世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第3章Part 2

"Somebody is coming," he told her.
úrsula, as she did whenever he made a prediction, tried to break it down with her housewifely logic. It was normal for someone to be coming. Dozens of strangers came through Macondo every day without arousing suspicion or secret ideas. Nevertheless, beyond all logic, Aureliano was sure of his prediction.
"I don't know who it will be," he insisted, "but whoever it is is already on the way."
That Sunday, in fact, Rebeca arrived. She was only eleven years old. She had made the difficult trip from Manaure with some hide dealers who had taken on the task of delivering her along with a letter to José Arcadio Buendía, but they could not explain precisely who the person was who had asked the favor. Her entire baggage consisted of a small trunk, a little rocking chair with small hand-painted flowers, and a canvas sack which kept making a cloc-cloc-cloc sound, where she carried her parents' bones. The letter addressed to José Arcadio Buendía was written is very warm terms by someone who still loved him very much in spite of time and distance, and who felt obliged by a basic humanitarian feeling to do the charitable thing and send him that poor unsheltered orphan, who was a second cousin of úrsula's and consequently also a relative of José Arcadio Buendía, although farther removed, because she was the daughter of that unforgettable friend Nicanor Ulloa and his very worthy wife Rebeca Montiel, may God keep them in His holy kingdom, whose remains the girl was carrying so that they might be given Christian burial. The names mentioned, as well as the signature on the letter, were perfectly legible, but neither José Arcadio, Buendía nor úrsula remembered having any relatives with those names, nor did they know anyone by the name of the sender of the letter, much less the remote village of Manaure. It was impossible to obtain any further information from the girl. From the moment she arrived she had been sitting in the rocker, sucking her finger and observing everyone with her large, startled eyes without giving any sign of understanding what they were asking her. She wore a diagonally striped dress that had been dyed black, worn by use, and a pair of scaly patent leather boots. Her hair was held behind her ears with bows of black ribbon. She wore a scapular with the images worn away by sweat, and on her right wrist the fang of a carnivorous animal mounted on a backing of copper as an amulet against the evil eye. Her greenish skin, her stomach, round and tense as a drum. revealed poor health and hunger that were older than she was, but when they gave her something to eat she kept the plate on her knees without tasting anything. They even began to think that she was a deafmute until the Indians asked her in their language if she wanted some water and she moved her eyes as if she recognized them and said yes with her head.
