引用

《Love in the Time of Cholera 霍乱时期的爱情》，是哥伦比亚作家、记者和社会活动家加夫列尔·加西亚·马尔克斯代表作之一。

内容简介：

　　小说写一个男人和一个女人之间爱的故事。他们在二十岁的时候没能结婚，因为他们太年轻了；经过各种人生曲折之后，到了八十岁，他们还是没能结婚，因为他们太老了。在五十年的时间跨度中，马尔克斯展示了所有爱情的可能性，所有的爱情方式：幸福的爱情，贫穷的爱情，高尚的爱情，庸俗的爱情，粗暴的爱情，柏拉图式的爱情，放荡的爱情，羞怯的爱情……甚至，连霍乱本身也是一种爱情病。而透过这些爱情，小说表现的是哥伦比亚的历史，是哥伦比亚人自己破坏哥伦比亚的历史。

引用

第六章

    费尔米纳不能想象，她那封在气得发昏的情况下写出来的信，居然被阿里萨认做一封情书。她在那封信里发泄了全部的激怒，情绪激烈，语带讥讽，令人难以忍受，何况还是不公正的。然而，在她看来，跟她受的伤害和侮辱相比，这一切都是微不足道的。这是她两个星期忍辱负重的最后一个行动，以便使自己安宁下来，适应新的环境。她想再次成为原来的费尔米纳，收回半个世纪奴仆般的生活中自己不得不让出的一切。这种奴仆般的生活无疑使她幸福，但是丈夫一死，连一点印迹都没给她留下。她象是在别人家里游荡的幽灵，那房子瞬间变得宽大而凄凉，她在里边百无聊赖地到处徘徊，不断痛苦地自问，谁是真正的亡魂：是死了的丈夫还是她这个未亡人。

    丈夫把她一个人孤单地留在昏暗的茫茫大海里，她无法抑制内心里对他的怨恨。

    他的一切都使她伤心落泪：枕头下的睡衣，象病人穿的平底拖鞋，对他站在镜子前脱衣服的形象——常常在她准备上床时——的回忆，以及他的皮肤的气味——这味道在他死后很长时间还顽固地留在她身上。不管做什么事，她都会边做边停，拍拍额头，因为突然想起了有什么事没有告诉他。时刻都有许多只有他才能回答的问题钻进她的脑子里。有一次他告诉了她一件她困惑不解的事：截了胶的人，能感觉到他们失去的腿上的疼痛和痉挛。如今她也有这类感觉了，她已失去了丈夫，但她感到他仍在身边。

    编剧的第一个早晨，她在床上还没睁眼就翻了个身，想找个更舒服的姿势继续再睡，正是这时，她才觉得他死了。只有此时她才意识到他第一次没有在家过夜。

    在餐桌上，她倒不是因为少了一个人感到孤单，而是由于她莫名其妙地相信，她在和一个已不存在的人一块用餐。她等女儿奥费利亚夫妇以及他们的孩子们从新奥尔良回家后再重新坐在桌子前吃饭，但不是通常的那张桌子，而是一张她让人临时摆在廊里的较小的桌子。她一直没有正正经经地做顿饭。饥饿时，随便走进厨房，把勺子伸进锅里，随便吃一点什么，也不使用盘子，而是一边吃，一边站在小炉子跟前和女仆们说话。她们是她唯一喜欢和更合得来的人。

    然而，无论她如何努力，已故丈夫的形象总萦绕在她的脑海里，不管她在哪儿，也不管她做什么事情，都会使她回忆起他来。虽然在她看来，痛苦是理所当然的，但她也想尽量不沉溺于痛苦之中。她下了狠心将一切触发她回忆起已故丈夫的东西，都从家中清除干净，在失去丈夫的情况下，这是她想出的唯一能使自己依旧在这家里住下去的方法。

    这是一次彻底的大清除。儿子同意将书房的书籍全部拿走，好让她把书房改为缝纫室——她从结婚以后一直没有这样的房间。女儿则同意拿走一些家具和许多她认为很适于在新奥尔良古董行拍卖的东西，这一切使费尔米纳感到宽慰。但她后来知道旅行结婚时所买的东西已成为古董商的文物，又觉得很不是滋味。她不顾佣人们沉默的惊讶，也不管左邻右舍或在那几天中来陪她的朋友们的困惑不解，让人在房后的空地上点起一堆火，把能使她回忆起丈夫的东西一古脑儿烧掉：其中有从上一个世纪以来本城最昂贵最考究的衣服，最精致的皮鞋，比像片更酷肖他本人的帽子，死前最后一次从上面起身的摇椅，以及无数与他的生活紧紧相连并已成为他本人组成部分的物件。她毫不犹豫地做了这件事，这不仅仅为了卫生，并且也坚信丈夫如果在天有灵也会同意她这么做，因为他曾好几次向她表示，死后愿意火化，而不愿被装进针得严密合缝的黑洞洞的雪松木棺材。当然，他所信的宗教不允许这么做。他曾大着胆子试探过大主教的意思，探索一下可能性，但是大主教给了他一个断然否定的答案：这是彻头彻尾的幻想，教会不允许在公墓中设置焚尸炉，哪怕专供异教徒使用也不行。除了乌尔比诺医生想得出来建造这样的焚尸炉外，别人谁也想不到。费尔米纳没有忘记丈夫的那种恐惧，即使在最初几个钟头的懵懵懂懂中，她也没有忘记吩咐木匠在棺材上留一道缝透亮，以此作为对丈夫的安慰。

    无论如何，那都只是些徒劳无益的行动。费尔米纳很快就发现，对亡夫的记忆是如此牢固，没有随着日子的流逝而有所削弱。更糟糕的是，衣服焚毁后，她不但仍旧十分怀念她所爱的丈夫的许多东西，尤为烦心的是她仿佛时刻都听到丈夫起身时发出的那种响声。这些回忆使她摆脱了忧伤。她超脱一切，下决心在回忆已故丈夫中继续生活下去，就当他没有死一样。她知道，每天早上醒来时仍然不是味儿，但是会逐渐好起来的。

    果然，过了三周，她开始看见最初的几道光线了。可是，随着光线的增加和越来越明亮，她渐渐意识到在自己的生活中有一个邪恶的幽灵，使她一刻也不得安宁。

    那个幽灵，已经不是那个当年在“福音”公园偷偷窥视她的令人怜悯的幽灵——使她在步入老年后还经常温情地回忆着的幽灵，而是那个穿着折磨人的长礼服，把帽子压在胸前的令人深恶痛绝的幽灵，他的愚蠢的冒失行为弄得她为此惶惶不安，以致她实在无法不想他。自从她十八岁拒婚以后，她始终相信，播在他身上的仇恨的种子会随着时间的推移而生根发芽。她时刻都感觉到这种仇恨，当那幽灵在附近的时候，她感到仇恨随之在空中飘荡。只要一看见他，她就心慌意乱，六神无主。那天晚上，她丈夫的遗体旁的鲜花还散发着幽香，她认为他那粗鄙的言行只不过是第一步，天晓得这后面隐藏着多少阴险的复仇企图。

    他顽固地出现在她的脑海里，她越想越恨自己。葬礼的第二天，一觉醒来她想起他时，使劲皱了皱眉头，做了个坚定的动作，终于把他从脑海里驱赶了出去。可是，赶走的愤怒旋即恢复，她很快就明白了，越想忘掉他，就越会记得他。于是，她终于为旧情所战胜，鼓起勇气，开始回忆那个未能实现的爱情的梦幻般的时光。

    她尽力回想当时的小公园、折断的扁桃树和他坐在上面向她求爱的长靠背椅是什么样子，似乎这一切都失去了本来面貌。一切都变了，树被砍走，黄叶铺成的地毯也已不见。在被新首的英雄塑像处，人们重新树起了另一个人的塑像，他身着华丽制服，无名无姓，没有日期，也没有对塑像的说明。塑像下有一个很有气派的墩座，里边安装着本地段的电力控制装置。——多年以前她家的房子就已经被卖掉，在省政府手里毁坏得七零八落。

    想象出当时阿里萨的样子，对她并非易事，但要认出雨中那个无依无靠、沉默寡言的小伙子跟站在她面前的这个陈腐的虚弱多病的老头儿是一个人就更不容易。

    这个人完全不顾她的处境，对她的痛苦没有起码的尊重，而是用一种烈火般的侮辱来煎熬她的灵魂，这就逼得她说不出话，透不过气来。

    她在弗洛雷斯?德马利亚庄园呆了一段时间，忘却了林奇小姐给她带来的倒霉时刻后回家不久，伊尔德布兰达表姐来看她了。表姐眼下又老又胖，但显得幸福快活，由大儿子陪着。这儿子跟他父亲一样，曾当过陆军上校，可是由于他屠杀大沼泽地圣?胡安香蕉园工人的不体面举动，受到父亲的斥责。表姐妹两人相见过多次，每次时光都在回想他们相识的日子中慢慢过去。在最后一次来访时，伊尔德布兰达比任何时候都更怀念昔日，流年似水，自己也已上了年纪，不禁百感交集。

    为了回忆往事，她带了一张她们装扮古代资夫人的照片，那是比利时摄影师在年轻的乌尔比诺看中任性的费尔米纳的那个下午给她们拍摄的。费尔米纳自己的那张已经丢失，伊尔德布兰达这张也已消褪得几乎看不清楚，但是透过那张模模糊糊的照片，尚能辨认出她们当年年轻、漂亮的风姿，可惜这一切都已经过去，永远不会再来了。

    要想使伊尔德布兰达不谈起阿里萨是不可能的，因为她一直将他的命运与自己的命运联系在一起。她回想起自从她拍出第一封电报后，再也无法从心中把他那个注定被恋人遗忘的忧伤而瘦小的形象忘掉。费尔米纳曾和他见过许多次面，但没跟他说过话，她不能想象他就是自己第一次爱过的那一个人。关于他的消息统统都传到了她的耳朵里，就家本城所有那些多少有点名气的人物的消息迟早都会传到她耳朵里一样。人们说他从未结婚，因为他跟别人的习惯不一样，可这也没有引起她的注意。原因是对传言她向来不理会，还因为许多男子的这类事常常被传得失去了原有的面貌。相反，她感到奇怪的是阿里萨仍坚持穿他那古怪的服装，用他的奇特的洗涤剂。此外，在他以如此引人注目和体面的方式开辟了一条生活之路之后，仍旧使人感到神秘和费解。她不能相信他就是原来的那位阿里萨。当伊尔德布兰达叹息“可怜的人儿，他受了多少苦哟”时，总是感到惊讶。因为好久以来她看到他时，已经没有痛楚的感情，他的影子已从她心中消失了。

    然而，她从弗洛雷斯?德马利亚镇回来后有一天晚上看电影碰到了他，她的心中油然产生了一种怪异的感情。他跟一个黑种女人在一起，她毫不在意。可她惊讶的是，他居然保养有方，举止潇洒。她没想到，由于林奇小姐突然闯进了她的私生活，发生变化的居然是自己，而不是他。从此时起，二十多年中，她用更同情的眼光继续观察着他。为丈夫守灵的那天晚上，她不仅认为他去那儿可以理解，而且甚至认为那表明他对她的怨恨已经烟消云散：那是一个原谅与忘却往事的行动。所以，当他戏剧性地向她重申在她看来从来没有存在过的爱情时，她大为惊奇。她认为到了她和阿里萨这种年纪，除了凑合着活下去之外，已不能有其它渴望了。

    在象征性地为丈夫举行了火葬仪式后，第一次冲击给她带来的巨大愤怒不但丝毫没有消除，而且还在继续增加，甚至当她感到无力控制的时候，这怒气还朝各个方向扩散开来。更在甚者，她努力减弱对亡夫的回忆，但腾出的记忆空间却逐步以一种无情的方式被隐藏着对阿里萨的记忆的虞美人草坪所占据。就这样，她总是被迫地想着他，越想他就越气，越气就越想他，她觉得实在无法忍受，简直要发疯了。

    于是，她坐到了亡夫的写字台前，给阿里萨激动地写了一封长达三页的信，她在信中把他大骂了一通，并且无情地向他挑战，有意识地做了这件她漫长的一生中最不名誉的事情之后，她才感到了宽慰。

    对阿里萨来说，那三个星期也是极度痛苦的。在向费尔米纳重申爱情的那天晚上，他沿着当天下午被洪水冲坏的街道，漫无目标地游荡，不时惊恐地自问，他刚刚把那只抵挡了他半个多世纪的围困的老虎杀死，现在该拿这张老虎皮怎么办？由于洪水的凶猛冲击，城市处于紧张状态。在一些房子里，半裸着身子的男男女女想从洪水中随便携出点什么东西来。阿里萨觉得大众的那场灾难与自己息息相关。但是，空气是平静的，加勒比天空的星星在自己的位置上一动不动。突然，在无比的沉寂中，阿里萨听出了许多年以前他和卡西亚妮在同一时间、同一街角听到的那个男声唱：“我从桥头回来，满脸沾满泪水。”

    从某种意义上讲，这只歌那天晚上与死亡有点关系，但只是对阿里萨来说是如此。

    他从来没有象当年那样如此思念特兰西托，他想起了她的聪明的话语和用纸花打扮起来的愚弄人的美女的发式。每当他处于灾难的边缘时，他都需要一个女人的庇护，这对他是无法避免的。因而，他去了师范学校，去寻求可以得到的女人。

    他看见在阿美利卡?维库尼亚寝室的一长溜窗户上有灯光。他费了好大的劲，才控制住自己，没有象老祖父一样疯狂地在凌晨两点钟，把那个睡得正香的象他孙女服的女孩从散发着她的鼻息的摇篮里带走。

    在城市的另一端，卡西亚妮独身一人，自由自在，不管在凌晨两点、三点，还是在任何时候，她都愿意给予他所需要的同情。在她失眠的折磨中去敲她的门，这对他来说并不是第一次，但是他懂得，她太聪明，他们又爱得太深，只要他在她怀中哭泣，就只好向她道出悲伤的真实原因。在荒凉的城市中，他象夜游神似的走着，考虑了许久，最后还是觉得去找“双料寡妇”普鲁维登西亚?皮特雷比找任何别的女人更合适。她比他小十岁。他们在上一个世纪就已相识。他们一度没有来往，只是因为她不愿让他看见她现时那副样子：半失眠，老态龙钟。

    一想到她，阿里萨立刻往回走到彭塔纳斯大街，在一个卖东西的拎包里装了两瓶欧波尔图葡萄酒、一瓶泡菜，然后再去看她，实际上他连她是不是在原来的家里，是不是一个人独处，或者是不是还活着都不知道。

    普鲁维登西亚?皮特雷还没有忘记他们的暗号，听到他用指甲抓门她就明白是他来了。开始用这个暗号时他们自以为还年轻，但实际并非如此。她问都没问就给他开门。街上漆黑，他穿着黑呢料衣服，戴着硬帽，蝙蝠式雨伞挂在臂上，几乎让人看不到。她眼神不好，光线又阴暗，自然看不清楚他是谁。但是，她借着金属眼镜架闪出的灯笼般的光亮，立刻认出了他。看上去他象个双手还沾满鲜血的杀人凶手。

    “请收留一下我这个可怜的孤儿吧！”他说。

    为了找个话题，这是他说的唯一的话。他很吃惊，从上一次见面以来，她竟老了这么多，同时他意识到，她也会同样这么看他。但是，他随即又想，过上一会儿，当两个人都从久别重逢的最初惊愕中恢复过来以后，又会慢慢发觉对方身上少了些生活的伤痕，重新觉得都还是象四十年前刚认识时那般年轻。这么一想，他也就得到了安慰。

    “你好象参加了葬礼。”她说。

    确实如此。她也象全市的人那样，从十一点钟起就呆在窗前，观看着自德鲁纳大主教死后所见到的最大、最豪华的送葬队伍浩浩荡荡地通过。那震撼大地的炮声，乱哄哄的军乐声，以及盖过从头一天起就敲个不停的所有大教堂混杂在一起的钟声的葬歌声，将她从午睡中吵醒。她从阳台上看见了穿着仪仗队制服并骑着马的军人，宗教社团，学校队伍，当局人士乘坐的长长的拉下窗慢的黑色旅游车，戴着帽檐插着羽毛的头盔、披着金马披的马拖着的马车，用一等历史性的炮架拖着的盖着旗帜的黄色棺材和排列在最后的一溜老式敞篷马车，它们载着花圈，显得十分活跃。午后不久，这支送葬队伍刚从普鲁维登西亚?皮特雷的阳台前过去，大雨便倾盆而下，人们惊逃四散。

    “真是没有比这更荒唐的死法了！”她说。

    “死可没有荒唐的含义。”他说，然后又伤感地补充道，“在我们这种年纪更是如此。”

    他们坐在平台上面对广阔的大海，看着月亮，月亮四周的光环几乎占据了半个天空，看着远处航船上五颜六色的灯火闪烁不止。他们一边享受着暴风雨后吹来的暖和而带香气的轻风，一边喝着欧波尔图葡萄酒，吃着泡菜和普鲁维登西亚?皮特雷从一个大面包上切下来的面包片。她无儿无女，三十五岁守寡，他们在一起度过了许多类似的夜晚。阿里萨见到她的时候，正是她可以接待任何愿意陪她的男人的时候，哪怕是按小时把男人租来。但他们两人建立起了一种看上去比实际更严肃、更持久的关系。

    虽然她从来没有暗示过，但是如果他愿意的话，她早就会和他举行第二次婚礼了，哪怕是等于把灵魂出卖给魔鬼。她知道要顺从他的吝啬，适应他未老先衰的萎颓，他的古怪的秉性，他的想得到一切而一毛不拔的欲望，是不容易的。可是，话也说回来，没有比他更乐意让女人陪伴的男子了，因为世界上没有第二个男人如此需要爱。可是，世界上也没有比他更油滑的男人了。因此，她对他的爱每次都适可而止，以不干预他自由地去爱费尔米纳的决心为界线。尽管如此，他们的关系，即使在他收拾了一切，使普鲁维登西亚?皮特雷重新与一个来此做三个月生意和旅行的商业代理人结婚后，仍旧保持了许多年。她跟这个商人生有一女四子，可据她发誓说，其中一个是阿里萨的。

    他们只顾交谈，不管时间，因为两人年轻时就习惯了共同分担他们的失眠。如今上了年纪，失眠对他们就更无所谓。虽然阿里萨几乎从不超过两杯，可今夜他已喝过三杯还没有缓过气来。他大汗淋漓，“双料寡妇”劝他脱掉外衣、坎肩和长裤，如果他愿意的话，可以全部脱去，怕什么，归根结底，他们赤身裸体比穿着衣服更能相互了解。他说，要是她脱他也脱，可她不愿意。许久以前，她照过一次大衣柜镜子，突然明白，她已没有勇气让他或任何人看到自己的裸体了。

    阿里萨很兴奋，喝了四杯欧波尔图葡萄酒还没平静下来。他继续谈着过去，谈着对过去的美好回忆，许多年以来这是他唯一的话题，他渴望从过去的历史中找到一条途径，来发泄自己郁积在心头的烦闷，使自己轻松下来。这是他们需要的，他要把一切都讲出来。当他看到天边最初的几道亮光时，便试图以平静的方式跟“双料寡妇”亲近。他似乎偶然地问她：“你现在成了寡妇，又上了年纪，如果有人提出跟你结婚，你将怎么办？”她笑得脸上起了皱纹，反过来问他道：“你指的是乌尔比诺的寡妇吧？”

    阿里萨总是忘记，他最不应该不知道女人们对问题的隐秘比对问题本身想得更多，普鲁维登西亚波特雷尤甚。他被她一针见血的叫人胆寒的话弄得慌了手脚，赶快否认道：“我说的是你。”她又笑了：“骗你的婊子娘去吧！愿她在地下安息。”

    她逼他把一吐为快的事说出来。因为她知道，不管是他，还是别的任何一个男人，都不会在多年久别之后，仅仅为了喝欧波尔图葡萄酒和吃泡菜加面包而在凌晨三点钟叫醒她的。她说：“这事只有一个人极端痛苦时才做得出。”阿里萨败下阵来。

    “这次你可错了。”他说，“今晚我来的目的更确切地说是为了唱歌。”

    “那我们就唱吧！”她说。

    于是，他开始以动听的声音唱起当时的流行歌曲：“拉蒙娜，没有你，我可怎么活。”这一夜就到此结束了。这女人向他表明了她是多么神机妙算，他没敢跟她玩那种禁止的游戏。他走了出去，仿佛到了另一座城市。那里开着六月里最后一株变种大丽花，显得十分稀奇。新修的街道还笼罩在夜幕里，去赶五点早弥撒的寡妇们一个接一个地赶过去。那时，为了避开相遇，是他，而不是她们，不得不走到另一条人行道上去，以免她们看到他止不住的眼泪。这些眼泪不是象他认为的那样，自半夜一直忍着的眼泪，而是从五十一年九个月零四天起就强咽着的眼泪。

    他已经不知道到了什么时候，醒来也不知是在什么地方，只看到对面有个耀眼的大窗户。阿美利卡?维库尼亚和女佣们在花园里玩球的声音使他回到现实中来。

    原来他是在母亲的床上，母亲的卧室原封未动地保存着，他常常在那儿睡觉，在孤独折磨得他坐立不安的时候，这样可以减少一点寂寞，当然这样的时候并不多。床对面是堂?桑乔客店的那面大镜子，只要一看见它，也就等于看见了映在里面的费尔米纳。他知道今天是星期六，因为只有这一天，司机才从寄宿学校把阿美利加?维库尼亚接回家的。他明白了，他不知不觉地睡了一觉，并且做了一个梦，梦到自己睡不着，费尔米纳在满面怒容地注视着他。他一面洗澡，一面想下一步该怎么做。

    他不慌不忙地穿上自己最漂亮的衣服，洒了香水，粘好尖尖的白胡子。一走出卧室，他就从二层楼的走廊上看到了那个穿制服的漂亮姑娘，她正在跳起来接球，那迷人的神态有多少个星期六曾使他激动得发抖，可这天早上却没使他在感情上有丝毫波动，他让她跟他一块走。他带她到了美洲冷饮店，那儿挤满了带着孩子在天花板的大吊扇下吃冰激凌的父母们。阿美利卡?维库尼亚要了一个几层不同颜色的冰激凌，放在一只大玻璃杯中。这是她最喜欢的冰激凌，也是店里最畅销的，因为它能散发一种神奇的烟雾。阿里萨一边喝黑咖啡，一边看着她。她在用一把很长的小勺吃冰激凌，吃得很干净，连底都没有剩下。他目不转睛地看着她，突然对她说：“我要结婚了。”

    她捏着勺子，带着疑惑的神情，看着他的眼睛，马上镇静下来，笑了笑。

    “骗人，”她说，“老头子不会结婚的。”

    那个下午，他们在公园一块看了木偶戏，在防波堤的炸鱼摊上吃了午饭，看了刚到本城的一个马戏团的笼子里的猛兽。在城门那儿买了带到学校去的各种各样的甜食。在城里他们乘敞篷汽车转了几圈，这是为了让她逐渐习惯这样的概念：他现在是她的监护人，而不是她的情夫。尔后，在一阵不停的倾盆大雨中，在敲晚祷钟时他把她准时送到了寄宿学校。星期天，他没有露面，但给她派了汽车，以便她和女友一起出游。从前一个星期开始，他清清楚楚地看到了两人年龄的差距。那天晚上他决心给费尔米纳写封请求谅解的信，哪怕口气硬一些也可以。实际上这封信他第二天才写。星期一，正好在他受了三周的煎熬之后，他被大雨浇得象个落汤鸡似的走进家门，一眼就看到了她的来信。

    那是晚上八点。两个女佣都已躺下，她们点着走廊里唯一的一盏“长明灯”，以便让阿里萨照着亮走进寝室。他知道，他的简单乏味的晚餐已经摆在饭厅的桌子上。但是，多少天以来，他一直没什么胃口，常常胡乱吃点东西作罢。由于看到信，仅有的一点饿意也因为心情激动而消失了。他的手哆嗦着，费了好大劲才点看了寝室的灯。他把泡湿了的信放在床上，点着了床头柜上的小灯。然后，象惯常那样，竭力装得没事似的，使自己平静下来，脱下湿透了的外套，挂到符背上，又脱下坎肩叠好放在外套上。接着，他解下黑丝带和当今已不流行的赛瑞格衣领，把衬衣。

    扣也解到齐腰处，松开了腰带，使呼吸畅通。最后，。地摘下帽子放到窗户旁去吹干。他突然一惊，身体颤抖了一下，他想不起把信放在何处了。他紧张万分，找到时反而吃了一惊，因为他已不记得将信放到床上去了。打开信以前，他先用手绢把信封擦干，注意不让他的名字被黑水湮开。在拆信的同时，他意识到，已经有第三者知情了，因为乌尔比诺的遗憾在丈夫刚刚死了三个星期就匆忙地写信给她的社交范围以外的人，没有通过邮寄，也没有让别人亲自交到收信人手上，而是神秘地象写匿名便条一样从门缝里塞进去。不管送信的人是谁，对这样的事儿都会注意的。

    信封上的浆糊已被水浸湿，不用拆就开了，但里面还是干的，密密麻麻地写了三页，没有抬头，签名是她婚后所用名字的头几个字母。

    他倚在床上，飞速地把信看了一遍，使他惊奇的与其说是信的内容，毋宁说是信的语气，还没看到第二页，他已知道那正是他等着的挨骂的信。他将信展开，放在床头柜的台灯下，然后脱下湿迹难的鞋子和袜子，关上大灯，最后带上岩羚羊皮护须罩，未解农就躺下来，枕在用来当靠背的两个大枕头上，他继续读着信。他把信重新看了一遍，一个字一个字地看，不漏过任何一个字，接着他又看了四遍，直至看得麻木不仁，不知道信上说了什么为止。最后他将信放在床头柜的抽屉里，仰面躺下来，双手交叉枕在脑后。四个小时以内，他的眼睛一动不动地盯着她曾照过的镜子，大气不出，象死人一样。午夜十二点整，他到厨房去煮了一壶浓得跟石油原油似的咖啡，拿到寝室，将假牙放进硼酸水里，这硼酸水时刻都放在床头柜上。

    他又象一块大理石一般躺下来，隔一会儿变换一下姿势，喝一口咖啡，直到第二天早上六点钟女佣送来满满一壶咖啡为止。

    这时候，阿里萨已心中有数，知道该怎样一步一步地走下去了。事实上，他读了那些谴责他的话并不感到难过，也无意去把那些不公道的非难辨个水落石出。他了解费尔米纳的性格和问题的关键，要避免把事情弄得更加糟糕。他唯一感兴趣的是这封信本身给了他机会，并且承认他有权作答复。说得更明确些，是她要他答复。

    这样，生活现在就处于他想把她带去的地方，其余的一切就取决于他了，而他确信，他那半个多世纪的地狱生活还会给他以极其严重的考验，他准备带着更大的热情、更大的痛苦。更深沉的爱情去面对这些考验，因为这将是最后的考验。

    接到费尔米纳的回信后五天，他来到办公室时心里感到空荡荡的，周围出现了一种不常见的现象，没有打字机的响声，而寂静比噼噼啪啪雨点般的打字声更引起人们的注意。不过那是暂时的停顿，当那爆豆般的声音重新开始响起来时，阿里萨不由自主地推开卡西亚妮的办公室的门。他看见她坐在自己的打字机前，那打字机象个活人似的听从她指尖的使唤，她发觉有人在窥视她，以她那奇特而可怕的微笑向门口瞥了一眼，但她没有停下来，而是继续把那段文字打完。

    “请告诉我一件事，我亲爱的母狮，”阿里萨问，“要是你收到一封极不礼貌的情书，你将作何感想？”

    她平日对什么都不在乎，可听了这话，脸上却露出了诧异的神情。

    “天哪！”她惊呼道，“你看，我从来没有遇到过这种事！”

    既然如此，她也就难以作出回答。其实，在这之前，阿里萨没有考虑过这件事，于是他决定一不做二不休，干脆冒险到底。在职员善意的嘲笑中，他将办公室的一架打字机搬到了家里。“老鹦鹉学不会说话。”职员说。卡西亚妮对任何新鲜事儿都爱凑热闹，自告奋勇教他打字。

    但是，从洛塔里奥?特玛古特想按乐谱教他拉小提琴时起，他就反对全面系统的学习方法。当时治塔里奥曾吓唬他说，至少要学一年。能进职业乐队演奏至少得五年。要出人头地，每天起码练六小时。然而，他让母亲给他买了一把盲人小提琴，依照洛塔里奥给他指出的五项基本规则，练了不到一年，竟然敢在教堂合唱队表演，也能在穷人公墓那里给费尔米纳演奏小夜曲，让清风传授给她。如果在二十岁能学会拉小提琴，那还有什么事能难倒他呢。他不懂为什么到了七十六岁就不能学会只用一个指头即可操纵打字机呢!

    他想得果然有理。他花了三天的时间来记熟键盘上字母的位置，又花了六天时间学会一面想一面打字，又用三天的时间在撕坏了半令纸后打出了第一封准确无误的信。在信的开头他放了庄严的称呼：夫人，而自己的签名则用自己名字的第一个字母，象在年轻时洒了香水的信一样。他将信邮寄出去，信封上有哀悼的花饰，这是给新寡的女人写信必须遵守的规矩。信封上没有写寄信人的姓名。

    这封信写了六页，它和过去的任何一封信都不一样，无论是语调、文风还是修辞，都和初恋时的情书边然不同。他的论述是如此合情合理，如此有分寸。在某种程度上说，这是他写得最恰如其分的商业函件。如果在数年之后，用打字机打私人信件几乎被认为是一种侮辱，然而在当时，打字机还是办公室里一种没有自己伦理道德的“动物”，在家庭里广泛使用它尚未载入都市的史册。用打字机书写更象是一种大胆的改革行动，费尔米纳大概就是这么理解的，因为在她收到阿里萨四十多封信后给他写的第二封信中，一开头就首先请求他原谅他的字体难以辨认，因为她没有比钢笔更先进的书写工具。

    阿里萨在信中根本没有提起她寄给他的那封问罪的信，而是从一开始就想采取一种截然不同的方式开导她，对过去的恋情丝毫不涉及。总之，过去的事只字不提，一切从头开始。更确切地说，那是根据自己对男女之间关系的观点和经验以及关于人生的广泛思索得出的结论。他曾经想把这些内容写出来作为精书大全》一书的补充。只是此时，他把这种思考遮掩在一种长者的风度之后，有如老人的回忆录，以便不叫人明显地看出那份爱情文献的实质。他先按旧模式起草了许多底稿，为了不费时费力加以修改，他把它们干脆付诸一炬。他知道，任何常规的疏忽，些微的怀念之情，都可能搅起她心中对往事的痛苦回忆。虽然他预料她在鼓起勇气撕开第一封信之前会把一百封信退给他，可他还是希望退信的事情一次也不要发生。因此，他象筹划一次决战那样，反复斟酌信中的每一个措辞。一切都需与从前的信不同，以便在一个经历了大半生的女人身上激起新的好奇、新的希望和新的兴趣。这封信应该是一种丧失理智的幻想，能给予她渴望得到的勇气，把一个阶级的偏见扔进垃圾堆里。这个阶级不是她出身的阶级，但最后变得比任何其他阶级更象她出身的阶级。这封信应该教会她把爱情想成美好的事情，而不是达到某种目的的手段，而且爱情本身就应该有始有终。

    他清楚地意识到不能指望立即得到答复，只要信不被退回他也就心满意足了、这封信没有退回来，以后的信也没有退回来。随着日子一天天过去，他越来越焦急。

    时间越长，越是不见退信，他就越希望得到回信。他写信的多少，开始取决于他打字的熟练程度。最初每周一封，后来每周二封，最后是每日一封了。他对邮电事业从开创时代至今所取得的进步感到高兴，由于这种进步，他可以天天去邮局给同一个人发信，不必担心被人发现，也不必为找人送信冒风险。派一个职员去买够一个月用的邮票，然后将信塞进老城的任何一个信箱中，这是件很容易的事。很快他就把那一习惯纳入他的生活常现了：他利用夜间失眠的时间写信，第二天去办公室时在街角的信箱前让司机停车一分钟，亲自下车去投寄。他从不让司机代他做这件事。

    一个雨天的早晨，司机想代他投寄，被他婉言拒绝。有时他加倍小心地不是带一封信，而是同时带上数封信出门，以便显得自然些。司机不知情，其实其它的信都是阿里萨寄给自己的一张张白纸。只有作为监护人，每月末给阿美利卡?维库尼亚的父母寄上一封信，谈谈对女孩的精神状态、健康状况以及学习成绩的印象。除此之外，他从未与任何人有私人通信关系。

    从第一个月起，他就开始编号，每封信开头都象报纸上的连载文章那样，对前一封作个小结，生怕费尔米纳不懂信件的连贯性。此外，每日写一封信时，他还将带哀悼标记的信封换成了白色长信封，从而赋予这些信件以一般商业信函的格式。

    从一开始他就耐心地准备接受一次更大的考验，至少在没有确凿的证据使他能意识到自己只不过是用一种不同的方式白白浪费时间之前，他是绝不会罢休的。他死心塌地地等待着，不象年轻时候那样怨恨和消沉，而是以一个混凝土般的老人的固执在等待着。他在内河航运公司没有别的事可想，也没有别的事可干，等待费尔米纳的信就是一切。他确信自己能活下去，而且能活得很好，不管是明天、后天或者更晚，费尔米纳最终会相信，她那孤苦伶仃的寡妇的生活，只有他才能解救，那时他依然会很好地保持着自己的男子气概。

    与此同时，阿里萨仍旧过着正常的生活。他预料会得到一个满意的回答，因此又第二次着手修缮房子，以便房子真的能和未来的女主人相称。他按照自己的许诺，又去看了几次普鲁登西亚?皮特雷，以向她表明，尽管年龄不饶人，他还是爱她。

    这几次，有的是在夜间百无聊赖的时候去的，有的是在大白天她的大门开着的时候去的。他照常从安德雷亚?瓦龙的门前走过，有一夜他发现她浴室的灯关着，他又走了进去。

    唯一的妨碍是他与阿美利卡?维库尼亚的关系。他再次向司机重申了他的命令，让他每星期六上午十时到寄宿学校去接她，但他不知道该拿她怎么办。他头一次没有去，她对这一变化感到十分不悦。他将她委托给女佣，让她们带她去看下午的电影，听儿童公园的露天音乐会，参加慈善摸彩，或者安排她和女同学去玩，以避开把她带到办公室的那座隐蔽的天堂去。从第一次带她去那儿之后，她就老想再去。

    他从未发现，女人可以在三天之内成熟。从他去帕德雷港湾的帆船上迎接她的时候起，至今已过了整整三年。不管他怎么想使这一变化进展得缓慢一些，对她来说仍是残忍的，而且她不懂得这个变化的原因。那天在冷饮店他告诉她，他要结婚，道出了真情，她当时惶惶不安，但过后她又觉得此话实在荒唐，不可能，于是一会儿她就忘得一干二净了。然而，她很快就发现，他的表现象是真的，而且对她支吾搪塞，不加解释，好象他不是比她大六十岁，而是比她小六十岁。

    一个星期六的下午，阿里萨看见她在他的寝室里试着打字。她打得不错，她在学校里有这门课。她已经打了多半页纸，在某个段落有几句话显然反映了她的精神状态。阿里萨躬下身去，趴到她肩膀上看看她到底在打什么。他那男子的热气，断断续续的呼吸以及农服上的香气，顿时使她惶惑起来。她已经不是那个刚到的小孩子了。那时，他给她脱衣服，象哄婴儿似的哄着：喂，小鞋脱下来给小熊穿！真乖，把小衬衣脱下来给小狗穿！听话，把小花衬裤脱下来给小白兔穿！好了，在爸爸脸上轻轻吻一下。可现在不是了。不！现在她已是个地地道道喜欢采取主动的女人了。

    他仍在思念费尔米纳。六个月过去了，什么音信也没有。他在床上翻来覆去，直到天亮，他坠落到另一种失眠的荒野。他想，费尔米纳看到那淡雅的信封肯定会把信打开，也一定会看到和当年其它信上一样的她所熟悉的名字的第一个字母。实际上，她原封不动地把它们扔进了烧垃圾的火堆里。以后的信，她一看信封就做了同样处理，连拆都不拆。总之，不管他绞尽脑汁写出多少信，在她手里都会遭到同样的命运。他不相信会有这样的女人，能抗住一切好奇心，半年中间，每天收到一封信，居然连用什么颜色的墨水写的都不想知道。要说有这样一个女人的话，那只能是她。

    阿里萨感到，老年的光阴不是水平的激流，而是无底的地下蓄水池，记忆力就从那里排走了。他的智慧将慢慢地耗尽。在拉?曼加别墅转悠了几天之后，他才明白，年轻时的那一套，难以敲开被丧事封死了的大门。一天早上，他在电话簿上找一个电话号码，偶然看到了她的电话。他拨了电话，电话铃响了许多次，最后他听出了她的声音，严肃而微弱：“喂2哪一位？”他没说话，把电话挂了，但是那无限遥远的抓不住的声音却刺疼了他的。乙。

    那几天，卡西亚妮庆祝自己的生日，把为数不多的几个朋友请到了家里。阿里萨心不在焉，把鸡汤撒在身上，她将餐巾在水杯中蘸湿，给他擦干净衣领，然后给他戴上一个围嘴，免得他再闹出什么事来。他真象个老娃娃。在用餐时，她发现他好几次摘下眼镜用手帕擦拭泪水。喝咖啡时，他端着杯子就睡着了，她想轻轻地把杯子接过来，可是他羞愧地惊醒说：“我只是闭上眼睛休息一会儿。”卡西亚妮夜里躺下时吃惊地想，他怎么老成这个样子了!

    乌尔比诺医生逝世一周年时，家属发出请柬，邀请亲朋好友出席纪念弥撒，地点在大教堂。迄今阿里萨已经寄出了一百三十二封信，然而没有收到她的只言片语。

    这促使他决定去参加纪念弥撒，即使自己并不在被邀请之列。这是一次奢华而不那么感人的社交活动。头几排是空的，那是一些永久保留的世代相传的座位，靠背上的铜牌刻着主人的名字。阿里萨是最初到达的客人之一，目的是想在费尔米纳必经之路上省个位子。他想，最佳位置应是中殿，就是在那些永久保留位于的后面。可是，那里的人很多，找不到空位子，他不得不坐到穷亲戚们的大厅里去。从那儿他看见费尔米纳由儿子搀扶着走进来，没戴首饰，身穿一件黑天鹅绒的长衫，一大排纽扣从脖子一直到脚尖，象主教的长袍。她肩上搭一块卡斯蒂亚饰边窄披肩，不象其他寡妇那样戴着挂面纱的帽子，就连许多巴望守寡的女人也是戴那种挂面纱的帽子的。未被遮掩的脸上闪着白白的光彩，被外形的眼睛在中殿巨大的技形吊灯下显示出特有的活力。她挺直腰板走看，如此高傲，如此自信，看上去年纪和她儿子一般大。阿里萨站立着，指尖扶在长椅靠背上，一直到昏厥的感觉过去，因为他觉得，他与她不是仅仅隔开七步之远的距离，而是在两个不同的世界里。

    费尔米纳几乎一直站在大祭坛前面的家属位置上，象看歌剧一样，风度不凡地出席弥撒仪式。最后，她却打破了历来的礼拜仪式规矩，没有按当时习惯站在那儿接受人们的再次哀悼，而是自己走过去向每个来宾表示谢意，这是与她的为人十分一致的革新举动。她向大家逐一问候，最后轮到了穷亲戚们。她环视周围，看看有没有需要她打招呼的熟人。阿里萨此时感到有一股神奇的力量将他从中心推了出来，果然，她看见了他。费尔米纳以其社交老手的潇洒风度，丝毫没有犹豫地离开了她的陪伴者，向他伸过手去，露出温柔的微笑对他说：“您来了，谢谢！”

    原来，她不仅收到了那些信，而且怀着极大的兴趣读过了。她从中发现了许多发人深省的道理，从而考虑要继续好好活下去。收到第一封信时，她正和女儿在桌子上吃早餐。她看见是用打字机打的，便好奇地打开了信，一看到签名的第一个字母，她脸上马上泛起红晕，感到热辣辣的。她马上随机应变，将信放到围裙的口袋里，说：“是政府的悼唁信。”女儿感到奇怪：“可悼唁信全都到了呀！”她泰然自若的说：“这是另一封。”她想事后烧掉，免得女儿再问，可她抵不住看上一眼的诱惑。她等待的是对自己那封辱骂信的应有的反驳。其实，在那封信寄出的同时，她自己已感到忐忑不安。可是，从信中庄重的称呼和第一段的意思，她就清楚了在这个世界上发生了点什么变化。结果，她的好奇心变得如此强烈，以致将自己关进寝室，在烧掉之前安安静静地读一下。她一连看了三遍。

    那是对人生、爱情、老年和死亡的思考。这些思想曾经多次象夜间的小鸟似的在她头上扑扇着翅膀掠过，但是当她想抓住它们时，它们却四散飞走，只留下一片羽毛。这些创见就摆在面前，如此清晰，如此简单明了，就象她自己也曾乐意说出来的那样。她又一次感到难过，自己的丈夫已经死了，不能和他一块探讨，就象每天睡觉以前评说当天的某些事情那样。就这样，站在她面前的是一个陌生的阿里萨，他有着一种敏锐的洞察力和远见卓识，这与其年轻时狂热的信件和整个一生的可怜遭遇是不相符的。他的话别出心裁，如跟埃斯科拉斯蒂卡姑妈眼中那种受圣灵启示的男子一样。这么一想，她又象第一次收到他的信时那样害怕起来。但不管怎么说，最使她安心的是，她确信那封信并非重复守灵的那天晚上的粗鲁话语，而是一种打算勾销过去的十分高尚的行为。

    以后的信终于使她平静下来。但她在怀着越来越浓厚的兴趣阅读之后，还是把它付之一炬，尽管在烧掉后她逐渐感到一种无法消除的内疚。就这样，当她开始收到编号的信时，她找到了自己所希望的不将信毁掉的道德上的证据。不管怎么说，她最初的意图并非是把信留给自己，而是等待机会将信还给阿里萨。她认为，对人类那么有用的东西不该丢失。糟糕的是，随着时日的流逝，她还是一封接一封地收到他的信件，平均三、四天就收到一封。她不愿使自己难堪，也不愿写一封信解释——她的矜持不允许她这样做，可她不知道除此之外还有什么办法把信还给他。

    第一年守寡对她来说就足够了。对丈夫的纯洁回忆不再妨碍她的日常活动，不再妨碍她考虑隐私，也不再妨碍她有某些实实在在的想法，而是变成了一种指导和照料她的思想指南。

    有时，在她确实需要他的地方，她会看到他，不象是一个幽灵，而象是一个有血有肉的躯体。她相信他就在那里，还活着，但没有了男子的怪病，没有家长式的指手画脚的苛求，也没有总是要求她以他爱她的方式爱他：不分场合的亲吻，日日夜夜的叙情。确信这一点，使她受到鼓舞。因为这样她就比他活着的时候对他理解得更深，理解他渴望她的爱的心情，理解他迫不及待地要在她身上找到他社交生活支柱的愿望。实际上，他的愿望从来没有实现过。一天，她大失所望，曾这样对他喊道：“你没有看到我是多么不幸吗？”他以他特有的动作摘下眼镜，既不愠怒，也不恐慌，只是用那孩子般无真明亮的大眼睛注视着她，只用一句话就让她知道了他那惊人的智慧的全部分量：“你要永远记住，一对恩爱夫妻最重要的不是幸福，而是稳定的关系。”从守寡最初感到寂寞时开始，她理解了，那句话并不象她当时所想的那样隐藏着卑劣的威胁，而是给他们两人提供了充满幸福的时刻的基石出。

    在多次环球旅行中，费尔米纳看中什么就买什么。她买东西常常出于一时冲动，可丈夫也乐得找出恰当的理由来满足她。这些东西不论在罗马。巴黎、伦敦的玻璃橱窗里，还是在那摩天大楼已开始日益增多，查尔斯顿舞曲震天响的纽约市的玻璃橱窗里，都是美丽有用的。因而，每次到家她都带回五。六个大立柜，立柜上挂着耀眼的金属领，四角包着铜皮，就象神话故事中的棺材一样。她成了世界上最新奇迹的主人，然而这些东西平时锁着并不值钱，只有被她社交范围内的某人看中的一瞬间，才显示出它们的珍贵。这些东西本来就是为炫耀而置，哪怕让别人看到一次。

    她在自己开始衰老前很久，就意识到自己在公共场所里的高傲和虚荣心，人们常常听到她在家中这么说：“这么多破烂，真得好好处理一下，否则连住的地方都没有了。”乌尔比诺大夫嘲笑她这种想法是徒劳无益的，因为他知道，如果腾出空来，很快又会被新添置的东西占据。但是她仍坚持，因为的确没有立锥之地了，何况没有任何一件东西是实用的，如挂着的衬衣、揉成一难压在厨房柜子里的欧式冬大衣，都是长期没用过的。于是，有一天早晨起床时，她感到精神很好，就开始翻箱倒柜，掏空了衣箱，最后拆除了阁楼，对那一堆堆过时的衣服来了一次大扫荡，还有那些根本没有机会戴的时髦的帽子，欧洲艺术家按女皇加冕时穿的式样来设计的鞋子，也都—一作了处理。其实这种鞋子，在这儿是受到高贵小姐们鄙视的，因为它跟黑种女人在市场上买来的在家中穿的便鞋是一样的。整个上午，家里平台都处于紧急状态，一阵阵刺鼻的樟脑球味简直令人难以呼吸。最后她看到那么多扔在地上的丝绸、织锦和金银丝带以及黄狐狸尾巴都要扔进火堆，也不免感到可惜。

    “世上还有许多人没饭吃，”她说，“把这些东西烧掉真是罪过啊！”

    于是焚烧推迟了，而且是无限期地推迟了，东西只不过换了个地方，从特许的位置换到用老马厩改成的剩余物资仓库。同时，腾出来的地方，正如乌尔比诺医生所说，开始又满满地放上了新的东西。这些东西只要放在衣柜里一小会儿后便永远放在里面了，最后则被投入火堆。她说：“应该想出个办法处理那些没有一点用处但又弃之可惜的东西。”正是这样，各种东西以使她自己都惧怕的贪婪，抢占着家里的空间，而人则被挤到角落中去，直到费尔米纳将它们放到看不见的地方为止。

    她并不象自己认为的那样有条有理，而是用一种特殊的绝招，将乱七八糟的东西堆在一起。乌尔比诺逝世那天，人们不得不腾出半间书房，把东西堆在宿舍里，以便有个地方守灵。

    死神从这个家中经过，使问题得到了最后解决。烧掉丈夫的衣服，费尔米纳发现自己并没有什么不安，而且她以同样的勇气继续每隔一段时间就点起一堆大火，把一切都扔进去，不管新的还是旧的，也不考虑富人的妒忌和将要饿死的穷人的报复。最后，她让人把芒果树连根刨出，半点儿不幸的痕迹也不留下，并将活着的鹦鹉赠给新建的市博物馆。只有那时，她才感到能舒畅地呼吸。她现在住在一个她一直梦想的家里，宽敞、舒适，一切都符合自己的心意。

    女儿奥费利亚陪她三个月后回到新奥尔良去了。儿子带着孩子们星期天来家里吃午餐，其它时间有空才来。费尔米纳亲近的女友们，在她最忧伤的时刻过去后，开始来她家串门，在光秃秃的院子对面玩牌，烹调和品尝新菜，让她适应没有他也照样存在的贪婪世界的隐秘生活。来得最经常的女友之一是鲁克雷希哑，这是一个守旧的贵族，费尔米纳一直跟她很好。自乌尔比诺死后，她对费尔米纳更加亲近。

    被关节炎弄得身体僵硬和对自己放荡生活感到懊丧的鲁克雷希姬，不仅是她当时最好的伴侣，而且还时常向她询问有关本城正在酝酿的城建规划的有关问题。这使她感到自己还是有用的，而不是凭借丈夫的影子自己才受人敬重。然而，人们从来没有象此时那样把她与她丈夫紧紧联系在一起，因为他们不再象往常那样称呼她婚前的名字费尔米纳?达萨，而开始叫她乌尔比诺的遗媒了。

    她觉得不可思议。但是随着丈夫逝世一周年的临近，她觉得自己渐渐地进人一种舒服、清新、安静的环境之中——无可非议的风景优美的地方。当时她还不十分清楚，后来几年中也没有很好地意识到，阿里萨写在信中的见解，对她恢复精神的平静帮了多大的忙。正是这些与她的经历相符的见解，使得她理解了自己的一生，去平静地迎接老年面临的一切。纪念弥撒上的相遇是一次意外机会，阿里萨从此知道，由于他那些鼓励性的信，她也准备忘却过去。

   两天以后，她收到了他一封与过去大不相同的信，是手书的，写在亚麻布纸上，信封背面寄信人的全名赫然可见。还是和最初几封信一样，是花体字。和从前一样热情奔放，但是只写了简单的一段，为她在教堂跟他打招呼表示谢意，尤其那招呼是不同于别人的。读过这封信，费尔米纳连续几天非常激动。下一个礼拜四，她便胸怀坦然地去问那个鲁克雷希应，是否由于偶然的机会认识内河轮船的老板弗洛伦蒂诺?阿里萨。鲁克雷希姬做了肯定的回答，说：“是个放荡的魔鬼。”她还重复了通常的说法，说他人很好，从来不找女人。她有一个秘密住处，将夜间在码头上追到的男孩子带到那儿去。费尔米纳从记事起就听到这样的传说，她不相信，也从不放在心上。可是当听到鲁克雷希婉如此确信无疑地重复这种说法的时候，她就急切地要把事情说清楚了。有一个时期，人们传说鲁克雷希灰也是个兴趣与众不同的人。费尔米纳告诉鲁克雷希姬，她从小就认识阿里萨，并说，她记得，他的母亲在彭塔纳斯大街开一个小百货店，在内战期间还收购旧衬衣和床单，拆了作为急救棉出售。最后，她满有把握地下结论说：“这是个正经人，处世十分谨慎。”她如此冲动，以致鲁克雷希娘收回了自己的说法：“归根结底，人家也这么说我。”费尔米纳没有兴趣去问自己，为什么对一个仅仅是自己生活中的影子的男人，如此热情地保护他。她继续想念着他，尤其是当邮差来过而没有把信带来的时候。

    已经整整两个星期没有消息了，有一天，一个女佣惊恐地轻轻把她在午睡中叫醒：“夫人，”女佣说，‘佛洛伦蒂诺先生来了。”

    真的来了。费尔米纳的第一个反映是惶恐。她想，这不行，让他改日找个合适的时间来吧，她现在无法接待他，也没什么好谈的。但是她马上镇定下来，吩咐女仆把他带到客厅去，先送上咖啡，她收拾一下之后再去见他。阿里萨在下午三时烈火般的阳光下站在门口等着，努力控制着自己的感情。他已准备好费尔米纳的婉言拒绝，这一信念倒也使他复归平静。可是传出来的口信使他大为震惊，走进大厅凉爽的荫影之中时，他几乎没时间想一想正在经历的奇迹，腹部立刻充满了疼痛难忍的气泡。他屏住呼吸坐了下来，脑海里又顽固地出现了第一封情书落上鸟粪的该死的回忆。他一动不动地坐在昏暗之中，第一阵寒颤过去后，他决心接受此时的任何不幸，只要鸟粪别再落到他身上就行。

    人人知道，虽然他患有先天性的便秘，多年来肚子还是有三、四次公开背叛了他，使他不得不屈服。只有在这些情况下，以及在其它万分紧迫的时候，他才发现自己喜欢在开玩笑时说的一句话是真的：“我不信上帝，但我怕上帝。”他来不及怀疑：他想着随便祈祷一句想得起来的话，但怎么也找不出来。小时候，有个小孩曾教会他用五头打鸟时嘴里念叨的非常灵验的几句话：“打中，打中，要不打中，就砍你的脑壳，要你的命。”第一次带着一个新弹弓上山时，他试了试，乌真的一下子被打中了。他模模糊糊地想，一件事应该与另一件事有些关系的，于是就以祈祷的热情重复这几句话，可没有取得同样的效果。肠子象一根螺旋轴似的绞动，迫使他从椅子上立起来，肚子的气泡越来越多，越来越疼，最后发出了抱怨声，弄得他出了一身冷汗。送咖啡的女仆被他那苍白得象死人一样的脸色吓坏了。他叹了一口气说道：“太热了。”她打开窗子，以为这样会合他的意，可下午太阳正巧射到他的脸上，他们不得不把窗户又关上。他心中清楚，连一分钟都忍不住啦。正在此时，费尔米纳在萌影中突然出现了，看到他这样，她也吓了一跳。

    “您可以把外衣脱掉。”她说。

    肚子绞得疼痛难忍，但他更感到痛苦的是她会听到他肚子里的叽哩咕嗜声。他强忍住了，说了个“不”字，并且走过去问何时再能见她。她站在那儿，迷惑不解地说：“您不已经在这儿了吗？”她请他跟她到院子里的花坛上去，那儿稍微凉快些。他以在她看来更似一种遗憾的叹息般的声调说：“求求您，明天我来吧。”

    她想起明天是星期四，是鲁克雷希她定期串门的日子，然后她做出了不容他申辩的决定：“后天下午五时。”阿里萨对她表示了感谢，举着帽子作了一个匆忙道别的姿势，未喝一口咖啡就走了。她呆立在大厅中央，不明白刚才发生了什么事，汽车的响声开始在大厅的尽头消失。阿里萨坐在汽车后排的座位上，找了个可以减轻疼痛的姿势，闭上双眼，放松肌肉，痛痛快快地拉起肚子来。那正象重新起死回生一样。司机为他开车多年，对此毫不惊讶，但是到了家门口，司机在为他打开车门时却对他说：“您得小心，弗洛伦蒂诺先生，这象是霍乱呀！”

    然而，那是普普通通的事情。当星期五下午女仆领着阿里萨通过阴暗的大厅进入院内的花坛时，他感谢上帝的恩赐c他看见费尔米纳坐在一张两人小桌旁。她问他要什么茶，巧克力还是咖啡。阿里萨要了杯又烫又浓的咖啡。她吩咐女仆说：“我跟平常一样。”所谓跟平常一样，就是喝混杂起来的各种东方浓饮料，那是专为午睡后提神用的。她喝完茶时，他也喝完了咖啡。他们谈起了几件事，又几次把话题打断，这并非因为他们真的对这些新的话题感兴趣，而是因为他们想避开另外一些不管他还是她都不敢触及的话题。两人都有点害怕，他们都不知道在那个还弥漫着公墓花香的宅院的棋盘格式的花坛上，在离开年轻时代已如此遥远之后，对面临的事情该怎么办。这是半个世纪后，两人首次那么面对面地坐在一起，长时间平静地互相观望着。他们都看出了其中奥妙：他们已成为两位半截身子入土的老人，除一厂对一个短暂的过去的回忆外，没有任何共同之处。过去已不属于他们，而是属于已经消失的两个年轻人，这两个年轻人有可能已经成了他们的孩子。她想，他最终会相信他的梦想是不可能实现的，这将会把他从他不合时宜的言行中解救出来。

    为了避免不快的沉默或不愿涉及的话题，她问了一些很容易回答的有关内河航行的事务。说来令人难以置信，他作为船主，只在多年以前乘船在内河航行过一次，而且那时他与公司尚无任何关系。她不知缘由，以为他会把事情一五一十全告诉她。

    她也不了解内河航运的情况。她丈夫对安第斯山地的空气很反感，找出各种理由，说什么高山对心脏有害呀，有得肺炎的危险呀，人们的狡诈呀，集权的不公正呀，等等。因此，他们跑遍了半个世界，但却不了解自己的国家。

    目前，有一架容克式水上匕机，两名驾驶员，载着六名旅客和邮袋，象铝做的蚂炸一样，在马格达莱纳河流域，从这个村镇飞到另一个村镇。阿里萨评论说：“就象个空中棺材。”她参加过首次气球旅行，一点都未受惊，但她几乎不敢相信，敢于冒那份险的居然是她。她说：“变得不一样I。”她是想说，是她发生I变化，而不是旅行的方式发生了什么变化。

    飞机的响声常常让她吃惊。她曾在解放者逝世百年时看见匕机低飞进行特技表演。其十一架黑得跟一只巨大的兀饺似的，擦着拉?曼加地区的房顶飞过去，在邻近一棵树上碰下I一块翼翅，挂到f电线上。这样，费尔米纳还是没有感觉到飞机的存在。最近几年，她连去领略曼萨尼略港湾美景的兴趣都没有。在那儿，警卫艇把越来越多的渔船和游船赶走，让水上飞机停泊。因而，她这么老了，人家选她带一束玫瑰花去迎接高高兴兴飞来的夏尔?林德贝格时，她不理解，一个如此魁梧和英俊、头发如此金黄的男子，在这么个象皱白铁皮的。由两名机械师推着尾巴帮助起飞的器械里，怎么能升起来呀！这么一架小小的飞机竟能容得下八个人，她反来复去地琢磨，怎么也想不明白。相反，她倒听人说过，乘内河船旅行是件很惬意的事，因为它们不象海轮那么晃动，可有另外一些更严重的危险，象遇到沙滩轮船搁浅和强盗抢劫之类。

    阿里萨告诉她，那都是过去的传奇故事。现在的轮船上，有舞厅，有象旅馆房间一般宽敞豪华的寝舱，寝舱里有卫生间和电风扇。最后一次内战以后，武装抢劫的事就再没有发生过。他还踌躇满志地对她说，这些进步可以说全都归功于他主张的航行自由，鼓励竞争。因为竞争打破了从前的独家经营，出现了三家航运公司。

    它们都很活跃，很繁荣。然而，航空事业的飞速发展构成了对整个内河航运事业的真正威胁。她试图安慰他，说，轮船永远会存在下去，因为飞机似乎是违背自然的，愿意钻进那玩意儿去的疯子毕竟不多。最后，阿里萨谈到了邮政的发展，不管是在运输还是在分发方面，他想引她谈起他的信，但是没有达到目的。

    可是，不一会儿，机会来到了。他们谈话已离题很远。这时，女仆打断了他们的谈话，交给费尔米纳一封刚刚由邮差送来的急信。这类快递邮政开创不久，跟电报使用同一个分类系统。她象往常那样，一时找不到看信的眼镜，阿里萨很平静。

    “不必了吧，”他说，“信是我写的。”

    这话不假，那封信是他头天写的，当时他为第一次见面的失败感到一种难以消除的羞愧，心情十分压抑。在信中，他要求她原谅他没有事先得到允许就去拜访的莽撞行为，并且表示不再去了。未经周祥考虑他就把信扔进了邮筒。当他清醒过来时，要取回信件为时已晚。然而，他觉得没有必要作那么多解释。只是请求费尔米纳别看信了。

    “当然。”她说，“信归根到底是属于发信人的。不是吗？”

引用

Chapter 6

  　FERMINA DAZA could not have imagined that her letter, inspired by blind rage, would havebeen interpreted by Florentino Ariza as a love letter. She had put into it all the fury of which shewas capable, her crudest words, the most wounding, most unjust vilifications, which still seemedminuscule to her in light of the enormity of the offence. It was the final act in a bitter exorcismthrough which she was attempting to come to terms with her new situation. She wanted to beherself again, to recover all that she had been obliged to give up in half a century of servitude thathad doubtless made her happy but which, once her husband was dead, did not leave her even thevestiges of her identity. She was a ghost in a strange house that overnight had become immenseand solitary and through which she wandered without purpose, asking herself in anguish which ofthem was deader: the man who had died or the woman he had left behind.

She could not avoid a profound feeling of rancour toward her husband for having left heralone in the middle of the ocean. Everything of his made her cry: his pyjamas under the pillow, hisslippers that had always looked to her like an invalid's, the memory of his image in the back of themirror as he undressed while she combed her hair before bed, the odour of his skin, which was tolinger on hers for a long time after his death. She would stop in the middle of whatever she wasdoing and slap herself on the forehead because she suddenly remembered something she hadforgotten to tell him. At every moment countless ordinary questions would come to mind that healone could answer for her. Once he had told her something that she could not imagine: thatamputees suffer pains, cramps, itches, in the leg that is no longer there. That is how she feltwithout him, feeling his presence where he no longer was.

When she awoke on her first morning as a widow, she turned over in bed without opening hereyes, searching for a more comfortable position so that she could continue sleeping, and that wasthe moment when he died for her. For only then did it become clear that he had spent the nightaway from home for the first time in years. The other place where this struck her was at the table,not because she felt alone, which in fact she was, but because of her strange belief that she waseating with someone who no longer existed. It was not until her daughter Ofelia came from NewOrleans with her husband and the three girls that she sat at a table again to eat, but instead of theusual one, she ordered a smaller, improvised table set up in the corridor. Until then she did nottake a regular meal. She would walk through the kitchen at any hour, whenever she was hungry,and put her fork in the pots and eat a little of everything without placing anything on a plate,standing in front of the stove, talking to the serving women, who were the only ones with whomshe felt comfortable, the ones she got along with best. Still, no matter how hard she tried, shecould not elude the presence of her dead husband: wherever she went, wherever she turned, nomatter what she was doing, she would come across something of his that would remind her ofhim. For even though it seemed only decent and right to grieve for him, she also wanted to doeverything possible not to wallow in her grief. And so she made the drastic decision to empty thehouse of everything that would remind her of her dead husband, which was the only way shecould think of to go on living without him.

It was a ritual of eradication. Her son agreed to take his library so that she could replace hisoffice with the sewing room she had never had when she was married. And her daughter wouldtake some furniture and countless objects that she thought were just right for the antique auctionsin New Orleans. All of this was a relief for Fermina Daza, although she was not at all amused tolearn that the things she had bought on her honeymoon were now relics for antiquarians. To thesilent stupefaction of the servants, the neighbours, the women friends who came to visit her duringthat time, she had a bonfire built in a vacant lot behind the house, and there she burned everythingthat reminded her of her husband: the most expensive and elegant clothes seen in the city since thelast century, the finest shoes, the hats that resembled him more than his portraits, the siesta rockingchair from which he had arisen for the last time to die, innumerable objects so tied to her life thatby now they formed part of her identity. She did it without the shadow of a doubt, in the fullcertainty that her husband would have approved, and not only for reasons of hygiene. For he hadoften expressed his desire to be cremated and not shut away in the seamless dark of a cedar box.

His religion would not permit it, of course: he had dared to broach the subject with theArchbishop, just in case, and his answer had been a categorical no. It was pure illusion, becausethe Church did not permit the existence of crematoriums in our cemeteries, not even for the use ofreligions other than Catholic, and the advantage of building them would not have occurred toanyone but Juvenal Urbino. Fermina Daza did not forget her husband's terror, and even in theconfusion of the first hours she remembered to order the carpenter to leave a chink where lightcould come into the coffin as a consolation to him.

In any event, the holocaust was in vain. In a very short while Fermina Daza realised that thememory of her dead husband was as resistant to the fire as it seemed to be to the passage of time.

Even worse: after the incineration of his clothing, she continued to miss not only the many thingsshe had loved in him but also what had most annoyed her: the noises he made on arising. Thatmemory helped her to escape the mangrove swamps of grief. Above all else, she made the firmdecision to go on with her life, remembering her husband as if he had not died. She knew thatwaking each morning would continue to be difficult, but it would become less and less so.

At the end of the third week, in fact, she began to see the first light. But as it grew larger andbrighter, she became aware that there was an evil phantom in her life who did not give her amoment's peace. He was not the pitiable phantom who had haunted her in the Park of the Evangelsand whom she had evoked with a certain tenderness after she had grown old, but the hatefulphantom with his executioner's frock coat and his hat held against his chest, whose thoughtlessimpertinence had disturbed her so much that she found it impossible not to think about him. Eversince her rejection of him at the age of eighteen, she had been convinced that she had left behind aseed of hatred in him that could only grow larger with time. She had always counted on thathatred, she had felt it in the air when the phantom was near, and the mere sight of him had upsetand frightened her so that she never found a natural way to behave with him. On the night when hereiterated his love for her, while the flowers for her dead husband were still perfuming the house,she could not believe that his insolence was not the first step in God knows what sinister plan forrevenge.

Her persistent memory of him increased her rage. When she awoke thinking about him on theday after the funeral, she succeeded in removing him from her thoughts by a simple act of will.

But the rage always returned, and she realised very soon that the desire to forget him was thestrongest inducement for remembering him. Then, overcome by nostalgia, she dared to recall forthe first time the illusory days of that unreal love. She tried to remember just how the little parkwas then, and the shabby almond trees, and the bench where he had loved her, because none of itstill existed as it had been then. They had changed everything, they had removed the trees withtheir carpet of yellow leaves and replaced the statue of the decapitated hero with that of another,who wore his dress uniform but had no name or dates or reasons to justify him, and who stood onan ostentatious pedestal in which they had installed the electrical controls for the district. Herhouse, sold many years before, had fallen into total ruin at the hands of the ProvincialGovernment. It was not easy for her to imagine Florentino Ariza as he had been then, much less tobelieve that the taciturn boy, so vulnerable in the rain, was the moth-eaten old wreck who hadstood in front of her with no consideration for her situation, or the slightest respect for her grief,and had seared her soul with a flaming insult that still made it difficult for her to breathe.

Cousin Hildebranda Schez had come to visit a short while after Fermina Daza returnedfrom the ranch in Flores de Mar, where she had gone to recuperate from the misfortune of MissLynch. Old, fat, and contented, she had arrived in the company of her oldest son who, like hisfather, had been a colonel in the army but had been repudiated by him because of his contemptiblebehaviour during the massacre of the banana workers in San Juan de la Ciaga. The two cousinssaw each other often and spent endless hours feeling nostalgia for the time when they first met. Onher last visit, Hildebranda was more nostalgic than ever, and very affected by the burden of oldage. In order to add even greater poignancy to their memories, she had brought her copy of theportrait of them dressed as old-fashioned ladies, taken by the Belgian photographer on theafternoon that a young Juvenal Urbino had delivered the coup de grace to a willful Fermina Daza.

Her copy of the photograph had been lost, and Hildebranda's was almost invisible, but they couldboth recognise themselves through the mists of disenchantment: young and beautiful as theywould never be again.

For Hildebranda it was impossible not to speak of Florentino Ariza, because she alwaysidentified his fate with her own. She evoked him as she evoked the day she had sent her firsttelegram, and she could never erase from her heart the memory of the sad little bird condemned tooblivion. For her part, Fermina had often seen him without speaking to him, of course, and shecould not imagine that he had been her first love. She always heard news about him, as sooner orlater she heard news about anyone of any significance in the city. It was said that he had notmarried because of his unusual habits, but she paid no attention to this, in part because she neverpaid attention to rumours, and in part because such things were said in any event about men whowere above suspicion. On the other hand, it seemed strange to her that Florentino Ariza wouldpersist in his mystic attire and his rare lotions, and that he would continue to be so enigmatic aftermaking his way in life in so spectacular and honourable a manner. It was impossible for her tobelieve he was the same person, and she was always surprised when Hildebranda would sigh:

"Poor man, how he must have suffered!" For she had seen him without grief for a long time: ashadow that had been obliterated.

Nevertheless, on the night she met him in the movie theatre just after her return from Floresde Mar, something strange occurred in her heart. She was not surprised that he was with awoman, and a black woman at that. What did surprise her was that he was so well preserved, thathe behaved with the greatest self-assurance, and it did not occur to her that perhaps it was she, nothe, who had changed after the troubling explosion of Miss Lynch in her private life. From then on,and for more than twenty years, she saw him with more compassionate eyes. On the night of thevigil for her husband, it not only seemed reasonable for him to be there, but she even understood itas the natural end of rancour: an act of forgiving and forgetting. That was why she was so takenaback by his dramatic reiteration of a love that for her had never existed, at an age whenFlorentino Ariza and she could expect nothing more from life.

The mortal rage of the first shock remained intact after the symbolic cremation of herhusband, and it grew and spread as she felt herself less capable of controlling it. Even worse: thespaces in her mind where she managed to appease her memories of the dead man were slowly butinexorably being taken over by the field of poppies where she had buried her memories ofFlorentino Ariza. And so she thought about him without wanting to, and the more she thoughtabout him the angrier she became, and the angrier she became the more she thought about him,until it was something so unbearable that her mind could no longer contain it. Then she sat downat her dead husband's desk and wrote Florentino Ariza a letter consisting of three irrational pagesso full of insults and base provocations that it brought her the consolation of consciouslycommitting the vilest act of her long life.

Those weeks had been agonising for Florentino Ariza as well. The night he reiterated his loveto Fermina Daza he had wandered aimlessly through streets that had been devastated by theafternoon flood, asking himself in terror what he was going to do with the skin of the tiger he hadjust killed after having resisted its attacks for more than half a century. The city was in a state ofemergency because of the violent rains. In some houses, half-naked men and women were tryingto salvage whatever God willed from the flood, and Florentino Ariza had the impression thateveryone's calamity had something to do with his own. But the wind was calm and the stars of theCaribbean were quiet in their places. In the sudden silence of other voices, Florentino Arizarecognised the voice of the man whom Leona Cassiani and he had heard singing many yearsbefore, at the same hour and on the same corner: I came back from the bridge bathed in tears. Asong that in some way, on that night, for him alone, had something to do with death.

He needed Trsito Ariza then as he never had before, he needed her wise words, her headof a mock queen adorned with paper flowers. He could not avoid it: whenever he found himself onthe edge of catastrophe, he needed the help of a woman. So that he passed by the Normal School,seeking out those who were within reach, and he saw a light in the long row of windows in Amica Vicua's dormitory. He had to make a great effort not to fall into the grandfather's madnessof carrying her off at two o'clock in the morning, warm with sleep in her swaddling clothes andstill smelling of the cradle's tantrums.

At the other end of the city was Leona Cassiani, alone and free and doubtless ready toprovide him with the compassion he needed at two o'clock in the morning, at three o'clock, at anyhour and under any circumstances. It would not be the first time he had knocked at her door in thewasteland of his sleepless nights, but he knew that she was too intelligent, and that they lovedeach other too much, for him to come crying to her lap and not tell her the reason. After a gooddeal of thought as he sleepwalked through the deserted city, it occurred to him that he could do nobetter than Prudencia Pitre, the Widow of Two, who was younger than he. They had first met inthe last century, and if they stopped meeting it was because she refused to allow anyone to see heras she was, half blind and verging on decrepitude. As soon as he thought of her, Florentino Arizareturned to the Street of the Windows, put two bottles of port and a jar of pickles in a shoppingbag, and went to visit her, not even knowing if she was still in her old house, if she was alone, or ifshe was alive.

Prudencia Pitre had not forgotten his scratching signal at the door, the one he had used toidentify himself when they thought they were still young although they no longer were, and sheopened the door without any questions. The street was dark, he was barely visible in his black suit,his stiff hat, and his bat's umbrella hanging over his arm, and her eyes were too weak to see himexcept in full light, but she recognised him by the gleam of the streetlamp on the metal frame ofhis eyeglasses. He looked like a murderer with blood still on his hands.

"Sanctuary for a poor orphan," he said.

It was the only thing he could think of to say, just to say something. He was surprised at howmuch she had aged since the last time he saw her, and he was aware that she saw him the sameway. But he consoled himself by thinking that in a moment, when they had both recovered fromthe initial shock, they would notice fewer and fewer of the blows that life had dealt the other, andthey would again seem as young as they had been when they first met.

"You look as if you are going to a funeral," she said.

It was true. She, along with almost the entire city, had been at the window since eleveno'clock, watching the largest and most sumptuous funeral procession that had been seen here sincethe death of Archbishop De Luna. She had been awakened from her siesta by the thunderingartillery that made the earth tremble, by the dissonances of the marching bands, the confusion offuneral hymns over the clamouring bells in all the churches, which had been ringing without pausesince the previous day. From her balcony she had seen the cavalry in dress uniform, the religiouscommunities, the schools, the long black limousines of an invisible officialdom, the carriagedrawn by horses in feathered headdresses and gold trappings, the flag-draped yellow coffin on thegun carriage of a historic cannon, and at the very end a line of old open Victorias that keptthemselves alive in order to carry funeral wreaths. As soon as they had passed by Prudencia Pitre'sbalcony, a little after midday, the deluge came and the funeral procession dispersed in a wildstampede.

"What an absurd way to die," she said.

"Death has no sense of the ridiculous," he said, and added in sorrow: "above all at our age."They were seated on the terrace, facing the open sea, looking at the ringed moon that took uphalf the sky, looking at the coloured lights of the boats along the horizon, enjoying the mild,perfumed breeze after the storm. They drank port and ate pickles on slices of country bread thatPrudencia Pitre cut from a loaf in the kitchen. They had spent many nights like this after she hadbeen left a widow without children. Florentino Ariza had met her at a time when she would havereceived any man who wanted to be with her, even if he were hired by the hour, and they hadestablished a relationship that was more serious and longer-lived than would have seemedpossible.

Although she never even hinted at it, she would have sold her soul to the devil to marry him.

She knew that it would not be easy to submit to his miserliness, or the foolishness of his prematureappearance of age, or his maniacal sense of order, or his eagerness to ask for everything and givenothing at all in return, but despite all this, no man was better company because no other man inthe world was so in need of love. But no other man was as elusive either, so that their love neverwent beyond the point it always reached for him: the point where it would not interfere with hisdetermination to remain free for Fermina Daza. Nevertheless, it lasted many years, even after hehad arranged for Prudencia Pitre to marry a salesman who was home for three months andtravelled for the next three and with whom she had a daughter and four sons, one of whom, sheswore, was Florentino Ariza's.

They talked, not concerned about the hour, because both were accustomed to sharing thesleepless nights of their youth, and they had much less to lose in the sleeplessness of old age.

Although he almost never had more than two glasses of wine, Florentino Ariza still had not caughthis breath after the third. He was dripping with perspiration, and the Widow of Two told him totake off his jacket, his vest, his trousers, to take off everything if he liked, what the hell: after all,they knew each other better naked than dressed. He said he would if she did the same, but sherefused: some time ago she had looked at herself in the wardrobe mirror and suddenly realised thatshe would no longer have the courage to allow anyone--not him, not anyone--to see her undressed.

Florentino Ariza, in a state of agitation that he could not calm with four glasses of port, talkedat length about the same subject: the past, the good memories from the past, for he was desperateto find the hidden road in the past that would bring him relief. For that was what he needed: to lethis soul escape through his mouth. When he saw the first light of dawn on the horizon, heattempted an indirect approach. He asked, in a way that seemed casual: "What would you do ifsomeone proposed marriage to you, just as you are, a widow of your age?" She laughed with awrinkled old woman's laugh, and asked in turn: "Are you speaking of the Widow Urbino?"Florentino Ariza always forgot when he should not have that women, and Prudencia Pitremore than any other, always think about the hidden meanings of questions more than about thequestions themselves. Filled with sudden terror because of her chilling marksmanship, he slippedthrough the back door: "I am speaking of you." She laughed again: "Go make fun of your bitch ofa mother, may she rest in peace." Then she urged him to say what he meant to say, because sheknew that he, or any other man, would not have awakened her at three o'clock in the morning afterso many years of not seeing her just to drink port and eat country bread with pickles. She said:

"You do that only "when you are looking for someone to cry with." Florentino Ariza withdrew indefeat.

"For once you are wrong," he said. "My reasons tonight have more to do with singing.""Let's sing, then," she said.

And she began to sing, in a very good voice, the song that was popular then: Ramona, Icannot live without you. The night was over, for he did not dare to play forbidden games with awoman who had proven too many times that she knew the dark side of the moon. He walked outinto a different city, one that was perfumed by the last dahlias of June, and onto a street out of hisyouth, where the shadowy widows from five o'clock Mass were filing by. But now it was he, notthey, who crossed the street, so they would not see the tears he could no longer hold back, not hismidnight tears, as he thought, but other tears: the ones he had been swallowing for fifty-one years,nine months and four days.

He had lost all track of time, and did not know where he was when he awoke facing a large,dazzling window. The voice of Amica Vicua playing ball in the garden with the servantgirls brought him back to reality: he was in his mother's bed. He had kept her bedroom intact, andhe would sleep there to feel less alone on the few occasions when he was troubled by his solitude.

Across from the bed hung the large mirror from Don Sancho's Inn, and he had only to see it whenhe awoke to see Fermina Daza reflected in its depths. He knew that it was Saturday, because thatwas the day the chauffeur picked up Amica Vicua at her boarding school and brought herback to his house. He realised that he had slept without knowing it, dreaming that he could notsleep, in a dream that had been disturbed by the wrathful face of Fermina Daza. He bathed,wondering what his next step should be, he dressed very slowly in his best clothing, he dabbed oncologne and waxed the ends of his white moustache, he left the bedroom, and from the second-floor hallway he saw the beautiful child in her uniform catching the ball with the grace that hadmade him tremble on so many Saturdays but this morning did not disquiet him in the least. Heindicated that she should come with him, and before he climbed into the automobile he said,although it was not necessary: "Today we are not going to do our things." He took her to theAmerican Ice Cream Shop, filled at this hour with parents eating ice cream with their childrenunder the long blades of the fans that hung from the smooth ceiling. Amica Vicua orderedan enormous glass filled with layers of ice cream, each a different colour, her favourite dish andthe one that was the most popular because it gave off an aura of magic. Florentino Ariza drankblack coffee and looked at the girl without speaking, while she ate the ice cream with a spoon thathad a very long handle so that one could reach the bottom of the glass. Still looking at her, he saidwithout warning: "I am going to marry."She looked into his eyes with a flash of uncertainty, her spoon suspended in midair, but thenshe recovered and smiled.

"That's a lie," she said. "Old men don't marry."That afternoon he left her at her school under a steady downpour just as the Angelus wasringing, after the two of them had watched the puppet show in the park, had lunch at the fried-fishstands on the jetties, seen the caged animals in the circus that had just come to town, bought allkinds of candies at the outdoor stalls to take back to school, and driven around the city severaltimes with the top down, so that she could become accustomed to the idea that he was herguardian and no longer her lover. On Sunday he sent the automobile for her in the event shewanted to take a drive with her friends, but he did not want to see her, because since the previousweek he had come to full consciousness of both their ages. That night he decided to write a letterof apology to Fermina Daza, its only purpose to show that he had not given up, but he put it offuntil the next day. On Monday, after exactly three weeks of agony, he walked into his house,soaked by the rain, and found her letter.

It was eight o'clock at night. The two servant girls were in bed, and they had left on the lightin the hallway that lit Florentino Ariza's way to his bedroom. He knew that his Spartan, blandsupper was on the table in the dining room, but the slight hunger he felt after so many days ofhaphazard eating vanished with the emotional upheaval of the letter. His hands were shaking somuch that it was difficult for him to turn on the overhead light in the bedroom. He put the rain-soaked letter on the bed, lit the lamp on the night table, and with the feigned tranquillity that washis customary way of calming himself, he took off his wet jacket and hung it on the back of thechair, he took off his vest, folded it with care, and placed it on top of the jacket, he took off hisblack silk string tie and the celluloid collar that was no longer fashionable in the world, heunbuttoned his shirt down to his waist and loosened his belt so that he could breathe with greaterease, and at last he took off his hat and put it by the window to dry. Then he began to tremblebecause he did not know where the letter was, and his nervous excitement was so great that he wassurprised when he found it, for he did not remember placing it on the bed. Before opening it, hedried the envelope with his handkerchief, taking care not to smear the ink in which his name waswritten, and as he did so it occurred to him that the secret was no longer shared by two people butby three, at least, for whoever had delivered it must have noticed that only three weeks after thedeath of her husband, the Widow Urbino was writing to someone who did not belong to her world,and with so much urgency that she did not use the regular mails and so much secretiveness thatshe had ordered that it not be handed to anyone but slipped under the door instead, as if it were ananonymous letter. He did not have to tear open the envelope, for the water had dissolved the glue,but the letter was dry: three closely written pages with no salutation, and signed with the initials ofher married name.

He sat on the bed and read it through once as quickly as he could, more intrigued by the tonethan by the content, and before he reached the second page he knew that it was in fact the insultingletter he had expected to receive. He laid it, unfolded, in the light shed by the bed-lamp, he tookoff his shoes and his wet socks, he turned out the overhead light, using the switch next to the door,and at last he put on his chamois moustache cover and lay down without removing his trousersand shirt, his head supported by two large pillows that he used as a backrest for reading. Now heread it again, this time syllable by syllable, scrutinising each so that none of the letter's secretintentions would be hidden from him, and then he read it four more times, until he was so full ofthe written words that they began to lose all meaning. At last he placed it, without the envelope, inthe drawer of the night table, lay on his back with his hands behind his head, and for four hours hedid not blink, he hardly breathed, he was more dead than a dead man, as he stared into the space inthe mirror where she had been. Precisely at midnight he went to the kitchen and prepared athermos of coffee as thick as crude oil, then he took it to his room, put his false teeth into the glassof boric acid solution that he always found ready for him on the night table, and resumed theposture of a recumbent marble statue, with momentary shifts in position when he took a sip ofcoffee, until the maid came in at six o'clock with a fresh thermos.

Florentino Ariza knew by then what one of his next steps was going to be. In truth, the insultscaused him no pain, and he was not concerned with rectifying the unjust accusations that couldhave been worse, considering Fermina Daza's character and the gravity of the cause. All thatinterested him was that the letter, in and of itself, gave him the opportunity, and even recognisedhis right, to respond. Even more: it demanded that he respond. So that life was now at the pointwhere he had wanted it to be. Everything else depended on him, and he was convinced that hisprivate hell of over half a century's duration would still present him with many mortal challenges,which he was prepared to confront with more ardour and more sorrow and more love than he hadbrought to any of them before now, because these would be the last.

When he went to his office five days after receiving the letter from Fermina Daza, he felt as ifhe were floating in an abrupt and unusual absence of the noise of the typewriters, whose sound,like rain, had become less noticeable than silence. It was a moment of calm. When the soundbegan again, Florentino Ariza went to Leona Cas-siani's office and watched her as she sat in frontof her own personal typewriter, which responded to her fingertips as if it were human. She knewshe was being observed, and she looked toward the door with her awesome solar smile, but shedid not stop typing until the end of the paragraph.

"Tell me something, lionlady of my soul," asked Florentino Ariza. "How would you feel ifyou received a love letter written on that thing?"Her expression--she who was no longer surprised at anything--was one of genuine surprise.

"My God, man!" she exclaimed. "It never occurred to me."For that very reason she could make no other reply. Florentino Ariza had not thought of iteither until that moment, and he decided to risk it with no reservations. He took one of the officetypewriters home, his subordinates joking good-naturedly: "You can't teach an old dog newtricks." Leona Cassiani, enthusiastic about anything new, offered to give him typing lessons athome. But he had been opposed to methodical learning ever since Lotario Thugut had wanted toteach him to play the violin by reading notes and warned him that he would need at least a year tobegin, five more to qualify for a professional orchestra, and six hours a day for the rest of his lifein order to play well. And yet he had convinced his mother to buy him a blind man's violin, andwith the five basic rules given him by Lotario Thugut, in less than a year he had dared to play inthe choir of the Cathedral and to serenade Fermina Daza from the paupers' cemetery according tothe direction of the winds. If that had been the case at the age of twenty, with something asdifficult as the violin, he did not see why it could not also be the case at the age of seventy-six,with a one-finger instrument like the typewriter.

He was right. He needed three days to learn the position of the letters on the keyboard,another six to learn to think while he typed, and three more to complete the first letter withouterrors after tearing up half a ream of paper. He gave it a solemn salutation--Seora--and signedit with his initial, as he had done in the perfumed love letters of his youth. He mailed it in anenvelope with the mourning vignettes that were de rigueur for a letter to a recent widow, and withno return address on the back.

It was a six-page letter, unlike any he had ever written before. It did not have the tone, or thestyle, or the rhetorical air of his early years of love, and his argument was so rational andmeasured that the scent of a gardenia would have been out of place. In a certain sense it was hisclosest approximation to the business letters he had never been able to write. Years later, a typedpersonal letter would be considered almost an insult, but at that time the typewriter was still anoffice animal without its own code of ethics, and its domestication for personal use was notforeseen in the books on etiquette. It seemed more like bold modernity, which was how FerminaDaza must have understood it, for in her second letter to Florentino Ariza, she began by begginghis pardon for any difficulties in reading her handwriting, since she did not have at her disposalany means more advanced than her steel pen.

Florentino Ariza did not even refer to the terrible letter that she had sent him, but from thevery beginning he attempted a new method of seduction, without any reference to past loves oreven to the past itself: a clean slate. Instead, he wrote an extensive meditation on life based on hisideas about, and experience of, relations between men and women, which at one time he hadintended to write as a complement to the Lovers' Companion. Only now he disguised it in thepatriarchal style of an old man's memories so that it would not be too obvious that it was really adocument of love. First he wrote many draughts in his old style, which took longer to read with acool head than to throw into the fire. But he knew that any conventional slip, the slightestnostalgic indiscretion, could revive the unpleasant taste of the past in her heart, and although heforesaw her returning a hundred letters to him before she dared open the first, he preferred that itnot happen even once. And so he planned everything down to the last detail, as if it were the finalbattle: new intrigues, new hopes in a woman who had already lived a full and complete life. It hadto be a mad dream, one that would give her the courage she would need to discard the prejudicesof a class that had not always been hers but had become hers more than anyone's. It had to teachher to think of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an endin itself.

He had the good sense not to expect an immediate reply, to be satisfied if the letter was notreturned to him. It was not, nor were any of the ones that followed, and as the days passed, hisexcitement grew, for the more days that passed without her letters being returned, the greater hishope of a reply. In the beginning, the frequency of his letters was conditioned by the dexterity ofhis fingers: first one a week, then two, and at last one a day. He was happy about the progressmade in the mail service since his days as a standard-bearer, for he would not have risked beingseen every day in the post office mailing a letter to the same person, or sending it with someonewho might talk. On the other hand, it was very easy to send an employee to buy enough stamps fora month, and then slip the letter into one of the three mailboxes located in the old city. He soonmade that ritual a part of his routine: he took advantage of his insomnia to write, and the next day,on his way to the office, he -would ask the driver to stop for a moment at a corner box, and hewould get out to mail the letter. He never allowed the chauffeur to do it for him, as he attempted todo one rainy morning, and at times he took the precaution of carrying several letters rather thanjust one, so that it would seem more natural. The chauffeur did not know, of course, that theadditional letters were blank pages that Florentino Ariza addressed to himself, for he had nevercarried on a private correspondence with anyone, with the exception of the guardian's report thathe sent at the end of each month to the parents of Amica Vicua, with his personalimpressions of the girl's conduct, her state of mind and health, and the progress she was making inher studies.

After the first month he began to number the letters and to head them with a synopsis of theprevious ones, as in the serialised novels in the newspapers, for fear that Fermina Daza would notrealise that they had a certain continuity. When they became daily letters, moreover, he replacedthe envelopes that had mourning vignettes with long white envelopes, and this gave them theadded impersonality of business letters. When he began, he was prepared to subject his patience toa crucial test, at least until he had proof that he was wasting his time with the only new approachhe could think of. He waited, in fact, not with the many kinds of suffering that waiting had causedhim in his youth, but with the stubbornness of an old man made of stone who had nothing else tothink about, nothing else to do in a riverboat company that by this time was sailing without hishelp before favourable winds, and who was also convinced that he would be alive and in perfectpossession of his male faculties the next day, or the day after that, or whenever Fermina Daza atlast was convinced that there was no other remedy for her solitary widow's yearnings than tolower the drawbridge for him.

Meanwhile, he continued with his normal life. In anticipation of a favourable reply, he begana second renovation of his house so that it would be worthy of the woman who could haveconsidered herself its lady and mistress from the day of its purchase. He visited Prudencia Pitreagain several times, as he had promised, in order to prove to her that he loved her despite thedevastation wrought by age, loved her in full sunlight and with the doors open, and not only on hisnights of desolation. He continued to pass by Andrea Varn's house until he found the bathroomlight turned off, and he tried to lose himself in the wildness of her bed even though it was only sohe would not lose the habit of love, in keeping with another of his superstitions, not disproved sofar, that the body carries on for as long as you do.

His relations with Amica Vicua were the only difficulty. He had repeated the order tohis chauffeur to pick her up on Saturdays at ten o'clock in the morning at the school, but he did notknow what to do with her during the weekends. For the first time he did not concern himself withher, and she resented the change. He placed her in the care of the servant girls and had them takeher to the afternoon film, to the band concerts in the children's park, to the charity bazaars, or hearranged Sunday activities for her and her classmates so that he would not have to take her to thehidden paradise behind his offices, to which she had always wanted to return after the first time hetook her there. In the fog of his new illusion, he did not realise that women can become adults inthree days, and that three years had gone by since he had met her boat from Puerto Padre. Nomatter how he tried to soften the blow, it was a brutal change for her, and she could not imaginethe reason for it. On the day in the ice cream parlour when he told her he was going to marry,when he revealed the truth to her, she had reeled with panic, but then the possibility seemed soabsurd that she forgot about it. In a very short while, however, she realised that he was behavingwith inexplicable evasiveness, as if it was true, as if he were not sixty years older than she, butsixty years younger.

One Saturday afternoon, Florentino Ariza found her trying to type in his bedroom, and shewas doing rather well, for she was studying typing at school. She had completed more than half apage of automatic writing, but it was not difficult to isolate an occasional phrase that revealed herstate of mind. Florentino Ariza leaned over her shoulder to read what she had written. She wasdisturbed by his man's heat, by his ragged breathing, by the scent on his clothes, which was thesame as the scent on his pillow. She was no longer the little girl, the newcomer, whom he hadundressed, one article of clothing at a time, with little baby games: first these little shoes for thelittle baby bear, then this little chemise for the little puppy dog, next these little flowered pantiesfor the little bunny rabbit, and a little kiss on her papa's delicious little dickey-bird. No: now shewas a full-fledged woman, who liked to take the initiative. She continued typing with just onefinger of her right hand, and with her left she felt for his leg, explored him, found him, felt himcome to life, grow, heard him sigh with excitement, and his old man's breathing became unevenand laboured. She knew him: from that point on he was going to lose control, his speech wouldbecome disjointed, he would be at her mercy, and he would not find his way back until he hadreached the end. She led him by the hand to the bed as if he were a blind beggar on the street, andshe cut him into pieces with malicious tenderness; she added salt to taste, pepper, a clove of garlic,chopped onion, lemon juice, bay leaf, until he was seasoned and on the platter, and the oven washeated to the right temperature. There was no one in the house. The servant girls had gone out, andthe masons and carpenters who were renovating the house did not work on Saturdays: they had thewhole world to themselves. But on the edge of the abyss he came out of his ecstasy, moved herhand away, sat up, and said in a tremulous voice: "Be careful, we have no rubbers."She lay on her back in bed for a long time, thinking, and when she returned to school an hourearly she was beyond all desire to cry, and she had sharpened her sense of smell along with herclaws so that she could track down the miserable whore who had ruined her life. Florentino Ariza,on the other hand, made another masculine mis-judgment: he believed that she had beenconvinced of the futility of her desires and had resolved to forget him.

He was back in his element. At the end of six months he had heard nothing at all, and hefound himself tossing and turning in bed until dawn, lost in the wasteland of a new kind ofinsomnia. He thought that Fermina Daza had opened the first letter because of its appearance, hadseen the initial she knew from the letters of long ago, and had thrown it out to be burned with therest of the trash without even taking the trouble to tear it up. Just seeing the envelopes of those thatfollowed would be enough for her to do the same thing without even opening them, and tocontinue to do so until the end of time, while he came at last to his final written meditation. He didnot believe that the woman existed who could resist her curiosity about half a year of almost dailyletters when she did not even know the colour of ink they were written in, but if such a womanexisted, it had to be her.

Florentino Ariza felt that his old age was not a rushing torrent but a bottomless cistern wherehis memory drained away. His ingenuity was wearing thin. After patrolling the villa in La Mangafor several days, he realised that this strategy from his youth would never break down the doorssealed by mourning. One morning, as he was looking for a number in the telephone directory, hehappened to come across hers. He called. It rang many times, and at last he recognised her grave,husky voice: "Hello?" He hung up without speaking, but the infinite distance of thatunapproachable voice weakened his morale.

It was at this time that Leona Cassiani celebrated her birthday and invited a small group offriends to her house. He was distracted and spilled chicken gravy on himself. She cleaned his lapelwith the corner of his napkin dampened in a glass of water, and then she tied it around his necklike a bib to avoid a more serious accident: he looked like an old baby. She noticed that severaltimes during dinner he took off his eyeglasses and dried them with his handkerchief because hiseyes were watering. During coffee he fell asleep holding his cup in his hand, and she tried to takeit away without waking him, but his embarrassed response was: "I was just resting my eyes."Leona Cassiani went to bed astounded at how his age was beginning to show.

On the first anniversary of the death of Juvenal Urbino, the family sent out invitations to amemorial Mass at the Cathedral. Florentino Ariza had still received no reply, and this was thedriving force behind his bold decision to attend the Mass although he had not been invited. It wasa social event more ostentatious than emotional. The first few rows of pews were reserved fortheir lifetime owners, whose names were engraved on copper nameplates on the backs of theirseats. Florentino Ariza was among the first to arrive so that he might sit where Fermina Dazacould not pass by without seeing him. He thought that the best seats would be in the central nave,behind the reserved pews, but there were so many people he could not find a seat there either, andhe had to sit in the nave for poor relations. From there he saw Fermina Daza walk in on her son'sarm, dressed in an unadorned long-sleeved black velvet dress buttoned all the way from her neckto the tips of her shoes, like a bishop's cassock, and a narrow scarf of Castilian lace instead of theveiled hat worn by other widows, and even by many other ladies who longed for that condition.

Her uncovered face shone like alabaster, her lanceolate eyes had a life of their own under theenormous chandeliers of the central nave, and as she walked she was so erect, so haughty, so selfpossessed, that she seemed no older than her son. As he stood, Florentino Ariza leaned the tips ofhis fingers against the back of the pew until his dizziness passed, for he felt that he and she werenot separated by seven paces, but existed in two different times.

Through almost the entire ceremony, Fermina Daza stood in the family pew in front of themain altar, as elegant as when she attended the opera. But when it was over, she broke withconvention and did not stay in her seat, according to the custom of the day, to receive the spiritualrenewal of condolences, but made her way instead through the crowd to thank each one of theguests: an innovative gesture that was very much in harmony with her style and character.

Greeting one guest after another, she at last reached the pews of the poor relations, and then shelooked around to make certain she had not missed anyone she knew. At that moment FlorentinoAriza felt a supernatural wind lifting him out of himself: she had seen him. Fermina Daza movedaway from her companions with the same assurance she brought to everything in society, held outher hand, and with a very sweet smile, said to him: "Thank you for coming."For she had not only received his letters, she had read them with great interest and had foundin them serious and thoughtful reasons to go on living. She had been at the table, having breakfastwith her daughter, when she received the first one. She opened it because of the novelty of itsbeing typewritten, and a sudden blush burned her face when she recognised the initial of thesignature. But she immediately regained her self-possession and put the letter in her apron pocket.

She said: "It is a condolence letter from the government." Her daughter was surprised: "All ofthem came already." She was imperturbable: "This is another one." Her intention was to burn theletter later, when she was away from her daughter's questions, but she could not resist thetemptation of looking it over first. She expected the reply that her insulting letter deserved, a letterthat she began to regret the very moment she sent it, but from the majestic salutation and thesubject of the first paragraph, she realised that something had changed in the world. She was sointrigued that she locked herself in her bedroom to read it at her ease before she burned it, and sheread it three times without pausing.

It was a meditation on life, love, old age, death: ideas that had often fluttered around her headlike nocturnal birds but dissolved into a trickle of feathers when she tried to catch hold of them.

There they were, precise, simple, just as she would have liked to say them, and once again shegrieved that her husband was not alive to discuss them with her as they used to discuss certainevents of the day before going to sleep. In this way an unknown Florentino Ariza was revealed toher, one possessed of a clear-sightedness that in no way corresponded to the feverish love lettersof his youth or to the sombre conduct of his entire life. They were, rather, the words of a man who,in the opinion of Aunt Escoltica, was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and this thought astoundedher now as much as it had the first time. In any case, what most calmed her spirit was the certaintythat this letter from a wise old man was not an attempt to repeat the impertinence of the night ofthe vigil over the body but a very noble way of erasing the past.

The letters that followed brought her complete calm. Still, she burned them after readingthem with a growing interest, although burning them left her with a sense of guilt that she couldnot dissipate. So that when they began to be numbered, she found the moral justification she hadbeen seeking for not destroying them. At any rate, her initial intention was not to keep them forherself but to wait for an opportunity to return them to Florentino Ariza so that something thatseemed of such great human value would not be lost. The difficulty was that time passed and theletters continued to arrive, one every three or four days throughout the year, and she did not knowhow to return them without that appearing to be the rebuff she no longer wanted to give, andwithout having to explain everything in a letter that her pride would not permit her to write.

That first year had been enough time for her to adjust to her widowhood. The purifiedmemory of her husband, no longer an obstacle in her daily actions, in her private thoughts, in hersimplest intentions, became a watchful presence that guided but did not hinder her. On theoccasions when she truly needed him she would see him, not as an apparition but as flesh andblood. She was encouraged by the certainty that he was there, still alive but without his masculinewhims, his patriarchal demands, his consuming need for her to love him in the same ritual ofinopportune kisses and tender words with which he loved her. For now she understood him betterthan when he was alive, she understood the yearning of his love, the urgent need he felt to find inher the security that seemed to be the mainstay of his public life and that in reality he neverpossessed. One day, at the height of desperation, she had shouted at him: "You don't understandhow unhappy I am." Unperturbed, he took off his eyeglasses with a characteristic gesture, heflooded her with the transparent waters of his childlike eyes, and in a single phrase he burdenedher with the weight of his unbearable wisdom: "Always remember that the most important thing ina good marriage is not happiness, but stability." With the first loneliness of her widowhood shehad understood that the phrase did not conceal the miserable threat that she had attributed to it atthe time, but was the lodestone that had given them both so many happy hours.

On her many journeys through the world, Fermina Daza had bought every object thatattracted her attention because of its novelty. She desired these things with a primitive impulse thather husband was happy to rationalise, and they were beautiful, useful objects as long as theyremained in their original environment, in the show windows of Rome, Paris, London, or in theNew York, vibrating to the Charleston, where skyscrapers were beginning to grow, but they couldnot withstand the test of Strauss waltzes with pork cracklings or Poetic Festivals when it wasninety degrees in the shade. And so she would return with half a dozen enormous standing trunksmade of polished metal, with copper locks and corners like decorated coffins, lady and mistress ofthe world's latest marvels, which were worth their price not in gold but in the fleeting momentwhen someone from her local world would see them for the first time. For that is why they hadbeen bought: so that others could see them. She became aware of her frivolous public image longbefore she began to grow old, and in the house she was often heard to say: "We have to get rid ofall these trinkets; there's no room to turn around." Dr. Urbino would laugh at her fruitless efforts,for he knew that the emptied spaces were only going to be filled again. But she persisted, becauseit was true that there was no room for anything else and nothing anywhere served any purpose, notthe shirts hanging on the doorknobs or the overcoats for European winters squeezed into thekitchen cupboards. So that on a morning when she awoke in high spirits she would raze theclothes closets, empty the trunks, tear apart the attics, and wage a war of separation against thepiles of clothing that had been seen once too often, the hats she had never worn because there hadbeen no occasion to wear them while they were still in fashion, the shoes copied by Europeanartists from those used by empresses for their coronations, and which were scorned here byhighborn ladies because they were identical to the ones that black women bought at the market towear in the house. For the entire morning the interior terrace would be in a state of crisis, and inthe house it would be difficult to breathe because of bitter gusts from the mothballs. But in a fewhours order would be reestablished because she at last took pity on so much silk strewn on thefloor, so many leftover brocades and useless pieces of passementerie, so many silver fox tails, allcondemned to the fire.

"It is a sin to burn this," she would say, "when so many people do not even have enough toeat."And so the burning was postponed, it was always postponed, and things were only shiftedfrom their places of privilege to the stables that had been transformed into storage bins forremnants, while the spaces that had been cleared, just as he predicted, began to fill up again, tooverflow with things that lived for a moment and then went to die in the closets: until the nexttime. She would say: "Someone should invent something to do with things you cannot useanymore but that you still cannot throw out." That was true: she was dismayed by the voracitywith which objects kept invading living spaces, displacing the humans, forcing them back into thecorners, until Fermina Daza pushed the objects out of sight. For she was not as ordered as peoplethought, but she did have her own desperate method for appearing to be so: she hid the disorder.

The day that Juvenal Urbino died, they had to empty out half of his study and pile the things in thebedrooms so there would be space to lay out the body.

Death's passage through the house brought the solution. Once she had burned her husband'sclothes, Fermina Daza realised that her hand had not trembled, and on the same impulse shecontinued to light the fire at regular intervals, throwing everything on it, old and new, not thinkingabout the envy of the rich or the vengeance of the poor who were dying of hunger. Finally, she hadthe mango tree cut back at the roots until there was nothing left of that misfortune, and she gavethe live parrot to the new Museum of the City. Only then did she draw a free breath in the kind ofhouse she had always dreamed of: large, easy, and all hers.

Her daughter Ofelia spent three months with her and then returned to New Orleans. Her sonbrought his family to lunch on Sundays and as often as he could during the week. Fermina Daza'sclosest friends began to visit her once she had overcome the crisis of her mourning, they playedcards facing the bare patio, they tried out new recipes, they brought her up to date on the secretlife of the insatiable world that continued to exist without her. One of the most faithful wasLucrecia del Real del Obispo, an aristocrat of the old school who had always been a good friendand who drew even closer after the death of Juvenal Urbino. Stiff with arthritis and repenting herwayward life, in those days Lucrecia del Real not only provided her with the best company, shealso consulted with her regarding the civic and secular projects that were being arranged in thecity, and this made her feel useful for her own sake and not because of the protective shadow ofher husband. And yet she was never so closely identified with him as she was then, for she was nolonger called by her maiden name, and she became known as the Widow Urbino.

It seemed incredible, but as the first anniversary of her husband's death approached, FerminaDaza felt herself entering a place that was shady, cool, quiet: the grove of the irremediable. Shewas not yet aware, and would not be for several months, of how much the written meditations ofFlorentino Ariza had helped her to recover her peace of mind. Applied to her own experiences,they were what allowed her to understand her own life and to await the designs of old age withserenity. Their meeting at the memorial Mass was a providential opportunity for her to letFlorentino Ariza know that she, too, thanks to his letters of encouragement, was prepared to erasethe past.

Two days later she received a different kind of letter from him: handwritten on linen paperand his complete name inscribed with great clarity on the back of the envelope. It was the sameornate handwriting as in his earlier letters, the same will to lyricism, but applied to a simpleparagraph of gratitude for the courtesy of her greeting in the Cathedral. For several days after sheread the letter Fermina Daza continued to think about it with troubled memories, but with aconscience so clear that on the following Thursday she suddenly asked Lucrecia del Real delObispo if she happened to know Florentino Ariza, the, owner of the riverboats. Lucrecia repliedthat she did: "He seems to be a wandering succubus." She repeated the common gossip that he hadnever had a woman although he was such a good catch, and that he had a secret office where hetook the boys he pursued at night along the docks. Fermina Daza had heard that story for as longas she could remember, and she had never believed it or given it any importance. But when sheheard it repeated with so much conviction by Lucrecia del Real del Obispo, who had also beenrumoured at one time to have strange tastes, she could not resist the urge to clarify matters. Shesaid she had known Florentino Ariza since he was a boy. She reminded her that his mother hadowned a notions shop on the Street of Windows and also bought old shirts and sheets, which sheunravelled and sold as bandages during the civil wars. And she concluded with conviction: "He isan honourable man, and he is the soul of tact." She was so vehement that Lucrecia took back whatshe had said: "When all is said and done, they also say the same sort of thing about me." FerminaDaza was not curious enough to ask herself why she was making so passionate a defence of a manwho had been no more than a shadow in her life. She continued to think about him, above allwhen the mail arrived without another letter from him. Two weeks of silence had gone by whenone of the servant girls woke her during her siesta with a warning whisper: "Seora," she said,"Don Florentino is here."He was there. Fermina Daza's first reaction was panic. She thought no, he should come backanother day at a more appropriate hour, she was in no condition to receive visitors, there wasnothing to talk about. But she recovered instantly and told her to show him into the drawing roomand bring him coffee, while she tidied herself before seeing him. Florentino Ariza had waited atthe street door, burning under the infernal three o'clock sun, but in full control of the situation. Hewas prepared not to be received, even with an amiable excuse, and that certainty kept him calm.

But the decisiveness of her message shook him to his very marrow, and when he walked into thecool shadows of the drawing room he did not have time to think about the miracle he wasexperiencing because his intestines suddenly filled in an explosion of painful foam. He sat down,holding his breath, hounded by the damnable memory of the bird droppings on his first love letter,and he remained motionless in the shadowy darkness until the first attack of shivering had passed,resolved to accept any mishap at that moment except this unjust misfortune.

He knew himself well: despite his congenital constipation, his belly had betrayed him inpublic three or four times in the course of his many years, and those three or four times he hadbeen obliged to give in. Only on those occasions, and on others of equal urgency, did he realise thetruth of the words that he liked to repeat in jest: "I do not believe in God, but I am afraid of Him."He did not have time for doubts: he tried to say any prayer he could remember, but he could notthink of a single one. When he was a boy, another boy had taught him magic words for hitting abird with a stone: "Aim, aim, got my aim--if I miss you I'm not to blame." He used it when hewent to the country for the first time with a new slingshot, and the bird fell down dead. In aconfused way he thought that one thing had something to do with the other, and he repeated theformula now with the fervour of a prayer, but it did not have the desired effect. A twisting in hisguts like the coil of a spring lifted him from his seat, the foaming in his belly grew thicker andmore painful, it grumbled a lament and left him covered with icy sweat. The maid who broughthim the coffee was frightened by his corpse's face. He sighed: "It's the heat." She opened thewindow, thinking she would make him more comfortable, but the afternoon sun hit him full in theface and she had to close it again. He knew he could not hold out another moment, and thenFermina Daza came in, almost invisible in the darkness, dismayed at seeing him in such a state.

"You can take off your jacket," she said to him.

He suffered less from the deadly griping of his bowels than from the thought that she mighthear them bubbling. But he managed to endure just an instant longer to say no, he had only passedby to ask her when he might visit. Still standing, she said to him in confusion: "Well, you are herenow." And she invited him to the terrace in the patio, where it was cooler. He refused in a voicethat seemed to her like a sigh of sorrow.

"I beg you, let it be tomorrow," he said.

She remembered that tomorrow was Thursday, the day when Lucrecia del Real del Obispomade her regular visit, but she had the perfect solution: "The day after tomorrow at five o'clock."Florentino Ariza thanked her, bid an urgent farewell with his hat, and left without tasting thecoffee. She stood in the middle of the drawing room, puzzled, not understanding what had justhappened, until the sound of his automobile's backfiring faded at the end of the street. ThenFlorentino Ariza shifted into a less painful position in the back seat, closed his eyes, relaxed hismuscles, and surrendered to the will of his body. It was like being reborn. The driver, who after somany years in his service was no longer surprised at anything, remained impassive. But when heopened the door for him in front of his house.

引用

第五章

    卡西亚妮具有把秘密玩弄于掌股之上的魔鬼般的才能，她永远知道在恰到好处的时刻出现在什么地方。她精力过人，不声不响，又聪明又温柔。然而，在关键时刻，尽管她内心痛苦，却表现出钢铁般的性格。她从来没有为自己的事动过肝火。

    她的唯一目的，就是不惜任何代价扫清阶梯——如果没有别的办法，就用血去洗——让阿里萨爬到他不自量力的位置上去。出于不可遏制的权欲，她不择手段地那么干着，但她实际的目的纯粹是为了报恩。她的决心如此之大，使阿里萨本人也被她的手段搅得晕头转向了，在一个不幸的时刻，他曾经想去挡住她的道儿，因为他以为她在挡住他的道儿。卡西亚妮使他重新清醒过来。

    “您别搞错了。”她对他说，“您要我走，我就离开这里，不过请您好好想一想。”

    阿里萨的确还没有想过。于是，他尽可能前前后后地思考了这个问题，终于向她缴械投降。实际上，在公司内部危机四伏的那场肮脏的战争中，在提心吊胆的寻花问柳的灾难中，在可望而不可及的对费尔米纳的幻想中，面对那个在白热化的明争暗斗中弄得屎一身、爱一身的泼辣的黑姑娘，阿里萨的冷漠的内心没有一刻平静过。他曾多次黯然伤心，因为她实际上不是他认识她那天下午所想象的那种贱人，否则他会把自己的原则忘得一净，哪怕是火炭般的金元宝，他也要跟她睡上一觉。

    卡西亚妮仍然跟那天下午在驿车上的时候一样，依然满不在乎地穿着那身野妓式的衣服，裹着疯子的头巾，戴着骨雕的耳坠和手镯，戴着那串项链，根根手指上都戴着假宝石戒指。总之，还是流浪街头的那个卡西亚妮。时光在她的外貌上留下的一丁点儿痕迹，更使她平添了几分颜色。她熟透了，女性的妙处更加使人销魂，她那非洲女人的温热的身体，随着成熟显得更加丰满了。阿里萨在十年中没有向她作出任何暗示，以此来为自己在初次见面时所犯的错误赎罪。她呢，在各方面都帮了他的忙，唯独在这方面没有帮过他。

    一天晚上，阿里萨工作到了深夜——母亲去世后他经常如此——正要出门的时候，他看见卡西亚妮的办公室里还亮着灯。他没敲门就推了进去。她果然在那里，独自坐在写字台前，出神地沉思着，表情严肃，新配的眼镜使她带上了学究的气息。

    阿里萨心里激起了一阵幸福的颤栗：就他们两人在楼里，码头上空无一人，城市已进入梦乡，漆黑的夜色笼罩着墨一样的海，一艘轮船发出凄凉的呻吟，它还要再过一个小时才能到港。阿里萨双手拄着雨伞，跟他在那条名叫麦仙翁的小巷子里挡住她的去路时一模一样，但这次是为了不让她看出他的膝盖在微微发抖。

    “告诉我，亲爱的卡西亚妮，”他说，“我们什么时候才能改变这种状况？”

    她并不感到意外，异常镇静地摘下眼镜，阳光般的笑声使他目瞪口呆。

    她还从来没有用“你”称呼过他。

    “唉，阿里萨呀，”她对他说“十年来，我一直坐在这里等你向我提出这个问题！”

    太迟了：在骡马驿车上时曾经有过这样的机会，后来她一直坐在那张椅子上，但现在已经一去不复返了。真的，帮他干了那么多的鬼鬼祟祟的卑鄙勾当之后，为他忍受了那么多的无耻行径之后，她在生活中已经超过了他，尽管他比她年长了二十岁：她为了他而衰老了。她深深地爱着他，她情愿继续爱他而不是欺骗他，虽然不得不突如其来地让他知道真相。

    “不行。”她对他说，“我会觉得我是在跟我幻想中的儿子在一起睡觉。”

    最后的否认不是出自自己之口，这一点使阿里萨觉得芒刺在背。他历来以为，当一个女人说“不”的时候，是在等待别人再坚持，然后才作最后的决定，但跟她打交道却是另外一回事儿，他不能冒犯第二次错误的风险了。他轻轻松松地走了，甚至还带了一点颇为难得的痛快。从这天晚上以后，他们之间可能出现的任何阴影都顺顺当当地冰释了，而且阿里萨也终于明白，他可以成为一个女人的朋友而不必跟她睡觉。

    阿里萨只向卡西亚妮透露了他跟费尔米纳的秘密。由于不可抗拒的自然规律，知道这个秘密的为数不多的几个人已开始把这件事置之记忆之外了。其中有三个已铁定地进了坟墓：一个是他母亲，她在去世之前很久就把这个秘密从记忆中抹去了；第二个是普拉西迪姬，她长期侍候那个几乎被她视为女儿的人，直到高寿才与世长辞；第三个是那位终身难忘的埃斯科拉斯蒂卡，她曾经把他这一生收到的第一封情书失在祈祷书里递给了他，这么多年过去了，她也不可能还活在世上。至于洛伦索?达萨，当时还不知道他是死是活，他为了女儿不被开除，也许曾经向修女德拉鲁丝透露过，但修女不大可能扩散这个秘密。还有伊尔德布兰达以及费尔米纳其他一些野里野气的表姐妹们。

    阿里萨不知道，乌尔比诺医生也应该包括在这张知情人的名单之中。伊尔德布兰达在头几年十分频繁的来访中，有一次曾经向医生透露过这个秘密。不过，她是非常偶然地在一个很不适当的时候提到这件事的，而乌尔比诺医生并非如她想象的那样，左耳进，右耳出。伊尔德布兰达是把阿里萨作为一个据她认为可能在猜灯谜时独占鳌头的隐姓埋名的诗人而提到的。乌尔比诺医生半天没想起阿里萨是谁，她便对他说——其实并不是非说不可，但她说这个的时候没怀一点儿恶意——阿里萨就是费尔米纳出嫁以前唯一的情人。她对医生说起这件事的时候，心里确信这件事是完全无可非议而且又是昙花一现的，甚至可以令人惋惜。乌尔比诺医生瞧都不瞧她就反唇相讥说：“我不知道这个家伙还是一位诗人哪。”随即把他从记忆中抹去了，跟其它事情一起抹去了，因为他的职业已经使他养成了从伦理道德的角度对事情随见随忘的习惯。

    阿里萨发觉，掌握这个秘密的人，除他母亲之外都是属于费尔米纳那一方的，而在他这一方却只有自己一人。他独自背着这重如大山的包袱，许多次需要有人助他一臂之力，但当时谁也不配得到这种信任。卡西亚妮是唯一可信赖的人，只差选定方式和时机了。就在他思索这个问题的那个赤日炎炎的下午，偏巧乌尔比诺医生爬上加勒比内河航运公司的陡峭的楼梯上来了。为了战胜下午三点钟的闷热，他爬一级歇一会儿，走到阿里萨的办公室的时候，已经气喘吁吁，汗水把裤子都湿透了。

    他上气不接下气地说：“我看一场飓风就要来了。”阿里萨在那里见过他好多回，每回都是来找叔叔莱昂十二的，但过去哪一次也没有这一次这么明显地感觉到这个不速之客跟他的生活有某种关系。

    那段时间，也正是乌尔比诺医生度过了职业难关，几乎象个叫化子似的拿着帽子挨门挨户地为他的艺术活动寻求资助的时候。他的最牢固而慷慨的赞助者之一自始至终是莱昂十二，后者当时正巧坐在他的办公桌前的弹簧靠背椅上刚刚开始睡每天不可缺的十分钟午觉。阿里萨请乌尔比诺医生到自己的办公室去坐一会儿，他的办公室紧挨着叔叔莱昂十二的办公室，从某种意义上说，也是叔叔的办公室的前厅。

    他们在各种不同的场合打过照面，但从来没有面对面地呆过，阿里萨又一次恶心地感到自愧弗如。漫长的十分钟。在这十分钟里，他站了三次，希望叔叔能提前醒来，并且喝下了整整一暖瓶纯咖啡。乌尔比诺医生一杯也没接受。他说：“咖啡是毒药。”说完又继续和另一个人接着谈论别的问题，并不担心他的话被旁人听见。

    阿里萨如坐针毡。医生天生俊逸，谈吐流畅而精确，身上隐隐散发着一股樟脑味儿，他英气逼人，谈话左右逢源而高雅，甚至最轻薄的言辞，从他口里说出来，也变得庄重了。突然，医生冷不丁儿把话锋一转：“您喜欢音乐吗？”

    阿里萨感到措手不及。说真的，城里演出的音乐会或歌剧，他场场必到，但他觉得自己无法象行家那样谈论音乐。对流行音乐，”尤其是对伤感圆舞曲，他是心领神会的，这些音乐跟他年轻时的所作所为，跟他偷偷写的诗比起来，可以说是异曲同工，这不能否认。他只要随便听那么一遍，就连上帝的威力也无法把整夜整夜浮现在他脑子中的旋律抹掉。但这不成其为对一位内行提出的十分严肃的问题的严肃的回答。

    “我喜欢加德尔。”他说。

    乌尔比诺医生心里有数了。“不错，”他说，“现在正时髦。”他向阿里萨强调，现在能弄来的节目，同上个世纪那些精彩的节目不可同日而语，真令人寒心。

    事情是这样的：为了请肖邦三重奏乐团到喜剧剧院来演出，他兜售长期票已经一年了，但政界诸公，谁也不知道那三位名人是何许人也。而就在那个月里，拉蒙?卡拉尔特匪警剧团、马诺洛?普雷萨小歌剧说唱剧团和桑塔内拉斯家庭剧团的票都卖光了，这些剧团都是些难登大雅之堂的哑剧——滑稽剧杂拌儿剧团，演员们就在舞台上利用灯光暗转的一瞬间换衣服。连那个自称可以和过去的女舞蹈家怫列斯?贝格雷媲美的丹伊塞?德阿尔泰剧团，乃至那令人作呕的乌尔苏斯剧团——演一个中了邪的巴斯克狂人赤手空拳地斗一条吕底亚公牛的事——的票都卖光了。然而，这也没什么可抱怨的，欧洲人现在不是正在又一次进行野蛮战争吗？我们在半个世纪内经过九次内战以后却开始过上太平日子了。九场内战，说到底，只是一场，始终是那一场。这篇引人入胜的演说，最引起阿里萨注意的地方，不是别的，而是有可能恢复猜灯谜，那是乌尔比诺医生发起的最轰动、影响最深远的一项活动，阿里萨不得不咬住舌头，免得忍不住开口告诉医生说，他本人正是那一年一度的比赛的参加者，这项比赛当时已经开始吸引从国内到加勒比地区其它国家的许多大名鼎鼎的诗人。

    谈话方兴未艾，空气中的热浪突然凉了下来，一场钻来绕去的大风暴把门窗吹得乒乒乓乓，办公室从地基开始咯吱咯吱乱响，仿佛飘在水面上的一叶扁舟。乌尔比诺医生似乎没有察觉这个情况，他顺便提了几句六月份疯狂肆虐的强台风后，就冷不丁风马牛不相及地谈起了他的妻子。他不仅把她视为最热心的合作者，而且把她视为他的动议的灵魂。他说：“没有她我将一事无成。”阿里萨冷漠地听着这一切，微微颔首表示赞同，担心自己的声音失态，什么也没敢出口。不过，听了两三句话之后，他就全然明白了：乌尔比诺医生尽管参加了许许多多劳神费力的活动，却仍然有用不完的时间来崇拜他的妻子，热烈的程度几乎和他相同，这个事实使他迷惘了。但他没有作出反应，因为从他的心里冒出了一股傻气。他的心告诉他，他和他的情敌是同一种命运的牺牲品，共同遭受爱上同一个女人的不幸，他们是挂在同一个车套里的两头牲口。在过去的漫长的二十七年当中，阿里萨第一次觉得心里被刀扎了似的痛楚。为了让自己得到幸福，那个令人崇拜的男人必须死去。

    飓风刮到远处去了，在仅仅十五分钟以内，它已把濒湖的几个区夷为平地，把半边城市吹得房倒屋塌。乌尔比诺医生再次对叔叔莱昂十二的慷慨捐献表示满意，没等风雨完全停息就告辞了。因为心不在焉，他将阿里萨借给他的那把个人专用的雨伞也带走了。阿里萨不但毫不介意，而且还暗自高兴，他在捉摸，如果费尔米纳知道雨伞的主人是谁，将会作何感想。卡西亚妮经过他的办公室的时候，他还沉浸在同医生会见的激情之中，他觉得这是向她吐露秘密的唯一机会了，跟捅掉使他不得安宁的燕子窝一样，要么现在就下决心，要么永远也别捐。他先问她对乌尔比诺医生的印象。她不假思索地回答说：“这个人揽的事很多，也许有点过分，不过我想，谁也不知道他心里在想些什么。”

    停了一会儿，她又沉思了一下，用她又尖又大的牙齿——高个儿黑女人的牙齿——把铅笔的橡皮头一块块地啃下来，最后耸了耸肩膀，打算把这件与之无关的事情一笔勾销。

    “也许他所以干那么多的事儿，”她说，“就是为了免得去想。”

    阿里萨试图打断她的话。

    “可惜的是，他必须死掉。”他说。

    “所有的人都是要死的。”她说。

    “不错，”他接口说，“但这个人比所有的人都更应该死。”

    她压根没弄明白，又耸了耸肩膀，没有答腔，走了。这时，阿里萨明白了，在将来的某个还说不准的晚上，当他有幸和费尔米纳躺在一起时，他就可以对她说，他甚至对这位唯一有权知道的人也没透露过他的爱情的秘密。不，永远也不能透露，连向卡西亚妮也不能透露，这倒不是他不愿意向她打开珍藏这个秘密的匣子，而是直到那个时刻他才察觉，打开匣子的钥匙被丢掉了。

    然而，那天下午最使他震动的还不是这件事。回首青年时代，往事历历在目，每年四月十五日，喧声震耳的灯谜赛会都在安的列斯大厅里举行。他始终是主角之一，但也象在几乎所有的场合一样，他始终是个不露面的主角。二十四年前，从开幕比赛起，他参加过好几次，他从来没中过奖，哪怕中个末等奖。不过，他不在乎，他参加并非出于获奖的野心，而是因为灯谜赛对他具有额外的吸引力：第一次比赛就是由费尔米纳负责打开那些火漆封口的信套，由她宣读比赛获奖者的名单，从那时起，他就决定要参加以后每年的竞赛了。

    第一次灯谜竞赛的那一天夜里，阿里萨躲在半明半暗的靠背椅子后面，焦虑的心情使那朵插在西装翻领扣眼儿里的鲜艳的山茶花也在微微颤抖。他看见费尔米纳正站在古老的国家剧院的舞台上，打开那三个火漆封着的信套。他在心里琢磨，当她发现他是“金兰花”奖的获奖者时，将会发生什么事情。他胸有成竹，她准能认得出他的笔迹来。到了那一瞬间，小公园杏树下面度过的那些如花似锦的黄昏，书信里的振子花的芳香，微风轻拂的早晨为戴王冠的仙女演奏的只有他们两人才听得懂的圆舞曲，都会一齐涌上她的心头。可惜，那样的事并没有发生。更糟糕的是，“金兰花”奖——全国诗歌奖中的最高奖，被一个中国移民夺走了。

    促使作出那非同小可的决定的雷鸣般的欢呼声，使人对竞赛的严肃性产生了怀疑。但评判是公正的，评奖委员会一致认为那是一首出类拔萃的十四行诗。

    没有一个人相信，获奖的那首十四行诗的作者竟会是个中国人。他是上个世纪末在修筑两洋运河期间为了逃避吞噬巴拿马的那场黄热病横祸，和其他许多中国人一起到这里来享其天年的。他们说的是中国话，他们在此地生存着、繁衍着，他们内部完全一模一样，谁也分辨不出他们之间的区别。起初总数不到十人，其中有几个带着妻子儿女和准备食用的狗，但没过几年，这些悄悄地越过海关入境的中国人已挤满了港口附近的四条小巷。他们中间的年轻人匆匆忙忙地变成了儿孙满堂的风烛残年的家长，谁也不明白他们怎么会有时间衰老的。人们凭直觉把他们分成两类：好的中国人和坏的中国人。坏的中国人躲在港口的阴暗角落里，象国王似的吃喝，或者坐在桌子上对着一盘葵花籽烩老鼠肉较然死去，人们怀疑他们是些拐卖女人和无所不卖的人贩子。好的中国人是那些开洗衣店的，他们继承了一种神圣的科学，把旧衬衣退还顾客时洗得比新衬衣还要干净，领口和袖口熨得就象刚刚摊平的圣饼。

    在灯谜赛上击败七十二名训练有素的对手的，就是这些好中国人中的一员。

    费尔米纳头昏脑涨地念出那个名字的时候，谁也没听懂。不仅因为那是个闻所未闻的名字，而且说来说去谁也拿不准中国人到底叫什么名字。好在大可不必为此荣神，那位获奖的中国人已经从包厢后面出现了，脸上挂着中国人提早回家时那种会心的微笑。他对获胜十拿九稳，特意穿着那件过春节时才穿的黄色丝绸衬衣去了。

    在不相信他是作者的人们的震耳嘘声中，他接过那朵十八K的金兰花幸福地吻了吻。

    他在中央站了一会儿，象他们的圣母——显然不如我们的圣母那么做作——的使徒那样镇静自如。当起哄声第一次停下来的时候，他把获奖的诗句念了一遍。谁也没有听懂。但当又一阵嘘声停歇时，费尔米纳用动人的失了音的嗓子冷静地重新朗读了一遍，第一句诗就使人惊叹叫绝。那是一首最正统的高蹈派十四行诗，完美无缺，通篇贯穿着一股沁人肌肤的灵感，仿佛是一位高手帮他捉刀的。唯一有点道理的解释是，某位大诗人有意要同这个灯谜赛开个玩笑，而这位中国人则抱着至死不泄露秘密的决。已去帮他开这个玩笑。商报——我们的传统报纸，试图挽救公民的声誉，发表了一篇与其说是引经据典不如说是生吞活剥的关于中国人的悠久历史，他们在加勒比地区的文化影响以及他们有资格参加灯谜赛的杂文。杂文的作者毫不怀疑十四行诗的作者就是那位自称是作者的人，他直截了当地从题目开始引证：《中国人人皆诗人》。阴谋的策划者们——如果有过阴谋的话——就跟这个秘密一起烂在坟墓里了。获奖的这位中国人活到东方人的天年后死了，至死没有作出交代。他和那朵金兰花一起，装进棺材埋葬了，但也带着没有获得有生之年唯一渴望的东西的痛苦，他唯一的渴念是诗人的令名。为此之故，报界又抛出了早已被忘却的灯谜事件，并配上由手捧金杯的臃肿少女组成的插图，再版了那首十四行诗，诗界的守护神借此机会恢复事情的本来面目：新的一代觉得那首十四行诗味同嚼蜡，由此证明那首诗的确出自这位已故的中国人的手笔。

    在阿里萨的记忆中，始终把那天坐在他旁边的一位浓妆艳抹的陌生女人和这幕闹剧联系在一起。竞赛开始的时候他还注意过她，后来由于在胆战心惊地等待，又把她忘记了。她那珍珠母般的白皙皮肤，富态女人身上飘出来的馨香，她那用一朵假洋玉兰花遮掩着的女高音歌唱家般的巨大的胸部，引起了他的注意。她身穿一件把身体裹得很紧的黑天鹅绒长袍，黑得跟她那急颠颠。热辣辣的眼珠似的。她的头发更黑，用一把吉卜赛女郎的梳子别在后颈上。耳朵上垂着耳环，脖子上挂着跟耳环风格相同的项链，根根手指上戴着一模一样的戒指，所有的首饰都是用闪闪发亮的泡泡钉做的，右脸颊上有颗痣，用口红涂抹过了。在最后那阵嘈杂的掌声中，她带着发自内心的抑郁，看了看阿里萨。

    “相信我吧，我心里真不是滋味儿。”她对他说。

    阿里萨浑身一震，倒不是被这种应该得到的同情所感到，而是由于有人洞悉他的秘密而吃惊。她向他说明：“我在开奖时发现，当时你领口上的那朵花在不住地颤动。”

    她拿出手中的长毛绒出茶花向他示意，并向他敞开了心扉：“因此我才把我那一朵摘了下来。”她说。

    本来阿里萨眼看就要因受挫而掉泪了，但出于夜生活狩猎者的直觉，精神陡然一振。

    “让咱们找个地方去同声一哭吧。”他对她说。

    他陪她回家。走到剧院大门口时，差不多已是午夜。街上人迹责无，他劝说她请他去喝杯白兰地，一起欣赏她提到过的十多年来积累起来的关于社交活动的剪报和照片集。这种花招在当时已经不新鲜了，但这一次他是被动的，因为在他们离开国家剧院的时候她就谈起她的影集。他们进了她的家。阿里萨在客厅里首先观察到的是，卧室的门正敞开着，床很大，铺设华丽，古铜色的床上铺着织锦锻床罩。他惶然了。她大概察觉到他的神情，赶快抢在他前面穿过客厅，关上了卧室的门。然后，请他在一张用印花家具布做的长沙发上坐下，沙发上有只猫在睡觉。她把那叠影集放到客厅中间的桌子上。阿里萨慢条斯理地翻着影集，一边在看眼前的东西，一边主要在思考着下几步的行动。他突然抬起视线，看见她两眼已经泪汪汪。他劝她爱怎么哭就怎么哭吧，不必害臊，因为哭最能减轻痛苦，但又建议她松开乳罩再哭。他忙不迭地去帮她，因为乳罩是用一条长长的十字带缝制的，紧紧地捆在背上。

    他还没来得及帮她解完带子，乳罩就由于内部的压力而自行松开了，高耸如山的奶头自由自在地呼出了一口气。

    就是在最顺手的场合也从来没有消除初次恐惧心理的阿里萨大着胆子用手指轻轻地摩掌她的脖子，她发出一声惯受溺爱的小姑娘的呻吟，扭了一下身子，但没有停止哭泣。他在她的脖子上轻轻地亲了一下，但不等他亲第二日她就把身子转了过来。她的身子硕大无朋，如饥似渴，热气烘烘，两人搂抱着在地上打起滚来。沙发上的猫被惊醒了，一下跳在他们身上。他们象初出茅庐心慌意乱的雏儿一样，注意力更多地集中在躲避那只狂怒的猫上，而没有去注意他们正在做的这件事所可能带来的灾祸上。从第二天晚上开始，他们又继续在一起厮混，持续了好几年。

    他爱上她的时候，她已经四十周岁了，而他还不满三十岁。她叫萨拉?诺丽埃佳，年轻时曾以一本关于穷人的爱情诗集在某次竞赛中获奖，尽管有过一刻钟的春风得意，那本诗集却始终没有出版。她在公立学校里以讲授礼仪和公民课为生，住在泥沙混杂的格茨玛尼老区“请人巷”的一幢租来的房子里。她曾经有过好几个逢场作戏的情人，但那些情人都没有和她缔结姻缘的幻想，因为在她那个环境和她那个时代，男人很少会想到同跟他睡过觉的女人订亲。自从她的第一个名正言顺的未婚夫——她曾以一个十八岁姑娘的全部痴情去爱过他——在预定的举行婚礼的一周之前逃避了自己的诺言，把她置于被遗弃的未婚妻——或者按照当时的术语，叫做“被用过的未婚姑娘”——的尬尴境地之后，她自己早就不抱这种幻想了。这第一次经历虽然残酷而短暂，但给她留下的并不是苦恼，而是一种模模糊糊的信念：不管是嫁人还是不嫁人，不管是没有上帝还是没有王法，要没有个男人在床上，就不值得活下去。

    虽然她和他一样无拘无束，也许还不反对把他们的关系公开，但阿里萨从一开始就把这设计成了一种偷鸡摸狗的关系。他从侧门溜进去，几乎每次都是在夜深人静的时候，又在黎明前跟着脚尖儿溜出去。他和她都明白，在那座住户众多的房子里，不管怎么防范，邻居们表面上似乎不大知情，实际上相当了解底细。然而，阿里萨还是要维持那种表面形式，他有生之年和所有的女人也都是这么搞的。他从来没有失误，不管是和她还是和任何别的女人，都没有留下过什么把柄。确实只有一次，他留下过可能招致后患的痕迹，或者说，留下了书面的招供，几乎使他因此送命。他一直把自己装成是费尔米纳的终身伴侣，一个不太忠实但换而不舍的丈夫，他不断在为摆脱夫妻枷锁奋斗，但又没有背叛过她。

    这种偷偷摸摸不可能不出差错、一帆风顺。特兰西托本人至死都确信这位在爱情中产生又为了爱情而被抚养大的儿子，以为他既然在年轻时遭受过第一次挫折，就不会在任何形式的爱情面前动心。然而，许多和他很接近的而又不怀好意的人，却了解他的鬼鬼祟祟的性格和他对奇装异服以及对各种稀奇古怪的洗涤剂的爱好，于是不约而同地怀疑，他并非对爱情不动心，而是对女人不动心。阿里萨知道他们对他有这种看法，但从来没作任何辩解。萨拉?诺丽埃佳对此也不在意。和阿里萨爱过的无数其他女人一样，甚至和那些并不爱他但使他心满意足而且和他在一起自己也心满意足的女人一样，她知道他只不过是个露水男人而已。

    后来，他爱什么时候到她家里去就什么时候去，尤其喜欢在礼拜日早晨去，礼拜日早晨环境更安静。她停下手里的活儿，不管是要紧的还是不要紧的，全身心地在那张历史悠久的宽大的床上使他满意。那张床总是铺得好好的在等着他。在那张床上，她从来不许讲究礼仪形式。阿里萨怎么也想不透，一个不是过来人的未婚女子，对男人的事情为什么能无所不知。他也琢磨不透，她怎么能那样风情万种、胜任愉快地使唤自己那大海豚似的柔软的身体，仿佛是在水中移动似的。她辩解说：说到底，爱情是一种本能，要么第一次就会，要么就一辈子也不会。阿里萨顿觉兴味大减，心里想，她或许比此时装出来的样子更要久经沙场了。但他又不得不表示，他相信她的话，因为他对她说过那句他对所有的情人说过的话：你是我唯一的心上人。他们最不喜欢的许多事情之一，是不得不让那只狂怒的猫呆在床上。萨拉?诺丽埃佳常常给猫修剪指甲，免得他们被猫爪抓个稀巴烂。

    然而，几乎跟她喜欢在床上闹到精疲力尽一样，她还喜欢把疲乏奉献给对诗歌的崇拜。她不仅对那个时代的爱情诗记得惊人的清楚——新出版的爱情诗，手工装订的小册子，卖二文钱一本——而且还把她最欣赏的那些诗钉在墙壁上，随时放声朗读。她把礼仪和公民课教材编成十一音节的对偶诗，就跟正字法教材一样，可惜没得到官方批准。她朗诵成癖，有时在倒凤颠鸾那一刻还在继续喊叫着朗诵。阿里萨不得不使出全身力气在她嘴上一吮，就象制止小孩啼哭一般。

    在他们水乳交融那个时候，阿里萨们心自问过：哪种状态可能是所谓爱情，到底是在那张巨大的床上呢，还是在礼拜日的宁静的下午？萨拉?诺丽埃佳以一个浅显的理由使他心安理得：不穿衣服所做的事情都是爱情。她说：“心灵的爱情在腰部以上，肉体的爱情在腰部往下。”萨拉?诺丽埃佳觉得这个定义适用于那首叫做不同的爱情的诗。那首诗是他们用四只手谱写的，她拿这首诗参加了第五届灯谜竞赛，满以为别人拿不出这种别出心裁的诗参加灯谜。但她又一次榜上无名。

    阿里萨送她回家的时候，她怨气冲天。她心里有股无名火，断定是费尔米纳搞了鬼，使她的诗不能中奖。阿里萨没有睬她。从发奖开始，他就心情沉郁，他很久没有见到费尔米纳了，那天晚上，他觉得她发生了深刻的变化：第一次一眼就看得出她是为人之母的人了。这对他来说并不是新闻，他知道她的儿子早就上学了。不过，从年龄上看，过去还不太明显，而那天晚上，她的腰身粗了，走路有些气喘吁吁，念获奖名单时的声音也显得底气不足。

    他想清理一下记忆，在萨拉?诺丽埃佳进厨房拾掇的时候又浏览了一遍灯谜的影集。他看了杂志的图片，在门洞里作为纪念品出售的发黄的明信片，仿佛是在回顾假想的自己的一生。到那时为止，他一直想当然地觉得，世界在变，风俗、时尚在变，一切都在变，就是她没有变。但那天晚上他第一次意识到，生活在费尔米纳身上留下了深刻的烙印，而当他自己只顾守株待兔的时候，生活也在他身上留下了深刻的烙印。他从来没同任何人谈过费尔米纳，因为他知道，当他提到她的名字的时候，没法不使嘴唇失去血色。但这天晚上，他跟过去许多次一样，在浏览影集的时候，萨拉?诺丽埃佳心里突如其来地产生了一个能使热血变得冰凉的结论。

    “她是个婊子。”她说。

    她走过阿里萨的身边，看见一副费尔米纳在一次面具舞会上化装成黑豹的图片时，说了这样一句话。不用提任何人的名字，阿里萨就会知道她指的是谁。担心她揭出搅乱他的生活的老底来，阿里萨急忙进行了有分寸的辩护。他提醒她说，他只是拐了几个弯才认识费尔米纳的，他们从来没超出过点头招呼的界限，他对她的私生活一无所知，但他肯定说，她是个受人尊敬的女人，是白手起家，通过自己的努力而登上龙门的。

    “通过和一个她所不爱的男人的利害关系的婚姻和施舍。”萨拉?诺丽埃佳截断了他的话，“这是当婊子的最下贱的做法。”

    阿里萨的母亲为了安慰他的失恋，也对他说过同样的话，虽然没有这样粗鲁，但说得同样斩钉截铁。阿里萨一阵慌乱，直透骨髓，一时找不到适当的语言来反驳萨拉?诺丽埃佳的尖酸刻薄的话，直想绕开话题。但萨拉?诺丽埃佳怒气未消，不让他打岔。因为某种说不清道不白的直觉，她认定费尔米纳是阻挠她得奖的阴谋的罪魁祸首。这一点当然没有理由成立，因为她们互不相识，从来没见过面，而且就算费尔米纳了解竞赛的幕后情况，也无权作出授奖的决定。萨拉?诺丽埃佳不容置辩地说：“我们女人的感觉是很灵的。”说完就停止了争论。

    从这时起，阿里萨就对她另眼相看了。对她来说，岁月也在流逝。她的丰腴的身体不知不觉地枯萎了，她的情欲在抽泣中姗姗来迟，她的眼皮也开始出现陈年痛苦的阴影。她已经是人老珠黄了。另外，因失败面怒火中烧，她没有留意喝下多少杯白兰地。她已经不是五年前那天晚上的模样了。两人正在吃椰油炒饭，她试图细算那首两人合作但后来没有中选的诗到底谁写了几行，以便一旦知道获奖，两人该各分几片金兰花的花瓣。做这种无聊的游戏对他们来说已不是第一次了，但阿里萨却利用这个机会去舔刚裂开的伤口，他们在这场鸡毛蒜皮的争论中纠缠不休，各自爱情的五年来的积怨终于解决了。

    差十分十二点的时候，萨拉?诺丽埃佳爬到椅子上去给挂钟上弦，把闹铃对好了。也许她是想无声地告诉他，他该走了。阿里萨觉得，他必须赶紧把这种没有爱情的关系一刀两断，他在伺机采取主动，这是他一贯的做法。他祈求上帝：让萨拉?诺丽埃佳请他躺到床上去，对他说别走吧，我们中间的一切误会都已经烟消云散了，等上完弦以后，她就会请他去坐在她身边。可是，她却离得远远的，在会客用的椅子上坐下了。阿里萨把被白兰地浸湿了的食指伸出去，让她吮，往常他总爱这么做。这次她躲开了。

    “现在不。”她说，“我在等一个人。”

    自从被费尔米纳拒绝以后，阿里萨就学乖了，使总是使自己处在作最后决定的主动地位。如果是在不那么痛苦的情况下，他肯定会去纠缠萨拉?诺丽埃佳，确信会和她到床上去搂抱打滚，度过那个夜晚，因为他相信，一个女人和男人睡过一次党，她就会继续在这个男人愿意的时候和他睡，只要这个男人懂得返她就行。基于这个信念，他忍受了一切，就是在最肮脏的爱情交易中，他也一切都在所不惜。只要是能不给生下来就是女人的女人以下最后决心的机会，但那天晚上他觉得自尊心受到了忍无可忍的伤害，便把白兰地一饮而尽，尽可能表现出怒气冲冲的样子，不辞而别了。他们再没有见过面。

    萨拉?诺丽埃佳虽然不是阿里萨那五年中唯一的女人，但却是和他保持最长久最稳定关系的女人之一。他发现，跟萨拉?诺丽埃佳在一起的时候，虽然在床上的时候过得痛快，但永远无法用她来替代费尔米纳，便又开始去干独来独往地在夜间猎取女人的勾当。他把时间和最大限度的精力安排在每天晚上。萨拉?诺丽埃佳一度创造了使他减轻对费尔米纳的思念的奇迹。至少，不看见费尔米纳他也可以活着。

    这跟过去是不同的，过去他随时会停下手里干着的事情，到他预感她有可能出现的那些靠不住的地方，到最意想不到的那些街头巷尾，甚至到现实中并不存在，她也根本不可能涉足的地方去找她，为了哪怕看她一眼，他漫无目的地逛来逛去，心里急得跟猫抓似的。同萨拉?诺丽埃佳决裂之后，对费尔米纳的思念又苏醒过来了，使他坐卧不宁。他又一次觉得，仿佛自己又坐在小公园里，看着永远看不完的书。

    但这一次，这种感觉因盼望乌尔比诺医生立即一命归阴而更加强烈了。

    很久以前，他就知道，命中注定他会把幸福带给一个寡妇，而寡妇也会把幸福带给他，他对此深信不疑。他做好了准备。在独来独往地猎取女人的生涯中，阿里萨对寡妇们了若指掌，他知道到处都是幸福的寡妇。他见过她们表示愿意装进丈夫那口棺材里活活埋掉，免得在没有丈夫的情况下去对付今后的恶运，但随着她们对新的处境的逐渐适应，她们又返老还童了。起初，她们象幻影般地住在空荡荡的住宅里，向女佣们倾诉衷曲，俄沂地躺在枕头上不想起床，在无所事事地囚禁了多年之后依然无所事事。为了消磨时间，她们在已故的丈夫的衣服上钉上过去从来没言时间去钉的扣子，为领口和袖日上蜡，把它们熨得平平整整。她们继续在浴室里为丈夫摆上肥皂，铺上带有丈夫姓氏缩写的床罩，在饭桌上丈夫坐的地方摆上刀叉盘子，好象他们会死而复生，没有通知就突然返回家来，就跟他们活着的时候经常这么做似的。然而，在不仅忘却了丈夫的姓氏，而且也忘却了自己的身分之后，她们在独自去做弥撒时又慢慢觉得自己成了自我意志的主宰了，而这一切都是以一个信念——一个在处女时代就存在的幻想——作为交换条件的。只有她们才知道，她们发疯地爱着的那个人——也许他也爱着她们——的分量，但她们得继续抚养他，给他喂奶，给他换湿了的尿布，用母性的语言哄他们，鼓励他们早晨出门的时候别胆怯，直到最后一息。然而，当她们看见他在自己的怂恿下真的出去闯荡世界的时候，她们又提心吊胆起来，害怕他永远也回不来了。这就是生活。爱情，如果真有爱情的话，那是另一回事，另一个生命。

    在孤独的寂寞中，相反，寡妇们发现，老老实实地生活全凭身体的指挥，饿了才吃，不用说假话而爱，不必因逃避被人指摘不遵妇道而装睡，有权占有整张床席，没有人同她争一半床单，一半空气。一半属于她的夜晚，甚至睡梦也是自由自在的，该醒的时候就醒了。在外出偷情的黎明，阿里萨碰见寡妇们做完五点钟的弥撒出来。

    一身黑衣，肩上披着寡妇的黑纱。晨曦中，他看见她们穿街过巷，迈着碎步从一条人行道走上另一条人行道——那是小鸟般的步伐，因为单是贴近男人身边走过，就会玷污她们的名誉。然而他坚信，没有慰藉的寡妇，更甚于任何其他女人，是很容易把幸福的种子撒到她们心中去的。

    他一生中接触过许许多多寡妇，从纳萨雷特的遗孀开始，使他懂得，结过婚的女人，在丈夫亡故之后是何等幸福。到当时为止对他来说还纯粹是个幻想的东西，亏了这些寡妇，把它变成可以用手捕捉的可能性了。没有理由认为，费尔米纳和其他寡妇有什么不同，生活教育了她，她会接受他的，不管他是什么样子，她心中不会有对死去的丈夫犯罪的阴影，她将毅然决然地和他去发现两度幸福的另一种幸福，一种是能把生活中的每时每刻变成奇迹的普通的爱情，另一种是因死神的豁免，出污泥而不染地洁身自好地保留下来的爱情。

    要是他怀疑过费尔米纳在他的如意算盘中离得是多么遥远，也许他不会那么热情贲涨。费尔米纳还只刚刚看见一个一切都已安排妥当，恰恰没有突变的世界在她面前展现。在那个时代，做个有钱人有许多好处，当然也有许多坏处。但普天下有一半人梦寐以求的是尽可能永远做个有钱人。因为不成熟，费尔米纳拒绝了阿里萨，她马上就追悔莫及，可她从来没有怀疑过自己的抉择是正确的。当时，她闹不清是理智中的哪些隐藏的原因使她心明眼亮了，但许多年之后，也就是在行将进入暮年之前，她突然在一次偶然提及的关于阿里萨的谈话中发现了。参加谈话的人都知道，阿里萨是正处于鼎盛时期的加勒比内河航运公司的继承人，所有的人都振振有词地说自己见过他许多次，甚至跟他打过交道，但没有一个人能想起他是副什么模样。

    这时，费尔米纳发现了妨碍她爱他的没有意识到的原因。她说：“他好象不是一个人，而是一个影子。”是的，他是某个人的影子，而这个人从来就没有人了解过。

    不过，当她在抵御乌尔比诺医生——医生是个和他恰恰相反的人——的追求的时候，她却被罪过的阴影弄得心神不定：这是她无法忍受的唯一的一种感觉。当她觉得这种感觉向她袭来的时候，她被一种慌乱抓住了，只有碰见能减轻她良心的压力的人才能控制住这种慌乱。从很小的时候开始，她在厨房里打碎了一只盘子，或者看到有人跌跤，或者自己在门缝里挤了一根手指头，她总是惊慌失措地跑到离她最近的大人跟前，归咎于他：“都是你。”虽然她对谁是肇事者并不关心，也并不确信自己是无辜的，反正能把罪过推开就够了。

    这个阴影非常明显，势将危及家庭的和谐，乌尔比诺医生及时地发现了。他发现后，就赶忙对妻子说：“别难过，亲爱的，那是我的错。”他最担心的，莫过于妻子作出突然的、不可更改的决定，而且他深信，发生这种事情的根源都是因为一种罪过的感觉。然而，理清阿里萨这团乱麻，不是一句宽心话就能解决的。长达好几个月之久，早晨，费尔米钢打开阳台的窗户，就得使劲赶走脑子里那个坐在幽静的小公园里偷偷看她的人的影子，她看见了曾经属于他的那棵树，那条不大显眼的长凳子，他正坐在那里看书，思念她，为她受煎熬。她不得不把窗户关上，长叹一声：‘可怜的人。”甚至她还伤心地抱怨过，阿里萨怎么没有她想象的那样顽固呢，当时，后悔已经太晚了。有那么几次，她还亡羊补牢地期待着一封永远没有收到的信。当她必须作出嫁给乌尔比诺医生的决定时，她发觉，既没有充足的理由拒绝阿里萨，也没有充足的理由要挑上他，心里更是七上八下。实际上，他对医生和对阿里萨同样不大喜欢，而且对医生更缺乏了解，医生的信没有他信里那种火热的感情，也没有象他那样做过那么多令人心醉的表白。的确，乌尔比诺医生的追求，从来不是以爱情的语言来表达的。奇怪的是，作为一个天主教徒，他只向她奉献尘世间的东西：保障，和谐，幸福。这些数字一旦相加，也许等于爱情，近乎是爱情吧？但是，这些又不是爱情。这些疑虑使她心乱如麻，因为她也并不坚信爱情是她生活中最需要的东西。

    说来说去，她对乌尔比诺医生反感的主要原因是，他太象而不是太不象她爸爸梦寐以求地为女儿找的那个人。不可能不把他看成是词父亲狼狈为奸的小子，虽然实际上他不是，费尔米纳确信，自从看见他第二次走进她的家门，不请自来地为她诊断的时候起，就已经是了。同表姐伊尔德布兰达的谈话，使她心里更乱了。处在自己的牺牲者的地位上，表姐倾向阿里萨，甚至忘记了也许洛伦索?达萨把她请来是为了让她扩大有利于乌尔比诺医生的影响。只有上帝才知道，当表姐到电报局去找阿里萨的时候，费尔米纳作了多大努力才没有跟她一起去。她也想再见他一次，把疑虑澄清，同他单独谈谈，深刻地了解他，以便确信她在冲动中作出的决定不会把她推向一个更严重的境况，即在同父母单熗匹马地进行的战争中投降。但她投降了，在一生中的关键的一分钟里投降了，她一点儿也没考虑那个追求者的英俊的外貌，他的祖传的财富，他少年得志的声誉，以及他实际美德中的任何一点，而是因为担心错过机会。她眼看就要满二十一岁了。二十一岁是向命运屈服的秘密界限，这一点使她慌了手脚。这空前绝后的一分钟，就足以使她作出了上帝和人的金科玉律中规定的决定，至死方休。于是，一切疑虑都烟消云散了，她毫不内疚地做了理智向她指示的最正经的事情：用不带泪水的海绵在对阿里萨的记忆上一抹，把它全部擦掉了，在这个记忆原先占据的地方，她让它长上了一片茂盛的罂粟花。唯一做了的另一件事是，她比平常更深地叹息了一声——最后的一声：“可怜的人！”

    然而，最可怕的疑虑从旅行结婚回来就开始出现了。他们还没打开箱子，家具包装还没拆开，准备供她做古老的卡萨尔杜埃罗侯爵府主妇之用的十一箱东西还没取出来，她就差点儿昏死过去，因为她发觉，她成了这个错误家庭的囚徒，更糟糕的是，和一个不是囚徒的人关在一起。六年之后她才出了牢笼。这六年是她一生中最不幸的六年，她绝望地忍受着婆婆的刁难，小姑的愚昧——她们没有在这个牢笼中活活烂掉，是因为关进牢笼已经成为她们心中的天经地义的事了。

    甘心屈服于家庭礼教的乌尔比诺医生，对她的恳求装聋作哑。他相信，上帝的智慧和妻子的无限的适应能力将会使一切就绪。母亲的衰老使他心疼，营堂健在的喜悦，换个时代的话，会使最没信心的人也会产生求生的渴望的。不错，那位漂亮、聪明、在她那个环境里少见的敏感的女性，将近四十年来一直是她的人间天堂里的灵魂的主宰。编局使她痛苦到了只相信自己的地步，而且使她变得刻薄尖酸，视所有的人为敌。她的退化的唯一合理的解释是，她因丈夫睁着眼睛在一次黑人起义中丢了老命而怨恨——她自己就这么说，而本来唯一正确的牺牲应该是为了她而生存下去。说到底，费尔米纳的美满的婚姻，就只维持到结婚旅行那段时间，而那个唯一能帮助她免遭最后的灭顶之灾的人，又在母亲的威严面前吓得噤若寒蝉。对那个所谓母亲不久人世的欺骗，费尔米纳怪罪的是他，而不是那几个呆头呆脑的小姑子和那疯疯癫癫的婆婆。她到此时才发现，在学术权威和陶醉尘世乐趣的背后，她竟嫁了个不可救药的懦夫——一个因自己姓氏的社会分量才显得轩昂不凡的可怜虫，但已为时太晚了。

    她把希望寄托在初生的儿子身上。感觉到他从自己的身体里出来的时候，她为摆脱某种不是自己的东西而觉得轻松。但是当助产婆把赤条条的、浑身是粘液和血的肮里肮脏的脖子上缠着脐带的儿子抱给她看，她自己觉得对那个从自己肚子里生出来的小惠子一点儿也不喜欢时，竟把自己也吓坏了。可是，在独坐宫殿的孤寂中，她渐渐认识了他。母子相互认识了，她欣喜若狂地发现：儿女不是因为是儿女，而是因为爱怜和抚养才成为亲人。在那个不幸的家庭里，除了儿子之外，她谁的气也不能忍受。寂寞，公墓似的花园，没有窗户的巨大的房间里凝滞不动的时间，都使她感到压抑。漫漫长夜里，从邻近的疯人院里传来的疯女人的叫声，使她觉得自己也要疯了。每天都要布置宴请用的桌子，铺上绣花台布，摆上银餐具和灵堂里的蜡烛，让五个鬼影子似的人坐下来用一杯加奶咖啡和奶酪饼当晚饭吃的习惯，使她觉得羞耻。她诅咒傍晚的念珠祈祷，诅咒饭前经，诅咒对她拿刀叉的姿势、象街上的女人似的撩开神秘的大步走路、穿得象马戏团演员、对待丈夫的热情方式、乃至不用头巾遮住胸部就给小孩喂奶等等没完没了的指责。当她刚刚按照英国的新派做法，邀请人们下午五点来喝茶、吃皇家饼干和花味甜食的时候，婆婆唐娜?布兰卡就扬言，反对在她家里用药来代替奶酪巧克力和木薯面包圈儿发汗。连做梦都免不了挨骂。一天早晨，费尔米纳说她梦见一陌生男人赤身裸体地在宫殿里走来走去，边走边撤及，唐娜?布兰卡涩声涩气地打断她的话说：“正经女人不可能做这种梦。”

    除了始终觉得是寄人篱下之外，还有两件更倒霉的事。其一是，每天吃茄子，各种做法的茄子。唐娜为了表示对已故的丈夫的尊敬，不准改变这一习惯，而费尔米钢又拒不食用。她从小就讨厌茄子，在尝茄子味道之前就讨厌，因为她觉得茄子的颜色跟毒药似的。所不同的是，这一次她不得不承认，无论如何，在她的生活里有一点变得对她有利了，在她五岁的时候，她在吃饭时也说过同样的话，她父亲强迫她吃下了整整一锅为六个人准备的茄子。那一次，她以为她要死了，起先是没完没了他呕吐嚼碎了的茄子，后来又被灌了一碗罐油，来治她吞下大量茄子可能招致的疾病。记忆中，两种东西只是同一种泻药，不仅害怕它们的味道，而且害怕它们都是毒药，使她把茄子和德油混为一谈了。在卡萨杜埃罗侯爵府的催人呕吐的午餐上，她只好移开视线，免得想起程油使她吐得死去活来的情景。

    另一件倒霉事是竖琴。一天，善于洞察媳妇肺腑的唐娜开口说道：“我不相信正经女人不会弹钢琴。”对这道慈谕，甚至她的儿子也想提出异议，因为他童年最贪玩的那些年头，就是在钢琴课堂这个牢笼里度过的，尽管他长大成人之后曾经感谢让他上了钢琴课。他难以想象，年已二十五岁，又是那么一种性格的妻子，关在钢琴课堂上怎么受得了。但母亲思准的仅仅是，把钢琴换成竖琴，其不近清理的理由是，竖琴是天使的乐器。于是，从维也纳运来了一架精美绝伦的竖琴，跟黄金做的一样，能发出金子般的声音。后来，一场火劫之后，这架钢琴成了市博物馆最珍贵的文物之一，费尔米纳忍受了这种无形的监禁，试图以最后的牺牲来阻止关系的恶化。起初，她向一位专门从蒙波斯请来的教师学琴，十五天后，这位教师猝然长逝，她又跟着培训班的乐师学了几年，教师嘴里喷出的坟墓里的气息，使竖琴学生们掩口不迭。

    她对自己的逆来顺受感到惊讶。虽然在内心深处，在同丈夫调情逗趣或发生龈塘中她都不承认这一点，但她还是比自己想象还要更快地适应了对新处境的既妥协又不满的矛盾状态。她曾经有一句标榜自己我行我素的口头禅：“刮风的时候就让扇子见他妈的鬼大吧。”但后来，她一方面出于对自己轻而易举地取得的优越地位的珍惜，一方面又担心出丑和横遭讽刺，便决心忍受一切，包括羞辱，只希望上帝终有一天大发慈悲接唐娜归天。而唐娜则在祈祷中不遗余力地恳求上帝让死神同她见面。

    乌尔比诺医生借口处于危机时刻，为自己的懦弱自我解嘲，甚至没有把心自问，母亲和妻子的所作所为是不是和她们所信仰的宗教背道而驰。他不承认和妻子冲突的根源是家庭中缺乏和睦气氛，他认为那是婚姻的本质造成的：婚姻是个只有靠上帝的无限仁慈才能存在的荒唐的创造。两个还不大了解的人，相互之间没有任何亲缘关系，性格不同，文化程度不同，甚至连性别也不同，突然就要在一块儿过日子，在同一张床上睡觉，共同面对两种也许是大相径庭的命运，这是大悖科学常理的。

    他说：“夫妻之间的疙瘩每天晚上消失了，但每天吃早饭之前又必须重新制造。”

    据他说，他们夫妇间的问题更是如此，那是在两个有着天渊之别的阶级之间产生的，而且又是在一个依然梦想回到总督时代的城市里产生的。唯一可能抹上的一点稀泥，如果存在这种稀泥的话，也是跟爱情同样不可靠而又脆弱的。而在他们夫妇之间，成婚的时候是没有这种稀泥的，当他们正要创造这种稀泥的时候，命运除了把他们推向现实之外没伸出援助之手。

    

    这就是学弹竖琴期间他们的生活状况。令人回味的偶然现象已经成了往事。当初，她走进浴室帮他洗澡的时候，虽然他们之间已龈龋不断，虽然每天要吃有毒的茄子，虽然要受呆头呆脑的妹妹们和生下这些妹妹的母亲的气，他还是有足够的感情来要求她给他抹肥皂。她带着他们之间残存的从欧洲带回来的爱情渣儿为他抹，两人逐渐捐弃前嫌，最后便在地板上滚在一起，浑身糊满香气四溢的肥皂沫，耳朵里听着女佣们在洗涤间里的议论：“他们没再弄出孩子来，是因为他们不生了。”

    有时候，他们从疯狂的晚会上回来，藏在门背后的对往昔的怀念一下子就把他们击倒了。于是，便爆发一场有滋有味的争吵，一切又跟从前一样，五分钟之后，又成了蜜月时期的纵欲无度的情侣。

    可是，除了这种并不多见的情况之外，睡觉的时候，总是有一个比另一个更疲乏。她在浴室里俄延片刻，用香纸卷烟，独自抽，又跟年轻时在家里当姑娘，自己是自己身体的唯一主宰的那一阵一样，自我安慰起来。她总是头疼，也许因为太热——永远热，也许因为睡多了，也许月经来潮。月经，没完没了的月经。月经多得不得了，以致乌尔比诺医生竟敢在课堂上说——仅仅是为了吐一吐他的难言苦衷，结婚十年之后，女人的月经最多可达每周三次。

    雪上加霜，费尔米纳赶上了早晚要无可挽回地发生的最倒霉的年头：她爸爸那些无本万利而从来没见过人的买卖原形毕露了。省长把乌尔比诺召到办公室里，把他文人的违法行径告诉他，省长一言以敝之：“天人上间的法律，没有一条是这家伙没触犯过的。”其中几个最严重的骗局，是在女婿的权势庇护下搞的，很难想象，女婿和他的妻子会不知道。乌尔比诺医生心里明白，唯一需要维护的是自己的名誉，因为那是唯一还没扫地的。于是，他便使出浑身解数，终于用他的担保掩住了丑闻。

    就这样，洛伦索?达萨搭上了第一班轮船出国，一去不复返了。他象人们有时为了欺骗思乡病而作短期旅行那样回到了祖国，但在这种表面现象底下，也有某种真实的东西：一段时间以来，他登上来自祖国的轮船，只是为了喝一杯水仓里运来的故乡的泉水。他走了，没有恋恋不舍的拥抱，他一直在抗议说他是无辜的，而且还想让女婿相信，他是某个政治阴谋的替罪羊。他走了，哭着小妞儿走了——他自打费尔米纳一结婚就这么叫她，哭着外孙子走了，哭着他赖以发财致富并获得了自由的地方走了。在这里，他凭昧心的买卖起家，把女儿变成了贵妇。他拖着年迈而有病的身子走了，但仍然活了一段很长的时间，被他坑害过的人谁也不希望他活得那么久。费尔米纳接到父亲的死讯时，不由得如释重负地吁出了一口气，为了避免人们询问，她没有为父亲戴孝，但一连几个月，当她反锁在浴室里吸烟的时候，总是不知所以地啜泣得不可开交，其实她就是为父亲而哭。

    两人关系中最荒谬的一点是，在那些不幸的年头里，两人在公众场合却表现得和睦美满。实际上，那几年是他们在克服心照不宣的敌意中取得胜利的最辉煌的几年。她不愿意如实承认，那些年是非同一般和罕见的，因而也是违背常理的。然而，这对费尔米纳来说，是容易应付的。社会生活，曾使费尔米纳产生了种种疑虑，其实那只不过是一连串返祖还原的协议，陈陈相因的礼节，预先想好了的言辞，人们在社会上借此你愚弄我，我愚弄你，免得自相残杀。这个庸俗轻浮的天堂的主要标志，是害怕不了解的人和事。她把这一点概括成了更简单的一句话：“社会生活的症结在于学会控制胆怯，夫妻生活的症结在于学会控制反感。”自从她拖着新娘婚纱那长得没有尽头的尾巴走进万紫千红。香气钦绕、圆舞曲乐声回荡的社会俱乐部大厅，发现那一大群汗流使背的男人和微微发抖的女人不知如何逃避她这个来自异己外界的光彩照人的威胁性人物时，心头便象显影般地发现了这个道理。她刚满二十一岁，除了从家里到学校以外，她几乎没到外面去过。但她向四周扫视一眼，便明白她的敌人不是因仇恨而恐惧，而是因害怕而发呆。她没有再象刚进门时那样去吓唬他们，而是宽宏大度地去帮助他们了解她。没有一个人跟她想象中的不同，正如她对各个城市的看法一样，她不觉得那些城市比原先更美或者更丑，而是跟她心里想象的一样，拿巴黎来说吧，虽然阴雨连绵，店铺老板贪吝，车夭言谈粗鲁，但她的记忆中，巴黎始终是世界上最美的城市，并非因为巴黎实际上真是最美或者不是最美，而是因为巴黎和她最幸福的那几年是联系在一起的。至于乌尔比诺医生呢，用别人对付他的那些同样的武器来对付别人，只不过是操纵得更巧妙、更道貌岸然罢了。他们在一切场合露面：郊游，灯谜，文艺演出，募捐舞会，爱国运动，第一次乘坐气球。他们无处不在，而且几乎永远是发起人和主持者。谁也无法想象，在他们过得最不愉快的那些年里，还有谁比他们更幸福，还有哪对夫妇比他们更琴瑟和鸣。

    父亲留下的那座房子，给费尔米纳提供了一个逃避家庭宫殿的窒息气氛的避难所。一旦躲开众人的视线，她便偷偷溜到福音公园去，在那里接待新结识的女友和某些学校或图画班的同学。

    在那座房子里，她象个未婚母亲似的消磨宁静的时光。她重新买了香兀骛，捡回野猫，把它们交给普拉西迪哑喂养。普拉西迪虹已经老了，风湿性关节炎使她行动有些不便，但依然有使那座房子复活的雄心。费尔米纳又打开了那间缝纫室，那里曾是阿里萨第一次看见她的地方，也曾是乌尔比诺医生让她伸出舌头以便了解她的心的地方，她把缝纫室变成了回忆往事的神庙。

    在一个暑气蒸人的下午，暴风雨降临之前，她去关阳台的窗户，看见阿里萨正坐在小公园里的扁桃树下那条他亲常坐的长凳子上，身上穿的是他母亲用父亲那件上衣改成的衣服，膝盖上摊着一本书，但她看见的不是她偶尔相逢几次的上了年纪的阿里萨，而是留在她记忆中的那个年轻的他了。她不寒而栗，认为那种幻觉是死神的通知，她为之心酸了。她竟开口对自己说，说不定她同他结合是美满的，她单独和他住在那座她以无限的爱为他修葺一新的房子里，正如他以同样的爱为她翻修的房子里一样。单是这个假设，就把她吓坏了，因为这使她发觉她落到了何等不幸的地步。于是，她竭尽全力，迫使丈夫不再闪烁其词地同她争论，同她对抗，同她撕打，同她一起为失去了的天堂号啕大哭，直到鸡叫五遍，曙光透进宫殿的窗帘，太阳变得火一样红。因一宿谈话而面色浮肿，因彻夜不眠而筋疲力尽，因哭干眼泪而心肠变硬了的丈夫，系紧靴带，收缩腰带，束紧还残存的作为男子汉大丈夫的一切，对她说，她吧，亲爱的，让我们去寻找丢在欧洲的爱情吧，明天就去，一去不复返。这个决定千真万确，他同大富银行——他的全球财产管理人——达成了立即变卖巨万家财的协议，这些财产从一开始就分散在各式各样的买卖、投资和债券中，只有他本人才准确地知道，财产并不象传说的那样无穷无尽。不管是什么东西，都折成打有印记的黄金，一点一点地汇到国外的银行去，直到不在这冷酷的祖国剩下巴掌大的土地来作为他和妻子的葬身之地为止。

    和费尔米纳的想法相反，阿里萨还存在着，还活生生地存在着。当她跟丈夫、儿子一起乘坐黄骡马拉的马车到港口的时候，阿里萨正站在法国远洋船停靠的那个码头上。他看见他们下了船，同在公众场合无数次看到他们的时候一样：衣鲜鞋亮。

    他们领着儿子，儿子已被教育成让人能想象出他长大成人后将是什么样子的模样了，酷肖父亲当年。乌尔比诺摘下帽子笑容可掬地向阿里萨打了个招呼：“我们去找回失落了的爱情。”费尔米纳向他点了点头，阿里萨摘下帽子，微微躬了躬身。她朝他看了一眼，对他早谢的秃顶没有一点同情的表示。是他，跟她过去见到的他一样：一个她始终没有看透的人的影子。

    阿里萨也没处在最走运的时候。工作日益繁重，他对偷偷摸摸地拈花惹草感到厌烦，时光犹如一潭死水。母亲身体恶化到了最后关头，她的记忆力完全消失了：几乎是一片空白。有时候，她甚至转身看着儿子——儿子依然坐在那张沙发上看书——惊慌地问他：“你是谁的儿子？”儿子总是实言相告，但她马上打断地的话。

引用

Chapter 5

　　ON THE OCCASION of the celebration of the new century, there was an innovative program ofpublic ceremonies, the most memorable of which was the first journey in a balloon, the fruit of theboundless initiative of Dr. Juvenal Urbino. Half the city gathered on the Arsenal Beach to expresstheir wonderment at the ascent of the enormous balloon made of taffeta in the colours of the flag,which carried the first airmail to San Juan de la Ciaga, some thirty leagues to the northeast asthe crow flies. Dr. Juvenal Urbino and his wife, who had experienced the excitement of flight atthe World's Fair in Paris, were the first to climb into the wicker basket, followed by the pilot andsix distinguished guests. They were carrying a letter from the Governor of the Province to themunicipal officials of San Juan de la Ciaga, in which it was documented for all time that thiswas the first mail transported through the air. A journalist from the Commercial Daily asked Dr.

Juvenal Urbino for his final words in the event he perished during the adventure, and he did noteven take the time to think about the answer that would earn him so much abuse.

"In my opinion," he said, "the nineteenth century is passing for everyone except us."Lost in the guileless crowd that sang the national anthem as the balloon gained altitude,Florentino Ariza felt himself in agreement with the person whose comments he heard over the din,to the effect that this was not a suitable exploit for a woman, least of all one as old as FerminaDaza. But it was not so dangerous after all. Or at least not so much dangerous as depressing. Theballoon reached its destination without incident after a peaceful trip through an incredible bluesky. They flew well and very low, with a calm, favourable wind, first along the spurs of the snow-covered mountains and then over the vastness of the Great Swamp.

From the sky they could see, just as God saw them, the ruins of the very old and heroic cityof Cartagena de Indias, the most beautiful in the world, abandoned by its inhabitants because ofthe cholera panic after three centuries of resistance to the sieges of the English and the atrocities ofthe buccaneers. They saw the walls still intact, the brambles in the streets, the fortificationsdevoured by heartsease, the marble palaces and the golden altars and the Viceroys rotting withplague inside their armour.

They flew over the lake dwellings of the Trojas in Cataca, painted in lunatic colours, withpens holding iguanas raised for food and balsam apples and crepe myrtle hanging in the lacustrinegardens. Excited by everyone's shouting, hundreds of naked children plunged into the water,jumping out of windows, jumping from the roofs of the houses and from the canoes that theyhandled with astonishing skill, and diving like shad to recover the bundles of clothing, the bottlesof cough syrup, the beneficent food that the beautiful lady with the feathered hat threw to themfrom the basket of the balloon.

They flew over the dark ocean of the banana plantations, whose silence reached them like alethal vapour, and Fermina Daza remembered herself at the age of three, perhaps four, walkingthrough the shadowy forest holding the hand of her mother, who was almost a girl herself,surrounded by other women dressed in muslin, just like her mother, with white parasols and hatsmade of gauze. The pilot, who was observing the world through a spyglass, said: "They seemdead." He passed the spyglass to Dr. Juvenal Urbino, who saw the oxcarts in the cultivated fields,the boundary lines of the railroad tracks, the blighted irrigation ditches, and wherever he looked hesaw human bodies. Someone said that the cholera was ravaging the villages of the Great Swamp.

Dr. Urbino, as he spoke, continued to look through the spyglass.

"Well, it must be a very special form of cholera," he said, "because every single corpse hasreceived the coup de grace through the back of the neck."A short while later they flew over a foaming sea, and they landed without incident on abroad, hot beach whose surface, cracked with niter burned like fire. The officials were there withno more protection against the sun than ordinary umbrellas, the elementary schools were therewaving little flags in time to the music, and the beauty queens with scorched flowers and crownsmade of gold cardboard, and the brass band of the prosperous town of Gayra, which in those dayswas the best along the Caribbean coast. All that Fermina Daza wanted was to see her birthplaceagain, to confront it with her earliest memories, but no one was allowed to go there because of thedangers of the plague. Dr. Juvenal Urbino delivered the historic letter, which was then mislaidamong other papers and never seen again, and the entire delegation almost suffocated in thetedium of the speeches. The pilot could not make the balloon ascend again, and at last they wereled on muleback to the dock at Pueblo Viejo, where the swamp met the sea. Fermina Daza wassure she had passed through there with her mother when she was very young, in a cart drawn by ateam of oxen. When she was older, she had repeated the story several times to her father, who diedinsisting that she could not possibly recall that.

"I remember the trip very well, and what you say is accurate," he told her, "but it happened atleast five years before you were born."Three days later the members of the balloon expedition, devastated by a bad night of storms,returned to their port of origin, where they received a heroes' welcome. Lost in the crowd, ofcourse, was Florentino Ariza, who recognised the traces of terror on Fermina Daza's face.

Nevertheless he saw her again that same afternoon in a cycling exhibition that was also sponsoredby her husband, and she showed no sign of fatigue. She rode an uncommon velocipede thatresembled something from a circus, with a very high front wheel, over which she was seated, anda very small back wheel that gave almost no support. She wore a pair of loose trousers trimmed inred, which scandalised the older ladies and disconcerted the gentlemen, but no one was indifferentto her skill.

That, along with so many other ephemeral images in the course of so many years, wouldsuddenly appear to Florentino Ariza at the whim of fate, and disappear again in the same way,leaving behind a throb of longing in his heart. Taken together, they marked the passage of his life,for he experienced the cruelty of time not so much in his own flesh as in the imperceptiblechanges he discerned in Fermina Daza each time he saw her.

One night he went to Don Sancho's Inn, an elegant colonial restaurant, and sat in the mostremote corner, as was his custom when he ate his frugal meals alone. All at once, in the largemirror on the back wall, he caught a glimpse of Fermina Daza sitting at a table with her husbandand two other couples, at an angle that allowed him to see her reflected in all her splendour. Shewas unguarded, she engaged in conversation with grace and laughter that exploded like fireworks,and her beauty was more radiant under the enormous teardrop chandeliers: once again, Alice hadgone through the looking glass.

Holding his breath, Florentino Ariza observed her at his pleasure: he saw her eat, he saw herhardly touch her wine, he saw her joke with the fourth in the line of Don Sanchos; from hissolitary table he shared a moment of her life, and for more than an hour he lingered, unseen, in theforbidden precincts of her intimacy. Then he drank four more cups of coffee to pass the time untilhe saw her leave with the rest of the group. They passed so close to him that he could distinguishher scent among the clouds of other perfumes worn by her companions.

From that night on, and for almost a year afterward, he laid unrelenting siege to the owner ofthe inn, offering him whatever he wanted, money or favours or whatever he desired most in life, ifhe would sell him the mirror. It was not easy, because old Don Sancho believed the legend that thebeautiful frame, carved by Viennese cabinetmakers, was the twin of another, which had belongedto Marie Antoinette and had disappeared without a trace: a pair of unique jewels. When at last hesurrendered, Florentino Ariza hung the mirror in his house, not for the exquisite frame but becauseof the place inside that for two hours had been occupied by her beloved reflection.

When he saw Fermina Daza she was almost always on her husband's arm, the two of them inperfect harmony, moving through their own space with the astonishing fluidity of Siamese cats,which was broken only when they stopped to greet him. Dr. Juvenal Urbino, in fact, shook hishand with warm cordiality, and on occasion even permitted himself a pat on the shoulder. She, onthe other hand, kept him relegated to an impersonal regime of formalities and never made theslightest gesture that might allow him to suspect that she remembered him from her unmarrieddays. They lived in two different worlds, but while he made every effort to reduce the distancebetween them, every step she took was in the opposite direction. It was a long time before hedared to think that her indifference was no more than a shield for her timidity. This occurred tohim suddenly, at the christening of the first freshwater vessel built in the local shipyards, whichwas also the first official occasion at which Florentino Ariza, as First Vice President of the R. C.

C., represented Uncle Leo XII. This coincidence imbued the ceremony with special solemnity, andeveryone of any significance in the life of the city was present.

Florentino Ariza was looking after his guests in the main salon of the ship, still redolent offresh paint and tar, when there was a burst of applause on the docks, and the band struck up atriumphal march. He had to repress the trembling that was almost as old as he was when he sawthe beautiful woman of his dreams on her husband's arm, splendid in her maturity, striding like aqueen from another time past the honour guard in parade uniform, under the shower of paperstreamers and flower petals tossed at them from the windows. Both responded to the ovation witha wave of the hand, but she was so dazzling, dressed in imperial gold from her high-heeledslippers and the foxtails at her throat to her bell-shaped hat, that she seemed to be alone in themidst of the crowd.

Florentino Ariza waited for them on the bridge with the provincial officials, surrounded bythe crash of the music and the fireworks and the three heavy screams from the ship, whichenveloped the dock in steam. Juvenal Urbino greeted the members of the reception line with thatnaturalness so typical of him, which made everyone think the Doctor bore him a special fondness:

first the ship's captain in his dress uniform, then the Archbishop, then the Governor with his andthe Mayor with his, and then the military commander, who was a newcomer from the Andes.

Beyond the officials stood Florentino Ariza, dressed in dark clothing and almost invisible amongso many eminent people. After greeting the military commander, Fermina seemed to hesitatebefore Florentino Ariza's outstretched hand. The military man, prepared to introduce them, askedher if they did not know each other. She did not say yes and she did not say no, but she held outher hand to Florentino Ariza with a salon smile. The same thing had occurred twice in the past,and would occur again, and Florentino Ariza always accepted these occasions with a strength ofcharacter worthy of Fermina Daza. But that afternoon he asked himself, with his infinite capacityfor illusion, if such pitiless indifference might not be a subterfuge for hiding the torments of love.

The mere idea excited his youthful desires. Once again he haunted Fermina Daza's villa,filled with the same longings he had felt when he was on duty in the little Park of the Evangels,but his calculated intention was not that she see him, but rather that he see her and know that shewas still in the world. Now, however, it was difficult for him to escape notice. The District of LaManga was on a semi-deserted island, separated from the historic city by a canal of green waterand covered by thickets of icaco plum, which had sheltered Sunday lovers in colonial times. Inrecent years, the old stone bridge built by the Spaniards had been torn down, and in its stead wasone made of brick and lined with streetlamps for the new mule-drawn trolleys. At first theresidents of La Manga had to endure a torture that had not been anticipated during construction,which was sleeping so close to the city's first electrical plant whose vibration was a constantearthquake. Not even Dr. Juvenal Urbino, with all his prestige, could persuade them to move itwhere it would not disturb anyone, until his proven complicity with Divine Providence intercededon his behalf. One night the boiler in the plant blew up in a fearful explosion, flew over the newhouses, sailed across half the city, and destroyed the largest gallery in the former convent of St.

Julian the Hospitaler. The old ruined building had been abandoned at the beginning of the year, butthe boiler caused the deaths of four prisoners who had escaped from the local jail earlier that nightand were hiding in the chapel.

The peaceful suburb with its beautiful tradition of love was, however, not the most propitiousfor unrequited love when it became a luxury neighbourhood. The streets were dusty in summer,swamp-like in winter, and desolate all year round, and the scattered houses were hidden behindleafy gardens and had mosaic tile terraces instead of old-fashioned projecting balconies, as if theyhad been built for the purpose of discouraging furtive lovers. It was just as well that at this time itbecame fashionable to drive out in the afternoon in hired old Victorias that had been converted toone-horse carriages, and that the excursion ended on a hill where one could appreciate theheartbreaking twilights of October better than from the lighthouse, and observe the watchfulsharks lurking at the seminarians' beach, and see the Thursday ocean liner, huge and white, thatcould almost be touched with one's hands as it passed through the harbour channel. FlorentinoAriza would hire a Victoria after a hard day at the office, but instead of folding down the top, aswas customary during the hot months, he would stay hidden in the depths of the seat, invisible inthe darkness, always alone, and requesting unexpected routes so as not to arouse the evil thoughtsof the driver. In reality, the only thing that interested him on the drive was the pink marbleParthenon half hidden among leafy banana and mango trees, a luckless replica of the idyllicmansions on Louisiana cotton plantations. Fermina Daza's children returned home a little beforefive. Florentino Ariza would see them arrive in the family carriage, and then he would see Dr.

Juvenal Urbino leave for his routine house calls, but in almost a year of vigilance he never evencaught the glimpse he so desired.

One afternoon when he insisted on his solitary drive despite the first devastating rains ofJune, the horse slipped and fell in the mud. Florentino Ariza realised with horror that they werejust in front of Fermina Daza's villa, and he pleaded with the driver, not thinking that hisconsternation might betray him.

"Not here, please," he shouted. "Anywhere but here."Bewildered by his urgency, the driver tried to raise the horse without unharnessing him, andthe axle of the carriage broke. Florentino Ariza managed to climb out of the coach in the drivingrain and endure his embarrassment until passersby in other carriages offered to take him home.

While he was waiting, a servant of the Urbino family "ad seen him, his clothes soaked through,standing in mud up to his Knees, and she brought him an umbrella so that he could take refuge onthe terrace. In the wildest of his deliriums Florentino Ariza had never dreamed of such goodfortune, but on that afternoon he would have died rather than allow Fermina Daza to see him inthat condition.

When they lived in the old city, Juvenal Urbino and his family would walk on Sundays fromtheir house to the Cathedral for eight o'clock Mass, which for them was more a secular ceremonythan a religious one. Then, when they moved, they continued to drive there for several years, andat times they visited with friends under the palm trees in the park. But when the temple of thetheological seminary was built in La Manga, with a private beach and its own cemetery, they nolonger went to the Cathedral except on very solemn occasions. Ignorant of these changes,Florentino Ariza waited Sunday after Sunday on the terrace of the Parish Caf? watching the peoplecoming out of all three Masses. Then he realised his mistake and went to the new church, whichwas fashionable until just a few years ago, and there, at eight o'clock sharp on four Sundays inAugust, he saw Dr. Juvenal Urbino with his children, but Fermina Daza was not with them. Onone of those Sundays he visited the new cemetery adjacent to the church, where the residents ofLa Manga were building their sumptuous pantheons, and his heart skipped a beat when hediscovered the most sumptuous of all in the shade of the great ceiba trees. It was already complete,with Gothic stained-glass windows and marble angels and gravestones with gold lettering for theentire family. Among them, of course, was that of Doa Fermina Daza de Urbino de la Calle,and next to it her husband's, with a common epitaph: Together still in the peace of the Lord.

For the rest of the year, Fermina Daza did not attend any civic or social ceremonies, not eventhe Christmas celebrations, in which she and her husband had always been illustrious protagonists.

But her absence was most notable on the opening night of the opera season. During intermission,Florentino Ariza happened on a group that, beyond any doubt, was discussing her withoutmentioning her name. They said that one midnight the previous June someone had seen herboarding the Cunard ocean liner en route to Panama, and that she wore a dark veil to hide theravages of the shameful disease that was consuming her. Someone asked what terrible illnesswould dare to attack a woman with so much power, and the answer he received was saturated withblack bile: "A lady so distinguished could suffer only from consumption."Florentino Ariza knew that the wealthy of his country did not contract short-term diseases.

Either they died without warning, almost always on the eve of a major holiday that could not becelebrated because of the period of mourning, or they faded away in long, abominable illnesseswhose most intimate details eventually became public knowledge. Seclusion in Panama wasalmost an obligatory penance in the life of the rich.

They submitted to God's will in the Adventist Hospital, an immense white warehouse lost inthe prehistoric downpours of Dari, where the sick lost track of the little life that was left tothem, and in whose solitary rooms with their burlap windows no one could tell with certainty ifthe smell of carbolic acid was the odour of health or of death. Those who recovered came backbearing splendid gifts that they would distribute with a free hand and a kind of agonised longing tobe pardoned for their indiscretion in still being alive. Some returned with their abdomenscrisscrossed by barbarous stitches that seemed to have been sewn with cobbler's hemp; they wouldraise their shirts to display them when people came to visit, they compared them with those ofothers who had suffocated from excesses of joy, and for the rest of their days they would describeand describe again the angelic visions they had seen under the influence of chloroform. On theother hand, no one ever learned about the visions of those who did not return, including thesaddest of them all: those who had died as exiles in the tuberculosis pavilion, more from thesadness of the rain than because of the complications of their disease.

If he had been forced to choose, Florentino Ariza did not know which fate he would havewanted for Fermina Daza. More than anything else he wanted the truth, but no matter howunbearable, and regardless of how he searched, he could not find it. It was inconceivable to himthat no one could even give him a hint that would confirm the story he had heard. In the world ofriverboats, which was his world, no mystery could be maintained, no secret could be kept. And yetno one had heard anything about the woman in the black veil. No one knew anything in a citywhere everything was known, and where many things were known even before they happened,above all if they concerned the rich. But no one had any explanation for the disappearance ofFermina Daza. Florentino Ariza continued to patrol La Manga, continued to hear Mass withoutdevotion in the basilica of the seminary, continued to attend civic ceremonies that never wouldhave interested him in another state of mind, but the passage of time only increased the credibilityof the story he had heard. Everything seemed normal in the Urbino household, except for themother's absence.

As he carried on his investigation, he learned about other events he had not known of or intowhich he had made no enquiries, including the death of Lorenzo Daza in the Cantabrian villagewhere he had been born. He remembered seeing him for many years in the rowdy chess wars atthe Parish Caf? hoarse with so much talking, and growing fatter and rougher as he sank into thequicksand of an unfortunate old age. They had never exchanged another word since theirdisagreeable breakfast of anise in the previous century, and Florentino Ariza was certain that evenafter he had obtained for his daughter the successful marriage that had become his only reason forliving, Lorenzo Daza remembered him with as much rancour as he felt toward Lorenzo Daza. Buthe was so determined to find out the unequivocal facts regarding Fermina Daza's health that hereturned to the Parish Caf?to learn them from her father, just at the time of the historic tournamentin which Jeremiah de Saint-Amour alone confronted forty-two opponents. This was how hediscovered that Lorenzo Daza had died, and he rejoiced with all his heart, although the price of hisjoy might be having to live without the truth. At last he accepted as true the story of the hospitalfor the terminally ill, and his only consolation was the old saying: Sick women live forever. On thedays when he felt disheartened, he resigned himself to the notion that the news of Fermina Daza'sdeath, if it should occur, would find him without his having to look for it.

It never did, for Fermina Daza was alive and well on the ranch, half a league from the villageof Flores de Mar, where her Cousin Hildebranda Schez was living, forgotten by the world.

She had left with no scandal, by mutual agreement with her husband, both of them as entangled asadolescents in the only serious crisis they had suffered during so many years of stable matrimony.

It had taken them by surprise in the repose of their maturity, when they felt themselves safe frommisfortune's sneak attacks, their children grown and well-behaved, and the future ready for themto learn how to be old without bitterness. It had been something so unexpected for them both thatthey wanted to resolve it not with shouts, tears, and intermediaries, as was the custom in theCaribbean, but with the wisdom of the nations of Europe, and there was so much vacillation as towhether their loyalties lay here or over there that they ended up mired in a puerile situation thatdid not belong anywhere. At last she decided to leave, not even knowing why or to what purpose,out of sheer fury, and he, inhibited by his sense of guilt, had not been able to dissuade her.

Fermina Daza, in fact, had sailed at midnight in the greatest secrecy and with her facecovered by a black mantilla, not on a Cunard liner bound for Panama, however, but on the regularboat to San Juan de la Ciaga, the city where she had been born and had lived until heradolescence, and for which she felt a growing homesickness that became more and more difficultto bear as the years went by. In defiance of her husband's will, and of the customs of the day, heronly companion was a fifteen-year-old goddaughter who had been raised as a family servant, butthe ship captains and the officials at each port had been notified of her journey. When she madeher rash decision, she told her children that she was going to have a change of scene for threemonths or so with Aunt Hildebranda, but her determination was not to return. Dr. Juvenal Urbinoknew the strength of her character very well, and he was so troubled that he accepted her decisionwith humility as God's punishment for the gravity of his sins. But the lights on the boat had not yetbeen lost to view when they both repented of their weakness.

Although they maintained a formal correspondence concerning their children and otherhousehold matters, almost two years went by before either one could find a way back that was notmined with pride. During the second year, the children went to spend their school vacation inFlores de Mar, and Fermina Daza did the impossible and appeared content with her new life.

That at least was the conclusion drawn by Juvenal Urbino from his son's letters. Moreover, at thattime the Bishop of Riohacha went there on a pastoral visit, riding under the pallium on hiscelebrated white mule with the trappings embroidered in gold. Behind him came pilgrims fromremote regions, musicians playing accordions, peddlers selling food and amulets; and for threedays the ranch was overflowing with the crippled and the hopeless, who in reality did not come forthe learned sermons and the plenary indulgences but for the favours of the mule who, it was said,performed miracles behind his master's back. The Bishop had frequented the home of the Urbinode la Calle family ever since his days as an ordinary priest, and one afternoon he escaped from thepublic festivities to have lunch at Hildebranda's ranch. After the meal, during which they spokeonly of earthly matters, he took Fermina Daza aside and asked to hear her confession. She refusedin an amiable but firm manner, with the explicit argument that she had nothing to repent of.

Although it was not her purpose, at least not her conscious purpose, she was certain that heranswer would reach the appropriate ears.

Dr. Juvenal Urbino used to say, not without a certain cynicism, that it was not he who was toblame for those two bitter years of his life but his wife's bad habit of smelling the clothes herfamily took off, and the clothes that she herself took off, so that she could tell by the odour if theyneeded to be laundered even though they might appear to be clean. She had done this ever sinceshe was a girl, and she never thought it worthy of comment until her husband realised what shewas doing on their wedding night. He also knew that she locked herself in the bathroom at leastthree times a day to smoke, but this did not attract his attention because the women of his classwere in the habit of locking themselves away in groups to talk about men and smoke, and even todrink as much as two litres of aguardiente until they had passed out on the floor in a brickmason'sdrunken stupor. But her habit of sniffing at all the clothing she happened across seemed to him notonly inappropriate but unhealthy as well. She took it as a joke, which is what she did witheverything she did not care to discuss, and she said that God had not put that diligent oriole's beakon her face just for decoration. One morning, while she was at the market, the servants aroused theentire neighbourhood in their search for her three-year-old son, who was not to be found anywherein the house. She arrived in the middle of the panic, turned around two or three times like atracking mastiff, and found the boy asleep in an armoire where no one thought he could possiblybe hiding. When her astonished husband asked her how she had found him, she replied: "By thesmell of caca."The truth is that her sense of smell not only served her in regard to washing clothes or findinglost children: it was the sense that oriented her in all areas of life, above all in her social life.

Juvenal Urbino had observed this throughout his marriage, in particular at the beginning, when shewas the parvenu in a milieu that had been prejudiced against her for three hundred years, and yetshe had made her way through coral reefs as sharp as knives, not colliding with anyone, with apower over the world that could only be a supernatural instinct. That frightening faculty, whichcould just as well have had its origin in a millenarian wisdom as in a heart of stone, met itsmoment of misfortune one ill-fated Sunday before Mass when, out of simple habit, Fermina Dazasniffed the clothing her husband had worn the evening before and experienced the disturbingsensation that she had been in bed with another man.

First she smelled the jacket and the vest while she took the watch chain out of the buttonholeand removed the pencil holder and the billfold and the loose change from the pockets and placedeverything on the dresser, and then she smelled the hemmed shirt as she removed the tiepin andthe topaz cuff links and the gold collar button, and then she smelled the trousers as she removedthe keyholder with its eleven keys and the penknife with its mother-of-pearl handle, and finallyshe smelled the underwear and the socks and the linen handkerchief with the embroideredmonogram. Beyond any shadow of a doubt there was an odour in each of the articles that had notbeen there in all their years of life together, an odour impossible to define because it was not thescent of flowers or of artificial essences but of something peculiar to human nature. She saidnothing, and she did not notice the odour every day, but she now sniffed at her husband's clothingnot to decide if it was ready to launder but with an unbearable anxiety that gnawed at herinnermost being.

Fermina Daza did not know where to locate the odour of his clothing in her husband'sroutine. It could not be placed between his morning class and lunch, for she supposed that nowoman in her right mind would make hurried love at that time of day, least of all with a visitor,when the house still had to be cleaned, and the beds made, and the marketing done, and lunchprepared, and perhaps with the added worry that one of the children would be sent home earlyfrom school because somebody threw a stone at him and hurt his head and he would find her ateleven o'clock in the morning, naked in the unmade bed and, to make matters worse, with a doctoron top of her. She also knew that Dr. Juvenal Urbino made love only at night, better yet in absolutedarkness, and as a last resort before breakfast when the first birds began to chirp. After that time,as he would say, it was more work than the pleasure of daytime love was worth to take off one'sclothes and put them back on again. So that the contamination of his clothing could occur onlyduring one of his house calls or during some moment stolen from his nights of chess and films.

This last possibility was difficult to prove, because unlike so many of her friends, Fermina Dazawas too proud to spy on her husband or to ask someone else to do it for her. His schedule of housecalls, which seemed best suited to infidelity, was also the easiest to keep an eye on, because Dr.

Juvenal Urbino kept a detailed record of each of his patients, including the payment of his fees,from the first time he visited them until he ushered them out of this world with a final sign of thecross and some words for the salvation of their souls.

In the three weeks that followed, Fermina Daza did not find the odour in his clothing for afew days, she found it again when she least expected it, and then she found it, stronger than ever,for several days in a row, although one of those days was a Sunday when there had been a familygathering and the two of them had not been apart for even a moment. Contrary to her normalcustom and even her own desires, she found herself in her husband's office one afternoon as if shewere someone else, doing something that she would never do, deciphering with an exquisiteBengalese magnifying glass his intricate notes on the house calls he had made during the last fewmonths. It was the first time she had gone alone into that office, saturated with showers ofcreosote and crammed with books bound in the hides of unknown animals, blurred schoolpictures, honorary degrees, astrolabes, and elaborately worked daggers collected over the years: asecret sanctuary that she always considered the only part of her husband's private life to which shehad no access because it was not part of love, so that the few times she had been there she hadgone with him, and the visits had always been very brief. She did not feel she had the right to goin alone, much less to engage in what seemed to be indecent prying. But there she was. Shewanted to find the truth, and she searched for it with an anguish almost as great as her terrible fearof finding it, and she was driven by an irresistible wind even stronger than her innate haughtiness,even stronger than her dignity: an agony that bewitched her.

She was able to draw no conclusions, because her husband's patients, except for mutualfriends, were part of his private domain; they were people without identity, known not by theirfaces but by their pains, not by the colour of their eyes or the evasions of their hearts but by thesize of their livers, the coating on their tongues, the blood in their urine, the hallucinations of theirfeverish nights. They were people who believed in her husband, who believed they lived becauseof him when in reality they lived for him, and who in the end were reduced to a phrase written inhis own hand at the bottom of the medical file: Be calm. God awaits you at the door. FerminaDaza left his study after two fruitless hours, with the feeling that she had allowed herself to beseduced by indecency.

Urged on by her imagination, she began to discover changes in her husband. She found himevasive, without appetite at the table or in bed, prone to exasperation and ironic answers, andwhen he was at home he was no longer the tranquil man he had once been but a caged lion. Forthe first time since their marriage, she began to monitor the times he was late, to keep track ofthem to the minute, to tell him lies in order to learn the truth, but then she felt wounded to thequick by the contradictions. One night she awoke with a start, terrified by a vision of her husbandstaring at her in the darkness with eyes that seemed full of hatred. She had suffered a similar frightin her youth, when she had seen Florentino Ariza at the foot of her bed, but that apparition hadbeen full of love, not hate. Besides, this time it was not fantasy: her husband was awake at two inthe morning, sitting up in bed to watch her while she slept, but when she asked him why, hedenied it. He lay back on the pillow and said: "You must have been dreaming."After that night, and after similar episodes that occurred during that time, when FerminaDaza could not tell for certain where reality ended and where illusion began, she had theoverwhelming revelation that she was losing her mind. At last she realised that her husband hadnot taken Communion on the Thursday of Corpus Christi or on any Sunday in recent weeks, andhe had not found time for that year's retreats. When she asked him the reason for those unusualchanges in his spiritual health, she received an evasive answer. This was the decisive clue, becausehe had not failed to take Communion on an important feast day since he had made his firstCommunion, at the age of eight. In this way she realised not only that her husband was in a stateof mortal sin but that he had resolved to persist in it, since he did not go to his confessor for help.

She had never imagined that she could suffer so much for something that seemed to be theabsolute opposite of love, but she was suffering, and she resolved that the only way she couldkeep from dying was to burn out the nest of vipers that was poisoning her soul. And that is whatshe did. One afternoon she began to darn socks on the terrace while her husband was reading, ashe did every day after his siesta. Suddenly she interrupted her work, pushed her eyeglasses up ontoher forehead, and without any trace of harshness, she asked for an explanation: "Doctor."He was immersed in L'Ile des pingouins, the novel that everyone was reading in those days,and he answered without surfacing: "Oui." She insisted: "Look at me."He did so, looking without seeing her through the fog of his reading glasses, but he did nothave to take them off to feel burned by the raging fire in her eyes.

"What is going on?" he asked.

"You know better than I," she said.

That was all she said. She lowered her glasses and continued darning socks. Dr. JuvenalUrbino knew then that the long hours of anguish were over. The moment had not been as he hadforeseen it; rather than a seismic tremor in his heart, it was a calming blow, and a great relief thatwhat was bound to happen sooner or later had happened sooner rather than later: the ghost of MissBarbara Lynch had entered his house at last.

Dr. Juvenal Urbino had met her four months earlier as she waited her turn in the clinic ofMisericordia Hospital, and he knew immediately that something irreparable had just occurred inhis destiny. She was a tall, elegant, large-boned mulatta, with skin the colour and softness ofmolasses, and that morning she wore a red dress with white polka dots and a broad-brimmed hatof the same fabric, which shaded her face down to her eyelids. Her sex seemed more pronouncedthan that of other human beings. Dr. Juvenal Urbino did not attend patients in the clinic, butwhenever he passed by and had time to spare, he would go in to remind his more advancedstudents that there is no medicine better than a good diagnosis. So that he arranged to be present atthe examination of the unforeseen mulatta, making certain that his pupils would not notice anygesture of his that did not appear to be casual and barely looking at her, but fixing her name andaddress with care in his memory. That afternoon, after his last house call, he had his carriage passby the address that she had given in the consulting room, and in fact there she was, enjoying thecoolness on her terrace.

It was a typical Antillean house, painted yellow even to the tin roof, with burlap windows andpots of carnations and ferns hanging in the doorway. It rested on wooden pilings in the saltmarshes of Mala Crianza. A troupial sang in the cage that hung from the eaves. Across the streetwas a primary school, and the children rushing out obliged the coachman to keep a tight hold onthe reins so that the horse would not shy. It was a stroke of luck, for Miss Barbara Lynch had timeto recognise the Doctor. She waved to him as if they were old friends, she invited him to havecoffee while the confusion abated, and he was delighted to accept (although it was not his customto drink coffee) and to listen to her talk about herself, which was the only thing that had interestedhim since the morning and the only thing that was going to interest him, without a moment'srespite, during the months to follow. Once, soon after he had married, a friend told him, with hiswife present, that sooner or later he would have to confront a mad passion that could endanger thestability of his marriage. He, who thought he knew himself, knew the strength of his moral roots,had laughed at the prediction. And now it had come true.

Miss Barbara Lynch, Doctor of Theology, was the only child of the Reverend Jonathan B.

Lynch, a lean black Protestant minister who rode on a mule through the poverty-strickensettlements in the salt marshes, preaching the word of one of the many gods that Dr. JuvenalUrbino wrote with a small g to distinguish them from his. She spoke good Spanish, with a certainroughness in the syntax, and her frequent slips heightened her charm. She would be twenty-eightyears old in December, not long ago she had divorced another minister, who was a student of herfather's and to whom she had been unhappily married for two years, and she had no desire torepeat the offence. She said: "I have no more love than my troupial." But Dr. Urbino was tooserious to think that she said it with hidden intentions. On the contrary: he asked himself inbewilderment if so many opportunities coming together might not be one of God's pitfalls, whichhe would then have to pay for dearly, but he dismissed the thought without delay as a piece oftheological nonsense resulting from his state of confusion.

As he was about to leave, he made a casual remark about that morning's medicalconsultation, knowing that nothing pleases patients more than talking about their ailments, and shewas so splendid talking about hers that he promised he would return the next day, at four o'clocksharp, to examine her with greater care. She was dismayed: she knew that a doctor of hisqualifications was far above her ability to pay, but he reassured her: "In this profession we try tohave the rich pay for the poor. " Then he marked in his notebook: Miss Barbara Lynch, MalaCrianza Salt Marsh, Saturday, 4 p. m. Months later, Fermina Daza was to read that notation,augmented by details of the diagnosis, treatment, and evolution of the disease. The name attractedher attention, and it suddenly occurred to her that she was one of those dissolute artists from theNew Orleans fruit boats, but the address made her think that she must come from Jamaica, a blackwoman, of course, and she eliminated her without a second thought as not being to her husband'staste.

Dr. Juvenal Urbino came ten minutes early for the Saturday appointment, and Miss Lynchhad not finished dressing to receive him. He had not felt so much tension since his days in Pariswhen he had to present himself for an oral examination. As she lay on her canvas bed, wearing athin silk slip, Miss Lynch's beauty was endless. Everything about her was large and intense: hersiren's thighs, her slow-burning skin, her astonished breasts, her diaphanous gums with theirperfect teeth, her whole body radiating a vapour of good health that was the human odour FerminaDaza had discovered in her husband's clothing. She had gone to the clinic because she sufferedfrom something that she, with much charm, called "twisted colons," and Dr. Urbino thought that itwas a symptom that should not be ignored. So he palpated her internal organs with more intentionthan attention, and as he did so he discovered in amazement that this marvellous creature was asbeautiful inside as out, and then he gave himself over to the delights of touch, no longer the best-qualified physician along the Caribbean coastline but a poor soul tormented by his tumultuousinstincts. Only once before in his austere professional life had something similar happened to him,and that had been the day of his greatest shame, because the indignant patient had moved his handaway, sat up in bed, and said to him: "What you want may happen, but it will not be like this."Miss Lynch, on the other hand, abandoned herself to his hands, and when she was certain that theDoctor was no longer thinking about his science, she said: "I thought this not permitted by yourethics."He was as drenched by perspiration as if he had just stepped out of a pool wearing all hisclothes, and he dried his hands and face with a towel.

"Our code of ethics supposes," he said, "that we doctors are made of wood.""The fact I thought so does not mean you cannot do," she said. "Just think what it mean forpoor black woman like me to have such a famous man notice her.""I have not stopped thinking about you for an instant," he said.

It was so tremulous a confession that it might have inspired pity. But she saved him from allharm with a laugh that lit up the bedroom.

"I know since I saw you in hospital, Doctor," she said. "Black I am but not a fool."It was far from easy. Miss Lynch wanted her honour protected, she wanted security and love,in that order, and she believed that she deserved them. She gave Dr. Urbino the opportunity toseduce her but not to penetrate her inner sanctum, even when she was alone in the house. Shewould go no further than allowing him to repeat the ceremony of palpation and auscultation withall the ethical violations he could desire, but without taking off her clothes. For his part, he couldnot let go of the bait once he had bitten, and he continued his almost daily incursions. For reasonsof a practical nature, it was close to impossible for him to maintain a continuing relationship withMiss Lynch, but he was too weak to stop, as he would later be too weak to go any further. Thiswas his limit.

The Reverend Lynch did not lead a regular life, for he would ride away on his mule on thespur of the moment, carrying Bibles and evangelical pamphlets on one side and provisions on theother, and he would return when least expected. Another difficulty was the school across the street,for the children would recite their lessons as they looked out the windows, and what they saw withgreatest clarity was the house across the way, with its doors and windows open wide from sixo'clock in the morning, they saw Miss Lynch hanging the birdcage from the eaves so that thetroupial could learn the recited lessons, they saw her wearing a bright-coloured turban and goingabout her household tasks as she recited along with them in her brilliant Caribbean voice, and laterthey saw her sitting on the porch, reciting the afternoon psalms by herself in English.

They had to choose a time when the children were not there, and there were only twopossibilities: the afternoon recess for lunch, between twelve and two, which was also when theDoctor had his lunch, or late in the afternoon, after the children had gone home. This was alwaysthe best time, although by then the Doctor had made his rounds and had only a few minutes tospare before it was time for him to eat with his family. The third problem, and the most serious forhim, was his own situation. It was not possible for him to go there without his carriage, which wasvery well known and always had to wait outside her door. He could have made an accomplice ofhis coachman, as did most of his friends at the Social Club, but that was not in his nature. In fact,when his visits to Miss Lynch became too obvious, the liveried family coachman himself dared toask if it would not be better for him to come back later so that the carriage would not spend somuch time at her door. Dr. Urbino, in a sharp response that was not typical of him, cut him off.

"This is the first time since I know you that I have heard you say something you should nothave," he said. "Well, then: I will assume it was never said."There was no solution. In a city like this, it was impossible to hide an illness when theDoctor's carriage stood at the door. At times the Doctor himself took the initiative and went onfoot, if distance permitted, or in a hired carriage, to avoid malicious or premature assumptions.

Such deceptions, however, were to little avail. Since the prescriptions ordered in pharmaciesrevealed the truth, Dr. Urbino would always prescribe counterfeit medicines along with the correctones in order to preserve the sacred right of the sick to die in peace along with the secret of theirillness. Similarly, he was able in various truthful ways to account for the presence of his carriageoutside the house of Miss Lynch, but he could not allow it to stay there too long, least of all for theamount of time he would have desired, which was the rest of his life.

The world became a hell for him. For once the initial madness was sated, they both becameaware of the risks involved, and Dr. Juvenal Urbino never had the resolve to face a scandal. In thedeliriums of passion he promised everything, but when it was over, everything was left for later.

On the other hand, as his desire to be with her grew, so did his fear of losing her, so that theirmeetings became more and more hurried and problematic. He thought about nothing else. Hewaited for the afternoons with unbearable longing, he forgot his other commitments, he forgoteverything but her, but as his carriage approached the Mala Crianza salt marsh he prayed to Godthat an unforeseen obstacle would force it to drive past. He went to her in a state of such anguishthat at times as he turned the corner he was glad to catch a glimpse of the woolly head of theReverend Lynch, who read on the terrace while his daughter catechized neighbourhood children inthe living room with recited passages of scripture. Then he would go home relieved that he wasnot defying fate again, but later he would feel himself going mad with the desire for it to be fiveo'clock in the afternoon all day, every day.

So their love became impossible when the carriage at her door became too conspicuous, andafter three months it became nothing less than ridiculous. Without time to say anything, MissLynch would go to the bedroom as soon as she saw her agitated lover walk in the door. She tookthe precaution of wearing a full skirt on the days she expected him, a charming skirt from Jamaicawith red flowered ruffles, but with no underwear, nothing, in the belief that this convenience wasgoing to help him ward off his fear. But he squandered everything she did to make him happy.

Panting and drenched with perspiration, he rushed after her into the bedroom, throwing everythingon the floor, his walking stick, his medical bag, his Panama hat, and he made panic-stricken lovewith his trousers down around his knees, with his jacket buttoned so that it would not get in hisway, with his gold watch chain across his vest, with his shoes on, with everything on, and moreconcerned with leaving as soon as possible than with achieving pleasure. She was left dangling,barely at the entrance of her tunnel of solitude, while he was already buttoning up again, asexhausted as if he had made absolute love on the dividing line between life and death, when inreality he had accomplished no more than the physical act that is only a part of the feat of love.

But he had finished in time: the exact time needed to give an injection during a routine visit. Thenhe returned home ashamed of his weakness, longing for death, cursing himself for the lack ofcourage that kept him from asking Fermina Daza to pull down his trousers and burn his ass on thebrazier.

He did not eat, he said his prayers without conviction, in bed he pretended to continue hissiesta reading while his wife walked round and round the house putting the world in order beforegoing to bed. As he nodded over his book, he began to sink down into the inevitable mangroveswamp of Miss Lynch, into her air of a recumbent forest glade, his deathbed, and then he couldthink of nothing except tomorrow's five minutes to five o'clock in the afternoon and her waitingfor him in bed with nothing but the mound of her dark bush under her madwoman's skirt fromJamaica: the hellish circle.

In the past few years he had become conscious of the burden of his own body. He recognisedthe symptoms. He had read about them in textbooks, he had seen them confirmed in real life, inolder patients with no history of serious ailments who suddenly began to describe perfectsyndromes that seemed to come straight from medical texts and yet turned out to be imaginary.

His professor of children's clinical medicine at La Salptrire had recommended paediatricsas the most honest specialisation, because children become sick only when in fact they are sick,and they cannot communicate with the physician using conventional words but only with concretesymptoms of real diseases. After a certain age, however, adults either had the symptoms withoutthe diseases or, what was worse, serious diseases with the symptoms of minor ones. He distractedthem with palliatives, giving time enough time to teach them not to feel their ailments, so that theycould live with them in the rubbish heap of old age. Dr. Juvenal Urbino never thought that aphysician his age, who believed he had seen everything, would not be able to overcome the uneasyfeeling that he was ill when he was not. Or what was worse, not believe he was, out of purescientific prejudice, when perhaps he really was. At the age of forty, half in earnest and half in jest,he had said in class: "All I need in life is someone who understands me." But when he foundhimself lost in the labyrinth of Miss Lynch, he no longer was jesting.

All the real or imaginary symptoms of his older patients made their appearance in his body.

He felt the shape of his liver with such clarity that he could tell its size without touching it. He feltthe dozing cat's purr of his kidneys, he felt the iridescent brilliance of his vesicles, he felt thehumming blood in his arteries. At times he awoke at dawn gasping for air, like a fish out of water.

He had fluid in his heart. He felt it lose the beat for a moment, he felt it syncopate like a schoolmarching band, once, twice, and then, because God is good, he felt it recover at last. But instead ofhaving recourse to the same distracting remedies he gave to his patients, he went mad with terror.

It was true: all he needed in life, even at the age of fifty-eight, was someone who understood him.

So he turned to Fermina Daza, the person who loved him best and whom he loved best in theworld, and with whom he had just eased his conscience.

For this occurred after she interrupted his afternoon reading to ask him to look at her, and hehad the first indication that his hellish circle had been discovered. But he did not know how,because it would have been impossible for him to conceive of Fermina Daza's learning the truthby smell alone. In any case, for a long time this had not been a good city for keeping secrets. Soonafter the first home telephones were installed, several marriages that seemed stable were destroyedby anonymous tale-bearing calls, and a number of frightened families either cancelled their serviceor refused to have a telephone for many years. Dr. Urbino knew that his wife had too much self-respect to allow so much as an attempt at anonymous betrayal by telephone, and he could notimagine anyone daring to try it under his own name. But he feared the old method: a note slippedunder the door by an unknown hand could be effective, not only because it guaranteed the doubleanonymity of sender and receiver, but because its time-honoured ancestry permitted one toattribute to it some kind of metaphysical connection to the designs of Divine Providence.

Jealousy was unknown in his house: during more than thirty years of conjugal peace, Dr.

Urbino had often boasted in public--and until now it had been true--that he was like those Swedishmatches that light only with their own box. But he did not know how a woman with as muchpride, dignity, and strength of character as his wife would react in the face of proven infidelity. Sothat after looking at her as she had asked, nothing occurred to him but to lower his eyes again inorder to hide his embarrassment and continue the pretence of being lost among the sweet,meandering rivers of Alca Island until he could think of something else. Fermina Daza, for herpart, said nothing more either. When she finished darning the socks, she tossed everything into thesewing basket in no particular order, gave instructions in the kitchen for supper, and went to thebedroom.

Then he reached the admirable decision not to go to Miss Lynch's house at five o'clock in theafternoon. The vows of eternal love, the dream of a discreet house for her alone where he couldvisit her with no unexpected interruptions, their unhurried happiness for as long as they lived-everythinghe had promised in the blazing heat of love was cancelled forever after. The last thingMiss Lynch received from him was an emerald tiara in a little box wrapped in paper from thepharmacy, so that the coachman himself thought it was an emergency prescription and handed it toher with no comment, no message, nothing in writing. Dr. Urbino never saw her again, not evenby accident, and God alone knows how much grief his heroic resolve cost him or how many bittertears he had to shed behind the locked lavatory door in order to survive this private catastrophe. Atfive o'clock, instead of going to see her, he made a profound act of contrition before his confessor,and on the following Sunday he took Communion, his heart broken but his soul at peace.

That night, following his renunciation, as he was undressing for bed, he recited for FerminaDaza the bitter litany of his early morning insomnia, his sudden stabbing pains, his desire to weepin the afternoon, the encoded symptoms of secret love, which he recounted as if they were themiseries of old age. He had to tell someone or die, or else tell the truth, and so the relief heobtained was sanctified within the domestic rituals of love. She listened to him with closeattention, but without looking at him, without saying anything as she picked up every article ofclothing he removed, sniffed it with no gesture or change of expression that might betray herwrath, then crumpled it and tossed it into the wicker basket for dirty clothes. She did not find theodour, but it was all the same: tomorrow was another day. Before he knelt down to pray before thealtar in the bedroom, he ended the recital of his misery with a sigh as mournful as it was sincere:

"I think I am going to die." She did not even blink when she replied.

"That would be best," she said. "Then we could both have some peace."Years before, during the crisis of a dangerous illness, he had spoken of the possibility ofdying, and she had made the same brutal reply. Dr. Urbino attributed it to the naturalhardheartedness of women, which allows the earth to continue revolving around the sun, becauseat that time he did not know that she always erected a barrier of wrath to hide her fear. And in thiscase it was the most terrible one of all, the fear of losing him.

That night, on the other hand, she wished him dead with all her heart, and this certaintyalarmed him. Then he heard her slow sobbing in the darkness as she bit the pillow so he would nothear. He was puzzled, because he knew that she did not cry easily for any affliction of body orsoul. She cried only in rage, above all if it had its origins in her terror of culpability, and then themore she cried the more enraged she became, because she could never forgive her weakness incrying. He did not dare to console her, knowing that it would have been like consoling a tiger runthrough by a spear, and he did not have the courage to tell her that the reason for her weeping haddisappeared that afternoon, had been pulled out by the roots, forever, even from his memory.

Fatigue overcame him for a few minutes. When he awoke, she had lit her dim bedside lampand lay there with her eyes open, but without crying. Something definitive had happened to herwhile he slept: the sediment that had accumulated at the bottom of her life over the course of somany years had been stirred up by the torment of her jealousy and had floated to the surface, and ithad aged her all at once. Shocked by her sudden wrinkles, her faded lips, the ashes in her hair, herisked telling her that she should try to sleep: it was after two o'clock. She spoke, not looking athim but with no trace of rage in her voice, almost with gentleness.

"I have a right to know who she is," she said.

And then he told her everything, feeling as if he were lifting the weight of the world from hisshoulders, because he was convinced that she already knew and only needed to confirm thedetails. But she did not, of course, so that as he spoke she began to cry again, not with her earliertimid sobs but with abundant salty tears that ran down her cheeks and burned her nightdress andinflamed her life, because he had not done what she, with her heart in her mouth, had hoped hewould do, which was to be a man: deny everything, and swear on his life it was not true, and growindignant at the false accusation, and shout curses at this ill-begotten society that did not hesitateto trample on one's honour, and remain imperturbable even when faced with crushing proofs of hisdisloyalty. Then, when he told her that he had been with his confessor that afternoon, she fearedshe would go blind with rage. Ever since her days at the Academy she had been convinced that themen and women of the Church lacked any virtue inspired by God. This was a discordant note inthe harmony of the house, which they had managed to overlook without mishap. But her husband'sallowing his confessor to be privy to an intimacy that was not only his but hers as well was morethan she could bear.

"You might as well have told a snake charmer in the market," she said.

For her it was the end of everything. She was sure that her honour was the subject of gossipeven before her husband had finished his penance, and the feeling of humiliation that thisproduced in her was much less tolerable than the shame and anger and injustice caused by hisinfidelity. And worst of all, damn it: with a black woman. He corrected her: "With a mulatta." Butby then it was too late for accuracy: she had finished.

"Just as bad," she said, "and only now I understand: it was the smell of a black woman."This happened on a Monday. On Friday at seven o'clock in the evening, Fermina Daza sailedaway on the regular boat to San Juan de la Ci閚 aga with only one trunk, in the company of hergoddaughter, her face covered by a mantilla to avoid questions for herself and her husband. Dr.

Juvenal Urbino was not at the dock, by mutual agreement, following an exhausting three-daydiscussion in which they decided that she should go to Cousin Hildebranda Sanchez's ranch inFlores de Marfor as long a time as she needed to think before coming to a final decision.

Without knowing her reasons, the children understood it as a trip she had often put off and thatthey themselves had wanted her to make for a long time. Dr. Urbino arranged matters so that noone in his perfidious circle could engage in malicious speculation, and he did it so well that ifFlorentino Ariza could find no clue to Fermina Daza's disappearance it was because in fact therewas none, not because he lacked the means to investigate. Her husband had no doubts that shewould come home as soon as she got over her rage. But she left certain that her rage would neverend.

However, she was going to learn very soon that her drastic decision was not so much the fruitof resentment as of nostalgia. After their honeymoon she had returned several times to Europe,despite the ten days at sea, and she had always made the trip with more than enough time to enjoyit. She knew the world, she had learned to live and think in new ways, but she had never goneback to San Juan de la Ciaga after the aborted flight in the balloon. To her mind there was anelement of redemption in the return to Cousin Hildebranda's province, no matter how belated. Thiswas not her response to her marital catastrophe: the idea was much older than that. So the merethought of revisiting her adolescent haunts consoled her in her unhappiness.

When she disembarked with her goddaughter in San Juan de la Ciaga, she called on thegreat reserves of her character and recognised the town despite all the evidence to the contrary.

引用

第四章

   阿里萨在大教堂的庭院里看见怀孕六个月、俨然一派上流社会太太模样的费尔米纳的那一天，就下了争取名气和财富以便无愧于得到她的坚定不移的决心。他甚至不顾她已是有夫之妇这个障碍，因为他同时就打定了主意，仿佛这件事取决于乌尔比诺医生总得呜呼哀哉。他不知道他会在什么时候如何死去，但却把这作为一件不可避免的事情列入了计划，他决心既不着急也不张扬地等待，一直等到世界的末日。

    他从头做起。他不经通报就来到了叔叔莱昂十二——加勒比内河航运公司董事长兼总经理的办公室里，表示他愿意听从差遣。叔叔对他随随便便就放弃了在莱伊瓦村当电报员这份美差颇为不满，但他相信侄子的话，人不是从一出娘胎就一成不变的，生活会迫使他再三再四地自我脱胎换骨。另外，哥哥的遗孀又在头一年里死去了，带着终天之恨死去了，但没有留下遗产。于是，他还是给了这个浪子侄儿一份差事。

    莱昂十二的决定是独特的。这个黑良心的商人躯壳里有一种深藏不露的疯子般的脾气，他可以在瓜西拉的荒漠中泉水涌流般地吐柠檬酒，也可以用撕心裂肺的歌声“在这黑暗的坟墓里”使人们在葬礼中哭得惊天动地。他一头想发，厚嘴唇象农牧之神那样向前突出，再添上一把七弦琴和一顶桂冠，他就跟基督教神话里的令人毛骨悚然的暴君尼禄一模一样了。除了经管他那些百孔千疮的仅仅因为死神的疏忽而仍然浮在水面上的船只和处理河运中日益繁重的各种问题以外，他把全部空余时间用来丰富他的抒情歌曲。在葬礼上唱歌，是他最喜爱不过的事情。他的噪子跟划船的苦役犯似的，没受过任何正规训练，但唱来很是动人。某人对他说过，恩里科?卡卢梭的声音可以震碎花瓶，多年来他一意模仿他，甚至想用声音震碎玻璃窗。

    他的朋友们给他带回在世界各国旅行时找到的最薄的花瓶，专门组织晚会，以便他最终实现他的最高梦想，但始终没有如愿以偿。不过，就象伟大的卡卢梭震碎两耳细颈玻璃瓶一样，他那雷鸣般的声音里有一种柔情，可以震碎听众的心，这就是他在葬礼中备受欢迎的原因。只有一次，他异想天开地唱起了“当你升上天堂”这首美国卢锡安纳州的优美的催人泪下的挽歌时，被牧师喝住了，牧师无法理解这种宗教改革。

    就这样，高唱低吟着意大利那不勒斯歌剧和小夜曲，他的创造能力和战无不胜的事业心使他成了内河运输最繁荣时期的彪炳显赫的人物。跟已故的两位兄长一样，他是白手起家的，虽然带着私生子的烙印，而且始终没有人认领过他们，他们都发迹到显赫的程度。他们是当时所谓“柜台显贵”的出类拔萃的人物，商业俱乐部就是“柜台显贵”们的庇护所。然而，即使在拥有可以过着跟他模样相似的罗马皇帝的生活的资本时，为了便于工作，叔叔莱昂十二仍然领着妻子和三个儿子住在老城，过着节俭的日子，挤在一座简陋的房子里，却无法去掉人们不公正地加在他头上的贪心不足的恶名。他唯一的奢侈就更简单：一幢离办公室二西班牙里的海滨房子，里面除了六条手工做的凳子、一个水瓮和一张挂在阳台上以便星期天躺着思考问题的吊床之外，没有别的家具。有人说他是富翁，但谁也没有他自我形容得确切。

    “富翁倒不是，”他说，“我是个有钱的穷人，这压根儿是两码事儿。”

    这种古怪脾气——某人某次曾经在一次演说中赞扬它是大智若愚——使他一眼就看出了过去和今后谁也没有看出过的阿里萨身上的那种东西。自从面色忧郁、虚度了二十七岁光阴的阿里萨到他办公室去要工作那天起，他就让他经受了可以使最硬的铁汉子屈服的军营式的严酷考验。但他没能使侄子知难而退。叔叔莱昂十二从来没有怀疑过，侄子的坚忍并非源于糊口谋生的需要，也不是继承了父亲的冷峻，而是来自一种爱情方面的野心，这个世界或另一个世界的任何艰难困苦都无法摧毁这种坚忍。

    最不顺利的是头几年。他被任命为总经理室抄写员，那显然是因神设庙地为他安排的。是特乌古特——他是叔叔莱昂十二过去的音乐教师——劝莱昂十二给侄子找份抄抄写写的差事，因为他是个不知疲倦的大量阅读文学作品的人，’虽然看的坏书比好书还多。叔叔莱昂十二对于侄子看坏书这事不予理会，特乌古特也曾经说过他自己是唱歌唱得最差的学生，他还不是唱得坟墓里的石碑都为之潸然下泪嘛。

    不管怎么说，德国人最漫不经心地说出的这一点是说准了，阿里萨写任何东西都感情奔放，把正式文件写得跟情书似的。尽管他力图避免，还是把装船货单写得合厌押韵，日常商业函件更散发着抒情气息，减少了权威性。有一天，叔叔亲自到他的办公室去，拿着一叠他没有勇气签上自己名字的信函，给他下了最后通谋。

    “要是你没本事写出一封象样的商业信函，那你就到码头上扫垃圾去吧。”叔叔对他说。

    阿里萨接受了挑战。他尽最大努力学习商业行文的简洁明了，跟过去模仿时髦诗人一样，专心致志地模仿公证档案里的模式。在这段时间里，他的空间时间都是在“代笔先生门洞”里度过的，他帮助那些胸无点墨的恋人写情书，发泄积蓄在心中的无法在写海关报告时使用的堆山似海的情话。六个月过去了，他费尽了心机。

    还是没能把那不可救药的天鹅的脖子扭过来。叔叔莱昂十二第二次训斥他的时候，他服了，但依然有些不识人间烟火。

    “我唯一感兴趣的是爱情。”他说。

    “糟糕的是，”叔叔对他说，“没有航运就没有爱情。”

    叔叔实践了派他去码头上清扫垃圾的威胁性命令，并为他留了一条后路，告诉他，干好了，就一步步提升他，直到使他找到合适的归宿。果然如此。任何工作，不管是多么艰巨还是多么令人难堪，都没有使他倒下，薪金的微薄也没使他灰心丧气，在骄横傲慢的上级面前，他也没有任何时刻丧失过无畏的本能。当然，他也不是没有过错的，所有跟他共过事的人，都吃过他那貌似软弱实则九条牛也拉不回来的独断专行的苦头。正如叔叔莱昂十二预见和希望的那样，在三十年的牺牲和顽强奋斗中，他熟悉了公司的第一个秘密。他担任过所有的职务，在所有的岗位上，他都显示了令人赞叹的能力。他研究了那神秘的经线中的每一条线络，都和诗歌的脉络有着许许多多的共同之处。但是，他没能取得那梦寐以求的战争勋章：写一封过得去的商业函件。的确，一封也没写成。他没有设想过，甚至也没有察觉过，通过自己的生活，他证明了父亲的看法——父亲直到最后一息还一再说，没有任何人的嗅觉比诗人更灵敏，没有任何石匠比诗人更顽强，没有任何经理比诗人更老谋深算和危险了。这一点，至少叔叔莱昂十二对他说过，叔叔在心里没事儿的时候总是对他说他的父亲，叔叔把他父亲那种与其说是企业家不如说是梦想家的思想传给了他。

    叔叔告诉他，他父亲皮奥?金托?洛阿伊萨把办公室基本上当成了娱乐场而不是工作间，他总是把办公室里的事情安排成礼拜日离家上班，借口说要接待或遣送一条船。更是甚者，他让人在仓库的院子里安装了一只废锅炉，上面装了一个汽笛，假如妻子在注意他，就有人按航行信号拉响那只汽笛。叔叔莱昂十二心里琢磨了一下，阿里萨脑子里已经形成了这么一个概念：在一个闷热的礼拜日下午，半掩半开的办公室里的写字台上正在进行某种勾当，父亲的妻子在家里侧耳倾听，一艘从来没动来窝的轮船上响着告别的汽笛。等她发现这一切，要指责丈夫的可耻行为时，已经来不及了，他已经死了。她比丈夫晚故去许多年，没有儿子的痛苦使她身心交瘁，祈祷的时候，她一直恳求上帝永远诅咒那个私生子。

    父亲的形象震动了阿里萨。母亲曾经对他说过，父亲是个顶天立地的男子汉，对经商不大在行，他做内河运输买卖破了产，是因为大哥跟一个德国海军准将密切合作，德国准将是内河航运事业的先驱。几个兄弟都是同胞共母的私生子，母亲是厨娘，兄弟几个是她跟不同的男人所生，除叔叔莱昂十二的名字是以降生时正在执政的教皇的名字命名的外，其余几个的名字都是在她的姓氏后面加上一个从圣徒列传中随意选来的教皇的名字。名叫弗洛伦蒂诺的那个人，是所有哥儿几个的外祖父，弗洛伦蒂诺这个名字，超越了整整一代教皇，传给了特兰西托?阿里萨的儿子。

    弗洛伦蒂诺?阿里萨一直保存着一个他父亲写爱情诗的笔记本，其中有些诗是从特兰西托身上获得灵感的，每首诗的眉题都点缀着受伤的心。有两件事使他颇感意外。其一，是父亲那独特的字体，竟跟他的一模一样，可他却是从一本字帖上的许多字体中挑选他最喜欢的字体学来的呀。其二，是找到了一句他以为是自己的座右铭，但他父亲在他出生之前很久就把这句话写在一个本子里了：我对死亡感到的唯一痛苦，是没能为爱而死。

    他还看到了他父亲仅有的两张照片。一张是在圣菲照的，照片上的父亲很年轻，就跟他第一次看见他时的年龄一样，父亲身穿大衣，仿佛钻进了一只狗熊的身体里。

    他靠在一座雕像的墩座上，雕像只剩下松开的绑腿那部分了。站在父亲旁边的那个小孩就是叔叔莱昂十二，他头上戴着一顶船长小帽。在另一张照片上，父亲和一群战士在一起，从父亲身上，他知道那是连年战火中的哪一次战争，父亲的猎熗最长，胡子里的火药味儿从浑身上下散发出来。跟几兄弟一样，父亲是自由党人和共济会会员，然而他却希望儿子进神学院。阿里萨没觉得象人们所说的那样他和父亲长得很象，据叔叔莱昂十二说，父亲也讨厌情书般的文件。总之，照片上的父亲不象他，也跟他记忆中的父亲不一样，跟母亲描绘的模样也不同——因为爱，母亲美化了父亲的形象——更跟叔叔莱昂十二以其善意的冷酷丑化了的父亲的形象不同。不过，许多年之后，阿里萨对镜梳头时发现了这种相似之处，也只有在那个时候他才明白，一个人最初和父亲相象之日，也就是他开始衰老之时。

    他不记得父亲住在文塔纳斯街。仿佛听说过有段时间他在那里过夜，那是他和特兰西托刚刚相爱之时，但自从他出生以后，父亲就没再去看过她。

    洗礼登记在许多年里一直是我们唯一有效的身分证，阿里萨的洗礼登记——在圣?托里维奥颁发的——只是说，他是一个名叫特兰西托的未婚私生女的私生子。

    洗礼登记上没出现父亲的名字，但他直到生命的最后一天都在秘密地供养儿子。这种社会地位，使神学院对阿里萨关上了大门，同时也使他逃脱了在我国最残酷的战争年代服兵役的义务，因为他是一个未婚母亲的独生子。

    每周礼拜五，放学之后，他都坐在加勒比内河航运公司办公室门口，翻看那本看了千百遍的一翻直掉渣儿的动物画册。父亲身穿那件后来母亲特兰西托不得不改给他穿的明子大衣走进办公室去，看都不看他一眼，脸上的表情跟祭坛上的福音书作者圣约翰一模一样。好几个钟头过去了，父亲出来的时候，悄悄地把下一周生活费递给他。父子俩不说一句话，不仅因为父亲不想说，而且也因为他害怕父亲。一天，等了比平常长得多的时间以后，父亲出来了，给钱的时候对他说：“拿着，以后别再来了。”

    那是他最后一次见父亲。后来他才知道，叔叔莱昂十二——他比父亲小十来岁——继续在给特兰西托送钱。父亲患腹痛病不治去世之后，是叔叔在照料母亲。他没留下片纸只字，也没来得及采取任何维护独生子——这个野孩子——的措施。

    阿里萨的悲剧在于，他在加勒比内河航运公司做抄写员的时期，放不下自己的抒情之怀，他念念不忘费尔米纳，也始终没学会在起草文稿的时候放下对她的思念。

    后来，他调任别的职务时，依然情思潮涌，在百无聊赖中，只好把爱情送给那些目不识丁的恋人，在“代笔先生门洞”替他们无偿代写情书。一下班，他就到“代笔先生门洞”去，慢腾腾地脱下外衣，把它搭在椅子靠背上，戴上袖套免得弄脏了衬衣袖子，为了更好地思考，把背心的扣子也解开了。有时候，他一直写到深更半夜，以使人神魂颠倒的书信让那些失恋的人重新振作起来。有些日子，他碰到跟儿子闹翻了的贪婪女人，坚持要领取抚恤金的老兵，被人偷了东西想向政府申诉的人，磨破了嘴皮也难使他们满意，因为他唯一能打动别人的，就是他写的情书。对新主顾，他连问题都用不着问，只要一看他们的白眼球，就明白他们的心理状态。他一封接着一封地写热情洋溢的情信，万无一失的方式就是写信的时候始终想着费尔米纳，除她之外什么也不想。第一个月之后，他不得不建立预约制度，免得心急如焚的恋人们使他难以招架。

    对那个时期最愉快的回忆，是关于一个羞答答的姑娘，她几乎是个小女孩，颤抖着求他替她给刚收到的一封无法抗拒的信作复。阿里萨认出，那正是他头一天下午写出的一封信。根据女孩子的激情和年龄，他用不同的方式写了一封信，字迹也象是她的，他能够根据不同情况，按照个人的性格特点模仿各种笔迹。他纵情畅想，假如费尔米纳对他的爱情能象那位六神无主的小姑娘对她的追求者一样，将会给他写出什么样的回信。自然，两天之后，他得以写第一封信时的文体、口气和抒发爱情的方式，替小伙子再写回信。就这样，他自个儿对自个儿进行了火热的书信往来。

    不出一个月，两人分别去向他道谢，感谢他一手包办的在男朋友的信中提出的、女孩子在回信中热情地接受了的建议：结婚。

    他们生了第一个儿子之后，在一次偶然的谈话中，双方才发现自己的信是由同一位代笔先生捉刀的，两人第一次联袂到达“代笔先生门洞”，敦请他给新生儿当教父。由于梦想成为现实，阿里萨兴奋异常。他在百忙中挤出时间写了一首诗：“恋人的秘书”。这首诗比当时以二十文的价钱在门洞里出售的、被全市半数以上市民倒背如流的另一首诗更富有诗意，内容也更加广泛。他把幻想中费尔米纳和他相会的一幕幕情景理好顺序，每一幕都根据他认为可能的种种模式，写出了情景交融的来信和复信。最后，他写成了上千封信，分为三集，每集都象科瓦鲁维亚斯字典那么厚，但城里的出版商谁也不肯冒险为他出版，只好在家里束之高阁，特兰西托断然拒绝把罐子从地下创出来，免得将一生积蓄浪费在出版这些信件的疯狂举动上。若干年后，等到阿里萨自己有钱出版这部书时，那些情书早已过时厂，他好不容易才承认了这一现实。

    阿里萨在加勒比内河航运公司迈出最初几步并在“代笔先生门洞”无偿代笔写信的时候，他年轻时代的朋友们就确信他在逐渐疏远他们，而且一去不回头了。果然如此，他刚从溯河而上的那次旅行归来时，还抱着冲淡对费尔米纳的思念的希望，访问了某些朋友，跟他们一起打弹子球，参加他一生中的最后的几次舞会，无动于衷地听任姑娘们嘲笑，干各种他认为有助于让他恢复本来面目的事情。后来，叔叔莱昂十二聘他为职员以后，他开始和同事们一起，在商业俱乐部玩多米诺骨牌。终于，他和同事们的话题只限于航运公司，而且提到航运公司时也不说全称，只用其缩写字母C?F?C，到了这个时候，同事们就把他视为自己人了。他甚至连吃饭的方式都改变了。在此以前，他在饭桌上是随随便便没有规律的，从那时起直到他临终之时，他却天天一样，而且大为节省：早饭是一大杯纯咖啡，午饭是一块炖鱼加白米饭，睡觉前来一杯牛奶咖啡和一小块儿奶酪。他每时每刻，不管在什么地方，在什么场合都喝纯咖啡，一天喝三十杯。那是跟原油一样的饮料，他总愿自个儿动手煮，把咖啡灌在暖瓶里，暖瓶伸手就够得着。同他自己坚定的愿望和殷切地努力相反，他与遭受到爱情的致命打击以前已判若两人了。

    实际上，他根本不可能再是从前的地了。夺回费尔米纳是他一生的唯一目标，而且他坚信或迟或早总能得到她。他说服了特兰西托继续整修房子，以便在发生奇迹的时候随时可以迎接她到家里来。跟对待出版“恋人的秘书”这一建议的反应完全不同，特兰西托此时前进了一大步：她用现金买下了房子，并着手全面翻修。他们把原来的卧室翻修成一间会客厅，在顶层另修了一间供夫妇二人住的卧室和另一间供可能降生的儿女们住的房间，两间房都很宽敞，光线也很好。在原先是卷烟厂的那片空地上，修了一座宽阔的花园，里面是各式各样的玫瑰，那是阿里萨利用清晨的闲暇时间亲自动手种的。唯一原封未动的，是那间当铺，那是不忘过去的见证。

    阿里萨原先住的后房，还跟过去一样，吊床还挂着，大写字台上横七竖八地堆满了书，不过他住到顶层那间拟作夫妇卧室的房间里去了。这间房子是全家最宽敞、最凉快的，还有一个内阳台，海风徐来，玫瑰飘香，晚上呆在阳台上无比的惬意，不过也是最符合阿里萨的苦行僧清苦标准的。墙面光秃秃的，而且粗糙不平，那是用生石灰抹的。除了一张如同苦役犯用的床，一个床头柜，柜上放着一个插蜡烛的玻璃瓶，一个旧衣柜，一只水罐，一只澡盆和一只洗脸盆外，没有别的家具。

    修整房屋的工程持续了将近三年，正好和城市的恢复期互相巧合。当时航运和转口贸易激增，这两个因素造就了殖民地时期的繁荣，并使那里在两个多世纪内成了美洲的门户。然而，这也是特兰西托表现出患了不治之症的前期症候的时期。她的老主顾们光临她的当铺时，她已显得越来越老、越来越憔悴和精神恍惚了，她跟她们打了半辈子交道，现在却认不出她们来了，要不就把她们的事情张冠李戴。这对她这类生意来说是十分严重的，因为她所从事的生意历来不签任何字据，信誉只凭口说，一句话就是保证，而且照例被认可。起初，她以为是耳朵聋了，但很快就发现，显然是记忆力出了毛病，才使她丢三拉四。于是，她把当铺关了，除了利用理在地下的罐子里的财富，翻修房子，配置家具之外，还剩下了许多全市最贵重的古老首饰，这些首饰的主人无力把它们赎还。

    阿里萨不得不同时兼顾许多事情，却从未削弱他加紧偷偷猎取女人的劲头。他跟纳萨雷特的遗孀做了一阵露水夫妻，打开了寻花觅柳的道路，好几年中，他继续干着勾外夜间无主的小鸟的勾当，幻想借此来减轻失去费尔米纳的痛苦。到了后来，已经说不清他绝望地发泄淫欲的习惯，到底是出于心理的需要，还是一种生理上的恶习了。他到小客栈去的次数越来越少了，不仅因为他的兴趣有所转移，而且，还因为他不愿意被熟人们认出。有三次，在慌不择路的情况下，他采用了过去没有干过的简便做法：把担心被认出来的女友打扮成男人，装起嘻嘻哈哈的夜猫子一起到旅馆去。但至少有两次被人发现，原来他和那位所谓男友进旅馆后不是到酒吧间而是直奔房间。这就使阿里萨的相当狼藉的名声彻底完蛋了。后来，他只去过很少几次，但已不是为了重演故技，而是恰恰相反，是为了找个避难所，以便在纵欲过度中喘一口气。

    不进小客栈并非对那种事洗手不干。下午五点来钟光景，刚离开办公室，他就象老鹰叼小鸡儿似的到处捕猎。起初，他满足于黑夜的恩赐。他在公园里和女佣，在市场上和女黑人，在海滩上和交际花，在来自新奥尔良的轮船上同美国女人勾搭，把她们带到礁石上去，在那里，从太阳下山开始，半个城市的人都在于那种事。把她们带到一切能干那种事的地方去，有时甚至还带到没法干那种事的地方去，有不少回，他不得不急匆匆地钻进漆黑的门厅，在大门背后不拘方式地干那种事。

    灯塔一直是个幸福的避护所，垂暮之年万念俱灰的时候，他仍然在依恋地怀念灯塔，那是个痛快行事的好地方，尤其在晚上。他曾经想过，他那个时期的风流勾当，在信号灯的一问一答中可能让海员们看到了一点什么。他继续到灯塔去，比到任何别的地方都去得更勤，他的朋友——灯塔看守人——欢天喜地地接待他，那张傻里傻气的脸，使担惊受怕的小鸟们如释重负。灯塔下面有一间房子，紧靠着撞在峭壁上发现雷鸣般涛声的海浪，在那间房子里，爱意更加浓烈，因为有一种遇难的感觉。爱的狂潮之夜过去之后，阿里萨更喜欢到灯塔上面去，因为在那里能俯瞰全城和海上以及远处的湖泊里的万盏渔灯。

    在这段时间里，形成了他关于女人的身体状况和恋爱的能力之间的关系的浅显理论。他对这些不成熟的观察作了记载，想为“恋人的秘书”写个实用续集，阿乌森西娜?桑坦德尔以其老狗的智慧把他弄了个颠三倒四，使他的妙论彻底破产。于是，这项计划也跟出版“恋人的秘书”的计划一样成了泡影。

    阿乌森西娘有过二十年正常的夫妻生活，生过三个儿子，儿子们都已成家并且生儿育女。她自诩为全市最有福气的祖母。始终没有弄清楚，是她抛弃了丈夫还是丈夫抛弃了她，或者是两人同时互相抛弃。丈夫和他原来的情人一块儿过去了，她自由自在地在光天化日之下敞开大门接待内河轮船的船长拉罗萨，她过去曾经在夜晚打开后门接待过他许多次。正是船长本人，不假思索地把阿里萨带到她的家里。

    船长把他带去吃午饭，船长还带去一大瓶家酿的烧酒和做一顿木薯香蕉肉汤的最上乘的调料、这种菜只能用农家母鸡、带骨嫩牛肉、吃残渣剩饭长大的猪的肉和沿河村子里的蔬菜才能做出来。阿里萨一开始就对可口的佳肴和女主人的绰约风姿不大在意。只是对那个漂亮的家赞不绝口。他喜欢那座明亮、凉爽的房子，里面有四个朝海的大窗户，从背后可以把整个古城尽收眼底。他喜欢那些光华夺目的摆设，这些装饰品使会客厅扑朔迷离而又令人望而生畏。精美的工艺品应有尽有，都是罗森多?德?拉罗萨船长出航时一件件带回来的，屋子里已经摆得没有余地了。临海阳台，坐落在围墙上，阳台上养着一只马来西亚白鹦鹉，羽毛白得令人难以置信，沉思似的一动不动，使人难以理解，那是阿里萨从未见过的最美的动物。

    拉罗萨因客人的情绪高涨而兴高采烈，他详尽地向客人介绍每件东西的来历，一边讲一边一小口一小口地不停地饮酒。他长得跟块钢筋水泥似的：身躯庞大，除脑袋光秃秃外，浑身是毛，一部山羊胡子跟把大刷子似的，声如洪钟——只有这个人才能有这么大的声音。他举止十分文雅，却嗜酒成瘾。就餐前，他已喝了半瓶酒，身子摔倒在放杯子和瓶子的托盘上，杯子、瓶子发出一阵清脆的破裂声。阿马森西娜只好请阿里萨帮忙，把他那跟搁浅的鲸鱼似的失去知觉的身体拖到床上去，给这位睡着了的船长脱去衣服。然后，两人心里同时闪过一个感谢这个鬼使神差的安排的念头，接着心照不宣地到旁边的一个房间里去亲热。在七年多的时间里，当船长出外航行的时候，他们一有机会就在一起。没有被撞上的危险，因为船长具有优秀海员的习惯，到港的时候会用船上的汽笛发出通知，哪怕是在早晨也无一例外。先用三声长笛通知妻子和九个儿女，然后用两下短促而忧郁的笛声通知情妇。

    阿乌森西姬年近半百，长得也不年轻，她的情欲却不减当年。根据轮船的航程，阿里萨知道什么时候可以去看她，而且总是不事先通知，不管是白天还是晚上，想去的时候就去，没有一次她不是在等着他。

    在他们相识两年之后的一个礼拜日，他到她家去的时候，她做的第一件事不是脱他的衣服，而是摘下他的眼镜，吻他。阿里萨知道，她开始爱上他了。自从第一天起，他在那座房子里就过得很舒坦，他喜欢那座房子，把它视为己有，但每次他没有在那里呆过两小时以上，也从来没有在那里睡过觉，只吃过一回饭，那是她向他发出了正式邀请。实际上，他只是为她而去的，总是带着唯一的礼物——一朵孤零零的玫瑰，到下一次不可预见的机会为止，他连面都不露一下。在她摘下他的眼镜吻他的那个礼拜日，两人在船长那张巨大的床上度过了整整一个下午。午睡醒来，阿里萨还记得听到过白鹦鹉的叫声，那刺耳的破锣似的叫声，和它的美丽的外表格格不入。在炎热的下午四时，万籁俱静，透过卧室的窗户，可以看得见古城的侧面，下午的太阳，照射着它的脊背，照射着它的建筑物的金色尖顶，照射着金光灿灿的直通牙买加的大海。阿乌林西娜伸出大胆的手，阿里萨把她的手推开了。他说：“现在不行！我有个奇怪的感觉，好象有人在瞧着我们。”她又以其幸福的笑声使白鹦鹉尖叫起来。她说：“这种借口，就是宙斯的老婆也不会相信。”当然，她也是不会相信的，但她同意了他的意见，两人又默默地亲热了好大一会儿。五点，太阳仍然老高，她从床上跳起来，一丝不挂，头上扎着那根绸带，到厨房里去找点什么喝的，刚到卧室外面还没迈出一步就惊慌地叫了起来。

    简直无法相信。家里唯一剩下的，只有那些吊灯了。其余的，包括签着姓名的家具、印度地毯、雕塑和哥白林挂毯，难以计数的宝石和贵重金属做的小玩意儿，一切使她家成为全市最漂亮、最富丽堂皇的家庭之一的摆设，一切的一切，直至那只神一般的白鹦鹉，都不翼而飞了。没有打扰他们，从临海阳台上运走了他们的东西。剩下的只是空空如也的几间房子和四个打开了的窗户，还有就是在紧贴里面的墙壁上用粗刷子写的一句话：因为堕落，这种事儿就会落到你的头上。拉罗萨船长一直没法理解，阿乌森西娜干吗不去报案，也没想法同收购赃物的商人联系，并且还不准别人提这件倒霉事儿。

    阿里萨继续到被洗劫一空的那座房子里去看她，家具只剩下强盗们忘在厨房里的三把皮椅子和他们当时所在的那间卧室里的东西。不过，他不象过去那样经常去看她了，这并非出于她所猜测的原因，家里遭到了洗劫，而是因为本世纪初出现了骡车这个新鲜玩意儿。骡车是他别出心裁地猎取孤鸟的极乐世界。他每天乘坐四次，两次到办公室，两次回家，有时候是真的在车里看文件或书报，大部分时间则是以看东西做幌子，去为以后的幽会建立初步联系。后来，叔叔莱昂十二拨给他一辆两匹踉总统拉斐尔?努涅斯的骡子一样的披着金色马衣的栗色骡子拉的车，他时常怀念他乘坐骡拉驿车、手到揭来他于花花公子风流勾当的那个时代。他的想法不无道理：份情的最大敌人，莫过于等在门口的那辆车子。他几乎一直把骡子藏在家里，步行去猎取女人，免得在地上留下车辙。正因为如此，他十分怀念那些驾着老气横秋的。掉了毛的骡子的驿车。在驿车里，他只要斜着眼睛瞟那么一下，就知道在哪里能够找到爱情。然而，在无数个令人心醉的回忆里，他难以忘却一个无依无靠的鸟儿，他连她的名字都不知道，而且同她在一起只度过了一个痛快的半夜，但只那么一幕，就足以使他后半辈子对狂欢节的无辜混乱头疼了。

    她在狂欢的人群中的勇敢的举动，引起了坐在驿车里的他的注意。她看来不出二十岁，如果不是装扮成残疾人的样子，看不出她对狂欢有多大劲头。她的头发颜色很淡，长长的，平平的，自然地披散在肩膀上，穿着一件没有任何装饰的普普通通的长衫。对街上震耳欲聋的音乐，一把把撒向空中的大米粉，驿车走过时向坐车的人撒的红红绿绿的水——拉车的骡子在那疯狂的三天里都用淀粉涂得通身雪白，头上戴着花冠——她都完全无动于衷。利用那个混乱场面，阿里萨提出请她吃冰淇淋，他没想花更大的代价。她看了他一眼，并不感到意外。她说；“我很乐意接受，但是我要警告你，我是个疯子。”对她的回答，他付之一笑，随即带她到冰淇淋店的阳台上去看彩车队伍。过后，他穿上一件租来的带风帽的外衣，两人到海关广场接进了跳舞的人群，象初恋的情人似的翩翩起舞。在喧嚣的夜晚，她益发心醉神迷，跳得跟个舞蹈家似的。在跳舞的人群里，她显得富有创造性而无所顾忌，舞姿优美，令人心荡神驰。

    “你缠着我，还不知道是干了件什么蠢事呢。”她在如火如荼地狂欢着的人群里大声喊叫着说，“我是个疯人院里的疯子。”

    阿里萨觉得，那天晚上他又回到了遭受失恋痛苦之前的纯洁而欢乐的境地。不过他心里明白，这么轻易到手的幸福是不可能持续多长时间的，他在这方面教训多于经验。于是，在夜晚的高潮开始减退之前——高潮总是在分发过化装最佳奖后就开始减退——他对姑娘建议说，到灯塔上去看日出吧。她高兴地接受了建议，但又说等发完奖品再去。

    阿里萨确信，耽误这一会儿，真是救了他一条命。一点不错。当姑娘刚向他示意去灯塔的时候，“圣母”疯人院的两个如狼似虎的看守和一个女看守就扑到了她的身上。自从她下午三点钟逃走之后，他们就到处找她，不仅仅是他们三个人，而且动员了政府当局的全部力量。她用从花匠手里夺过来的砍刀砍死了一个守卫，把另外两个砍成了重伤，因为她想出来参加狂欢节舞会。谁也没想到她竟会在大街上跳舞，都以为她藏到什么人家里去了，他们搜查了成千上万家，连地下蓄水池都搜过了。

    带她走可不容易。她拿出藏在乳罩里的整枝剪刀自卫，六个大男人刚把拘束衣给她套上，拥挤在海关广场上的人群就兴高采烈地鼓掌和起哄，以为这血腥的逮捕也是狂欢节里层出不穷的闹剧之一。阿里萨当时心里象刀绞似的，从礼拜三圣诞节那天开始，他就提着一盒英国巧克力到圣母街转悠，想把巧克力递给她。他站在那里，看着那些从窗户里对着他辱骂或哀求的女囚，用巧克力盒子返她们，希望能侥幸看到她也从铁窗里面出现。但他始终没有再见到过她。数日之后，有一天当他从驿车上下来的时候，一个跟父亲一起走的小女孩向他要一块他提着的盒子里的巧克力。父亲训斥女儿，并向阿里萨道歉。他把整盒巧克力都给了那个小姑娘，心里想他这样做会把他从一切痛苦中拯救出来。随后，他在小女孩的爸爸的肩膀上轻轻拍了一下，让他不要介意。

    “这是送给一个见鬼去了的情人的。”他对他说。

    作为命运的补偿，阿里萨认识卡西亚妮也是在骡拉驿车上，她实际上是他一生中真正爱过的女人，虽然他和她都始终没有意识到，他们也一直没有过枕席之欢。

    他坐下午五点的驿车回家，看到她之前他就感觉到了她的存在：她实实在在地看了他一眼，他觉得好象被手指戳了一下似的。他抬起头看见了她，她坐在对面最远的地方，在其余乘客中有如鹤立鸡群。她迎着他的目光，继续厚颜无耻地盯着他。他只能象在第一次想象时那么想象她：黑姑娘，年轻而漂亮，但毫无疑问，是个婊子。

    他把她从生活中抹掉了，他觉得最不值得的就是拿钱买爱情，他从来没有买过。

    阿里萨在停车广场下了驿车，那是驿车的终点站。他三步并做两步地穿过迷宫似的卖货摊朝前走，母亲在等他六点钟回去。穿出人群之后，他听见背后响起了一阵女人的鞋后跟落在石头地面上的欢快的啦啦声，他回头看了一眼，以便确认他已经猜到了的情况：是她。她的打扮和画中女奴一般，穿一条宽荷叶边裙子，两手以跳舞的姿势牵起裙角，迈过街上的水坑，敞口领开得连肩膀都露了出来，脖子上挂着一串花花绿绿的项链，头上裹着一条白头巾。他在小客栈里见识过她这样的人。

    时常是这样，到了下午六点，她们肚子里还只装着早饭时，她们就不得不把自己的肉体当做拦路贼的刀来使，扯着嗓子对在街上碰到的第一个男人调情。要么做婊子，要么就饿肚子。为了进行一次最后的验证，阿里萨拐了个弯，走进空无一人的那条名叫麦仙翁的小巷子。她尾随着他，越跟越紧。这时，他停下脚步，转过身来双手拄着雨伞站在人行道上，挡住了她的去路。她在他面前站住了。

    “你搞错了，美人儿。”他说，“我不会给你的。”

    “当然会啦，”她说，“从你脸上瞧得出来。”

    阿里萨想起了他小时候听见那位他们家的家庭医生——也就是他的教父——在谈到他的慢性便秘时说过的一句话：“世界上的人分成两大类：会拉屎的和不会拉屎的。”根据这一论断，这位医生提出了一整套关于性格的理论，他认为这比星占学还要精确。然而随着阅历的增长，阿里萨以另一种方式提出了这个理论：“世界上的人分成两大类：会嫖的和不会嫖的。”他对后一种人采取了不信任的态度。对这些人来讲，越轨行为仿佛是不可思议的。他们把男女之间的那些事看得神乎其神，仿佛是他们刚刚发明的。相反，经常干这种事的人，活着就是为了这个。他们心安理得，守口如瓶，因为他们知道，谨慎关系着他们的生命。他们不谈论自己的豪举，不委托任何人牵线搭桥，装做对这事漠不关心到了极点，甚至落得个性无能，或者性冷，尤其是象阿里萨这样被人说成是假女人的名声，他们也无所谓。不过，这种阴差阳错正中他们的下怀，因为这种差错也保护着他们。这是个绝密的共济会，全世界的会员都互相认识，并不需要共同语言。正是这样，阿里萨对那个姑娘的回答才不感到意外：她和他是一丘之貉，因此她才知道他明白她的想法。

    这是他一生最大的错误，他的良心每日每时都这么提醒他，直到他离开人间那一天。她想向他要求的，并非爱情，更不是卖钱的爱情，而是在加勒比内河航运公司找一份儿工作，随便干点什么，挣多少钱都可以。阿里萨对自己的行为很内疚，便把她带去见了人事处长，人事处长给她在总务处安排了一个最低下的工作，她认真、谦卑而兢兢业业地干了三年。

    从创立时起，加勒比内河航运公司的办公室就在码头跟前，和在海湾对面的远洋船只港口以及鬼魂湾市场的锚地毫不搭界。那是一座木结构楼房，房顶是用锌皮做的人字顶，唯一的阳台很长，用支在楼正面的柱子撑着，楼房四面开着好几个钉着铁丝网的窗户，从窗户里可以象看挂在墙上的图表似的看到靠在码头上的全部船只。创建公司的德国人修这座楼的时候，把锌皮顶漆成了红色，把木头墙壁漆成了雪白色，整座楼也有点象一艘内河船只。后来，整个楼都漆成了蓝色，阿里萨到公司里工作的那一阵，楼宇变成了一个灰尘山积的大棚子，说不清到度是什么颜色了，锈迹斑斑的房顶，原先的锌板上用新锌板打了些补丁。楼房后面有个用粗铁丝围起来的铺着碎石子的院子，院子里有两座显得更新一些的大仓库，仓库后面是一条堵死了的河沟，又脏又臭，半个世纪航运积累的垃圾在河沟里腐烂：古老的旧船的废墟，其中有由西蒙?博利瓦尔剪彩下水的只有一个烟筒的原始船只，也有几条相当新的、舱房里已经装有电风扇的船。旧船大部分都已经拆过了，上面的材料用在了别的船上，但不少船只的状况还相当不错，似乎只要给它们涂上点漆就可以开去航行，用不着惊吓住在船里的派晰和除去覆盖在船上使它们显得更加可怜巴巴的巨大的黄色野花。

    楼房的顶层是管理处，房间小而舒适，装备齐全，跟轮船的仓房似的，它是造船工程师修建的。餐厅的尽头里，叔叔莱昂十二跟普通职员一样，在一间和所有的办公室毫无区别的办公室里办公，唯一的区别是，在他的写字台上，每天早晨都有一束插在一个玻璃瓶里的随便什么样的香花。楼房的底层是旅客集中之处，里面有个候船室，候船室里摆着几条粗木凳，一个卖船票和办理行李托运的阳台。在所有办公室的后面，是那个莫名其妙的总务处，单是总务处这个名字，就给人以一个职资含糊的印象，公司其它部门没有解决的所有问题都送到总务处来不了了之。卡西亚妮就在那里，坐在一张放在堆码着的玉米袋子和没法处理的文件堆里的学生课桌后面。那天，叔叔莱昂十二亲自到那里去了，看看这个总务处到底能起点什么作用。

    在那里当众和所有职员进行交谈。在三个小时的理论上的建议和具体调查之后，他忧心忡忡地回到了自己的办公室里，考虑了许久，确信没有找到堆积如山的案件的任何解决办法，而是完全相反，又发现了些无法解决的各种各样的新问题。

    第二天，阿里萨走进自己的办公室的时候，看到了卡西亚妮留的一张条子，要求研究一下，如果认为合适的话，看完以后呈送他的叔叔。她是头天下午在视察时唯一未说话的人。她有意识地注意到了自己的照顾性雇员的身分，但在那张条子上她说明了，她一言不发并不是对事情漠不关心，而是为了尊重处里有身分的职员。

    条子写得如此言简意赅。叔叔莱昂十二设想进行一次深刻改组，但卡西亚妮的想法恰恰相反，理由很简单，所谓总务处实际上不存在：它是装那些其它处推卸下来的令人头疼然而又无足轻重的问题的垃圾桶。因此解决办法就是，撤销总务处，把问题通到原先把它推出来的各处室去解决。

    叔叔莱昂十二对卡西亚妮是何许人毫无印象，也不记得在头天下午的会议上看见过她，但他看了条子之后，就把她叫到办公室，关起门来同她谈了两个小时。按照他厂解人的方式，他们的谈话各方面都有所涉及。条子是平平常常的，但是有助于问题的解决，产生了渴望已久的效果。不过，叔叔莱昂十二对此不感兴趣，他感兴趣的是她本人。最引起他注意的是，小学毕业之后，她只在制帽学校上过学。另外，她正在家里采用一种速成方法无师自通地学习英语，三个月前，她开始上夜校学习打字。打字是个大有前途的新职业，就象过去说电报员大有前途，或再平时候说蒸汽机大有前途是一样的。

    她谈完话出去的时候，叔叔莱昂十?二已经开始象他后来一直称呼她的那样，管她叫同名人莱昂娜了。根据莱昂娜?卡西亚妮的建议，他当机立断地决定撤销总务处，把问题分别退回原来制造这些问题的人那里去解决，并为她设置了一个既没有名称也没有具体职能的职位，实际上就是他的私人助理。这天下午，果断地撤销了总务处之后，叔叔莱昂十二问阿里萨，是从哪儿把卡西亚妮搞来的，阿里萨如实作了回答。

    “那么请你到驿车去一下，把象她一样的姑娘统统给我带来。”叔叔对他说，“有两个或三个这样的姑娘，我们就能把你那只大帆船打捞起来了。”

    阿里萨把这句话当成了叔叔莱昂十二独特的玩笑，但第二天他就发现，六个月以前拨给他的那辆车子不见了，取消他的车子是为了让他继续在驿车上寻找隐藏着的人才。卡西亚妮呢，原先的小心谨慎很快就一扫而光，头三年里将颇为狡猾地隐在内心深处的浑身解数都使厂出来。又过了三年，她把一切情况都掌握了，在往后的四年间，她已经快提升到秘书长了，但她拒绝担任秘书长，因为她只比阿里萨低一级。到那时为止，她依然听命于他，她愿意继续这样。但实际上并非如此，阿里萨本人也没有察觉，是他在听从她的命令。事情是这样的，他只不过是在总经理室里执行她提出的建议，以便帮助他战胜自己那些不露首尾的敌人的阴谋诡计。

引用

Chapter 4

　　THE DAY THAT Florentino Ariza saw Fermina Daza in the atrium of the Cathedral, in the sixthmonth of her pregnancy and in full command of her new condition as a woman of the world, hemade a fierce decision to win fame and fortune in order to deserve her. He did not even stop tothink about the obstacle of her being married, because at the same time he decided, as if itdepended on himself alone, that Dr. Juvenal Urbino had to die. He did not know when or how, buthe considered it an ineluctable event that he was resolved to wait for without impatience orviolence, even till the end of time.

He began at the beginning. He presented himself unannounced in the office of Uncle LeoXII, President of the Board of Directors and General Manager of the River Company of theCaribbean, and expressed his willingness to yield to his plans. His uncle was angry with himbecause of the manner in which he had thrown away the good position of telegraph operator inVilla de Leyva, but he allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are notborn once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them overand over again to give birth to themselves. Besides, his brother's widow had died the year before,still smarting from rancour but without any heirs. And so he gave the job to his errant nephew.

It was a decision typical of Don Leo XII Loayza. Inside the shell of a soulless merchant washidden a genial lunatic, as willing to bring forth a spring of lemonade in the Guajira Desert as toflood a solemn funeral with weeping at his heartbreaking rendition of "In Questa Tomba Oscura."His head was covered with curls, he had the lips of a faun, and all he needed was a lyre and alaurel wreath to be the image of the incendiary Nero of Christian mythology. When he was notoccupied with the administration of his decrepit vessels, still afloat out of sheer distraction on thepart of fate, or with the problems of river navigation, which grew more and more critical everyday, he devoted his free time to the enrichment of his lyric repertoire. He liked nothing better thanto sing at funerals. He had the voice of a galley slave, untrained but capable of impressiveregisters. Someone had told him that Enrico Caruso could shatter a vase with the power of hisvoice, and he had spent years trying to imitate him, even with the windowpanes. His friendsbrought him the most delicate vases they had come across in their travels through the world, andthey organised special parties so that he might at last achieve the culmination of his dream. Henever succeeded. Still, in the depth of his thundering there was a glimmer of tenderness that brokethe hearts of his listeners as if they were the crystal vases of the great Caruso, and it was this thatmade him so revered at funerals. Except at one, when he thought it a good idea to sing "When IWake Up in Glory," a beautiful and moving funeral song from Louisiana, and he was told to bequiet by the priest, who could not understand that Protestant intrusion in his church.

And so, between operatic encores and Neapolitan serenades, his creative talent and hisinvincible entrepreneurial spirit made him the hero of river navigation during the time of itsgreatest splendour. He had come from nothing, like his dead brothers, and all of them went as faras they wished despite the stigma of being illegitimate children and, even worse, illegitimatechildren who had never been recognised. They were the cream of what in those days was calledthe "shop-counter aristocracy," whose sanctuary was the Commercial Club. And yet, even when hehad the resources to live like the Roman emperor he resembled, Uncle Leo XII lived in the oldcity because it was convenient to his business, in such an austere manner and in such a plain housethat he could never shake off an unmerited reputation for miserliness. His only luxury was evensimpler: a house by the sea, two leagues from his offices, furnished only with six handmadestools, a stand for earthenware jars, and a hammock on the terrace where he could lie down tothink on Sundays. No one described him better than he did when someone accused him of beingrich.

"No, not rich," he said. "I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing."His strange nature, which someone once praised in a speech as lucid dementia, allowed himto see in an instant what no one else ever saw in Florentino Ariza. From the day he came to hisoffice to ask for work, with his doleful appearance and his twenty-six useless years behind him, hehad tested him with the severity of a barracks training that could have broken the hardest man. Buthe did not intimidate him. What Uncle Leo XII never suspected was that his nephew's courage didnot come from the need to survive or from a brute indifference inherited from his father, but froma driving need for love, which no obstacle in this world or the next would ever break.

The worst years were the early ones, when he was appointed clerk to the Board of Directors,which seemed a position made to order for him. Lotario Thugut, Uncle Leo XII's old musicteacher, was the one who advised him to give his nephew a writing job because he was a voraciouswholesale consumer of literature, although he preferred the worst to the best. Uncle Leo XIIdisregarded what he said concerning his nephew's bad taste in reading, for Lotario Thugut wouldalso say of him that he had been his worst voice student, and still he could make even tombstonescry. In any case, the German was correct in regard to what he had thought about least, which wasthat Florentino Ariza wrote everything with so much passion that even official documents seemedto be about love. His bills of lading were rhymed no matter how he tried to avoid it, and routinebusiness letters had a lyrical spirit that diminished their authority. His uncle himself came to hisoffice one day with a packet of correspondence that he had not dared put his name to, and he gavehim his last chance to save his soul.

"If you cannot write a business letter you will pick up the trash on the dock," he said.

Florentino Ariza accepted the challenge. He made a supreme effort to learn the mundanesimplicity of mercantile prose, imitating models from notarial files with the same diligence he hadonce used for popular poets. This was the period when he spent his free time in the Arcade of theScribes, helping unlettered lovers to write their scented love notes, in order to unburden his heartof all the words of love that he could not use in customs reports. But at the end of six months, nomatter how hard he twisted, he could not wring the neck of his diehard swan. So that when UncleLeo XII reproached him a second time, he admitted defeat, but with a certain haughtiness.

"Love is the only thing that interests me," he said.

"The trouble," his uncle said to him, "is that without river navigation there is no love."He kept his threat to have him pick up trash on the dock, but he gave him his word that hewould promote him, step by step, up the ladder of faithful service until he found his place. And hedid. No work could defeat him, no matter how hard or humiliating it was, no salary, no matter howmiserable, could demoralise him, and he never lost his essential fearlessness when faced with theinsolence of his superiors. But he was not an innocent, either: everyone who crossed his pathsuffered the consequences of the overwhelming determination, capable of anything, that laybehind his helpless appearance. Just as Uncle Leo XII had foreseen, and according to his desirethat his nephew not be ignorant of any secret in the business, Florentino Ariza moved throughevery post during thirty years of dedication and tenacity in the face of every trial. He fulfilled allhis duties with admirable skill, studying every thread in that mysterious warp that had so much todo with the offices of poetry, but he never won the honour he most desired, which was to writeone, just one, acceptable business letter. Without intending to, without even knowing it, hedemonstrated with his life that his father had been right when he repeated until his dying day thatthere was no one with more common sense, no stonecutter more obstinate, no manager more lucidor dangerous, than a poet. That, at least, is what he was told by Uncle Leo XII, who talked to himabout his father during moments of sentimental leisure and created an image that resembled adreamer more than it did a businessman.

He told him that Pius V Loayza used the offices for matters more pleasant than work, and thathe always arranged to leave the house on Sundays, with the excuse that he had to meet or dispatcha boat. What is more, he had an old boiler installed in the warehouse patio, with a steam whistlethat someone would sound with navigation signals in the event his wife became suspicious.

According to his calculations, Uncle Leo XII was certain that Florentino Ariza had been conceivedon a desk in some unlocked office on a hot Sunday afternoon, while from her house his father'swife heard the farewells of a boat that never sailed. By the time she learned the truth it was toolate to accuse him of infamy because her husband was already dead. She survived him by manyyears, destroyed by the bitterness of not having a child and asking God in her prayers for theeternal damnation of his bastard son.

The image of his father disturbed Florentino Ariza. His mother had spoken of him as a greatman with no commercial vocation, who had at last gone into the river business because his olderbrother had been a very close collaborator of the German commodore Johann B. Elbers, the fatherof river navigation. They were the illegitimate sons of the same mother, a cook by trade, who hadthem by different men, and all bore her surname and the name of a pope chosen at random fromthe calendar of saints' days, except for Uncle Leo XII, named after the Pope in office when he wasborn. The man called Florentino was their maternal grandfather, so that the name had come downto the son of Trsito Ariza after skipping over an entire generation of pontiffs.

Florentino always kept the notebook in which his father wrote love poems, some of theminspired by Trsito Ariza, its pages decorated with drawings of broken hearts. Two thingssurprised him. One was the character of his father's handwriting, identical to his own although hehad chosen his because it was the one he liked best of the many he saw in a manual. The other wasfinding a sentence that he thought he had composed but that his father had written in the notebooklong before he was born: The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love.

He had also seen the only two pictures of his father. One had been taken in Santa Fe, when hewas very young, the same age as Florentino Ariza when he saw the photograph for the first time,and in it he was wearing an overcoat that made him look as if he were stuffed inside a bear, and hewas leaning against a pedestal that supported the decapitated gaiters of a statue. The little boybeside him was Uncle Leo XII, wearing a ship captain's hat. In the other photograph, his fatherwas with a group of soldiers in God knows which of so many wars, and he held the longest rifle,and his moustache had a gunpowder smell that wafted out of the picture. He was a Liberal and aMason, just like his brothers, and yet he wanted his son to go to the seminary. Florentino Ariza didnot see the resemblance that people observed, but according to his Uncle Leo XII, Pius V was alsoreprimanded for the lyricism of his documents. In any case, he did not resemble him in thepictures, or in his memories of him, or in the image transfigured by love that his mother painted,or in the one unpainted by his Uncle Leo XII with his cruel wit. Nevertheless, Florentino Arizadiscovered the resemblance many years later, as he was combing his hair in front of the mirror,and only then did he understand that a man knows when he is growing old because he begins tolook like his father.

He had no memory of him on the Street of Windows. He thought he knew that at one time hisfather slept there, very early in his love affair with Trsito Ariza, but that he did not visit heragain after the birth of Florentino. For many years the baptismal certificate was our only validmeans of identification, and Florentino Ariza's, recorded in the parish church of St. Tiburtius, saidonly that he was the natural son of an unwed natural daughter called Trsito Ariza. The name ofhis father did not appear on it, although Pius V took care of his son's needs in secret until the dayhe died. This social condition closed the doors of the seminary to Florentino Ariza, but he alsoescaped military service during the bloodiest period of our wars because he was the only son of anunmarried woman.

Every Friday after school he sat across from the offices of the River Company of theCaribbean, looking at pictures of animals in a book that was falling apart because he had looked atit so often. His father would walk into the building without looking at him, wearing the frock coatsthat Trsito Ariza later had to alter for him, and with a face identical to that of St. John theEvangelist on the altars. When he came out, many hours later, he would make certain that no onesaw him, not even his coachman, and he would give him money for the week's expenses. They didnot speak, not only because his father made no effort to, but because he was terrified of him. Oneday, after he waited much longer than usual, his father gave him the coins and said: "Take themand do not come back again."It was the last time he saw him. But in time he was to learn that Uncle Leo XII, who wassome ten years younger, continued to bring money to Trsito Ariza, and was the one who tookcare of her after Pius V died of an untreated colic without leaving anything in writing and withoutthe time to make any provisions for his only child: a child of the streets.

The drama of Florentino Ariza while he was a clerk for the River Company of the Caribbeanwas that he could not avoid lyricism because he was always thinking about Fermina Daza, and hehad never learned to write without thinking about her. Later, when he was moved to other posts,he had so much love left over inside that he did not know what to do with it, and he offered it tounlettered lovers free of charge, writing their love missives for them in the Arcade of the Scribes.

That is where he went after work. He would take off his frock coat with his circumspect gesturesand hang it over the back of the chair, he would put on the cuffs so he would not dirty his shirtsleeves, he would unbutton his vest so he could think better, and sometimes until very late at nighthe would encourage the hopeless with letters of mad adoration. From time to time he would be approachedby a poor woman who had a problem with one of her children, a war veteran whopersisted in demanding payment of his pension, someone who had been robbed and wanted to filea complaint with the government, but no matter how he tried, he could not satisfy them, becausethe only convincing document he could write was a love letter. He did not even ask his new clientsany questions, because all he had to do was look at the whites of their eyes to know what theirproblem was, and he would write page after page of uncontrolled love, following the infallibleformula of writing as he thought about Fermina Daza and nothing but Fermina Daza. After thefirst month he had to establish a system of appointments made in advance so that he would not beswamped by yearning lovers.

His most pleasant memory of that time was of a very timid young girl, almost a child, whotrembled as she asked him to write an answer to an irresistible letter that she had just received, andthat Florentino Ariza recognised as one he had written on the previous afternoon. He answered itin a different style, one that was in tune with the emotions and the age of the girl, and in a handthat also seemed to be hers, for he knew how to create a handwriting for every occasion, accordingto the character of each person. He wrote, imagining to himself what Fermina Daza would havesaid to him if she had loved him as much as that helpless child loved her suitor. Two days later, ofcourse, he had to write the boy's reply with the same hand, style, and kind of love that he hadattributed to him in the first letter, and so it was that he became involved in a feverishcorrespondence with himself. Before a month had passed, each came to him separately to thankhim for what he himself had proposed in the boy's letter and accepted with devotion in the girl'sresponse: they were going to marry.

Only when they had their first child did they realise, after a casual conversation, that theirletters had been written by the same scribe, and for the first time they went together to the Arcadeto ask him to be the child's godfather. Florentino Ariza was so enraptured by the practical evidenceof his dreams that he used time he did not have to write a Lovers' Companion that was more poeticand extensive than the one sold in doorways for twenty centavos and that half the city knew byheart. He categorised all the imaginable situations in which he and Fermina Daza might findthemselves, and for all of them he wrote as many models and alternatives as he could think of.

When he finished, he had some thousand letters in three volumes as complete as the CovarrubiasDictionary, but no printer in the city would take the risk of publishing them, and they ended up inan attic along with other papers from the past, for Trsito Ariza flatly refused to dig out theearthenware jars and squander the savings of a lifetime on a mad publishing venture. Years later,when Florentino Ariza had the resources to publish the book himself, it was difficult for him toaccept the reality that love letters had gone out of fashion.

As he was starting out in the River Company of the Caribbean and writing letters free ofcharge in the Arcade of the Scribes, the friends of Florentino Ariza's youth were certain that theywere slowly losing him beyond recall. And they were right. When he returned from his voyagealong the river, he still saw some of them in the hope of dimming the memory of Fermina Daza,he played billiards with them, he went to their dances, he allowed himself to be raffled off amongthe girls, he allowed himself to do everything he thought would help him to become the man hehad once been. Later, when Uncle Leo XII took him on as an employee, he played dominoes withhis officemates in the Commercial Club, and they began to accept him as one of their own whenhe spoke to them of nothing but the navigation company, which he did not call by its completename but by its initials: the R C. C. He even changed the way he ate. As indifferent and irregularas he had been until then regarding food, that was how habitual and austere he became until theend of his days: a large cup of black coffee for breakfast, a slice of poached fish with white ricefor lunch, a cup of caf?con leche and a piece of cheese before going to bed. He drank black coffeeat any hour, anywhere, under any circumstances, as many as thirty little cups a day: a brew likecrude oil which he preferred to prepare himself and which he always kept near at hand in athermos. He was another person, despite his firm decision and anguished efforts to continue to bethe same man he had been before his mortal encounter with love.

The truth is that he was never the same again. Winning back Fermina Daza was the solepurpose of his life, and he was so certain of achieving it sooner or later that he convinced Trsito Ariza to continue with the restoration of the house so that it would be ready to receive herwhenever the miracle took place. In contrast to her reaction to the proposed publication of theLovers' Companion, Trsito Ariza went much further: she bought the house at once andundertook a complete renovation. They made a reception room where the bedroom had been, onthe upper floor they built two spacious, bright bedrooms, one for the married couple and anotherfor the children they were going to have, and in the space where the old tobacco factory had beenthey put in an extensive garden with all kinds of roses, which Florentino Ariza himself tendedduring his free time at dawn. The only thing they left intact, as a kind of testimony of gratitude tothe past, was the notions shop. The back room where Florentino Ariza had slept they left as it hadalways been, with the hammock hanging and the writing table covered with untidy piles of books,but he moved to the room planned as the conjugal bedroom on the upper floor. This was thelargest and airiest in the house, and it had an interior terrace where it was pleasant to sit at nightbecause of the sea breeze and the scent of the rosebushes, but it was also the room that bestreflected Florentino Ariza's Trappist severity. The plain whitewashed walls were rough andunadorned, and the only furniture was a prison cot, a night table with a candle in a bottle, an oldwardrobe, and a washstand with its basin and bowl.

The work took almost three years, and it coincided with a brief civic revival owing to theboom in river navigation and trade, the same factors that had maintained the city's greatnessduring colonial times and for more than two centuries had made her the gateway to America. Butthat was also the period when Trsito Ariza manifested the first symptoms of her incurabledisease. Her regular clients were older, paler, and more faded each time they came to the notionsshop, and she did not recognise them after dealing with them for half a lifetime, or she confusedthe affairs of one with those of another, which was a very grave matter in a business like hers, inwhich no papers were signed to protect her honour or theirs, and one's word of honour was givenand accepted as sufficient guarantee. At first it seemed she was growing deaf, but it soon becameevident that her memory was trickling away. And so she liquidated her pawn business, the treasurein the jars paid for completing and furnishing the house, and still left over were many of the mostvaluable old jewels in the city, whose owners did not have funds to redeem them.

During this period Florentino Ariza had to attend to too many responsibilities at the sametime, but his spirits never flagged as he sought to expand his work as a furtive hunter. After hiserratic experience with the Widow Nazaret, which opened the door to street love, he continued tohunt the abandoned little birds of the night for several years, still hoping to find a cure for the painof Fermina Daza. But by then he could no longer tell if his habit of fornicating without hope was amental necessity or a simple vice of the body. His visits to the transient hotel became lessfrequent, not only because his interests lay elsewhere but because he did not like them to see himthere under circumstances that were different from the chaste domesticity of the past.

Nevertheless, in three emergency situations he had recourse to the simple strategy of an era beforehis time: he disguised his friends, who were afraid of being recognised, as men, and they walkedinto the hotel together as if they were two gentlemen out on the town. Yet on two of theseoccasions someone realised that he and his presumptive male companion did not go to the bar butto a room, and the already tarnished reputation of Florentino Ariza received the coup de grace. Atlast he stopped going there, except for the very few times he did so not to catch up on what he hadmissed but for just the opposite reason: to find a refuge where he could recuperate from hisexcesses.

And it was just as well. No sooner did he leave his office at five in the afternoon than hebegan to hunt like a chicken hawk. At first he was content with what the night provided. He pickedup serving girls in the parks, black women in the market, sophisticated young ladies from theinterior on the beaches, gringas on the boats from New Orleans. He took them to the jetties wherehalf the city also went after nightfall, he took them wherever he could, and sometimes even wherehe could not, and not infrequently he had to hurry into a dark entryway and do what he could,however he could do it, behind the gate.

The lighthouse was always a blessed refuge in a storm, which he evoked with nostalgia in thedawn of his old age when he had everything settled, because it was a good place to be happy,above all at night, and he thought that something of his loves from that time flashed out to thesailors with every turn of the light. So that he continued to go there more than to any other spot,while his friend the lighthouse keeper was delighted to receive him with a simplemindedexpression on his face that was the best guarantee of discretion for the frightened little birds.

There was a house at the foot of the tower, close to the thunder of the waves breaking against thecliffs, where love was more intense because it seemed like a shipwreck. But Florentino Arizapreferred the light tower itself, late at night, because one could see the entire city and the trail oflights on the fishing boats at sea, and even in the distant swamps.

It was in those days that he devised his rather simplistic theories concerning the relationshipbetween a woman's appearance and her aptitude for love. He distrusted the sensual type, the oneswho looked as if they could eat an alligator raw and tended to be the most passive in bed. The typehe preferred was just the opposite: those skinny little tadpoles that no one bothered to turn aroundand look at in the street, who seemed to disappear when they took off their clothes, who made youfeel sorry for them when their bones cracked at the first impact, and yet who could leave the manwho bragged the most about his virility ready for the trashcan. He had made notes of thesepremature observations, intending to write a practical supplement to the Lovers' Companion, butthe project met the same fate as the previous one after Ausencia Santander sent him tumbling withher old dog's wisdom, stood him on his head, tossed him up and threw him down, made him asgood as new, shattered all his virtuous theories, and taught him the only thing he had to learnabout love: that nobody teaches life anything.

Ausencia Santander had had a conventional marriage for twenty years, which left her withthree children who had married and had children in turn, so that she boasted of being thegrandmother with the best bed in the city. It was never clear if she had abandoned her husband, orif he had abandoned her, or if they had abandoned each other at the same time, but he went to livewith his regular mistress, and then she felt free, in the middle of the day and at the front door, toreceive Rosendo de la Rosa, a riverboat captain whom she had often received in the middle of thenight at the back door. Without giving the matter a second thought, he brought Florentino Ariza tomeet her.

He brought him for lunch. He also brought a demijohn of homemade aguardiente andingredients of the highest quality for an epic sancocho, the kind that was possible only withchickens from the patio, meat with tender bones, rubbish-heap pork, and greens and vegetablesfrom the towns along the river. Nevertheless, from the very first, Florentino Ariza was not asenthusiastic about the excellence of the cuisine or the exuberance of the lady of the house as hewas about the beauty of the house itself. He liked her because of her house, bright and cool, withfour large windows facing the sea and beyond that a complete view of the old city. He liked thequantity and the splendour of the things that gave the living room a confused and at the same timerigorous appearance, with all kinds of handcrafted objects that Captain Rosendo de la Rosabrought back from each trip until there was no room left for another piece. On the sea terrace,sitting on his private ring, was a cockatoo from Malaya, with unbelievable white plumage and apensive tranquillity that gave one much to think about: it was the most beautiful animal thatFlorentino Ariza had ever seen.

Captain Rosendo de la Rosa was enthusiastic about his guest's enthusiasm, and he told him indetail the history of each object. As he spoke he sipped aguardiente without pause. He seemed tobe made of reinforced concrete: he was enormous, with hair all over his body except on his head, amoustache like a housepainter's brush, a voice like a capstan, which would have been his alone,and an exquisite courtesy. But not even his body could resist the way he drank. Before they satdown to the table he had finished half of the demijohn, and he fell forward onto the tray of glassesand bottles with a slow sound of demolition. Ausencia Santander had to ask Florentino Ariza tohelp her drag the inert body of the beached whale to bed and undress him as he slept. Then, in aflash of inspiration that they attributed to a conjunction of their stars, the two of them undressed inthe next room without agreeing to, without even suggesting it or proposing it to each other, and formore than seven years they continued undressing wherever they could while the Captain was on atrip. There was no danger of his surprising them, because he had the good sailor's habit of advisingthe port of his arrival by sounding the ship's horn, even at dawn, first with three long howls for hiswife and nine children, and then with two short, melancholy ones for his mistress.

Ausencia Santander was almost fifty years old and looked it, but she had such a personalinstinct for love that no homegrown or scientific theories could interfere with it. Florentino Arizaknew from the ship's itineraries when he could visit her, and he always went unannounced,whenever he wanted to, at any hour of the day or night, and never once was she not waiting forhim. She would open the door as her mother had raised her until she was seven years old: starknaked, with an organdy ribbon in her hair. She would not let him take another step until she hadundressed him, because she thought it was bad luck to have a clothed man in the house. This wasthe cause of constant discord with Captain Rosendo de la Rosa, because he had the superstitiousbelief that smoking naked brought bad luck, and at times he preferred to put off love rather thanput out his inevitable Cuban cigar. On the other hand, Florentino Ariza was very taken with thecharms of nudity, and she removed his clothes with sure delight as soon as she closed the door, noteven giving him time to greet her, or to take off his hat or his glasses, kissing him and letting himkiss her with sharp-toothed kisses, unfastening his clothes from bottom to top, first the buttons ofhis fly, one by one after each kiss, then his belt buckle, and at the last his vest and shirt, until hewas like a live fish that had been slit open from head to tail. Then she sat him in the living roomand took off his boots, pulled on his trouser cuffs so that she could take off his pants while sheremoved his long underwear, and at last she undid the garters around his calves and took off hissocks. Then Florentino Ariza stopped kissing her and letting her kiss him so that he could do theonly thing he was responsible for in that precise ceremony: he took his watch and chain out of thebuttonhole in his vest and took off his glasses and put them in his boots so he would be sure not toforget them. He always took that precaution, always without fail, whenever he undressed insomeone else's house.

As soon as he had done that, she attacked him without giving him time for anything else,there on the same sofa where she had just undressed him, and only on rare occasions in the bed.

She mounted him and took control of all of him for all of her, absorbed in herself, her eyes closed,gauging the situation in her absolute inner darkness, advancing here, retreating there, correctingher invisible route, trying another, more intense path, another means of proceeding withoutdrowning in the slimy marsh that flowed from her womb, droning like a horsefly as she askedherself questions and answered in her native jargon; where was that something in the shadows thatonly she knew about and that she longed for just for herself, until she succumbed without waitingfor anybody, she fell alone into her abyss with a jubilant explosion of total victory that made theworld tremble. Florentino Ariza was left exhausted, incomplete, floating in a puddle of theirperspiration, but with the impression of being no more than an instrument of pleasure. He wouldsay: "You treat me as if I were just anybody." She would roar with the laughter of a free femaleand say: "Not at all: as if you were nobody." He was left with the impression that she took awayeverything with mean-spirited greed, and his pride would rebel and he would leave the housedetermined never to return. But then he would wake for no reason in the middle of the night, andthe memory of the self-absorbed love of Ausencia Santander was revealed to him for what it was:

a pitfall of happiness that he despised and desired at the same time, but from which it wasimpossible to escape.

One Sunday, two years after they met, the first thing she did when he arrived was to take offhis glasses instead of undressing him, so that she could kiss him with greater ease, and this washow Florentino Ariza learned that she had begun to love him. Despite the fact that from the firstday he had felt very comfortable in the house that he now loved as if it were his own, he had neverstayed longer than two hours, and he had never slept there, and he had eaten there only oncebecause she had given him a formal invitation. He went there, in fact, only for what he had comefor, always bringing his only gift, a single rose, and then he would disappear until the nextunforeseeable time. But on the Sunday when she took off his glasses to kiss him, in part becauseof that and in part because they fell asleep after gentle love-making, they spent the afternoonnaked in the Captain's enormous bed. When he awoke from his nap, Florentino Ariza stillremembered the shrieking of the cockatoo, whose strident calls belied his beauty. But the silencewas diaphanous in the four o'clock heat, and through the bedroom window one could see theoutline of the old city with the afternoon sun at its back, its golden domes, its sea in flames all theway to Jamaica. Ausencia Santander stretched out an adventurous hand, seeking the sleepingbeast, but Florentino Ariza moved it away. He said: "Not now. I feel something strange, as ifsomeone were watching us." She aroused the cockatoo again with her joyous laughter. She said:

"Not even Jonah's wife would swallow that story." Neither did she, of course, but she admitted itwas a good one, and the two of them loved each other for a long time in silence without makinglove again. At five o'clock, with the sun still high, she jumped out of bed, naked as always andwith the organdy ribbon in her hair, and went to find something to drink in the kitchen. But shehad not taken a single step out of the bedroom when she screamed in horror.

She could not believe it. The only objects left in the house were the lamps attached to thewalls. All the rest, the signed furniture, the Indian rugs, the statues and the hand-woven tapestries,the countless trinkets made of precious stones and metals, everything that had made hers one ofthe most pleasant and best decorated houses in the city, everything, even the sacred cockatoo,everything had vanished. It had been carried out through the sea terrace without disturbing theirlove. All that was left were empty rooms with the four open windows, and a message painted onthe rear wall: This is what you get for fucking around. Captain Rosendo de la Rosa could neverunderstand why Ausencia Santander did not report the robbery, or try to get in touch with thedealers in stolen goods, or permit her misfortune to be mentioned again.

Florentino Ariza continued to visit her in the looted house, whose furnishings were reducedto three leather stools that the thieves forgot in the kitchen, and the contents of the bedroom wherethe two of them had been. But he did not visit her as often as before, not because of the desolationin the house, as she supposed and as she said to him, but because of the novelty of a mule-drawntrolley at the turn of the new century, which proved to be a prodigious and original nest of free-flying little birds. He rode it four times a day, twice to go to the office, twice to return home, andsometimes when his reading was real, and most of the time when it was pretence, he would takethe first steps, at least, toward a future tryst. Later, when Uncle Leo XII put at his disposal acarriage drawn by two little grey mules with golden trappings, just like the one that belonged toPresident Rafael Nez, he would long for those times on the trolley as the most fruitful of allhis adventures in falconry. He was right: there is no worse enemy of secret love than a carriagewaiting at the door. In fact, he almost always left it hidden at his house and made his hawkishrounds On foot so that he would not leave wheel marks in the dust. That is why he evoked withsuch great nostalgia the old trolley with its emaciated mules covered with sores, in which asideways glance was all one needed to know where love was. However, in the midst of so manytender memories, he could not elude his recollection of a helpless little bird whose name he neverknew and with whom he spent no more than half a frenetic night, but that had been enough to ruinthe innocent rowdiness of Carnival for him for the rest of his life.

She had attracted his attention on the trolley for the fearlessness with which she travelledthrough the riotous public celebration. She could not have been more than twenty years old, andshe did not seem to share the spirit of Carnival, unless she was disguised as an invalid: her hairwas very light, long, and straight, hanging loose over her shoulders, and she wore a tunic of plain,unadorned linen. She was completely removed from the confusion of music in the streets, thehandfuls of rice powder, the showers of aniline thrown at the passengers on the trolley, whosemules were whitened with cornstarch and wore flowered hats during those three days of madness.

Taking advantage of the confusion, Florentino Ariza invited her to have an ice with him, becausehe did not think he could ask for anything more. She looked at him without surprise. She said: "Iam happy to accept, but I warn you that I am crazy." He laughed at her witticism, and took her tosee the parade of floats from the balcony of the ice cream shop. Then he put on a rented cape, andthe two of them joined the dancing in the Plaza of the Customhouse, and enjoyed themselves likenewborn sweethearts, for her indifference went to the opposite extreme in the uproar of the night:

she danced like a professional, she was imaginative and daring in her revelry, and she haddevastating charm.

"You don't know the trouble you've got into with me," she shouted, laughing in the fever ofCarnival. "I'm a crazy woman from the insane asylum."For Florentino Ariza, that night was a return to the innocent unruliness of adolescence, whenhe had not yet been wounded by love. But he knew, more from hearsay than from personalexperience, that such easy happiness could not last very long. And so before the night began todegenerate, as it always did after prizes were distributed for the best costumes, he suggested to thegirl that they go to the lighthouse to watch the sunrise. She accepted with pleasure, but she wantedto wait until after they had given out the prizes.

Florentino Ariza was certain that the delay saved his life. In fact, the girl had indicated to himthat they should leave for the lighthouse, when she was seized by two guards and a nurse fromDivine Shepherdess Asylum. They had been looking for her since her escape at three o'clock thatafternoon--they and the entire police force. She had decapitated a guard and seriously woundedtwo others with a machete that she had snatched away from the gardener because she wanted to godancing at Carnival. It had not occurred to anyone that she might be dancing in the streets; theythought she would be hiding in one of the many houses where they had searched even the cisterns.

It was not easy to take her away. She defended herself with a pair of gardening shears thatshe had hidden in her bodice, and six men were needed to put her in the strait jacket while thecrowd jammed into the Plaza of the Customhouse applauded and whistled with glee in the beliefthat the bloody capture was one of many Carnival farces. Florentino Ariza was heartbroken, andbeginning on Ash Wednesday he would walk down Divine Shepherdess Street with a box ofEnglish chocolates for her. He would stand and look at the inmates, who shouted all kinds ofprofanities and compliments at him through the windows, and he would show them the box ofchocolates in case luck would have it that she, too, might look out at him through the iron bars.

But he never saw her. Months later, as he was getting off the mule-drawn trolley, a little girlwalking with her father asked him for a piece of chocolate from the box he was carrying in hishand. Her father reprimanded her and begged Florentino Ariza's pardon. But he gave the wholebox to the child, thinking that the action would redeem him from all bitterness, and he soothed thefather with a pat on the back.

"They were for a love that has gone all to hell," he said.

As a kind of compensation from fate, it was also in the mule-drawn trolley that FlorentinoAriza met Leona Cassiani, who was the true woman in his life although neither of them ever knewit and they never made love. He had sensed her before he saw her as he was going home on thetrolley at five o'clock; it was a tangible look that touched him as if it were a finger. He raised hiseyes and saw her, at the far end of the trolley, but standing out with great clarity from the otherpassengers. She did not look away. On the contrary: she continued to look at him with suchboldness that he could not help thinking what he thought: black, young, pretty, but a whorebeyond the shadow of a doubt. He rejected her from his life, because he could not conceive ofanything more contemptible than paying for love: he had never done it.

Florentino Ariza got off at the Plaza of the Carriages, which was the end of the line, hurriedthrough the labyrinth of commerce because his mother was expecting him at six, and when heemerged on the other side of the crowd, he heard the tapping heels of a loose woman on thepaving stones and turned around so that he would be certain of what he already knew: it was she,dressed like the slave girls in engravings, with a skirt of veils that was raised with the gesture of adancer when she stepped over the puddles in the streets, a low-cut top that left her shoulders bare,a handful of coloured necklaces, and a white turban. He knew them from the transient hotel. Itoften happened that at six in the afternoon they were still eating breakfast, and then all they coulddo was to use sex as if it were a bandit's knife and put it to the throat of the first man they passedon the street: your prick or your life. As a final test, Florentino Ariza changed direction and wentdown the deserted Oil Lamp Alley, and she followed, coming closer and closer to him. Then hestopped, turned around, blocked her way on the sidewalk, and leaned on his umbrella with bothhands. She stood facing him.

"You made a mistake, good-looking," he said. "I don't do that.""Of course you do," she said. "One can see it in your face."Florentino Ariza remembered a phrase from his childhood, something that the family doctor,his godfather, had said regarding his chronic constipation: "The world is divided into those whocan shit and those who cannot." On the basis of this dogma the Doctor had elaborated an entiretheory of character, which he considered more accurate than astrology. But with what he hadlearned over the years, Florentino Ariza stated it another way: "The world is divided into thosewho screw and those who do not." He distrusted those who did not: when they strayed from thestraight and narrow, it was something so unusual for them that they bragged about love as if theyhad just invented it. Those who did it often, on the other hand, lived for that alone. They felt sogood that their lips were sealed as if they were tombs, because they knew that their lives dependedon their discretion. They never spoke of their exploits, they confided in no one, they feignedindifference to the point where they earned the reputation of being impotent, or frigid, or above alltimid fairies, as in the case of Florentino Ariza. But they took pleasure in the error because theerror protected them. They formed a secret society, whose members recognised each other all overthe world without need of a common language, which is why Florentino Ariza was not surprisedby the girl's reply: she was one of them, and therefore she knew that he knew that she knew.

It was the great mistake of his life, as his conscience was to remind him every hour of everyday until the final day of his life. What she wanted from him was not love, least of all love thatwas paid for, but a job, any kind of job, at any salary, in the River Company of the Caribbean.

Florentino Ariza felt so ashamed of his own conduct that he took her to the head of Personnel,who gave her the lowest-level job in the General Section, which she performed with seriousness,modesty, and dedication for three years.

Ever since its founding, the R. C. C. had had its offices across from the river dock, and it hadnothing in common with the port for ocean liners on the opposite side of the bay, or with themarket pier on Las羘 imas Bay. The building was of wood, with a sloping tin roof, a single longbalcony with columns at the front, and windows, covered with wire mesh, on all four sidesthrough which one had complete views of the boats at the dock as if they were paintings hangingon the wall. When the German founders built it, they painted the tin roof red and the wooden wallsa brilliant white, so that the building itself bore some resemblance to a riverboat. Later it waspainted all blue, and at the time that Florentino Ariza began to work for the company it was adusty shed of no definite colour, and on the rusting roof there were patches of new tin plates overthe original ones. Behind the building, in a gravel patio surrounded by chicken wire, stood twolarge warehouses of more recent construction, and at the back there was a closed sewer pipe, dirtyand foul-smelling, where the refuse of a half a century of river navigation lay rotting: the debris ofhistoric boats, from the early one with a single smokestack, christened by Sim贸 n Bolar, tosome so recent that they had electric fans in the cabins. Most of them had been dismantled formaterials to be used in building other boats, but many were in such good condition that it seemedpossible to give them a coat of paint and launch them without frightening away the iguanas ordisturbing the foliage of the large yellow flowers that made them even more nostalgic.

The Administrative Section was on the upper floor of the building, in small but comfortableand well-appointed offices similar to the cabins on the boats, for they had been built not by civilarchitects but by naval engineers. At the end of the corridor, like any employee, Uncle Leo XIIdispatched his business in an office similar to all the others, the one exception being that everymorning he found a glass vase filled with sweet-smelling flowers on his desk. On the ground floorwas the Passenger Section, with a waiting room that had rustic benches and a counter for sellingtickets and handling baggage. Last of all was the confusing General Section, its name alonesuggesting the vagueness of its functions, where problems that had not been solved elsewhere inthe company went to die an ignominious death. There sat Leona Cassiani, lost behind a student'sdesk surrounded by corn stacked for shipping and unresolved papers, on the day that Uncle LeoXII himself went to see what the devil he could think of to make the General Section good forsomething. After three hours of questions, theoretical assumptions, and concrete evidence, with allthe employees in the middle of the room, he returned to his office tormented by the certainty thatinstead of a solution to so many problems, he had found just the opposite: new and differentproblems with no solution.

The next day, when Florentino Ariza came into his office, he found a memorandum fromLeona Cassiani, with the request that he study it and then show it to his uncle if he thought itappropriate. She was the only one who had not said a word during the inspection the previousafternoon. She had remained silent in full awareness of the worth of her position as a charityemployee, but in the memorandum she noted that she had said nothing not because of negligencebut out of respect for the hierarchies in the section. It had an alarming simplicity. Uncle Leo XIIhad proposed a thorough reorganisation, but Leona Cassiani did not agree, for the simple reasonthat in reality the General Section did not exist: it was the dumping ground for annoying but minorproblems that the other sections wanted to get rid of. As a consequence, the solution was toeliminate the General Section and return the problems to the sections where they had originated, tobe solved there.

Uncle Leo XII did not have the slightest idea who Leona Cassiani was, and he could notremember having seen anyone who could be Leona Cassiani at the meeting on the previousafternoon, but when he read the memorandum he called her to his office and talked with herbehind closed doors for two hours. They spoke about everything, in accordance with the methodhe used to learn about people. The memorandum showed simple common sense, and hersuggestion, in fact, would produce the desired result. But Uncle Leo XII was not interested in that:

he was interested in her. What most attracted his attention was that her only education afterelementary school had been in the School of Millinery. Moreover, she was learning English athome, using an accelerated method with no teacher, and for the past three months she had beentaking evening classes in typing, a new kind of work with a wonderful future, as they used to sayabout the telegraph and before that the steam engine.

When she left the meeting, Uncle Leo XII had already begun to call her what he wouldalways call her: my namesake Leona. He had decided to eliminate with the stroke of a pen thetroublesome section and distribute the problems so that they could be solved by the people whohad created them, in accordance with Leona Cassiani's suggestion, and he had created a newposition for her, which had no title or specific duties but in effect was his Personal Assistant. Thatafternoon, after the inglorious burial of the General Section, Uncle Leo XII asked Florentino Arizawhere he had found Leona Cassiani, and he answered with the truth.

"Well, then, go back to the trolley and bring me every girl like her that you find," his unclesaid. "With two or three more, we'll salvage your galleon."Florentino Ariza took this as one of Uncle Leo XII's typical jokes, but the next day he foundhimself without the carriage that had been assigned to him six months earlier, and that was takenback now so that he could continue to look for hidden talent on the trolleys. Leona Cassiani, forher part, soon overcame her initial scruples, and she revealed what she had kept hidden with somuch astuteness during her first three years. In three more years she had taken control ofeverything, and in the next four she stood on the threshold of the General Secretaryship, but sherefused to cross it because it was only one step below Florentino Ariza. Until then she had takenorders from him, and she wanted to continue to do so, although the fact of the matter was thatFlorentino himself did not realise that he took orders from her. Indeed, he had done nothing moreon the Board of Directors than follow her suggestions, which helped him to move up despite thetraps set by his secret enemies.

Leona Cassiani had a diabolical talent for handling secrets, and she always knew how to bewhere she had to be at the right time. She was dynamic and quiet, with a wise sweetness. Butwhen it was indispensable she would, with sorrow in her heart, give free rein to a character ofsolid iron. However, she never did that for herself. Her only objective was to clear the ladder atany cost, with blood if necessary, so that Florentino Ariza could move up to the position he hadproposed for himself without calculating his own strength very well. She would have done this inany event, of course, because she had an indomitable will to power, but the truth was that she didit consciously, out of simple gratitude. Her determination was so great that Florentino Arizahimself lost his way in her schemes, and on one unfortunate occasion he attempted to block her,thinking that she was trying to do the same to him. Leona Cassiani put him in his place.

"Make no mistake," she said to him. "I will withdraw from all this whenever you wish, butthink it over carefully."Florentino Ariza, who in fact had never thought about it, thought about it then, as well as hecould, and he surrendered his weapons. The truth is that in the midst of that sordid internecinebattle in a company in perpetual crisis, in the midst of his disasters as a tireless falconer and themore and more uncertain dream of Fermina Daza, the impassive Florentino Ariza had not had amoment of inner peace as he confronted the fascinating spectacle of that fierce black womansmeared with shit and love in the fever of battle. Many times he regretted in secret that she had notbeen in fact what he thought she was on the afternoon he met her, so that he could wipe his asswith his principles and make love to her even if it cost nuggets of shining gold. For LeonaCassiani was still the woman she had been that afternoon on the trolley, with the same clothes,worthy of an impetuous runaway slave, her mad turbans, her earrings and bracelets made of bone,her necklaces, her rings with fake stones on every finger: a lioness in the streets. The years hadchanged her appearance very little, and that little became her very well. She moved in splendidmaturity, her feminine charms were even more exciting, and her ardent African body wasbecoming more compact. Florentino Ariza had made no propositions to her in ten years, a hardpenance for his original error, and she had helped him in everything except that.

One night when he had worked late, something he did often after his mother's death,Florentino Ariza was about to leave when he saw a light burning in Leona Cassiani's office. Heopened the door without knocking, and there she was: alone at her desk, absorbed, serious, withthe new eyeglasses that gave her an academic air. Florentino Ariza realised with joyful fear thatthe two of them were alone in the building, the piers were deserted, the city asleep, the nighteternal over the dark sea, and the horn mournful on the ship that would not dock for another hour.

Florentino Ariza leaned both hands on his umbrella, just as he had done in Oil Lamp Alley whenhe barred her way, only now he did it to hide the trembling in his knees.

"Tell me something, lionlady of my soul," he said. "When are we ever going to stop this?"She took off her glasses without surprise, with absolute self-control, and dazzled him withher solar laugh. It was the first time she used the familiar form of address with him.

"Ay, Florentino Ariza," she said, "I've been sitting here for ten years waiting for you to askme that."It was too late: the opportunity had been there with her in the mule-drawn trolley, it hadalways been with her there on the chair where she was sitting, but now it was gone forever. Thetruth was that after all the dirty tricks she had done for him, after so much sordidness endured forhim, she had moved on in life and was far beyond his twenty-year advantage in age: she hadgrown too old for him. She loved him so much that instead of deceiving him she preferred tocontinue loving him, although she had to let him know in a brutal manner.

"No," she said to him. "I would feel as if I were going to bed with the son I never had."Florentino Ariza was left with the nagging suspicion that this was not her last word. Hebelieved that when a woman says no, she is waiting to be urged before making her final decision,but with her he could not risk making the same mistake twice. He withdrew without protest, andeven with a certain grace, which was not easy for him. From that night on, any cloud there mighthave been between them was dissipated without bitterness, and Florentino Ariza understood at lastthat it is possible to be a woman's friend and not go to bed with her.

Leona Cassiani was the only human being to whom Florentino Ariza was tempted to revealthe secret of Fermina Daza. The few people who had known were beginning to forget for reasonsover which they had no control. Three of them were, beyond the shadow of any doubt, in thegrave: his mother, whose memory had been erased long before she died; Gala Placidia, who haddied of old age in the service of one who had been like a daughter to her; and the unforgettableEscoltica Daza, the woman who had brought him the first love letter he had ever received inhis life, hidden in her prayerbook, and who could not still be alive after so many years. LorenzoDaza (no one knew if he was alive or dead) might have revealed the secret to Sister Franca de laLuz when he was trying to stop Fermina Daza's expulsion, but it was unlikely that it had gone anyfurther. That left the eleven telegraph operators in Hildebranda Sanchez's province who hadhandled telegrams with their complete names and exact addresses, and Hildebranda Schezherself, and her court of indomitable cousins.

What Florentino Ariza did not know was that Dr. Juvenal Urbino should have been includedon the list. Hildebranda Schez had revealed the secret to him during one of her many visits inthe early years. But she did so in such a casual way and at such an inopportune moment that it didnot go in one of Dr. Urbino's ears and out the other, as she thought; it did not go in at all.

Hildebranda had mentioned Florentino Ariza as one of the secret poets who, in her opinion, mightwin the Poetic Festival. Dr. Urbino could not remember who he was, and she told him--she did notneed to, but there was no hint of malice in it--that he was Fermina Daza's only sweetheart beforeshe married. She told him, convinced that it had been something so innocent and ephemeral that infact it was rather touching. Dr. Urbino replied without looking at her: "I did not know that fellowwas a poet." And then he wiped him from his memory, because among other things, his professionhad accustomed him to the ethical management of forgetfulness.

Florentino Ariza observed that, with the exception of his mother, the keepers of the secretbelonged to Fermina Daza's world. In his, he was alone with the crushing weight of a burden thathe had often needed to share, but until then there had been no one worthy of so much trust. LeonaCassiani was the only one, and all he needed was the opportunity and the means. This was what hewas thinking on the hot summer afternoon when Dr. Juvenal Urbino climbed the steep stairs of theR. C. C., paused on each step in order to survive the three o'clock heat, appeared in FlorentinoAriza's office, panting and soaked with perspiration down to his trousers, and gasped with his lastbreath: "I believe a cyclone is coming." Florentino Ariza had seen him there many times, askingfor Uncle Leo XII, but never until now had it seemed so clear to him that this uninvited guest hadsomething to do with his life.

This was during the time that Dr. Juvenal Urbino had overcome the pitfalls of his profession,and was going from door to door, almost like a beggar with his hat in his hand, asking forcontributions to his artistic enterprises. Uncle Leo XII had always been one of his most faithfuland generous contributors, but just at that moment he had begun his daily ten-minute siesta, sittingin the swivel chair at his desk. Florentino Ariza asked Dr. Juvenal Urbino to please wait in hisoffice, which was next to Uncle Leo XII's and, in a certain sense, served as his waiting room.

They had seen each other on various occasions, but they had never before been face to face asthey were now, and once again Florentino Ariza experienced the nausea of feeling himself inferior.

The ten minutes were an eternity, during which he stood up three times in the hope that his unclehad awakened early, and he drank an entire thermos of black coffee. Dr. Urbino refused to drinkeven a single cup. He said: "Coffee is poison." And he continued to chat about one thing andanother and did not even care if anyone was listening to him. Florentino Ariza could not bear hisnatural distinction, the fluidity and precision of his words, his faint scent of camphor, his personalcharm, the easy and elegant manner in which he made his most frivolous sentences seem essentialonly because he had said them. Then, without warning, the Doctor changed the subject.

"Do you like music?"He was taken by surprise. In reality, Florentino Ariza attended every concert and operaperformed in the city, but he did not feel capable of engaging in a critical or well-informeddiscussion. He had a weakness for popular music, above all sentimental waltzes, whose similarityto the ones he had composed as an adolescent, or to his secret verses, could not be denied. He hadonly to hear them once, and then for nights on end there was no power in heaven or earth thatcould shake the melody out of his head. But that would not be a serious answer to a seriousquestion put to him by a specialist.

"I like Gardel," he said.

Dr. Urbino understood. "I see," he said. "He is popular." And he slipped into a recounting ofhis many new projects which, as always, had to be realised without official backing. He called tohis attention the disheartening inferiority of the performances that could be heard here now,compared with the splendid ones of the previous century. That was true: he had spent a yearselling subscriptions to bring the Cortot-Casals-Thibaud trio to the Dramatic Theatre, and therewas no one in the government who even knew who they were, while this very month there wereno seats left for the Ramn Caralt company that performed detective dramas, for the Operettaand Zarzuela Company of Don Manolo de la Presa, for the Santanelas, ineffable mimics,illusionists, and artistes, who could change their clothes on stage in the wink of an eye, for DanyseD'Altaine, advertised as a former dancer with the Folies-Bergre, and even for the abominableUrsus, a Basque madman who took on a fighting bull all by himself. There was no reason tocomplain, however, if the Europeans themselves were once again setting the bad example of abarbaric war when we had begun to live in peace after nine civil wars in half a century, which, ifthe truth were told, were all one war: always the same war. What most attracted Florentino Ariza'sattention in that intriguing speech was the possibility of reviving the Poetic Festival, the mostrenowned and long-lasting of the enterprises that Dr. Juvenal Urbino had conceived in the past. Hehad to bite his tongue to keep from telling him that he had been an assiduous participant in theannual competition that had eventually interested famous poets, not only in the rest of the countrybut in other nations of the Caribbean as well.

引用

第三章

  二十八岁的乌尔比诺医生是最受青睐的单身汉。他在巴黎长期旅居后刚刚回来。

    在巴黎，他进修了内科和外科。从登岸开始，他就充分说明，没有虚度过一寸光阴。

    他比去的时候更加衣冠楚楚，更加自信。同窗学友中，没有第二个人在学术上象他那样一丝不苟和知识渊博，也没有第二个人在跳现代舞蹈或即兴演奏钢琴上比他更棒。他个人的才华和风度令人倾倒，他家里的财富令人羡慕，和他门当户对的姑娘们彼此暗自较劲儿，对他频送秋波，他也向她们投桃报李，但始终保持着洒脱，求越雷池而魅力犹存，直到妩媚迷人的费尔米纳使他一见钟情。

    他总是津津乐道地说，那次恋爱是误诊的结果。他自己也无法相信后来居然成了事实，尤其是发生在他一生中的那个时刻，发生在他把全部感情都倾注在他的城市命运上的时刻。他总是三句话不离本行，而且是脱口而出地说，世界上没有另外一座城市能同他的城市媲美。在巴黎，深秋季节他挽着邂逅相逢的情人的胳膊漫步，觉得再也找不到比那些金色的下午更纯真的幸福了，火盆里的栗子发出山野的清香，手风琴在忧郁地低吟，爱欲难填的情人们，在露天阳台上没完没了地你亲我吻。然而，他以手抚膺说，拿这一切来换加勒比四月里的一咧，他也不干。当时，他还太年轻，还不知道内心的记忆会把不好的东西抹掉，而把好的东西更加美化，正是因为这种功能，我们才对过去记忆犹新。可是，当他倚在轮船的栏杆上重新看到殖民地时期留下的老区那片白色的高地，看见鹤立在屋顶上的秃鹫，看见晾在阳台上的破衣烂衫的时候，也只有在这个时候，他心里才明白了，抑恶扬善的怀乡病，轻而易举地让他上了个大当。

    轮船缓缓穿过一片牲畜的浮尸驶进港湾，受不了那股恶臭，大部分旅客都躲进船舱里去了。年轻的医生沿着舷梯弃船登岸，他身穿合体熨贴的三套件驼绒西服，外罩一件长罩衣。脸上蓄的胡子，跟青年时代的帕斯托的一样，分头中间的线条，清晰而白净。他顾盼有度，堪堪盖住了那个虽非不忍卒睛却也令人望而生畏的领结。

    码头上几乎空无一人，几个没穿制服的赤脚大兵在值勤，他的两个妹妹、母亲和几个最亲密的朋友在等着接他。虽然他们欢天喜地，他还是觉得他们憔悴而毫无生气。

    他们谈到危机和内战的时候，仿佛是在谈某种遥远而不关痛痒的事情，但每个人都语辞闪烁，目光游移，言不由衷。最使他震动的是他的母亲，她原来是个品貌端庄而富有社交活力的风姿绰约的女人，曾在生活中大显身手，现在却穿了一身散发着樟脑味儿的经绸衣裳，一副。憔悴枯槁的寡妇模样。儿子的犹豫使她觉察到了自己容貌的变化，她以攻为守抢先问儿子为什么脸色象石蜡似的白里透青。

    “这是生活所致，母亲。”他说，“巴黎使人脸色发青。”

    后来，靠着母亲坐在关得严严实实的车子里的时候，他觉得热得透不过气来。

    车窗外一闪而过的一幕幕触目伤心的景象，使他再也无法忍受。大海恍若死灰，昔日的侯爵府第，差不多变成了一群群叫化子的栖身之所，沁人心脾的茉莉花香闻不到了，有的只是露天堆放的垃圾堆散发出来的恶臭。他觉得所有的东西都变得比他走的时候更窄小、更破旧、更凄惨了。街道上的粪便堆里，饥鼠成群，拉车的马也吓得犹豫不前。在从港口到他家这段漫长的路上，在总督区的中心地带，他没发现任何足以和他的乡思相称的东西。他看不下去了，把头扭向后面，免得被他母亲看见，无声的眼泪簌簌地滚落下来。

    古老的卡萨尔杜埃罗侯爵府，即乌尔维若?德?拉卡列家族世代居住的那幢邸宅，和周围那些劫后余生的房屋相比，也不是维护得最好的。乌尔比诺医生走进阴暗的前厅，看见内花园尘封的喷泉，银渐在无花的野草丛中乱爬时，心都碎了。他发现，在通向正厅的路上，那条围着铜栏杆的宽阔的台阶上，好些大理石已不翼而飞，剩下的也都破碎不全。他父亲，一位献身精神高于医术的外科医生，死于六年前那场使这个城市陷于灭顶之灾的亚洲霍乱，这幢房子的生气也随之消失。他母亲布兰卡太太，决心终身不除丧服，由于悲痛压抑，早已把亡夫在世时远近闻名的载歌载舞的晚会和家庭音乐会取消了，代之以下午举行的九日祭。他的两个妹妹，一反活泼的天性和对交际的喜好，变成了修女院的行尸走肉的修女。

    回家当晚，慑于黑暗和沉寂，乌尔比诺医生一宵没有入睡。从没有关严的门的缝隙里钻进来了一只石鸟，每打一点钟都在卧室里叫唤。他向圣灵念了三遍玫瑰经，还念了记忆所及的各种驱邪消灾以及保佑夜晚平安的各种经文。从隔壁那个名叫“圣母”的疯人院里传来的疯女人的狂喊声，瓮里的水不紧不慢地滴到盆里的响彻各个角落的前喀声，在卧室里迷失了方向的那只石乌的长腿在地上的踱步声，以及他对黑暗的天生恐惧和亡父在这座沉睡中的空旷屋子里的阴魂，使他毛骨悚然。五点钟，那只石鸟和邻居的公鸡一起弓项啼鸣的时候，乌尔比诺医生双手合十乞求神圣的上帝保佑，他不敢再在已成废墟的家乡多呆一天了。然而，亲人们的疼爱，礼拜日的郊游，他那个阶层的未字闺秀们的表示渴慕的奉承，使他淡忘了第一天晚上的痛苦。渐渐地，他对十月里的闷热，对刺鼻的气味，对朋友们的幼稚见解，对“大夫，明儿见，甭担心”都习惯了，最后在习惯的魔力面前屈服了，很快他就对自己的回心转意找到了方便的答案。这里是他的天地，他对自己说，是上帝为他创造的悲惨而压抑的天地，应当随遇而安。

    他做的第一件事，是接管父亲的诊所。对那些英国家具，他原封未动。家具笨重而结实，上面的木头在黎明时的寒风中嘎嘎作响。但那些总督时期的学术机构和浪漫派医学机构签发的字据，他把它们通通搬到阁楼上去了，把法国新潮学校的文凭放进了玻璃框。除了一幅医生正在抢救一名裸体女病人的画像和一张用哥特式字体印的古希腊医生的座右铭之外，他把那些褪了色的图片都摘掉了，把自己在欧洲各个学校获得的许多各式各样的评语优良的文凭贴了上去，紧靠着他父亲那张仅有的文凭。

    他想在慈善医院推行新章法，但这并不象他所想象的那么容易，尽管这是发自年轻人的激情。这所陈旧的医院，顽固地坚持那些早已过时的迷信，比如把病床的腿儿放在盛着水的盆子里避免疾病爬上床，或者规定在手术室穿名牌衣服和戴羚羊皮手套，因为他们有个根深蒂固的信念：考究是无菌操作的基本条件。这位初来乍到的年轻人用尝尿的办法来确定尿里是否有糖，象称呼同窗学友似的提及查科特和图肖，在课堂上郑重警告牛痘有致人于死地的危险，却又对新发明的坐药相信到了令人怀疑的程度，这一切都让人受不了。他在各方面都同别人格格不入：他的改革精神，他的怪癖般的责任心，在一个人们到处都是风趣成撤的国家，他对诙谐反应迟钝。他那些实际上是他最难能可贵的美德都引起年长同事的妒忌和青年人油腔滑调的嘲笑。

    他最感到担忧的，是城里那种可怕的卫生条件。他在各个方面的最高当局之间奔走求助，建议把那些西班牙式的阴沟填掉，那是巨大的老鼠温床，代之以加盖的下水道；脏东西也不能象过去和现在那样泻进市场旁边的海湾里，而应运到远方某处的垃圾堆里去。设备齐全的殖民地时期的房屋有带粪坑的厕所，但拥挤在湖边容易窝棚里的人，却有三分之二是在露天便溺。粪便被太阳晒干，化作尘土，随着十二月凉爽宜人的微风，被大家兴冲冲地吸入体内。乌尔比诺医生曾试图在古堡里开办一个义务训练班，让穷人学会修建自备厕所。他曾一无所获地斗争过，禁止在树林里倒垃圾——千百年来，那里已经变成了藏垢纳污的渊源——他主张至少每周收集两次垃圾，拉到没人的地方去烧掉。

    他明白，饮水是个致命的危险。想修一条水管，简直成了痴人说梦，因为那些有能力促成这件事的人，都有自己的地下水池，厚厚的青苔下面，藏着多年储存的雨水。那个时期最值钱的家具之一，就是用刨光的木板做的水瓮，水瓮的石头漏嘴夜以继日地把水滴入水缸。为一了防止有人就着吸水的铝瓢喝水，瓢的边儿是锯齿形的，就象滑稽戏里的王冠一样。盛在若明若暗的陶罐里的水，显得又清又凉，还带有林间山泉的余味儿。但是。乌尔比诺医生并没有被这种自欺欺人的净化所迷惑，他心里清楚，虽然采取了种种防范措施，水瓮底部依然是蛆虫的草生之地。童年时候，为了消磨百无聊赖的时光，他带着近乎神秘的惊奇久久注视那些了了，跟当时许许多多人一样，他确信号了是精灵，是小妖，它们在静静的水底的泥沙里向小姑娘求爱，而且为了爱情，它们会进行疯狂的报复。小时候，他看见过一位名叫拉萨拉阿L德的女教师的房子被弄得支离破碎，因为她斗胆得罪了精灵。他还看见过满街的碎玻璃片儿，为了破坏窗户，精灵们三天三夜运来了成堆的石头。很长时间，他对此信以为真，后来他从学习中知道了子了实际上就是蚊子的幼虫，不过一旦学会了，就永远也不会忘记，因为从那时候起他就发现，不仅是子了，还有许许多多害虫，都可以安然无恙地通过我们那些天真的石头滤嘴。

    在相当长的时间里，人们毕恭毕敬地认为，城里成千上万的男人不以为耻反以为荣地拖着的阴囊迹气，全是水池里的清水所赐。乌尔比诺在上小学的路上看见那些店气清人在赤日炎炎的下午坐在各自的家门口，用扇子给那跟一个在两腿中间睡着了的孩子一般大小的睾丸扇风的时候，总免不了有大祸临头的预感。据说，在风雨交加的夜晚，底气会发出不祥之鸟的叫声；如果在近处点燃一片兀鹰的羽毛，疯气就会使人痛得死去活来。然而，没有一个人因为这种倒霉事怨天尤人，因为硕大无朋的阴囊，是一种凌驾于一切之上的男人的骄傲。乌尔比诺医生从欧洲回来的时候，早已知道这些信仰是毫无科学根据的了，但是这些信仰在当地根深蒂固，不少人因为担心培养大阴囊的方法从此失传，反对在水池中增加矿特质。

    跟水质不纯一样，公共市场的卫生状况也令乌尔比诺医生感到担忧。市场是幽魂湾正面的一大片空地，安的列斯公司的帆船就停靠在幽魂湾里。当时的一位著名旅行家，把它描绘成了世界上最琳琅满目的市场之一。确实，市场物资丰富，品种繁多，热闹极了，但同时也许是最令人担心的。海浪忽东忽西地去而复来，海湾的潮汐把污水沟排进海里的垃圾又涌回地上，市场就躺在自个儿的粪便里。紧靠市场的那个屠宰场，也在那里倾倒脏东西，砍碎的脑袋，腐烂的内脏、牲口的粪便，静静地飘浮在血泊上，暴晒在阳光下。兀鹰、老鼠和狗，为争食挂在货棚房檐下面的鹿肉和美味可口的索塔文托阉鸡，还有那晾晒在席子上的阿尔霍纳早豆荚，没完没了地吵闹不休。乌尔比诺医生想整顿这个地方，提出把屠宰场迁走，修一个象他在巴塞罗那看到的古河道入海口那种玻璃圆顶的室内市场——那些市场里的食品，收拾得漂漂亮亮，干干净净，吃了都觉得可惜。然而，在他那些有地位的朋友中，就连对他最言听计从的也不同情他的狂想。他们是些这样的人：以自己的籍贯为骄傲，炫耀城市的历史功绩，它的文物的价值，它的英雄主义和施旋风光，浑浑噩噩。时光对城市的侵蚀，他们却视而不见，和他们相反，乌尔比诺医生则是以深切的爱和现实的眼光来看待城市的。

    “这座城市倒真是难得，”他说，“四百年来我们一直企图毁掉它，却至今没有达到目的。”

    然而，大祸临头了。传染性霍乱，在十一周内，创造了我国历史上的死亡记录，而这场霍乱的第一批牺牲者，就是猝然倒毙在市场的几处水坑里的。在此之前，有些地位显赫的人物死后在葬在教堂的墓地里的，与那些落落寡合的主教及教士会信徒为伴，另一些不是那么富的人，则葬在修道院的院子里。穷人们埋在殖民地公墓，公墓在一座迎风的小山上，一条污浊的水渠横在小山和城市中间，水渠上那道泥灰桥的拱形防雨顶盖上，有位未卜先知的市长下令刻上了这么一行字：“入此门者应将一切希望留在门外。”霍乱流行的头两周，公墓就已人满为患。尽管把许许多多不知姓名的显贵人物的枯骨迁进了万人坑，教堂里还是腾不出一个墓穴。没掩盖严实的墓穴里散发出来的水汽，使大教堂里的空气都变稀薄了，大教堂的门三年之中再也没打开过，直到费尔米纳在大弥撒上第一次遇到阿里萨的时候为止。第三周，圣克拉拉修女院的回廓上死尸都堆不下了。一直难到了杨树林里，后来只好把比杨树林大两倍的教堂大菜园改成公墓。在那里，人们挖成深葬墓穴，准备分三层堆理死人，草草安葬，不装棺材。然而，后来连这种办法也不得不放弃了，因为理满了死人的土地变成了一块海绵，一脚踩下去就渗出恶臭难闻的血水。于是，决定在离城市不到一西班牙里的那个名叫“上帝之手”的育肥牧场里掩埋死人，那个牧场后来被命名为“大同公墓”。

    自从发布发现霍乱的公告开始，每隔一刻钟。当地驻军营地的碉堡就鸣炮一响，昼夜如此。按民间的迷信说法，火药能辟邪。霍乱在黑人中间流传得最厉害，因为黑人最多，也最穷。不过，实际上霍乱并不管你是什么肤色和何种出身。同突然蔓延开来一样，霍乱又突然停止了，从来没弄清楚到底有多少人死于非命，这倒不是无法统计，而是因为我们最常见的美德之一就是对自己的不幸逆来顺受。

    马可奥雷略?乌尔比诺医生，即乌尔比诺医生的父亲，在那些不幸的日子里成了一位人民英雄，同时也是最引人注目的牺牲品。根据政府的决定，他亲自制订了抗病战略并亲自领导了抗病斗争。他自报奋勇干预一切社会事务，在瘟疫最猖獗的那些日子里，他成了凌驾一切的权威人士。几年之后，乌尔比诺医生在查阅那段历史的大事记时，证实他父亲的办法是仁慈重于科学，许多做法是和常理背道而弛的，在很大程度上为瘟疫横行起了推波助澜的作用。他怀着儿子对父亲的同情心证实了这一点——生活逐渐把儿子变成了父亲的父亲，破天荒第一次，他为在父亲铸成错误孤军奋战的时刻没有伴随在父亲周围而感到痛心。不过，他没有贬低父亲的功绩：勤勤恳恳，奋不顾身，尤其是他的孤胆，说明他对城市从飞来横祸中死而复生后人们奉献给他的丰厚的荣誉是当之无愧的。他的名字，理所当然地同其它并不那么光彩的战争中曾出现的不少英雄人物的名字排在了一起。

    父亲没有享受到他的荣耀。当他发现自己染上了他曾目睹并同情过的别人所患的绝症时，想都没想去徒劳无益地挣扎一番，而是与世隔绝，以免传染别人，他把自己反锁在慈善医院的一间后勤工作室里，对同事们的呼唤和亲人们的哀求充耳不闻，对走廓里地板上挤得满满的垂死挣扎的霍乱患者的撕心裂肺的哀号无动于衷，给妻子儿女们写了一封表露对他们的火热的爱和困活了一辈子而感谢上苍的信，信中抒发了他对生活的无比的接骨铭心的热爱。那是一封毫无掩饰的长达二十页的告别信，字迹越来越模糊，看得出他的病是越来越沉重，不必了解写这封信的是何许人就知道，落款署名是在生命的最后一息写上去的。根据他的要求，那具青灰色的遗体混杂着埋进了公墓，没让任何一个爱他的人看见。

    三天之后，乌尔比诺医生在巴黎收到了电报，当时他正在和朋友们共进晚餐。

    他提议于一杯香槟酒来纪念他的父亲。他说：“他是个好人。”过后他准会责备自己不成熟：为了不痛哭失声，他逃避现实。可是，三周后他收到了遗书的抄件，他向实际投降了。猛然间，那个他最先认识的人，把他抚养长大并教育成人的人，和他母亲同床共枕、结发三十又二年的人，然而又是仅仅因为羞于启齿而在写这封信之前从来没有向他表露过心声的人的形象，深刻地展示在他面前了。到那时为止，乌尔比诺医生及其一家，一直视死亡为发生在别人身上，发生在别人的父母身上，发生在旁人而不是自己的兄弟姐妹和丈夫妻子身上的灾难。他们一家是些新陈代谢缓慢的人，没看见他们变老、生病和死去，而是慢慢地在他们的时代烟消云散，变成回忆，变成另一个时代的云雾，直到被忘却。父亲的遗书，比报告噩耗的电报更狠地给了他当头一棒，使他确信人总是要死的。然而，他最早的记忆之一，可能是九岁，也可能是十一岁的时候的记忆，在某种程度上是从父亲身上看到的死亡的早临的信号。在一个雨蒙蒙的下午，他和父亲两人都呆在家里的办公室里，他用彩色粉笔在地板的瓷砖上画云雀和向日葵，父亲对着窗户的亮光看书，父亲身上的背心没有系如，衬衣袖口上扎着橡皮筋儿。突然，父亲停止了阅读，用一根一头镶着银抓手的老头乐抠背。因为够不着，父亲要儿子用小手的指甲帮他的忙，他照办了。

    奇怪的是，他觉得父亲让他抠的时候好象抠的不是自己的身体。抠完，父亲凄然笑着看着他的肩膀。

    “如果我现在就死了，”他说，“等你长到我现在这个年纪的时候都快记不得我了。”

    父亲说这句话，没有任何明显的理由，死亡天使在若明若暗的凉飓飓的办公室里飞了一会儿，又从窗户飞出去了，飞过的地方留下一缕羽毛，但小孩没有看见。

    从那时起，又过了二十多年，乌尔比诺医生很快就到他父亲那天下午的那个年纪了。

    他知道他随父亲长得一模一样，现在除了知道长得相象以外，他又惊恐地知道，他跟父亲一样，总是要见上帝的。

    霍乱曾经是个使他头痛的问题。除了在某个课外补习班上学到的一般常识外，他对霍乱知之不多，而且他觉得，三十年前在法国，包括巴黎，霍乱曾使十四万人丧命是不大可信的。可是父亲死后，他对各种各样的霍乱凡是能研究的都研究了，这几乎成了使他的良心得到安宁的赎罪行为。他师事过阿德连?普鲁斯特教授——那个时代最杰出的传染病专家、防疫线发明者、大文豪普鲁斯特的父亲。因此，当他踏上故乡的土地，从海上闻到市场的臭气以及看到污水沟里的老鼠和在街上的水坑里打滚的一丝不挂的孩子们时，不仅明白了为什么会发生那场不幸，而且确信不幸还将随时再次发生。

    没过多久，还不到一年，慈善医院的学生们请求他帮助免费诊断一个浑身出现奇怪的蓝颜色的病人。乌尔比诺医生在门口望见病人，就立刻认出了他的敌人。还算好，病人是三天前从库拉索乘船来的，而且自费到医院的外科看过门诊，可能没有传染给任何人。为了以防万一，乌尔比诺医生还是叫他的同事们别接触病人，并说服有关当局向各港口发出警报，找到了那只带有病毒的轻便船，对它进行隔离检疫。他还费尽唇舌，劝阻那位想发布戒严令并立即施行每隔一刻钟鸣炮一响这种治疗措施的军事长官。

    “把火药省下来，等自由党人来的时候再用吧。”他和颜悦色地对军事长官说，“我们已经不是处在中世纪时代了。”

    第四天，病人死去，死前一直在吐白色的颗粒状的东西，憋得透不过气来。然而虽然警钟长鸣，一连几周之内却没有再发现类似的病例。又过了不久，摘业日报》登载了有两个小孩在本市两个不同的地方死于霍乱的消息。经核实，其中那个男孩得的是一般痢疾，但另一个，那个女孩，则确实是被霍乱夺去了生命。她的父亲和三个兄弟姐妹都被隔离了，进行单独隔离检疫，对整个那个区也进行了严密的医务监视。三个小孩中有一个已经染上了霍乱，但很快就恢复了健康，危险过去之后，全家人都又返回了家园。三个月中，又发现了十一起霍乱病例，第五个月时，情况令人担忧地加剧了，但一年后，霍乱蔓延的险情已经排除。没有一个人怀疑，乌尔比诺医生的严格的卫生防范措施创造的奇迹，比他的充分宣传更有效。从那以后，直到进入本世纪很长一段时期，霍乱不仅成了我们市而且也成了几乎整个加勒比沿海地区和马格达莱纳河流域的常见病，但没有再度泛滥成灾，报警使政府更认真地采纳乌尔比诺医生的警告性建议。医学院把霍乱和黄热病定为必修课，人们也明白了给污水沟加盖和在离垃圾场较远的地方另修一座市场的紧迫性。不过，乌尔比诺医生并未为欢呼自己的胜利和维护自己的社会使命而分心，因为他自己当时已被征服了，心烦意乱，神魂颠倒，决心忘掉生活中其它的一切，用来换取费尔米纳的闪电般的爱情。

    不错，那是一次误诊带来的果实。他的一位同行朋友，认为在一位十八岁的女患者身上发现了霍乱预兆，要求乌尔比诺医生去为她诊断。担心霍乱可能闯进了老城的富人区——在此以前，所有的霍乱病例都是发生在贫民区，而且几乎都是在黑人身上。他当天下午就去了。遇到的情况却没有那么使他扫兴。那座笼罩在福音广场的扁桃树荫中的房子，从外表看跟殖民地时期的老区的其它房屋同样衰微破败，但室内却是富丽堂皇，美轮美英，仿佛是另一个时期的建筑。穿过门房，径直映入眼帘的是一个塞维利亚式的庭院，方方正正，刚用石灰刷得雪白，橙树繁花满枝，地面同墙上一样，贴的是细瓷方砖。看不见沟渠，却听得到流水淙淙，飞檐上摆着石竹盆景，斗拱上挂着珍禽鸟笼。最稀罕的是，在一个硕大无朋的鸟笼里，有三只兀鹰，它们一扇翅膀，整个院子就顿觉异香扑鼻。突然，几条用链子锁在家里某个角落的狗因闻到生人味儿开始吠叫起来，一声女人的娇斥，使它们的吠声嘎然而止。

    一大群猫从四面八方跳了出来，慑于那个威严的声音，又躲进了花丛中。顿时静悄悄的，透过鸟儿的扑腾声和石板底下的偏偏流水声，隐隐传来大海低沉的叹息、。

    乌尔比诺医生确信上帝就在眼前，不禁一阵颤栗。他想，在这种环境下，病毒是难以入侵的。他随着普拉西迪哑走过拱形走廓，走过当年杂乱无章的庭院和阿里萨第一次觑见费尔米纳的芳容的那个缝纫室的窗户，沿着新修的大理石台阶拾级而上，到了二楼，在女患者的房门外听候引见。然而，普拉西迪姐出来传了个口信：“小姐说您现在不能进去，因为她爸爸不在家。”

    按照女佣的吩咐，下午五点他再度前往，洛伦索?达萨亲自替他开了大门，领他进入女儿的闺房。诊断时，他坐在光线暗淡的角落里，两手交叉抱在胸前，竭力想控制急促的呼吸而终于徒劳。很难分辩当时到底是谁更觉拘谨，医生羞涩地用手抚摸病人，病人则裹在丝绸睡衣里谨守闺训，谁也没瞧谁的眼睛。他用一种万是自己的声音提问，她用颤抖的声音回答。两个人都留神着坐在旁边的老头子。末了，乌尔比诺让病人坐起来，十二分小心地把她的睡衣解开到腰部以上，未经触摸的隆起的奶座，鲜嫩的乳头，犹如一道闪电照亮了阴暗的闺房，她急忙把两臂抱在胸前遮住。医生沉着地把她的双臂移开，没有看她的眼睛，直接用耳朵进行听诊，先听胸口，然后又听了脊背。

    乌尔比诺医生总是说，他第一次看到这位终身伴侣的玉体时没产生丝毫邪念。

    他记得，那件天蓝色睡衣上绣有花边，那双眼睛喷着红焰，长长的秀发技散在肩头，但他忧心如焚的是，霍乱居然闯进老区，视线都模糊了，顾不上去注意含苞欲放的她的身上的许多妙处，一心在巡察病毒可能留下的蛛丝马迹。她呢，表白得更加一干二净：那位因霍乱而妇孺皆知的年轻医生，在她当时看来不过是个自顾自的学究而已。诊断的结论是，她得了因食物引起的肠胃感染，在家里治疗三天就可痊愈。

    证实了女儿没得霍乱病，洛伦索?达萨如释重负，把乌尔比诺医生一直送到车子跟前，付出了一个金比索的出诊费——对于专为富人看病的医生，这样的出诊费也无疑是太高了，不过告别的时候，老人还是露出了一副千恩万谢的表情。医生的姓氏使他眼花缘乱，他非但不掩饰这一点，而且还愿意想方设法在不那么正式的场合下有机会再同医生见面。

    事情本来到此告一段落。然而，第二周的礼拜二，不等邀请，也没预先通知，乌尔比诺医生又不适当地在下午三点钟登门拜访了。他身上那件白大褂，熨得平平整整，帽子也是白的，帽檐儿高高翻起。他站在窗户跟前，打个手势让费尔米纳过来。她当时正在缝纫室里，和两个女友一起上油画课。她把画板放在椅子上，跟着脚尖儿朝窗户走过来，免得长及脚踝的翻荷叶边裙子拖到地上。她头上戴着发箍，亮晶晶的宝石坠儿垂到脸旁，跟她的眼睛一样闪烁着清冷的光芒，全身上下，放射出一种冷漠的光彩。医生心里忖度：她在家里作画，为什么打扮得跟参加社交活动一样。他站在窗户外头给她号了脉息，观察她的舌苦，用铝压舌板检查她的咽喉，翻开眼皮检查，每做一个动作，都露出宽慰的表情。他不象第一次诊断时那么拘谨了，但她则更加矜持，因为她不知道他为什么不请自来地进行这次检查，他亲口说过如果不去请他，他就不再来了的呀。她想得还更多：她永远也不愿再见到他了。

    检查结束后，医生把压舌板放回装满器械和药瓶的手提箱，啪的一声关上盖子。

    “您就象一朵初开的玫瑰。”他说。

    “谢谢。”

    “再见。”他说，接着又前言不搭后语地背诵了一段托马斯的语录：“要记住，一切美好的东西，不管它是来自何处，都是来自圣灵，您喜欢音乐吗？”

    他发问的时候，脸上露出迷人的笑容，口气异乎寻常，但她脸上没有笑意。

    “这是什么意思？”她问。

    “音乐对健康至关重要。”他说。

    他对此是深信不疑的，但她很快就会明白，而且在她的有生之年都很明白，音乐这个话题，是他用以表示友谊的近乎神奇的方式，不过在当时，她还以为他在取笑她。另外，他们隔着窗户谈话时，那两个假装在画画的女友发出妹妹的窃笑，用画板掩住了睑，更使费尔米纳沉不住气。她生气了，砰地把窗户用力关上。医生看着镶花边的窗帘，手足无措，他想朝大门口走，却搞错了方向，心慌意乱地撞在关着香兀鹰的鸟笼上。香兀鹰发出一声流里流气的怪叫，惊慌地扇着翅膀，医生的衣服上立刻洒满了女人的馨香。洛伦索?达萨的爆炸般的声音，把他针在那儿了。

    “大夫，请等我一下。”

    他在楼上把这一切都看在眼里了，边扣衬衣的扣子边下楼梯。他脸色紫涨，午觉恶梦的情景还在他脑子里翻腾。医生竭力想掩饰尴尬的神色。

    “俄刚才对您的女儿说，她这会儿健康得就跟玫瑰似的。”

    “不错。”洛伦索?达萨说。“不过刺儿太多了。”

    他走到乌尔比诺医生跟前，没同他握手，却推开缝纫室的两扇窗户，粗暴地命令女儿：“过来向大夫道歉！”

    医生想插话阻拦，但洛伦索?达萨不容分辨地又说了一遍：“快过来。”她带着难言的苦衷，求助地看了两位女友一眼，反驳父亲说，她无歉可道，因为她关上窗户是防止太阳晒进屋里。乌尔比诺医生想说明，她的理由是对的，但洛伦索?达萨不肯收回成命。于是，气得脸色苍白的费尔米纳又走到窗户跟前，右脚向前迈了一步，指尖把裙子朝上一提，朝医生戏剧般地躬了躬身。

    “我心悦诚服地向您道歉，先生。”她说。

    乌尔比诺医生笑容可掬地学着她的样子还了一礼，摘下宽沿礼帽做了个剧场站席观众的滑稽动作，但没有得到他希望的宽恕的微笑。尔后，洛伦索?达萨请他到书房去喝咖啡，算是赔个不是。他愉快地接受了，借以表明他心中确实不存在任何芥蒂。

    实际上，乌尔比诺医生除了在斋戒时喝上一杯咖啡，平常是不喝的。除了在正式场合的晚宴上来杯葡萄酒，素常他也是不喝酒的。然而，他不仅喝了洛伦索?达萨端给他的咖啡，还喝了一杯茵香酒。过了一会儿，又喝了一杯咖啡，一杯首香酒，接着又各样来了一杯，虽然他还有几个出诊待办。起初，他还注意听着洛伦索?达萨代表女儿一个劲儿地道歉——说他的女儿是个聪明而正派的姑娘，配得上当地或任何地方的王子，唯一的不足，用他的话来说，是那倔强的脾气。可是，喝完第二杯酒以后，他似乎听见了费尔米纳在庭院深处说话的声音，他想象自己正跟在她的后面：夜幕初降，她打开走廓里的灯，往各个房间喷杀虫剂，揭开灶上盛着当天晚上和她父亲共享的汤锅的盖子，父女二人坐在桌子旁边，眼睛瞧着地下，没有喝场，免得打破赌气的乐趣，后来老头子只好认输了，请求女儿原谅他下午的粗暴。

    乌尔比诺医生对女人是相当了解的。他知道，只要他不走，费尔米纳是不会到书房里来的，但他还是煞费苦心地拖延时间，他觉得今天下午遭受的这场羞辱，伤害了他的自尊心，会使他耿耿于怀。洛伦索?达萨差不多烂醉如泥了，他没有看出乌尔比诺医生心不在焉，只顾自个儿晓叨个没完。他滔滔不绝地说话，边说边嚼已经抽灭了的雪茄的外边那层烟叶，大声咳嗽、吐痰，沉重地在转椅上摇来晃去，使转椅的弹簧发出牲口发情般的呻吟。客人每喝一杯，他就港下三杯，当他发觉两人已经对面不见，起身开灯时才把话打住了一会儿。灯光底下，乌尔比诺医生又正视了他一眼，发现他的一只眼睛扭歪了，踉鱼眼珠似的，嘴里说的话跟口形都对不上了，他想这大概是自己喝酒过量而产生的幻觉。他迷迷糊糊地站起来，觉得身子都不是自个儿的了，仿佛还坐在原来的位置上。费了九牛二虎之力，他才没让自己失去理智。

    他跟在洛伦索?达萨后面走出书房的时候，已经七点多了。圆月当空。苗香酒的作用，使他觉得庭园就跟飘浮的水面似的，用布蒙起来的鸟笼，则象一个个梦寐中的鬼影。新开的拘橡花，散发出阵阵暖烘烘的香气。缝纫室的窗户敞着，工作台上亮着一盏灯，几幅役画完的画，放在画板架上，似乎在展览。“你在哪里，你无处不在。”乌尔比诺医生走过窗台的时候说了这么一句，但费尔米纳没有听见，也无法听见，因为此时她正在闺房愤然流泪。她歪在床上，等着她父亲去偿还下午受的委屈。医生还惦着向她告别，但洛伦索?达萨设提这个连儿。她那讨人喜欢的哄怒，那条跟小猫舌一般无二的舌头，那鲜嫩的脸庞，宛在眼前。但一想到她永远不愿再见到他，不能再打她的主意了，心里立即涌起一阵凉意。洛伦索?达萨走进门口前厅的时候，已惊醒过来的香秃绕从布罩里发出一声哀鸣。“好心不得好报。”

    医生大声说了一句，心里还在想着她的倩影。洛伦索?达萨回过头来问他说什么。

    “我没有说。”他回答，“是首香酒在说。”

    洛伦索?达萨把他送上车子，想让他收下第二次出诊的金比索，但他把它推开了。他一字不差地向车夫下了指示，让他把车赶到他还没出诊的两个病人的家去，他不用旁人搀扶就登上了马车。可是石子路上的颠簸，使他觉得难受，于是他命令车夫改道而行。他对着车里的镜子照了一会儿，发现镜子里的他也仍然在思念着费尔米纳。他耸了耸肩膀，后来他打了个酸嗝儿，头垂到胸前，沉沉睡去。睡梦中，他听见丧钟响了。起先是大教堂在敲丧钟，后来所有的教堂都敲起来了，一阵接一阵，甚至圣胡安医院里也传来了阵敲打破盆烂罐的声音。

    “见他妈的鬼，”他在睡梦里响咕，“死了人了。”

    母亲和两个妹妹正在围着宽大的餐室里的那张请客和庆典时才用的餐桌用晚饭，吃奶酪饼，喝牛奶咖啡。她们看见他满脸若相地走进门来，浑身散发着香秃骛的刺鼻的香味儿。近在咫尺的大教堂的钟声，在家里的大水池上空回响。母亲慌张地问他钻到哪儿去了，人们到处找他，让他去给拉贝拉侯爵的一脉单传的孙子马利亚将军看病，可他下午因脑溢血去世了，钟就是为他敲的。乌尔比诺医生对母亲的话听而不闻，他先是抓着门框，后来半转身想走到卧室去，却倾盆大雨似的吐I一地茵香酒，一个嘴啃地，人也趴下了。

    “我的天哪，”母亲大声喊道，“回家成了这副模样，准是出了什么怪事。”

    然而，最奇怪的事情还没出现哩。利用著名的钢琴师罗梅罗?路西奇造访的机会——全城刚刚结束对马利亚将军的哀悼，他就弹j一组莫扎特的小夜曲——乌尔比诺医生让人把音乐学校的钢琴装上骡车，到费尔米纳的窗下为她弹了一支老掉牙的小夜曲。头几小节响起时，她就醒了，不用从阳台窗帘里探出身子来看，她就知道谁是这种异常的献殷勤的策划者了。她唯一遗憾的是，自己没有那些刁钻泼辣的姑娘们的勇气，没把马桶里的屎尿劈头盖脑地泼在不受欢迎的追求者身上。她的父亲洛伦索?达萨则恰恰相反，小夜曲还在弹奏，他就忙不迭地穿好衣服，曲终时便把乌尔比诺医生和身上还穿着参加音乐会演出的那套礼服的钢琴师请进了客厅，用上等白兰地作为对他们演奏小夜曲的酬劳。

    很快，费尔米纳就发觉了，她父亲想打动她的心。就在小夜曲出现的第二天，父亲意味深长地对她说：“你想，要是你母亲知道你被一个乌尔比诺?德?拉卡列家族的人爱上了，她该多高兴啊。”她当即反唇相讥：“她会在棺材里再死一遍。”

    跟她一起画画的女友们告诉她，洛伦索?达萨被乌尔比诺医生请到社会俱乐部去吃了一次午饭，而这又因违反规定受到了严厉警告。那时她才知道，她父亲曾经几次申请加入社会俱乐部，每次都因数不清的流言蜚语遭到拒绝，而且已根本不可能再作尝试了。可是，洛伦索?达萨象受气似的咽下了受到的侮辱，依然费尽心机地想同乌尔比诺医生不期而遇，没料到乌尔比话也在处心积虑地谋求同他会面。有时候，他们在书房里一谈就是几个钟头，而这时，家里的一切活动就不管时间的流逝而停止了，因为只要他不走，费尔米纳就不让任何事情照常进行。教区咖啡馆成了理想的避风港。在那里，洛伦索?达萨给乌尔比诺上了象棋的启蒙课，后者呢，是个十分勤奋的学生，直到临终之日，象棋都是他的不能自拔的嗜好。

    一天晚上，就是钢琴独奏小夜曲不久后的一天晚上，洛伦索?达萨在家里的接待室发现一封用火漆封口写给女儿的信，火漆上印着胡?乌?卡三个字的花押。他从女儿的闺房走过的时候，把信轻轻从门缝底下塞了进去。她百思不得其解，信是怎么到了那里的，因为她想象不到，她的父亲竟会变得和过去判若两人，居然代追求者传递信件。她把信放在床头柜上好几天没打开。不知道到底该怎么处理。一天下午，雨声阵阵，费尔米纳梦见乌尔比诺又到家里来了，要把用来给她检查过喉咙的那块铝压舌板送给她。梦里的压舌板不是铝的，是另一种她在别的梦里曾津津有味地尝过的一种可口的金属的，于是她把压舌板掰成了二大一小两段，把最小的那段分给了他。

    梦醒之后，她打开了信。信简短而字迹工整。”乌尔比诺的唯一要求是请她允许他向她父亲提出拜访她的要求。他的朴素和严肃，使她为之动心，深切的爱把那些在漫长的日子里培育出来的恨，一刹那间平息了。她把信放进箱底的一只旧首饰盒里，但又想起阿里萨那些香气四溢的信也曾放在那儿，突如其来的羞愧使她浑身一震。她把这封信又取了出来，准备换个地方收藏。她又觉得，最正派的做法是若无其事地把信在灯上烧掉，瞅着火漆化成的泡泡变成缕缕蓝色烟雾在火苗上翻腾。

    她叹了口气：“可怜的人。”墓地，她意识到这是她在一年多一点的时间里第二次说这句话了，一时又想起了阿里萨，她自己也很吃惊，他被她早就忘在九霄云外了：这个可怜的人。

    十月，随着最后那几场雨，又来了王封信，第一封信是跟一小盒弗拉维尼教堂紫罗兰香皂一起送来的。另两封是乌尔比诺医生的车夫送交到她家的大门口的，车夫从车子的窗户里就远远向普拉西迪哑打了个招呼，首先是不容怀疑，信是给她的，其次是让谁也没法说信没收到。此外，两封信都是用画着花押的火漆封着的，字体是龙飞凤舞的隐体字，费尔米纳早已认出这是医生的手笔。两封信的内容跟第一封信都大同小异，字里行间流露着同样的谦恭，但在道貌岸然的背后，已隐隐现出阿里萨那些欲言又止的信里所从来没有过的急不可耐。费尔米纳一收到信就拆开来看，两封信前后相差一周，在行将把信付之一炬的时刻，她又不假思索地改变了主意。

    不过，她从来没想过要答复。

    十月里的第三封信是从大门底下塞进来的，跟以前的信截然不同。字体歪七扭八，显然是用左手写的，但费尔米纳在看完那封无耻的匿名信之前还没发现这一点。

    写这封信的人一口咬定说，费尔米钢用迷魂汤使乌尔比诺医生着了魔，从这个推测里，得出了不怀好意的结论。信的末尾威胁说：如果费尔米纳不放弃依靠那位全市身价最高的男人出人头地的企图，她将会当众出丑。

    她觉得她受到了极不公正的伤害，但她的反应不是要进行报复，而是完全相反，她想找到写匿名信的人，用千条万条理由说服他，告诉他，他错了，因为她确信，不管什么时候，不管面对什么威胁利诱，她都不会为乌尔比诺的甜言蜜语所动。在那以后的几天中，她又收到了几封没落款的信，这些信跟前一封一样信口雌黄，但三封中没有一封看来是写前一封信的同三个人写的。也许是她中了计，也许是她那暗中有过的初恋的幻影超出了她能想象的范围。一想到那一切都可能是乌尔比诺的纯属草率鲁莽的行为造成的后果，她就感到坐卧不宁。她想，也许他的为人同他俊逸体面的外貌相去甚远，也许他在看病的时候说的那些话是信口开河，然后又去自作多情地吹嘘，就跟他那个阶层的许许多多纨持子弟一样。她想过要给他写封信，对自己的名誉受到的污蔑进行报复，但随即又打消了这个念头，因为那样做说不定正是他所希望的。她试图通过那些到缝纫室来跟她一起画画的女友了解情况，但她们唯一听到的，是关于那支钢琴独奏小夜曲的轻描淡写的议论。她觉得怒不可遏，又无能为力，满腹委屈。跟最初时的想法相反，她不再想去找到那个不露首尾的敌人，同他争论，她只想用整枝剪刀把他剪个稀巴烂。她彻夜不眠，分析那些匿名信的细节和含义，幻想从中找到一丝一毫的安慰。那是空劳神思的幻想：费尔米纳从本质上说，同乌尔比诺?德?拉卡列一家的内心世界是格格不入的，她只能防御明熗，无法抵挡暗箭。

    这个信念，经过黑洋娃娃那场惊吓之后变得更加惨痛了。黑洋娃娃也是在那些日子里给她送去的，没附带任何信件，但她不费吹灰之力就想到了它的来源：只有乌尔比诺医生才会给她送这个玩意儿。从商标上看，那是在马蒂尼卡岛买的，洋娃娃的衣服精美绝伦，卷曲的头发是用金丝做的，放倒的时候，它的眼睛会闭上。费尔米纳觉得好玩极了，放松了戒备，白天让它躺在枕头上。晚上搂着它睡觉，习以为常。然而过了一段时间之后，有一次当她从一个令人筋疲力尽的梦里醒过来时，发现洋娃娃越来越大了：原来穿的那件华美的衣服已经遮不住它的屁股，脚把鞋子也撑破了。费尔米纳曾经听说过非洲妖术的故事，但都没有象这样令人毛骨悚然。

    另外，她不敢相信，象乌尔比诺这么个有头面的人，居然也会干出这种事情来。对的，洋娃娃不是那个车夫，而是一个偶然上11兜售对虾的人送来的，他的来历谁也说不清楚。为了解开这个谜，费尔米纳一度想到了阿里萨，他的忧郁的气质曾使她不寒而栗，但后来她才明白，她想错了。这个谜始终是个谜，直到她结婚很久之后，生儿育女，并终于相信命运的选择是最幸福的选择以后，只要一念及此，她还是吓得浑身发抖。

    乌尔比诺医生的最后一次努力是敦请拉鲁丝媲嫣说项。她是圣母献瞻节学校的校长，对来自一个从这个学校在美洲建立以来就惠予照顾的家庭的请求，她无法拒绝。她由一个新入教的修女陪同，在上午九点钟光临。费尔米纳还没洗完澡，她们不得不返鸟笼里的鸟儿玩了半个钟头。她是个具有男子气质的德国女人，声如洪钟，目光犀利，跟她对孩子的爱怜似乎风马牛不相及。世界上费尔米纳最痛恨的，莫过于她和一切同她有关的事了，只要一回想起她的伪善，她就觉得象吃了蝎子那么恶心。从浴室门口一认出她来，费尔米纳一下就想起了在学校里挨过的体罚，每天做弥撒时难熬的瞌睡，令人心凉肉跳的考试，新人教的媛惊的奴颜婢膝，和那因精神空虚而形成的死水一潭的生活。然而，拉鲁丝惊塘却带着仿佛是发自内心的喜悦向她打招呼。慷惊惊奇地发现，费尔米纳长大而且成熟多了，她称赞说，家里布置得井井有条，庭院是色治人，拘椽花红得跟火似的。她命令新娘偏在那里等她，别太靠近秃骛，说一不小心它们就会把她的眼珠啄出来，然后说想找个僻静的地方坐下来同费尔米纳单独谈谈。后者请她到客厅去。

    访问是短暂而不愉快的。拉鲁丝偏爆没有浪费时间去寒暄就对费尔米纳说，她可以体面地复学。被开除的原因，不但可以从档案中而且可以从大家的记忆里一笔勾销。这样一来，她就可以学完课程并获得文学学上的文凭。费尔米纳如坠五里雾中，询问这是从何谈起。

    “这是某位有求必应的人的要求，他的唯一希望是让你幸福。”

    修女说，“你知道他是谁吗？”

    她明白了。她想，这个因一封无辜的信而毁了她的生活的女人有什么权利来充当媒人呢？但她没敢说出口。她只是说，是的，她认识这个人，因此也知道他没有任何权利来干涉她的生活。

    “他唯一的请求，是请你同意跟他谈五分钟。”修女说，“我确信，你父亲是会同意的。”

    想到父亲可能是安排这次访问的同谋，她更加生气了。

    “我生病的时候跟他见过两次面。”她说，“现在没有任何必要。”

    “不管是多么挑剔的姑娘，都会认为这是圣母的赐福。”修女说。

    修女继续列举他的美德，他的虔诚，他的救死扶伤的献身精神，边说边从袖子里掏出一串中间挂着用象牙雕刻的基督的金念珠，在费尔米纳眼前晃了晃。那是家传圣物，有一百多年历史，是由西也纳一位金银匠雕成而且受过克莱门蒂四世②祝福的。

    “这是给你的。”修文说。

    费尔米纳觉得血往上涌，忍无可忍了。

    “我不明白您干吗会于这种事，”她说，您难道不认为爱情是罪恶吗？”

    拉鲁丝惊媛假装对这种侮辱毫不在意，但她的眼睛里进出了火星。她继续在费尔米纳眼前晃着那串念珠。

    “你最好还是同我好说好商量，”她说，“因为我如果说不通，主教大人就会来，跟他谈，情形就不一样了。”

    “请他来吧。”费尔米纳说。

    拉鲁丝姆惊把金念珠藏进了袖口，然后从另一只袖口里掏出一块很旧的揉成一团的手绢，紧紧地握在手里，带着一副悲天悯人的笑容从远处看着费尔米纳。

    “可怜的孩子，”她叹了口气说，“你还在想着那个人。”

    费尔米纳目不转睛地看着修女，咽下了一句不该是姑娘家说的话。看见修女那两只象男人般的眼睛里噙着泪水，她觉得无比痛快。拉鲁丝惊偏用手绢团擦干泪水，站了起来。

    “你父亲说你是头倔驴，真是一点不错。”她说。

    主教并没有去。如果不是因为伊尔德布兰达来跟表妹一起过圣诞节。两人的生活都发生了变化，对她的纠缠到那天为止就算结束了。清晨五点，他们到发自里约阿查那条船上去接她，一大群乱糟糟的旅客，因旱船而显得困倦萎顿，但她却春风满面地下了船，带着鲜明的女性的妩媚。一夜风浪，使她还是显得有些紧张。她带来了装着她家富饶的农场里出产的火鸡和各种水果的大筐小兜，以使在她做客期间谁也短不了吃的。她父亲利西马科?桑切斯要好带个口信，复活节时候如果缺少乐师，他可以把最高明的乐师请来，还答应过些日子运一批焰火给他们。此外他还说，在三月以前他不可能把女儿接回去，她尽可呆在那儿玩个够。

    表姐妹俩一见面就过上了圣诞节。从第一个下午起，她们就一起人泪。裸体相对，用浴池里的水作为圣水互行洗礼。她们互相擦服皂，捉虱子，比臀部，比结实的乳峰，把对方当做镜子，检查自从上一次大家脱去衣服互相观摩以来，时光毫不留情地在各自身上留下了什么痕迹。伊尔德布兰达富态丰腴，橘黄色的皮肤，全身长着混血姑娘型的毛发，短而卷曲，跟金属细丝绒似的。费尔米纳则相反，苗条颀长，皮肤鲜润，毛发平垂。普拉西迪妞吩咐在卧室里摆上了两张同样的床，但有时她们躲在同一张床上，灭灯后一直谈到天明。她们还抽上几支拦路强盗抽的那种细枝雪茄，那是伊尔德布兰达藏在箱子的衬里中带来的，然后烧几张阿尔梅尼亚纸，以消除卧室里雪茄烟留下的霉味儿。费尔米纳第一次抽烟是在瓦列杜帕尔镇，后来在丰塞卡，在里约阿查也继续抽。在里约阿查的时候，十来个表姐妹反锁在一间房子里，谈论男人，偷偷抽烟。她学会倒着吸烟，把点火的那一头搁在嘴里，就跟战场上男子汉们为了防止香烟的闪光暴露自己一样，但她孤身独处时从不抽烟。跟伊尔德布兰达一起住在自己家里的那些日子里，她每天晚上睡觉前都抽烟，打那时起，她就学会抽烟了，但始终是背着人抽，连丈夫和儿女们也背着，这不仅因为女人在别人面前抽烟不太雅观，而且也因为她以偷偷油烟为乐。

    伊尔德布兰达这次旅行，从她父母来说，本是为了让她淡忘那桩门不当户不对的爱情，但他们却对她说，是要她去帮助费尔米纳拿个大主意，她也信以为真了。

    伊尔德布兰达是带着嘲弄忘却的幻想——同她表妹过去的做法一样——听从父母之命的，她跟丰塞卡那个电报员商量妥了，让他秘密地把消息传递给她。因此，当她知道费尔米纳已经和阿里萨吹了的时候，她痛心极了。另外，伊尔德布兰达认为爱情是人同此心、心同此理的，觉得发生在一个人身上的任何事情，都会影响普天之下所有的爱情。不过，她并未放弃原来的计划。她以使费尔米纳瞠目结舌的大无畏勇气，独自一人到电报局去了，她要让阿里萨帮她的忙。

    她没认出阿里萨，因为他长得和费尔米纳说的完全不同。乍见之下，她觉得表妹曾经为这个貌不惊人的小职员而神魂颠倒简直令人难以置信，他的气质就跟挨了打的狗似的，那身落难犹太教士的打扮和一本正经的模样，任何人也不会动心的。

    但是她很快又推翻了最初的印象，因为阿里萨虽不知道她是何许人，却愿意无条件地为她效劳，他到底也没弄清她是谁。谁也比不上他那么通情达理，既没让她报上尊姓大名，也没向她要地址。他的办法很简单：她每个礼拜三下午到电报局之地树引环强境李里，一如此而已。他看完伊尔德市工送带去的那张写好的电报纸后，问她能不能接受他的建议作点修改，她同意了。阿里萨又涂又写，最后干脆把那张纸撕了，重新写了一封信，她觉得他动人极了。走出电报局时，伊尔德布兰达的眼泪差点儿夺眶而出。

    “他其貌不扬而又可怜巴巴的，”她对费尔米纳说，“但可爱极了。”

    最引起伊尔德布兰达注意的，是表妹的寂寞。她对表妹说，你就跟二十岁的老处女似的。她在一个人数众多而分散的家庭里生活惯了，在这种家庭里，谁也搞不准到底有多少人，每顿饭又有谁去吃。伊尔德布兰达无法想象，一个处在表妹这样年华的姑娘，被关在私生活的小天地里不越雷池半步，该是多么难受。从早上六点钟起床开始，到晚上熄灯就寝为止，都在消磨时光，天天如此。生活，从外部强加给她。首先，鸡叫最后一遍的时候，送牛奶的男人就拍响大门的门环把她叫醒。然后，就该是那个卖鱼的女人了，她肩扛一个用海藻垫底、装着奄奄待毙的棘镇鱼的箱子，手提几只盛着马利亚啦巴哈产的蔬菜和圣贻辛托产的水果的精美的篮子。再以后，整日有人敲门，什么样的人都有：叫化子、招揽摸彩赌博的姑娘、募捐的修女、吹着芦笛的磨刀匠。收购瓶子的。收购碎金子的、收购报纸的、假扮成吉卜赛女人用纸牌算命的、或看手相的、或看咖啡剩渣和小盆里的水算命的。普拉西迪哑整周就是打开大门又关上，嘴里说着“不要”，“改天再来吧”，要不就在阳台上气息败坏地吼叫：“别再烦了，他妈的，该买的我们都已经买过了。”她以极大的热忱乐颠颠地取代了埃斯科拉斯蒂卡姑妈，费尔米纳都把她当姑妈甚至喜欢她了。

    她当奴隶简直成了撤好。只要一有点儿空，她就到工作间去熨烫白罩单，把它叠得整整齐齐，放进装有黛衣草花的柜橱里，她不＿仅熨烫和折叠刚刚洗过的，还把那些因久放不用而褪了色的也又烫又叠。她还同样小心翼翼地经管着费尔米纳?桑切斯——费尔米纳的母亲，死去已经十四年——的衣服。不过，拿主意的是费尔米纳。

    她吩咐该吃什么，该买什么，每件事情该这么办，该那么办，她就这样主宰着实际上没什么可主宰的全家的生活。每当她洗刷完鸟笼并给鸟儿喂过食，两弄过花草之后，她就不知道该干什么了。她被学校开除以后，有好多回，午觉一直睡到第二天。

    图画课，只不过是消磨时间的一种方式而已。自从埃斯科拉蒂斯卡姑妈出走以后，她同父亲的关系就冷淡了下来，虽然双方都已经找到了相安无事地生活的办法。她起床的时候，他已经出去干他的事去了。他很少不回家履行吃午饭的礼节，虽然几乎从来不吃，因为教区咖啡馆里的开胃酒和点心就把他填饱了。他也不吃晚饭，他们把他那一份留在饭桌上，盛在一个盘子里，用另一个盘子扣起来，尽管谁都知道他不会去吃，放到第二天早饭时热好再端出来也还是不吃。他每周交一次钱给女儿，用做开支，这笔钱他计算得很精确，她也抠得很紧，不过她向他提出任何不时之需时他都乐意照给。他从来不说少给她一个子儿，也从来不查帐，但她却搞得一清二楚，就跟要向宗教裁判所的法庭报帐似的。他从来不向她谈他的生意的性质和状况，也从来没带她到港口的办公室去过，办公室设在正派姑娘不宜露面的地区，就是由父母陪着也不行。洛伦索?达萨晚上十点以前是不会回家的。十点，是战争不那么激烈时期的宵禁时间。他在教区咖啡馆里一直呆到那个时间，见到什么玩什么，他对各种室内游戏都在行，而且精通。他回家时总是轻手轻脚的，不吵醒女儿。每天他一醒就喝下第一杯茵香酒，嘴里整天嚼着熄灭了的卷烟屁股，时不时再来上一杯。

    一天晚上，费尔米纳觉得父亲回来了，她听见楼梯上响起了他那哥萨克脚步声，二楼的过道上传来了沉重的喘息声，卧室的门上响起了他用手掌拍门的声音。接着，她给他开了门，第一次惊恐地发现，父亲的眼睛扭歪了，说话也磕磕巴巴的。

    “我们完了。”他说，“全完了，你就会知道的。”

    总共就说了那么句话，以后再也没提起过，也没发生任何证明他说了实话的迹象。但那天晚上以后，费尔米纳就明白了，她在世界上举目无亲。她生活在社会真空里。学校里的老同学生活在对她来说是禁地的天堂里。她蒙受被开除的羞辱之后就更加如此了，邻居们也不正眼瞧她，因为他们对她的事知道得一清二楚，而且是看着她穿着圣母献瞻书学校的校服长大的。同父亲打交道的都是商人和码头工人，教区咖啡馆这个庇护所里面的逃兵，独身的男人。在最后这一年里，图画课多少减轻了一点她的囚居生活的寂寞，那位女教师喜欢上集体课，常常把其他女学生带到她的缝纫室来。但那些女学生的社会条件千差万别，教养欠佳，对费尔米纳来说，她们只不过是些萍水相逢的朋友，每堂课一结束，感情也就结束了。伊尔德布兰达想敞开那个家的大门，给它透透气，把父亲的乐师、鞭炮和焰火架弄来，搞一次狂欢舞会，让大风把表妹的死气沉沉的精神状态一扫而光，然而她很快就发现，这些想法是徒劳的，原因很简单：找不到人。

   不管怎么说，把表妹推向生活的毕意是她。下午，上完图画课以后，她让表妹带她上街，游览市容。费尔米纳指给表姐看，这是她过去每天和埃斯科拉斯蒂卡姑妈散步的路线；这是阿里萨假装看书等她时坐过的小公园里的那条长凳子；这是他尾随她走过的几条胡同；这是他们密藏书信的旮旯儿；这是原先作过宗教法庭的监狱的那座阴森森的宫殿，宫殿后来改成了圣母献瞻节学校，她打心眼儿里憎恨它。

    她们登上了穷人公墓那道山梁，阿里萨原先就是在这里拉小提琴，利用风向使她躺在床上都能听到。站在山上，古城尽收眼底：支离破碎的屋顶和百孔千疮的墙壁；荆棘丛中的要塞废墟；海湾里连绵不断的小岛；湖边破破烂烂的木板窝棚；还有那浩瀚的加勒比海。

    圣诞之夜，她们到大教堂去望子时弥撒。费尔米纳站在当初可以最清晰地听到阿里萨的秘密乐曲的地方，分毫不爽地指给表姐那个望弥撒之夜她第一次就近看见阿里萨那两只惊慌的眼睛的地方。尔后，她俩大着胆子到了“代笔先生门洞”，买了些甜食，在变色纸商店里玩了一阵。费尔米纳指给表姐，她就是在那个地方突然发现，她的爱情只不过是个海市蜃楼。她自己也没察觉，从她家到学校的每一步路，城里的每个地方，她那历历在目的过去的每个时刻，无一不是因为阿里萨而存在的。

    伊尔德布兰达向她指出了这一点，但她没有承认，因为她从来就没有承认过，不管是福是祸，唯一闯过她生活中的是阿里萨这个现实。

    就在那些天，来了一个比利时照相师。他在“代笔先生门洞”上面搭起了照相馆，付得起钱的人都利用这个机会给自己留了下影。费尔米纳和伊尔德布兰达第一批抢先拍照。她们把费尔米纳?桑切斯的衣柜翻了个底儿朝天，把最艳丽的衣服、遮阳伞。做客时穿的鞋子、帽子都瓜分了，打扮成一副中世纪贵妇的样子。普拉西迪哑帮她们扎束胸农，教她们如何在裙撑的铁丝架子里扭动，如何戴手套，如何系高跟靴的扣子。伊尔德布兰达挑了一项阔边帽子，上面的驼鸟羽毛一直拖到背上。

    费尔米纳戴了一顶不那么古色古香的帽子，上面缀着五颜六色的石膏水果和土布花结。在镜子里瞧着自己酷似银板照片上的祖母们时，她们互相取笑了一番，然后哈哈大笑，兴高采烈地去照她们有生以来的第一张照片去了。普拉西迪娜站在阳台上，目送她们打着遮阳伞穿过公园，东倒西歪地勉强稳住支在高跟鞋上的身子，全身使劲儿推着跟学步车似的裙撑。她祝福她们，让上帝保何她们照个好方目。

引用

Chapter 3

　AT THE AGE of twenty-eight, Dr. Juvenal Urbino had been the most desirable of bachelors. Hehad returned from a long stay in Paris, where he had completed advanced studies in medicine andsurgery, and from the time he set foot on solid ground he gave overwhelming indications that hehad not wasted a minute of his time. He returned more fastidious than when he left, more incontrol of his nature, and none of his contemporaries seemed as rigorous and as learned as he inhis science, and none could dance better to the music of the day or improvise as well on the piano.

Seduced by his personal charms and by the certainty of his family fortune, the girls in his circleheld secret lotteries to determine who would spend time with him, and he gambled, too, on beingwith them, but he managed to keep himself in a state of grace, intact and tempting, until hesuccumbed without resistance to the plebeian charms of Fermina Daza.

He liked to say that this love was the result of a clinical error. He himself could not believethat it had happened, least of all at that time in his life when all his reserves of passion wereconcentrated on the destiny of his city which, he said with great frequency and no secondthoughts, had no equal in the world. In Paris, strolling arm in arm with a casual sweetheart througha late autumn, it seemed impossible to imagine a purer happiness than those golden afternoons,with the woody odour of chestnuts on the braziers, the languid accordions, the insatiable loverskissing on the open terraces, and still he had told himself with his hand on his heart that he wasnot prepared to exchange all that for a single instant of his Caribbean in April. He was still tooyoung to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanksto this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past. But when he stood at the railing of theship and saw the white promontory of the colonial district again, the motionless buzzards on theroofs, the washing of the poor hung out to dry on the balconies, only then did he understand towhat extent he had been an easy victim to the charitable deceptions of nostalgia.

The ship made its way across the bay through a floating blanket of drowned animals, andmost of the passengers took refuge in their cabins to escape the stench. The young doctor walkeddown the gangplank dressed in perfect alpaca, wearing a vest and dustcoat, with the beard of ayoung Pasteur and his hair divided by a neat, pale part, and with enough self-control to hide thelump in his throat caused not by terror but by sadness. On the nearly deserted dock guarded bybarefoot soldiers without uniforms, his sisters and mother were waiting for him, along with hisclosest friends, whom he found insipid and without expectations despite their sophisticated airs;they spoke about the crisis of the civil war as if it were remote and foreign, but they all had anevasive tremor in their voices and an uncertainty in their eyes that belied their words. His mothermoved him most of all. She was still young, a woman who had made a mark on life with herelegance and social drive, but who was now slowly withering in the aroma of camphor that rosefrom her widow's crepe. She must have seen herself in her son's confusion, and she asked inimmediate self-defence why his skin was as pale as wax.

"It's life over there, Mother," he said. "You turn green in Paris."A short while later, suffocating with the heat as he sat next to her in the closed carriage, hecould no longer endure the unmerciful reality that came pouring in through the window. The oceanlooked like ashes, the old palaces of the marquises were about to succumb to a proliferation ofbeggars, and it was impossible to discern the ardent scent of jasmine behind the vapours of deathfrom the open sewers. Everything seemed smaller to him than when he left, poorer and sadder, andthere were so many hungry rats in the rubbish heaps of the streets that the carriage horsesstumbled in fright. On the long trip from the port to his house, located in the heart of the Districtof the Viceroys, he found nothing that seemed worthy of his nostalgia. Defeated, he turned hishead away so that his mother would not see, and he began to cry in silence.

The former palace of the Marquis de Casalduero, historic residence of the Urbino de la Callefamily, had not escaped the surrounding wreckage. Dr. Juvenal Urbino discovered this with abroken heart when he entered the house through the gloomy portico and saw the dusty fountain inthe interior garden and the wild brambles in flower beds where iguanas wandered, and he realisedthat many marble flagstones were missing and others were broken on the huge stairway with itscopper railings that led to the principal rooms. His father, a physician who was more self-sacrificing than eminent, had died in the epidemic of Asian cholera that had devastated thepopulation six years earlier, and with him had died the spirit of the house. Doa Blanca, hismother, smothered by mourning that was considered eternal, had substituted evening novenas forher dead husband's celebrated lyrical soirs and chamber concerts. His two sisters, despite theirnatural inclinations and festive vocation, were fodder for the convent.

Dr. Juvenal Urbino did not sleep at all on the night of his return; he was frightened by thedarkness and the silence, and he said three rosaries to the Holy Spirit and all the prayers he couldremember to ward off calamities and shipwrecks and all manner of night terrors, while a curlewthat had come in through a half-closed door sang every hour on the hour in his bedroom. He wastormented by the hallucinating screams of the madwomen in the Divine Shepherdess Asylum nextdoor, the harsh dripping from the water jar into the washbasin which resonated throughout thehouse, the long-legged steps of the curlew wandering in his bedroom, his congenital fear of thedark, and the invisible presence of his dead father in the vast, sleeping mansion. When the curlewsang five o'clock along with the local roosters, Dr. Juvenal Urbino commended himself body andsoul to Divine Providence because he did not have the heart to live another day in his rubble-strewn homeland. But in time the affection of his family, the Sundays in the country, and thecovetous attentions of the unmarried women of his class mitigated the bitterness of his firstimpression. Little by little he grew accustomed to the sultry heat of October, to the excessiveodours, to the hasty judgments of his friends, to the We'll see tomorrow, Doctor, don't worry, andat last he gave in to the spell of habit. It did not take him long to invent an easy justification for hissurrender. This was his world, he said to himself, the sad, oppressive world that God had providedfor him, and he was responsible to it.

The first thing he did was to take possession of his father's office. He kept in place the hard,sombre English furniture made of wood that sighed in the icy cold of dawn, but he consigned tothe attic the treatises on viceregal science and romantic medicine and filled the bookshelvesbehind their glass doors with the writings of the new French school. He took down the fadedpictures, except for the one of the physician arguing with Death for the nude body of a femalepatient, and the Hippocratic Oath printed in Gothic letters, and he hung in their place, next to hisfather's only diploma, the many diverse ones he himself had received with highest honours fromvarious schools in Europe.

He tried to impose the latest ideas at Misericordia Hospital, but this was not as easy as it hadseemed in his youthful enthusiasm, for the antiquated house of health was stubborn in itsattachment to atavistic superstitions, such as standing beds in pots of water to prevent disease fromclimbing up the legs, or requiring evening wear and chamois gloves in the operating room becauseit was taken for granted that elegance was an essential condition for asepsis. They could nottolerate the young newcomer's tasting a patient's urine to determine the presence of sugar, quotingCharcot and Trousseau as if they were his roommates, issuing severe warnings in class against themortal risks of vaccines while maintaining a suspicious faith in the recent invention ofsuppositories. He was in conflict with everything: his renovating spirit, his maniacal sense of civicduty, his slow humour in a land of immortal pranksters--everything, in fact, that constituted hismost estimable virtues provoked the resentment of his older colleagues and the sly jokes of theyounger ones.

His obsession was the dangerous lack of sanitation in the city. He appealed to the highestauthorities to fill in the Spanish sewers that were an immense breeding ground for rats, and tobuild in their place a closed sewage system whose contents would not empty into the cove at themarket, as had always been the case, but into some distant drainage area instead. The well-equipped colonial houses had latrines with septic tanks, but two thirds of the population lived inshanties at the edge of the swamps and relieved themselves in the open air. The excrement dried inthe sun, turned to dust, and was inhaled by everyone along with the joys of Christmas in the cool,gentle breezes of December. Dr. Juvenal Urbino attempted to force the City Council to impose anobligatory training course so that the poor could learn how to build their own latrines. He foughtin vain to stop them from tossing garbage into the mangrove thickets that over the centuries hadbecome swamps of putrefaction, and to have them collect it instead at least twice a week andincinerate it in some uninhabited area.

He was aware of the mortal threat of the drinking water. The mere idea of building anaqueduct seemed fantastic, since those who might have supported it had underground cisterns attheir disposal, where water rained down over the years was collected under a thick layer of scum.

Among the most valued household articles of the time were carved wooden water collectorswhose stone filters dripped day and night into large earthen water jars. To prevent anyone fromdrinking from the aluminium cup used to dip out the water, its edges were as jagged as the crownof a mock king. The water was crystalline and cool in the dark clay, and it tasted of the forest. ButDr. Juvenal Urbino was not taken in by these appearances of purity, for he knew that despite allprecautions, the bottom of each earthen jar was a sanctuary for waterworms. He had spent theslow hours of his childhood watching them with an almost mystical astonishment, convincedalong with so many other people at the time that waterworms were animes, supernatural creatureswho, from the sediment in still water, courted young maidens and could inflict furious vengeancebecause of love. As a boy he had seen the havoc they had wreaked in the house of Lara Conde,a schoolteacher who dared to rebuff the animes, and he had seen the watery trail of glass in thestreet and the mountain of stones they had thrown at her windows for three days and three nights.

And so it was a long while before he learned that waterworms were in reality the larvae ofmosquitoes, but once he learned it he never forgot it, because from that moment on he realised thatthey and many other evil animes could pass through our simple stone filters intact.

For a long time the water in the cisterns had been honoured as the cause of the scrotal herniathat so many men in the city endured not only without embarrassment but with a certain patrioticinsolence. When Juvenal Urbino was in elementary school, he could not avoid a spasm of horrorat the sight of men with ruptures sitting in their doorways on hot afternoons, fanning theirenormous testicle as if it were a child sleeping between their legs. It was said that the herniawhistled like a lugubrious bird on stormy nights and twisted in unbearable pain when a buzzardfeather was burned nearby, but no one complained about those discomforts because a large, well-carried rupture was, more than anything else, a display of masculine honour. When Dr. JuvenalUrbino returned from Europe he was already well aware of the scientific fallacy in these beliefs,but they were so rooted in local superstition that many people opposed the mineral enrichment ofthe water in the cisterns for fear of destroying its ability to cause an honourable rupture.

Impure water was not all that alarmed Dr. Juvenal Urbino. He was just as concerned with thelack of hygiene at the public market, a vast extension of cleared land along Lasimas Bay wherethe sailing ships from the Antilles would dock. An illustrious traveller of the period described themarket as one of the most varied in the world. It was rich, in fact, and profuse and noisy, but also,perhaps, the most alarming of markets. Set on its own garbage heap, at the mercy of capricioustides, it was the spot where the bay belched filth from the sewers back onto land. The offal fromthe adjoining slaughterhouse was also thrown away there--severed heads, rotting viscera, animalrefuse that floated, in sunshine and starshine, in a swamp of blood. The buzzards fought for it withthe rats and the dogs in a perpetual scramble among the deer and succulent capons from Sotaventohanging from the eaves of the market stalls, and the spring vegetables from Arjona displayed onstraw mats spread over the ground. Dr. Urbino wanted to make the place sanitary, he wanted aslaughterhouse built somewhere else and a covered market constructed with stained-glass turrets,like the one he had seen in the old boquers in Barcelona, where the provisions looked sosplendid and clean that it seemed a shame to eat them. But even the most complaisant of hisnotable friends pitied his illusory passion. That is how they were: they spent their livesproclaiming their proud origins, the historic merits of the city, the value of its relics, its heroism,its beauty, but they were blind to the decay of the years. Dr. Juvenal Urbino, on the other hand,loved it enough to see it with the eyes of truth.

"How noble this city must be," he would say, "for we have spent four hundred years trying tofinish it off and we still have not succeeded,"They almost had, however. The epidemic of cholera morbus, whose first victims were struckdown in the standing water of the market, had, in eleven weeks, been responsible for the greatestdeath toll in our history. Until that time the eminent dead were interred under the flagstones in thechurches, in the exclusive vicinity of archbishops and capitulars, while the less wealthy wereburied in the patios of convents. The poor were sent to the colonial cemetery, located on a windyhill that was separated from the city by a dry canal whose mortar bridge bore the legend carvedthere by order of some clairvoyant mayor: Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate. After the first twoweeks of the cholera epidemic, the cemetery was overflowing and there was no room left in thechurches despite the fact that they had dispatched the decayed remains of many nameless civicheroes to the communal ossuary. The air in the Cathedral grew thin with the vapours from badlysealed crypts, and its doors did not open again until three years later, at the time that Fermina Dazasaw Florentino Ariza at close quarters as she left Midnight Mass. By the third week the cloister ofthe Convent of St. Clare was full all the way to its poplar-lined walks, and it was necessary to usethe Community's orchard, which was twice as large, as a cemetery. There graves were dug deepenough to bury the dead on three levels, without delay and without coffins, but this had to bestopped because the brimming ground turned into a sponge that oozed sickening, infected blood atevery step. Then arrangements were made to continue burying in The Hand of God, a cattle ranchless than a league from the city, which was later consecrated as the Universal Cemetery.

From the time the cholera proclamation was issued, the local garrison shot a cannon from thefortress every quarter hour, day and night, in accordance with the local superstition thatgunpowder purified the atmosphere. The cholera was much more devastating to the blackpopulation, which was larger and poorer, but in reality it had no regard for colour or background.

It ended as suddenly as it had begun, and the extent of its ravages was never known, not becausethis was impossible to establish but because one of our most widespread virtues was a certainreticence concerning personal misfortune.

Dr. Marco Aurelio Urbino, the father of Juvenal, was a civic hero during that dreadful time,as well as its most distinguished victim. By official decree he personally designed and directedpublic health measures, but on his own initiative he intervened to such an extent in every socialquestion that during the most critical moments of the plague no higher authority seemed to exist.

Years later, reviewing the chronicle of those days, Dr. Juvenal Urbino confirmed that his father'smethodology had been more charitable than scientific and, in many ways, contrary to reason, sothat in large measure it had fostered the voraciousness of the plague. He confirmed this with thecompassion of sons whom life has turned, little by little, into the fathers of their fathers, and forthe first time he regretted not having stood with his father in the solitude of his errors. But he didnot dispute his merits: his diligence and his self-sacrifice and above all his personal couragedeserved the many honours rendered him when the city recovered from the disaster, and it waswith justice that his name was found among those of so many other heroes of less honourablewars.

He did not live to see his own glory. When he recognised in himself the irreversiblesymptoms that he had seen and pitied in others, he did not even attempt a useless struggle butwithdrew from the world so as not to infect anyone else. Locked in a utility room at MisericordiaHospital, deaf to the calls of his colleagues and the pleas of his family, removed from the horror ofthe plague victims dying on the floor in the packed corridors, he wrote a letter of feverish love tohis wife and children, a letter of gratitude for his existence in which he revealed how much andwith how much fervour he had loved life. It was a farewell of twenty heartrending pages in whichthe progress of the disease could be observed in the deteriorating script, and it was not necessaryto know the writer to realise that he had signed his name with his last breath. In accordance withhis instructions, his ashen body was mingled with others in the communal cemetery and was notseen by anyone who loved him.

Three days later, in Paris, Dr. Juvenal Urbino received a telegram during supper with friends,and he toasted the memory of his father with champagne. He said: "He was a good man." Later hewould reproach himself for his lack of maturity: he had avoided reality in order not to cry. Butthree weeks later he received a copy of the posthumous letter, and then he surrendered to the truth.

All at once the image of the man he had known before he knew any other was revealed to him inall its profundity, the man who had raised him and taught him and had slept and fornicated withhis mother for thirty-two years and yet who, before that letter, had never revealed himself bodyand soul because of timidity, pure and simple. Until then Dr. Juvenal Urbino and his family hadconceived of death as a misfortune that befell others, other people's fathers and mothers, otherpeople's brothers and sisters and husbands and wives, but not theirs. They were people whose liveswere slow, who did not see themselves growing old, or falling sick, or dying, but who disappearedlittle by little in their own time, turning into memories, mists from other days, until they wereabsorbed into oblivion. His father's posthumous letter, more than the telegram with the bad news,hurled him headlong against the certainty of death. And yet one of his oldest memories, when hewas nine years old perhaps, perhaps when he was eleven, was in a way an early sign of death inthe person of his father. One rainy afternoon the two of them were in the office his father kept inthe house; he was drawing larks and sunflowers with coloured chalk on the tiled floor, and hisfather was reading by the light shining through the window, his vest unbuttoned and elasticarmbands on his shirt sleeves. Suddenly he stopped reading to scratch his back with a long-handled back scratcher that had a little silver hand on the end. Since he could not reach the spotthat itched, he asked his son to scratch him with his nails, and as the boy did so he had the strangesensation of not feeling his own body. At last his father looked at him over his shoulder with a sadsmile.

"If I died now," he said, "you would hardly remember me when you are my age."He said it for no apparent reason, and the angel of death hovered for a moment in the coolshadows of the office and flew out again through the window, leaving a trail of feathers flutteringin his wake, but the boy did not see them. More than twenty years had gone by since then, andJuvenal Urbino would very soon be as old as his father was that afternoon. He knew he wasidentical to him, and to that awareness had now been added the awful consciousness that he wasalso as mortal.

Cholera became an obsession for him. He did not know much more about it than he hadlearned in a routine manner in some marginal course, when he had found it difficult to believe thatonly thirty years before, it had been responsible for more than one hundred forty thousand deathsin France, including Paris. But after the death of his father he learned all there was to know aboutthe different forms of cholera, almost as a penance to appease his memory, and he studied with themost outstanding epidemiologist of his time and the creator of the cordons sanitaires, ProfessorAdrien Proust, father of the great novelist. So that when he returned to his country and smelled thestench of the market while he was still out at sea and saw the rats in the sewers and the childrenrolling naked in the puddles on the streets, he not only understood how the tragedy had occurredbut was certain that it would be repeated at any moment.

The moment was not long in coming. In less than a year his students at Misericordia Hospitalasked for his help in treating a charity patient with a strange blue coloration all over his body. Dr.

Juvenal Urbino had only to see him from the doorway to recognise the enemy. But they were inluck: the patient had arrived three days earlier on a schooner from Curaao and had come to thehospital clinic by himself, and it did not seem probable that he had infected anyone else. In anyevent, Dr. Juvenal Urbino alerted his colleagues and had the authorities warn the neighbouringports so that they could locate and quarantine the contaminated schooner, and he had to restrainthe military commander of the city who wanted to declare martial law and initiate the therapeuticstrategy of firing the cannon every quarter hour.

"Save that powder for when the Liberals come," he said with good humour. "We are nolonger in the Middle Ages."The patient died in four days, choked by a grainy white vomit, but in the following weeks noother case was discovered despite constant vigilance. A short while later, The Commercial Dailypublished the news that two children had died of cholera in different locations in the city. It waslearned that one of them had had common dysentery, but the other, a girl of five, appeared to havebeen, in fact, a victim of cholera. Her parents and three brothers were separated and placed underindividual quarantine, and the entire neighbourhood was subjected to strict medical supervision.

One of the children contracted cholera but recovered very soon, and the entire family returnedhome when the danger was over. Eleven more cases were reported in the next three months, and inthe fifth there was an alarming outbreak, but by the end of the year it was believed that the dangerof an epidemic had been averted. No one doubted that the sanitary rigour of Dr. Juvenal Urbino,more than the efficacy of his pronouncements, had made the miracle possible. From that time on,and well into this century, cholera was endemic not only in the city but along most of theCaribbean coast and the valley of the Magdalena, but it never again flared into an epidemic. Thecrisis meant that Dr. Juvenal Urbino's warnings were heard with greater seriousness by publicofficials. They established an obligatory Chair of Cholera and Yellow Fever in the MedicalSchool, and realised the urgency of closing up the sewers and building a market far from thegarbage dump. By that time, however, Dr. Urbino was not concerned with proclaiming victory, norwas he moved to persevere in his social mission, for at that moment one of his wings was broken,he was distracted and in disarray and ready to forget everything else in life, because he had beenstruck by the lightning of his love for Fermina Daza.

It was, in fact, the result of a clinical error. A physician who was a friend of his thought hedetected the warning symptoms of cholera in an eighteen-year-old patient, and he asked Dr.

Juvenal Urbino to see her. He called that very afternoon, alarmed at the possibility that the plaguehad entered the sanctuary of the old city, for all the cases until that time had occurred in the poorneighbourhoods, and almost all of those among the black population. He encountered other, lessunpleasant, surprises. From the outside, the house, shaded by the almond trees in the Park of theEvangels, appeared to be in ruins, as did the others in the colonial district, but inside there was aharmony of beauty and an astonishing light that seemed to come from another age. The entranceopened directly into a square Sevillian patio that was white with a recent coat of lime and hadflowering orange trees and the same tiles on the floor as on the walls. There was an invisiblesound of running water, and pots with carnations on the cornices, and cages of strange birds in thearcades. The strangest of all were three crows in a very large cage, who filled the patio with anambiguous perfume every time they flapped their wings. Several dogs, chained elsewhere in thehouse, began to bark, maddened by the scent of a stranger, but a woman's shout stopped themdead, and numerous cats leapt all around the patio and hid among the flowers, frightened by theauthority in the voice. Then there was such a diaphanous silence that despite the disorder of thebirds and the syllables of water on stone, one could hear the desolate breath of the sea.

Shaken by the conviction that God was present, Dr. Juvenal Urbino thought that such a housewas immune to the plague. He followed Gala Placidia along the arcaded corridor, passed by thewindow of the sewing room where Florentino Ariza had seen Fermina Daza for the first time,when the patio was still a shambles, climbed the new marble stairs to the second floor, and waitedto be announced before going into the patient's bedroom. But Gala Placidia came out again with amessage: "The seorita says you cannot come in now because her papa is not at home."And so he returned at five in the afternoon, in accordance with the maid's instructions, andLorenzo Daza himself opened the street door and led him to his daughter's bedroom. There heremained, sitting in a dark corner with his arms folded, and making futile efforts to control hisragged breathing during the examination. It was not easy to know who was more constrained, thedoctor with his chaste touch or the patient in the silk chemise with her virgin's modesty, butneither one looked the other in the eye; instead, he asked questions in an impersonal voice and sheresponded in a tremulous voice, both of them very conscious of the man sitting in the shadows. Atlast Dr. Juvenal Urbino asked the patient to sit up, and with exquisite care he opened hernightdress down to the waist; her pure high breasts with the childish nipples shone for an instant inthe darkness of the bedroom, like a flash of gunpowder, before she hurried to cover them withcrossed arms. Imperturbable, the physician opened her arms without looking at her and examinedher by direct auscultation, his ear against her skin, first the chest and then the back.

Dr. Juvenal Urbino used to say that he experienced no emotion when he met the woman withwhom he would live until the day of his death. He remembered the sky-blue chemise edged inlace, the feverish eyes, the long hair hanging loose over her shoulders, but he was so concernedwith the outbreak of cholera in the colonial district that he took no notice of her floweringadolescence: he had eyes only for the slightest hint that she might be a victim of the plague. Shewas more explicit: the young doctor she had heard so much about in connection with the choleraepidemic seemed a pedant incapable of loving anyone but himself. The diagnosis was an intestinalinfection of alimentary origin, which was cured by three days of treatment at home. Relieved bythis proof that his daughter had not contracted cholera, Lorenzo Daza accompanied Dr. JuvenalUrbino to the door of his carriage, paid him a gold peso for the visit, a fee that seemed excessiveeven for a physician to the rich, and he said goodbye with immoderate expressions of gratitude.

He was overwhelmed by the splendour of the Doctor's family names, and he not only did not hideit but would have done anything to see him again, under less formal circumstances.

The case should have been considered closed. But on Tuesday of the following week, withoutbeing called and with no prior announcement, Dr. Juvenal Urbino returned to the house at theinconvenient hour of three in the afternoon. Fermina Daza was in the sewing room, having alesson in oil painting with two of her friends, when he appeared at the window in his spotlesswhite frock coat and his white top hat and signalled to her to come over to him. She put her palettedown on a chair and tiptoed to the window, her ruffled skirt raised to keep it from dragging on thefloor. She wore a diadem with a jewel that hung on her forehead, and the luminous stone was thesame aloof colour as her eyes, and everything in her breathed an aura of coolness. The Doctor wasstruck by the fact that she was dressed for painting at home as if she were going to a party. Hetook her pulse through the open window, he had her stick out her tongue, he examined her throatwith an aluminium tongue depressor, he looked inside her lower eyelids, and each time he noddedin approval. He was less inhibited than on the previous visit, but she was more so, because shecould not understand the reason for the unexpected examination if he himself had said that hewould not come back unless they called him because of some change. And even more important:

she did not ever want to see him again. When he finished his examination, the Doctor put thetongue depressor back into his bag, crowded with instruments and bottles of medicine, and closedit with a resounding snap.

"You are like a new-sprung rose," he said.

"Thank you.""Thank God," he said, and he misquoted St. Thomas: "Remember that everything that isgood, whatever its origin, comes from the Holy Spirit. Do you like music?""What is the point of that question?" she asked in turn.

"Music is important for one's health," he said.

He really thought it was, and she was going to know very soon, and for the rest of her life,that the topic of music was almost a magic formula that he used to propose friendship, but at thatmoment she interpreted it as a joke. Besides, her two friends, who had pretended to paint whileshe and Dr. Juvenal Urbino were talking at the window, tittered and hid their faces behind theirpalettes, and this made Fermina Daza lose her self-control. Blind with fury, she slammed thewindow shut. The Doctor stared at the sheer lace curtains in bewilderment, he tried to find thestreet door but lost his way, and in his confusion he knocked into the cage with the perfumedcrows. They broke into sordid shrieking, flapped their wings in fright, and saturated the Doctor'sclothing with a feminine fragrance. The thundering voice of Lorenzo Daza rooted him to the spot:

"Doctor--wait for me there."He had seen everything from the upper floor and, swollen and livid, he came down the stairsbuttoning his shirt, his side-whiskers still in an uproar after a restless siesta. The Doctor tried toovercome his embarrassment.

"I told your daughter that she is like a rose.""True enough," said Lorenzo Daza, "but one with too many thorns."He walked past Dr. Urbino without greeting him. He pushed open the sewing room windowand shouted a rough command to his daughter: "Come here and beg the Doctor's pardon."The Doctor tried to intervene and stop him, but Lorenzo Daza paid no attention to him. Heinsisted: "Hurry up." She looked at her friends with a secret plea for understanding, and she said toher father that she had nothing to beg pardon for, she had only closed the window to keep out thesun. Dr. Urbino, with good humour, tried to confirm her words, but Lorenzo Daza insisted that hebe obeyed. Then Fermina Daza, pale with rage, turned toward the window, and extending her rightfoot as she raised her skirt with her fingertips, she made a theatrical curtsy to the Doctor.

"I give you my most heartfelt apologies, sir," she said.

Dr. Juvenal Urbino imitated her with good humour, making a cavalier's flourish with his tophat, but he did not win the compassionate smile he had hoped for. Then Lorenzo Daza invited himto have a cup of coffee in his office to set things right, and he accepted with pleasure so that therewould be no doubt whatsoever that he did not harbour a shred of resentment in his heart.

The truth was that Dr. Juvenal Urbino did not drink coffee, except for a cup first thing in themorning. He did not drink alcohol either, except for a glass of wine with meals on solemnoccasions, but he not only drank down the coffee that Lorenzo Daza offered him, he also accepteda glass of anisette. Then he accepted another coffee with another anisette, and then another andanother, even though he still had to make a few more calls. At first he listened with attention to theexcuses that Lorenzo Daza continued to offer in the name of his daughter, whom he defined as anintelligent and serious girl, worthy of a prince whether he came from here or anywhere else,whose only defect, so he said, was her mulish character. But after the second anisette, the Doctorthought he heard Fermina Daza's voice at the other end of the patio, and his imagination went afterher, followed her through the night that had just descended in the house as she lit the lights in thecorridor, fumigated the bedrooms with the insecticide bomb, uncovered the pot of soup on thestove, which she was going to share that night with her father, the two of them alone at the table,she not raising her eyes, not tasting the soup, not breaking the rancorous spell, until he was forcedto give in and ask her to forgive his severity that afternoon.

Dr. Urbino knew enough about women to realise that Fermina Daza would not pass by theoffice until he left, but he stayed nevertheless because he felt that wounded pride would give himno peace after the humiliations of the afternoon. Lorenzo Daza, who by now was almost drunk,did not seem to notice his lack of attention, for he was satisfied with his own indomitableeloquence. He talked at full gallop, chewing the flower of his unlit cigar, coughing in shouts,trying to clear his throat, attempting with great difficulty to find a comfortable position in theswivel chair, whose springs wailed like an animal in heat. He had drunk three glasses of anisette toeach one drunk by his guest, and he paused only when he realised that they could no longer seeeach other, and he stood up to light the lamp. Dr. Juvenal Urbino looked at him in the new light,he saw that one eye was twisted like a fish's and that his words did not correspond to themovement of his lips, and he thought these were hallucinations brought on by his abuse of alcohol.

Then he stood up, with the fascinating sensation that he was inside a body that belonged not tohim but to someone who was still in the chair where he had been sitting, and he had to make agreat effort not to lose his mind.

It was after seven o'clock when he left the office, preceded by Lorenzo Daza. There was a fullmoon. The patio, idealised by anisette, floated at the bottom of an aquarium, and the cagescovered with cloths looked like ghosts sleeping under the hot scent of new orange blossoms. Thesewing room window was open, there was a lighted lamp on the worktable, and the unfinishedpaintings were on their easels as if they were on exhibit. "Where art thou that thou art not here,"said Dr. Urbino as he passed by, but Fermina Daza did not hear him, she could not hear him,because she was crying with rage in her bedroom, lying face down on the bed and waiting for herfather so that she could make him pay for the afternoon's humiliation. The Doctor did notrenounce his hope of saying goodbye to her, but Lorenzo Daza did not suggest it. He yearned forthe innocence of her pulse, her cat's tongue, her tender tonsils, but he was disheartened by the ideathat she never wanted to see him again and would never permit him to try to see her. WhenLorenzo Daza walked into the entryway, the crows, awake under their sheets, emitted a funerealshriek. "They will peck out your eyes," the Doctor said aloud, thinking of her, and Lorenzo Dazaturned around to ask him what he had said.

"It was not me," he said. "It was the anisette."Lorenzo Daza accompanied him to his carriage, trying to force him to accept a gold peso forthe second visit, but he would not take it. He gave the correct instructions to the driver for takinghim to the houses of the two patients he still had to see, and he climbed into the carriage withouthelp. But he began to feel sick as they bounced along the cobbled streets, so that he ordered thedriver to take a different route. He looked at himself for a moment in the carriage mirror and sawthat his image, too, was still thinking about Fermina Daza. He shrugged his shoulders. Then hebelched, lowered his head to his chest, and fell asleep, and in his dream he began to hear funeralbells. First he heard those of the Cathedral and then he heard those of all the other churches, oneafter another, even the cracked pots of St. Julian the Hospitaler.

"Shit," he murmured in his sleep, "the dead have died." His mother and sisters were havingcaf?con leche and crullers for supper at the formal table in the large dining room when they sawhim appear in the door, his face haggard and his entire being dishonoured by the whorish perfumeof the crows. The largest bell of the adjacent Cathedral resounded in the immense empty space ofthe house. His mother asked him in alarm where in the world he had been, for they had lookedeverywhere for him so that he could attend General Ignacio Mar, the last grandson of theMarquis de Jarade la Vera, who had been struck down that afternoon by a cerebralhaemorrhage: it was for him that the bells were tolling. Dr. Juvenal Urbino listened to his motherwithout hearing her as he clutched the doorframe, and then he gave a half turn, trying to reach hisbedroom, but he fell flat on his face in an explosion of star anise vomit.

"Mother of God," shouted his mother. "Something very strange must have happened for youto show up in your own house in this state."The strangest thing, however, had not yet occurred. Taking advantage of the visit of thefamous pianist Romeo Lussich, who played a cycle of Mozart sonatas as soon as the city hadrecovered from mourning the death of General Ignacio Mar, Dr. Juvenal Urbino had the pianofrom the Music School placed in a mule-drawn wagon and brought a history-making serenade toFermina Daza. She was awakened by the first measures, and she did not have to look out thegrating on the balcony to know who was the sponsor of that uncommon tribute. The only thing sheregretted was not having the courage of other harassed maidens, who emptied their chamber potson the heads of unwanted suitors. Lorenzo Daza, on the other hand, dressed without delay as theserenade was playing, and when it was over he had Dr. Juvenal Urbino and the pianist, stillwearing their formal concert clothes, come in to the visitors' parlour, where he thanked them forthe serenade with a glass of good brandy.

Fermina Daza soon realised that her father was trying to soften her heart. The day after theserenade, he said to her in a casual manner: "Imagine how your mother would feel if she knew youwere being courted by an Urbino de la Calle." Her dry response was: "She would turn over in hergrave." The friends who painted with her told her that Lorenzo Daza had been invited to lunch atthe Social Club by Dr. Juvenal Urbino, who had received a severe reprimand for breaking clubrules. It was only then that she learned that her father had applied for membership in the SocialClub on several occasions, and that each time he had been rejected with such a large number ofblack balls that another attempt was not possible. But Lorenzo Daza had an infinite capacity forassimilating humiliations, and he continued his ingenious strategies for arranging casualencounters with Juvenal Urbino, not realising that it was Juvenal Urbino who went out of his wayto let himself be encountered. At times they spent hours chatting in the office, while the houseseemed suspended at the edge of time because Fermina Daza would not permit anything to run itsnormal course until he left. The Parish Caf?was a good intermediate haven. It was there thatLorenzo Daza gave Juvenal Urbino his first lessons in chess, and he was such a diligent pupil thatchess became an incurable addiction that tormented him until the day of his death.

One night, a short while after the serenade by solo piano, Lorenzo Daza discovered a letter,its envelope sealed with wax, in the entryway to his house. It was addressed to his daughter andthe monogram "J. U. C." was imprinted on the seal. He slipped it under the door as he passedFermina's bedroom, and she never understood how it had come there, since it was inconceivable toher that her father had changed so much that he would bring her a letter from a suitor. She left iton the night table, for the truth was she did not know what to do with it, and there it stayed,unopened, for several days, until one rainy afternoon when Fermina Daza dreamed that JuvenalUrbino had returned to the house to give her the tongue depressor he had used to examine herthroat. In the dream, the tongue depressor was made not of aluminium but of a delicious metal thatshe had tasted with pleasure in other dreams, so that she broke it in two unequal pieces and gavehim the smaller one.

When she awoke she opened the letter. It was brief and proper, and all that Juvenal Urbinoasked was permission to request her father's permission to visit her. She was impressed by itssimplicity and seriousness, and the rage she had cultivated with so much love for so many daysfaded away on the spot. She kept the letter in the bottom of her trunk, but she remembered that shehad also kept Florentino Ariza's perfumed letters there, and she took it out of the chest to findanother place for it, shaken by a rush of shame. Then it seemed that the most decent thing to dowas to pretend she had not received it, and she burned it in the lamp, watching how the drops ofwax exploded into blue bubbles above the flame. She sighed: "Poor man." And then she realisedthat it was the second time she had said those words in little more than a year, and for a momentshe thought about Florentino Ariza, and even she was surprised at how removed he was from herlife: poor man.

Three more letters arrived with the last rains in October, the first of them accompanied by alittle box of violet pastilles from Flavigny Abbey. Two had been delivered at the door by Dr.

Juvenal Urbino's coachman, and the Doctor had greeted Gala Placidia from the carriage window,first so that there would be no doubt that the letters were his, and second so that no one could tellhim they had not been received. Moreover, both of them were sealed with his monogram in waxand written in the cryptic scrawl that Fermina Daza already recognised as a physician'shandwriting. Both of them said in substance what had been said in the first, and were conceived inthe same submissive spirit, but underneath their propriety one could begin to detect an impatiencethat was never evident in the parsimonious letters of Florentino Ariza. Fermina Daza read them assoon as they were delivered, two weeks apart, and without knowing why, she changed her mind asshe was about to throw them into the fire. But she never thought of answering them.

The third letter in October had been slipped under the street door, and was in every waydifferent from the previous ones. The handwriting was so childish that there was no doubt it hadbeen scrawled with the left hand, but Fermina Daza did not realise that until the text itself provedto be a poison pen letter. Whoever had written it took for granted that Fermina Daza hadbewitched Dr. Juvenal Urbino with her love potions, and from that supposition sinisterconclusions had been drawn. It ended with a threat: if Fermina Daza did not renounce her effortsto move up in the world by means of the most desirable man in the city, she would be exposed topublic disgrace.

She felt herself the victim of a grave injustice, but her reaction was not vindictive. On thecontrary: she would have liked to discover who the author of the anonymous letter was in order toconvince him of his error with all the pertinent explanations, for she felt certain that never, for anyreason, would she respond to the wooing of Juvenal Urbino. In the days that followed she receivedtwo more unsigned letters, as perfidious as the first, but none of the three seemed to be written bythe same person. Either she was the victim of a plot, or the false version of her secret love affairhad gone further than anyone could imagine. She was disturbed by the idea that it was all theresult of a simple indiscretion on the part of Juvenal Urbino. It occurred to her that perhaps he wasdifferent from his worthy appearance, that perhaps he talked too much when he was making housecalls and boasted of imaginary conquests, as did so many other men of his class. She thoughtabout writing him a letter to reproach him for the insult to her honour, but then she decided againstthe idea because that might be just what he wanted. She tried to learn more from the friends whopainted with her in the sewing room, but they had heard only benign comments concerning theserenade by solo piano. She felt furious, impotent, humiliated. In contrast to her initial feeling thatshe wanted to meet with her invisible enemy in order to convince him of his errors, now she onlywanted to cut him to ribbons with the pruning shears. She spent sleepless nights analysing detailsand phrases in the anonymous letters in the hope of finding some shred of comfort. It was a vainhope: Fermina Daza was, by nature, alien to the inner world of the Urbino de la Calle family, andshe had weapons for defending herself from their good actions but not from their evil ones.

This conviction became even more bitter after the fear caused by the black doll that was sentto her without any letter, but whose origin seemed easy to imagine: only Dr. Juvenal Urbino couldhave sent it. It had been bought in Martinique, according to the original tag, and it was dressed inan exquisite gown, its hair rippled with gold threads, and it closed its eyes when it was laid down.

It seemed so charming to Fermina Daza that she overcame her scruples and laid it on her pillowduring the day and grew accustomed to sleeping with it at night. After a time, however, shediscovered when she awoke from an exhausting dream that the doll was growing: the originalexquisite dress she had arrived in was up above her thighs, and her shoes had burst from thepressure of her feet. Fermina Daza had heard of African spells, but none as frightening as this. Onthe other hand, she could not imagine that a man like Juvenal Urbino would be capable of such anatrocity. She was right: the doll had been brought not by his coachman but by an itinerantshrimpmonger whom no one knew. Trying to solve the enigma, Fermina Daza thought for amoment of Florentino Ariza, whose depressed condition caused her dismay, but life convinced herof her error. The mystery was never clarified, and just thinking about it made her shudder withfear long after she was married and had children and thought of herself as destiny's darling: thehappiest woman in the world.

Dr. Urbino's last resort was the mediation of Sister Franca de la Luz, Superior of theAcademy of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, who could not deny the request of a familythat had supported her Community since its establishment in the Americas. She appeared onemorning at nine o'clock in the company of a novice, and for half an hour the two of them had toamuse themselves with the birdcages while Fermina Daza finished her bath. She was a masculineGerman with a metallic accent and an imperious gaze that had no relationship to her puerilepassions. Fermina Daza hated her and everything that had to do with her more than anything inthis world, and the mere memory of her false piety made scorpions crawl in her belly. Just thesight of her from the bathroom door was enough to revive the torture of school, the unbearableboredom of daily Mass, the terror of examinations, the servile diligence of the novices, all of thatlife distorted by the prism of spiritual poverty. Sister Franca de la Luz, on the other hand, greetedher with a joy that seemed sincere. She was surprised at how much she had grown and matured,and she praised the good judgment with which she managed the house, the good taste evident inthe patio, the brazier filled with orange blossoms. She ordered the novice to wait for her withoutgetting too close to the crows, who in a careless moment might peck out her eyes, and she lookedfor a private spot where she could sit down and talk alone with Fermina, who invited her into thedrawing room.

It was a brief and bitter visit. Sister Franca de la Luz, wasting no time on formalities, offeredhonourable reinstatement to Fermina Daza. The reason for her expulsion would be erased not onlyfrom the records but also from the memory of the Community, and this would allow her to finishher studies and receive her baccalaureate degree. Fermina Daza was perplexed and wanted toknow why.

"It is the request of someone who deserves everything he desires and whose only wish is tomake you happy," said the nun. "Do you know who that is?"Then she understood. She asked herself with what authority a woman who had made her lifemiserable because of an innocent letter served as the emissary of love, but she did not dare tospeak of it. Instead she said yes, she knew that man, and by the same token she also knew that hehad no right to interfere in her life.

"All he asks is that you allow him to speak with you for five minutes," said the nun. "I amcertain your father will agree."Fermina Daza's anger grew more intense at the idea that her father was an accessory to thevisit.

"We saw each other twice when I was sick," she said. "Now there is no reason for us to seeeach other again.""For any woman with a shred of sense, that man is a gift from Divine Providence," said thenun.

She continued to speak of his virtues, of his devotion, of his dedication to serving those inpain. As she spoke she pulled from her sleeve a gold rosary with Christ carved in marble, anddangled it in front of Fermina Daza's eyes. It was a family heirloom, more than a hundred yearsold, carved by a goldsmith from Siena and blessed by Clement IV.

"It is yours," she said.

Fermina Daza felt the blood pounding through her veins, and then she dared.

"I do not understand how you can lend yourself to this," she said, "if you think that love is asin."Sister Franca de la Luz pretended not to notice the remark, but her eyelids flamed. Shecontinued to dangle the rosary in front of Fermina Daza's eyes.

"It would be better for you to come to an understanding with me," she said, "because after mecomes His Grace the Archbishop, and it is a different story with him.""Let him come," said Fermina Daza.

Sister Franca de la Luz tucked the gold rosary into her sleeve. Then from the other she took awell-used handkerchief squeezed into a ball and held it tight in her fist, looking at Fermina Dazafrom a great distance and with a smile of commiseration.

"My poor child," she sighed, "you are still thinking about that man."Fermina Daza chewed on the impertinence as she looked at the nun without blinking, lookedher straight in the eye without speaking, chewing in silence, until she saw with infinite satisfactionthat those masculine eyes had filled with tears. Sister Franca de la Luz dried them with the ball ofthe handkerchief and stood up.

"Your father is right when he says that you are a mule," she said.

The Archbishop did not come. So the siege might have ended that day if Hildebranda Schez had not arrived to spend Christmas with her cousin, and life changed for both of them. Theymet her on the schooner from Riohacha at five o'clock in the morning, surrounded by a crowd ofpassengers half dead from seasickness, but she walked off the boat radiant, very much a woman,and excited after the bad night at sea. She arrived with crates of live turkeys and all the fruits ofher fertile lands so that no one would lack for food during her visit. Lisaco Schez, herfather, sent a message asking if they needed musicians for their holiday parties, because he had thebest at his disposal, and he promised to send a load of fireworks later on. He also announced thathe could not come for his daughter before March, so there was plenty of time for them to enjoylife. The two cousins began at once. From the first afternoon they bathed together, naked, the twoof them making their reciprocal ablutions with water from the cistern. They soaped each other,they removed each other's nits, they compared their buttocks, their quiet breasts, each looking atherself in the other's mirror to judge with what cruelty time had treated them since the lastoccasion when they had seen each other undressed. Hildebranda was large and solid, with goldenskin, but all the hair on her body was like a mulatta's, as short and curly as steel wool. FerminaDaza, on the other hand, had a pale nakedness, with long lines, serene skin, and straight hair. GalaPlacidia had two identical beds placed in the bedroom, but at times they lay together in one andtalked in the dark until dawn. They smoked long, thin highwaymen's cigars that Hildebranda hadhidden in the lining of her trunk, and afterward they had to burn Armenian paper to purify the ranksmell they left behind in the bedroom. Fermina Daza had smoked for the first time in Valledupar,and had continued in Fonseca and Riohacha, where as many as ten cousins would lock themselvesin a room to talk about men and to smoke. She learned to smoke backward, with the lit end in hermouth, the way men smoked at night during the wars so that the glow of their cigarettes would notbetray them. But she had never smoked alone. With Hildebranda in her house, she smoked everynight before going to sleep, and it was then that she acquired the habit although she always hid it,even from her husband and her children, not only because it was thought improper for a woman tosmoke in public but because she associated the pleasure with secrecy.

Hildebranda's trip had also been imposed by her parents in an effort to put distance betweenher and her impossible love, although they wanted her to think that it was to help Fermina decideon a good match. Hildebranda had accepted, hoping to mock forgetfulness as her cousin had donebefore her, and she had arranged with the telegraph operator in Fonseca to send her messages withthe greatest prudence. And that is why her disillusion was so bitter when she learned that FerminaDaza had rejected Florentino Ariza. Moreover, Hildebranda had a universal conception of love,and she believed that whatever happened to one love affected all other loves throughout the world.

Still, she did not renounce her plan. With an audacity that caused a crisis of dismay in FerminaDaza, she went to the telegraph office alone, intending to win the favour of Florentino Ariza.

She would not have recognised him, for there was nothing about him that corresponded to theimage she had formed from Fermina Daza. At first glance it seemed impossible that her cousincould have been on the verge of madness because of that almost invisible clerk with his air of awhipped dog, whose clothing, worthy of a rabbi in disgrace, and whose solemn manner could notperturb anyone's heart. But she soon repented of her first impression, for Florentino Ariza placedhimself at her unconditional service without knowing who she was: he never found out. No onecould have understood her as he did, so that he did not ask for identification or even for heraddress. His solution was very simple: she would pass by the telegraph office on Wednesdayafternoons so that he could place her lover's answers in her hand, and nothing more. And yet whenhe read the written message that Hildebranda brought him, he asked if she would accept asuggestion, and she agreed. Florentino Ariza first made some corrections between the lines, erasedthem, rewrote them, had no more room, and at last tore up the page and wrote a completely newmessage that she thought very touching. When she left the telegraph office, Hildebranda was onthe verge of tears. "He is ugly and sad," she said to Fermina Daza, "but he is all love." What moststruck Hildebranda was her cousin's solitude. She seemed, she told her, an old maid of twenty.

Accustomed to large scattered families in houses where no one was certain how many people wereliving or eating at any given time, Hildebranda could not imagine a girl her age reduced to thecloister of a private life. That was true: from the time she awoke at six in the morning until sheturned out the light in the bedroom, Fermina Daza devoted herself to killing time. Life wasimposed on her from outside. First, at the final rooster crow, the milkman woke her with hisrapping on the door knocker. Then came the knock of the fishwife with her box of red snappersdying on a bed of algae, the sumptuous fruit sellers with vegetables from Marla Baja and fruitfrom San Jacinto. And then, for the rest of the day, everyone knocked at the door: beggars, girlswith lottery tickets, the Sisters of Charity, the knife grinder with the gossip, the man who boughtbottles, the man who bought old gold, the man who bought newspapers, the fake gipsies whooffered to read one's destiny in cards, in the lines of one's palm, in coffee grounds, in the water inwashbasins. Gala Placidia spent the week opening and closing the street door to say no, anotherday, or shouting from the balcony in a foul humour to stop bothering us, damn it, we alreadybought everything we need. She had replaced Aunt Escoltica with so much fervour and somuch grace that Fermina confused them to the point of loving her. She had the obsessions of aslave. Whenever she had free time she would go to the workroom to iron the linens; she kept themperfect, she kept them in cupboards with lavender, and she ironed and folded not only what shehad just washed but also what might have lost its brightness through disuse. With the same careshe continued to maintain the wardrobe of Fermina Schez, Fermina's mother, who had diedfourteen years before. But Fermina Daza was the one who made the decisions. She ordered whatthey would eat, what they would buy, what had to be done in every circumstance, and in that wayshe determined the life in a house where in reality nothing had to be determined. When shefinished washing the cages and feeding the birds, and making certain that the flowers wanted fornothing, she was at a loss. Often, after she was expelled from school, she would fall asleep atsiesta and not wake up until the next day. The painting classes were only a more amusing way tokill time.

Her relationship with her father had lacked affection since the expulsion of Aunt Escoltica, although they had found the way to live together without bothering each other. When sheawoke, he had already gone to his business. He rarely missed the ritual of lunch, although healmost never ate, for the aperitifs and Galician appetisers at the Parish Caf?satisfied him. He didnot eat supper either: they left his meal on the table, everything on one plate covered by another,although they knew that he would not eat it until the next day when it was reheated for hisbreakfast. Once a week he gave his daughter money for expenses, which he calculated with careand she administered with rigour, but he listened with pleasure to any request she might make forunforeseen expenses. He never questioned a penny she spent, he never asked her for anyexplanations, but she behaved as if she had to make an accounting before the Tribunal of the HolyOffice. He had never spoken to her about the nature or condition of his business, and he had nevertaken her to his offices in the port, which were in a location forbidden to decent young ladies evenif accompanied by their fathers. Lorenzo Daza did not come home before ten o'clock at night,which was the curfew hour during the less critical periods of the wars. Until that time he wouldstay at the Parish Caf? playing one game or another, for he was an expert in all salon games and agood teacher as well. He always came home sober, not disturbing his daughter, despite the factthat he had his first anisette when he awoke and continued chewing the end of his unlit cigar anddrinking at regular intervals throughout the day. One night, however, Fermina heard him come in.

She heard his cossack's step on the stair, his heavy breathing in the second-floor hallway, hispounding with the flat of his hand on her bedroom door. She opened it, and for the first time shewas frightened by his twisted eye and the slurring of his words.

"We are ruined," he said. "Total ruin, so now you know."That was all he said, and he never said it again, and nothing happened to indicate whether hehad told the truth, but after that night Fermina Daza knew that she was alone in the world. Shelived in a social limbo. Her former schoolmates were in a heaven that was closed to her, above allafter the dishonour of her expulsion, and she was not a neighbour to her neighbours, because theyhad known her without a past, in the uniform of the Academy of the Presentation of the BlessedVirgin. Her father's world was one of traders and stevedores, of war refugees in the public shelterof the Parish Caf? of solitary men. In the last year the painting classes had alleviated her seclusionsomewhat, for the teacher preferred group classes and would bring the other pupils to the sewingroom. But they were girls of varying and undefined social circumstances, and for Fermina Dazathey were no more than borrowed friends whose affection ended with each class. Hildebrandawanted to open the house, air it, bring in her father's musicians and fireworks and castles ofgunpowder, and have a Carnival dance whose gale winds would clear out her cousin's moth-eatenspirit, but she soon realised that her proposals were to no avail, and for a very simple reason

引用

第二章

    在经过长时间的不愉快的恋爱，费尔米纳无可挽回地拒绝了他的求婚之后，阿里萨无时无刻不在思念着她。从那时起，已经过去了五十一年九个月零四天。他毋须为了备忘而每天在牢房的墙上划一个道道计算口子，因为每一天都会发生点事儿使他勾起对她的回忆。他们断绝关系时，他二十二岁，当时，他跟他母亲特兰西托?阿里萨住在文塔纳斯街租下的半幢楼房里。母亲从年轻时就在那里经营一个小百货店，除此之外，还把旧衣服拆了当棉花卖给战争中的伤员。阿里萨是她的独子，是她跟著名的船主洛阿伊萨先生偶然结合所生。这位洛阿伊萨先生是建立加勒比内河航运公司的三兄弟中的老大。他们靠了这个航运公司推动了马格达莱纳河的航运事业的发展。

    当他儿子十岁时，洛阿伊萨先生谢世。他一直在偷偷地负担着他的花费，但从未在法律上承认他是自己的儿子，也没有解决他的前程问题。因此，阿里萨一直只有母性，他真正的父亲是谁，公众向来是清清楚楚的。父亲死后，阿里萨不得不辍学到邮局去当学徒，在那里他负责打开邮袋，分捡信件，在门口升起有关国家的国旗，通知人们哪个国家的邮件已经到了。

    他的才智引起了报务员的注意。那位报务员是个德国侨民，名叫洛特里奥?特乌古特，此人除在邮局干事外，还在教堂的重要庆典上弹风琴和兼任家庭音乐教师。

    特乌古特教他学会了莫尔斯电码和掌握电报系统。仅仅上了头几堂小提琴课，阿里萨就可以像个职业演奏者似的一边听课，一边演奏其它曲子了。他在十八岁上认识了费尔米纳，当时他称得上是本社会阶层中最引人注目和最受欢迎的年轻人。他能跟着时髦的音乐翩翩起舞，情意缠绵地背诵诗篇，只要有人求他，他随时都乐意带上小提琴为他们意中人去奏小夜曲。从那时起，他一直瘦骨嶙峋，印第安人的头发用香脂粘得银光瓦亮，架在鼻梁上的近视镜加深了他的落落寡合的印象。除了视力上的缺陷外，他还患有慢性便秘，终生都离不开通便的灌肠剂。他仅有的一套考究的替换衣服，是从他已故的父亲那里继承来的，由于特兰西托善于保存，以致每个星期日穿起来都象是新的。尽管他长得很纤弱，性格内向，穿着朴素，可是班上的姑娘们为了争夺和他呆在一起的机会，还得在私下抽签。他也常和她们在一起玩，直到他认识了费尔米纳，那些天真无邪的行动才算告终。

    他第一次见到她是在一个下午。那天下午，特乌古特叫他去给一个通讯地址不大明确的名叫洛伦索?达萨的人送电报。他在埃万赫利奥斯小公园里一座半倒塌的古老的房子里找到了那个人。那座房子的里院跟修道院相仿，花坛上长满杂草，中央有一个干涸的泉眼。当阿里萨在走廊里跟着赤脚女仆穿过一道道拱门时，他没有听到任何声音，走廊里摆满了尚未打开的搬迁用的箱子，泥瓦匠的工具，以及一堆堆没有用完的水泥和石灰，当时这座房子正在翻修。在院子的尽头，有一间临时办公室，室内有个大胖子正坐在写字台前睡午觉，他的卷曲的鬓发和胡子搅在一起。

    此人正是洛伦索?达萨，他在城里尚不十分出名，因为他来到此地还不到两年，而且交游不广。

    电报的到来仿佛是他的恶梦的继续。阿里萨怀着一种公务人员的同情心，观察着他的铅色的眼睛，注意到他正在撕开封条的哆哆咦膜的手指，以及他内心的恐惧。

    这种恐惧，他从许多人身上都看到过，因为收件人在打开电报前，难免把它同死亡联系在一起。读过电报后，他马上镇定下来，叹息道：“好消息！”他按照惯例送了阿里萨五个雷阿尔，他以宽慰的微笑使他明白，如果给他带来的是坏消息，那五个雷阿尔他是不会破费的。接着，他又紧紧地握手同他告别，其实这对送电报的人来说是不必要的。女仆一直把他送到大门外，不仅是为了给他引路，也是为了监视他。但是，他跟着女仆又沿着同一条走廊走过去了。阿里萨发现里面还有另外的人：在明亮的院子里有一个女人的声音在反复诵读课文。当他在缝纫室的对面穿过时，从窗户里看到一个成年的妇女和一个姑娘，她们坐在两张并排的椅子上，同时读一本摊在那个成年女人膝上的书。这种景象使他觉得奇怪：女孩在教母亲读书。这个估计，只有一点不太准确，因为那个妇女是女孩的姑妈，而不是她的母亲，尽管她曾象母亲似的把她抚养成人。读书声没有中断，但女孩把头抬了起来，想知道是谁在窗口经过。谁也没有料到这偶然的一督，引起一场爱情大灾难，持续了半个世纪尚未结束。

    关于洛伦索?达萨，阿里萨唯一能够打听到的只是：他是带着独生女儿和独身妹妹，在霍乱发生后不久从沼泽地的圣?胡安迁到这儿来的。那些目击他下船的人，毫不怀疑他将会在这里定居，因为他把装备一个家庭所需要的东西全部带来了。女孩还小，但妻子已经去世了c他的妹妹叫埃斯科拉斯蒂卡，四十岁。她上街时，总是按照圣芳济会的习惯着装；留在家里时，也在腰间围条带子。女孩十三岁了，取了个跟死去的母亲一样的名字：费尔米纳。

    看来，洛伦索?达萨是个有资产的人，他虽然没有正当的职业，却生活得很好。

    他花二百金比索，买下了埃万赫利奥斯的旧房，而整修这所房子所花的钱至少是买价的两倍。女儿就读于“圣母献瞻节”学校，两个世纪以来，这个学校就为闺秀们开设如何做贤妻良母的家政课。在殖民时期和共和国初年，这所学校只收贵族门第的小姐。但是，由于独立而破落了的古老家族不得不屈从于新时代的现实，这个学校的大门终于向所有能够支付学费的女学生敞开，不管她们有没有贵族头衔，只要是按天主教仪式结婚的父母的合法女儿就可以就读。这是一所收费昂贵的学校，仅就费尔米纳在那里就读一事，即使不能说明她家庭的社会地位，至少表明了她家庭的富有。这些消息使阿里萨极为兴奋，那位杏眼通圆的美貌姑娘正是他梦寐以求的意中人。可惜，那位父亲对女儿管教甚严，这对阿里萨接近费尔米纳是一种不可逾越的障碍。其他女学生一般都是结伴而行，或由年长的女仆陪着上学，费尔米纳则总是由单身的姑妈陪着，使她的一举一动不能有任何越轨之处。

    阿里萨以下列天真的方式开始偷偷跟踪费尔米纳的生活——早晨七点钟，他一个人坐在公园里不太为人注意的靠背长椅上，佯装在扁桃树下读诗，直到那位姑娘无动于衷地在他身前走过。她穿的是蓝条制服，有松紧箍的袜子高齐膝盖，一双男式的高腰皮鞋。一条粗大的辫子齐腰拖在背后，末端打着一个结。她走路时有一种天然的高傲，脑袋高高地昂起，目不斜视，步履轻快，尖鼻子，两臂交叉，把鼓鼓囊囊的书包抱在胸前。真的，她走路的姿势颇似母鹿，轻松自在。在她旁边，姑妈穿着棕褐色的教服，系着圣芳济会的腰带，紧紧跟着姑娘的脚步走着，谁也甭想凑近那姑娘一步。阿里萨一天四次看着她们来回走过，星期天到教堂做大弥撒出来时也能见她一次。他只要看到那个女孩就感到心满意足了。渐渐地，他把她理想化了，把一些不可能的美德和想象出来的情感都安在她的身上。两个星期后，她成了他心目中的唯一存在。他决定给她写封信，用职业抄写员的清秀的字体写在一张纸的正反两面。这封信在他口袋里搁了几天。在琢磨如何把信交给她的同时，他每天睡觉之前都再补写几页。结果，最初的那张纸逐渐扩大成了一本情话词典，那些话都是他在公园里等待姑娘走过时从读过的许多书中背下来的。

    为了寻求递信的方法，他想结识几个“圣母献瞻节”学校的女学生。然而，她们的天地同他相距太远了。再说，经过反复考虑之后，他认为让人知道他的企图是不明智的。他听说费尔米纳刚到此地数天之后，曾经有人邀她参加周末舞会，但被她父亲斩钉截铁地拒绝了：“现在还不到做这种事情的时候。”阿里萨再也难以忍受为自己的爱情保守秘密，他的信已长达七十张纸，而且两面都写得密密麻麻。他把信毫无保留地呈现在母亲面前，母亲是他唯一愿意讲讲知心话的人。特兰西托为儿子的纯真的爱情激动得流下了眼泪。她想用自己的智慧和经验引导他。她首先说服他，不要把那封抒情诗般的长信交给姑娘，那只能使她在幻梦中大吃一惊，她认为这位姑娘在爱情上跟她儿子同样缺乏经验。她对他说，第一步应该是使她意识到他对她有兴趣，以便他向她吐露爱情时不致使她感到意外，并且有充分的时间去考虑。

    “不过，更重要的是，”她对儿子说，“你要争取的第一个人，不应该是她，而应该是她的姑妈。”

    这两条劝告无疑是明智的，但是晚了一些。事实上，那一天当费尔米纳心不在焉地给她姑妈读着课文，抬起头来看看谁从走廊里经过的一刹那，阿里萨的落落寡欢的神态便给她留下了深刻的印象。晚上吃饭时，父亲谈起那份电报，她便知道阿里萨到她家干什么来了，也知道他所从事的职业。这些消息使她兴趣大增，因为她跟当时许多人一样，认为电报的发明应该同魔法有点关系。因此，当她第一次看见阿里萨坐在小公园的树下读书时，便一眼认出了他，并且没有引起她丝毫的不安。

    其实，她的姑妈早在几个星期之前，就发现阿里萨在那里了，只是没有让侄女知道而已。以后每逢星期日做完弥撒从教堂出来，她们都见到他。那时，姑妈才明白小伙子如此频繁地同她们相遇并不是偶然的。她说：“他处心积虑地缠着我们，大概不是为了我。”尽管她身穿教服，举止在重，但还是具有生活的本能和复杂的心理，那是她的美德。一想到有一个男子对她的侄女发生兴趣，她就难以遏止心中的激动。

    费尔米纳对爱情还没有感到好奇，阿里萨只使她产生了一点儿怜悯，她觉得他似乎是个病人。但是她姑妈对她说，必须在一起生活很久，才能了解一个男人真正的性格，而且她深信，那个坐在公园里守着她们的年轻人，害的准是相思病。

    费尔米纳是一对没有爱情的夫妇生下的独女。姑妈对她既理解又疼爱。自从她母亲死后，就是这位姑妈在抚养着她。她跟洛伦索达萨的关系，更象是孩子的母亲，而不象是姑妈。因此，阿里萨的出现，使她们增加了一项隐秘的消遣。为了打发漫长的时光，她们发明了许多不让外人知晓的娱乐。每天四次，当她们穿过洛斯?埃万赫利奥斯小公园时，两个人都用一道飞快的目光急切地捕捉那个瘦弱、腼腆、不起眼儿的“哨兵”。不管天气如何炎热，他总是穿着黑衣服，在树下佯装读书。

    “他在。”姑妈和侄女中谁第一个发现他，谁就忍住笑这么说。这时，他才抬起头来，目送那两位严肃的女子目不旁视地穿过公园。她们距他的生活十分遥远。

    “可怜的孩子，”姑妈说，“我和你在一起，他不敢过来。但是，如果他真是爱你，总有一天他会凑过来，递给你一封信。”

    姑妈预见到恋爱将会经历种种磨难，便教她熟悉书写体的笔迹，那是互通款曲所不可缺少的手段。阿里萨那些出人意料的既聪明又无真的花招，使费尔米纳产生了新的好奇心，但是几个月过去了，她还没有想到更远。她并不知道在什么时候她的这种消道会突然变成焦虑，全身的血液会沸腾起来，产生一种急切地想看到他的渴望。一天晚上，她居然惊醒过来，她看到他在黑暗中站在床边注视着她。那时，她从内心希望姑妈能够言中。她祈求上帝给他勇气，把信交给她，她想知道信里到底说了些什么。

    但是她的恳求没有被理睬，而是相反，因为这正好发生在阿里萨跟母亲谈话的时候，母亲劝他不要马上递交那封长达七十页纸的情书。结果，费尔米纳只好一直等到年底，随着十二月份寒假的临近，她的焦虑变成了绝望，她不安地暗问，在她休假的三个月时间里，为了他们能够见面，她该怎么办？这个问题直到圣诞节的夜晚才得到解决。那天晚上，一种预感震撼着她，她觉得他在坐午夜弥撒的人群中凝视着她。她感到不安，心脏象要从嘴里跳出来。她不敢回过头去，因为她坐在父亲和姑妈之间。她只好竭力克制自己，以便不让他们察觉她的惊慌不安。但是，当人们蜂拥挤出教堂时，她感到在混乱的人群中，他显然就挨在她身边。在离开中殿时，一种不可抗拒的力量迫使她通过人们的肩膀上方望去，她看到了两只冰冷的眼睛、一张紫色的面孔和被爱情的恐惧弄僵了的双唇。他的大胆使她晕眩，为了不致跌倒，她赶快抓住了姑妈的手臂。姑妈透过花边露指手套感到她手上渗出了冷汗，于是做了一个几乎不为人察觉的暗号，表示了她无条件的支持，激励她振作起来。在柱廊上的彩灯下，在爆竹、大鼓的巨响和渴望和平的人群的呼喊声中，阿里萨象个梦游症患者似的恍恍惚惚，眼里含着泪花，观赏着节日的盛况，一直游荡到天明。他仿佛觉得那天晚上诞生的不是救主，而是他自己。

    下一个星期，每逢午觉时刻，他从费尔米钢门前无望地走过时，就更加恍惚了，他看到姑娘总是跟姑妈一起坐在往廊的扁桃树下。那情景跟他第一个下午在缝纫房前看到的一模一样：姑娘正在为姑妈读课文。但是，费尔米纳换了新装，她没有穿学生制服，穿了一件多措麻纱长裙。象古希腊女子穿的宽大无袖衫那样，长裙的招绔从她肩膀上垂下来。她头上那顶桅子花编织的花冠，使她具有女神般的丰采。阿里萨在公园里坐了下来，他断定在那里准会被她们看到，所以他没有再伪装读书，而是把书本打开，眼睛盯住他朝思暮想的姑娘。然而，姑娘并没有对他报以怜悯的目光。

    最初他想，她们在扁桃树下面读书是一种偶然的改变，也许是由于家里一直在没完没了地修理，后来他才明白，费尔米纳所以在三个月的假期中每天下午的同一个时候都呆在那里，目的是为了使他能够看到她。这一结论使他重新鼓起了勇气。

    姑娘并没有对他流露出注意的神情，也没有作出感兴趣或厌恶的表示。但在她冷漠的脸上却出现了一种与往昔不同的光彩，似乎在鼓励他坚持下去。一月末的一个下午，姑妈突然把手中的活儿放在椅子上离开了，让侄女单独留在铺满扁桃树枯叶的柱廊里。阿里萨不假思索地认为，那是她们商量好了的一种安排，就鼓起勇气，穿过大街，走到费尔米纳跟前。他离她是那么近，以致能听到她的呼吸和闻到她身上散发出的馨香——在以后的日子里，他就是通过各种芳香来辨认她的。他扬起头跟她讲话，那副果断的样子只是在半个世纪以后才再现过一次，而且也是出于同样的原因。

    “我有个要求，请您接受我的一封信。”他对她说。

    费尔米纳感到，他的话语不是她预料的那种声音。它清晰，有分寸，跟他无精打采的神志没有任何相似之处。姑娘的眼睛没有离开刺绣，回答说：“在没有得到我父亲允许之前，我不能收下您的信。”这温和亲切的声音使阿里萨激动得浑身战栗，低沉的音色使他终生难忘。他仁立着，又说了一遍：“请收下吧。”他把命令的口气变成委婉的央求：“这是生死攸关的大事。”费尔米纳没有看他，也没有停下手中的刺绣活，她暗暗地把决心的大门半开半掩，那里容得下整个世界。

    “清每天下午都到这里来，”她对他说，“等待着我换椅子。”

    到了下星期一，阿里萨才明白她那句话的含意。那一天，他坐在小公园的长椅上，除了惯常的情景外，他还看到一种变化：当姑妈回到房间去时，费尔米纳站起身来，坐上了另一把椅子。于是，阿里萨在大礼服的扣眼里插上一朵山茶花，穿过街道，停在她的面前，说：“这是我一生中最美好的机缘。”费尔米纳低着头，用目光扫视四周。在旱季的酷热中，街上空旷无人，只有风卷落叶在地上飘舞。

    “把信给我吧。”她说。

    阿里萨本来想把那封自己读得滚瓜烂熟的七十页长信全部交出去，但最后决定只送出全信的一半，这部分写得既明确而又在分寸，主要意思是：他将忠贞不贰，永远爱她。他从大礼服内侧的口袋里把信掏出来，放在那个不敢正眼看他的痛苦的刺绣姑娘面前。姑娘看到蓝色的信封在他的一只由于害怕而僵直的手中颤抖，便想举起绣花绷子来接信，因为她不能让他发现她的手指也在发抖。这时出了一件节外生枝的事：从扁桃树的枝叶中掉下一摊鸟粪，不偏不倚正好落在绣花绷子上。费尔米纳赶快把绷子藏到椅子后面，以免引起他的注意，她的脸羞得通红，瞥了他一眼。

    阿里萨把信拿在手中若无其事地说：“这是幸福的预兆。”听了这话，她第一次荣然开颜，流露出感激的神情。她从他手中把信抢了过去，折叠起来，塞到紧身背心里边。那时，他把插在扣眼上的白山茶花献了上去。她拒绝了，说：“这是定情花。”

    她随即意识到时间已经到了，又恢复了原来的姿势。

    “您现在可以走了，”她说，“没有得到我的通知请您不要再来。”

    母亲在儿子向她倾诉前就发现了他的心事。因为他不言不语，茶饭无心，晚上在床上辗转反侧，难以成眠。在他等待她的第一封回信期间，焦虑使他的身体状况更加复杂化了，他腹泻，吐绿水，失去了辨别方向的能力，还常常突然昏厥。母亲十分惊慌，这些症状不象是爱情引起的身体失调，倒象是染上了可怕的霍乱。阿里萨的教父，一个懂得顺势疗法的老人——此人从偷偷爱上特兰西托时起，一直是她的知心人——看到病人的这些症状，也感到束手无策，病人的脉搏微弱，呼吸时发出沙哑的声音，脸色象垂危的病人似的苍白，盗汗但并不发烧，也没有哪儿感到疼痛。老人详细向患者本人及其母亲询问了情况，得出的结论是生了一种和霍乱病的症状完全一样的相思病。老人建议用玉米花水来镇定神经，并建议他到外地去换换空气，调剂精神。但是阿里萨宁愿忍受折磨和煎熬也不愿离开这里。

    特兰西托是个独身的混血女人，她认为，是贫困葬送了她的幸福。儿子的痛苦仿佛就是她自己的痛苦，而她同样也在这种折磨中得到了喜悦和满足。看到儿子神魂不定，她就给他喝点玉米花水。儿子感到发冷，就给他盖上几条毛毯。与此同时，她也劝他打起精神，在病中及时行乐。

    “趁着年轻，要尝尝各种滋味，”她对他说，“这种事情也是终身难逢的。”

    当然，邮局的同事并不是这样想的。阿里萨已变得非常懒散，对工作心不在焉，以致在邮件到达时经常挂错国旗。一个星期三，英国的利物浦莱兰航空公司的邮船到了，他挂了一面德国旗。又有一天，法国圣纳泽尔远洋航运总公司的邮船到了，他挂了一面美国旗。爱情的迷惘使他把邮件分发得乱七八糟，引起了公众纷纷抗议。

    阿里萨之所以没有丢掉饭碗，只是因为特乌古特坚持要留下他，并想带他到教堂唱诗班去拉小提琴。他们在年龄上的差异几乎同祖父和孙子一样，却能志同道合，这是令人难以理解的。不管是在工作中，还是在港口的小客栈里，他们都相处得很好。

    港口的小客栈是三教九流的人过夜的地方，上至穿礼服的公子少爷，下至靠施舍为生的酒鬼，无不闻风而来。公子少爷们是从“社会俱乐部”豪华的舞会上逃出来的，到这儿来是为了尝尝油炸花鳅和可可米饭。特乌古特常常在发完最后一班电报之后就赶到那儿，跟安第列斯群岛小船上的狂热的水手们一起喝牙买加甜酒，拉手风琴，一直玩到天明。他身材高大健壮，一部金黄色的胡子，晚上出来时戴一项弗利吉亚帽，倘若再加一串喇叭花的话，简直就跟圣?尼古拉斯一模一样了。他每个星期至少跟一个野妓过夜。有个小客栈，那样的女人很多，专向过路的海员卖淫。他认识阿里萨以后，第一件事就是怂恿他效法自己，过过那种秘密的天堂生活。他为他挑选最好的野妓，跟她们讨价还价，商量行乐的方式，并且替他预付金钱。但阿里萨不肯接受他的好意。他是个童男，在没有得到真正的爱情之前，他不愿跟任何女人同枕共眠。

    这家客栈在殖民地时期是一座贵族宅邸，眼下已摇摇欲坠。宽敞的大厅和大理石的房间用纸板隔成一间间小卧室，纸板墙上被刺了无数的洞孔。到这里来开房间的人，既是为了自己，也是为了偷看别人。据说，有的偷看者被隔壁捅过来的毛线针扎瞎了眼。有人在偷窥时恰巧认出了他的妻子。还有一些有身分的绅士来此行乐，装扮成菜贩和轮船水手长，也遭到了厄运。总之，偷看者和被看者的故事是当地的趣闻。阿里萨想到这一点，就吓得魂不附体。特乌古特始终没法使他相信，看别人和让别人看是欧洲王子们的一大乐事。

    特乌古特魁梧的身材颇具魅力，然而他脸上却长了个玫瑰蓓蕾似的肉瘤。这虽说是个生理缺陷，却给他带来了好运气，那些经验丰富的野妓都争着和他交欢。他由于才能和风度，成了客栈里最受尊敬的顾客之一。阿里萨的沉默寡言和难以捉摸的性格，也赢得了主人的赏识。在他心力交瘁的最艰难的时刻，他常常把自己关在令人窒息的小屋里，读伤感的诗文和连载小说。那时，在他的幻梦中，便出现了阳台上的燕子窝，出现了接吻声，出现了在沉寂的午睡时刻鸟儿拍击翅膀的声音。当黄昏到来热气消退的时候，总能听到男人们的对话声，他们是在劳累了一天之后，到这儿来找野食的。就这样，弗洛伦蒂诺?阿里萨听到了那些重要顾客以至地方政府要员们向他们的露水情人们述说的许多夫妻间的不忠行为，甚至听到了某些国家机密。他也听说在索塔文托北面四海里的海底，躺着一艘十七世纪沉没的西班牙大帆船，船上载有价值五千多亿金比索的大量宝石。这件事使他感到惊讶，但当时并没有引起他进一步思考，过了几个月之后，狂热的爱情激起了他的欲望，他才想去打捞那批淹在海中的财富，为费尔米纳打个金浴缸。

    数年之后，当他企图回忆被他自己以诗的灵感理想化了的姑娘究竟是什么模样时，他仍然未能把她辨认出来。即使在他焦急地等待她的回信，偷偷地窥视她的行动的日子里，他看到的也只是在下午两点钟被橙黄色扁桃花卉映照得变了样的形象。

    扁桃树的繁花四季常开，周围永远春意盎然。那时，他唯一感兴趣的，是带着小提琴，陪着特乌古特得天独厚地站在唱诗班的楼台上，从而得以欣赏费尔米纳的长裙随着轻风般的赞美诗声，象波浪似地飘荡。但这种欢乐的机会，却被他自己的胡思乱想平白葬送了，他觉得那些神秘的宗教音乐过于索然无味，异想天开地打算代之以爱情的华尔兹，结果特乌古特只好把他赶出唱诗班。就在这个时候，他贪馋地吃了母亲种在院里花坛上的桅子花，从此才明白了费尔米纳身上散发的香味。同样在这个时候，他偶而在母亲的箱子里发现了一大瓶花露水，那是跑汉堡至美洲航线的海员卖的走私货。他产生了一种不能遏制的愿望，为了了解他所爱的女子的其它香味，他一点一点地品尝这瓶花露水，一直喝到东方欲晓。最初他是在港口的小客栈里。后来昏昏沉沉地跑到海边的防波堤上，那儿是没有房子的恋人们谈情说爱的地方。最后，他终于醉得不省人事。母亲提心吊胆地一直等到清晨六点钟，然后寻遍了所有最隐蔽的地方。过了中午，才在港湾某处经常有溺水者冲上海滩的地方发现了他。当时，他正躺在一片散发着芳香气味的呕吐物中间。

    在儿子恢复健康期间，母亲责备他不该只是被动的等待费尔米纳回信。她告诫他：软弱者永远进不了爱情的王国，爱情的王国是无情和吝啬的，女人们只肯委身于那些敢作敢为的男子汉，因为这样的男子汉能使他们得到她们所渴望的安全感，使她们能正视生活。阿里萨接受了母亲的教诲，也许还在此基础上有所发挥。特兰西托也掩盖不住自己的骄傲，那更多的不是由于母爱，而是由于色情。当见到儿子穿着黑呢料衣服，戴着硬帽，赛潞略的衣领上打着优美的领结，跨出小百货店时，母亲开玩笑地问他，是不是去参加葬礼。他涨红了脸回答说：“大概是吧。”她看到，他紧张得几乎透不过气来，但是他的决心是不可战胜的。她向他提出了最后忠告，为他祝福，笑着说：“你要是能把费尔米纳征服，我就再给你买一瓶花露水，在一起庆贺庆贺。”

    自从一个月以前他给他意中人递交了第一封信以来，他多次违背了不再到小公园里去的诺言，只是做得十分谨慎，没有让她发觉。一切同往常一样。费尔米纳和姑妈在树下读书，到下午两点钟，全城人从午睡中醒来时才结束。然后她们在一起刺绣，直到热浪下降，空气渐渐变得凉爽。阿里萨没有等姑妈进入内室，就挺起胸膛，迈开大步，穿过了大街，他这么做是为了给自己壮胆。不过他开口讲话时没有面对费尔米纳而是冲着她的姑妈。

    “请允许我单独和这位小姐呆一会儿。”他对她说，“我有点重要的事要告诉她。”

    “放肆！”姑妈说，“她的事情没有什么不能对我说的。”

    “我不能对您说。”他答道，“但是我得提醒您，您要对发生的事情负责。”

    在姑妈心目中，侄女的未婚夫不可能这样说话，但她还是不安地站了起来，因为她第一次惊异地意识到，阿里萨是在照上帝的启示说话。于是，她进入房间去换针，让两个年轻人单独留在枝廊的扁桃树下。

    事实上，费尔米纳对这个沉默寡言的求爱者知之甚少，他象冬天的燕子似的闯入了她的生活，要不是信上落了款，她连他的名字都不知道。她打听过，知道他没有父亲，只跟一位勤劳严肃的独身母亲过日子。她的母亲尽管是个品德高尚的人，但却无可挽回地带着年轻时误入歧途的烙印。她原以为他是个送电报的信差，现在才知道，他是一位精通业务、前程远大的助理报务员。她想，他所以屈尊亲自给他父亲送电报，不过是想找个同她谋面的机会。这种猜测，使她深受感动。她也知道他是唱诗班的乐师之一，尽管在望弥撒时他从来不敢抬起眼来证实这一点。有个星期日，她发现了这样一件怪事，整个乐队在为大家演奏，唯独小提琴只为她一个人演奏。他不是她要选择的男人。他的弃儿般的眼睛，牧师般的装束，他的神秘的行动，都引起她难以遏止的好奇心，但她从来没有想到，好奇也是潜在的爱情的变种。

    她自己也不用白为什么收下了那封信。这不能责怪他。但是，她必须实现自己的诺言，必须对他的信做出回答，这使她坐卧不安。父亲的每一句话，每一道偶然的目光，他的最普通的动作和表情，都构成了可能使她暴露秘密的陷阱。她成天心凉胆战，生怕因疏忽而失密，在饭桌上常常一言不发。她甚至在同姑妈说话时都支支吾吾，尽管姑妈跟她一样热心，把侄女的事当做她自己的事，她毫无必要地把自己关在浴室里反复阅读那封信，企图从五十八句话的三百一十四个字母中发现什么暗号，藏着什么神奇的方法。她希望从那封信中找出比表面语言更丰富的内容，然而她反复寻觅，除了跟读第一遍时相同的内容外，没有发现任何新的东西。她刚拿到这封信时，匆忙地跑进浴室关起门来，紧张得心象跳出来似的撕开了信封，幻想着那是一封感情炽烈的长信，但是她看到的只是一张洒了香水的便条，上面写的誓言使她震惊。

    最初她没有考虑一定要回答，但是信里讲得如此清楚，她无法回答。同时，她感到十分忧虑，为什么阿里萨的影子时时出现在她的脑海里？为什么对他的兴趣与日俱增？她甚至痛苦地问自己，为什么他不象往常一样按时在小公园里出现，却忘记恰恰是她自己要求他在她没有考虑好如何回答之前不要再去的。现在，她是那样思念他，她从来没有想到过她会如此钟情一个人。他本来不在那儿，她却觉得他在那儿；他本来不可能到的地方，她也希望他在那儿。有时她突然在梦中醒来，感到他正在黑暗中注视着她。所以，那天下午她听到在小公园中铺满黄叶的小径上响起坚定的脚步声时，她的确认为那是她的幻觉又在欺骗她。但是，当他一反萎靡不振的常态，以威严神情要求她作出回答时，她终于克制了自己的惶恐，企图逃避现实，因为她实在不知道怎样回答。尽管如此，阿里萨还是惊呆地听到了她的话：“我收到了您的来信，”她对他说，“不回答是不礼貌的。”

    这便是那道难题的结局。费尔米纳完全控制了自己，她请求原谅她迟迟未作回答，并郑重告诉他，在假期结束之前他将得到回信。这个诺言后来真的实现了。在二月份最后一个星期五，也就是开学的前三天，姑妈到电报局去询问发到彼埃特拉斯?莫莱尔——这个镇在他们的服务册上没有出现过——的电报需要多少钱。她装得仿佛和阿里萨素未谋面似的，向他打听这件事。在离开电报局时，她故意把一本蜥蜴皮封面的《每日祈祷书》放在柜台上，那本书里夹着一个有着烫金图案的亚麻纸信封。阿里萨欣喜若狂，那天下午，他再也没做别的事，只是边吃玫瑰花边读信。

    他把那封信字斟句酌地读了一遍又一遍，一直读到半夜，读的遍数越多，吃的玫瑰花也越多，以致他母亲不得不象对一头小牛犊那样哄着他，叫他吞服蓖麻油泻药。

    那是他们如痴似狂地相爱的一年。他们天天都是白天思念，夜晚梦见，急切地等信和回信，除此之外他们什么也没有干。不管是在那个神魂颠倒的春天，还是在第二年，他们都没有见过面、说过话。甚至，从他们第一次相见，直到半个世纪后他向她重申他的至死不渝的爱情之前，他们没有单独见过一次面，谈过一次话。但是在最初三个月里，他们每天通信，有时一天写两封，那种如胶似漆的情景，就连帮助他们点燃那团炽烈情火的姑妈都感到吃惊。

    自从她胸怀复仇的火焰——那位姑妈在爱情上曾遇到过不幸——把第一封信送到电报局之后，她几乎天天允许他们以似乎是偶然相遇的形式在小巷里交换信件。

    但是，她没有勇气让他们见面交谈，这不仅是因为她认为那是一种轻浮的行为，而且也因为相见的时间过于短促。三个月之后她才明白，她侄女热恋着阿里萨，并非象她最初认为的那样，是年轻人的一时冲动，因此她自己的生活便受到了那场情焰的威胁。埃斯科拉斯蒂卡除了依靠哥哥的施舍外，没有任何的生活资助。她知道，哥哥暴躁的脾气是绝不会原谅她对他的信任的嘲弄的。但是，在这最后抉择的时刻，她没有勇气使侄女遭受她从年轻时代就遭受的那种无可挽回的不幸，而是任凭她用某种办法做一场天真无邪的梦。这种办法很简单：费尔米纳每天去学校时，把信放在途中的一个隐蔽之处，并且在信里告诉阿里萨，她希望在哪儿拿到他的回信。阿里萨也同样这么做。这样在这一年里，埃斯科拉斯蒂卡姑妈就把这个难题转移到了教堂的洗礼盆上、大树的空树千里，以及已经变为废墟的殖民地时期的碉堡的空隙里。有时候，他们的信件被雨水淋湿，沾满泥浆，拿到手时已被撕破。由于各种原因，有几封信已经丢失，但是他们总会找到办法重新建立起联系的。

    阿里萨每天晚上不顾一切地拼命写信。在店铺的后室，他在椰油灯下一个字一个字地写着，无视从那萦绕的烟云中吸进多少毒物。他越是努力模仿人民图书馆里那些他所喜爱的诗人的作品，他的信就写得越冗长、越疯狂。此时，人民图书馆里已存有八十部诗集。一度热心鼓励他及时行乐的母亲，这时也开始为他的健康不安了。“你会弄伤脑子的。”当雄鸡引吭高歌时，她在卧室里对他喊道。“没有哪个女人值得你这样劳心费神。”她不记得有哪个男人被女人弄得这般神思恍格。但儿子并不理睬她的话，爱情使他忘记了一切。有时为了使费尔米纳去学校途中及时拿到信，当他把信放在预先讲好的隐蔽处，然后走进办公室时，连头发都来不及梳理。

    费尔米纳却相反，在父亲和修女们严格的令人不快的监视下，她几乎难得从笔记本上撕下纸来藏在浴室里写上半页信，或者在课堂上佯装做笔记写上几句。这不仅是时间不允许和害怕，而且也由于她的性格，她的信从不拐弯抹角和无病呻吟，而是以航海日记那种讨人喜欢的风格讲述她日常生活中的遭遇。实际上那是消遣性的信，她通过它们保持清火如炽，但自己却没有陷进去。而阿里萨却是在每一行字的情火中自焚。他急不可待地要把自己的狂热传导给她，他在山茶花的花瓣上细心地用别针尖刻上诗文送给她。?是他，而不是她，大胆地把自己的一缕头发放在了信封里，却永远没有得到他所渴望的回答，亦即没有得到费尔米纳的一根完整的头发。不过，他这样做至少使她前进了一步，从那时起，她开始给他寄去放在字典里的做成标本的叶子、蝴蝶的翅膀和珍禽的羽毛，并在他生日时赠给他一个一千方厘米大小的圣?彼得的教服，那种教服那些天以极其昂贵的价格在当地偷偷出售，在她同样年纪的女学生中只有她一个人买到了。一天晚上，没有任何思想准备，费尔米纳被一支小夜曲惊醒了，那是一支小提琴演奏的华尔兹舞曲。她吃惊地发现，每个音符都是对她的植物标本花瓣的感谢，对她害怕考试的感谢，她在更多的时间里是在想念他，而不是去关注《自然科学》教科书，那琴声使她得到了安慰，但她不敢相信阿里萨竟是这样的鲁莽。

    第二天早晨吃早饭的时候，父亲说那琴声使他感到奇异。首先，他不懂得这小夜曲意味着什么。其次，尽管他全神贯注地听小夜曲，到头来他还是没有听清是在什么地方演奏的。姑妈沉着冷静地为侄女遮掩，毫不含糊地声称她透过卧室的薄纱窗帘看到小提琴独奏者是在公园的另一边，并且说无论如何只奏一支舞曲那是通知决裂。在这一天的信中，阿里萨证实说，那个奏小夜曲的人就是他，华尔兹舞曲是他自己谱写的，曲名就是他心中的“戴王冠的仙女”费尔米纳。为了使她在卧室听到小夜曲不再害怕，他没有再到公园去拉小提琴，而是常常在月夜精心选择个地方去演奏。他最喜欢的地方之一是穷人的墓地。这墓地在一个贫瘠的小山头上，沐浴着阳光，吸吮着雨露，兀鹰在那儿安眠。在这里乐曲可以发出神奇的回响。后来，阿里萨学会了辨别风向，让风来传送他的乐曲，他肯定他演奏的乐曲声会传到应该到达的地方。

    半个多世纪以来，国内战乱一直未停。这年八月，一场新的内战又有席卷全国的趋势。政府宣布在加勒比海岸的几个省实行国事管制法和从下午六点钟开始宵禁。

    骚乱在不断地出现，军队犯下了种种镇压暴行，可是阿里萨仍是懵懵懂懂，对世态一无所知。一天清晨，一支军事巡逻队抓住了他，当时他正在以调情来扰乱亡灵们的贞洁。他奇迹般地逃脱了一次集体熗决。他被指控犯了间谍罪，用乐谱向三天两头出现在临近水域的自由党舰船通风报信。

    “瞎扯，什么间谍？”阿里萨说，“我只不过是一个热恋中的穷光蛋。”

    他戴着脚镣在地方警备队的牢房里睡了三个夜晚。当他被释放出来时，他又为只关了那么短时间感到失望，一直到了老年，当许多其它战争也混在他的记忆中时，他还在继续想着，他是这座城市里，乃至是全国唯一由于爱情的原因戴上五磅重铁镣的男人。

    当阿里萨正式向费尔米纳提出结婚的建议时，他们狂热的通信已近两年了。在头六个月里，他给她寄去了几次白山茶花，她在回信时却把山茶花还给了他，为的是表明她将继续给他写信，只是还没有到定情的时刻。事实上，她一直把传递山茶花视为爱情的激越，她从来没有考虑过那表明她已到了命运的十字路口。但是，当她接到阿里萨正式建议时，她感到死神第一次在撕裂着她的心。她吓得六神无主，便把这事情告诉了姑妈。姑妈勇敢而聪明地担当起顾问的角色，可姑妈在她二十岁需要决定自己的命运时，却没有这样冷静的头脑和勇气。

    “告诉他你答应他啦”，姑妈对她说，“尽管你怕得要死，但是如果你拒绝了他，你会后悔一辈子的。”

    费尔米纳是那样心乱如麻，她要求对方给她一段时间，让她好好考虑一下。起先她要求一个月，以后要求两个月、三个月。在快满四个月时她还没有作出回答，她又接到了白山茶花。他这次不象往常那样，只是在信封里把山茶花寄来，而是在信中说明这是最后通谋：要么答应，要么告吹。于是，阿里萨收到了一封信，里面只装了从学生作业本上撕下来的一页纸，上面用铅笔写道：“好吧，如果您答应不让我吃苦头，我就跟您结婚。”然而，也正是在这天下午，阿里萨看到了死神的面孔。

    阿里萨没有想到会得到那样的回答，但是他的母亲预料到了。自从六个月前他第一次告诉特兰西托他想结婚时开始，她就着手操办，把整座房子租下来。直到那时，他们一直跟另外两家人合住那座房子。那是一座十七世纪的民用建筑，分两层，在西班牙统治时期，曾做过烟草专卖商店。它的破产的主人，由于缺乏维修资金，只好将它分成几部分租出去。房子的一部分临街，以前是零售店，另一部分在方石铺的庭院尽头，以前是工厂。一个很大的马厩，目前让房客们共同使用洗晾衣服。

    特兰西托?阿里萨占据着第一部分，尽管是最小的，但都是最有用、保持得最好的房间。在昔日烟草专卖商店的大厅里，如今开设着小百货店，宽大的店门冲街开着。

    旁边有个旧仓库，除了无意之外，没有别的通风口，特兰西托?阿里萨就睡在那儿。

    店铺的后房占了大厅的一半，用一道水屏风同前面的铺面隔开。那里有一张桌子，四把椅子，既用来吃饭，也用来写字。弗洛伦蒂诺?阿里萨在那儿挂了一个吊床，黎明停止写信时，他就在那上面休息。这部分房子对两口人来说是足够用了，但如果再增加一个人就显得拥挤，更何况来的是“圣母献瞻节”学校的一位高贵小姐。

    她的父亲曾经把瓦砾上的一座房子整修一新，当时在那所房子里住着占有七个爵位的几个大户人家，他们惶惶不安，时时担心房顶塌下来压在他们身上。为了迎接未来的儿媳，特兰西托终于使房主答应她占用院里的走廊，其代价是把那座房子维修五年。

    她有钱做这件事。除了小百货店和拆洗旧衣服做止血药棉卖出的实际收入外，她还把钱借给那些刚刚破产、羞于去沿街乞讨的无米下锅的人，这些人为了感激她为他们保守秘密，答应愿意付高额利息。这样，特兰西托?阿里萨就成倍地增长了她的积蓄。有着女王神态的夫人们，在小百货店的柱廊前从华丽的四辆马车中走下来，她们既没有保姆，也没有令人生厌的仆人，在那儿，她们假装购买荷兰花边和金银条带滚边，在几声抽抽咽咽中把她们已失去的天堂的最后象征物——华丽的服装和贵重首饰——典当掉。特兰西托出于对她们出身的莫大尊敬，帮助她们从窘境中解脱出来。她们中间许多人的感激心情更多的是出于保全了荣誉，而不是得到了恩惠。在不到十年的时间里，特兰西托把那些多次唤出、又多次重新含着眼泪典当了的首饰已经看成象自己的一样了。她把赚得的钱换成纯金，放在一只瓦罐里埋在床底下。当儿子决定结婚时，这笔钱完全可以做她的后盾了。她算了一下帐，发现她不仅能够在五年中间把那座房子掌管好，并且靠她的智慧，再加上点运气，也许在死之前能够从别人手中把它买下来，为她所希望有的十二个孙子安排下住处。与此同时，阿里萨已被任命为电报局临时首席助理。当他去领导准备于次年成立的电报和磁力学校时，特乌古特就打算安排他作办公室主任了。

    结婚的筹备实际上已经就绪。然而，特兰西托认为还有最后两件事需要谨慎些。

    第一，打听清楚洛伦索?达萨的身世。他的口音清清楚楚地表明他是什么地方人，关于他的身分和生活来源却没有谁能够确切的了解，而且恋爱期间双方的言行必须十分严肃和检点，以保障婚后感情的牢固。她建议待战争结束时再结婚。阿里萨赞成绝对保密，这一方面由于他母亲指出的理由，另一方面也由于他的缄默的性格。

    他也同意推迟婚期，但是他认为到战争结束再结婚那是不现实的，因为自从摆脱西班牙统治半个多世纪以来，国家一天也没有安宁过。

    “到那时再结婚，我们都变成老头老太太了。”他说。

    他的教父，一个顺势疗法医生，在偶然的情况下参加了讨论这件事。他认为战争对结婚没有什么妨碍，照他看来，战争只不过是被地主象公牛一样起着的穷人和被政府赶着的打赤脚的士兵之间的武装冲突罢了。

    “仗是在山上打的。”他说，“自我记事以来，在城里杀我们的不是子弹，而是法令。”

    不管怎么说，关于结婚的细节问题在下一个星期的通信中全部解决了。费尔米纳接受了姑妈的劝告，同意两年后结婚，而且绝对保持贞洁，她还建议，到她在圣诞节假期中学升业时，阿里萨就向她求婚。他们将根据她父亲可能接受的程度商量出办法，通过适当的手续使订婚合法化。在这期间，他们还是那样热烈地、频繁地继续通信，只是不再象以前那样遮遮掩掩。他们的通信以家人的口气相称，仿佛两个人已经成为夫妻。至此，世上没有任何东西可以打乱他们的幻梦了。

    阿里萨的生活已经有所改变。费尔米纳接受了他的爱情，使他对生活充满憧憬，感到浑身有一种从未有过的力量。他工作干得那样出色，以致特乌古特很快就把他当做了自己的继承人。那时，建立电报和磁力学校的计划已经告吹，这个德国人把他全部的空闲时间都用到了他最喜欢的事情上，那就是到港口去拉手风琴，和海员们一起喝啤酒，而这一切都是在客栈里做的。过了许久，阿里萨才明白特乌古特之所以在那个名为客栈实为妓院的地方有影响，是因为他终于变成了这家客栈的老板和港口上那些堕落女人的业主。他用多年和积蓄渐渐买下了客栈，替他出头露面的是一个瘦小的独眼龙。这个独眼龙见人笑脸相迎，一副慈善心肠，谁都想不到他会捞上客栈经理那件好差事。然而事实就是如此，至少阿里萨认为他不错，因为他对他的旨意心领神会，比如说，没等阿里萨开口，他就在客栈里给他准备了一个包间。

    这间房子不仅可供他在需要时解决那种事，而且可供他安安静静地读书和写情书。

    就这样，在正式办理结婚手续的那段漫长时间里，他在客栈里消磨的时间比在办公室和家里加在一起还多。有些时候，特兰西托只是在他回来换衣服时才看到他。

    读书成了他的一种嗜好，不读书简直活不下去。母亲自从教会他识字起，就给他买一些北欧作家写的带插图的读物，这些书是作为儿童故事出售的，但事实上，却是些什么年龄的人都可以读的最残酷和邪恶的书籍。阿里萨五岁时，无论在课堂上还是在学校的晚会上都能背诵这些书里的篇章，不过熟读这些书籍并未减少他的恐惧，而是相反，愈发加剧了他的这种心理。因此，从阅读这类书籍转而读诗，对他的神经仿佛是一种缓冲剂。到了青春时期，他已按出版顺序读完了人民图书馆里的全部诗集。那些诗集是特兰西托?阿里萨从“代笔先生门洞”的书商们手里买来的，价钱便宜，从荷马到不太引人注意的地方诗人，无所不包。他读书没有选择，拿到什么就读什么，好像一切遵从天意办事。多年以来，他读了那么多书，到头来哪是好书，哪是坏书，他压根儿分不清楚。他头脑中唯一清楚的是，在散文和诗歌之间，他喜欢诗歌；在诗歌里面，他喜欢爱情诗。爱情诗只需读上两遍，他即可背得滚瓜烂熟，押韵押得越好，越有规律，越伤感，他就背得越容易。

    这也是写给费尔米纳的最初几封信的源泉。在那些信里，他整段整段地抄录西班牙浪漫诗人的作品，连一个字都不改变。后来，直到现实生活迫使他关心更多的尘世之事，而不仅仅是关注心灵的痛苦，他才跳出了浪漫主义诗篇的圈圈。那时，他已经问伤感连载小说和一些世俗的散文跨进了一步。他能跟母亲在一起，一边朗读地方诗人的诗，一边伤心落泪。那些诗是在市场和街道往廊下出售的，两个生太伏一本。同时他也能背诵黄金时代最优秀的西班牙诗歌。一般说来，凡是到手的书他无一不读，先拿到什么就读什么，甚至在他第一次艰难曲折的恋爱之后，他已经不是年轻人了的时候，他还是从头到尾一页不漏地读完了二十卷的《青年文库》、全部翻译成西班牙文的德国经典著作，以及最通俗易懂的西班牙著名小说家伊马涅斯的文集。

    阿里萨的青年时代，不仅是关在那家客栈里读书和写炽烈的情书，而且也偷偷地过起了没有爱情的爱情生活。客栈里生活从午后开始，那时，他的女友们，也就是那些妓女起床了。她们一丝不挂，就象妈妈生她们时一模一样。阿里萨从电报局下班来到这里，走进的是一座挤满裸体仙女的宫殿，她们高声评论着城市里的秘密，其实，那些秘密都是由导演者本人的不忠而披露出来的。很多女人在她们的裸体上展示着过去留下的痕迹：肚子上的刀疤、熗疤和残忍的剖腹产的缝合处。有些女人白天让人把她们年幼的孩子——那是她们年轻时绝望或疏忽大意的不幸产物一带来。

    这些孩子一进到客栈，妈妈们便把他们的衣服剥光以便使他们在这个裸体天堂里不感到和别人有什么两样。每个女人都自己做饭，可没有一个人比阿里萨吃得好，因为所有的女人都邀请他吃饭，而他又选择每个人做的最好的菜来品尝。每天从午后到黄昏，客栈里就象节日一般热闹非凡。黄昏到了，那些裸体女人便唱着歌儿鱼贯走向浴室，她们互相借剪刀、肥皂、牙刷，互相剪头发，互相换衣服穿，互相把脸上徐得花里胡哨，象小丑一般难看。尔后，她们便上街去，捕捉她们晚上的第一批猪物。从那时起，客栈里的生活就变得残忍而不讲人格了。没有金钱，在那儿寸步难行。有了金钱，一切唾手可得。

    自从阿里萨认识费尔米纳以来，没有任何一个地方比这家客栈更使他逍遥自在，那是他唯一不感到孤独的地方，甚至到了后来，他感到那是唯一他和她在一起的地方。也许由于同样的原因，那里也住着一个上了年纪的有着一头银白色秀发的漂亮女人。她不像那伙裸体女人过着放荡不羁的生活，然而那些女人都对她毕恭毕敬。

    她在年轻的时候，一个早熟的未婚夫把她带到了那里，他把她占有了一段时间之后便随意把她抛弃了。不过，尽管她有过这一段经历，她后来的婚姻还是相当美满的。

    丈夫去世时，她年纪已经大了，两个儿子和四个女儿都争着要她跟他们住在一起，但是她觉得没有一个地方比住在那个妓女们居住的客栈里更合心意。她年年包租一个房间，不到任何地方去。这使她很快就和阿里萨心心相印了。她对阿里萨很欣赏，说他有一天会成为世界上的著名学者，因为他居然能在那淫荡的天堂里，用读书丰富自己的心灵。而阿里萨竟也是如此喜欢她，不仅热情地帮助她在市场上买东西，而且常常几个下午都和她一个人谈话。他认为她在爱情上是个有智谋的女人，她在这方面给了他许多指导和启发，尽管他没有把自己的秘密告诉她。

    如果说，在得到费尔米纳的爱情之前，他没有产生用手去抚摸女人的欲望，那么，当她成了她的正式未婚妻以后，他就更加没有这种想法了。阿里萨和姑娘们共同生活在客栈里，和她们同甘共苦，不管是他，还是她们，互相间保持着友好，都没有越轨的行为。一件意外的事情表明了他的意志坚强和严肃。一天，下午六点钟，当姑娘们穿好衣服准备接待晚上的顾客时，一位负责打扫该层楼地板的女仆走进了他的房间。那是一个未老先衰、神情推泞的年轻女子，在那个裸体女人的天堂里，她就象个宗教游行队伍中穿悔罪服的人。他天天看到她，他觉得他从未引起过她的注意，好象客栈里根本不存在他这个人。那女人拿着管帚，提着垃圾桶，带着专门捡那些不堪入目的胜东西的破布，从一个房间走到另一个房间，不停地串来串去。

    她象往常一样，走进了阿里萨读书的房间，也象往常一样，小心翼翼地清扫了一遍。

    为了不打扰他，她轻手轻脚，不弄出一点声响。突然，她走到他的床边，他感到有一只温暖而柔软的手伸到了他的小腹下面，在那儿摸索着寻找什么，而且终于寻找到了，接着便解他的扣子，与此同时，他感到她的呼吸充满了整个房间。他装作读书，不去理睬她，然而终于抵挡不住她的进攻，只好躲开她。

    她很害怕，因为录用她做清扫工时，给她提出的第一个警告就是不能跟顾客胡来。其实无须跟她讲明这件事，因为她跟许多女人一样，卖淫不是为了钱，而是为了跟陌生的男人睡在一起。她有两个儿子，是跟两个不同的丈夫生的，那不是因为她喜欢逢场作戏，而是因为她未能得到一个男人的真正的爱情。她所爱的人跟她睡上两三个晚上就把她甩掉了，在进客栈做工之前，她并没有寻求男人安慰的急切欲望，她生性平和，耐心等待着，并不绝望。然而，那客栈的生活摧毁了她的贞节。’她下午六点钟开始来客栈工作，整个晚上从这个房间走到那个房间，匆匆忙忙清扫，抢走脏东西和更换床单。男人在寻欢作乐之后丢下的那些“垃圾”，多得难以想象。

    他们留下呕吐物和眼泪，这在她是可以理解的。他们也留下许多钟情的隐语：血污、排泄物、玻璃球。金表、假牙、放着金色卷发的珍品盒、情书、贸易信函、吊唁信，以及其它各种各样的信件。有些人回来寻找丢失的东西，但大部分都留在那儿无人问津。特乌古特把这些东西锁起来保存好，他心想，那座倒霉的楼房，靠了那成千上万件个人失物，迟早会成为爱情的博物馆。

    她工作很繁重，活干得很卖力气，报酬却很低。使她不能忍受的是那些啜泣、呻吟和床上弹簧的吱吱格格的响声，那些声音是如此热烈而痛苦地刺激着她的血液，以致天亮时她再也忍耐不住，真想一切不管不顾地跟在街上遇到的随便哪个乞丐或者无家可归的醉汉去睡上一觉。只要他们愿意就行了。一个象阿里萨那样年轻、诚实又没有妻子的男人出现在她的面前，对她来说无疑是上天的馈赠，从一开头她就发现，他跟她一样，需要爱情的抚慰。但是，他象一个木头人儿，对她的急迫心情毫无理解。他一直对费尔米纳保持着童贞，世上没有任何力量和理由能够使他改变主意。

   这就是阿里萨在准备正式办理订婚手续四个月以前的生活。可是，恰恰在这个时候，一天清晨六点钟，洛伦索?达萨来到了电报局打听他。由于时间尚早，他还没有上班，达萨便坐在长凳上等他。他要到八点十分才到，所以来访者就把那只沉甸甸的镶著名贵蛋白石王冠的金戒指来回地从一个手指倒到另一个手指上。当他看到阿里萨走进电报局门口时，立即就认出了这个电报局职员，于是上去扯住他的胳膊说道：“请跟我来一下，小伙子。这两个堂堂正正的男子汉，必须得面对面谈上五分钟。”

    阿里萨吓得脸色铁青，只好跟他走。这次相遇完全出乎他的意料，费尔米纳没有找到机会和恰当的方法事先通知他。事情发生在前一个星期六。那一天，“圣母献瞻节”学校校长、修女弗兰卡?德啦卢斯象蛇一样神不知鬼不觉地走进宇宙起源学基本概念课教室，从肩膀上方窥视女学生，发现费尔米纳装做写笔记，实际上正在练习本上写情书。根据学校的规定，她应该受到开除学籍的处分。洛沦索?达萨被紧急招到校长室，他在那儿发现了对女儿管教的漏洞。费尔米纳以她天生的沉着和美德承认了写情书的错误，但是她拒绝说出她的秘密未婚夫是谁，而且被招到教会法庭时，她再次拒绝供认。这样，教会法庭便批准了开除她学籍的决定。直到那时女儿的卧室仍旧是一所不可侵犯的圣殿，尽管如此，父亲还是对女儿的卧室进行了搜查，在箱子的夹层底里查出了一个包，里面装着三年间费尔米纳收到的全部情书。她怀着那样的深情收藏着它们，就象阿里萨飞笔疾书他写它们时一样。信上的签名清清楚楚，然而洛伦索?达萨不管是当时还是后来都不能相信，他的女儿对那个不露面的未婚夫除了他的报务员分身份和爱好小提琴之外，其他一概不知。

    洛伦索?达萨确信，没有他妹妹的合谋，女儿同阿里萨之间如此困难的联系是不可能做到的。他没有做任何解释，也没有说一句感谢的话，就打发妹妹上了小帆船，她到沼泽地圣?胡安市去了。那个最后离别的镜头，永远留在费尔米纳痛苦的记忆中。那天下午，她穿着灰、褐、白三色相间的教服，发着高烧，站在门廊下问姑妈告别，注视着她的身影在蒙蒙细雨中消失在小公园里。可怜的姑妈，她唯一所有的便是一个独身女子的铺盖卷和一个月的生活费。那点钱她用手绢裹着，紧紧地授在手中。后来，费尔米纳一摆脱父亲的控制，就派人在加勒比海地区诸省寻找她，向一切可能认识她的人打听她的下落，始终没有得到一点音信。直到几乎三十年之后，她才收到一封不知经过了多少人之手才辗转到达她手里的信。这封信告诉她，姑妈已在“上帝雨露”麻疯病院里谢世，享年近一百岁。

    洛伦索?达萨没有预见到女儿对他不公正的惩罚，尤其是以她的姑妈作牺牲品，反应是如此的疯狂。他怎会想到，实际上女儿一直把姑妈视为只在记忆中有着模糊印象的亲生妈妈。姑妈走后，她把自己关在卧室里，插上门闩，既不吃也不喝。当父亲先是用威胁，尔后显然是用恳求，终于让她把门打开时，他看到的再也不是那个十五岁的天真无邪的姑娘，而是一个象受了伤的雌豹似的强悍的女人。

    他用各种花言巧语诱惑她。想使她明白，在她那样的年纪，爱情只不过是海市蜃楼。他对她好言相劝，让她把情书退回，并回到学校跪在修女们面前请求宽者。

    他还向她保证说，他将是第一个帮助她找到出身高贵的意中人的人，也是使她的爱情永生幸福的人。但是，女儿对他的话根本不加理睬。由于计划失败，洛伦索?达萨终于在星期一吃午饭时勃然大怒了。费尔米纳一边心潮起伏地吞下那恶毒的咒骂和亵渎神明的话，一边把砍肉刀架在脖子上。那显然不是作戏。父亲看到她那坚定的神情和呆滞的目光，只好软了下来，不敢再紧逼不放。就是在这个时候，他才决定冒着危险去跟那个可恶的穷小子以男子汉的气概谈上五分钟。他从不记得，在什么地方见过这个在如此不吉利的时刻闯入他生活的人。纯粹由于习惯，他在出门前拿上了左轮手熗，不过他十分小心地将它藏在衬衫下面。

    洛伦索?达萨拉着阿里萨的手臂，沿着教堂广场走到教区咖啡馆的拱廊里，邀他在平台上坐下来，阿里萨仍旧没有从惶惑中清醒过来。咖啡馆里还没来其他顾客，一个微胖的黑女人正在用墩布擦大厅的磁砖地。大厅的彩色玻璃窗边缘已经破损，上面挂了一层厚厚的尘埃。厅堂里的椅子腿朝上地码在大理石桌面上。阿里萨曾经多次看到洛伦索?达萨在那儿赌博，看到他一边跟公共市场上的阿斯图里亚人喝着捅装葡萄酒，一边高声吵架。那是另外一些没完没了的战争，只不过同我们的内战性质不同罢了。有许多次，他想到爱情的宿命论，不禁在心中问自己，他们迟早会相逢，那时的情景会是怎样的？

引用

Chapter 2

　FLORENTINO ARIZA, on the other hand, had not stopped thinking of her for a single momentsince Fermina Daza had rejected him out of hand after a long and troubled love affair fifty-oneyears, nine months, and four days ago. He did not have to keep a running tally, drawing a line foreach day on the walls of a cell, because not a day had passed that something did not happen toremind him of her. At the time of their separation he lived with his mother, Trsito Ariza, in onehalf of a rented house on the Street of Windows, where she had kept a notions shop ever since shewas a young woman, and where she also unravelled shirts and old rags to sell as bandages for themen wounded in the war. He was her only child, born of an occasional alliance with the well-known shipowner Don Pius V Loayza, one of the three brothers who had founded the RiverCompany of the Caribbean and thereby given new impetus to steam navigation along theMagdalena River.

Don Pius V Loayza died when his son was ten years old. Although he always took care of hisexpenses in secret, he never recognised him as his son before the law, nor did he leave him withhis future secure, so that Florentino Ariza used only his mother's name even though his trueparentage was always common knowledge. Florentino Ariza had to leave school after his father'sdeath, and he went to work as an apprentice in the Postal Agency, where he was in charge ofopening sacks, sorting the letters, and notifying the public that mail had arrived by flying the flagof its country of origin over the office door.

His good sense attracted the attention of the telegraph operator, the German閙 igr?LotarioThugut, who also played the organ for important ceremonies in the Cathedral and gave musiclessons in the home. Lotario Thugut taught him the Morse code and the workings of the telegraphsystem, and after only a few lessons on the violin Florentino Ariza could play by ear like aprofessional. When he met Fermina Daza he was the most sought-after young man in his socialcircle, the one who knew how to dance the latest dances and recite sentimental poetry by heart,and who was always willing to play violin serenades to his friends' sweethearts. He was very thin,with Indian hair plastered down with scented pomade and eyeglasses for myopia, which added tohis forlorn appearance. Aside from his defective vision, he suffered from chronic constipation,which forced him to take enemas throughout his life. He had one black suit, inherited from hisdead father, but Trsito Ariza took such good care of it that every Sunday it looked new. Despitehis air of weakness, his reserve, and his sombre clothes, the girls in his circle held secret lotteriesto determine who would spend time with him, and he gambled on spending time with them untilthe day he met Fermina Daza and his innocence came to an end.

He had seen her for the first time one afternoon when Lotario Thugut told him to deliver atelegram to someone named Lorenzo Daza, with no known place of residence. He found him inone of the oldest houses on the Park of the Evangels; it was half in ruins, and its interior patio,with weeds in the flowerpots and a stone fountain with no water, resembled an abbey cloister.

Florentino Ariza heard no human sound as he followed the barefoot maid under the arches of thepassageway, where unopened moving cartons and bricklayer's tools lay among leftover lime andstacks of cement bags, for the house was undergoing drastic renovation. At the far end of the patio was a temporary office where a very fat man, whose curly sideburns grew into his moustache, satbehind a desk, taking his siesta. In fact his name was Lorenzo Daza, and he was not very wellknown in the city because he had arrived less than two years before and was not a man with manyfriends.

He received the telegram as if it were the continuation of an ominous dream. Florentino Arizaobserved his livid eyes with a kind of official compassion, he observed his uncertain fingers tryingto break the seal, the heartfelt fear that he had seen so many times in so many addressees who stillcould not think about telegrams without connecting them with death. After reading it he regainedhis composure. He sighed: "Good news." And he handed Florentino Ariza the obligatory fivereales, letting him know with a relieved smile that he would not have given them to him if thenews had been bad. Then he said goodbye with a handshake, which was not the usual thing to dowith a telegraph messenger, and the maid accompanied him to the street door, more to keep an eyeon him than to lead the way. They retraced their steps along the arcaded passageway, but this timeFlorentino Ariza knew that there was someone else in the house, because the brightness in thepatio was filled with the voice of a woman repeating a reading lesson. As he passed the sewingroom, he saw through the window an older woman and a young girl sitting very close together ontwo chairs and following the reading in the book that the woman held open on her lap. It seemed astrange sight: the daughter teaching the mother to read. His interpretation was incorrect only inpart, because the woman was the aunt, not the mother of the child, although she had raised her asif she were her own. The lesson was not interrupted, but the girl raised her eyes to see who waspassing by the window, and that casual glance was the beginning of a cataclysm of love that stillhad not ended half a century later.

All that Florentino Ariza could learn about Lorenzo Daza was that he had come from SanJuan de la Ci閚 aga with his only daughter and his unmarried sister soon after the choleraepidemic, and those who saw him disembark had no doubt that he had come to stay since hebrought everything necessary for a well-furnished house. His wife had died when the girl was veryyoung. His sister, named Escoltica, was forty years old, and she was fulfilling a vow to wearthe habit of St. Francis when she went out on the street and the penitent's rope around her waistwhen she was at home. The girl was thirteen years old and had the same name as her dead mother:

Fermina.

It was supposed that Lorenzo Daza was a man of means, because he lived well with noknown employment and had paid hard cash for the Park of the Evangels house, whose restorationmust have cost him at least twice the purchase price of two hundred gold pesos. His daughter wasstudying at the Academy of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, where for two centuries youngladies of society had learned the art and technique of being diligent and submissive wives. Duringthe colonial period and the early years of the Republic, the school had accepted only thosestudents with great family names. But the old families, ruined by Independence, had to submit tothe realities of a new time, and the Academy opened its doors to all applicants who could pay thetuition, regardless of the colour of their blood, on the essential condition that they were legitimatedaughters of Catholic marriages. In any event, it was an expensive school, and the fact thatFermina Daza studied there was sufficient indication of her family's economic situation, if not ofits social position. This news encouraged Florentino Ariza, since it indicated to him that thebeautiful adolescent with the almond-shaped eyes was within reach of his dreams. But her father's strict regime soon provided an irremediable difficulty. Unlike the other students, who walked toschool in groups or accompanied by an older servant, Fermina Daza always walked with herspinster aunt, and her behaviour indicated that she was permitted no distraction.

It was in this innocent way that Florentino Ariza began his secret life as a solitary hunter.

From seven o'clock in the morning, he sat on the most hidden bench in the little park, pretendingto read a book of verse in the shade of the almond trees, until he saw the impossible maiden walkby in her blue-striped uniform, stockings that reached to her knees, masculine laced oxfords, and asingle thick braid with a bow at the end, which hung down her back to her waist. She walked withnatural haughtiness, her head high, her eyes unmoving, her step rapid, her nose pointing straightahead, her bag of books held against her chest with crossed arms, her doe's gait making her seemimmune to gravity. At her side, struggling to keep up with her, the aunt with the brown habit andrope of St. Francis did not allow him the slightest opportunity to approach. Florentino Ariza sawthem pass back and forth four times a day and once on Sundays when they came out of HighMass, and just seeing the girl was enough for him. Little by little he idealised her, endowing herwith improbable virtues and imaginary sentiments, and after two weeks he thought of nothing elsebut her. So he decided to send Fermina Daza a simple note written on both sides of the paper in hisexquisite notary's hand. But he kept it in his pocket for several days, thinking about how to hand itto her, and while he thought he wrote several more pages before going to bed, so that the originalletter was turning into a dictionary of compliments, inspired by books he had learned by heartbecause he read them so often during his vigils in the park.

Searching for a way to give her the letter, he tried to make the acquaintance of some of theother students at Presentation Academy, but they were too distant from his world. Besides, aftermuch thought, it did not seem prudent to let anyone else know of his intentions. Still, he managedto find out that Fermina Daza had been invited to a Saturday dance a few days after their arrival inthe city, and her father had not allowed her to go, with a conclusive: "Everything in due course."By the time the letter contained more than sixty pages written on both sides, Florentino Arizacould no longer endure the weight of his secret, and he unburdened himself to his mother, the onlyperson with whom he allowed himself any confidences. Trsito Ariza was moved to tears by herson's innocence in matters of love, and she tried to guide him with her own knowledge. She beganby convincing him not to deliver the lyrical sheaf of papers, since it would only frighten the girl ofhis dreams, who she supposed was as green as he in matters of the heart. The first step, she said,was to make her aware of his interest so that his declaration would not take her so much bysurprise and she would have time to think.

"But above all," she said, "the first person you have to win over is not the girl but her aunt."Both pieces of advice were wise, no doubt, but they came too late. In reality, on the day whenFermina Daza let her mind wander for an instant from the reading lesson she was giving her auntand raised her eyes to see who was walking along the passageway, Florentino Ariza had impressedher because of his air of vulnerability. That night, during supper, her father had mentioned thetelegram, which was how she found out why Florentino Ariza had come to the house and what hedid for a living. This information increased her interest, because for her, as for so many otherpeople at that time, the invention of the telegraph had something magical about it. So that sherecognised Florentino Ariza the first time she saw him reading under the trees in the little park,although it in no way disquieted her until her aunt told her he had been there for several weeks.

Then, when they also saw him on Sundays as they came out of Mass, her aunt was convinced thatall these meetings could not be casual. She said: "He is not going to all this trouble for me." Fordespite her austere conduct and penitential habit, Aunt Escoltica had an instinct for life and avocation for complicity, which were her greatest virtues, and the mere idea that a man wasinterested in her niece awakened an irresistible emotion in her. Fermina Daza, however, was stillsafe from even simple curiosity about love, and the only feeling that Florentino Ariza inspired inher was a certain pity, because it seemed to her that he was sick. But her aunt told her that one hadto live a long time to know a man's true nature, and she was convinced that the one who sat in thepark to watch them walk by could only be sick with love.

Aunt Escoltica was a refuge of understanding and affection for the only child of a lovelessmarriage. She had raised her since the death of her mother, and in her relations with Lorenzo Dazashe behaved more like an accomplice than an aunt. So that the appearance of Florentino Ariza wasfor them another of the many intimate diversions they invented to pass the time. Four times a day,when they walked through the little Park of the Evangels, both hurried to look with a rapid glanceat the thin, timid, unimpressive sentinel who was almost always dressed in black despite the heatand who pretended to read under the trees. "There he is," said the one who saw him first,suppressing her laughter, before he raised his eyes and saw the two rigid, aloof women of his lifeas they crossed the park without looking at him.

"Poor thing," her aunt had said. "He does not dare approach you because I am with you, butone day he will if his intentions are serious, and then he will give you a letter."Foreseeing all kinds of adversities, she taught her to communicate in sign language, anindispensable strategy in forbidden love. These unexpected, almost childish antics caused anunfamiliar curiosity in Fermina Daza, but for several months it did not occur to her that it could goany further. She never knew when the diversion became a preoccupation and her blood frothedwith the need to see him, and one night she awoke in terror because she saw him looking at herfrom the darkness at the foot of her bed. Then she longed with all her soul for her aunt'spredictions to come true, and in her prayers she begged God to give him the courage to hand herthe letter just so she could know what it said.

But her prayers were not answered. On the contrary. This occurred at the time that FlorentinoAriza made his confession to his mother, who dissuaded him from handing Fermina Daza hisseventy pages of compliments, so that she continued to wait for the rest of the year. Herpreoccupation turned into despair as the December vacation approached, and she asked herselfover and over again how she would see him and let him see her during the three months when shewould not be walking to school. Her doubts were still unresolved on Christmas Eve, when she wasshaken by the presentiment that he was in the crowd at Midnight Mass, looking at her, and thisuneasiness flooded her heart. She did not dare to turn her head, because she was sitting betweenher father and her aunt, and she had to control herself so that they would not notice her agitation.

But in the crowd leaving the church she felt him so close, so clearly, that an irresistible powerforced her to look over her shoulder as she walked along the central nave and then, a hand'sbreadth from her eyes, she saw those icy eyes, that livid face, those lips petrified by the terror oflove. Dismayed by her own audacity, she seized Aunt Escoltica's arm so she would not fall,and her aunt felt the icy perspiration on her hand through the lace mitt, and she comforted her withan imperceptible sign of unconditional complicity. In the din of fireworks and native drums, ofcoloured lights in the doorways and the clamour of the crowd yearning for peace, Florentino Arizawandered like a sleepwalker until dawn, watching the fiesta through his tears, dazed by thehallucination that it was he and not God who had been born that night.

His delirium increased the following week, when he passed Fermina Daza's house in despairat the siesta hour and saw that she and her aunt were sitting under the almond trees at the doorway.

It was an open-air repetition of the scene he had witnessed the first afternoon in the sewing room:

the girl giving a reading lesson to her aunt. But Fermina Daza seemed different without the schooluniform, for she wore a narrow tunic with many folds that fell from her shoulders in the Greekstyle, and on her head she wore a garland of fresh gardenias that made her look like a crownedgoddess. Florentino Ariza sat in the park where he was sure he would be seen, and then he did nothave recourse to his feigned reading but sat with the book open and his eyes fixed on the illusorymaiden, who did not even respond with a charitable glance.

At first he thought that the lesson under the almond trees was a casual innovation due,perhaps, to the interminable repairs on the house, but in the days that followed he came tounderstand that Fermina Daza would be there, within view, every afternoon at the same timeduring the three months of vacation, and that certainty filled him with new hope. He did not havethe impression that he was seen, he could not detect any sign of interest or rejection, but in herindifference there was a distinct radiance that encouraged him to persevere. Then, one afternoontoward the end of January, the aunt put her work on the chair and left her niece alone in thedoorway under the shower of yellow leaves falling from the almond trees. Encouraged by theimpetuous thought that this was an arranged opportunity, Florentino Ariza crossed the street andstopped in front of Fermina Daza, so close to her that he could detect the catches in her breathingand the floral scent that he would identify with her for the rest of his life. He spoke with his headhigh and with a determination that would be his again only half a century later, and for the samereason.

"All I ask is that you accept a letter from me," he said.

It was not the voice that Fermina Daza had expected from him: it was sharp and clear, with acontrol that had nothing to do with his languid manner. Without lifting her eyes from herembroidery, she replied: "I cannot accept it without my father's permission." Florentino Arizashuddered at the warmth of that voice, whose hushed tones he was not to forget for the rest of hislife. But he held himself steady and replied without hesitation: "Get it." Then he sweetened thecommand with a plea: "It is a matter of life and death." Fermina Daza did not look at him, she didnot interrupt her embroidering, but her decision opened the door a crack, wide enough for theentire world to pass through.

"Come back every afternoon," she said to him, "and wait until I change my seat."Florentino Ariza did not understand what she meant until the following Monday when, fromthe bench in the little park, he saw the same scene with one variation: when Aunt Escolticawent into the house, Fermina Daza stood up and then sat in the other chair. Florentino Ariza, witha white camellia in his lapel, crossed the street and stood in front of her. He said: "This is thegreatest moment of my life." Fermina Daza did not raise her eyes to him, but she looked allaround her and saw the deserted streets in the heat of the dry season and a swirl of dead leavespulled along by the wind.

"Give it to me," she said.

Florentino Ariza had intended to give her the seventy sheets he could recite from memoryafter reading them so often, but then he decided on a sober and explicit half page in which hepromised only what was essential: his perfect fidelity and his everlasting love. He took the letterout of his inside jacket pocket and held it before the eyes of the troubled embroiderer, who hadstill not dared to look at him. She saw the blue envelope trembling in a hand petrified with terror,and she raised the embroidery frame so he could put the letter on it, for she could not admit thatshe had noticed the trembling of his fingers. Then it happened: a bird shook himself among theleaves of the almond trees, and his droppings fell right on the embroidery. Fermina Daza movedthe frame out of the way, hid it behind the chair so that he would not notice what had happened,and looked at him for the first time, her face aflame. Florentino Ariza was impassive as he held theletter in his hand and said: "It's good luck." She thanked him with her first smile and almostsnatched the letter away from him, folded it, and hid it in her bodice. Then he offered her thecamellia he wore in his lapel. She refused: "It is a flower of promises." Then, conscious that theirtime was almost over, she again took refuge in her composure.

"Now go," she said, "and don't come back until I tell you to."After Florentino Ariza saw her for the first time, his mother knew before he told her becausehe lost his voice and his appetite and spent the entire night tossing and turning in his bed. Butwhen he began to wait for the answer to his first letter, his anguish was complicated by diarrhoeaand green vomit, he became disoriented and suffered from sudden fainting spells, and his motherwas terrified because his condition did not resemble the turmoil of love so much as the devastationof cholera. Florentino Ariza's godfather, an old homoeopathic practitioner who had been TrsitoAriza's confidant ever since her days as a secret mistress, was also alarmed at first by the patient'scondition, because he had the weak pulse, the hoarse breathing, and the pale perspiration of adying man. But his examination revealed that he had no fever, no pain anywhere, and that his onlyconcrete feeling was an urgent desire to die. All that was needed was shrewd questioning, first ofthe patient and then of his mother, to conclude once again that the symptoms of love were thesame as those of cholera. He prescribed infusions of linden blossoms to calm the nerves andsuggested a change of air so he could find consolation in distance, but Florentino Ariza longed forjust the opposite: to enjoy his martyrdom.

Trsito Ariza was a freed quadroon whose instinct for happiness had been frustrated bypoverty, and she took pleasure in her son's suffering as if it were her own. She made him drink theinfusions when he became delirious, and she smothered him in wool blankets to keep away thechills, but at the same time she encouraged him to enjoy his prostration.

"Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can," she said to him,"because these things don't last your whole life."In the Postal Agency, of course, they did not agree. Florentino Ariza had become negligent,and he was so distracted that he confused the flags that announced the arrival of the mail, and oneWednesday he hoisted the German flag when the ship was from the Leyland Company and carriedthe mail from Liverpool, and on another day he flew the flag of the United States when the shipwas from the Compagnie Gale Transatlantique and carried the mail from Saint-Nazaire.

These confusions of love caused such chaos in the distribution of the mail and provoked so manyprotests from the public that if Florentino Ariza did not lose his job it was because Lotario Thugutkept him at the telegraph and took him to play the violin in the Cathedral choir. They had afriendship difficult to understand because of the difference in their ages, for they might have beengrandfather and grandson, but they got along at work as well as they did in the taverns around theport, which were frequented by everyone out for the evening regardless of social class, fromdrunken beggars to young gentlemen in tuxedos who fled the gala parties at the Social Club to eatfried mullet and coconut rice. Lotario Thugut was in the habit of going there after the last shift atthe telegraph office, and dawn often found him drinking Jamaican punch and playing theaccordion with the crews of madmen from the Antillean schooners. He was corpulent and bull-necked, with a golden beard and a liberty cap that he wore when he went out at night, and all heneeded was a string of bells to look like St. Nicholas. At least once a week he ended the eveningwith a little night bird, as he called them, one of the many who sold emergency love in a transienthotel for sailors. When he met Florentino Ariza, the first thing he did, with a certain magisterialdelight, was to initiate him into the secrets of his paradise. He chose for him the little birds hethought best, he discussed their price and style with them and offered to pay in advance with hisown money for their services. But Florentino Ariza did not accept: he was a virgin, and he haddecided not to lose his virginity unless it was for love.

The hotel was a colonial palace that had seen better days, and its great marble salons androoms were divided into plasterboard cubicles with peepholes, which were rented out as much forwatching as for doing. There was talk of busybodies who had their eyes poked out with knittingneedles, of a man who recognised his own wife as the woman he was spying on, of well-bredgentlemen who came disguised as tarts to forget who they were with the boatswains on shoreleave, and of so many other misadventures of observers and observed that the mere idea of goinginto the next room terrified Florentino Ariza. And so Lotario Thugut could never persuade himthat watching and letting himself be watched were the refinements of European princes.

As opposed to what his corpulence might suggest, Lotario Thugut had the rosebud genitals ofa cherub, but this must have been a fortunate defect, because the most tarnished birds argued overwho would have the chance to go to bed with him, and then they shrieked as if their throats werebeing cut, shaking the buttresses of the palace and making its ghosts tremble in fear. They said heused an ointment made of snake venom that inflamed women's loins, but he swore he had noresources other than those that God had given him. He would say with uproarious laughter: "It'spure love." Many years had to pass before Florentino Ariza would understand that perhaps he wasright. He was convinced at last, at a more advanced stage of his sentimental education, when hemet a man who lived like a king by exploiting three women at the same time. The three of themrendered their accounts at dawn, prostrate at his feet to beg forgiveness for their meagre profits,and the only gratification they sought was that he go to bed with the one who brought him themost money. Florentino Ariza thought that terror alone could induce such indignities, but one ofthe three girls surprised him with the contradictory truth.

"These are things," she said, "you do only for love."It was not so much for his talents as a fornicator as for his personal charm that LotarioThugut had become one of the most esteemed clients of the hotel. Florentino Ariza, because hewas so quiet and elusive, also earned the esteem of the owner, and during the most arduous periodof his grief he would lock himself in the suffocating little rooms to read verses and tearfulserialised love stories, and his reveries left nests of dark swallows on the balconies and the soundof kisses and the beating of wings in the stillness of siesta. At dusk, when it was cooler, it wasimpossible not to listen to the conversations of men who came to console themselves at the end oftheir day with hurried love. So that Florentino Ariza heard about many acts of disloyalty, and evensome state secrets, which important clients and even local officials confided to their ephemerallovers, not caring if they could be overheard in the adjoining rooms. This was also how he learnedthat four nautical leagues to the north of the Sotavento Archipelago, a Spanish galleon had beenlying under water since the eighteenth century with its cargo of more than five hundred billionpesos in pure gold and precious stones. The story astounded him, but he did not think of it againuntil a few months later, when his love awakened in him an overwhelming desire to salvage thesunken treasure so that Fermina Daza could bathe in showers of gold.

Years later, when he tried to remember what the maiden idealised by the alchemy of poetryreally was like, he could not distinguish her from the heartrending twilights of those times. Evenwhen he observed her, unseen, during those days of longing when he waited for a reply to his firstletter, he saw her transfigured in the afternoon shimmer of two o'clock in a shower of blossomsfrom the almond trees where it was always April regardless of the season of the year. The onlyreason he was interested in accompanying Lotario Thugut on his violin from the privilegedvantage point in the choir was to see how her tunic fluttered in the breeze raised by the canticles.

But his own delirium finally interfered with that pleasure, for the mystic music seemed soinnocuous compared with the state of his soul that he attempted to make it more exciting with lovewaltzes, and Lotario Thugut found himself obliged to ask that he leave the choir. This was the timewhen he gave in to his desire to eat the gardenias that Trsito Ariza grew in pots in the patio, sothat he could know the taste of Fermina Daza. It was also the time when he happened to find inone of his mother's trunks a litre bottle of the cologne that the sailors from the Hamburg-AmericanLine sold as contraband, and he could not resist the temptation to sample it in order to discoverother tastes of his beloved. He continued to drink from the bottle until dawn, and he became drunkon Fermina Daza in abrasive swallows, first in the taverns around the port and then as he staredout to sea from the jetties where lovers without a roof over their heads made consoling love, untilat last he succumbed to unconsciousness. Trsito Ariza, who had waited for him until six o'clockin the morning with her heart in her mouth, searched for him in the most improbable hidingplaces, and a short while after noon she found him wallowing in a pool of fragrant vomit in a coveof the bay where drowning victims washed ashore.

She took advantage of the hiatus of his convalescence to reproach him for his passivity as hewaited for the answer to his letter. She reminded him that the weak would never enter the kingdomof love, which is a harsh and ungenerous kingdom, and that women give themselves only to menof resolute spirit, who provide the security they need in order to face life. Florentino Ariza learnedthe lesson, perhaps too well. Trsito Ariza could not hide a feeling of pride, more carnal thanmaternal, when she saw him leave the notions shop in his black suit and stiff felt hat, his lyricalbow tie and celluloid collar, and she asked him as a joke if he was going to a funeral. Heanswered, his ears flaming: "It's almost the same thing." She realised that he could hardly breathewith fear, but his determination was invincible. She gave him her final warnings and her blessing,and laughing for all she was worth, she promised him another bottle of cologne so they couldcelebrate his victory together.

He had given Fermina Daza the letter a month before, and since then he had often broken hispromise not to return to the little park, but he had been very careful not to be seen. Nothing hadchanged. The reading lesson under the trees ended at about two o'clock, when the city was wakingfrom its siesta, and Fermina Daza embroidered with her aunt until the day began to cool.

Florentino Ariza did not wait for the aunt to go into the house, and he crossed the street with amartial stride that allowed him to overcome the weakness in his knees, but he spoke to her aunt,not to Fermina Daza.

"Please be so kind as to leave me alone for a moment with the young lady," he said. "I havesomething important to tell her.""What impertinence!" her aunt said to him. "There is nothing that has to do with her that Icannot hear.""Then I will not say anything to her," he said, "but I warn you that you will be responsible forthe consequences."That was not the manner Escoltica Daza expected from the ideal sweetheart, but she stoodup in alarm because for the first time she had the overwhelming impression that Florentino Arizawas speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So she went into the house to changeneedles and left the two young people alone under the almond trees in the doorway.

In reality, Fermina Daza knew very little about this taciturn suitor who had appeared in herlife like a winter swallow and whose name she would not even have known if it had not been forhis signature on the letter. She had learned that he was the fatherless son of an unmarried womanwho was hardworking and serious but forever marked by the fiery stigma of her single youthfulmistake. She had learned that he was not a messenger, as she had supposed, but a well-qualifiedassistant with a promising future, and she thought that he had delivered the telegram to her fatheronly as a pretext for seeing her. This idea moved her. She also knew that he was one of themusicians in the choir, and although she never dared raise her eyes to look at him during Mass,she had the revelation one Sunday that while the other instruments played for everyone, the violinplayed for her alone. He was not the kind of man she would have chosen. His foundling'seyeglasses, his clerical garb, his mysterious resources had awakened in her a curiosity that wasdifficult to resist, but she had never imagined that curiosity was one of the many masks of love.

She herself could not explain why she had accepted the letter. She did not reproach herselffor doing so, but the ever-increasing pressure to respond complicated her life. Her father's everyword, his casual glances, his most trivial gestures, seemed set with traps to uncover her secret. Herstate of alarm was such that she avoided speaking at the table for fear some slip might betray her,and she became evasive even with her Aunt Escoltica, who nonetheless shared her repressedanxiety as if it were her own. She would lock herself in the bathroom at odd hours and for noreason other than to reread the letter, attempting to discover a secret code, a magic formula hiddenin one of the three hundred fourteen letters of its fifty-eight words, in the hope they would tell hermore than they said. But all she found was what she had understood on first reading, when she ranto lock herself in the bathroom, her heart in a frenzy, and tore open the envelope hoping for a long,feverish letter, and found only a perfumed note whose determination frightened her.

At first she had not even thought seriously that she was obliged to respond, but the letter wasso explicit that there was no way to avoid it. Meanwhile, in the torment of her doubts, she wassurprised to find herself thinking about Florentino Ariza with more frequency and interest than shecared to allow, and she even asked herself in great distress why he was not in the little park at theusual hour, forgetting that it was she who had asked him not to return while she was preparing herreply. And so she thought about him as she never could have imagined thinking about anyone,having premonitions that he would be where he was not, wanting him to be where he could not be,awaking with a start, with the physical sensation that he was looking at her in the darkness whileshe slept, so that on the afternoon when she heard his resolute steps on the yellow leaves in thelittle park it was difficult for her not to think this was yet another trick of her imagination. Butwhen he demanded her answer with an authority that was so different from his languor, shemanaged to overcome her fear and tried to dodge the issue with the truth: she did not know how toanswer him. But Florentino Ariza had not leapt across an abyss only to be shooed away with suchexcuses.

"If you accepted the letter," he said to her, "it shows a lack of courtesy not to answer it."That was the end of the labyrinth. Fermina Daza regained her self-control, begged his pardonfor the delay, and gave him her solemn word that he would have an answer before the end of thevacation. And he did. On the last Friday in February, three days before school reopened, AuntEscoltica went to the telegraph office to ask how much it cost to send a telegram to Piedras deMoler, a village that did not even appear on the list of places served by the telegraph, and sheallowed Florentino Ariza to attend her as if she had never seen him before, but when she left shepretended to forget a breviary covered in lizard skin, leaving it on the counter, and in it there wasan envelope made of linen paper with golden vignettes. Delirious with joy, Florentino Ariza spentthe rest of the afternoon eating roses and reading the note letter by letter, over and over again, andthe more he read the more roses he ate, and by midnight he had read it so many times and hadeaten so many roses that his mother had to hold his head as if he were a calf and force him toswallow a dose of castor oil.

It was the year they fell into devastating love. Neither one could do anything except thinkabout the other, dream about the other, and wait for letters with the same impatience they feltwhen they answered them. Never in that delirious spring, or in the following year, did they havethe opportunity to speak to each other. Moreover, from the moment they saw each other for thefirst time until he reiterated his determination a half century later, they never had the opportunityto be alone or to talk of their love. But during the first three months not one day went by that theydid not write to each other, and for a time they wrote twice a day, until Aunt Escoltica becamefrightened by the intensity of the blaze that she herself had helped to ignite.

After the first letter that she carried to the telegraph office with an ember of revenge againsther own destiny, she had allowed an almost daily exchange of messages in what appeared to becasual encounters on the street, but she did not have the courage to permit a conversation, nomatter how banal and fleeting it might be. Still, after three months she realised that her niece wasnot the victim of a girlish fancy, as it had seemed at first, and that her own life was threatened bythe fire of love. The truth was that Escoltica Daza had no other means of support except herbrother's charity, and she knew that his tyrannical nature would never forgive such a betrayal ofhis confidence. But when it was time for the final decision, she did not have the heart to cause herniece the same irreparable grief that she had been obliged to nurture ever since her youth, and shepermitted her to use a strategy that allowed her the illusion of innocence. The method was simple:

Fermina Daza would leave her letter in some hiding place along her daily route from the house tothe Academy, and in that letter she would indicate to Florentino Ariza where she expected to findhis answer. Florentino Ariza did the same. In this way, for the rest of the year, the conflicts in AuntEscoltica's conscience were transferred to baptisteries in churches, holes in trees, and cranniesin ruined colonial fortresses. Sometimes their letters were soaked by rain, soiled by mud, torn byadversity, and some were lost for a variety of other reasons, but they always found a way to be intouch with each other again.

Florentino Ariza wrote every night. Letter by letter, he had no mercy as he poisoned himselfwith the smoke from the palm oil lamps in the back room of the notions shop, and his lettersbecame more discursive and more lunatic the more he tried to imitate his favourite poets from thePopular Library, which even at that time was approaching eighty volumes. His mother, who hadurged him with so much fervour to enjoy his torment, became concerned for his health. "You aregoing to wear out your brains," she shouted at him from the bedroom when she heard the firstroosters crow. "No woman is worth all that." She could not remember ever having known anyonein such a state of unbridled passion. But he paid no attention to her. Sometimes he went to theoffice without having slept, his hair in an uproar of love after leaving the letter in the prearrangedhiding place so that Fermina Daza would find it on her way to school. She, on the other hand,under the watchful eye of her father and the vicious spying of the nuns, could barely manage to fillhalf a page from her notebook when she locked herself in the bathroom or pretended to take notesin class. But this was not only due to her limited time and the danger of being taken by surprise, itwas also her nature that caused her letters to avoid emotional pitfalls and confine themselves torelating the events of her daily life in the utilitarian style of a ship's log. In reality they weredistracted letters, intended to keep the coals alive without putting her hand in the fire, whileFlorentino Ariza burned himself alive in every line. Desperate to infect her with his own madness,he sent her miniaturist's verses inscribed with the point of a pin on camellia petals. It was he, notshe, who had the audacity to enclose a lock of his hair in one letter, but he never received theresponse he longed for, which was an entire strand of Fermina Daza's braid. He did move her atlast to take one step further, and from that time on she began to send him the veins of leaves driedin dictionaries, the wings of butterflies, the feathers of magic birds, and for his birthday she gavehim a square centimetre of St. Peter Clavier's habit, which in those days was being sold in secret ata price far beyond the reach of a schoolgirl her age. One night, without any warning, FerminaDaza awoke with a start: a solo violin was serenading her, playing the same waltz over and overagain. She shuddered when she realised that each note was an act of thanksgiving for the petalsfrom her herbarium, for the moments stolen from arithmetic to write her letters, for her fear ofexaminations when she was thinking more about him than about the natural sciences, but she didnot dare believe that Florentino Ariza was capable of such imprudence.

The next morning at breakfast Lorenzo Daza could not contain his curiosity--first because hedid not know what playing a single piece meant in the language of serenades, and second because,despite the attention with which he had listened, he could not determine which house it had beenintended for. Aunt Escoltica, with a sangfroid that took her niece's breath away, stated that shehad seen through the bedroom curtains that the solitary violinist was standing on the other side ofthe park, and she said that in any event a single piece was notification of severed relations. In thatday's letter Florentino Ariza confirmed that he had played the serenade, that he had composed thewaltz, and that it bore the name he called Fermina Daza in his heart: "The Crowned Goddess." Hedid not play it in the park again, but on moonlit nights in places chosen so that she could listenwithout fear in her bedroom. One of his favoured spots was the paupers' cemetery, exposed to thesun and the rain on an indigent hill, where turkey buzzards dozed and the music achieved asupernatural resonance. Later he learned to recognise the direction of the winds, and in this way hewas certain that his melody carried as far as it had to.

In August of that year a new civil war, one of the many that had been devastating the countryfor over half a century, threatened to spread, and the government imposed martial law and a sixo'clock curfew in the provinces along the Caribbean coast. Although some disturbances hadalready occurred, and the troops had committed all kinds of retaliatory abuses, Florentino Arizawas so befuddled that he was unaware of the state of the world, and a military patrol surprised himone dawn as he disturbed the chastity of the dead with his amorous provocations. By some miraclehe escaped summary execution after he was accused of being a spy who sent messages in the keyof G to the Liberal ships marauding in nearby waters.

"What the hell do you mean, a spy?" said Florentino Ariza. "I'm nothing but a poor lover."For three nights he slept with irons around his ankles in the cells of the local garrison. Butwhen he was released he felt defrauded by the brevity of his captivity, and even in the days of hisold age, when so many other wars were confused in his memory, he still thought he was the onlyman in the city, and perhaps the country, who had dragged five-pound leg irons for the sake oflove.

Their frenetic correspondence was almost two years old when Florentino Ariza, in a letter ofonly one paragraph, made a formal proposal of marriage to Fermina Daza. On several occasionsduring the preceding six months he had sent her a white camellia, but she would return it to him inher next letter so that he would have no doubt that she was disposed to continue writing to him,but without the seriousness of an engagement. The truth is that she had always taken the comingsand goings of the camellia as a lovers' game, and it had never occurred to her to consider it as acrossroads in her destiny. But when the formal proposal arrived she felt herself wounded for thefirst time by the clawings of death. Panic-stricken, she told her Aunt Escoltica, who gave heradvice with the courage and lucidity she had not had when she was twenty and was forced todecide her own fate.

"Tell him yes," she said. "Even if you are dying of fear, even if you are sorry later, becausewhatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life if you say no."Fermina Daza, however, was so confused that she asked for some time to think it over. Firstshe asked for a month, then two, then three, and when the fourth month had ended and she hadstill not replied, she received a white camellia again, not alone in the envelope as on otheroccasions but with the peremptory notification that this was the last one: it was now or never.

Then that same afternoon it was Florentino Ariza who saw the face of death when he received anenvelope containing a strip of paper, torn from the margin of a school notebook, on which a one-line answer was written in pencil: Very well, I will marry you if you promise not to make me eateggplant.

Florentino Ariza was not prepared for that answer, but his mother was. Since he had firstspoken to her six months earlier about his intention to marry, Trsito Ariza had begunnegotiations for renting the entire house which, until that time, she had shared with two otherfamilies. A two-story structure dating from the seventeenth century, it was the building where thetobacco monopoly had been located under Spanish rule, and its ruined owners had been obliged torent it out in bits and pieces because they did not have the money to maintain it. It had one sectionfacing the street, where the retail tobacco shop had been, another section at the rear of a pavedpatio, where the factory had been located, and a very large stable that the current tenants used incommon for washing and drying their clothes. Trsito Ariza occupied the first section, whichwas the most convenient and the best preserved, although it was also the smallest. The notionsstore was in the old tobacco shop, with a large door facing the street, and to one side was theformer storeroom, with only a skylight for ventilation, where Trsito Ariza slept. The stockroomtook up half the space that was divided by a wooden partition. In it were a table and four chairs,used for both eating and writing, and it was there that Florentino Ariza hung his hammock whendawn did not find him writing. It was a good space for the two of them, but too small for a thirdperson, least of all a young lady from the Academy of the Presentation of the Blessed Virginwhose father had restored a house in ruins until it was like new, while the families with seventitles went to bed with the fear that the roofs of their mansions would cave in on them while theyslept. So Trsito Ariza had arranged with the owner to let her also occupy the gallery in thepatio, and in exchange she would keep the house in good condition for five years.

She had the resources to do so. In addition to the cash income from the notions store and thehemostatic rags, which sufficed for her modest life, she had multiplied her savings by lendingthem to a clientele made up of the embarrassed new poor, who accepted her excessive interestrates for the sake of her discretion. Ladies with the airs of queens descended from their carriagesat the entrance to the notions shop, unencumbered by nursemaids or servants, and as theypretended to buy Holland laces and passementerie trimmings, they pawned, between sobs, the lastglittering ornaments of their lost paradise. Trsito Ariza rescued them from difficulties with somuch consideration for their lineage that many of them left more grateful for the honour than forthe favour they had received. In less than ten years she knew the jewels, so often redeemed andthen tearfully pawned again, as if they had been her own, and at the time her son decided to marry,the profits, converted into gold, lay hidden in a clay jar under her bed. Then she did her accountsand discovered not only that she could undertake to keep the rented house standing for five years,but that with the same shrewdness and a little more luck she could perhaps buy it, before she died,for the twelve grandchildren she hoped to have. Florentino Ariza, for his part, had receivedprovisional appointment as First Assistant at the telegraph office, and Lotario Thugut wanted himto head the office when he left to direct the School of Telegraphy and Magnetism, which heexpected to do the following year.

So the practical side of the marriage was resolved. Still, Trsito Ariza thought that twofinal conditions were prudent. The first was to find out who Lorenzo Daza really was, for thoughhis accent left no doubt concerning his origins, no one had any certain information as to hisidentity and livelihood. The second was that the engagement be a long one so that the fianc閟could come to know each other person to person, and that the strictest reserve be maintained untilboth felt very certain of their affections. She suggested they wait until the war was over.

Florentino Ariza agreed to absolute secrecy, not only for his mother's reasons but because of thehermeticism of his own character. He also agreed to the delay, but its terms seemed unrealistic tohim, since in over half a century of independent life the nation had not had a single day of civilpeace.

"We'll grow old waiting," he said.

His godfather, the homoeopathic practitioner, who happened to be taking part in theconversation, did not believe that the wars were an obstacle. He thought they were nothing morethan the struggles of the poor, driven like oxen by the landowners, against barefoot soldiers whowere driven in turn by the government.

"The war is in the mountains," he said. "For as long as I can remember, they have killed us inthe cities with decrees, not with bullets."In any case, the details of the engagement were settled in their letters during the weeks thatfollowed. Fermina Daza, on the advice of her Aunt Escoltica, accepted both the two-yearextension and the condition of absolute secrecy, and suggested that Florentino Ariza ask for herhand when she finished secondary school, during the Christmas vacation. When the time camethey would decide on how the engagement was to be formalised, depending on the degree ofapproval she obtained from her father. In the meantime, they continued to write to each other withthe same ardour and frequency, but free of the turmoil they had felt before, and their letters tendedtoward a domestic tone that seemed appropriate to husband and wife. Nothing disturbed theirdreams.

Florentino Ariza's life had changed. Requited love had given him a confidence and strengthhe had never known before, and he was so efficient in his work that Lotario Thugut had no troublehaving him named his permanent assistant. By that time his plans for the School of Telegraphyand Magnetism had failed, and the German dedicated his free time to the only thing he reallyenjoyed: going to the port to play the accordion and drink beer with the sailors, finishing theevening at the transient hotel. It was a long time before Florentino Ariza, realised that LotarioThugut's influence in the palace of pleasure was due to the fact that he had become the owner ofthe establishment as well as impresario for the birds in the port. He had bought it gradually withhis savings of many years, but the person who ran it for him was a lean, one-eyed little man with apolished head and a heart so kind that no one understood how he could be such a good manager.

But he was. At least it seemed that way to Florentino Ariza when the manager told him, withouthis requesting it, that he had the permanent use of a room in the hotel, not only to resolveproblems of the lower belly whenever he decided to do so, but so that he could have at his disposala quiet place for his reading and his love letters. And as the long months passed until theformalising of the engagement, he spent more time there than at the office or his house, and therewere periods when Trsito Ariza saw him only when he came home to change his clothes.

Reading had become his insatiable vice. Ever since she had taught him to read, his motherhad bought him illustrated books by Nordic authors which were sold as stories for children but inreality were the crudest and most perverse that one could read at any age. When he was five yearsold, Florentino Ariza would recite them from memory, both in his classes and at literary eveningsat school, but his familiarity with them did not alleviate the terror they caused. On the contrary, itbecame acute. So that when he began to read poetry, by comparison it was like finding an oasis.

Even during his adolescence he had devoured, in the order of their appearance, all the volumes ofthe Popular Library that Trsito Ariza bought from the bargain booksellers at the Arcade of theScribes, where one could find everything from Homer to the least meritorious of the local poets.

But he made no distinctions: he read whatever came his way, as if it had been ordained by fate,and despite his many years of reading, he still could not judge what was good and what was not inall that he had read. The only thing clear to him was that he preferred verse to prose, and in versehe preferred love poems that he memorised without even intending to after the second reading,and the better rhymed and metered they were, and the more heartrending, the more easily helearned them.

They were the original source of his first letters to Fermina Daza, those half-bakedendearments taken whole from the Spanish romantics, and his letters continued in that vein untilreal life obliged him to concern himself with matters more mundane than heartache. By that timehe had moved on to tearful serialised novels and other, even more profane prose of the day. He hadlearned to cry with his mother as they read the pamphlets by local poets that were sold in plazasand arcades for two centavos each. But at the same time he was able to recite from memory themost exquisite Castilian poetry of the Golden Age. In general, he read everything that fell into hishands in the order in which it fell, so that long after those hard years of his first love, when he wasno longer young, he would read from first page to last the twenty volumes of the Young People'sTreasury, the complete catalogue of the Gamier Bros. Classics in translation, and the simplestworks that Don Vicente Blasco Ibz published in the Prometeo collection.

In any event, his youthful adventures in the transient hotel were not limited to reading andcomposing feverish letters but also included his initiation into the secrets of loveless love. Life inthe house began after noon, when his friends the birds got up as bare as the day they were born, sothat when Florentino Ariza arrived after work he found a palace populated by naked nymphs whoshouted their commentaries on the secrets of the city, which they knew because of thefaithlessness of the protagonists. Many displayed in their nudity traces of their past: scars of knifethrusts in the belly, starbursts of gunshot wounds, ridges of the razor cuts of love, Caesareansections sewn up by butchers. Some of them had their young children with them during the day,those unfortunate fruits of youthful defiance or carelessness, and they took off their children'sclothes as soon as they were brought in so they would not feel different in that paradise of nudity.

Each one cooked her own food, and no one ate better than Florentino Ariza when they invited himfor a meal, because he chose the best from each. It was a daily fiesta that lasted until dusk, whenthe naked women marched, singing, toward the bathrooms, asked to borrow soap, toothbrushes,scissors, cut each other's hair, dressed in borrowed clothes, painted themselves like lugubriousclowns, and went out to hunt the first prey of the night. Then life in the house became impersonaland dehumanised, and it was impossible to share in it without paying.

Since he had known Fermina Daza, there was no place where Florentino Ariza felt more atease, because it was the only place where he felt that he was with her. Perhaps it was for similarreasons that an elegant older woman with beautiful silvery hair lived there but did not participatein the uninhibited life of the naked women, who professed sacramental respect for her. Apremature sweetheart had taken her there when she was young, and after enjoying her for a time,abandoned her to her fate. Nevertheless, despite the stigma, she had made a good marriage. Whenshe was quite old and alone, two sons and three daughters argued over who would have thepleasure of taking her to live with them, but she could not think of a better place to live than thathotel of her youthful debaucheries. Her permanent room was her only home, and this made forimmediate communion with Florentino Ariza, who, she said, would become a wise man knownthroughout the world because he could enrich his soul with reading in a paradise of salaciousness.

Florentino Ariza, for his part, developed so much affection for her that he helped her with hershopping and would spend the afternoons in conversation with her. He thought she was a womanwise in the ways of love, since she offered many insights into his affair without his having toreveal any secrets to her.

If he had not given in to the many temptations at hand before he experienced Fermina Daza'slove, he certainly would not succumb now that she was his official betrothed. So Florentino Arizalived with the girls and shared their pleasures and miseries, but it did not occur to him or them togo any further. An unforeseen event demonstrated the severity of his determination. One afternoonat six o'clock, when the girls were dressing to receive that evening's clients, the woman whocleaned the rooms on his floor in the hotel came into his cubicle. She was young, but haggard andold before her time, like a fully dressed penitent surrounded by glorious nakedness. He saw herevery day without feeling himself observed: she walked through the rooms with her brooms, abucket for the trash, and a special rag for picking up used condoms from the floor. She came intothe room where Florentino Ariza lay reading, and as always she cleaned with great care so as notto disturb him. Then she passed close to the bed, and he felt a warm and tender hand low on hisbelly, he felt it searching, he felt it finding, he felt it unbuttoning his trousers while her breathingfilled the room. He pretended to read until he could not bear it any longer and had to move hisbody out of the way.

She was dismayed, for the first thing they warned her about when they gave her the cleaningjob was that she should not try to sleep with the clients. They did not have to tell her that, becauseshe was one of those women who thought that prostitution did not mean going to bed for moneybut going to bed with a stranger. She had two children, each by a different father, not because theywere casual adventures but because she could never love any man who came back after the thirdvisit. Until that time she had been a woman without a sense of urgency, a woman whose natureprepared her to wait without despair, but life in that house proved stronger than her virtue. Shecame to work at six in the afternoon, and she spent the whole night going through the rooms,sweeping them out, picking up condoms, changing the sheets. It was difficult to imagine thenumber of things that men left after love. They left vomit and tears, which seemed understandableto her, but they also left many enigmas of intimacy: puddles of blood, patches of excrement, glasseyes, gold watches, false teeth, lockets with golden curls, love letters, business letters, condolenceletters--all kinds of letters. Some came back for the items they had lost, but most were unclaimed,and Lotario Thugut kept them under lock and key and thought that sooner or later the palace thathad seen better days, with its thousands of forgotten belongings, would become a museum of love.

The work was hard and the pay was low, but she did it well. What she could not endure werethe sobs, the laments, the creaking of the bedsprings, which filled her blood with so much ardourand so much sorrow that by dawn she could not bear the desire to go to bed with the first beggarshe met on the street, with any miserable drunk who would give her what she wanted with nopretensions and no questions. The appearance of a man like Florentino Ariza, young, clean, andwithout a woman, was for her a gift from heaven, because from the first moment she realised thathe was just like her: someone in need of love. But he was unaware of her compelling desire. Hehad kept his virginity for Fermina Daza, and there was no force or argument in this world thatcould turn him from his purpose.

That was his life, four months before the date set for formalising the engagement, whenLorenzo Daza showed up at the telegraph office one morning at seven o'clock and asked for him.

Since he had not yet arrived, Lorenzo Daza waited on the bench until ten minutes after eight,slipping a heavy gold ring with its noble opal stone from one finger to another, and as soon asFlorentino Ariza came in, he recognised him as the employee who had delivered the telegram, andhe took him by the arm.

"Come with me, my boy," he said. "You and I have to talk for five minutes, man to man."Florentino Ariza, as green as a corpse, let himself be led. He was not prepared for thismeeting, because Fermina Daza had not found either the occasion or the means to warn him. Thefact was that on the previous Saturday, Sister Franca de la Luz, Superior of the Academy of thePresentation of the Blessed Virgin, had come into the class on Ideas of Cosmogony with thestealth of a serpent, and spying on the students over their shoulders, she discovered that FerminaDaza was pretending to take notes in her notebook when in reality she was writing a love letter.

According to the rules of the Academy, that error was reason for expulsion. Lorenzo Dazareceived an urgent summons to the rectory, where he discovered the leak through which his ironregime was trickling. Fermina Daza, with her innate fortitude, confessed to the error of the letter,but refused to reveal the identity of her secret sweetheart and refused again before the Tribunal ofthe Order which, therefore, confirmed the verdict of expulsion. Her father, however, searched herroom, until then an inviolate sanctuary, and in the false bottom of her trunk he found the packetsof three years' worth of letters hidden away with as much love as had inspired their writing. Thesignature was unequivocal, but Lorenzo Daza could not believe--not then, not ever--that hisdaughter knew nothing about her secret lover except that he worked as a telegraph operator andthat he loved the violin.

Certain that such an intricate relationship was understandable only with the complicity of hissister, he did not grant her the grace of an excuse or the right of appeal, but shipped her on theschooner to San Juan de la

引用

第一章

第一章  这些地方的变化日新月异，它们已有了戴王冠的仙女。

    ——莱昂德罗?迪亚斯

    这是确定无疑的：苦扁桃的气息总勾起他对情场失意的结局的回忆。胡维纳尔?乌尔比诺医生刚走进那个半明半暗的房间就悟到了这一点。他匆匆忙忙地赶到那里本是为了进行急救，但那件多年以来使他是心的事已经不可挽回了。那位安的列斯群岛的流亡者、残废军人、儿童摄影师，又是跟医生交情甚笃的国际象棋对手德萨因特?阿莫乌尔，此刻已利用氰化金挥发出来的气体，从回忆的折磨中彻底解脱了。

    医生看到尸体躺在行军床上，覆盖着一条毛毯。阿莫乌尔生前一向是睡在这张行军床上的。靠近行军床有个板凳，凳子上放着一只小桶，那是用来蒸发毒品的。

    地板上躺着一只胸脯雪白的黑色丹麦大狗，它被捆绑在行军床的床腿上，旁边摆着一条拐杖。那间令人窒息的杂乱的房间，既是卧室又充当工作室，黎明的曙光从打开的窗户射进来，意微的光亮足以使人们立即认出他确实已经死了。其它的窗户以及门缝都被破布遮得严严实实或用黑色的马粪纸封闭起来，这更增加了室内的压抑的气氛。室内有一张木台，上面堆满了细口小瓶和没有商标的香水瓶。在用红纸罩着的一台普通聚光灯下有两只白蜡小桶，外皮已经剥落。第三只桶里盛着定影剂，靠近尸体。过期报章杂志扔得到处都是，一块块玻璃板上堆满底片，破旧的家具摆得零乱不堪，但是在那双勤劳的双手的操持下，一切都显得纤尘不染。尽管从窗外吹来的空气使室内气息变得清新，但熟知内情的人，仍然可以感觉出那带有苦扁桃气息的不幸的爱情的幽怨和隐痛。乌尔比诺曾不止一次地在没有先兆的情况下想过：那里真不是应上帝的思召而离开人间的合适场所。但是，随着时间的推移，他终于认识到，死者的神经失调也许正是出于上帝的一种密旨。

    警察局长带着一个正在市诊所里进行法医实习的年轻学生先到了，是他们在乌尔比诺医生到来之前打开了窗户，并把尸体盖了起来。局长和学生严肃地跟医生打了个招呼，这位医生这次所以到来，主要是出于同情，而不是出于受人崇敬，因为没有人知晓他和阿莫乌尔的友谊之深。这位医道高明的教授，就像每天在临床课开始之前跟他的学生—一握手一样，同警察局长和年轻的实习生拉了拉手，然后便用食指和拇指紧紧捏住毛毯的边缘，仿佛对待一朵鲜花，像惯常一样慢慢地小心翼翼地揭开了毯子。赤裸的尸体僵硬地弯曲着，眼睛睁着，躯体呈蓝色，仿佛比前一天晚上老了五十岁。他的瞳孔是透明的，胡子和头发是黄色的。肚子上有一道旧伤痕，粗糙地缝合着。由于拐杖的折磨，他的身躯和胳膊犹如被判取划船苦役的犯人那样粗大健壮，但是他的僵死的双腿却象无依无靠的孤儿的细腿。乌尔比诺医生怀着痛苦的心情凝望着，他在同死神徒劳争夺的漫长岁月里，很少有这样的表情。

    “真蠢，最糟糕的事情终于发生了。”

    他用毛毯重新把尸体盖上，恢复了卓而不群的教授的神气。前年他过八十寿辰时，热热闹闹地庆祝I三天，在致辞时，他再次顶住了退职的诱惑。他说：“我死后总会有充分的时间休息，但死亡这件变幻不定的事还没有列入我的议事日程。”

    他右耳越来越不中用了，他用带银柄的拐杖来掩盖瞒珊的步履，依旧摆出年轻时的气派，身穿一套亚麻布衣服，外加一件坎肩，坎肩上挂着金表链。珍珠母色的巴斯德式的胡须和同样颜色的梳理得溜光移亮、居中分开的头发，是他性格的忠实反映。

    记忆衰退越来越使他不安，他不得不随时把事情记在小纸条上，以免遗忘。结果，口袋里的小纸条太多了，又混得难以分辨，正同医疗器械、药瓶以及其它东西在他塞得鼓鼓囊囊的手提箱里混成一团一样。他不仅是城里资格最老和最杰出的医生，也是最讲究穿着的人。然而，他的过于外露的智慧和不太谦虚地动用权威的方式，反而使他得不到应有的爱戴和尊敬。

    他给警察局长和实习生下的指示是准确迅速的，不必验尸。房间里散发的气息就足以确定死因：某种感光的酸液引起了容器内的活性氰化物的挥发。但死者阿莫乌尔本人是此中老手，决不会在这种事情上有所疏忽。看到警察局长的犹疑不定的表情，乌尔比诺以他典型的处事方式斩钉截铁地打断一f他的话：“请记住，签发死亡证明的人是我！”年轻的医生也感到扫兴：他从来没有遇到过通过解剖尸体来研究氰化金性能的机会。乌尔比诺医生很惊奇，在医学院里没有见过这个学生，但是从他羞涩的面容和安第斯发音上很快就明白了：也许他刚刚来到城里。他说：“在这里，要不了几天，就会有某个爱情狂人给您一个机会。”这句话刚出口，他便马上意识到，在他记忆中数不清的用氰化物自杀的人中间，这是第一个并非由于爱情而自杀的人。于是他稍稍改变了他的声调：“当您遇到这种事时，请好好注意。”他对实习生说，“在心脏里常常可以找到金属的微粒。”

    然后他象上级对下属那样跟警察局长谈话，吩咐他要绕开一切审理手续，以便当天下午神不知鬼不觉地举行葬礼。他说：“以后我找市长去谈。”他知道阿莫乌尔是个十分节俭的人，节俭得近乎原始人，他凭自己的手艺挣来的钱足以维持生活，因此，在他的某个抽屉里应该放着存款，用做葬礼是绰绰有余的。

    “不过，找不到也没关系。”他说，“一切费用由我承担。”

    虽说他知道报界对这一消息决不会感兴趣，他还是关照了记者：摄影师是自然死亡。他说：“如果需要的话，我会找省长谈的。”警察局长是个规矩而谦恭的公职人员，他早就听到过乌尔比诺医生的严厉甚至可以使他最亲密的朋友也无法忍受。

    他对他那么轻易地跳过一切法律手续匆匆忙忙安排葬礼感到惊讶。警察局长唯一没有同意的是去和主教商量，把阿莫乌尔安葬在圣地。他对自己的不肯通融的态度感到歉疚，请求医生原谅。

    “我深知此人是个圣者。”他说。

    “不仅是个圣者，还有点古怪。”乌尔比诺医生说，“他是个无神论的圣者。

    但那是上帝的事情。

    在殖民城市的另一端，大教堂的钟声远远地传来了，召唤人们去望大弥撒。乌尔比诺医生戴上半月形夹鼻金丝眼镜，掏出一块精致的方形怀表看了看，弹簧把表盖轻轻地打开了：他险些误了圣灵降临节的弥撒。

    客厅里，一架巨型照相机架在轮子上，那轮子就象公共场所活动栏杆下的轮子一样。幕布上画着“黄昏的大海”，是工艺匠的手笔。周围墙上挂满了孩子们的照片，并标着那些带有纪念意义的日期：第一次圣餐、戴兔子假面具、幸福的生日。

    乌尔比诺医生通过他到这里来下棋的那些下午，年复一年，于冥思苦想之余，目睹了这个客厅的墙壁已逐渐被照片覆盖殆尽。他曾多次不无痛心地想到，在那个陈列着即共拍下的照片的展室里。孕育着一个未来的城市，这座城市将由那些难以捉摸的孩子来管理和败坏，而他的荣誉则将荡然无存。

    写字台上，靠近一个放有几只海狼牌烟斗的陶瓷罐，摆着一局残棋。尽管他有急事要办，心情又非常阴郁，乌尔比诺医生还是禁不住要把那盘棋研究一番。他知道，那是前一天夜里下的棋，因为阿莫乌尔每天下午都下棋，而且至少要找三个不同的对手。不过，每次他都是把棋下完，把棋盘和棋子收拾到盒子里，再把盒子放到写字台的抽屉里。他还知道，阿莫乌尔对奕时历来执白，而那一局棋，不出四步，白棋就必输无疑了。“如果他是被杀，这是一个有力的证据。”他心中这样想。

    “我知道，只有一个人才会设置这么巧妙的杀着。”那位顽固不屈的、惯于拼杀到最后一滴血的战士为什么没有结束这最后的一局棋就溘然撒手了？他觉得不弄清其原因，自己继续活下去便失去了意义。

    清晨一点钟，更夫在做最后一次巡逻时，看到了在临街的门上赫然标着这样几个字：“不必敲门，请入内，并请通知警察。”不久，警察局长和实习生就赶到了，两人在房间里搜索了一番，企图寻找苦扁桃气味的来源。但是，在分析那盘残棋的短短几分钟内，警察局长在写字台上的一些纸张中发现了一封致乌尔比诺医生的信。

    信封用火漆封得结结实实。必须撕开封口，才能把信取出。医生拉开黑色的筒帘，让光线身进来，然后飞快地向那十一页正反两面都用漂亮的字体写得密密麻麻的信纸扫了一眼。从读完第一段起，他就明白自己已赶平上领圣灵降临节的圣餐了。他激动地喘着气阅读着，为了把失掉了的思路联接起来，他几次倒回去重读。当读完全信，他感到自己仿佛是从过去一个非常遥远的地方归来。尽管他想努力振作精神，依然改变不了沮丧的神色。他双唇发蓝，手指颤抖着把信叠好放进坎肩的口袋里。

    这时，他记起了警察局长和年轻的实习医生，便带着痛苦的表情向他们微笑了一下。

    “没有什么特别的东西。”他说，“是他最后的一些嘱托。”

    这半真半假的话完全博得了他们的信任，因为他们照他的吩咐揭开地板上一块活动瓷砖，果然在那里找到了一本陈年旧帐，上面写着开保除柜的密码。钱没有他们想象得那么多，但是用来安葬和办理其它琐事已足够了。乌尔比诺医生此时意识到，在宣讲福音书之前，他已无法赶到大教堂了。

    “自从我记事以来，这是我第三次误了星期日弥撒。”他说，“但是，上帝会原谅的。”

    这样，他宁可再拖几分钟，以便把所有细节全部解决，尽管他迫不及待地想同他的妻子共同分享信内的机密。他表示要通知为数众多的住在城里的加勒比海难民，以考验他们是否愿意向这位最受尊敬、最积极和最激进的死者表示最后的敬意，尽管他显然已经向障碍屈服，没有克服他前进路上的绊脚石。他也将通知死者的棋友们，在这些棋友中间，有著名的职业棋手，也有无名小卒。他同样准备通知一些交往较少的朋友，因为说不定他们会来参加葬礼。在看到遗书之前，他决定成为第一个参加葬礼的人，但在读过遗书之后，他什么也不敢肯定了。不管怎么说，他要送一个桅子花的花圈！也许阿莫乌尔最后曾一度失悔吧。葬礼定在五点举行，那是炎热季节里最合适的时间。如果需要的话，他可以从十二点钟就去拉西德斯?奥利贝利亚医生的乡间别墅，这位医生是他喜爱的学生，将以丰盛的午餐来庆祝从业二十五年纪念日。

    当最初的军队服役的那些暴风雨般的岁月过去之后，乌尔比诺医生变成了一个十分随和的人，他在全省获得了无与伦比的崇敬和威望。他鸡鸣即起，开始服用一些秘方：提神的澳化钾；治风湿痛的水杨酸盐；治昏厥的黑麦角菌滴剂；治失眠的颠茄。他不间断地吃，但总是偷偷地吃，因为在他长期的行医和授业的生涯中，他一向反对给老人开治标性的药济。对他来说，忍受旁人的痛苦要比忍受自己的痛苦容易得多。他衣袋里时刻带着樟脑晶，没有人看见时，他就拿出来深深地吸一口，以消除对那么多药物混在一起的恐惧。

    他一般在书房里呆一个小时，为他星期一至星期六每天八时整到医学院讲授普通；1＄床学备课，直到临死的前夕为止。他也是个新文学作品的热情读者，这些作品由他的巴黎书商寄来，或由当地书商从巴塞罗那为他定购，尽管他对西班牙语文学不象对法语文学那样重视。不管怎样，他从来不在早晨读文学作品，而是在午觉之后读个把小时，晚上睡觉之前再读一会儿。备课结束后，他面对打开的窗户，在浴室里做十五分钟呼吸操。他总是面向公鸡啼鸣的方向做操，因为新鲜空气从那儿吹来。然后他洗澡，修胡子，在货真价实的意大利香水的浓郁芳香中粘胡子。他穿上白色亚麻衫裤，外加一件坎肩，戴上软帽，穿上西班牙科尔多瓦产的山羊皮靴。

    到了八十一岁，他依然保持着在霍乱流行期后不久从巴黎返回时的那种潇洒风度和欢快神态。他的头发后中分开，梳理得整整齐齐，除了颜色变得像金属一般之外，和年轻时没有半点差异。他在家里用早饭，但是他有自己的一套规矩：一杯大苦文花汤顺胃，再加一头大蒜。他吃大蒜向来就着面包一瓣瓣细细咀嚼，为的是预防心脏憋闷。教课之后，他常去参加正当的社交活动，或者去接触天主教徒，或者从事艺术方面或社会方面的某项课题的研究。

    他几乎总是在家中吃午饭，饭后一边坐在院里花坛上打十分钟的诚，一边在梦中听女佣们在枝繁叶茂的芒果树下唱歌，听街上的叫卖声，听港湾里柴油机和马达的轰鸣声。炎热的下午那种响声在周遭回荡着，就像被判刑的天使在受难一样。接着，他要读一个小时的新书，特别是小说和历史专著。随后他便教鹦鹉讲法语和唱歌。多年以来，那只鹦鹉已经成了家中迷人的娱乐品。四点钟，喝下一大杯加冰的柠檬汁之后，他就出去巡诊。尽管他已经上了年纪，他还是拒绝在诊所接待病人，而是一如既往，到患者家里去为他们治病。自从市政建设越来越完备以来，他可以乘马车到任何地方去。

    他第一次从欧洲回来后，便乘坐由两匹枣骏马驾着的家用四轮马车活动。这辆马车坏了，他又换了一辆由独马驾辕的双座四轮带篷马车。当马车开始被淘汰，只是在供旅游观光者玩赏和为葬礼拉花圈才使用时，他照旧乘坐这种马车，而且还为它古旧的式样颇感自豪。尽管他拒绝退休，但是他心中明白，除非遇到不治之症，人们是不会上门请他的。他认为那也是一种专长。他只凭外表就可看出患者得的什么病。他越来越不相信药物，对外科手术的普及，他怀有一种惊恐的心情。他说：“手术刀是药物无效的最大证明。”他认为，严格说来，一切药物都是毒药，百分之七十的普通药物都在使人加速死亡。“无论如何，”他经常在课堂上讲，“人们已知的良药并不很多，而且只有少数医生真正了解它们的性能。”他从热情奔放的青年时代起，就把自己称为宿命论的人文主义者。他说：“每个人的死期都是自己命中注定，我们唯一能够做到的．只是时辰一到，就帮助他们既不害怕又无痛苦地了却生命。”不过，尽管这些偏激的观点已经构成地方医学的组成部分，他昔日的学生们，即使在正式开业之后，也还在继续向他请教，因为他们承认他的诊断准确无误。不管怎么说，他一直是一位可贵的不可多得的医生，他的病人集中在总督区的高贵门弟里。

    他每天的工作井然有序，以致如果在他下午出诊期间发生点紧急事儿，他的妻子准知道该往什么地方给他送信儿。从年轻时起，他总要在回家这前去教区的咖啡店里呆一阵子，因此，从岳父的朋友和一些加勒比海难民那里学了一手好棋。但是，从本世纪开始，他就不上教区咖啡店去了，而是打算组织由社会俱乐部赞助的全国性比赛活动。就在此时，阿莫乌尔来了，他下肢瘫痪，当时还没有搞儿童摄影。不到三个月，他高超的棋艺便使所有的人对他另眼相看了。他尤其善于走“象”，从来没有人赢过他一盘棋。对于乌尔比诺医生来说，那堪称是一种奇遇。当时，他对象棋简直入了迷，而能使他满意的对手已经不多了。

    乌尔比诺医生成了他的无条件的保护人，并为他的一切担保，他甚至没有去调查他是谁，从事何种职业，在什么不名誉的战争中留下一副残废身子茫然地在这儿出现。医生借给他一笔钱，让他开一家照相馆，而阿莫马尔，自从用闪光灯为第一个神色惊恐的孩子照相时起，总是把最后一分钱都付给他。

    一切都来自于象棋。最初，他们在晚饭后七点钟下棋，医生略胜一筹，因为对手显然也棋艺不凡。后来医生的优势越来越小，最后就旗鼓相当了。加利莱奥?达孔特先生开办第一家电影院之后阿莫乌尔成了它的最准时到场的观众之一，下棋就只限于没有电影首映式的夜晚了。那时阿莫乌尔和医生已是形影不离的朋友，所以医生便陪他去看电影。但医生看电影从不带妻子。这一方面是因为她没有耐心看那些曲折复杂的情节，另一方面也因为医生凭着他敏锐的感觉，认为阿莫乌尔不会成为任何人的好伙伴。

    医生在星期日的生活就是另一种模样了。他去教堂出席大弥撒，然后回到家中休息，或到院里花坛上去看书。如果没有十分紧急的情况，在这个专为自己保留的日子里他很少出诊。多年以来，除非情不可却，他从来不接受社会义务。圣灵隆临节那天，由于意外的巧合，两年离奇的事凑在了一起：一位朋友之死和一位杰出的学生庆祝从业二十五周年。虽说如此，他并没有如原来预想的那样在证实了阿莫乌尔的死亡以后径直回家，却被好奇心牵到了别的所在。

    他一上车，就把遗书迫不及待地重新看了一遍。他要车夫把他拉到古老奴隶区的一个不易寻找的地方去。这个决定是如此反常，以致车夫想确认一下是否有错。

    没有错，地址很清楚，有充分的理由可以说，写地址的人十分了解它。乌尔比诺医生重新读起了遗书的第一页，他再一次沉浸在那些不怎么受欢迎的大量披露中。假如阿莫乌尔能够使自己相信那些话并不是一个绝望者的梦吃的话，那么，即使到了他这把年纪，生活也还是可以改变的。

    一大早，天空就板起了脸，变了颜色，乌云密布，寒风袭人，然而中午之前并没有下雨的征兆。为了找一条近路，车夫驱车走上了殖民城市铺着石头的崎岖不平的高地，结果他不得不多次停下来，以免那些参加圣灵降临节礼拜仪式归来的学生和教徒们使马匹受惊。街上摆着纸花环，乐队奏着乐曲，鲜花也到处可见，姑娘们打着五颜六色的阳伞，头上戴着薄洋纱飘饰，站在阳台上观看节日队伍通过。教堂广场上，在非洲棕桐树和崭新的球形路灯之间，几乎看不清芙洲解放者西蒙?玻利瓦尔的塑像。弥撒一结束，人们蜂拥走出教堂，堵住了汽车出口处，可敬而喧闹的教区咖啡馆里也挤满了人。乌尔比诺医生的马车是唯一的一辆。这辆马车跟城里留下来的其它几辆屈指可数的马车大不相同。它的漆皮折叠车篷总是保持得明亮耀眼，包角是铜的，为的是不让硝石腐蚀。轮子和车辕都涂成了红色，金色镶边。这种装扮，使人想起维也纳上演歌剧时的盛装夜晚。此外，最爱摆排场的家庭往往允许他们的车夫穿上干净的衬衫，而他却要求车夫穿上软绵绵的天鹅绒制服，戴上马戏团驯兽人的大礼帽。这种衣帽除了不合时宜之外，在加勒比海地区的三伏天里，也似乎欠缺一些怜悯之心。

    尽管乌尔比诺怪腐似地热爱那个城市，并且比任何人都更了解那个城市，他却很少有过象那个星期日那样，毫不犹豫地在那个古老奴隶区的喧嚣中冒险。为了寻找那个地方，车夫不得不绕来绕去，几次停车问路。乌尔比诺医生终于认出了附近肮脏阴郁的泥塘，它的不祥的沉寂，它的溺死者的尸体散发出的恶臭，这种恶臭曾在无数个不眠之夜的黎明跟院子里的茉莉花的芳香混在一起飘进他的卧室。他感到这种恶臭如同昨天的一阵风一般从他的身旁吹过，同他的生活没有任何关系。不过，当马车开始在街道的泥泞路上颠簸而行的时候，那种被他的怀念之情多次理想化了的恶臭就变成了一种难以忍受的现实。污泥地上，几只秃鹫在争食用船锚从屠宰场里拖出来的下水。和总督区石砌房子相反，这里的房子是用陈旧的木材和锌皮搭成的。大多数的房子都架在木桩上，这是为了避免在阳沟涨水时污水涌入。那些阳沟是从西班牙人手中继承下来的。一切都呈现出贫困、凄凉的景象。但是，从肮脏的酒店里还是不时地传来贫苦人既不提上帝，也不涉及圣灵降临节戒条的欢快而又震耳欲聋的乐曲。当他们终于找到了应该找的地方时，马车后面已经紧跟着成群的赤身裸体的孩子。他们嘲笑马车夫那一身演员般的打扮，而马车夫则不得不扬鞭抽喝他们，把他们赶跑。准备进行一次秘密拜访并且让别人道出隐私的乌尔比诺医生，有件事他领悟得太晚了，这就是没有比他那种年龄的天真更危险的天真了。

    这是一所没有门牌号码的房子，从外观上看，除了挂着镶有花边窗帘的窗户和那扇从某个古老教堂拆卸下来的大门外，看不出它和比较贫寒的家庭有什么不同。

    车夫敲着门环叫门，直到问清地址准确无误后，才把医生扶下车。大门已轻轻打开，阴暗的门洞里站着一位成年妇女。她穿着一身黑衣服，耳朵上插着一朵红玫瑰，虽然已年过四十，依旧是一位惹人注目的黑白混血女人。她长着一对金色的严厉的眼睛，头发紧紧地贴在头颅上，宛如一项铁丝做成的帽盔。在照相馆里下棋时他曾几次看见她出现在未来往往的众多的美女之中，有一次他还给她开过几袋治问日疟的金鸡纳霜，但此时乌尔比诺医生并没有认出她来。他向她伸过手去，她用双手握住了他的手，与其说是跟他打招呼，不如说是拉他过去。客厅里摆着馨香袭人的花草，放满了家具和精致的物品，每件东西都错落有致地放在恰当的位置上，令人赏心悦目。乌尔比诺医生毫不费力地回忆起了巴黎一个古董商的小店，时间是在上个世纪的一个秋天的星期一，地点是蒙特马尔特勒大街二十六号。女人在他对面坐下来，用很不熟练的西班牙语对他说：“在这儿您就象在家里一样，医生。”她说，“想不到您竟来得这样快。”

    乌尔比诺医生感到女人已经知道了自己的身份。他仔仔细细地将她上下打量了一番，注意到她身着重孝，神情痛苦而严肃。他这才明白访问是徒劳，的因为她对阿莫乌尔遗书的详细内容比他知道得更多。事情确实如此。他自杀前的几小时她一直在陪伴着他，就像二十年来她怀着柔情忠诚地陪伴他一样。那件事在这个沉睡般的省城里没有一个人知晓，尽管在这里连国家机密都瞒不过公众。他们是在波尔特?奥普林塞的慈善医院里相识的。她出生在那儿，而他又是在那几度过了最初的流亡生活。一年之后，她跟随他来到这儿，进行了一次短暂的造访。他们意见不尽相同，但两个人都清楚，他将永远留在这儿了。她每周一次去他那儿打扫卫生和整理工作室，但是就连最爱往坏处想的居民都没有把表面现象和事实混为一谈，因为他们和所有人一样，认为阿莫乌尔的残废不仅仅在行走方面，这一点，就连马尔比诺医生从医学的角度也是这样肯定的。如果不是阿莫乌尔自己在遗书中披露了这件事的话，医生决不会相信他有一个女人。不管怎么说，两个互不了解对方历史的自由的成年人，摆脱开一个保守社会的种种偏见，选择了侥幸的默默相爱的道路，这对他来说是难以理解的。然而，她自己解释说她喜欢这样做，再说，那个男人从来没有完全属于过她，她同他秘密相爱，他们不止一次体验到了刹那间爆炸性的幸福，在她看来，这无可非议，相反，生活已向他们表明，也许这是最值得赞许的方式。

    前天晚上，他们一起去看电影，各自买了票，坐在隔开的座位上。自从意大利侨民加利莱奥?达孔特在十七世纪一个修道院的废墟上开设了露天电影院以来，他们每个月至少这样去两次。前天的电影虽已过时，但那是以上年一本畅销书为基础改拍的。乌尔比诺医生怀着痛苦的心请读了这本书，因为作者把战争描写得太残忍了。这本书的书名叫《前线无奇事》。然后他们一块去工作室，她发现他心烦意乱，惆怅忧郁，她以为那是因为看了电影里的某些场面所致：垂死的伤兵在淤泥中挣扎，令人不忍目睹。她想驱散他这种情绪，便邀他下棋。为了使她高兴，他答应了，但是心不在焉——当然他用的是白子。后来他发现再有四步，他就要输了，于是不光彩地投了降。医生这时才明白，最后一盘棋的对手是她，而不是他原来以为的赫罗尼莫?阿尔戈特将军。他惊奇得喃喃自语道：“这盘棋下得妙极了！”

    她坚持说赢棋的功劳不在她，而应归于阿莫乌尔，因为他已被死神的信息弄得神志恍惚，没有心绪去把握棋子。当那盘棋中断时，他请求她让他独自留下来。那时大约是十一点一刻，因为舞厅的音乐已经停止。他想写封信给乌尔比诺医生，他认为这位医生是他熟人中最值得尊敬的人，而且也是他的挚友。就像他经常喜欢说的那样，”尽管他们唯一的共同之处就是下棋这个撤好，他仍然这样评价他。他把下棋看做理智的对峙，而不是一门学问。那时她知道阿莫乌尔的末日已到，他的生命只有写一封信的时间了。听了这番话之后，医生真是难以相信。

    “那么说，您当时知道他要死了？”他惊叫道。

    她证实说，她不仅知道，而且十分愿意帮助他分担痛苦，正如当年她怀着同样的感情帮助他发现幸福那样，因为那是他最后的十一个月：一种残酷的垂死挣扎。

    “您的责任是告发他。”医生说。

    “我不能对他做这种事！”她愤怒地说，“我太爱他了。”

    乌尔比诺医生象听海外奇遇一样听着这闻所未闻的故事，她讲得如此直截了当，以致他不能不全神贯注地看着她，企图将她当时的形象永远铭刻在记忆里。她矗立在那里，有如一尊穿着黑衣的冷漠的海神，眼睛象蛇一般，耳朵上插着一朵玫瑰。

    许多年之前，在交欢之后，两个人曾赤身躺在海地一个荒凉的海滩上，阿莫乌尔突然叹息道：“我将青春常在。”当时她理解他的意思是要同时代的灾祸进行英勇的殊死斗争，但是他进一步把话说明了：“我决定到七十岁就离开人间，说到做做，决不反悔。”

    果然，这一年的一月二十三日他年满七十，于是他把最后期限定为圣灵降临节前夕，因为圣灵降临节是这个城市膜拜上帝的最大节日。那天晚上的任何一个细节她都是事先知道的。他们经常在一起谈论那件事。时光流逝，他们对那个无法挽回的局面感到忧心忡忡，肝肠寸断。阿莫乌尔以麻木般的激情爱着生活，爱着大海，爱着他的狗，自然也迷恋着她和爱情。随着日期的临近，他完全绝望了，仿佛他的死不是他自己的决定，而是无情的命运的安排。

    “昨晚当我同意他独自留下后，他就悄然辞别了这个世界。”她说。

    她本想把狗带走，但是他看到狗靠着拐杖昏昏欲睡，便用指尖抚摸它说：“我很遗憾，不过，维尔松将同我在一起。”他在写信时，请求她把狗拴在行军床的床腿上。可是，她打了个活结，以便它能够自然松脱。那是她唯一背信弃义的行为，但这样做是有道理的，她希望从那条狗阴冷的眼睛里永远记住它的主人。乌尔比诺医生打断了她，告诉她那条狗并没有逃生。她说：‘哪是它不愿这样做。”这时，她的情绪一下子活跃起来，因为她更愿意按照阿莫乌尔的意愿来纪念这位已故的情人。当时他正在写信，突然停下笔来，最后看了她一眼，说：“请用一朵玫瑰花纪念我。”

    她回到了家，那时刚过半夜。她和衣躺在床上吸烟，用一个烟蒂点燃另一支烟，为了等他把信写完，她一支接一支吸着。她知道这封信又长又难写。将近三点钟时，狗开始吠叫，她在灶上煮咖啡，并穿起了重孝，然后到院子里去剪下了黎明时分开放的第一朵玫瑰花。乌尔比诺医生早就意识到，他是多么讨厌那个不可救药的女人。

    他有他的道理：只有玩世不恭的人才会从痛苦中得到满足。

    访问结束时，她又对乌尔比诺医生讲了更多的事情。她不想参加葬礼，因为她是这样答应自己的情人的，可是医生认为，信中有一段话内容与此恰恰相反。她不会流一满眼泪，也不想在有生之年记起那个惨死的人来折磨自己。她也不会关起门来埋头编织裹尸布，这对当地的寡妇来说，是司空见惯的事。她打算出卖阿莫乌尔的房子。根据他在信中的遗嘱，这所房子连同里面的东西从现在起都属于她了。她将象往常那样继续生活，安分知足地生活在这块穷人的葬身之地上，因为她在那儿度过了自己的幸福日子。

    在回家的路上，那句话一直回荡在乌尔比诺医生的耳际：“这块穷人的葬身之地。”这个评语是有道理的。那座城市，也就是他所居住的城市，尽管岁月流逝，旧貌仍在：炎热，干燥，充满恐怖的夜晚，享受着独居乐趣的年轻人。在那里，花朵凋谢，食盐发霉，除了月桂树正在日渐萎败和人们正在烂泥塘中慢慢地衰老以外，这座城市四个世纪以来没有发生过任何变化。冬季，阵阵突降的灾难性暴雨使厕所漫溢，把街道变成令人作呕的沼泽地。夏季，一种刺鼻的、有如鲜红的粉末似的看不见的尘埃被狂风吹荡着，透过哪怕堵得再严实的缝隙钻进屋里。可怕的狂风可以掀走屋顶，把孩子们吹到空中。在星期六，那些黑白混血儿吵吵嚷嚷地乱纷纷地离开在泥沼地边上用马粪纸和锌皮搭成的棚屋，带着家畜和炊具，来到殖民区多石的海滩举行他们的欢宴。在那些最年迈的人中，有些人不久前胸脯上还留着用烙铁打上的印记，这是真正的奴隶的标记。周末，他们疯狂地跳舞，豪饮家酿烈性酒，喝得酩酊大醉后在椰林中自由寻欢。星期目半夜时分，他们便以一场全体出动的血腥格斗来代替方丹戈舞。在一周的其它日子里，这一股浩浩荡荡的人流又涌进了老区的广场和小巷，摆起小摊，做各式各样的生意，他们使死气沉沉的城市变成了散发出煎鱼香味的热闹非凡的集市；展现一种新的生活。

    摆脱西班牙统治，以及随之而来的废除奴隶制，加速了王公贵族们的衰落，而乌尔比诺医生正是在那种环境中出生和成长的。昔日的名门望族静静地呆在他们撤去防卫的宫殿和城堡里，深居简出。在一度十分有效地防止了海盗突袭登陆的用石块砌的城墙上，杂草沿着墙头爬了下来，在石灰粘缝的墙上打开裂缝，哪怕它是本市最豪华的府邸。下午两点钟，这些府邸唯一有生气的标志就是在午休的昏暗时刻传出无精打采的练琴声。里面，在充满香气的凉爽的卧室里，女人们躲避阳光就像躲避瘟疫那样。即使在做早弥撒的时候，她们也用毛巾蒙着脸。她们的爱情来得又迟缓又艰难，而且往往被不祥的预兆扰乱，生命在她们看来是无尽头的。傍晚时分，在交通拥挤的时刻，黑压压的长脚坟子从沼泽地里飞起来，好像一团团乌云，追赶着路上的行人。同时，难闻的人粪尿味也从那儿涌来，热乎乎地扑到人脸上，扰得他们心烦意乱，确信那是死神送来的信息。

    年轻的乌尔比诺在令人忧郁的巴黎常常怀念的那座殖民城市的生活，此刻也只不过是记忆中的一场幻梦。在十八世纪，它的贸易在加勒比海地区是最繁荣的，尤其是由于它的令人诅咒的非人的特权——这里是美洲最大的黑奴市场。此外，它还是新格拉纳达王国总督的传统驻晔之地。总督们喜欢呆在那儿，面向世上的大洋进行统治，而不愿意住在遥远寒冷的首都，生怕首都连绵不断的毛毛雨打乱他们对现实的理解和认识。满载波多西、基多和维拉克鲁斯的巨大财富往来于美洲和西班牙的大船队，一年几度要在这里的港口汇集，那是这个城市最荣耀的黄金时代。一七八年六月八日，星期五，下午四点钟，圣约瑟大帆船载着时价五千亿比索的宝石和贵金属起航，开往加的斯，刚出港口就被一支英国舰队击沉，直到漫长的两个世纪以后还没有打捞上来。那批躺在海底珊瑚间的财富和斜着身子漂在指挥台上的船长的尸体，经常被历史学家们作为那座被淹没在记忆中的城市的象征提及。

    乌尔比诺医生的家坐落在港湾另一边的拉曼加住宅区。那是一幢旧式房子，一座宽大凉爽的平房，室外平台上建有陶立克式的柱廊，从平台可以看到散发着瘴气、布满遇难船只残骸的水塘。从门口到厨房，地板上都铺着黑白相间的方格瓷砖。不止一次，这一建筑都归因于乌尔比诺医生的别出心裁，而忘记了那是本世纪初叶，建筑那个暴发户住宅区的加泰隆尼亚建筑师们的共同弱点。宽敞的客厅象家中所有的房间一样，天花板很高，临街有六扇落地窗。客厅有一扇巨大的石色古香的玻璃门和饭厅隔开，上面雕着茂密的葡萄藤和一串串的葡萄，还有金色的林中牧神和受他的芦笛诱引的姑娘。客厅里的家具，包括活哨兵似的壁钟在内，都是清一色的十九世纪的英国货，吊灯上装饰着水晶坠子，苏雷斯的各式花瓶和异教的石膏情人小雕像处处可见。但是，那种欧洲家具在家里的其他地方并不多见。在别的房间里，既摆着藤制扶手软椅，也有维也纳摇椅和当地手工制作的皮靠背椅。卧室里除了床，还有圣?哈辛托的豪华帆布躺椅。躺椅上用丝线以哥特文字绣着主人的名字，四周还垂着彩色的流苏。饭厅的一旁有一块地方，原来是用来举行盛大宴会的，后来成了小音乐厅，每当出色的演奏者来到本市时，主人便邀亲朋好友来开音乐会。花瓷砖地面上铺着从巴黎万国博览会上买来的土耳其地毯，为的是使环境更为幽静。近处摆着整整齐齐的唱片架，放着一台时新的电唱机。在房间的一角，有一架用马尼拉大披巾盖着的钢琴，乌尔比诺医生已有多年不弹琴了。这个家里，到处可以看出一个务实的女人的精明和操劳。

    然而，最庄严肃穆的地方要算书房了。它可谓乌尔比诺医生在进入老年以前的圣殿。那里，在他父亲的胡桃木写字台和皮革安乐椅四周，镶满一道道上过釉的搁板，把墙壁甚至窗户都遮得严严实实。搁板上整整齐齐地放着三千册书，全部用小牛皮精装，书脊烫金。其它房间都充满港口的喧闹和污浊空气，书房恰恰相反，它有着修道院的宁静和芬芳。乌尔比诺医生和他的妻子是在加勒比海海边诞生和长大的，那儿有一种迷信的说法：打开门窗可以引进实际上并不存在的凉爽空气。所以起初他们关在那座书房里感到呼吸局促。但是，最后他们终于相信了罗马人对付炎热的好办法，就是在闷热的八月，白天把门窗全部关闭，不让街上的热空气进来，晚上有风时再把它们统统打开。从那个时候起，他们的房子就成了拉曼加区炎炎赤日下最阴凉的所在了。在卧室的昏暗中睡午觉，下午坐在柱廊上观看新奥尔良满载货物的沉重的灰色货船和水船通过，真是一种美好的享受。这些木船一到黄昏就点燃起全部灯火，呜呜地鸣响着，清除滞留在港口的垃圾。每年十二月份至翌年三月份，来自北方的信风掀开屋顶，夜间象饿狼似的在屋子周围呼啸不止，打着转转寻找缝隙企图钻进屋里时，乌尔比诺的书房也是保护得最好的。谁都不会去想，住在那样一幢房子里的夫妇有什么理由会是不幸福的。

    尽管如此，乌尔比诺医生在那天早晨十点钟赶回家时并没有感到什么幸福。两次拜访弄得他心神不安，脑袋昏昏沉沉。这两次拜访不仅使他误了圣灵降临节的弥撒，而且有可能使他变成一个和他心力交瘁的年龄不相称的另一个人。他本想在跟拉西德斯?奥尔贝利亚医生一起用丰盛的午餐之前睡个午觉，但是仆人们却在乱哄哄地追捕一只脱笼飞走的鹦鹉。仆人们把它从笼子里抓出来，想替它剪翅膀，它却冷不防飞到了芒果树最高的枝上。那是一只秀毛的怪鹦鹉。训练它讲话时它死不张嘴，但有时却愣头愣脑地自言自语起来。眼下它开了胜，而且那种清晰的语调和才智，即使在人的身上也是不常见的。鹦鹉是乌尔比诺医生亲自驯化的，这使官享有全家人谁都没有的特权，就连他儿子在小时都没有这种特权。

    鹦鹉已在医生家里养了二十多年，谁也不知道它以前活了多少年。每天下午午睡之后，乌尔比诺医生坐在院中的花坛上，与鹦鹉为伴。花坛是家里最凉爽的地方，他以教育家的热情，勤奋地训练那只鹦鹉，直到它能象大学教授一般讲地道的法文。

    之后，纯属对它的过分宠爱，医生又教会它用拉丁文为做弥撒伴唱，并背诵《马太福音》的一些片断。他还企图给它灌输算术上的加减乘除四个概念，但是没有成功。

    在他最后几次到欧洲旅行时，有一次他带了一个有喇叭的留声机，还有很多流行唱片和他喜欢的古典作典家的唱片。在几个月之间，他让鹦鹉日复一日地听吉尔布特和布鲁安谱写的歌曲，这两位作曲家上个世纪在法国曾红极一时，鹦鹉终于把他们的歌曲背熟了。它能用女人的嗓音唱女士歌曲，用男高音唱男士歌曲，唱到最后还来一阵纵声大笑，跟女仆们听它用法语唱歌时的哄笑不差分毫。这个鹦鹉的美名远扬，几乎无人不知，以致某些从内地乘船来的贵客都来求见。有一次，几个英国旅游者不惜一切代价要把它买走。那个时期，许多英国旅游者都乘新奥尔良的海盗船打那儿经过。然而，鹦鹉最荣耀的一天是共和国总统马尔科?菲德尔?苏阿雷斯带着他的全体内阁部长屈尊驾临，他们想来证实一下它是否真的象传说那样神奇。他们大约在下午三时到达，头戴大礼帽，身穿呢料大礼服，这一身打扮使他们热得透不过气来。他们在赤日炎炎的八月，在整整三小时的访问中，不曾有片刻宽衣。他们乘兴而来，败兴而归，因为在令人难以忍受的两个小时中，鹦鹉始终一言不发，请求和威胁都无济于事。乌尔比诺医生羞愧得无地自容，因为他对妻子明智的劝告置之不理，固执地发出了鲁莽的邀请。

    在那一历史性的轻举妄动之后，鹦鹉仍然保持了它的特权，这一点，证明它在这个家庭里始终享有神圣的权利。在那个家里，除了陆龟之外，不准豢养任何动物。

    那陆龟曾失踪过三、四年，人们以为它一去不回了，可后来又重新出现在厨房里，不过，人们并不把它看成生灵，只把它看做交好运的含矿物质的护身符。至于这个护身符到底起不起作用，谁也说不清楚。乌尔比诺医生拒不承认他憎恶动物，他用各种科学的杜撰和哲学的遁辞来掩饰这一点。他的那些冠冕堂皇的道理征服了许多人，唯独没有征服他的妻子。他说，如果谁爱上了动物，就会对人类做出最残忍的事情来。他说狗并不忠诚，而是奴性十足；猫是机会主义者和叛徒；孔雀是死神的传令官；兔子使人贪心；猴子能传染色情狂；而公鸡是罪该万死的东西，因为它们甘愿三次拒绝为基督效劳。

    他的妻子费尔米纳?达萨却相反，那时她已七十二岁，不能再如从前那样外出狩猎，但她对热带花草和家养动物着实爱得发疯。刚结婚的时候，她利用方兴未艾的爱情，在家中养了许多动物，简直有点违反理智。最初饲养的是三条以罗马皇帝命名的南斯拉夫达尔马提亚狗，它们为争风吃醋互相残杀。争夺的母狗不愧叫梅萨利娜，因为它刚产下九个小狗就又怀了十个。以后又饲养了阿比西尼亚猫，它们有老鹰的外貌，法老的风度，逞罗人的斜眼，波斯王朝大臣的橙色眼珠。夜晚，它们象幽灵的影子一般在卧室里窜来窜去，发情求偶的叫声搅得人们难以入梦。有几年，院子里芒果树上挂着一只亚马逊长尾猴，它被拦腰捆着，委实令人同情，因为它有着奥布杜利奥大主教和国王的悲天悯人的外表，天真的目光，还有一双富有感染力的灵活的双手，但是费尔米纳并非因此而抛弃了它，而是因为它有以向贵妇们献殷勤而自鸣得意的坏习惯。

    在走廊上的笼子里，她养了各种各样危地马拉小鸟，家中还养了先兆鸳鸯和黄色长腿的泥塘里的鸳鸯，以及一头小鹿，这只小鹿经常从窗口探进头来啃花瓶里的花枝。最后一次国内战争前不久，当第一次传说教皇可能采访时，他们从危地马拉弄来了一只天堂鸟。可是，当获悉政府宣布教皇来访只不过是用来吓唬密谋反抗的自由人的谎言时，那只鸟便被送回它的故上去了，而且回去得比来时还快。另有一次，他们在荷属库拉索奥岛的走私者的帆船上买了关在铁丝笼里的香乌鸦，一共六只。这些乌鸦和费尔米纳小时候在娘家驯养的一模一样。她结婚后仍然想养这种乌鸦。但是，那些乌鸦不停地拍击翅膀，使整个家里弥漫着丧仪花圈的气味，谁都忍受不了。他们还养了一条四米长的蟒蛇，这个不服猎手的飒飒声扰乱了寝室夜间的安宁，尽管他们利用它达到了自己的目的：用它那死神般的呼吸吓跑骗幅和珠爆，以及多种在雨季侵入家中的害虫。乌尔比诺不仅职业上忙得不可开交，而且还有许多社会文化活动，所以照他看来，在那么多令人讨厌的生灵中，只要他的妻子不仅是加勒比海地区最漂亮的女人，而且是最幸福的女人，他就知足了。可是，在一个雨天的下午，当他结束了一天的工作疲惫不堪地回家时，看到的一场悲剧使他重新回到了现实生活。从会客室直至视力所及之处，一长排动物的尸体漂浮在血泊之中，女仆们爬到椅子上不知所措，对这场大屠杀惊魂未定。

    事情的起因几条德国大猎狗中有一条突然得了严重的狂犬病，失去了理智，见什么咬什么，亏得邻居家的园丁胆略过人，挥起砍刀把它杀死。不知那条狗咬死了多少动物，也不知它用绿色的唾沫传染了多少动物，因此，乌尔比诺医生下令对全部幸存者熗杀勿论，并把它们弄到一个偏僻的处所烧掉。他还请慈善医院的工作人员到家里来进行了一次彻底消毒。唯一得救的是一只象征好运的雄陆龟，因为谁也没有想到它。

    费尔米纳史无前例地在一件家务事上称赞丈夫做得有理，此后许久也没有再提动物的事。她拿林奈的帕然史》彩色插图作为消遣，使自己得到慰藉。她把那些彩色插图镶上镜框挂在客厅里，倘苦不是一天黎明盗贼砸开浴室的窗户偷走了一套五代相传的银制餐具的话，也许她终身再也不愿意在家中看到一只动物了。乌尔比诺医生在窗外的铁环上加了双领，用铁门闩把大门插得死死的，把贵重的东西锁进保险柜，并且从此培养了睡觉时把手熗放在枕头下面的战时习惯。然而，即使盗贼把他们洗劫一空，他也反对买一条恶狗来看家，不管那狗是否接受过防疫注射，也不管是把它放开还是用锁链挂起来。

    “不会说话的东西不准进咱们的家11。”’他说。

    为了不再让妻子啧啧叨叨地纠缠，乌尔比诺医生说出了这句斩钉截铁的话。他的妻子固执地想再买一条狗，压根儿没想假如狗在家中一条一条地繁殖起来，终有一天会使她丧命。费尔米纳的任性，随着年龄的增长也逐渐地变了，她立即抓住丈夫话中的漏洞，在家中被盗几个月后，重新回到库拉索奥海盗们的帆船上，买来了一只真正的帕拉马里博鹦鹉。这只鹦鹉只会说水手们的骂人话，可是它说得跟真人一模一样。十二个生太伏的价钱虽说贵了点儿，但还是很值得的。

    那是一只良种鹦鹉，比想象的还要聪明。它黄脑袋，黑舌头，这是跟曼格雷鹦鹉的唯一不同之处。曼格雷鹦鹉即使用松节油栓剂也不能让它们学会说话。乌尔比诺医生是个有气魄的男子，他在妻子的才智面前心悦诚服地认输了。那只鹦鹉的进步使他兴趣盎然，他对自己的转变也感到惊讶。一到雨天的下午，鹦鹉由于羽毛浸湿而感到惬意，便说一些从前的老话，这些话在这个家里是没人说过的。后来，医生态度上的最后一点保留也取消了。那是一个夜晚，盗贼打算从屋顶平台的天窗上钻进来，鹦鹉居然用猛犬的吠声把他们吓跑了。它模仿得非常逼真，它还高喊有贼，有贼，有贼，这两个有趣的呼救的词儿也不是在这个家里学的。从此，医生亲自负起照料鹦鹉之责。他吩咐在芒果树下面搭个支架，放一个盛水的小碗和盛熟香蕉的容器，外带一个吊杆，供鹦鹉练走绳索的本事。从十二月到翌年三月，晚寒袭人，北风使鹦鹉在户外不能居住时，他们便把它装进一只罩着毛毯的笼子，让它睡在卧室里，尽管乌尔比诺医生知道它的慢性鼻疽病对人的正常的呼吸是有害的。多年以来，他们总是把它的翅膀剪短，把它撒在院子里，让它象个老骑上似的弯着身子，自由地踱来踱去。但是，有一天它在厨房的横梁上兴致勃勃地做起了杂技演员的动作，一下子掉进了木薯香蕉肉菜锅里。它吱吱喳喳地呼叫求救，幸好厨娘用大汤勺把它舀了起来，虽说热汤把它的羽毛烫掉了，它还是活了下来。从那时开始，甚至在白天，他们都把它关在笼子里，尽管人们常说关在笼子里的鹦鹉会忘掉学会的东西。只有在下午四点钟天气凉爽时才把它放出来，由乌尔比诺医生在院子的花坛前给它上课。谁也没有及时注意到它的翅膀长得太长了，那天早晨女仆们正准备为它剪翅膀，没想到它居然飞到芒果树冠上去了。

    她们费了整整三个小时还没有捉住它。在邻居的女仆帮助下，她们用了种种办法想把它骗下来，也无济于事，它继续顽固地停在原地不动，还放声大笑，使劲地高呼自由党万岁，扯蛋的自由党万岁。这种胆大妄为的呼叫，近来已经使四、五个幸福的醉汉送了命。乌尔比诺医生望着在茂密的树枝间肆无忌惮的鹦鹉；用西班牙语、法语、甚至拉丁语规劝它，鹦鹉则用同样的语言，同样强调的声调，同样的音色来回答他，赖在那儿一动不动。看到好言相劝无效，乌尔比诺医生便吩咐求助于消防队员，他们是他在本市的最新的玩具。

    确实，不久前，火灾都是让声愿人员架起泥瓦匠的梯子，用水桶来泼水扑灭的，他们的秩序是如此紊乱，以致造成的灾难比火灾更为严重。但是，前年开始，由于公共福利社——乌尔比诺医生是这个团体的名誉主席——的募捐，这儿有了一个职业消防队和一辆配有警报器、警铃和两条高压水龙带的贮水卡车。一切都是现代化的。当听到教堂敲钟报警时，为了让孩子们看消防队救火，学校甚至宣布停课。最初，消防队的任务只是救火，但是乌尔比诺医生告诉市政当局，他在汉堡看到消防队员们曾救活了一个在三天大雪之后冻僵在地窖里的孩子，他还在那不勒斯的一个小巷里，看到消防队员从第十层楼的阳台上把一具装着死人的棺材运下来——因为楼梯弯弯曲曲，家人无法把棺材抬出来。这样，这儿的消防队员便学会了其它紧急服务项目，如撬锁开门和杀死毒蛇。医学专科学校为他们专门开了一般事故急救课。

    因此，请消防队把一只跟绅士一般具有种种美德的高贵鹦鹉从树上捉将下来自然也是义不容辞之责。乌尔比诺医生说：“请告诉他们，这是我的鹦鹉。”说罢他便去寝室换衣服，准备出席丰盛的午宴。事实上，这会儿他已被阿莫乌尔的信弄得昏头昏脑，并没有把鹦鹉的命运放在心上。

   费尔米纳穿了一件齐臀的又宽又松的丝绸衬衣，戴了一条长长的绕了大小六圈的真珍珠项链，穿着一双只是在非常庄重的场合才穿的高跟缎子鞋，年龄已不允许她经常打扮了。对一个可敬的老太太来说，时髦的华丽服饰已不太合乎时宜，但穿在她身上还是挺合适的。她的身材修长而挺拔，一双富有弹性的手还没有一块老年斑，粗硬的头发闪出蓝钢般的光芒，在面颊两侧对衬地剪得整整齐齐。跟她的结婚照片相比，此时唯一留下的是那双明亮清澈的杏仁眼和民族的自豪感，不过在她身上，由于年龄而减少的东西却在性格上得到了补偿，而勤奋使她赢得的东西，更超．过了年龄使她失去的东西。这身衣服使她感到很舒适。她既没有偷偷地束胸，也没有束腰，更没有人为地用布将臀部垫高。她的身体各个部位都是自由自在的，呼吸也是舒畅的。总之，她身体的轮廓显现的是自己的本来面目。这就是七十二岁的费尔米纳?达萨。

    乌尔比诺医生看到她坐在梳妆台前，电扇在她头顶上缓缓转动。她正在戴一项钟形的帽子，帽上装饰着紫罗兰型的绒花。寝室宽敞而明亮，英国式的床上挂着玫瑰色针织蚊帐，两扇窗户朝院里的树木敞开着，刺耳的蝉鸣从那儿传进来，预示着快要下雨了。从蜜月旅行回来后，费尔米纳一向根据气候和场合给丈夫挑选衣服，头天晚上就把它整整齐齐叠好放在椅子上，以便他从浴室出来时就能穿上。她不记得从什么时候开始，先是帮他穿衣服，后来就干脆替他穿衣服。她记得这样做，最初是由于爱他，但是自从五年前开始，她就非这样做不可了，因为他自己已经不能穿衣服了。他们刚刚庆祝过金婚。他们相依为命，谁也离不了谁，谁也不能不顾谁，否则他们一刻也活不下去。随着年龄的增长，他们对这种感情越来越不理解。无论是他还是她，都说不清这种互相依赖是建立在爱情还是舒适的基础上。但是他们从来没有考虑过这个问题，因为两上人都不愿意去找这个答案。

    她已经逐渐发现了丈夫脚步声的拖沓，情绪的变化无常。记忆力的衰退，最近甚至常常在睡梦中哭泣。但她没有把这些看做是迅速老化的确凿无疑的征兆，反而认为是返老还童的表现。因此，她没有把他当做生活难以自理的老人看待，而是把他当做孩童。这种自欺欺人，对他们两个人来说，也可以说是一种天意，使他们避免了互相怜悯。

    如果能及时懂得绕开婚姻脚种种灾难比绕开日常的微不足道的贫困更为容易的话，他们的生活就会大不相同。但是，如果说他们俩在共同生活中也体会了点什么的话，那就是明智只是在吃了苦头之后才来到他们身边。多少年来，费尔米纳一直怀着冷酷的心情忍受着丈夫在黎明时分欢快地醒来。当他以孩子般的天真醒来时——他觉得每过一天，他又长大了一点——她却仍紧紧抓住最后的一丝困意，不愿去正视每一个新的清晨的不祥之兆所预示的必然的命运。鸡刚打鸣，他就醒来了，他活着的第一个标志是一声无缘无故的咳嗽，好像是故意要把她惊醒。她听到他一边摸索床边的拖鞋，一边嘟嘟嚷嚷，唯一的目的就是使她不得安宁。然后在黑暗中咯咯地迈步走到浴室。一个钟头之后，她又睡了一觉醒来，听到他从书房里回来，摸着黑穿衣服。有一次在客厅里玩牌，人们问他怎样看自己，他说：“我是一个夜游神。”她听得明明白白，那些声响没有一种是必不可少的，而他却偏偏故意弄出来给她听，还装做是不可避免的。这正如她明明醒着，却装做睡着一样。他的理由是不容置疑的：他从来没有象在这些惶恐的时刻那么需要她，需要她活着，并且头脑清醒。

    她的睡态比谁都高雅，她给曲的身子摆成一种舞蹈姿势，把一只手放在额上。

    但是，当她想睡而不能入睡时，她比谁都暴躁。乌尔比诺医生知道她在等待他弄出哪怕是最小的声音，甚至会因此而感谢他，因为那样她就可以将早上五点钟就被吵醒的过错推倭给他了。事情确实如此，有几次他找不到拖鞋，不得不在黑暗中摸索时，她突然以睡意蒙脆的声音说：“昨晚你把它放在浴室里了。”接着她又以清醒的声调斥骂道：“这个家，最倒霉的就是不让人睡觉。”

    于是，她打开灯，没好气地在床上翻来覆去，为这一天的初战告捷而洋洋得意。

    实际上，那是双方的一种神秘而恶劣的游戏，但却使她感到惬意，因为它是夫妇之间既冒险而又轻松的事情之一。可是，正是由于这种轻俘的游戏，他们在开始共同生活了三十年之后，险些为某一天浴室里有没有肥皂的事儿闹得各奔东西。

    事情是由一件不值一提的日常小事引起的。当时，乌尔比诺还能够独立洗澡。

    他回到卧室，开始摸着黑穿衣服。她跟往常一样，到这时还象婴儿似的甜甜地躺在那儿，闭着眼睛，微微地呼吸，把那只女舞踏家的手臂庄严地放在头顶上。但是，她也象往常一样，似睡非睡，这他知道。浆过的亚麻衫在黑暗中沙沙响了一阵之后，乌尔比诺医生自言自语道：“差不多有一个星期我洗澡没找到肥皂了。”他说。

    她终于醒过来了，想起了那件事，气鼓鼓地翻了个身，因为她准是忘记在浴室里搁肥皂了。三天之前，她就发现没有肥皂了，但当时已站在喷头下，她打算以后再去拿。然而第二天，她把这件事忘了。第三天又忘了，实际上不是如他说的那样一个星期没有肥皂，他那样说是为了夸大她的过失，但是三天没有肥皂，却是事实，这是推倭不了的。被别人抓住了过失，她心中很不是滋味，终于恼羞成怒。象往常一样，她以攻为守了，说：“这些日子我天天洗澡，”她怒气冲冲地叫道，“每次都有肥皂。”

    尽管他很熟悉她的争辨方法，这一次却忍不住了。他随便找了个工作上的借口，搬到慈善医院里的住院处去住，只是在黄昏外出巡诊之前才回家换件衣服。他一回家，她就躲到厨房去，装着干这干那，直到听见他乘马车走了才出来。在以后的三个月中，他们也曾几次想解决纠纷，结果火却越投越旺。在她不承认浴室没有肥皂之前，他不准备回家。而她呢，在他不承认自己故意说谎话折磨她前，也不想让他回来。

    自然，这次冲突又使他们想起了其它的冲突，想起了在许许多多灰暗的黎明发生过的数不清的小纠纷。一些恼怒引起了另一些恼怒，老伤疤被重新揭开变成了新伤疤。他们痛苦地看到，多年的争吵仅仅培养了夫妇间的仇视，这一点使他们不寒而栗。他甚至提出如果需要的话，他们可以一同去找大主教做公开忏悔，以便由上帝来裁决，浴室的肥皂盒里到底有没有肥皂。她本来就十分恼怒，这一下更是火上加油，骇人地嚷道：“让大主教先生吃屎去吧！”

    这句话震动了全城，引起的后果难以消除，最后，人们甚至编成流行的小调来打诨：“让大主教先生吃屎去吧广她意识到把话说过了头，便抢在丈夫前做出了反应。她威胁丈夫说，她要一个人搬到她父亲从前的房子里去住，那房子尽管租给了政府部门的办事结构，但仍然归她所有。这并不是虚张声势，她真的要搬走，对社会舆论满不在乎。她丈夫及时注意到了这个动向。他没有勇气向她的固执挑战，只好让步。他的让步并不意味着他承认浴室里有肥皂——设若如此，那是对真理的侮辱——而是为了两个人必须在这个家里继续住下去，但是他们要分室而居，而且互不说话。他们坐在一起吃饭，并且巧妙地绕开那种僵局，让孩子们从餐桌的一边往另一边传话，而孩子们竟然没有察觉他们互不理睬。

    由于书房里没有浴室，乌尔比诺医生不得不改变他的生活程序，这倒解决了他们清晨吵吵闹闹的矛盾，他把进浴室的时间安排在备课之后，而且轻手轻脚，千方百计地不吵醒妻子。他们在睡前多次凑巧遇在一起，于是就轮流刷牙。四个月之后的某一天，在她从浴室出来之前，他象手时那样躺在双人床上看书，看着看着就睡着了。她从浴室回来后，没好气地躺在他身边，以便让他醒来主动撤退。他半睡半醒，非但没有起来走开，反而吹灭蜡烛，拉拉枕头，舒舒服服地睡了。她推他的肩膀，提醒他应该到书房去睡觉，但是他又一次感到躺在祖传的软床上是如此舒适，于是干脆以妥协的口气商量说：“让我睡在这儿吧。”他说，“你说得对，浴室里有肥皂。”

    当回忆起这段发生在他们已近老年的插曲时，无论他还是她都不能相信那一令人惊奇的事实，那场争吵是他们在半个世纪的共同生活中最严重的一次，而也正是由于这场争吵，使他们产生了言归于好，开始一种新的生活的想法。尽管她们年事已高，应该和睦相处，他们还是注意不再提起这件事，因为否则的话，刚刚愈合的伤口会重新出血，旧恨又会变成新怨。

    他是使费尔米纳听见小便声的第一个男人。那是在新婚之夜，在他们乘坐的开往法国的轮船船舱里。当时她由于晕船而浑身无力，他的喷泉似的小便如此强劲有力，简直象匹公马似的，这更增加了她对那一“灾难”的畏惧心理。随着年龄的增长，他小便的劲头也日趋减弱，那一回忆却经常京绕在她的脑海里，因为她从不允许他把便池的边缘弄湿。乌尔比诺医生想用一种任何人都能懂的浅显的道理说服她，让她明白他所以把便地弄湿

引用

Chapter 1

IT WAS INEVITABLE: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequitedlove. Dr. Juvenal Urbino noticed it as soon as he entered the still darkened house where he had hurried on an urgent call to attend a case that for him had lost all urgency many years before. TheAntillean refugee Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, disabled war veteran, photographer of children, andhis most sympathetic opponent in chess, had escaped the torments of memory with the aromaticfumes of gold cyanide.

He found the corpse covered with a blanket on the campaign cot where he had always slept,and beside it was a stool with the developing tray he had used to vaporise the poison. On the floor,tied to a leg of the cot, lay the body of a black Great Dane with a snow-white chest, and next tohim were the crutches. At one window the splendour of dawn was just beginning to illuminate thestifling, crowded room that served as both bedroom and laboratory, but there was enough light forhim to recognise at once the authority of death. The other windows, as well as every other chink inthe room, were muffled with rags or sealed with black cardboard, which increased the oppressiveheaviness. A counter was crammed with jars and bottles without labels and two crumbling pewtertrays under an ordinary light bulb covered with red paper. The third tray, the one for the fixativesolution, was next to the body. There were old magazines and newspapers everywhere, piles ofnegatives on glass plates, broken furniture, but everything was kept free of dust by a diligent hand.

Although the air coming through the window had purified the atmosphere, there still remained forthe one who could identify it the dying embers of hapless love in the bitter almonds. Dr. JuvenalUrbino had often thought, with no premonitory intention, that this would not be a propitious placefor dying in a state of grace. But in time he came to suppose that perhaps its disorder obeyed anobscure determination of Divine Providence.

A police inspector had come forward with a very young medical student who was completinghis forensic training at the municipal dispensary, and it was they who had ventilated the room andcovered the body while waiting for Dr. Urbino to arrive. They greeted him with a solemnity thaton this occasion had more of condolence than veneration, for no one was unaware of the degree ofhis friendship with Jeremiah de Saint-Amour. The eminent teacher shook hands with each of them,as he always did with every one of his pupils before beginning the daily class in general clinicalmedicine, and then, as if it were a flower, he grasped the hem of the blanket with the tips of hisindex finger and his thumb, and slowly uncovered the body with sacramental circumspection.

Jeremiah de Saint-Amour was completely naked, stiff and twisted, eyes open, body blue, lookingfifty years older than he had the night before. He had luminous pupils, yellowish beard and hair,and an old scar sewn with baling knots across his stomach. The use of crutches had made his torsoand arms as broad as a galley slave's, but his defenceless legs looked like an orphan's. Dr. JuvenalUrbino studied him for a moment, his heart aching as it rarely had in the long years of his futilestruggle against death.

"Damn fool," he said. "The worst was over."He covered him again with the blanket and regained his academic dignity. His eightiethbirthday had been celebrated the year before with an official three-day jubilee, and in his thank-you speech he had once again resisted the temptation to retire. He had said: "I'll have plenty oftime to rest when I die, but this eventuality is not yet part of my plans." Although he heard lessand less with his right ear, and leaned on a silver-handled cane to conceal his faltering steps, hecontinued to wear a linen suit, with a gold watch chain across his vest, as smartly as he had in hisyounger years. His Pasteur beard, the colour of mother-of-pearl, and his hair, the same colour,carefully combed back and with a neat part in the middle, were faithful expressions of his character. He compensated as much as he could for an increasingly disturbing erosion of memoryby scribbling hurried notes on scraps of paper that ended in confusion in each of his pockets, asdid the instruments, the bottles of medicine, and all the other things jumbled together in hiscrowded medical bag. He was not only the city's oldest and most illustrious physician, he was alsoits most fastidious man. Still, his too obvious display of learning and the disingenuous manner inwhich he used the power of his name had won him less affection than he deserved.

His instructions to the inspector and the intern were precise and rapid. There was no need foran autopsy; the odour in the house was sufficient proof that the cause of death had been thecyanide vapours activated in the tray by some photographic acid, and Jeremiah de Saint-Amourknew too much about those matters for it to have been an accident. When the inspector showedsome hesitation, he cut him off with the kind of remark that was typical of his manner: "Don'tforget that I am the one who signs the death certificate." The young doctor was disappointed: hehad never had the opportunity to study the effects of gold cyanide on a cadaver. Dr. JuvenalUrbino had been surprised that he had not seen him at the Medical School, but he understood in aninstant from the young man's easy blush and Andean accent that he was probably a recent arrivalto the city. He said: "There is bound to be someone driven mad by love who will give you thechance one of these days." And only after he said it did he realise that among the countlesssuicides he could remember, this was the first with cyanide that had not been caused by thesufferings of love. Then something changed in the tone of his voice.

"And when you do find one, observe with care," he said to the intern: "they almost alwayshave crystals in their heart."Then he spoke to the inspector as he would have to a subordinate. He ordered him tocircumvent all the legal procedures so that the burial could take place that same afternoon andwith the greatest discretion. He said: "I will speak to the Mayor later." He knew that Jeremiah deSaint-Amour lived in primitive austerity and that he earned much more with his art than heneeded, so that in one of the drawers in the house there was bound to be more than enough moneyfor the funeral expenses.

"But if you do not find it, it does not matter," he said. "I will take care of everything."He ordered him to tell the press that the photographer had died of natural causes, although hethought the news would in no way interest them. He said: "If it is necessary, I will speak to theGovernor." The inspector, a serious and humble civil servant, knew that the Doctor's sense of civicduty exasperated even his closest friends, and he was surprised at the ease with which he skippedover legal formalities in order to expedite the burial. The only thing he was not willing to do wasspeak to the Archbishop so that Jeremiah de Saint-Amour could be buried in holy ground. Theinspector, astonished at his own impertinence, attempted to make excuses for him.

"I understood this man was a saint," he said.

"Something even rarer," said Dr. Urbino. "An atheistic saint. But those are matters for God todecide."In the distance, on the other side of the colonial city, the bells of the Cathedral were ringingfor High Mass. Dr. Urbino put on his half-moon glasses with the gold rims and consulted thewatch on its chain, slim, elegant, with the cover that opened at a touch: he was about to missPentecost Mass.

In the parlour was a huge camera on wheels like the ones used in public parks, and the backdrop of a marine twilight, painted with homemade paints, and the walls papered with picturesof children at memorable moments: the first Communion, the bunny costume, the happy birthday.

Year after year, during contemplative pauses on afternoons of chess, Dr. Urbino had seen thegradual covering over of the walls, and he had often thought with a shudder of sorrow that in thegallery of casual portraits lay the germ of the future city, governed and corrupted by thoseunknown children, where not even the ashes of his glory would remain.

On the desk, next to a jar that held several old sea dog's pipes, was the chessboard with anunfinished game. Despite his haste and his sombre mood, Dr. Urbino could not resist thetemptation to study it. He knew it was the previous night's game, for Jeremiah de Saint-Amourplayed at dusk every day of the week with at least three different opponents, but he alwaysfinished every game and then placed the board and chessmen in their box and stored the box in adesk drawer. The Doctor knew he played with the white pieces and that this time it was evident hewas going to be defeated without mercy in four moves. "If there had been a crime, this would be agood clue," Urbino said to himself. "I know only one man capable of devising this masterful trap."If his life depended on it, he had to find out later why that indomitable soldier, accustomed tofighting to the last drop of blood, had left the final battle of his life unfinished.

At six that morning, as he was making his last rounds, the night watchman had seen the notenailed to the street door: Come in without knocking and inform the police. A short while later theinspector arrived with the intern, and the two of them had searched the house for some evidencethat might contradict the unmistakable breath of bitter almonds. But in the brief minutes theDoctor needed to study the unfinished game, the inspector discovered an envelope among thepapers on the desk, addressed to Dr. Juvenal Urbino and sealed with so much sealing wax that ithad to be ripped to pieces to get the letter out. The Doctor opened the black curtain over thewindow to have more light, gave a quick glance at the eleven sheets covered on both sides by adiligent handwriting, and when he had read the first paragraph he knew that he would missPentecost Communion. He read with agitated breath, turning back on several pages to find thethread he had lost, and when he finished he seemed to return from very far away and very longago. His despondency was obvious despite his effort to control it: his lips were as blue as thecorpse and he could not stop the trembling of his fingers as he refolded the letter and placed it inhis vest pocket. Then he remembered the inspector and the young doctor, and he smiled at themthrough the mists of grief.

"Nothing in particular," he said. "His final instructions."It was a half-truth, but they thought it complete because he ordered them to lift a loose tilefrom the floor, where they found a worn account book that contained the combination to thestrongbox. There was not as much money as they expected, but it was more than enough for thefuneral expenses and to meet other minor obligations. Then Dr. Urbino realised that he could notget to the Cathedral before the Gospel reading.

"It's the third time I've missed Sunday Mass since I've had the use of my reason," he said.

"But God understands."So he chose to spend a few minutes more and attend to all the details, although he couldhardly bear his intense longing to share the secrets of the letter with his wife. He promised tonotify the numerous Caribbean refugees who lived in the city in case they wanted to pay their lastrespects to the man who had conducted himself as if he were the most respectable of them all, the most active and the most radical, even after it had become all too clear that he had beenoverwhelmed by the burden of disillusion. He would also inform his chess partners, who rangedfrom distinguished professional men to nameless labourers, as well as other, less intimateacquaintances who might perhaps wish to attend the funeral. Before he read the posthumous letterhe had resolved to be first among them, but afterward he was not certain of anything. In any case,he was going to send a wreath of gardenias in the event that Jeremiah de Saint-Amour hadrepented at the last moment. The burial would be at five, which was the most suitable hour duringthe hottest months. If they needed him, from noon on he would be at the country house of Dr. Lides Olivella, his beloved disciple, who was celebrating his silver anniversary in the professionwith a formal luncheon that day.

Once the stormy years of his early struggles were over, Dr. Juvenal Urbino had followed a setroutine and achieved a respectability and prestige that had no equal in the province. He arose atthe crack of dawn, when he began to take his secret medicines: potassium bromide to raise hisspirits, salicylates for the ache in his bones when it rained, ergosterol drops for vertigo, belladonnafor sound sleep. He took something every hour, always in secret, because in his long life as adoctor and teacher he had always opposed prescribing palliatives for old age: it was easier for himto bear other people's pains than his own. In his pocket he always carried a little pad of camphorthat he inhaled deeply when no one was watching to calm his fear of so many medicines mixedtogether.

He would spend an hour in his study preparing for the class in general clinical medicine thathe taught at the Medical School every morning, Monday through Saturday, at eight o'clock, untilthe day before his death. He was also an avid reader of the latest books that his bookseller in Parismailed to him, or the ones from Barcelona that his local bookseller ordered for him, although hedid not follow Spanish literature as closely as French. In any case, he never read them in themorning, but only for an hour after his siesta and at night before he went to sleep. When he wasfinished in the study he did fifteen minutes of respiratory exercises in front of the open window inthe bathroom, always breathing toward the side where the roosters were crowing, which waswhere the air was new. Then he bathed, arranged his beard and waxed his moustache in anatmosphere saturated with genuine cologne from Farina Gegenber, and dressed in white linen,with a vest and a soft hat and cordovan boots. At eighty-one years of age he preserved the sameeasygoing manner and festive spirit that he had on his return from Paris soon after the greatcholera epidemic, and except for the metallic colour, his carefully combed hair with the centre partwas the same as it had been in his youth. He breakfasted en famille but followed his own personalregimen of an infusion of wormwood blossoms for his stomach and a head of garlic that he peeledand ate a clove at a time, chewing each one carefully with bread, to prevent heart failure. Afterclass it was rare for him not to have an appointment related to his civic initiatives, or his Catholicservice, or his artistic and social innovations.

He almost always ate lunch at home and had a ten-minute siesta on the terrace in the patio,hearing in his sleep the songs of the servant girls under the leaves of the mango trees, the cries ofvendors on the street, the uproar of oil and motors from the bay whose exhaust fumes flutteredthrough the house on hot afternoons like an angel condemned to putrefaction. Then he read hisnew books for an hour, above all novels and works of history, and gave lessons in French andsinging to the tame parrot who had been a local attraction for years. At four o'clock, after drinking a large glass of lemonade with ice, he left to call on his patients. In spite of his age he would notsee patients in his office and continued to care for them in their homes as he always had, since thecity was so domesticated that one could go anywhere in safety.

After he returned from Europe the first time, he used the family landau, drawn by two goldenchestnuts, but when this was no longer practical he changed it for a Victoria and a single horse,and he continued to use it, with a certain disdain for fashion, when carriages had already begun todisappear from the world and the only ones left in the city were for giving rides to tourists andcarrying wreaths at funerals. Although he refused to retire, he was aware that he was called in onlyfor hopeless cases, but he considered this a form of specialisation too. He could tell what waswrong with a patient just by looking at him, he grew more and more distrustful of patentmedicines, and he viewed with alarm the vulgarisation of surgery. He would say: "The scalpel isthe greatest proof of the failure of medicine." He thought that, in a strict sense, all medication waspoison and that seventy percent of common foods hastened death. "In any case," he would say inclass, "the little medicine we know is known only by a few doctors." From youthful enthusiasm hehad moved to a position that he himself defined as fatalistic humanism: "Each man is master of hisown death, and all that we can do when the time comes is to help him die without fear of pain."But despite these extreme ideas, which were already part of local medical folklore, his formerpupils continued to consult him even after they were established in the profession, for theyrecognised in him what was called in those days a clinical eye. In any event, he was always anexpensive and exclusive doctor, and his patients were concentrated in the ancestral homes in theDistrict of the Viceroys.

His daily schedule was so methodical that his wife knew where to send him a message if anemergency arose in the course of the afternoon. When he was a young man he would stop in theParish Caf?before coming home, and this was where he perfected his chess game with his fatherin-law's cronies and some Caribbean refugees. But he had not returned to the Parish Caf?since thedawn of the new century, and he had attempted to organise national tournaments under thesponsorship of the Social Club. It was at this time that Jeremiah de Saint-Amour arrived, his kneesalready dead, not yet a photographer of children, yet in less than three months everyone who knewhow to move a bishop across a chessboard knew who he was, because no one had been able todefeat him in a game. For Dr. Juvenal Urbino it was a miraculous meeting, at the very momentwhen chess had become an unconquerable passion for him and he no longer had many opponentswho could satisfy it.

Thanks to him, Jeremiah de Saint-Amour could become what he was among us. Dr. Urbinomade himself his unconditional protector, his guarantor in everything, without even taking thetrouble to learn who he was or what he did or what inglorious Avars he had come from in hiscrippled, broken state. He eventually lent him the money to set up his photography studio, andfrom the time he took his first picture of a child startled by the magnesium flash, Jeremiah deSaint-Amour paid back every last penny with religious regularity.

It was all for chess. At first they played after supper at seven o'clock, with a reasonablehandicap for Jeremiah de Saint-Amour because of his notable superiority, but the handicap wasreduced until at last they played as equals. Later, when Don Galileo Daconte opened the firstoutdoor cinema, Jeremiah de Saint-Amour was one of his most dependable customers, and thegames of chess were limited to the nights when a new film was not being shown. By then he and the Doctor had become such good friends that they would go to see the films together, but neverwith the Doctor's wife, in part because she did not have the patience to follow the complicated plotlines, and in part because it always seemed to her, through sheer intuition, that Jeremiah de Saint-Amour was not a good companion for anyone.

His Sundays were different. He would attend High Mass at the Cathedral and then returnhome to rest and read on the terrace in the patio. He seldom visited a patient on a holy day ofobligation unless it was of extreme urgency, and for many years he had not accepted a socialengagement that was not obligatory. On this Pentecost, in a rare coincidence, two extraordinaryevents had occurred: the death of a friend and the silver anniversary of an eminent pupil. Yetinstead of going straight home as he had intended after certifying the death of Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, he allowed himself to be carried along by curiosity.

As soon as he was in his carriage, he again consulted the posthumous letter and told thecoachman to take him to an obscure location in the old slave quarter. That decision was so foreignto his usual habits that the coachman wanted to make certain there was no mistake. No, nomistake: the address was clear and the man who had written it had more than enough reason toknow it very well. Then Dr. Urbino returned to the first page of the letter and plunged once againinto the flood of unsavoury revelations that might have changed his life, even at his age, if hecould have convinced himself that they were not the ravings of a dying man.

The sky had begun to threaten very early in the day and the weather was cloudy and cool, butthere was no chance of rain before noon. In his effort to find a shorter route, the coachman bravedthe rough cobblestones of the colonial city and had to stop often to keep the horse from beingfrightened by the rowdiness of the religious societies and fraternities coming back from thePentecost liturgy. The streets were full of paper garlands, music, flowers, and girls with colouredparasols and muslin ruffles who watched the celebration from their balconies. In the Plaza of theCathedral, where the statue of The Liberator was almost hidden among the African palm trees andthe globes of the new streetlights, traffic was congested because Mass had ended, and not a seatwas empty in the venerable and noisy Parish Caf? Dr. Urbino's was the only horse-drawn carriage;it was distinguishable from the handful left in the city because the patent-leather roof was alwayskept polished, and it had fittings of bronze that would not be corroded by salt, and wheels andpoles painted red with gilt trimming like gala nights at the Vienna Opera. Furthermore, while themost demanding families were satisfied if their drivers had a clean shirt, he still required hiscoachman to wear livery of faded velvet and a top hat like a circus ringmaster's, which, more thanan anachronism, was thought to show a lack of compassion in the dog days of the Caribbeansummer.

Despite his almost maniacal love for the city and a knowledge of it superior to anyone's, Dr.

Juvenal Urbino had not often had reason as he did that Sunday to venture boldly into the tumult ofthe old slave quarter. The coachman had to make many turns and stop to ask directions severaltimes in order to find the house. As they passed by the marshes, Dr. Urbino recognised theiroppressive weight, their ominous silence, their suffocating gases, which on so many insomniacdawns had risen to his bedroom, blending with the fragrance of jasmine from the patio, and whichhe felt pass by him like a wind out of yesterday that had nothing to do with his life. But thatpestilence so frequently idealised by nostalgia became an unbearable reality when the carriagebegan to lurch through the quagmire of the streets where buzzards fought over the slaughterhouse offal as it was swept along by the receding tide. Unlike the city of the Viceroys where the houseswere made of masonry, here they were built of weathered boards and zinc roofs, and most of themrested on pilings to protect them from the flooding of the open sewers that had been inherited fromthe Spaniards. Everything looked wretched and desolate, but out of the sordid taverns came thethunder of riotous music, the godless drunken celebration of Pentecost by the poor. By the timethey found the house, gangs of ragged children were chasing the carriage and ridiculing thetheatrical finery of the coachman, who had to drive them away with his whip. Dr. Urbino,prepared for a confidential visit, realised too late that there was no innocence more dangerous thanthe innocence of age.

The exterior of the unnumbered house was in no way distinguishable from its less fortunateneighbours, except for the window with lace curtains and an imposing front door taken from someold church. The coachman pounded the door knocker, and only when he had made certain that itwas the right house did he help the Doctor out of the carriage. The door opened without a sound,and in the shadowy interior stood a mature woman dressed in black, with a red rose behind her ear.

Despite her age, which was no less than forty, she was still a haughty mulatta with cruel goldeneyes and hair tight to her skull like a helmet of steel wool. Dr. Urbino did not recognise her,although he had seen her several times in the gloom of the chess games in the photographer'sstudio, and he had once written her a prescription for tertian fever. He held out his hand and shetook it between hers, less in greeting than to help him into the house. The parlour had the climateand invisible murmur of a forest glade and was crammed with furniture and exquisite objects, eachin its natural place. Dr. Urbino recalled without bitterness an antiquarian's shop, No .26 rueMontmartre in Paris, on an autumn Monday in the last century. The woman sat down across fromhim and spoke in accented Spanish.

"This is your house, Doctor," she said. "I did not expect you so soon."Dr. Urbino felt betrayed. He stared at her openly, at her intense mourning, at the dignity ofher grief, and then he understood that this was a useless visit because she knew more than he didabout everything stated and explained in Jeremiah de Saint-Amour's posthumous letter. This wastrue. She had been with him until a very few hours before his death, as she had been with him forhalf his life, with a devotion and submissive tenderness that bore too close a resemblance to love,and without anyone knowing anything about it in this sleepy provincial capital where even statesecrets were common knowledge. They had met in a convalescent home in Port-au-Prince, whereshe had been born and where he had spent his early years as a fugitive, and she had followed himhere a year later for a brief visit, although both of them knew without agreeing to anything that shehad come to stay forever. She cleaned and straightened the laboratory once a week, but not eventhe most evil-minded neighbours confused appearance with reality because they, like everyoneelse, supposed that Jeremiah de Saint-Amour's disability affected more than his capacity to walk.

Dr. Urbino himself supposed as much for solid medical reasons, and never would have believedhis friend had a woman if he himself had not revealed it in the letter. In any event, it was difficultfor him to comprehend that two free adults without a past and living on the fringes of a closedsociety's prejudices had chosen the hazards of illicit love. She explained: "It was his wish."Moreover, a clandestine life shared with a man who was never completely hers, and in which theyoften knew the sudden explosion of happiness, did not seem to her a condition to be despised. Onthe contrary: life had shown her that perhaps it was exemplary.

On the previous night they had gone to the cinema, each one separately, and had sat apart asthey had done at least twice a month since the Italian immigrant, Don Galileo Daconte, hadinstalled his open-air theatre in the ruins of a seventeenth-century convent. They saw All Quiet onthe Western Front, a film based on a book that had been popular the year before and that Dr.

Urbino had read, his heart devastated by the barbarism of war. They met afterward in thelaboratory, she found him brooding and nostalgic, and thought it was because of the brutal scenesof wounded men dying in the mud. In an attempt to distract him, she invited him to play chess andhe accepted to please her, but he played inattentively, with the white pieces, of course, until hediscovered before she did that he was going to be defeated in four moves and surrendered withouthonour. Then the Doctor realised that she had been his opponent in the final game, and notGeneral Jer贸 nimo Argote, as he had supposed. He murmured in astonishment: "It wasmasterful!"She insisted that she deserved no praise, but rather that Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, alreadylost in the mists of death, had moved his pieces without love. When he stopped the game at abouta quarter past eleven, for the music from the public dances had ended, he asked her to leave him.

He wanted to write a letter to Dr. Juvenal Urbino, whom he considered the most honourable manhe had ever known, and his soul's friend, as he liked to say, despite the fact that the only affinitybetween the two was their addiction to chess understood as a dialogue of reason and not as ascience. And then she knew that Jeremiah de Saint-Amour had come to the end of his sufferingand that he had only enough life left to write the letter. The Doctor could not believe it.

"So then you knew!" he exclaimed.

She not only knew, she agreed, but she had helped him to endure the suffering as lovingly asshe had helped him to discover happiness. Because that was what his last eleven months had been:

cruel suffering.

"Your duty was to report him," said the Doctor.

"I could not do that," she said, shocked. "I loved him too much."Dr. Urbino, who thought he had heard everything, had never heard anything like that, andsaid with such simplicity. He looked straight at her and tried with all his senses to fix her in hismemory as she was at that moment: she seemed like a river idol, undaunted in her black dress,with her serpent's eyes and the rose behind her ear. A long time ago, on a deserted beach in Haitiwhere the two of them lay naked after love, Jeremiah de Saint-Amour had sighed: "I will never beold." She interpreted this as a heroic determination to struggle without quarter against the ravagesof time, but he was more specific: he had made the irrevocable decision to take his own life whenhe was seventy years old.

He had turned seventy, in fact, on the twenty-third of January of that year, and then he had setthe date as the night before Pentecost, the most important holiday in a city consecrated to the cultof the Holy Spirit. There was not a single detail of the previous night that she had not known aboutahead of time, and they spoke of it often, suffering together the irreparable rush of days thatneither of them could stop now. Jeremiah de Saint-Amour loved life with a senseless passion, heloved the sea and love, he loved his dog and her, and as the date approached he had graduallysuccumbed to despair as if his death had been not his own decision but an inexorable destiny.

"Last night, when I left him, he was no longer of this world," she said.

She had wanted to take the dog with her, but he looked at the animal dozing beside the crutches and caressed him with the tips of his fingers. He said: "I'm sorry, but Mister WoodrowWilson is coming with me." He asked her to tie him to the leg of the cot while he wrote, and sheused a false knot so that he could free himself. That had been her only act of disloyalty, and it wasjustified by her desire to remember the master in the wintry eyes of his dog. But Dr. Urbinointerrupted her to say that the dog had not freed himself. She said: "Then it was because he did notwant to." And she was glad, because she preferred to evoke her dead lover as he had asked her tothe night before, when he stopped writing the letter he had already begun and looked at her for thelast time.

"Remember me with a rose," he said to her.

She had returned home a little after midnight. She lay down fully dressed on her bed, tosmoke one cigarette after another and give him time to finish what she knew was a long anddifficult letter, and a little before three o'clock, when the dogs began to howl, she put the water forcoffee on the stove, dressed in full mourning, and cut the first rose of dawn in the patio. Dr.

Urbino already realised how completely he would repudiate the memory of that irredeemablewoman, and he thought he knew why: only a person without principles could be so complaisanttoward grief.

And for the remainder of the visit she gave him even more justification. She would not go tothe funeral, for that is what she had promised her lover, although Dr. Urbino thought he had readjust the opposite in one of the paragraphs of the letter. She would not shed a tear, she would notwaste the rest of her years simmering in the maggot broth of memory, she would not bury herselfalive inside these four walls to sew her shroud, as native widows were expected to do. Sheintended to sell Jeremiah de Saint-Amour's house and all its contents, which, according to theletter, now belonged to her, and she would go on living as she always had, without complaining, inthis death trap of the poor where she had been happy.

The words pursued Dr. Juvenal Urbino on the drive home: "this death trap of the poor." Itwas not a gratuitous description. For the city, his city, stood unchanging on the edge of time: thesame burning dry city of his nocturnal terrors and the solitary pleasures of puberty, where flowersrusted and salt corroded, where nothing had happened for four centuries except a slow agingamong withered laurels and putrefying swamps. In winter sudden devastating downpours floodedthe latrines and turned the streets into sickening bogs. In summer an invisible dust as harsh as red-hot chalk was blown into even the best-protected corners of the imagination by mad winds thattook the roofs off the houses and carried away children through the air. On Saturdays the poormulattoes, along with all their domestic animals and kitchen utensils, tumultuously abandonedtheir hovels of cardboard and tin on the edges of the swamps and in jubilant assault took over therocky beaches of the colonial district. Until a few years ago, some of the older ones still bore theroyal slave brand that had been burned onto their chests with flaming irons. During the weekendthey danced without mercy, drank themselves blind on home-brewed alcohol, made wild loveamong the icaco plants, and on Sunday at midnight they broke up their own party with bloodyfree-for-alls. During the rest of the week the same impetuous mob swarmed into the plazas andalleys of the old neighbourhoods with their stores of everything that could be bought and sold, andthey infused the dead city with the frenzy of a human fair reeking of fried fish: a new life.

Independence from Spain and then the abolition of slavery precipitated the conditions ofhonourable decadence in which Dr. Juvenal Urbino had been born and raised. The great old families sank into their ruined palaces in silence. Along the rough cobbled streets that had servedso well in surprise attacks and buccaneer landings, weeds hung from the balconies and openedcracks in the whitewashed walls of even the best-kept mansions, and the only signs of life at twoo'clock in the afternoon were languid piano exercises played in the dim light of siesta. Indoors, inthe cool bedrooms saturated with incense, women protected themselves from the sun as if it werea shameful infection, and even at early Mass they hid their faces in their mantillas. Their loveaffairs were slow and difficult and were often disturbed by sinister omens, and life seemedinterminable. At nightfall, at the oppressive moment of transition, a storm of carnivorousmosquitoes rose out of the swamps, and a tender breath of human shit, warm and sad, stirred thecertainty of death in the depths of one's soul.

And so the very life of the colonial city, which the young Juvenal Urbino tended to idealise inhis Parisian melancholy, was an illusion of memory. In the eighteenth century, the commerce ofthe city had been the most prosperous in the Caribbean, owing in the main to the thanklessprivilege of its being the largest African slave market in the Americas. It was also the permanentresidence of the Viceroys of the New Kingdom of Granada, who preferred to govern here on theshores of the world's ocean rather than in the distant freezing capital under a centuries-old drizzlethat disturbed their sense of reality. Several times a year, fleets of galleons carrying the treasuresof Potos? Quito, and Veracruz gathered in the bay, and the city lived its years of glory. On Friday,June 8, 1708, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the galleon San Jos?set sail for Ciz with a cargoof precious stones and metals valued at five hundred billion pesos in the currency of the day; itwas sunk by an English squadron at the entrance to the port, and two long centuries later it had notyet been salvaged. That treasure lying in its bed of coral, and the corpse of the commander floatingsideways on the bridge, were evoked by historians as an emblem of the city drowned in memories.

Across the bay, in the residential district of La Manga, Dr. Juvenal Urbino's house stood inanother time. One-story, spacious and cool, it had a portico with Doric columns on the outsideterrace, which commanded a view of the still, miasmic water and the debris from sunken ships inthe bay. From the entrance door to the kitchen, the floor was covered with black and whitecheckerboard tiles, a fact often attributed to Dr. Urbino's ruling passion without taking intoaccount that this was a weakness common to the Catalonian craftsmen who built this district forthe nouveaux riches at the beginning of the century. The large drawing room had the very highceilings found throughout the rest of the house, and six full-length windows facing the street, andit was separated from the dining room by an enormous, elaborate glass door covered withbranching vines and bunches of grapes and maidens seduced by the pipes of fauns in a bronzegrove. The furnishings in the reception rooms, including the pendulum clock that stood like aliving sentinel in the drawing room, were all original English pieces from the late nineteenthcentury, and the lamps that hung from the walls were all teardrop crystal, and there were Svresvases and bowls everywhere and little alabaster statues of pagan idylls. But that Europeancoherence vanished in the rest of the house, where wicker armchairs were jumbled together withViennese rockers and leather footstools made by local craftsmen. Splendid hammocks from SanJacinto, with multicoloured fringe along the sides and the owner's name embroidered in Gothicletters with silk thread, hung in the bedrooms along with the beds. Next to the dining room, thespace that had originally been designed for gala suppers was used as a small music room forintimate concerts when famous performers came to the city. In order to enhance the silence, the tiles had been covered with the Turkish rugs purchased at the World's Fair in Paris; a recent modelof a victrola stood next to a stand that held records arranged with care, and in a corner, drapedwith a Manila shawl, was the piano that Dr. Urbino had not played for many years. Throughout thehouse one could detect the good sense and care of a woman whose feet were planted firmly on theground.

But no other room displayed the meticulous solemnity of the library, the sanctuary of Dr.

Urbino until old age carried him off. There, all around his father's walnut desk and the tuftedleather easy chairs, he had lined the walls and even the windows with shelves behind glass doors,and had arranged in an almost demented order the three thousand volumes bound in identicalcalfskin with his initials in gold on the spines. Unlike the other rooms, which were at the mercy ofnoise and foul winds from the port, the library always enjoyed the tranquillity and fragrance of anabbey. Born and raised in the Caribbean superstition that one opened doors and windows tosummon a coolness that in fact did not exist, Dr. Urbino and his wife at first felt their heartsoppressed by enclosure. But in the end they were convinced of the merits of the Roman strategyagainst heat, which consists of closing houses during the lethargy of August in order to keep outthe burning air from the street, and then opening them up completely to the night breezes. Andfrom that time on theirs was the coolest house under the furious La Manga sun, and it was adelight to take a siesta in the darkened bedrooms and to sit on the portico in the afternoon to watchthe heavy, ash-grey freighters from New Orleans pass by, and at dusk to see the wooden paddlesof the riverboats with their shining lights, purifying the stagnant garbage heap of the bay with thewake of their music. It was also the best protected from December through March, when thenorthern winds tore away roofs and spent the night circling like hungry wolves looking for a crackwhere they could slip in. No one ever thought that a marriage rooted in such foundations couldhave any reason not to be happy.

In any case, Dr. Urbino was not when he returned home that morning before ten o'clock,shaken by the two visits that not only had obliged him to miss Pentecost Mass but also threatenedto change him at an age when everything had seemed complete. He wanted a short siesta until itwas time for Dr. Lides Olivella's gala luncheon, but he found the servants in an uproar as theyattempted to catch the parrot, who had flown to the highest branches of the mango tree when theytook him from his cage to clip his wings. He was a deplumed, maniacal parrot who did not speakwhen asked to but only when it was least expected, but then he did so with a clarity and rationalitythat were uncommon among human beings. He had been tutored by Dr. Urbino himself, whichafforded him privileges that no one else in the family ever had, not even the children when theywere young.

He had lived in the house for over twenty years, and no one knew how many years he hadbeen alive before then. Every afternoon after his siesta, Dr. Urbino sat with him on the terrace inthe patio, the coolest spot in the house, and he had summoned the most diligent reserves of hispassion for pedagogy until the parrot learned to speak French like an academician. Then, just forlove of the labour, he taught him the Latin accompaniment to the Mass and selected passages fromthe Gospel according to St. Matthew, and he tried without success to inculcate in him a workingnotion of the four arithmetic functions. On one of his last trips to Europe he brought back the firstphonograph with a trumpet speaker, along with many of the latest popular records as well as thoseby his favourite classical composers. Day after day, over and over again for several months, he played the songs of Yvette Guilbert and Aristide Bruant, who had charmed France during the lastcentury, until the parrot learned them by heart. He sang them in a woman's voice if they were hers,in a tenor's voice if they were his, and ended with impudent laughter that was a masterful imitationof the servant girls when they heard him singing in French. The fame of his accomplishments wasso widespread that on occasion distinguished visitors who had travelled from the interior on theriverboats would ask permission to see him, and once some of the many English tourists, who inthose days sailed the banana boats from New Orleans, would have bought him at any price. Butthe day of his greatest glory was when the President of the Republic, Don Marco Fidel Suez,with his entourage of cabinet ministers, visited the house in order to confirm the truth of hisreputation. They arrived at about three o'clock in the afternoon, suffocating in the top hats andfrock coats they had worn during three days of official visits under the burning August sky, andthey had to leave as curious as when they arrived, because for two desperate hours the parrotrefused to say a single syllable, ignoring the pleas and threats and public humiliation of Dr.

Urbino, who had insisted on that foolhardy invitation despite the sage warnings of his wife.

The fact that the parrot could maintain his privileges after that historic act of defiance was theultimate proof of his sacred rights. No other animal was permitted in the house, with the exceptionof the land turtle who had reappeared in the kitchen after three or four years, when everyonethought he was lost forever. He, however, was not considered a living being but rather a mineralgood luck charm whose location one could never be certain of. Dr. Urbino was reluctant to confesshis hatred of animals, which he disguised with all kinds of scientific inventions and philosophicalpretexts that convinced many, but not his wife. He said that people who loved them to excess werecapable of the worst cruelties toward human beings. He said that dogs were not loyal but servile,that cats were opportunists and traitors, that peacocks were heralds of death, that macaws weresimply decorative annoyances, that rabbits fomented greed, that monkeys carried the fever of lust,and that roosters were damned because they had been complicit in the three denials of Christ.

On the other hand, Fermina Daza, his wife, who at that time was seventy-two years old andhad already lost the doe's gait of her younger days, was an irrational idolater of tropical flowersand domestic animals, and early in her marriage she had taken advantage of the novelty of love tokeep many more of them in the house than good sense would allow. The first were threeDalmatians named after Roman emperors, who fought for the favours of a female who did honourto her name of Messalina, for it took her longer to give birth to nine pups than to conceive anotherten. Then there were Abyssinian cats with the profiles of eagles and the manners of pharaohs,cross-eyed Siamese and palace Persians with orange eyes, who walked through the rooms likeshadowy phantoms and shattered the night with the howling of their witches' sabbaths of love. Forseveral years an Amazonian monkey, chained by his waist to the mango tree in the patio, elicited acertain compassion because he had the sorrowful face of Archbishop Obdulio y Rey, the samecandid eyes, the same eloquent hands; that, however, was not the reason Fermina got rid of him,but because he had the bad habit of pleasuring himself in honour of the ladies.

There were all kinds of Guatemalan birds in cages along the passageways, and premonitorycurlews, and swamp herons with long yellow legs, and a young stag who came in through thewindows to eat the anthurium in the flowerpots. Shortly before the last civil war, when there wastalk for the first time of a possible visit by the Pope, they had brought a bird of paradise fromGuatemala, but it took longer to arrive than to return to its homeland when it was learned that the announcement of the pontifical visit had been a lie spread by the government to alarm theconspiratorial Liberals. Another time, on the smugglers' ships from Curaao, they bought awicker cage with six perfumed crows identical to the ones that Fermina Daza had kept as a girl inher father's house and that she still wanted to have as a married woman. But no one could bear thecontinual flapping of their wings that filled the house with the reek of funeral wreaths. They alsobrought in an anaconda, four meters long, whose insomniac hunter's sighs disturbed the darknessin the bedrooms although it accomplished what they had wanted, which was to frighten with itsmortal breath the bats and salamanders and countless species of harmful insects that invaded thehouse during the rainy months. Dr. Juvenal Urbino, so occupied at that time with his professionalobligations and so absorbed in his civic and cultural enterprises, was content to assume that in themidst of so many abominable creatures his wife was not only the most beautiful woman in theCaribbean but also the happiest. But one rainy afternoon, at the end of an exhausting day, heencountered a disaster in the house that brought him to his senses. Out of the drawing room, andfor as far as the eye could see, a stream of dead animals floated in a marsh of blood. The servantgirls had climbed on the chairs, not knowing what to do, and they had not yet recovered from thepanic of the slaughter.

One of the German mastiffs, maddened by a sudden attack of rabies, had torn to pieces everyanimal of any kind that crossed its path, until the gardener from the house next door found thecourage to face him and hack him to pieces with his machete. No one knew how many creatureshe had bitten or contaminated with his green slaverings, and so Dr. Urbino ordered the survivorskilled and their bodies burned in an isolated field, and he requested the services of MisericordiaHospital for a thorough disinfecting of the house. The only animal to escape, because nobodyremembered him, was the giant lucky charm tortoise.

Fermina Daza admitted for the first time that her husband was right in a domestic matter, andfor a long while afterward she was careful to say no more about animals. She consoled herselfwith colour illustrations from Linnaeus's Natural History, which she framed and hung on thedrawing room walls, and perhaps she would eventually have lost all hope of ever seeing an animalin the house again if it had not been for the thieves who, early one morning, forced a bathroomwindow and made off with the silver service that had been in the family for five generations. Dr.

Urbino put double padlocks on the window frames, secured the doors on the inside with ironcrossbars, placed his most valuable possessions in the strongbox, and belatedly acquired thewartime habit of sleeping with a revolver under his pillow. But he opposed the purchase of a fiercedog, vaccinated or unvaccinated, running loose or chained up, even if thieves were to stealeverything he owned.

"Nothing that does not speak will come into this house," he said.

He said it to put an end to the specious arguments of his wife, who was once againdetermined to buy a dog, and he never imagined that his hasty generalisation was to cost him hislife. Fermina Daza, whose straightforward character had become more subtle with the years,seized on her husband's casual words, and months after the robbery she returned to the ships fromCuraao and bought a royal Paramaribo parrot, who knew only the blasphemies of sailors butsaid them in a voice so human that he was well worth the extravagant price of twelve centavos.

He was a fine parrot, lighter than he seemed, with a yellow head and a black tongue, the onlyway to distinguish him from mangrove parrots who did not learn to speak even with turpentine suppositories. Dr. Urbino, a good loser, bowed to the ingenuity of his wife and was even surprisedat how amused he was by the advances the parrot made when he was excited by the servant girls.

On rainy afternoons, his tongue loosened by the pleasure of having his feathers drenched, heuttered phrases from another time, which he could not have learned in the house and which ledone to think that he was much older than he appeared. The Doctor's final doubts collapsed onenight when the thieves tried to get in again through a skylight in the attic, and the parrot frightenedthem with a mastiff's barking that could not have been more realistic if it had been real, and withshouts of stop thief stop thief stop thief, two saving graces he had not learned in the house. It wasthen that Dr. Urbino took charge of him and ordered the construction of a perch under the mangotree with a container for water, another for ripe bananas, and a trapeze for acrobatics. FromDecember through March, when the nights were cold and the north winds made living outdoorsunbearable, he was taken inside to sleep in the bedrooms in a cage covered by a blanket, althoughDr. Urbino suspected that his chronic swollen glands might be a threat to the healthy respiration ofhumans. For many years they clipped his wing feathers and let him wander wherever he chose towalk with his hulking old horseman's gait. But one day he began to do acrobatic tricks on thebeams in the kitchen and fell into the pot of stew with a sailor's shout of every man for himself,and with such good luck that the cook managed to scoop him out with the ladle, scalded anddeplumed but still alive. From then on he was kept in the cage even during the daytime, indefiance of the vulgar belief that caged parrots forget everything they have learned, and let outonly in the four o'clock coolness for his classes with Dr. Urbino on the terrace in the patio. No onerealised in time that his wings were too long, and they were about to clip them that morning whenhe escaped to the top of the mango tree.

And for three hours they had not been able to catch him. The servant girls, with the help ofother maids in the neighbourhood, had used all kinds of tricks to lure him down, but he insisted onstaying where he was, laughing madly as he shouted long live the Liberal Party, long live theLiberal Party damn it, a reckless cry that had cost many a carefree drunk his life. Dr. Urbino couldbarely see him amid the leaves, and he tried to cajole him in Spanish and French and even inLatin, and the parrot responded in the same languages and with the same emphasis and timbre inhis voice, but he did not move from his treetop. Convinced that no one was going to make himmove voluntarily, Dr. Urbino had them send for the fire department, his most recent civic pastime.

Until just a short time before, in fact, fires had been put out by volunteers using brickmasons'

ladders and buckets of water carried in from wherever it could be found, and methods sodisorderly that they sometimes caused more damage than the fires. But for the past year, thanks toa fund-organised by the Society for Public Improvement, of which Juvenal Urbino was honorarypresident, there was a corps of professional firemen and a water truck with a siren and a bell andtwo high-pressure hoses. They were so popular that classes were suspended when the church bellswere heard sounding the alarm, so that children could watch them fight the fire. At first that wasall they did. But Dr. Urbino told the municipal authorities that in Hamburg he had seen firemenrevive a boy found frozen in a basement after a three-day snowstorm. He had also seen them in aNeapolitan alley lowering a corpse in his coffin from a tenth-floor balcony because the stairway inthe building had so many twists and turns that the family could not get him down to the street.

That was how the local firemen learned to render other emergency services, such as forcing locksor killing poisonous snakes, and the Medical School offered them a special course in first aid for minor accidents. So it was in no way peculiar to ask them to please get a distinguished parrot, withall the qualities of a gentleman, out of a tree. Dr. Urbino said: "Tell them it's for me." And he wentto his bedroom to dress for the gala luncheon. The truth was that at that moment, devastated by theletter from Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, he did not really care about the fate of the parrot.

Fermina Daza had put on a loose-fitting silk dress belted at the hip, a necklace of real pearlswith six long, uneven loops, and high-heeled satin shoes that she wore only on very solemnoccasions, for by now she was too old for such abuses. Her stylish attire did not seem appropriatefor a venerable grandmother, but it suited her figure--long-boned and still slender and erect, herresilient hands without a single age spot, her steel-blue hair bobbed on a slant at her cheek. Herclear almond eyes and her inborn haughtiness were all that were left to her from her weddingportrait, but what she had been deprived of by age she more than made up for in character anddiligence. She felt very well: the time of iron corsets, bound waists, and bustles that exaggeratedbuttocks was receding into the past. Liberated bodies, breathing freely, showed themselves forwhat they were. Even at the age of seventy-two.

Dr. Urbino found her sitting at her dressing table under the slow blades of the electric fan,putting on her bell-shaped hat decorated with felt violets. The bedroom was large and bright, withan English bed protected by mosquito netting embroidered in pink, and two windows open to thetrees in the patio, where one could hear the clamour of cicadas, giddy with premonitions of rain.

Ever since their return from their honeymoon, Fermina Daza had chosen her husband's clothesaccording to the weather and the occasion, and laid them out for him on a chair the night before sothey would be ready for him when he came out of the bathroom. She could not remember whenshe had also begun to help him dress, and finally to dress him, and she was aware that at first shehad done it for love, but for the past five years or so she had been obliged to do it regardless of thereason because he could not dress himself. They had just celebrated their golden weddinganniversary, and they were not capable of living for even an instant without the other, or withoutthinking about the other, and that capacity diminished as their age increased. Neither could havesaid if their mutual dependence was based on love or convenience, but they had never asked thequestion with their hands on their hearts because both had always preferred not to know theanswer. Little by little she had been discovering the uncertainty of her husband's step, his moodchanges, the gaps in his memory, his recent habit of sobbing while he slept, but she did notidentify these as the unequivocal signs of final decay but rather as a happy return to childhood.

That was why she did not treat him like a difficult old man but as a senile baby, and that deceptionwas providential for the two of them because it put them beyond the reach of pity.

Life would have been quite another matter for them both if they had learned in time that itwas easier to avoid great matrimonial catastrophes than trivial everyday miseries. But if they hadlearned anything together, it was that wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good. Foryears Fermina Daza had endured her husband's jubilant dawns with a bitter heart. She clung to thelast threads of sleep in order to avoid facing the fatality of another morning full of sinisterpremonitions, while he awoke with the innocence of a newborn: each new day was one more dayhe had won. She heard him awake with the roosters, and his first sign of life was a cough withoutrhyme or reason that seemed intended to awaken her too. She heard him grumble, just to annoyher, while he felt around for the slippers that were supposed to be next to the bed. She heard himmake his way to the bathroom, groping in the dark. After an hour in his study, when she had fallen asleep again, he would come back to dress, still without turning on the light. Once, during a partygame, he had been asked how he defined himself, and he had said: "I am a man who dresses in thedark." She heard him, knowing full well that not one of those noises was indispensable, and thathe made them on purpose although he pretended not to, just as she was awake and pretended notto be. His motives were clear: he never needed her awake and lucid as much as he did during thosefumbling moments.

There was no sleeper more elegant than she, with her curved body posed for a dance and herhand across her forehead, but there was also no one more ferocious when anyone disturbed thesensuality of her thinking she was still asleep when she no longer was. Dr. Urbino knew she waswaiting for his slightest sound, that she even would be grateful for it, just so she could blamesomeone for waking her at five o'clock in the morning, so that on the few occasions when he hadto feel around in the dark because he could not find his slippers in their customary place, shewould suddenly say in a sleepy voice: "You left them in the bathroom last night." Then right afterthat, her voice fully awake with rage, she would curse: "The worst misfortune in this house is thatnobody lets you sleep."Then she would roll over in bed and turn on the light without the least mercy for herself,content with her first victory of the day. The truth was they both played a game, mythical andperverse, but for all that comforting: it was one of the many dangerous pleasures of domestic love.

But one of those trivial games almost ended the first thirty years of their life together, because oneday there was no soap in the bathroom.

It began with routine simplicity. Dr. Juvenal Urbino had returned to the bedroom, in the dayswhen he still bathed without help, and begun to dress without turning on the light. As usual shewas in her warm foetal state, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow, that arm from a sacred danceabove her head. But she was only half asleep, as usual, and he knew it. After a prolonged sound ofstarched linen in the darkness, Dr. Urbino said to himself: "I've been bathing for almost a weekwithout any soap."Then, fully awake, she remembered, and tossed and turned in fury with the world because infact she had forgotten to replace the soap in the bathroom. She had noticed its absence three daysearlier when she was already under the shower, and she had planned to replace it afterward, butthen she forgot until the next day, and on the third day the same thing happened again. The truthwas that a week had not gone by, as he said to make her feel more guilty, but three unpardonabledays, and her anger at being found out in a mistake maddened her. As always, she defended herselfby attacking.

"Well I've bathed every day," she shouted, beside herself with rage, "and there's always beensoap."Although he knew her battle tactics by heart, this time he could not abide them. On someprofessional pretext or other he went to live in the interns' quarters at Misericordia Hospital,returning home only to change his clothes before making his evening house calls. She headed forthe kitchen when she heard him come in, pretending that she had something to do, and stayedthere until she heard his carriage in the street. For the next three months, each time they tried toresolve the conflict they only inflamed their feelings even more. He was not ready to come back aslong as she refused to admit there had been no soap in the bathroom, and she was not prepared tohave him back until he recognised that he had consciously lied to torment her.

The incident, of course, gave them the opportunity to evoke many other trivial quarrels frommany other dim and turbulent dawns. Resentments stirred up other resentments, reopened oldscars, turned them into fresh wounds, and both were dismayed at the desolating proof that in somany years of conjugal battling they had done little more than nurture their rancour. At last heproposed that they both submit to an open confession, with the Archbishop himself if necessary, sothat God could decide once and for all whether or not there had been soap in the soap dish in thebathroom. Then, despite all her self-control, she lost her temper with a historic cry: "To hell withthe Archbishop!"The impropriety shook the very foundations of the city, gave rise to slanders that were noteasy to disprove, and was preserved in popular tradition as if it were a line from an operetta: "Tohell with the Archbishop!" Realising she had gone too far, she anticipated her husband'spredictable response and threatened to move back to her father's old house, which still belonged toher although it had been rented out for public offices, and live there by herself. And it was not anidle threat: she really did want to leave and did not care about the scandal, and her husbandrealised this in time. He did not have the courage to defy his own prejudices, and he capitulated.

Not in the sense that he admitted there had been soap in the bathroom, but insofar as he continuedto live in the same house with her, although they slept in separate rooms, and he did not say aword to her. They ate in silence, sparring with so much skill that they sent each other messagesacross the table through the children, and the children never realised that they were