百年孤独 第一章
百年孤独 第一章
百年孤独 第一章梅尔加德斯是个诚实的人，他告诫说：“磁铁干这个却不行。”可是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚当时还不相信吉卜赛人的诚实，因此用自己的一匹骡子和两只山羊换下了两块磁铁。这些家畜是他的妻子打算用来振兴破败的家业的，她试图阻止他，但是枉费工夫。“咱们很快就会有足够的金子，用来铺家里的地都有余啦。”--丈夫回答她。在好儿个月里，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚都顽强地努力履行自己的诺言。他带者两块磁铁，大声地不断念着梅尔加德斯教他的咒语，勘察了周围整个地区的一寸寸土地，甚至河床。但他掘出的唯一的东西，是十五世纪的一件铠甲，它的各部分都已锈得连在一起，用手一敲，皑甲里面就发出空洞的回声，仿佛一只塞满石子的大葫芦。
三月间，吉卜赛人又来了。现在他们带来的是一架望远镜和一只大小似鼓的放大镜，说是阿姆斯特丹犹太人的最新发明。他们把望远镜安在帐篷门口，而让一个吉卜赛女人站在村子尽头。花五个里亚尔，任何人都可从望远镜里看见那个仿佛近在飓尺的吉卜赛女人。“科学缩短了距离。”梅尔加德斯说。“在短时期内，人们足不出户，就可看到世界上任何地方发生的事儿。”在一个炎热的晌午，吉卜赛人用放大镜作了一次惊人的表演：他们在街道中间放了一堆干草，借太阳光的焦点让干草燃了起来。磁铁的试验失败之后，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚还不甘心，马上又产生了利用这个发明作为作战武器的念头。梅尔加德斯又想劝阻他，但他终于同意用两块磁铁和三枚殖民地时期的金币交换放大镜。乌苏娜伤心得流了泪。这些钱是从一盒金鱼卫拿出来的，那盒金币由她父亲一生节衣缩食积攒下来，她一直把它埋藏在自个儿床下，想在适当的时刻使用。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚无心抚慰妻子，他以科学家的忘我精神，甚至冒着生命危险，一头扎进了作战试验。他想证明用放大镜对付敌军的效力，就力阳光的焦点射到自己身上，因此受到灼伤，伤处溃烂，很久都没痊愈。这种危险的发明把他的妻子吓坏了，但他不顾妻子的反对，有一次甚至准备点燃自己的房子。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚待在自己的房间里总是一连几个小时，计算新式武器的战略威力，甚至编写了一份使用这种武器的《指南》，阐述异常清楚，论据确凿有力。他把这份《指南》连同许多试验说明和几幅图解，请一个信使送给政府；这个信使翻过山岭，涉过茫茫苍苍的沼地，游过汹涌澎湃的河流，冒着死于野兽和疫病的危阶，终于到了一条驿道。当时前往首都尽管是不大可能的，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚还是答应，只要政府一声令下，他就去向军事长官们实际表演他的发明，甚至亲自训练他们掌握太阳战的复杂技术。他等待答复等了几年。最后等得厌烦了，他就为这新的失败埋怨梅尔加德斯，于是吉卜赛人令人信服地证明了自己的诚实：他归还了金币，换回了放大镜，并且给了霍·阿·布恩蒂亚几幅葡萄牙航海图和各种航海仪器。梅尔加德斯亲手记下了修道士赫尔曼著作的简要说明，把记录留给霍·阿·布恩蒂亚，让他知道如何使用观象仪、罗盘和六分仪。在雨季的漫长月份里，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚部把自己关在宅子深处的小房间里，不让别人打扰他的试验。他完全抛弃了家务，整夜整夜呆在院子里观察星星的运行；为了找到子午线的确定方法，他差点儿中了暑。他完全掌握了自己的仪器以后，就设想出了空间的概念，今后，他不走出自己的房间，就能在陌生的海洋上航行，考察荒无人烟的土地，并且跟珍禽异兽打上交道了。正是从这个时候起，他养成了自言自语的习惯，在屋子里踱来踱去，对谁也不答理，而乌苏娜和孩子们却在菜园里忙得喘不过气来，照料香蕉和海芋、木薯和山药、南瓜和茄子。可是不久，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚紧张的工作突然停辍，他陷入一种种魄颠倒的状态。好几天，他仿佛中了魔，总是低声地嘟嚷什么，并为自己反复斟酌的各种假设感到吃惊，自己都不相信。最后，在十二月里的一个星期、吃午饭的时候，他忽然一下子摆脱了恼人的疑虑。孩子们至死部记得，由于长期熬夜和冥思苦想而变得精疲力竭的父亲，如何洋洋得意地向他们宣布自己的发现：
“地球是圆的，象橙子。”
乌苏娜失去了耐心，“如果你想发癫，你就自个几发吧！”她嚷叫起来，“别给孩子们的脑瓜里灌输古卜赛人的胡思乱想。”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚一动不动，妻子气得把观象仪摔到地上，也没有吓倒他。他另做了一个观象仪，并且把村里的一些男人召到自己的小房间里，根据在场的人椎也不明白的理论，向他们证明说，如果一直往东航行，就能回到出发的地点。马孔多的人以为霍·阿·布恩蒂亚疯了，可兄梅尔加德斯回来之后，马上消除了大家的疑虑。他大声地赞扬霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的智慧：光靠现象仪的探测就证实了一种理论，这种理论虽是马孔多的居民宜今还不知道的，但实际上早就证实了；梅尔加德斯为了表示钦佩，赠给霍·阿·布恩蒂亚一套东西－－炼金试验室设备，这对全村的未来将会产生深远的影响。
这时，梅尔加德斯很快就衰老了。这个吉卜赛人第一次来到村里的时候，仿佛跟霍·阿·布思蒂亚同样年岁。可他当时仍有非凡的力气，揪庄马耳朵就能把马拉倒，现在他却好象被一些顽固的疾病折磨坏了。确实，他衰老的原因是他在世界各地不断流浪时得过各种罕见的疾病，帮助霍·阿·布恩蒂亚装备试验室的时候，他说死神到处都紧紧地跟着他，可是死神仍然没有最终决定要他的命。从人类遇到的各种瘟疫和灾难中，他幸存下来了。他在波斯患过癞病，在马来亚群岛患过坏血病，在亚历山大患过麻疯病，在日本患过脚气病，在马达加斯加患过淋巴腺鼠疫，在西西里碰到过地震，在麦哲伦海峡遇到过牺牲惨重的轮船失事。这个不寻常的人说他知道纳斯特拉马斯的秘诀。此人面貌阴沉，落落寡欢，戴着一顶大帽子，宽宽的黑色帽沿宛如乌鸦张开的翅膀，而他身上的丝绒坎肩却布满了多年的绿霉。然而，尽管他无比聪明和神秘莫测，他终归是有血打肉的人，摆脱不了人世间日常生活的烦恼和忧虑。他抱怨年老多病，苦于微不足道的经济困难，早就没有笑容，因为坏血病已使他的牙齿掉光了。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚认为，正是那个闷热的晌午，梅尔加德斯把白己的秘密告诉他的时候，他们的伟大友谊才开了头。吉卜赛人的神奇故事使得孩子们感到惊讶。当时不过五岁的奥雷连诺一辈子都记得，梅尔加德斯坐在明晃晃的窗子跟前，身体的轮廓十分清晰；他那风琴一般低沉的声音透进了最暗的幻想的角落，而他的两鬓却流着汗水，仿佛暑热熔化了的脂肪。奥雷连诺的哥哥霍·阿卡蒂奥，将把这个惊人的形象当作留下的回忆传给他所有的后代。至于乌苏娜，恰恰相反，吉卜赛人的来访给她留下了最不愉快的印象，因为她跨进房间的时候，正巧梅尔加德斯不小心打碎了一瓶升汞。
“这是魔鬼的气味，”她说。
“根本不是，”梅尔加德斯纠正她。“别人证明魔鬼只有硫磺味，这儿不过是一点点升汞。”
接着，他用同样教诲的口吻大谈特谈朱砂的特性。乌苏娜对他的话没有任何兴趣，就带着孩子析祷去了。后来，这种刺鼻的气味经常使她想起梅尔加德斯。
除了许多铁锅、漏斗、曲颈瓶、筛子和过滤器，简陋的试验室里还有普通熔铁炉、长颈玻璃烧瓶、点金石仿制品以及三臂蒸馏器；此种蒸馏器是犹太女人马利姬曾经用过的，现由吉卜赛人自己按照最新说明制成。此外，梅尔加德斯还留下了七种与六个星球有关的金属样品、摩西和索西莫斯的倍金方案、炼金术笔记和图解，谁能识别这些笔记和图解，谁就能够制作点金石。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚认为倍金方案比较简单，就入迷了。他一连几个星期缠住乌苏娜，央求她从密藏的小盒子里掏出旧金币来，让金子成倍地增加，水银能够分成多少份，金子就能增加多少倍。象往常一样，鸟苏娜没有拗过大夫的固执要求。于是，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚把三十枚金币丢到铁锅里，拿它们跟雌黄、铜屑、水银和铅一起熔化。然后又把这一切倒在蓖麻油锅里，在烈火上熬了一阵。直到最后熬成一锅恶臭的浓浆，不象加倍的金子，倒象普通的焦糖。经过多次拼命的、冒阶的试验：蒸馏啦，跟七种天体金属一起熔炼啦，加进黑梅斯水银和塞浦路斯硫酸盐啦，在猪油里重新熬煮啦（因为没有萝卜油），乌苏娜的宝贵遗产变成了一大块焦糊的渣滓，粘在锅底了。
吉卜赛人回来的时候，乌苏娜唆使全村的人反对他们，可是好奇战胜了恐惧，因为吉卜赛人奏着各式各样的乐器，闹嚷嚷地经过街头，他们的宣传员说是要展出纳希安兹人最奇的发明。大家都到吉卜赛人的帐篷去，花一分钱，就可看到返老还童的梅尔加德斯－－身体康健，没有皱纹，满口漂亮的新牙。有些人还记得他坏血病毁掉的牙床、凹陷的面颊、皱巴巴的嘴唇，一见吉卜赛人神通广大的最新证明，都惊得发抖。接着，梅尔加从嘴里取出一副完好的牙齿，刹那间又变成往日那个老朽的人，并且拿这副牙齿给观众看了一看，然后又把它装上牙床，微微一笑，似乎重新恢复了青春，这时大家的惊愕却变成了狂欢。甚至霍·阿·布恩蒂亚本人也认为，梅尔加德的知识到了不大可能达到的极限，可是当吉卜赛人单独向他说明假牙的构造时，他的心也就轻快了，高兴得放声大笑。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚觉得这一切既简单又奇妙，第二天他就完全失去了对炼金术的兴趣，陷入了沮丧状态，不再按时进餐，从早到晚在屋子里踱来踱去。“世界上正在发生不可思议的事，”他向乌苏娜唠叨。“咱们旁边，就在河流对岸，已有许多各式各样神奇的机器，可咱们仍在这儿象蠢驴一样过日子。”马孔多建立时就了解他的人都感到惊讶，在梅尔加德斯的影响下，他的变化多大啊！
从前，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚好象一个年轻的族长，经常告诉大家如何播种，如何教养孩子，如何饲养家畜；他跟大伙儿一起劳动，为全村造福。布恩蒂亚家的房子是村里最好的，其他的人都力求象他一样建筑自己的住所。他的房子有一个敞亮的小客厅、摆了一盆盆鲜花的阳台餐室和两间卧室，院子里栽了一棵挺大的栗树，房后是一座细心照料的菜园，还有一个畜栏，猪、鸡和山羊在栏里和睦相处。他家里禁养斗鸡，全村也都禁养斗鸡。
乌苏娜象丈夫一样勤劳。她是一个严肃、活跃和矮小的女人，意志坚强，大概一辈子都没唱过歌，每天从黎明到深夜，四处都有她的踪影，到处都能听到她那浆过的荷兰亚麻布裙子轻微的沙沙声。多亏她勤于照料，夯实的泥土地面、未曾粉刷的上墙、粗糙的自制木器，经常都是千干净净的，而保存衣服的旧箱子还散发出紫苏轻淡的芳香。
霍·阿·布恩蒂亚是村里最有事业心的人，他指挥建筑的房屋，每家的主人到河边去取水都同样方便；他合理设计的街道，每座住房白天最热的时刻都能得到同样的阳光。建村之后过了几年，马孔多已经成了一个最整洁的村子，这是跟全村三百个居民过去住过的其他一切村庄都不同的。这是一个真正幸福的村子；在这村子里，谁也没有超过三十岁，也还没有死过一个人。
建村的时候，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚开始制作套索和鸟笼。很快，他自己和村中其他的人家都养了金驾、金丝雀、蜂虎和知更鸟。许多各式各样的鸟儿不断地嘁嘁喳喳，乌苏娜生怕自己震得发聋，只好用蜂蜡把耳朵塞上。梅尔加德斯一伙人第一次来到马孔多出售玻璃球头痛药时，村民们根本就不明白这些吉卜赛人如何能够找到这个小小的村子，因为这个村子是隐没在辽阔的沼泽地带的；吉卜赛人说，他们来到这儿是由于听到了鸟的叫声。
可是，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚为社会造福的精神很快消失，他迷上了磁铁和天文探索，幻想采到金子和发现世界的奇迹。精力充沛、衣着整洁的霍·阿·布恩蒂业逐渐变成一个外表疏懒、衣冠不整的人，甚至满脸胡髭，乌苏娜费了大劲才用一把锋利的菜刀把他的胡髭剃掉。村里的许多人都认为，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚中了邪。不过，他把一个袋子搭在肩上，带着铁锹和锄头，要求别人去帮助他开辟一条道路，以便把马孔多和那些伟大发明连接起来的时候，甚至坚信他发了疯的人也扔下自己的家庭与活计，跟随他去冒险。
霍·阿·布恩蒂亚压根儿不了解周围地区的地理状况。他只知道，东边耸立着难以攀登的山岭，山岭后面是古城列奥阿察，据他的祖父--奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚第一说，从前有个弗兰西斯·德拉克爵士，曾在那儿开炮轰击鳄鱼消遣；他叫人在轰死的鳄鱼肚里填进干草，补缀好了就送去献给伊丽莎白女王。年轻的时候，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚和其他的人一起，带着妻子、孩子、家畜和各种生活用具，翻过这个山岭，希望到海边去，可是游荡了两年又两个月，就放弃了自己的打算；为了不走回头路，才建立了马孔乡村。因此，往东的路是他不感兴趣的--那只能重复往日的遭遇，南边是一个个永远杂草丛生的泥潭和一沼泽地带--据吉卜赛人证明，那是一个无边无涯的世界。西边呢，沼泽变成了辽阔的水域，那儿栖息着鲸鱼状的生物：这类生物，皮肤细嫩，头和躯干都象女了，宽大、迷人的胸脯常常毁掉航海的人。据吉卜赛人说，他们到达驿道经过的陆地之前，航行了几乎半年。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚认为，跟文明世界接触，只能往北前进。于是，他让那些跟他一起建立马孔多村的人带上铁锹、锄头和狩猎武器，把自己的定向仪具和地图放进背囊，就去从事鲁莽的冒险了。
最初几天，他们没有遇到特殊的困难。他们顺着遍布石头的河岸下去，到了几年前发现古代铠甲的地方，并且沿着野橙子树之间的小径进入一片树林。到第一个周未，他们侥幸打死了一只牡鹿，拿它烤熟，可是决定只吃一半，把剩下的储备起来。他们采取这个预防措施，是想延缓以金刚鹦鹉充饥的时间；这种鹦鹉的肉是蓝色的，有强烈的麝香味儿。在随后的十几天中，他们根本没有见到阳光。脚下的土地变得潮湿、松软起来，好象火山灰似的，杂草越来越密，飞禽的啼鸣和猴子的尖叫越来越远--四周仿佛变得惨谈凄凉了。这个潮湿和寂寥的境地犹如“原罪”以前的蛮荒世界；在这儿，他们的鞋子陷进了油气腾腾的深坑，他们的大砍刀乱劈着血红色的百合花和金黄色的蝾螈，远古的回忆使他们受到压抑。整整一个星期，他们几乎没有说话，象梦游人一样在昏暗、悲凉的境地里行进，照明的只有萤火虫闪烁的微光，难闻的血腥气味使他们的肺部感到很不舒服。回头的路是没有的，因为他们开辟的小径一下了就不见了，几乎就在他们眼前长出了新的野草。“不要紧，”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚说。“主要是不迷失方向。”他不断地盯住罗盘的指针，继续领着大伙儿往看不见的北方前进，终于走出了魔区。他们周围是没有星光的黑夜，但是黑暗里充满了新鲜空气，经过长途跋涉，他们已经疲惫不堪，于是悬起吊床，两星期中第一次安静地睡了个大觉。醒来的时候，太阳已经升得很高，他们因此惊得发呆。在宁静的晨光里，就在他们前面，矗立着一艘西班牙大帆船，船体是白色、腐朽的，周围长满了羊齿植物和棕搁。帆船微微往右倾斜，在兰花装饰的索具之间，桅杆还很完整，垂着肮脏的船帆碎片，船身有一层石化贝壳和青苔形成的光滑的外壳，牢牢地陷入了坚实的土壤。看样子，整个船身处于孤寂的地方，被人忘却了，没有遭到时光的侵蚀，也没有受到飞禽的骚扰，探险队员们小心地察看了帆船内部，里面除了一大簇花卉，没有任何东西。
帆船的发现证明大海就在近旁，破坏了霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的战斗精神。他认为这是狡诈的命运在捉弄他：他千幸万苦寻找大海的时候，没有找到它；他不想找它的时候，现在却发现了它－－它象一个不可克服的障碍横在他的路上。多年以后，奥雷连诺上校也来到这个地区的时候（那时这儿已经开辟了驿道），他在帆船失事的地方只能看见一片罂粟花中间烧糊的船骨。那时他者相信，这整个故事并不是他父亲虚构的，于是向自己提出个问题：帆船怎会深入陆地这么远呢？可是，再经过四天的路程，在离帆船十二公里的地方，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚看见大海的时候，并没有想到这类问题。在大海面前，他的一切幻想都破灭了；大海翻着泡沫，混浊不堪，灰茫茫一片，值不得他和伙伴们去冒险和牺牲。
“真他妈的！”霍·阿·布思蒂亚叫道。“马孔多四面八方都给海水围住啦！”
探险回来以后，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚绘了一幅地图：由于这张主观想出的地图，人们长时期里都以为马孔多是在一个半岛上面，他是恼怒地画出这张地图的，故意夸大跟外界往来的困难，仿佛想惩罚自己轻率地选择了这个建村的地点，“咱们再也去下了任何地方啦，”他向乌苏娜叫苦，“咱们会在这儿活活地烂掉，享受不到科学的好处了。”在自己的小试验室里，他把这种想法反刍似的咀嚼了几个月，决定把马孔多迁到更合适的地方去，可是妻子立即警告他，破坏了他那荒唐的计划。村里的男人已经开始准备搬家，乌苏娜却象蚂蚁一样悄悄地活动，一鼓作气唆使村中的妇女反对男人的轻举妄动。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚说不清楚，不知什么时候，由于什么对立的力量，他的计划遭到一大堆借口和托词的阻挠，终于变成没有结果的幻想。有一夭早晨乌苏娜发现，他一面低声叨咕搬家的计划，一面把白己的试验用具装进箱子，她只在旁边装傻地观察他，甚至有点儿怜悯他。她让他把事儿子完，在他钉上箱子，拿蘸了墨水的刷子在箱子上写好自己的缩写姓名时，她一句也没责备他，尽管她已明白（凭他含糊的咕噜），他知道村里的男人并不支持他的想法。只当霍·阿·布恩蒂亚开始卸下房门时，乌苏娜才大胆地向他要干什么，他有点难过地回答说：“既然谁也不想走，咱们就单独走吧。”乌苏娜没有发慌。
“不，咱们不走，”他说。“咱们要留在这儿．因为咱们在这儿生了个儿子。”
“可是，咱们还没有一个人死在这儿，”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚反驳说，“一个人如果没有亲属埋在这儿，他就不足这个地方的人。”
乌苏娜温和而坚决他说：
“为了咱们留在这儿，如果要我死，我就死。”
霍·阿·布恩蒂亚并不相信妻子那么坚定，他试图字自己的幻想迷住她，答应带她去看一个美妙的世界；那儿，只要在地里喷上神奇的药水，植物就会按照人的愿望长出果实；那儿，可以贱价买到各种治病的药物。可是他的幻想并没有打动她。
“不要成天想入非非，最好关心关心孩子吧，”她回答。“你瞧，他们象小狗儿似的被扔在一边，没有人管。”
霍·阿·布恩蒂亚一字一句体会妻子的话，他望了望窗外，看见两个赤足的孩子正在烈日炎炎的莱园里；他觉得，他们仅在这一瞬间才开始存在，仿佛是乌苏娜的咒语呼唤出来的。这时，一种神秘而重要的东西在他心中兀然出现，使他完全脱离了现实，浮游在住事的回忆里。当鸟苏娜打扫屋子、决心一辈子也不离开这儿时，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚继续全神贯注地望着两个孩子，终于望得两眼湿润，他就用手背擦了擦眼睛，无可奈何地发出一声深沉的叹息。
“好啦，”他说，“叫他们来帮我搬出箱子里的东西吧。”
大儿子霍·网卡蒂奥满了十四岁，长着方方的脑袋和蓬松的头发，性情象他父亲一样执拗。他虽有父亲那样的体力，可能长得象父亲一般魁伟，但他显然缺乏父亲那样的想象力。他是在马孔多建村之前翻山越岭的艰难途程中诞生的。父母确信孩子没有任何牲畜的特征，都感谢上帝。奥雷连诺是在马孔多出生的第一个人，三月间该满六岁了。这孩子性情孤僻、沉默寡言。他在母亲肚子里就哭哭啼啼，是睁着眼睛出世的。人家给他割掉脐带的时候，他把脑袋扭来扭去，仿佛探察屋里的东西，并且好奇地瞅着周围的人，一点儿山不害怕。随后，对于走到跟前来瞧他的人，他就不感兴趣了，而把自己的注意力集中在棕搁叶铺盖的房顶上；在倾盆大雨下，房顶每分钟都有塌下的危险。乌苏娜记得后来还看见过孩子的这种紧张的神情。有一天，三岁的小孩儿奥雷连诺走进厨房，她正巧把一锅煮沸的汤从炉灶拿到桌上。孩子犹豫不决地站在门槛边，惊惶地说：“马上就要摔下啦。”汤锅是稳稳地放在桌子中央的，可是孩子刚说出这句话，它仿佛受到内力推动似的，开始制止不住地移到桌边，然后掉到地上摔得粉碎。不安的乌苏娜把这桩事情告诉丈夫，可他把这种事情说成是自然现象。经常都是这样：霍·阿·布恩蒂亚不关心孩子的生活，一方面是因为他认为童年是智力不成熟的时期，另一方面是因为他一头扎进了荒唐的研究。
但是，从他招呼孩丁们帮他取出箱子里的试验仪器的那夭下午起，他就把他最好的时间用在他们身上了。在僻静的小室墙壁上，难子置信的地图和稀奇古怪的图表越来越多；在这间小宝里，他教孩子们读书、写字和计算：同时，不仅依靠自己掌握的知识，而已广泛利用自己无限的想象力，向孩子们介绍世界上的奇迹。孩子们由此知道，非洲南端有一种聪明、温和的人，他们的消遣就是坐着静思，而爱琴海是可以步行过去的，从一个岛屿跳上另一个岛屿，一直可以到达萨洛尼卡港。这些荒诞不经的夜谈深深地印在孩子们的脑海里，多年以后，政府军的军官命令行刑队开枪之前的片刻间，奥雷连诺上校重新忆起了那个暖和的三月的下午，当时他的父亲听到远处吉卜赛人的笛鼓声，就中断了物理课，两眼一动不动，举着手愣住了；这些吉卜赛人再一次来到村里，将向村民介绍孟菲斯学者们惊人的最新发明。
这是另一批吉卜赛人。男男女女部都挺年青，只说本族话，是一群皮肤油亮、双手灵巧的漂亮人物。他们载歌载舞，兴高采烈，闹嚷嚷地经过街头，带来了各样东西：会唱意大利抒情歌曲的彩色鹦鹅；随着鼓声一次至少能下一百只金蛋的母鸡；能够猜出人意的猴子；既能缝钮扣、又能退烧的多用机器；能够使人忘却辛酸往事的器械，能够帮助消磨时间的膏药，此外还有其他许多巧妙非凡的发明，以致霍·阿·布恩蒂亚打算发明一种记忆机器，好把这一切全都记住。瞬息间，村子里的面貌就完全改观人人群熙攘，闹闹喧喧，马孔多的居民在自己的街道上也迷失了方向。
霍·何·布恩蒂亚象疯子一样东窜西窜，到处寻找梅尔加德斯，希望从他那儿了解这种神奇梦景的许多秘密。他手里牵着两个孩了，生怕他们在拥挤的人群中丢失，不时碰见镶着金牙的江湖艺人或者六条胳膊的魔术师。人群中发出屎尿和檀香混合的味儿，叫他喘不上气。他向吉卜赛人打听梅尔加德斯，可是他们不懂他的语言。最后，他到了梅尔加德斯往常搭帐篷的地方。此刻，那儿坐着一个脸色阴郁的亚美尼亚吉卜赛人，正在用西班牙语叫卖一种隐身糖浆，当这吉卜赛人刚刚一下子喝完一杯琥珀色的无名饮料时，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚挤过一群看得出神的观众，向吉卜赛人提出了自己的问题。吉卜赛人用奇异的眼光瞅了瞅他，立刻变成一滩恶臭的、冒烟的沥青，他的答话还在沥青上发出回声：“梅尔加德斯死啦。”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚听到这个消息，不胜惊愕，呆若木鸡，试图控制自己的悲伤，直到观众被其他的把戏吸引过去，亚美尼亚吉卜赛人变成的一滩沥青挥发殆尽。然后，另一个吉卜赛人证实，梅尔加德斯在新加坡海滩上患疟疾死了，尸体抛入了爪哇附近的大海。孩子们对这个消息并无兴趣，就拉着父亲去看写在一个帐这招牌上的孟菲斯学者的新发明，如果相信它所写的，这个脓篷从前属于所罗门王。孩子们纠缠不休，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚只得付了三十里亚尔，带着他们走进帐篷，那儿有个剃光了脑袋的巨人，浑身是毛，鼻孔里穿了个铜环，脚跺上拴了条沉重的铁链，守着一只海盗用的箱子，巨人揭开盖子，箱子里就冒出一股刺骨的寒气。箱子坠只有一大块透明的东西，这玩意儿中间有无数白色的细针，傍晚的霞光照到这些细针，细针上面就现出了许多五颜六色的星星。
霍·阿·布恩蒂亚感到大惑不解，但他知道孩子们等着他立即解释，便大胆地嘟嚷说：
“这是世界上最大的钻石。”
“不，”吉卜赛巨人纠正他。“这是冰块。”
莫名其妙的霍·阿·布恩蒂亚向这块东西伸过手去，可是巨人推开了他的手。“再交五个里亚尔才能摸，”巨人说。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚付了五个里亚尔，把手掌放在冰块上呆了几分钟；接触这个神秘的东西，他的心里充满了恐惧和喜悦，他不知道如何向孩子们解释这种不太寻常的感觉，又付了十个里亚尔，想让他们自个儿试一试，大儿子霍·阿卡蒂奥拒绝去摸。相反地，奥雷连诺却大胆地弯下腰去，将手放在冰上，可是立即缩回手来。“这东西热得烫手！”他吓得叫了一声。父亲没去理会他。这时，他对这个显然的奇迹欣喜若狂，竞忘了自己那些幻想的失败，也忘了葬身鱼腹的梅尔加德斯。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚又付了五个里亚尔，就象出庭作证的人把手放在《圣经》上一样，庄严地将手放在冰块上，说道：
“这是我们这个时代最伟大的发明。”
In March the gypsies returned. This time they brought a telescope and a magnifying glass the size of a drum, which they exhibited as the latest discovery of the Jews of Amsterdam. They placed a gypsy woman at one end of the village and set up the telescope at the entrance to the tent. For the price of five reales, people could look into the telescope and see the gypsy woman an arm's length away. "Science has eliminated distance," Melquíades proclaimed. "In a short time, man will be able to see what is happening in any place in the world without leaving his own house." A burning noonday sun brought out a startling demonstration with the gigantic magnifying glass: they put a pile of dry hay in the middle of the street and set it on fire by concentrating the sun's rays. José Arcadio Buendía, who had still not been consoled for the failure of big magnets, conceived the idea of using that invention as a weapon of war. Again Melquíades tried to dissuade him, but he finally accepted the two magnetized ingots and three colonial coins in exchange for the magnifying glass. ?rsula wept in consternation. That money was from a chest of gold coins that her father had put together ova an entire life of privation and that she had buried underneath her bed in hopes of a proper occasion to make use of it. José Arcadio Buendía made no at. tempt to console her, completely absorbed in his tactical experiments with the abnegation of a scientist and even at the risk of his own life. In an attempt to show the effects of the glass on enemy troops, he exposed himself to the concentration of the sun's rays and suffered burns which turned into sores that took a long time to heal. Over the protests of his wife, who was alarmed at such a dangerous invention, at one point he was ready to set the house on fire. He would spend hours on end in his room, calculating the strategic possibilities of his novel weapon until he succeeded in putting together a manual of startling instructional clarity and an irresistible power of conviction. He sent it to the government, accompanied by numerous descriptions of his experiments and several pages of explanatory sketches; by a messenger who crossed the mountains, got lost in measureless swamps, forded stormy rivers, and was on the point of perishing under the lash of despair, plague, and wild beasts until he found a route that joined the one used by the mules that carried the mail. In spite of the fact that a trip to the capital was little less than impossible at that time, José Arcadio Buendía promised to undertake it as soon as the government ordered him to so that he could put on some practical demonstrations of his invention for the military authorities and could train them himself in the complicated art of solar war. For several years he waited for an answer. Finally, tired of waiting, he bemoaned to Melquíades the failure of his project and the gypsy then gave him a convincing proof of his honesty: he gave him back the doubloons in exchange for the magnifying glass, and he left him in addition some Portuguese maps and several instruments of navigation. In his own handwriting he set down a concise synthesis of the studies by Monk Hermann. which he left José Arcadio so that he would be able to make use of the astrolabe, the compass, and the sextant. José Arcadio Buendía spent the long months of the rainy season shut up in a small room that he had built in the rear of the house so that no one would disturb his experiments. Having completely abandoned his domestic obligations, he spent entire nights in the courtyard watching the course of the stars and he almost contracted sunstroke from trying to establish an exact method to ascertain noon. When he became an expert in the use and manipulation of his instruments, he conceived a notion of space that allowed him to navigate across unknown seas, to visit uninhabited territories, and to establish relations with splendid beings without having to leave his study. That was the period in which he acquired the habit of talking to himself, of walking through the house without paying attention to anyone, as ?rsula and the children broke their backs in the garden, growing banana and caladium, cassava and yams, ahuyama roots and eggplants. Suddenly, without warning, his feverish activity was interrupted and was replaced by a kind of fascination. He spent several days as if he were bewitched, softly repeating to himself a string of fearful conjectures without giving credit to his own understanding. Finally, one Tuesday in December, at lunchtime, all at once he released the whole weight of his torment. The children would remember for the rest of their lives the august solemnity with which their father, devastated by his prolonged vigil and by the wrath of his imagination, revealed his discovery to them:
"The earth is round, like an orange."
?rsula lost her patience. "If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself!" she shouted. "But don't try to put your gypsy ideas into the heads of the children." José Arcadio Buendía, impassive, did not let himself be frightened by the desperation of his wife, who, in a seizure of rage, mashed the astrolabe against the floor. He built another one, he gathered the men of the village in his little room, and he demonstrated to them, with theories that none of them could understand, the possibility of returning to where one had set out by consistently sailing east. The whole village was convinced that José Arcadio Buendía had lost his reason, when Melquíades returned to set things straight. He gave public praise to the intelligence of a man who from pure astronomical speculation had evolved a theory that had already been proved in practice, although unknown in Macondo until then, and as a proof of his admiration he made him a gift that was to have a profound influence on the future of the village: the laboratory of an alchemist.
By then Melquíades had aged with surprising rapidity. On his first trips he seemed to be the same age as José Arcadio Buendía. But while the latter had preserved his extraordinary strength, which permitted him to pull down a horse by grabbing its ears, the gypsy seemed to have been worn dowse by some tenacious illness. It was, in reality, the result of multiple and rare diseases contracted on his innumerable trips around the world. According to what he himself said as he spoke to José Arcadio Buendía while helping him set up the laboratory, death followed him everywhere, sniffing at the cuffs of his pants, but never deciding to give him the final clutch of its claws. He was a fugitive from all the plagues and catastrophes that had ever lashed mankind. He had survived pellagra in Persia, scurvy in the Malayan archipelago, leprosy in Alexandria, beriberi in Japan, bubonic plague in Madagascar, an earthquake in Sicily, and a disastrous shipwreck in the Strait of Magellan. That prodigious creature, said to possess the keys of Nostradamus, was a gloomy man, enveloped in a sad aura, with an Asiatic look that seemed to know what there was on the other side of things. He wore a large black hat that looked like a raven with widespread wings, and a velvet vest across which the patina of the centuries had skated. But in spite of his immense wisdom and his mysterious breadth, he had a human burden, an earthly condition that kept him involved in the small problems of daily life. He would complain of the ailments of old age, he suffered from the most insignificant economic difficulties, and he had stopped laughing a long time back because scurvy had made his teeth drop out. On that suffocating noontime when the gypsy revealed his secrets, José Arcadio Buendía had the certainty that it was the beginning of a great friendship. The children were startled by his fantastic stories. Aureliano, who could not have been more than five at the time, would remember him for the rest of his life as he saw him that afternoon, sitting against the metallic and quivering light from the window, lighting up with his deep organ voice the darkest reaches of the imagination, while down over his temples there flowed the grease that was being melted by the heat. José Arcadio, his older brother, would pass on that wonderful image as a hereditary memory to all of his descendants. ?rsula on the other hand, held a bad memory of that visit, for she had entered the room just as Melquíades had carelessly broken a flask of bichloride of mercury.
"It's the smell of the devil," she said.
"Not at all," Melquíades corrected her. "It has been proven that the devil has sulphuric properties and this is just a little corrosive sublimate."
Always didactic, he went into a learned exposition of the diabolical properties of cinnabar, but ?rsula paid no attention to him, although she took the children off to pray. That biting odor would stay forever in her mind linked to the memory of Melquíades.
The rudimentary laboratory-in addition to a profusion of pots, funnels, retorts, filters, and sieves-was made up of a primitive water pipe, a glass beaker with a long, thin neck, a reproduction of the philosopher's egg, and a still the gypsies themselves had built in accordance with modern descriptions of the three-armed alembic of Mary the Jew. Along with those items, Melquíades left samples of the seven metals that corresponded to the seven planets, the formulas of Moses and Zosimus for doubling the quantity of gold, and a set of notes and sketches concerning the processes of the Great Teaching that would permit those who could interpret them to undertake the manufacture of the philosopher's stone. Seduced by the simplicity of the formulas to double the quantity of gold, José Arcadio Buendía paid court to ?rsula for several weeks so that she would let him dig up her colonial coins and increase them by as many times as it was possible to subdivide mercury. ?rsula gave in, as always, to her husband's unyielding obstinacy. Then José Arcadio Buendía threw three doubloons into a pan and fused them with copper filings, orpiment, brimstone, and lead. He put it all to boil in a pot of castor oil until he got a thick and pestilential syrup which was more like common caramel than valuable gold. In risky and desperate processes of distillation, melted with the seven planetary metals, mixed with hermetic mercury and vitriol of Cyprus, and put back to cook in hog fat for lack of any radish oil, ?rsula's precious inheritance was reduced to a large piece of burnt hog cracklings that was firmly stuck to the bottom of the pot.
When the gypsies came back, ?rsula had turned the whole population of the village against them. But curiosity was greater than fear, for that time the gypsies went about the town making a deafening noise with all manner of musical instruments while a hawker announced the exhibition of the most fabulous discovery of the Naciancenes. So that everyone went to the tent and by paying one cent they saw a youthful Melquíades, recovered, unwrinkled, with a new and flashing set of teeth. Those who remembered his gums that had been destroyed by scurvy, his flaccid cheeks, and his withered lips trembled with fear at the final proof of the gypsy's supernatural power. The fear turned into panic when Melquíades took out his teeth, intact, encased in their gums, and showed them to the audience for an instant-a fleeting instant in which he went back to being the same decrepit man of years past-and put them back again and smiled once more with the full control of his restored youth. Even José Arcadio Buendía himself considered that Melquíades' knowledge had reached unbearable extremes, but he felt a healthy excitement when the gypsy explained to him atone the workings of his false teeth. It seemed so simple and so prodigious at the same time that overnight he lost all interest in his experiments in alchemy. He underwent a new crisis of bad humor. He did not go back to eating regularly, and he would spend the day walking through the house. "Incredible things are happening in the world," he said to ?rsula. "Right there across the river there are all kinds of magical instruments while we keep on living like donkeys." Those who had known him since the foundation of Macondo were startled at how much he had changed under Melquíades' influence.
At first José Arcadio Buendía had been a kind of youthful patriarch who would give instructions for planting and advice for the raising of children and animals, and who collaborated with everyone, even in the physical work, for the welfare of the community. Since his house from the very first had been the best in the village, the others had been built in its image and likeness. It had a small, well-lighted living roost, a dining room in the shape of a terrace with gaily colored flowers, two bedrooms, a courtyard with a gigantic chestnut tree, a well kept garden, and a corral where goats, pigs, and hens lived in peaceful communion. The only animals that were prohibited, not just in his house but in the entire settlement, were fighting cocks.
?rsula's capacity for work was the same as that of her husband. Active, small, severe, that woman of unbreakable nerves who at no moment in her life had been heard to sing seemed to be everywhere, from dawn until quite late at night, always pursued by the soft whispering of her stiff, starched petticoats. Thanks to her the floors of tamped earth, the unwhitewashed mud walls, the rustic, wooden furniture they had built themselves were always dean, and the old chests where they kept their clothes exhaled the warm smell of basil.
José Arcadio Buendía, who was the most enterprising man ever to be seen in the village, had set up the placement of the houses in such a way that from all of them one could reach the river and draw water with the same effort, and he had lined up the streets with such good sense that no house got more sun than another during the hot time of day. Within a few years Macondo was a village that was more orderly and hard working than any known until then by its three hundred inhabitants. It was a truly happy village where no one was over thirty years of age and where no one had died.
Since the time of its founding, José Arcadio Buendía had built traps and cages. In a short time he filled not only his own house but all of those in the village with troupials, canaries, bee eaters, and redbreasts. The concert of so many different birds became so disturbing that ?rsula would plug her ears with beeswax so as not to lose her sense of reality. The first time that Melquíades' tribe arrived, selling glass balls for headaches, everyone was surprised that they had been able to find that village lost in the drowsiness of the swamp, and the gypsies confessed that they had found their way by the song of the birds.
That spirit of social initiative disappeared in a short time, pulled away by the fever of the magnets, the astronomical calculations, the dreams of transmutation, and the urge to discover the wonders of the world. From a clean and active man, José Arcadio Buendía changed into a man lazy in appearance, careless in his dress, with a wild beard that ?rsula managed to trim with great effort and a kitchen knife. There were many who considered him the victim of some strange spell. But even those most convinced of his madness left work and family to follow him when he brought out his tools to clear the land and asked the assembled group to open a way that would put Macondo in contact with the great inventions.
José Arcadio Buendía was completely ignorant of the geography of the region. He knew that to the east there lay an impenetrable mountain chain and that on the other side of the mountains there was the ardent city of Riohacha, where in times past-according to what he had been told by the first Aureliano Buendía, his grandfather-Sir Francis Drake had gone crocodile hunting with cannons and that he repaired hem and stuffed them with straw to bring to Queen Elizabeth. In his youth, José Arcadio Buendía and his men, with wives and children, animals and all kinds of domestic implements, had crossed the mountains in search of an outlet to the sea, and after twenty-six months they gave up the expedition and founded Macondo, so they would not have to go back. It was, therefore, a route that did not interest him, for it could lead only to the past. To the south lay the swamps, covered with an eternal vegetable scum and the whole vast universe of the great swamp, which, according to what the gypsies said, had no limits. The great swamp in the west mingled with a boundless extension of water where there were soft-skinned cetaceans that had the head and torso of a woman, causing the ruination of sailors with the charm of their extraordinary breasts. The gypsies sailed along that route for six months before they reached the strip of land over which the mules that carried the mail passed. According to José Arcadio Buendía's calculations, the only possibility of contact with civilization lay along the northern route. So he handed out clearing tools and hunting weapons to the same men who had been with him during the founding of Macondo. He threw his directional instruments and his maps into a knapsack, and he undertook the reckless adventure.
十六世纪，海盗弗兰西斯·德拉克围攻列奥阿察的时候，乌苏娜。伊古阿兰的曾祖母被当当的警钟声和隆隆的炮击声吓坏了，由于神经紧张，竞一屁股坐在生了火的炉子上。因此，曾祖母受了严重的的伤，再也无法过夫妻生活。她只能用半个屁股坐着，而且只能坐在软垫子上，步态显然也是不雅观的；所以，她就不愿在旁人面前走路了。她认为自己身上有一股焦糊味儿，也就拒绝跟任何人交往。她经常在院子里过夜，一直呆到天亮，不敢走进卧室去睡觉：因为她老是梦见英国人带着恶狗爬进窗子，用烧红的铁器无耻地刑讯她。她给丈夫生了两个儿子；她的丈夫是亚拉冈的商人，把自己的一半钱财都用来医治妻子，希望尽量减轻她的痛苦。最后，他盘掉自己的店铺，带者一家人远远地离开海滨，到了印第安人的一个村庄，村庄是在山脚下，他在那儿为妻子盖了一座没有窗子的住房，免得她梦中的海盗钻进屋子。
在这荒僻的村子里，早就有个两班牙人的后裔，叫做霍塞·阿卡蒂奥·布恩蒂亚，他是栽种烟草的；乌苏娜的曾祖父和他一起经营这桩有利可图的事业，短时期内两人都建立了很好的家业。多少年过去了，西班牙后裔的曾孙儿和亚拉冈人的曾孙女结了婚。每当大夫的荒唐行为使乌苏娜生气的时候，她就一下子跳过世事纷繁的三百年，咒骂弗兰西斯·德拉克围攻列奥阿察的那个日子。不过，她这么做，只是为了减轻心中的痛苦；实际上，把她跟他终生连接在一起的，是比爱情更牢固的关系：共同的良心谴责。乌苏娜和丈夫是表兄妹，他俩是在古老的村子里一块儿长大的，由于沮祖辈辈的垦殖，这个村庄已经成了今省最好的一个。尽管他俩之间的婚姻是他俩刚刚出世就能预见到的，然而两个年轻人表示结婚愿望的时候，双方的家长都反对。几百年来，两族的人是杂配的，他们生怕这两个健全的后代可能丢脸地生出一只蜥蜴。这样可怕的事已经发牛过一次。乌苏娜的婶婶嫁给霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的叔叔，生下了一个儿子：这个儿子一辈子部穿着肥大的灯笼裤，活到四十二岁还没结婚就流血而死，因为他生下来就长着一条尾巴——尖端有一撮毛的螺旋形软骨。这种名副其实的猪尾巴是他不愿让任何一个女人看见的，最终要了他的命，因为一个熟识的屠夫按照他的要求，用切肉刀把它割掉了。十九岁的霍·阿·布恩蒂亚无忧无虑地用一句话结束了争论：“我可不在乎生出猪崽子，只要它们会说话就行。”于是他俩在花炮声中举行了婚礼铜管乐队，一连闹腾了三个昼夜。在这以后，年轻夫妇本来可以幸福地生活，可是乌苏娜的母亲却对未来的后代作出不大吉利的预言，借以吓唬自己的女儿，甚至怂恿女儿拒绝按照章法跟他结合。她知道大夫是个力大、刚强的人，担心他在她睡着时强迫她，所以，她在上床之前，都穿上母亲拿厚帆布给她缝成的一条衬裤；衬裤是用交叉的皮带系住的，前面用一个大铁扣扣紧。夫妇俩就这样过了若干月。白天，他照料自己的斗鸡，她就和母亲一块儿在刺染上绣花。夜晚，年轻夫妇却陷入了烦恼而激烈的斗争，这种斗争逐渐代替了爱情的安慰。可是，机灵的邻人立即觉得情况不妙，而且村中传说，乌苏娜出嫁一年以后依然是个处女，因为丈大有点儿毛病。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚是最后听到这个谣言的。
“乌苏娜，你听人家在说什么啦，”他向妻子平静他说。
“让他们去嚼舌头吧，”她回答。“咱们知道那不是真的。”
他们的生活又这样过了半年，直到那个倒霉的星期天，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的公鸡战胜了普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔的公鸡。输了的普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔，一见鸡血就气得发疯，故意离开霍·阿·布恩蒂亚远一点儿，想让斗鸡棚里的人都能听到他的话。
“恭喜你呀！”他叫道。“也许你的这只公鸡能够帮你老婆的忙。咱们瞧吧！”
霍·阿·布恩蒂亚不动声色地从地上拎起自己的公鸡。“我马上就来，”他对大家说，然后转向普鲁登希奥，阿吉廖尔：
“你回去拿武器吧，我准备杀死你。”
过了十分钟，他就拿着一枝粗大的标枪回来了，这标枪还是他祖父的。斗鸡棚门口拥聚了几乎半个村子的人，普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔正在那儿等候。他还来不及自卫，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的标枪就击中了他的咽喉，标枪是猛力掷出的，非常准确；由于这种无可指摘的准确，霍塞·奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚（注：布恩蒂亚的祖父）从前曾消灭了全区所有的豹子。夜晚在斗鸡棚里，亲友们守在死者棺材旁边的时候，霍·阿·布恩蒂业走进自己的卧室，看见妻子正在穿她的“贞节裤”。他拿标枪对准她，命令道：“脱掉！”乌苏娜并不怀疑丈夫的决心。“出了事，你负责，”她警告说。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚把标枪插入泥地。
“你生下蜥蜴，咱们就抚养蜥蜴，”他说。“可是村里再也不会有人由于你的过错而被杀死了。”
这是一个美妙的六月的夜晚，月光皎洁，凉爽宜人。他俩通古未睡，在床上折腾，根本没去理会穿过卧室的轻风，风儿带来了普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔亲人的哭声。
人们把这桩事情说成是光荣的决斗，可是两夫妇却感到了良心的谴责。有一天夜里，乌苏娜还没睡觉，出去喝水，在院子里的大土罐旁边看见了普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔。他脸色死白、十分悲伤，试图用一块麻屑堵住喉部正在流血的伤口。看见死人，乌苏娜感到的不是恐惧，而是怜悯。她回到卧室里，把这件怪事告诉了丈夫，可是丈夫并不重视她的话。“死人是不会走出坟墓的，”他说。“这不过是咱们受到良心的责备。”过了两夜，乌苏娜在浴室里遇见普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔--他正在用麻屑擦洗脖子上的凝血。另一个夜晚，她发现他在雨下徘徊。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚讨厌妻子的幻象，就带着标枪到院子里去。死人照旧悲伤地立在那儿。
“滚开！”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚向他吆喝。“你回来多少次，我就要打死你多少次。”
普鲁登希奥没有离开，而霍·阿·布恩蒂亚却不敢拿标枪向他掷去。从那时起，他就无法安稳地睡觉了。他老是痛苦地想起死人穿过雨丝望着他的无限凄凉的眼神，想起死人眼里流露的对活人的深切怀念，想起普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔四处张望。寻找水来浸湿一块麻屑的不安神情。“大概，他很痛苦，”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚向妻子说。“看来，他很孤独。”乌苏娜那么怜悯死人，下一次遇见时，她发现他盯着炉灶上的铁锅，以为他在寻找什么，于是就在整个房子里到处都给他摆了一罐罐水。那一夜，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚看见死人在他自己的卧室里洗伤口，于是就屈服了。
“好吧，普鲁登希奥，”他说。“我们尽量离开这个村子远一些，决不再回这儿来了。现在，你就安心走吧。”
就这样，他们打算翻过山岭到海边去。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的几个朋友，象他一样年轻，也想去冒险，离开自己的家，带着妻室儿女去寻找土地……渺茫的土地。在离开村子之前，霍．阿·布恩蒂亚把标枪埋在院子里，接二连三砍掉了自己所有斗鸡的脑袋，希望以这样的牺牲给普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔一些安慰。乌苏娜带走的只是一口放着嫁妆的箱子、一点儿家庭用具、以及藏放父亲遗产--金币--的一只盒子。谁也没有预先想好一定的路线。他们决定朝着与列奥阿察相反的方向前进，以免遇见任何熟人，从而无影无踪地消失。这是一次荒唐可笑的旅行。过了一年零两个月，乌苏娜虽然用猴内和蛇汤毁坏了自己的肚子，却终于生下了一个儿子，婴儿身体各部完全没有牲畜的征状。因她脚肿，脚上的静脉胀得象囊似的，整整一半的路程，她都不得不躺在两个男人抬着的担架上面。孩子们比父母更容易忍受艰难困苦，他们大部分时间都鲜蹦活跳，尽管样儿可怜--两眼深陷，肚子瘪瘪的。有一天早晨，在几乎两年的流浪以后，他们成了第一批看见山岭西坡的人。从云雾遮蔽的山岭上，他们望见了一片河流纵横的辽阔地带---直伸到天边的巨大沼泽。可是他们始终没有到达海边。在沼泽地里流浪了几个月，路上没有遇见一个人，有一天夜晚，他们就在一条多石的河岸上扎营，这里的河水很象凝固的液体玻璃。多年以后，在第二次国内战争时期，奥雷连诺打算循着这条路线突然占领列奥阿察，可是六天以后他才明白，他的打算纯粹是发疯。然而那夭晚上，在河边扎营以后，他父亲的旅伴们虽然很象遇到船舶失事的人，但是旅途上他们的人数增多了，大伙儿都准备活到老（这一点他们做到了）。夜里，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚做了个梦，营地上仿佛矗立起一座热闹的城市，房屋的墙壁都用晶莹夺目的透明材料砌成。他打听这是什么城市，听到的回答是一个陌生的、毫无意义的名字，可是这个名字在梦里却异常响亮动听：马孔多。翌日，他就告诉自己的人，他们绝对找不到海了。他叫大伙儿砍倒树木，在河边最凉爽的地方开辟一块空地，在空地上建起了一座村庄。
在看见冰块之前，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚始终猜不破自己梦见的玻璃房子。后来，他以为自己理解了这个梦境的深刻意义。他认为，不久的将来，他们就能用水这样的普通材料大规模地制作冰砖，来给全村建筑新的房子。当时，马孔多好象一个赤热的火炉，门闩和窗子的铰链都热得变了形；用冰砖修盖房子，马孔多就会变成一座永远凉爽的市镇了。如果霍·阿·布恩蒂亚没有坚持建立冰厂的打算，只是因为他当时全神贯注地教育两个儿子，特别是奥雷连诺，这孩子一开始就对炼金术表现了罕见的才能。试验室里的工作又紧张起来。现在，父子俩已经没有被新奇事物引起的那种激动心情，只是平平静静地反复阅读梅尔加德斯的笔记，持久而耐心地努力，试图从粘在锅底的一大块东西里面把乌苏娜的金子分离出来。大儿子霍·阿卡蒂奥几乎不参加这个工作。当父亲身心都沉湎于熔铁炉旁的工作时，这个身材过早超过年岁的任性的头生子，已经成了一个魁梧的青年。他的嗓音变粗了·脸颊和下巴都长出了茸毛。有一天晚上，他正在卧室里脱衣睡觉，乌苏娜走了进来，竟然产生了羞涩和怜恤的混合感觉，因为除了丈夫，她看见赤身露体的第一个男人就是儿子，而且儿子生理上显得反常，甚至使她吓了一跳。已经怀着第三个孩子的乌苏娜，重新感到了以前作新娘时的那种恐惧。
那时，有个女人常来布恩蒂亚家里，帮助乌苏娜做些家务。这个女人愉快、热情、嘴尖，会用纸牌占卜。乌苏娜跟这女人谈了谈自己的忧虑。她觉得孩子的发育是不匀称的，就象她的亲戚长了条猪尾巴。女人止不住地放声大笑，笑声响彻了整座屋子，仿佛水晶玻璃铃铛。“恰恰相反，”她说。“他会有福气的。”
“过了几天，为了证明自己的预言准确，她带来一副纸牌，把自己和霍·阿卡蒂奥锁在厨房旁边的库房里。她不慌不忙地在一张旧的木工台上摆开纸牌，口中念念有词；这时，年轻人伫立一旁，与其说对这套把戏感到兴趣，不如说觉得厌倦。忽然，占卜的女人伸手摸了他一下。“我的天！”她真正吃惊地叫了一声，就再也说不出什么话了。
霍·阿卡蒂奥感到，他的骨头变得象海绵一样酥软，感到困乏和恐惧，好不容易才忍住泪水。女人一点也没有激励他。可他整夜都在找她，整夜都觉到她腋下发出的气味：这种气味仿佛渗进了他的躯体。他希望时时刻刻跟她在一起，希望她成为他的母亲，希望他和她永远也不走出库房，希望她向他说：“我的天！”重新摸他，重新说：“我的天！”有一日，他再也忍受不了这种烦恼了，就到她的家里去。这次访问是礼节性的，也是莫名其妙的--在整个访问中，霍·阿卡蒂奥一次也没开口。此刻他不需要她了。他觉得，她完全不象她的气味在他心中幻化的形象，仿佛这根本不是她．而是另一个人。他喝完咖啡，就十分沮丧地回家。夜里，他翻来覆去睡不着觉，又感到极度的难受，可他此刻渴望的不是跟他一起在库房里的那个女人，而是下午坐在他面前的那个女人了。
过了几天，女人忽然把霍·阿卡蒂奥带到了她的家中，并且借口教他一种纸牌戏法，从她跟母亲坐在一起的房间里，把他领进一间卧窄。在这儿，她那么放肆地摸他，使得他浑身不住地战栗，但他感到的是恐惧，而不是快乐。随后，她叫他夜间再未。霍·阿卡蒂奥口头答应，心里却希望尽快摆脱她，--他知道自己天不能来的。然而夜间，躺在热烘烘的被窝里，他觉得自己应当去她那儿，即使自己不能这么干。他在黑暗中摸着穿上衣服，听到弟弟平静的呼吸声、隔壁房间里父亲的产咳声、院子里母鸡的咯咯声、蚊子的嗡嗡声、自己的心脏跳动声--世界上这些乱七八糟的声音以前是不曾引起他的注意的，然后，他走到沉入梦乡的街上。他满心希望房门是门上的，而下只是掩上的（她曾这样告诉过他）。担它井没有闩上。他用指尖一推房门，铰链就清晰地发出悲鸣，这种悲鸣在他心中引起的是冰凉的回响。他尽量不弄出响声，侧着身子走进房里，马上感觉到了那种气味，霍·阿卡蒂奥还在第一个房间里，女人的三个弟弟通常是悬起吊床过夜的；这些吊床在什么地方，他并不知道，在黑暗中也辨别不清，因此，他只得摸索着走到卧室门前，把门推开，找准方向，免得弄错床铺。他往前摸过去，立即撞上了一张吊床的床头，这个吊床低得出乎他的预料。一个正在乎静地打鼾的人，梦中翻了个身，声音有点悲观他说了句梦话：“那是星期三。”当霍·阿卡蒂奥推开卧室门的时候，他无法制止房门擦过凹凸不平的地面。他处在一团漆黑中，既苦恼又慌乱，明白自己终于迷失了方向。睡在这个狭窄房间里的，是母亲、她的第二个女儿和丈夫、两个孩子和另一个女人，这个女人显然不是等他的。他可以凭气味找到，然而到处都是气味，那么细微又那么明显的气味，就象现在经常留在他身上的那种气味。霍·阿卡蒂奥呆然不动地站了好久，惊骇地问了问自己，怎会陷入这个束手无策的境地，忽然有一只伸开指头的手在黑暗中摸索，碰到了他的面孔，他并不觉得奇怪，因为他下意识地正在等着别人摸他。他把自己交给了这只手，他在精疲力尽的状态中让它把他拉到看不见的床铺跟前；在这儿，有人脱掉了他的衣服，把他象一袋土豆似的举了起来，在一片漆黑里把他翻来覆去；在黑暗中，他的双手无用了，这儿不再闻女人的气味，只有阿莫尼亚的气味，他力图回忆她的面孔，他的眼前却恍惚浮现出乌苏娜的而孔；他模糊地觉得，他正在做他早就想做的事儿，尽倚他决不认为他能做这种事儿，他自己并不知道这该怎么做，并不知道双手放在哪儿，双脚放在哪儿，并不知道这是谁的脑袋、谁的腿；他觉得自己再也不能继续下去了，他渴望逃走，又渴望永远留在这种极度的寂静中，留在这种可怕的孤独中。
这个女人叫做皮拉·苔列娜。按照父母的意愿，她参加过最终建立马孔多村的长征。父母想让自己的女儿跟一个男人分开，她十四岁时，那人就使她失去了贞操，她满二十二岁时，他还继续跟她生在一起，可是怎么也拿不定使婚姻合法化的主意，因为他不是她本村的人。他发誓说，他要跟随她到夭涯海角，但要等他把自己的事情搞好以后；从那时起，她就一直等着他，已经失去了相见的希望，尽管纸牌经常向她预示，将有各式各样的男人来找她，高的和矮的、金发和黑发的；有的从陆上来，有的从海上来，有的过三天来，有的过三月来，有的过三年来。等呀盼呀，她的大腿已经失去了劲头，胸脯已经失去了弹性，她已疏远了男人的爱抚，可是心里还很狂热。现在，霍·阿卡蒂奥对新颖而奇异的玩耍入了迷，每天夜里都到迷宫式的房间里来找她。有一回，他发现房门是闩上的，就笃笃地敲门；他以为，他既有勇气敲第一次，那就应当敲到底……等了许久，她才把门打开。白天，他因睡眠不足躺下了，还在暗暗回味昨夜的事。可是，皮拉·苔列娜来到布恩蒂亚家里的时候，显得高高兴兴、满不在乎、笑语联珠，霍·阿卡蒂奥不必费劲地掩饰自己的紧张，因为这个女人响亮的笑声能够吓跑在院子里踱来踱去的鸽子，她跟那个具有无形力量的女人毫无共同之处，那个女人曾经教他如何屏住呼吸和控制心跳，帮助他了解男人为什么怕死。他全神贯注于自己的体会，甚至不了解周围的人在高兴什么，这时，他的父亲和弟弟说，他们终于透过金属渣滓取出了乌苏娜的金子，这个消息简直震动了整座房子。
事实上，他们是经过多日坚持不懈的努力取得成功的。乌苏娜挺高兴，甚至感谢上帝发明了炼金术，村里的居民挤进试验室，主人就拿抹上番石榴酱的烤饼招待他们，庆祝这个奇迹的出现，而霍·阿·布恩蒂亚却让他们参观一个坩埚，里面放着复原的金子，他的神情仿佛表示这金子是他刚刚发明的，他从一个人走到另一个人跟前，最后来到大儿子身边。大儿子最近几乎不来试验室了。布恩蒂亚把一块微黄的干硬东西拿到他的眼前，问道，“你看这象什么？”
霍·阿卡蒂奥直耿耿地回答：
“象狗屎。”
父亲用手背在他嘴唇上碰了一下，碰得很重，霍·阿卡蒂奥嘴里竟然流出血来，眼里流出泪来。夜里，皮拉·苔列娜在黑暗中摸到一小瓶药和棉花，拿浸了亚尔尼加碘酒的压布贴在肿处，为霍·阿卡蒂奥尽心地做了一切，而没有使他产生仟何不舒服之感，竭力爱护他，而不碰痛他。他俩达到了那样亲密的程度，过了一会儿，他俩就不知不觉地在夜间幽会中第一次低声交谈起来：
“我只想跟你在一起，”他说。“最近几天内，我就要把一切告诉人家，别再这么捉迷藏了。”
皮拉·苔列娜不想劝阻他。
“那很好嘛，”她说。“如果咱俩单独在一块儿，咱们就把灯点上，彼此都能看见，我想叫喊就能叫喊，跟别人不相干；而你想说什么蠢话，就可在我耳边说什么蠢话。”
霍·阿卡蒂奥经过这场谈话，加上他对父亲的怨气，而且他认为作法的爱情在一切情况下都是可以的，他就心安理得、勇气倍增了。没有任何准备，他自动把一闭告诉了弟弟。
起初，年幼的奥雷连诺只把霍·阿卡蒂奥的艳遇看做是哥哥面临的可怕危险，不明白什么力量吸引了哥哥。可是，霍·阿卡蒂奥的烦躁不安逐渐传染了他。他要哥哥谈谈那些细微情节，跟哥哥共苦同乐，他感到自己既害怕又快活，现在，他却等首霍·阿卡蒂奥回来，直到天亮都没合眼，在孤单的床上辗转反侧，仿佛躺在一堆烧红的炭上；随后，兄弟俩一直谈到早该起床的时候，很快陷入半昏迷状态；两人都同样厌恶炼金术和父亲的聪明才智，变得孤僻了。“孩子们的样儿没有一点精神，”乌苏娜说。“也许肠里有虫子。”她用捣碎的美洲土荆芥知心话来。哥哥不象以前那么诚恳了。他从态度和蔼的、容易接近的人变成了怀着戒心的、孤僻的人。他痛恨整个世界，渴望孤身独处。有一天夜里，他又离开了，但是没有去皮拉·苔列娜那儿，而跟拥在吉卜赛帐篷周围看热闹的人混在一起。他踱来踱去地看了看各种精彩节目，对任何一个节目都不感兴趣，却注意到了一个非展览品---个年轻的吉卜赛女人；这女人几乎是个小姑娘，脖子上戴着一串挺重的玻璃珠子，因此弯着身子。霍·阿卡蒂奥有生以来还没见过比她更美的人。姑娘站在人群当中看一幕惨剧：一个人由于不听父母的话，变成了一条蛇。
霍·阿卡蒂奥根本没看这个不幸的人。当观众向“蛇人”询问他那悲惨的故事细节时，年轻的霍·阿卡蒂奥就挤到第一排吉卜赛姑娘那儿去，站在她的背后，然后紧贴着她。她想挪开一些，可他把她贴得更紧。于是，她感觉到了他。她愣着没动，惊恐得发颤，不相信自己的感觉，终于回头胆怯地一笑，瞄了霍·阿卡蒂奥一眼，这时，两个吉卜赛人把“蛇人”装进了笼子，搬进帐篷。指挥表演的吉卜赛人宣布：
“现在，女士们和先生们，我们将给你们表演一个可怕的节目--每夜这个时候都要砍掉一个女人的脑袋，连砍一百五十年，以示惩罚，因为她看了她不该看的东西。”
霍·阿卡蒂奥和吉卜赛姑娘没有参观砍头。他俩走进了她的帐篷，由于冲动就接起吻来，并且脱掉了衣服；吉卜赛姑娘从身上脱掉了浆过的花边紧身兜，就变得一丝不挂了。这是一只千瘪的小青蛙，胸部还没发育，两腿挺瘦，比霍·阿卡蒂奥的胳膊还细；可是她的果断和热情却弥补了她的赢弱。然而，霍·阿卡蒂奥不能以同样的热劲儿回答她，因为他们是在一个公用帐篷里，吉卜赛人不时拿着各种杂耍器具进来，在这儿干事，甚至就在床铺旁边的地上掷骰子·帐篷中间的木竿上挂着一盏灯，照亮了每个角落。在爱抚之间的短暂停歇中，霍·阿卡蒂奥赤裸裸地躺在床上，不知道该怎么办，而姑娘却一再想刺激他。过了一会，一个身姿优美的吉卜赛女人和一个男人一起走进帐篷，这个男人不属于杂技团，也不是本村的人。两人就在床边脱衣解带。女人偶然看了霍·阿卡蒂奥一眼。
“孩子，”她叫道，“上帝保佑你，走开吧！”
霍·阿卡蒂奥的女伴要求对方不要打扰他俩，于是新来的一对只好躺在紧靠床铺的地上。
这是星期四。星期六晚上，霍·阿卡蒂奥在头上扎了块红布，就跟吉卜赛人一起离开了马孔多。
发现儿子失踪之后，乌苏娜就在整个村子里到处找他，在吉卜赛人先前搭篷的地方，她只看见一堆堆垃圾和还在冒烟的篝火灰烬。有些村民在刨垃圾堆，希望找到玻璃串珠，其中一个村民向乌苏娜说，昨夜他曾看见她的儿子跟杂技演员们在一起--霍·阿卡蒂奥推着一辆小车，车上有一只装着“蛇人”的笼子。“他变成吉卜赛人啦！”她向丈夫吵嚷，可是丈夫对于儿子的失踪丝毫没有表示惊慌。
“这倒不坏，”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚一面说，一面在研钵里捣什么东西；这东西已经反复捣过多次，加热多次，现在还在研钵里。“他可以成为一个男子汉了。”
乌苏娜打听了吉卜赛人所去的方向，就沿着那条路走去，碰见每一个人都要问一问，希望追上大群吉卜赛人，因此离开村子越来越远；终于看出自己走得过远，她就认为用不着回头了，到了晚上八点，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚才发现妻子失踪，当时他把东西放在一堆肥料上，决定去看看小女儿阿玛兰塔是怎么回事，因为她到这时哭得嗓子都哑了。在几小时内，他毫不犹豫地集合了一队装备很好的村民，把阿玛兰塔交给一个自愿充当奶妈的女人，就踏上荒无人迹的小道，去寻找乌苏娜了。他是把奥雷连诺带在身边的。拂晓时分，几个印第安渔人用手势向他们表明：谁也不曾走过这儿。经过三天毫无效果的寻找，他们回到了村里。
霍·阿·布恩蒂亚苦恼了好久。他象母亲一样照拂小女儿阿玛兰塔。他给她洗澡、换襁褓，一天四次抱她去奶妈那儿，晚上甚至给她唱歌（乌苏娜是从来不会唱歌的）。有一次，皮拉·苔列娜自愿来这儿照料家务，直到乌苏娜回来。在不幸之中，奥雷连诺神秘的洞察力更加敏锐了，他一见皮拉·苔列娜走进屋来，就好象恍然大悟。他明白：根据某种无法说明的原因，他哥哥的逃亡和母亲的失踪都是这个女人的过错，所以他用那么一声不吭和嫉恶如仇的态度对待她，她就再也不来了。
时间一过，一切照旧。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚和他的儿子自己也不知道，他们究竟是什么时候回到试验室里的，他们打扫了尘上，点燃了炉火，又专心地忙于摆弄那在一堆肥料上放了几个月的东西了。阿玛兰塔躺在一只柳条篮子里，房间中的空气充满了汞气；她好奇地望着爸爸和哥哥聚精会神地工作。乌苏娜失踪之后过了几个月，试验室里开始发生奇怪的事。早就扔在厨房里的空瓶子忽然重得无法挪动。工作台上锅里的水无火自沸起来，咕嘟了整整半个小时，直到完全蒸发。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚和他的儿子对这些怪事都很惊讶、激动，不知如何解释，但把它们看成是新事物的预兆。有一天，阿玛兰塔的篮子突然自己动了起来，在房间里绕圈子，奥雷连诺看了非常吃惊，赶忙去把它拦住。可是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚一点也不惊异。他把篮子放在原处，拴在桌腿上面。篮子的移动终于使他相信，他们的希望快要实现了。就在这时，奥雷连诺听见他说：
“即使你不害怕上帝，你也会害怕金属。”
失踪之后几乎过了五个月，乌苏娜回来了。她显得异常兴奋；有点返老还童，穿着村里人谁也没有穿过的新式衣服。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚高兴得差点儿发了疯，“原来如此！正象我预料的！”他叫了起来。这是真的，因为待在试验室里进行物质试验的长时间中，他曾在内心深处祈求上帝，他所期待的奇迹不是发现点金石，也不是哈口气让金属具有生命，更不是发明一种办法，以便把金子变成房锁和窗子的铰链，而是刚刚发生的事--乌苏娜的归来。但她并没有跟他一起发狂地高兴。她照旧给了丈夫一个乐吻，仿佛他俩不过一小时以前才见过面似的。说道：
“到门外去看看吧！”
霍·阿·布恩蒂亚走到街上，看见自己房子前面的一群人，他好半天才从混乱状态中清醒过来。这不是吉卜赛人，而是跟马孔多村民一样的男人和女人，平直的头发，黝黑的皮肤，说的是同样的语言，抱怨的是相同的痛苦。站在他们旁边的是驮着各种食物的骡子，套上阉牛的大车，车上载着家具和家庭用具－－一尘世生活中必不可缺的简单用具，这些用具是商人每天都在出售的。
这些人是从沼泽地另一边来的，总共两天就能到达那儿，可是那儿建立了城镇，那里的人一年当中每个月都能收到邮件，而且使用能够改善生活的机器。乌苏娜没有追上吉卜赛人，但却发现了她丈夫枉然寻找伟大发明时未能发现的那条道路。
The discovery of the galleon, an indication of the proximity of the sea, broke José Arcadio Buendía's drive. He considered it a trick of his whimsical fate to have searched for the sea without finding it, at the cost of countless sacrifices and suffering, and to have found it all of a sudden without looking for it, as if it lay across his path like an insurmountable object. Many years later Colonel Aureliano Buendía crossed the region again, when it was already a regular mail route, and the only part of the ship he found was its burned-out frame in the midst of a field of poppies. Only then, convinced that the story had not been some product of his father's imagination, did he wonder how the galleon had been able to get inland to that spot. But José Arcadio Buendía did not concern himself with that when he found the sea after another four days' journey from the galleon. His dreams ended as he faced that ashen, foamy, dirty sea, which had not merited the risks and sacrifices of the adventure.
"God damn it!" he shouted. "Macondo is surrounded by water on all sides."
The idea of a peninsular Macondo prevailed for a long time, inspired by the arbitrary map that José Arcadio Buendía sketched on his return from the expedition. He drew it in rage, evilly, exaggerating the difficulties of communication, as if to punish himself for the absolute lack of sense with which he had chosen the place. "We'll never get anywhere," he lamented to ?rsula. "We're going to rot our lives away here without receiving the benefits of science." That certainty, mulled over for several months in the small room he used as his laboratory, brought him to the conception of the plan to move Maeondo to a better place. But that time ?rsula had anticipated his feverish designs. With the secret and implacable labor of a small ant she predisposed the women of the village against the flightiness of their husbands, who were already preparing for the move. José Arcadio Buendía did not know at what moment or because of what adverse forces his plan had become enveloped in a web of pretexts, disappointments, and evasions until it turned into nothing but an illusion. ?rsula watched him with innocent attention and even felt some pity for him on the morning when she found him in the back room muttering about his plans for moving as he placed his laboratory pieces in their original boxes. She let him finish. She let him nail up the boxes and put his initials on them with an inked brush, without reproaching him, but knowing now that he knew (because she had heard him say so in his soft monologues) that the men of the village would not back him up in his undertaking. Only when he began to take down the door of the room did ?rsula dare ask him what he was doing, and he answered with a certain bitterness. "Since no one wants to leave, we'll leave all by ourselves." ?rsula did not become upset.
"We will not leave," she said. "We will stay here, because we have had a son here."
"We have still not had a death," he said. "A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground."
?rsula replied with a soft firmness:
"If I have to die for the rest of you to stay here, I will die."
José Arcadio Buendía had not thought that his wife's will was so firm. He tried to seduce her with the charm of his fantasy, with the promise of a prodigious world where all one had to do was sprinkle some magic liquid on the ground and the plants would bear fruit whenever a man wished, and where all manner of instruments against pain were sold at bargain prices. But ?rsula was insensible to his clairvoyance.
"Instead of going around thinking about your crazy inventions, you should be worrying about your sons," she replied. "Look at the state they're in, running wild just like donkeys."
José Arcadio Buendía took his wife's words literally. He looked out the window and saw the barefoot children in the sunny garden and he had the impression that only at that instant had they begun to exist, conceived by ?rsula's spell, Something occurred inside of him then, something mysterious and definitive that uprooted him from his own time and carried him adrift through an unexplored region of his memory. While ?rsula continued sweeping the house, which was safe now from being abandoned for the rest of her life, he stood there with an absorbed look, contemplating the children until his eyes became moist and he dried them with the back of his hand, exhaling a deep sigh of resignation.
"All right," he said. "Tell them to come help me take the things out of the boxes."
José Arcadio, the older of the children, was fourteen. He had a square head, thick hair, and his father's character. Although he had the same impulse for growth and physical strength, it was early evident that he lacked imagination. He had been conceived and born during the difficult crossing of the mountains, before the founding of Macondo, and his parents gave thanks to heaven when they saw he had no animal features. Aureliano, the first human being to be born in Macondo, would be six years old in March. He was silent and withdrawn. He had wept in his mother's womb and had been born with his eyes open. As they were cutting the umbilical cord, he moved his head from side to side, taking in the things in the room and examining the faces of the people with a fearless curiosity. Then, indifferent to those who came close to look at him, he kept his attention concentrated on the palm roof, which looked as if it were about to collapse under the tremendous pressure of the rain. ?rsula did not remember the intensity of that look again until one day when little Aureliano, at the age of three, went into the kitchen at the moment she was taking a pot of boiling soup from the stove and putting it on the table. The child, Perplexed, said from the doorway, "It's going to spill." The pot was firmly placed in the center of the table, but just as soon as the child made his announcement, it began an unmistakable movement toward the edge, as if impelled by some inner dynamism, and it fell and broke on the floor. ?rsula, alarmed, told her husband about the episode, but he interpreted it as a natural phenomenon. That was the way he always was alien to the existence of his sons, partly because he considered childhood as a period of mental insufficiency, and partly because he was always too absorbed in his fantastic speculations.
But since the afternoon when he called the children in to help him unpack the things in the laboratory, he gave them his best hours. In the small separate room, where the walls were gradually being covered by strange maps and fabulous drawings, he taught them to read and write and do sums, and he spoke to them about the wonders of the world, not only where his learning had extended, but forcing the limits of his imagination to extremes. It was in that way that the boys ended up learning that in the southern extremes of Africa there were men so intelligent and peaceful that their only pastime was to sit and think, and that it was possible to cross the Aegean Sea on foot by jumping from island to island all the way to the port of Salonika. Those hallucinating sessions remained printed on the memories of the boys in such a way that many years later, a second before the regular army officer gave the firing squad the command to fire, Colonel Aureliano Buendía saw once more that warm March afternoon on which his father had interrupted the lesson in physics and stood fascinated, with his hand in the air and his eyes motionless, listening to the distant pipes, drums, and jingles of the gypsies, who were coming to the village once more, announcing the latest and most startling discovery of the sages of Memphis.
They were new gypsies, young men and women who knew only their own language, handsome specimens with oily skins and intelligent hands, whose dances and music sowed a panic of uproarious joy through the streets, with parrots painted all colors reciting Italian arias, and a hen who laid a hundred golden eggs to the sound of a tambourine, and a trained monkey who read minds, and the multi-use machine that could be used at the same time to sew on buttons and reduce fevers, and the apparatus to make a person forget his bad memories, and a poultice to lose time, and a thousand more inventions so ingenious and unusual that José Arcadio Buendía must have wanted to invent a memory machine so that he could remember them all. In an instant they transformed the village. The inhabitants of Macondo found themselves lost is their own streets, confused by the crowded fair.
Holding a child by each hand so as not to lose them in the tumult, bumping into acrobats with gold-capped teeth and jugglers with six arms, suffocated by the mingled breath of manure and sandals that the crowd exhaled, José Arcadio Buendía went about everywhere like a madman, looking for Melquíades so that he could reveal to him the infinite secrets of that fabulous nightmare. He asked several gypsies, who did not understand his language. Finally he reached the place where Melquíades used to set up his tent and he found a taciturn Armenian who in Spanish was hawking a syrup to make oneself invisible. He had drunk down a glass of the amber substance in one gulp as José Arcadio Buendía elbowed his way through the absorbed group that was witnessing the spectacle, and was able to ask his question. The gypsy wrapped him in the frightful climate of his look before he turned into a puddle of pestilential and smoking pitch over which the echo of his reply still floated: "Melquíades is dead." Upset by the news, José Arcadio Buendía stood motionless, trying to rise above his affliction, until the group dispersed, called away by other artifices, and the puddle of the taciturn Armenian evaporated completely. Other gypsies confirmed later on that Melquíades had in fact succumbed to the fever on the beach at Singapore and that his body had been thrown into the deepest part of the Java Sea. The children had no interest in the news. They insisted that their father take them to see the overwhelming novelty of the sages of Memphis that was being advertised at the entrance of a tent that, according to what was said, had belonged to King Solomon. They insisted so much that José Arcadio Buendía paid the thirty reales and led them into the center of the tent, where there was a giant with a hairy torso and a shaved head, with a copper ring in his nose and a heavy iron chain on his ankle, watching over a pirate chest. When it was opened by the giant, the chest gave off a glacial exhalation. Inside there was only an enormous, transparent block with infinite internal needles in which the light of the sunset was broken up into colored stars. Disconcerted, knowing that the children were waiting for an immediate explanation, José Arcadio Buendía ventured a murmur:
"It's the largest diamond in the world."
"No," the gypsy countered. "It's ice."
José Arcadio Buendía, without understanding, stretched out his hand toward the cake, but the giant moved it away. "Five reales more to touch it," he said. José Arcadio Buendía paid them and put his hand on the ice and held it there for several minutes as his heart filled with fear and jubilation at the contact with mystery. Without knowing what to say, he paid ten reales more so that his sons could have that prodigious experience. Little José Arcadio refused to touch it. Aureliano, on the other hand, took a step forward and put his hand on it, withdrawing it immediately. "It's boiling," he exclaimed, startled. But his father paid no attention to him. Intoxicated by the evidence of the miracle, he forgot at that moment about the frustration of his delirious undertakings and Melquíades' body, abandoned to the appetite of the squids. He paid another five reales and with his hand on the cake, as if giving testimony on the holy scriptures, he exclaimed:
"This is the great invention of our time."
在这荒僻的村子里，早就有个两班牙人的后裔，叫做霍塞·阿卡蒂奥·布恩蒂亚，他是栽种烟草的；乌苏娜的曾祖父和他一起经营这桩有利可图的事业，短时期内两人都建立了很好的家业。多少年过去了，西班牙后裔的曾孙儿和亚拉冈人的曾孙女结了婚。每当大夫的荒唐行为使乌苏娜生气的时候，她就一下子跳过世事纷繁的三百年，咒骂弗兰西斯·德拉克围攻列奥阿察的那个日子。不过，她这么做，只是为了减轻心中的痛苦；实际上，把她跟他终生连接在一起的，是比爱情更牢固的关系：共同的良心谴责。乌苏娜和丈夫是表兄妹，他俩是在古老的村子里一块儿长大的，由于沮祖辈辈的垦殖，这个村庄已经成了今省最好的一个。尽管他俩之间的婚姻是他俩刚刚出世就能预见到的，然而两个年轻人表示结婚愿望的时候，双方的家长都反对。几百年来，两族的人是杂配的，他们生怕这两个健全的后代可能丢脸地生出一只蜥蜴。这样可怕的事已经发牛过一次。乌苏娜的婶婶嫁给霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的叔叔，生下了一个儿子：这个儿子一辈子部穿着肥大的灯笼裤，活到四十二岁还没结婚就流血而死，因为他生下来就长着一条尾巴——尖端有一撮毛的螺旋形软骨。这种名副其实的猪尾巴是他不愿让任何一个女人看见的，最终要了他的命，因为一个熟识的屠夫按照他的要求，用切肉刀把它割掉了。十九岁的霍·阿·布恩蒂亚无忧无虑地用一句话结束了争论：“我可不在乎生出猪崽子，只要它们会说话就行。”于是他俩在花炮声中举行了婚礼铜管乐队，一连闹腾了三个昼夜。在这以后，年轻夫妇本来可以幸福地生活，可是乌苏娜的母亲却对未来的后代作出不大吉利的预言，借以吓唬自己的女儿，甚至怂恿女儿拒绝按照章法跟他结合。她知道大夫是个力大、刚强的人，担心他在她睡着时强迫她，所以，她在上床之前，都穿上母亲拿厚帆布给她缝成的一条衬裤；衬裤是用交叉的皮带系住的，前面用一个大铁扣扣紧。夫妇俩就这样过了若干月。白天，他照料自己的斗鸡，她就和母亲一块儿在刺染上绣花。夜晚，年轻夫妇却陷入了烦恼而激烈的斗争，这种斗争逐渐代替了爱情的安慰。可是，机灵的邻人立即觉得情况不妙，而且村中传说，乌苏娜出嫁一年以后依然是个处女，因为丈大有点儿毛病。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚是最后听到这个谣言的。
“乌苏娜，你听人家在说什么啦，”他向妻子平静他说。
“让他们去嚼舌头吧，”她回答。“咱们知道那不是真的。”
他们的生活又这样过了半年，直到那个倒霉的星期天，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的公鸡战胜了普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔的公鸡。输了的普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔，一见鸡血就气得发疯，故意离开霍·阿·布恩蒂亚远一点儿，想让斗鸡棚里的人都能听到他的话。
“恭喜你呀！”他叫道。“也许你的这只公鸡能够帮你老婆的忙。咱们瞧吧！”
霍·阿·布恩蒂亚不动声色地从地上拎起自己的公鸡。“我马上就来，”他对大家说，然后转向普鲁登希奥，阿吉廖尔：
“你回去拿武器吧，我准备杀死你。”
过了十分钟，他就拿着一枝粗大的标枪回来了，这标枪还是他祖父的。斗鸡棚门口拥聚了几乎半个村子的人，普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔正在那儿等候。他还来不及自卫，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的标枪就击中了他的咽喉，标枪是猛力掷出的，非常准确；由于这种无可指摘的准确，霍塞·奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚（注：布恩蒂亚的祖父）从前曾消灭了全区所有的豹子。夜晚在斗鸡棚里，亲友们守在死者棺材旁边的时候，霍·阿·布恩蒂业走进自己的卧室，看见妻子正在穿她的“贞节裤”。他拿标枪对准她，命令道：“脱掉！”乌苏娜并不怀疑丈夫的决心。“出了事，你负责，”她警告说。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚把标枪插入泥地。
“你生下蜥蜴，咱们就抚养蜥蜴，”他说。“可是村里再也不会有人由于你的过错而被杀死了。”
这是一个美妙的六月的夜晚，月光皎洁，凉爽宜人。他俩通古未睡，在床上折腾，根本没去理会穿过卧室的轻风，风儿带来了普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔亲人的哭声。
人们把这桩事情说成是光荣的决斗，可是两夫妇却感到了良心的谴责。有一天夜里，乌苏娜还没睡觉，出去喝水，在院子里的大土罐旁边看见了普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔。他脸色死白、十分悲伤，试图用一块麻屑堵住喉部正在流血的伤口。看见死人，乌苏娜感到的不是恐惧，而是怜悯。她回到卧室里，把这件怪事告诉了丈夫，可是丈夫并不重视她的话。“死人是不会走出坟墓的，”他说。“这不过是咱们受到良心的责备。”过了两夜，乌苏娜在浴室里遇见普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔--他正在用麻屑擦洗脖子上的凝血。另一个夜晚，她发现他在雨下徘徊。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚讨厌妻子的幻象，就带着标枪到院子里去。死人照旧悲伤地立在那儿。
“滚开！”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚向他吆喝。“你回来多少次，我就要打死你多少次。”
普鲁登希奥没有离开，而霍·阿·布恩蒂亚却不敢拿标枪向他掷去。从那时起，他就无法安稳地睡觉了。他老是痛苦地想起死人穿过雨丝望着他的无限凄凉的眼神，想起死人眼里流露的对活人的深切怀念，想起普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔四处张望。寻找水来浸湿一块麻屑的不安神情。“大概，他很痛苦，”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚向妻子说。“看来，他很孤独。”乌苏娜那么怜悯死人，下一次遇见时，她发现他盯着炉灶上的铁锅，以为他在寻找什么，于是就在整个房子里到处都给他摆了一罐罐水。那一夜，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚看见死人在他自己的卧室里洗伤口，于是就屈服了。
“好吧，普鲁登希奥，”他说。“我们尽量离开这个村子远一些，决不再回这儿来了。现在，你就安心走吧。”
就这样，他们打算翻过山岭到海边去。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚的几个朋友，象他一样年轻，也想去冒险，离开自己的家，带着妻室儿女去寻找土地……渺茫的土地。在离开村子之前，霍．阿·布恩蒂亚把标枪埋在院子里，接二连三砍掉了自己所有斗鸡的脑袋，希望以这样的牺牲给普鲁登希奥·阿吉廖尔一些安慰。乌苏娜带走的只是一口放着嫁妆的箱子、一点儿家庭用具、以及藏放父亲遗产--金币--的一只盒子。谁也没有预先想好一定的路线。他们决定朝着与列奥阿察相反的方向前进，以免遇见任何熟人，从而无影无踪地消失。这是一次荒唐可笑的旅行。过了一年零两个月，乌苏娜虽然用猴内和蛇汤毁坏了自己的肚子，却终于生下了一个儿子，婴儿身体各部完全没有牲畜的征状。因她脚肿，脚上的静脉胀得象囊似的，整整一半的路程，她都不得不躺在两个男人抬着的担架上面。孩子们比父母更容易忍受艰难困苦，他们大部分时间都鲜蹦活跳，尽管样儿可怜--两眼深陷，肚子瘪瘪的。有一天早晨，在几乎两年的流浪以后，他们成了第一批看见山岭西坡的人。从云雾遮蔽的山岭上，他们望见了一片河流纵横的辽阔地带---直伸到天边的巨大沼泽。可是他们始终没有到达海边。在沼泽地里流浪了几个月，路上没有遇见一个人，有一天夜晚，他们就在一条多石的河岸上扎营，这里的河水很象凝固的液体玻璃。多年以后，在第二次国内战争时期，奥雷连诺打算循着这条路线突然占领列奥阿察，可是六天以后他才明白，他的打算纯粹是发疯。然而那夭晚上，在河边扎营以后，他父亲的旅伴们虽然很象遇到船舶失事的人，但是旅途上他们的人数增多了，大伙儿都准备活到老（这一点他们做到了）。夜里，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚做了个梦，营地上仿佛矗立起一座热闹的城市，房屋的墙壁都用晶莹夺目的透明材料砌成。他打听这是什么城市，听到的回答是一个陌生的、毫无意义的名字，可是这个名字在梦里却异常响亮动听：马孔多。翌日，他就告诉自己的人，他们绝对找不到海了。他叫大伙儿砍倒树木，在河边最凉爽的地方开辟一块空地，在空地上建起了一座村庄。
在看见冰块之前，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚始终猜不破自己梦见的玻璃房子。后来，他以为自己理解了这个梦境的深刻意义。他认为，不久的将来，他们就能用水这样的普通材料大规模地制作冰砖，来给全村建筑新的房子。当时，马孔多好象一个赤热的火炉，门闩和窗子的铰链都热得变了形；用冰砖修盖房子，马孔多就会变成一座永远凉爽的市镇了。如果霍·阿·布恩蒂亚没有坚持建立冰厂的打算，只是因为他当时全神贯注地教育两个儿子，特别是奥雷连诺，这孩子一开始就对炼金术表现了罕见的才能。试验室里的工作又紧张起来。现在，父子俩已经没有被新奇事物引起的那种激动心情，只是平平静静地反复阅读梅尔加德斯的笔记，持久而耐心地努力，试图从粘在锅底的一大块东西里面把乌苏娜的金子分离出来。大儿子霍·阿卡蒂奥几乎不参加这个工作。当父亲身心都沉湎于熔铁炉旁的工作时，这个身材过早超过年岁的任性的头生子，已经成了一个魁梧的青年。他的嗓音变粗了·脸颊和下巴都长出了茸毛。有一天晚上，他正在卧室里脱衣睡觉，乌苏娜走了进来，竟然产生了羞涩和怜恤的混合感觉，因为除了丈夫，她看见赤身露体的第一个男人就是儿子，而且儿子生理上显得反常，甚至使她吓了一跳。已经怀着第三个孩子的乌苏娜，重新感到了以前作新娘时的那种恐惧。
那时，有个女人常来布恩蒂亚家里，帮助乌苏娜做些家务。这个女人愉快、热情、嘴尖，会用纸牌占卜。乌苏娜跟这女人谈了谈自己的忧虑。她觉得孩子的发育是不匀称的，就象她的亲戚长了条猪尾巴。女人止不住地放声大笑，笑声响彻了整座屋子，仿佛水晶玻璃铃铛。“恰恰相反，”她说。“他会有福气的。”
“过了几天，为了证明自己的预言准确，她带来一副纸牌，把自己和霍·阿卡蒂奥锁在厨房旁边的库房里。她不慌不忙地在一张旧的木工台上摆开纸牌，口中念念有词；这时，年轻人伫立一旁，与其说对这套把戏感到兴趣，不如说觉得厌倦。忽然，占卜的女人伸手摸了他一下。“我的天！”她真正吃惊地叫了一声，就再也说不出什么话了。
霍·阿卡蒂奥感到，他的骨头变得象海绵一样酥软，感到困乏和恐惧，好不容易才忍住泪水。女人一点也没有激励他。可他整夜都在找她，整夜都觉到她腋下发出的气味：这种气味仿佛渗进了他的躯体。他希望时时刻刻跟她在一起，希望她成为他的母亲，希望他和她永远也不走出库房，希望她向他说：“我的天！”重新摸他，重新说：“我的天！”有一日，他再也忍受不了这种烦恼了，就到她的家里去。这次访问是礼节性的，也是莫名其妙的--在整个访问中，霍·阿卡蒂奥一次也没开口。此刻他不需要她了。他觉得，她完全不象她的气味在他心中幻化的形象，仿佛这根本不是她．而是另一个人。他喝完咖啡，就十分沮丧地回家。夜里，他翻来覆去睡不着觉，又感到极度的难受，可他此刻渴望的不是跟他一起在库房里的那个女人，而是下午坐在他面前的那个女人了。
过了几天，女人忽然把霍·阿卡蒂奥带到了她的家中，并且借口教他一种纸牌戏法，从她跟母亲坐在一起的房间里，把他领进一间卧窄。在这儿，她那么放肆地摸他，使得他浑身不住地战栗，但他感到的是恐惧，而不是快乐。随后，她叫他夜间再未。霍·阿卡蒂奥口头答应，心里却希望尽快摆脱她，--他知道自己天不能来的。然而夜间，躺在热烘烘的被窝里，他觉得自己应当去她那儿，即使自己不能这么干。他在黑暗中摸着穿上衣服，听到弟弟平静的呼吸声、隔壁房间里父亲的产咳声、院子里母鸡的咯咯声、蚊子的嗡嗡声、自己的心脏跳动声--世界上这些乱七八糟的声音以前是不曾引起他的注意的，然后，他走到沉入梦乡的街上。他满心希望房门是门上的，而下只是掩上的（她曾这样告诉过他）。担它井没有闩上。他用指尖一推房门，铰链就清晰地发出悲鸣，这种悲鸣在他心中引起的是冰凉的回响。他尽量不弄出响声，侧着身子走进房里，马上感觉到了那种气味，霍·阿卡蒂奥还在第一个房间里，女人的三个弟弟通常是悬起吊床过夜的；这些吊床在什么地方，他并不知道，在黑暗中也辨别不清，因此，他只得摸索着走到卧室门前，把门推开，找准方向，免得弄错床铺。他往前摸过去，立即撞上了一张吊床的床头，这个吊床低得出乎他的预料。一个正在乎静地打鼾的人，梦中翻了个身，声音有点悲观他说了句梦话：“那是星期三。”当霍·阿卡蒂奥推开卧室门的时候，他无法制止房门擦过凹凸不平的地面。他处在一团漆黑中，既苦恼又慌乱，明白自己终于迷失了方向。睡在这个狭窄房间里的，是母亲、她的第二个女儿和丈夫、两个孩子和另一个女人，这个女人显然不是等他的。他可以凭气味找到，然而到处都是气味，那么细微又那么明显的气味，就象现在经常留在他身上的那种气味。霍·阿卡蒂奥呆然不动地站了好久，惊骇地问了问自己，怎会陷入这个束手无策的境地，忽然有一只伸开指头的手在黑暗中摸索，碰到了他的面孔，他并不觉得奇怪，因为他下意识地正在等着别人摸他。他把自己交给了这只手，他在精疲力尽的状态中让它把他拉到看不见的床铺跟前；在这儿，有人脱掉了他的衣服，把他象一袋土豆似的举了起来，在一片漆黑里把他翻来覆去；在黑暗中，他的双手无用了，这儿不再闻女人的气味，只有阿莫尼亚的气味，他力图回忆她的面孔，他的眼前却恍惚浮现出乌苏娜的而孔；他模糊地觉得，他正在做他早就想做的事儿，尽倚他决不认为他能做这种事儿，他自己并不知道这该怎么做，并不知道双手放在哪儿，双脚放在哪儿，并不知道这是谁的脑袋、谁的腿；他觉得自己再也不能继续下去了，他渴望逃走，又渴望永远留在这种极度的寂静中，留在这种可怕的孤独中。
这个女人叫做皮拉·苔列娜。按照父母的意愿，她参加过最终建立马孔多村的长征。父母想让自己的女儿跟一个男人分开，她十四岁时，那人就使她失去了贞操，她满二十二岁时，他还继续跟她生在一起，可是怎么也拿不定使婚姻合法化的主意，因为他不是她本村的人。他发誓说，他要跟随她到夭涯海角，但要等他把自己的事情搞好以后；从那时起，她就一直等着他，已经失去了相见的希望，尽管纸牌经常向她预示，将有各式各样的男人来找她，高的和矮的、金发和黑发的；有的从陆上来，有的从海上来，有的过三天来，有的过三月来，有的过三年来。等呀盼呀，她的大腿已经失去了劲头，胸脯已经失去了弹性，她已疏远了男人的爱抚，可是心里还很狂热。现在，霍·阿卡蒂奥对新颖而奇异的玩耍入了迷，每天夜里都到迷宫式的房间里来找她。有一回，他发现房门是闩上的，就笃笃地敲门；他以为，他既有勇气敲第一次，那就应当敲到底……等了许久，她才把门打开。白天，他因睡眠不足躺下了，还在暗暗回味昨夜的事。可是，皮拉·苔列娜来到布恩蒂亚家里的时候，显得高高兴兴、满不在乎、笑语联珠，霍·阿卡蒂奥不必费劲地掩饰自己的紧张，因为这个女人响亮的笑声能够吓跑在院子里踱来踱去的鸽子，她跟那个具有无形力量的女人毫无共同之处，那个女人曾经教他如何屏住呼吸和控制心跳，帮助他了解男人为什么怕死。他全神贯注于自己的体会，甚至不了解周围的人在高兴什么，这时，他的父亲和弟弟说，他们终于透过金属渣滓取出了乌苏娜的金子，这个消息简直震动了整座房子。
事实上，他们是经过多日坚持不懈的努力取得成功的。乌苏娜挺高兴，甚至感谢上帝发明了炼金术，村里的居民挤进试验室，主人就拿抹上番石榴酱的烤饼招待他们，庆祝这个奇迹的出现，而霍·阿·布恩蒂亚却让他们参观一个坩埚，里面放着复原的金子，他的神情仿佛表示这金子是他刚刚发明的，他从一个人走到另一个人跟前，最后来到大儿子身边。大儿子最近几乎不来试验室了。布恩蒂亚把一块微黄的干硬东西拿到他的眼前，问道，“你看这象什么？”
霍·阿卡蒂奥直耿耿地回答：
“象狗屎。”
父亲用手背在他嘴唇上碰了一下，碰得很重，霍·阿卡蒂奥嘴里竟然流出血来，眼里流出泪来。夜里，皮拉·苔列娜在黑暗中摸到一小瓶药和棉花，拿浸了亚尔尼加碘酒的压布贴在肿处，为霍·阿卡蒂奥尽心地做了一切，而没有使他产生仟何不舒服之感，竭力爱护他，而不碰痛他。他俩达到了那样亲密的程度，过了一会儿，他俩就不知不觉地在夜间幽会中第一次低声交谈起来：
“我只想跟你在一起，”他说。“最近几天内，我就要把一切告诉人家，别再这么捉迷藏了。”
皮拉·苔列娜不想劝阻他。
“那很好嘛，”她说。“如果咱俩单独在一块儿，咱们就把灯点上，彼此都能看见，我想叫喊就能叫喊，跟别人不相干；而你想说什么蠢话，就可在我耳边说什么蠢话。”
霍·阿卡蒂奥经过这场谈话，加上他对父亲的怨气，而且他认为作法的爱情在一切情况下都是可以的，他就心安理得、勇气倍增了。没有任何准备，他自动把一闭告诉了弟弟。
起初，年幼的奥雷连诺只把霍·阿卡蒂奥的艳遇看做是哥哥面临的可怕危险，不明白什么力量吸引了哥哥。可是，霍·阿卡蒂奥的烦躁不安逐渐传染了他。他要哥哥谈谈那些细微情节，跟哥哥共苦同乐，他感到自己既害怕又快活，现在，他却等首霍·阿卡蒂奥回来，直到天亮都没合眼，在孤单的床上辗转反侧，仿佛躺在一堆烧红的炭上；随后，兄弟俩一直谈到早该起床的时候，很快陷入半昏迷状态；两人都同样厌恶炼金术和父亲的聪明才智，变得孤僻了。“孩子们的样儿没有一点精神，”乌苏娜说。“也许肠里有虫子。”她用捣碎的美洲土荆芥知心话来。哥哥不象以前那么诚恳了。他从态度和蔼的、容易接近的人变成了怀着戒心的、孤僻的人。他痛恨整个世界，渴望孤身独处。有一天夜里，他又离开了，但是没有去皮拉·苔列娜那儿，而跟拥在吉卜赛帐篷周围看热闹的人混在一起。他踱来踱去地看了看各种精彩节目，对任何一个节目都不感兴趣，却注意到了一个非展览品---个年轻的吉卜赛女人；这女人几乎是个小姑娘，脖子上戴着一串挺重的玻璃珠子，因此弯着身子。霍·阿卡蒂奥有生以来还没见过比她更美的人。姑娘站在人群当中看一幕惨剧：一个人由于不听父母的话，变成了一条蛇。
霍·阿卡蒂奥根本没看这个不幸的人。当观众向“蛇人”询问他那悲惨的故事细节时，年轻的霍·阿卡蒂奥就挤到第一排吉卜赛姑娘那儿去，站在她的背后，然后紧贴着她。她想挪开一些，可他把她贴得更紧。于是，她感觉到了他。她愣着没动，惊恐得发颤，不相信自己的感觉，终于回头胆怯地一笑，瞄了霍·阿卡蒂奥一眼，这时，两个吉卜赛人把“蛇人”装进了笼子，搬进帐篷。指挥表演的吉卜赛人宣布：
“现在，女士们和先生们，我们将给你们表演一个可怕的节目--每夜这个时候都要砍掉一个女人的脑袋，连砍一百五十年，以示惩罚，因为她看了她不该看的东西。”
霍·阿卡蒂奥和吉卜赛姑娘没有参观砍头。他俩走进了她的帐篷，由于冲动就接起吻来，并且脱掉了衣服；吉卜赛姑娘从身上脱掉了浆过的花边紧身兜，就变得一丝不挂了。这是一只千瘪的小青蛙，胸部还没发育，两腿挺瘦，比霍·阿卡蒂奥的胳膊还细；可是她的果断和热情却弥补了她的赢弱。然而，霍·阿卡蒂奥不能以同样的热劲儿回答她，因为他们是在一个公用帐篷里，吉卜赛人不时拿着各种杂耍器具进来，在这儿干事，甚至就在床铺旁边的地上掷骰子·帐篷中间的木竿上挂着一盏灯，照亮了每个角落。在爱抚之间的短暂停歇中，霍·阿卡蒂奥赤裸裸地躺在床上，不知道该怎么办，而姑娘却一再想刺激他。过了一会，一个身姿优美的吉卜赛女人和一个男人一起走进帐篷，这个男人不属于杂技团，也不是本村的人。两人就在床边脱衣解带。女人偶然看了霍·阿卡蒂奥一眼。
“孩子，”她叫道，“上帝保佑你，走开吧！”
霍·阿卡蒂奥的女伴要求对方不要打扰他俩，于是新来的一对只好躺在紧靠床铺的地上。
这是星期四。星期六晚上，霍·阿卡蒂奥在头上扎了块红布，就跟吉卜赛人一起离开了马孔多。
发现儿子失踪之后，乌苏娜就在整个村子里到处找他，在吉卜赛人先前搭篷的地方，她只看见一堆堆垃圾和还在冒烟的篝火灰烬。有些村民在刨垃圾堆，希望找到玻璃串珠，其中一个村民向乌苏娜说，昨夜他曾看见她的儿子跟杂技演员们在一起--霍·阿卡蒂奥推着一辆小车，车上有一只装着“蛇人”的笼子。“他变成吉卜赛人啦！”她向丈夫吵嚷，可是丈夫对于儿子的失踪丝毫没有表示惊慌。
“这倒不坏，”霍·阿·布恩蒂亚一面说，一面在研钵里捣什么东西；这东西已经反复捣过多次，加热多次，现在还在研钵里。“他可以成为一个男子汉了。”
乌苏娜打听了吉卜赛人所去的方向，就沿着那条路走去，碰见每一个人都要问一问，希望追上大群吉卜赛人，因此离开村子越来越远；终于看出自己走得过远，她就认为用不着回头了，到了晚上八点，霍·阿·布恩蒂亚才发现妻子失踪，当时他把东西放在一堆肥料上，决定去看看小女儿阿玛兰塔是怎么回事，因为她到这时哭得嗓子都哑了。在几小时内，他毫不犹豫地集合了一队装备很好的村民，把阿玛兰塔交给一个自愿充当奶妈的女人，就踏上荒无人迹的小道，去寻找乌苏娜了。他是把奥雷连诺带在身边的。拂晓时分，几个印第安渔人用手势向他们表明：谁也不曾走过这儿。经过三天毫无效果的寻找，他们回到了村里。
霍·阿·布恩蒂亚苦恼了好久。他象母亲一样照拂小女儿阿玛兰塔。他给她洗澡、换襁褓，一天四次抱她去奶妈那儿，晚上甚至给她唱歌（乌苏娜是从来不会唱歌的）。有一次，皮拉·苔列娜自愿来这儿照料家务，直到乌苏娜回来。在不幸之中，奥雷连诺神秘的洞察力更加敏锐了，他一见皮拉·苔列娜走进屋来，就好象恍然大悟。他明白：根据某种无法说明的原因，他哥哥的逃亡和母亲的失踪都是这个女人的过错，所以他用那么一声不吭和嫉恶如仇的态度对待她，她就再也不来了。
时间一过，一切照旧。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚和他的儿子自己也不知道，他们究竟是什么时候回到试验室里的，他们打扫了尘上，点燃了炉火，又专心地忙于摆弄那在一堆肥料上放了几个月的东西了。阿玛兰塔躺在一只柳条篮子里，房间中的空气充满了汞气；她好奇地望着爸爸和哥哥聚精会神地工作。乌苏娜失踪之后过了几个月，试验室里开始发生奇怪的事。早就扔在厨房里的空瓶子忽然重得无法挪动。工作台上锅里的水无火自沸起来，咕嘟了整整半个小时，直到完全蒸发。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚和他的儿子对这些怪事都很惊讶、激动，不知如何解释，但把它们看成是新事物的预兆。有一天，阿玛兰塔的篮子突然自己动了起来，在房间里绕圈子，奥雷连诺看了非常吃惊，赶忙去把它拦住。可是霍·阿·布恩蒂亚一点也不惊异。他把篮子放在原处，拴在桌腿上面。篮子的移动终于使他相信，他们的希望快要实现了。就在这时，奥雷连诺听见他说：
“即使你不害怕上帝，你也会害怕金属。”
失踪之后几乎过了五个月，乌苏娜回来了。她显得异常兴奋；有点返老还童，穿着村里人谁也没有穿过的新式衣服。霍·阿·布恩蒂亚高兴得差点儿发了疯，“原来如此！正象我预料的！”他叫了起来。这是真的，因为待在试验室里进行物质试验的长时间中，他曾在内心深处祈求上帝，他所期待的奇迹不是发现点金石，也不是哈口气让金属具有生命，更不是发明一种办法，以便把金子变成房锁和窗子的铰链，而是刚刚发生的事--乌苏娜的归来。但她并没有跟他一起发狂地高兴。她照旧给了丈夫一个乐吻，仿佛他俩不过一小时以前才见过面似的。说道：
“到门外去看看吧！”
霍·阿·布恩蒂亚走到街上，看见自己房子前面的一群人，他好半天才从混乱状态中清醒过来。这不是吉卜赛人，而是跟马孔多村民一样的男人和女人，平直的头发，黝黑的皮肤，说的是同样的语言，抱怨的是相同的痛苦。站在他们旁边的是驮着各种食物的骡子，套上阉牛的大车，车上载着家具和家庭用具－－一尘世生活中必不可缺的简单用具，这些用具是商人每天都在出售的。
这些人是从沼泽地另一边来的，总共两天就能到达那儿，可是那儿建立了城镇，那里的人一年当中每个月都能收到邮件，而且使用能够改善生活的机器。乌苏娜没有追上吉卜赛人，但却发现了她丈夫枉然寻找伟大发明时未能发现的那条道路。
The discovery of the galleon, an indication of the proximity of the sea, broke José Arcadio Buendía's drive. He considered it a trick of his whimsical fate to have searched for the sea without finding it, at the cost of countless sacrifices and suffering, and to have found it all of a sudden without looking for it, as if it lay across his path like an insurmountable object. Many years later Colonel Aureliano Buendía crossed the region again, when it was already a regular mail route, and the only part of the ship he found was its burned-out frame in the midst of a field of poppies. Only then, convinced that the story had not been some product of his father's imagination, did he wonder how the galleon had been able to get inland to that spot. But José Arcadio Buendía did not concern himself with that when he found the sea after another four days' journey from the galleon. His dreams ended as he faced that ashen, foamy, dirty sea, which had not merited the risks and sacrifices of the adventure.
"God damn it!" he shouted. "Macondo is surrounded by water on all sides."
The idea of a peninsular Macondo prevailed for a long time, inspired by the arbitrary map that José Arcadio Buendía sketched on his return from the expedition. He drew it in rage, evilly, exaggerating the difficulties of communication, as if to punish himself for the absolute lack of sense with which he had chosen the place. "We'll never get anywhere," he lamented to ?rsula. "We're going to rot our lives away here without receiving the benefits of science." That certainty, mulled over for several months in the small room he used as his laboratory, brought him to the conception of the plan to move Maeondo to a better place. But that time ?rsula had anticipated his feverish designs. With the secret and implacable labor of a small ant she predisposed the women of the village against the flightiness of their husbands, who were already preparing for the move. José Arcadio Buendía did not know at what moment or because of what adverse forces his plan had become enveloped in a web of pretexts, disappointments, and evasions until it turned into nothing but an illusion. ?rsula watched him with innocent attention and even felt some pity for him on the morning when she found him in the back room muttering about his plans for moving as he placed his laboratory pieces in their original boxes. She let him finish. She let him nail up the boxes and put his initials on them with an inked brush, without reproaching him, but knowing now that he knew (because she had heard him say so in his soft monologues) that the men of the village would not back him up in his undertaking. Only when he began to take down the door of the room did ?rsula dare ask him what he was doing, and he answered with a certain bitterness. "Since no one wants to leave, we'll leave all by ourselves." ?rsula did not become upset.
"We will not leave," she said. "We will stay here, because we have had a son here."
"We have still not had a death," he said. "A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground."
?rsula replied with a soft firmness:
"If I have to die for the rest of you to stay here, I will die."
José Arcadio Buendía had not thought that his wife's will was so firm. He tried to seduce her with the charm of his fantasy, with the promise of a prodigious world where all one had to do was sprinkle some magic liquid on the ground and the plants would bear fruit whenever a man wished, and where all manner of instruments against pain were sold at bargain prices. But ?rsula was insensible to his clairvoyance.
"Instead of going around thinking about your crazy inventions, you should be worrying about your sons," she replied. "Look at the state they're in, running wild just like donkeys."
José Arcadio Buendía took his wife's words literally. He looked out the window and saw the barefoot children in the sunny garden and he had the impression that only at that instant had they begun to exist, conceived by ?rsula's spell, Something occurred inside of him then, something mysterious and definitive that uprooted him from his own time and carried him adrift through an unexplored region of his memory. While ?rsula continued sweeping the house, which was safe now from being abandoned for the rest of her life, he stood there with an absorbed look, contemplating the children until his eyes became moist and he dried them with the back of his hand, exhaling a deep sigh of resignation.
"All right," he said. "Tell them to come help me take the things out of the boxes."
José Arcadio, the older of the children, was fourteen. He had a square head, thick hair, and his father's character. Although he had the same impulse for growth and physical strength, it was early evident that he lacked imagination. He had been conceived and born during the difficult crossing of the mountains, before the founding of Macondo, and his parents gave thanks to heaven when they saw he had no animal features. Aureliano, the first human being to be born in Macondo, would be six years old in March. He was silent and withdrawn. He had wept in his mother's womb and had been born with his eyes open. As they were cutting the umbilical cord, he moved his head from side to side, taking in the things in the room and examining the faces of the people with a fearless curiosity. Then, indifferent to those who came close to look at him, he kept his attention concentrated on the palm roof, which looked as if it were about to collapse under the tremendous pressure of the rain. ?rsula did not remember the intensity of that look again until one day when little Aureliano, at the age of three, went into the kitchen at the moment she was taking a pot of boiling soup from the stove and putting it on the table. The child, Perplexed, said from the doorway, "It's going to spill." The pot was firmly placed in the center of the table, but just as soon as the child made his announcement, it began an unmistakable movement toward the edge, as if impelled by some inner dynamism, and it fell and broke on the floor. ?rsula, alarmed, told her husband about the episode, but he interpreted it as a natural phenomenon. That was the way he always was alien to the existence of his sons, partly because he considered childhood as a period of mental insufficiency, and partly because he was always too absorbed in his fantastic speculations.
But since the afternoon when he called the children in to help him unpack the things in the laboratory, he gave them his best hours. In the small separate room, where the walls were gradually being covered by strange maps and fabulous drawings, he taught them to read and write and do sums, and he spoke to them about the wonders of the world, not only where his learning had extended, but forcing the limits of his imagination to extremes. It was in that way that the boys ended up learning that in the southern extremes of Africa there were men so intelligent and peaceful that their only pastime was to sit and think, and that it was possible to cross the Aegean Sea on foot by jumping from island to island all the way to the port of Salonika. Those hallucinating sessions remained printed on the memories of the boys in such a way that many years later, a second before the regular army officer gave the firing squad the command to fire, