窗子打開。他竭力引起她的注意。的確，雷貝卡突然朝牆壁這邊瞥了一眼，就驚恐得愣住了，然後勉強向他招手告別。阿卡蒂奧也向她揮了揮手。在這片刻間，幾支步槍黑乎乎的槍口瞄準了他，接着，他聽到了梅爾加德斯一字一句朗誦的教皇通諭，聽到了小姑娘聖索菲婭·德拉佩德在教室裏摸索的腳步聲，感到自己的鼻子冰冷、發硬，就象他曾覺得驚異的雷麥黛絲屍體的鼻子。“嗨，他媽的，”他還來得及想了一下，“我忘了說，如果生下的是個女孩，就管她叫雷麥黛絲吧。”接着，他平生的恐懼感又突然向他襲來，象一次毀滅性的打擊，上尉發出了開槍的命令。阿卡蒂奧幾乎來不及挺起胸膛和擡起腦袋，就不知從哪兒涌出一股熱乎乎的液體，順着大腿往下直流。
“雜種！”他叫喊起來。“自由黨萬歲！”