They kept her, because there was nothing else they could do. They decided to call her Rebeca, which according to the letter was her mother's name, because Aureliano had the patience to read to her the names of all the saints and he did not get a reaction from any one of them. Since there was no cemetery in Macondo at that time, for no one had died up till then, they kept the bag of bones to wait for a worthy place of burial, and for a long time it got in the way everywhere and would be found where least expected, always with its clucking of a broody hen. A long time passed before Rebeca became incorporated into the life of the family. She would sit in her small rocker sucking her finger in the most remote corner of the house. Nothing attracted her attention except the music of the clocks, which she would look for every half hour with her frightened eyes as if she hoped to find it someplace in the air. They could not get her to eat for several days. No one understood why she had not died of hunger until the Indians, who were aware of everything, for they went ceaselessly about the house on their stealthy feet, discovered that Rebeca only liked to eat the damp earth of the courtyard and the cake of whitewash that she picked of the walls with her nails. It was obvious that her parents, or whoever had raised her, had scolded her for that habit because she did it secretively and with a feeling of guilt, trying to put away supplies so that she could eat when no one was looking. From then on they put her under an implacable watch. They threw cow gall onto the courtyard and, rubbed hot chili on the walls, thinking they could defeat her pernicious vice with those methods, but she showed such signs of astuteness and ingenuity to find some earth that úrsula found herself forced to use more drastic methods. She put some orange juice and rhubarb into a pan that she left in the dew all night and she gave her the dose the following day on an empty stomach. Although no one had told her that it was the specific remedy for the vice of eating earth, she thought that any bitter substance in an empty stomach would have to make the liver react. Rebeca was so rebellious and strong in spite of her frailness that they had to tie her up like a calf to make her swallow the medicine, and they could barely keep back her kicks or bear up under the strange hieroglyphics that she alternated with her bites and spitting, and that, according to what the scandalized Indians said, were the vilest obscenities that one could ever imagine in their language. When úrsula discovered that, she added whipping to the treatment. It was never established whether it was the rhubarb or the beatings that had effect, or both of them together, but the truth was that in a few weeks Rebeca began to show signs of recovery. She took part in the games of Arcadio and Amaranta, who treated her like an older sister, and she ate heartily, using the utensils properly. It was soon revealed that she spoke Spanish with as much fluency as the Indian language, that she had a remarkable ability for manual work, and that she could sing the waltz of the clocks with some very funny words that she herself had invented. It did not take long for them to consider her another member of the family. She was more affectionate to úrsula than any of her own children had been, and she called Arcadio, and Amaranta brother and sister, Aureliano uncle, and José Arcadio Buendía grandpa. So that she finally deserved, as much as the others, the name of Rebeca Buendía, the only one that she ever had and that she bore with dignity until her death.

“有人就要來咱們這兒啦，”他說。
象往常一樣，兒子預言什麼事情，她就用家庭主婦的邏輯破除他的預言。有人到這兒來，那沒有什麼特別嘛。每天都有幾十個外地人經過馬孔多，可這並沒有叫人操心，他們來到這兒，並不需要預言。然而，奧雷連諾不顧一切邏輯，相信自己的預言。
“我不知道來的人是誰，”他堅持說，“可這個人已在路上啦。”
的確，星期天來了個雷貝卡。她頂多只有十一歲，是跟一些皮貨商從馬諾爾村來的，經歷了艱苦的旅程，這些皮貨商受託將這個姑娘連同一封信送到霍·阿·布恩蒂亞家裏，但要求他們幫忙的人究竟是推，他們就說不清楚了。這姑娘的全部行李是一隻小衣箱、一把畫着鮮豔花朵的木製小搖椅以及一個帆布袋；袋子里老是發出“咔嚓、咔嚓、咔嚓”的響聲——那兒裝的是她父母的骸骨。捎繪霍·間·布恩蒂亞的信是某人用特別親切的口吻寫成的，這人說，儘管時間過久，距離頗遠，他還是熱愛霍·阿·布恩蒂亞的，覺得自己應當根據基本的人道精神做這件善事——把孤苦伶何的小姑娘送到霍·阿·布恩蒂亞這兒來；這小姑娘是烏蘇娜的表侄女，也就是霍·阿·布恩蒂亞的親戚，雖是遠房的親戚；因爲她是他難忘的朋友尼康諾爾·烏洛阿和他可敬的妻子雷貝卡·蒙蒂埃爾的親女兒，他們已去天國，現由這小姑娘把他們的骸骨帶去，希望能照基督教的禮儀把它們埋掉。以上兩個名字和信未的簽名都寫得十分清楚，可是霍·阿·布恩蒂亞和烏蘇娜都記不得這樣的親戚，也記不起人遙遠的馬諾爾村捎信來的這個熟人了。從小姑娘身上了解更多的情況是完全不可能的。她一走進屋子，馬上坐在自己的搖椅裏，開始咂吮指頭，兩隻驚駭的大眼睛望着大家，根本不明白人家問她什麼。她穿着染成黑色的斜紋布舊衣服和裂開的漆皮鞋。紮在耳朵後面的兩絡頭髮，是用黑蝴蝶繫住的。脖子上掛着一隻香袋，香袋上有一個汗水弄污的聖像，而右腕上是個銅鏈條，鏈條上有一個猛獸的獠牙——防止毒眼的小玩意。她那有點發綠的皮膚和脹鼓鼓、緊繃繃的肚子，證明她健康不佳和經常捱餓，但別人給她拿來吃的，她卻一動不動地繼續坐着，甚至沒有摸一摸放在膝上的盤子。大家已經認爲她是個聾啞姑娘，可是印第安人用自己的語言問她想不想喝水，她馬上轉動眼珠，彷彿認出了他們，肯定地點了點頭。
他們收留了她，因爲沒有其他辦法。他們決定按照信上對她母親的稱呼，也管她叫雷貝卡，因爲奧雷連諾雖然不厭其煩地在她面前提到一切聖徒的名字，但她對任何一個名字都無反應。當時馬孔多沒有墓地，因爲還沒死過一個人，裝着骸骨的袋於就藏了起來，等到有了合適的地方再埋葬，所以長時間裏，這袋子總是東藏西放，塞在難以發現的地方，可是經常發出“咔嚓、咔嚓、咔嚓”的響聲，就象下蛋的母雞咯咯直叫。過了很久雷貝卡纔跟這家人的生活協調起來。起初她有個習慣：在僻靜的屋角里，坐在搖椅上咂吮指頭。任何東西都沒引起她的注意，不過，每過半小時響起鐘聲的時候，她都驚駭地四面張望，彷彿想在空中發現這種聲音似的。好多天都無法叫她吃飯。誰也不明白她爲什麼沒有餓死，直到熟悉一切的印第安人發現（因爲他們在屋子裏用無聲的腳步不斷地來回走動）雷貝卡喜歡吃的只是院子裏的泥土和她用指甲從牆上刨下的一塊塊石灰。顯然，由於這個惡劣的習慣，父母或者養育她的人懲罰過她，泥上和石灰她都是偷吃的，她知道不對，而且儘量留存一些，無人在旁時可以自由自在地飽餐一頓。從此，他們對雷貝卡進行了嚴密的監視，給院子裏的泥土澆上牛膽，給房屋的牆壁抹上辛辣的印第安胡椒，恕用這種辦法革除姑娘的惡習，但她爲了弄到這類吃的，表現了那樣的機智和發明才幹，使得烏蘇娜不得不採取最有效的措施。她把盛着橙子汁和大黃的鍋子整夜放在露天裏，次日早飯之前拿這種草藥給雷貝卡喝。雖然誰也不會建議烏蘇娜拿這種混合藥劑來治療不良的泥土嗜好，她還是認爲任何苦澀的液體進了空肚子，都會在肝臟裏引起反應。雷貝卡儘管樣子瘦弱，卻十分倔強：要她吃藥，就得把她象小牛一樣縛住，因爲她拼命掙扎，亂抓、亂咬、亂譁，大聲叫嚷，今人莫名其妙，據印第安人說，她在罵人，這是古阿吉洛語中最粗魯的罵人活。烏蘇娜知道了這一點，就用鞭撻加強治療。所以從來無法斷定，究竟什麼取得了成效——大黃呢，鞭子呢，或者二者一起；大家知道的只有一點，過了幾個星期，雷貝卡開始出現康復的徵象。現在，她跟阿卡蒂奧和阿瑪蘭塔一塊兒玩耍了，她們拿她當做姐姐；她吃飯有味了，會用刀叉了。隨後發現，她說西班牙語象印第安語一樣流利，她很能做針線活，還會用自編的可愛歌詞照自鳴鐘的華爾茲舞曲歌唱。很快，她就似乎成了一個新的家庭成員，她比親生子女對烏蘇娜還親熱； 她把阿瑪蘭塔叫做妹妹，把阿卡蒂奧叫做弟弟，把奧雷連諾稱做叔叔，把霍·阿，布恩蒂亞稱做伯伯。這麼一來，她和其他的人一樣就有權叫做雷貝卡·布恩蒂亞了，——這是她唯一的名字，至死都體面地叫這個名字。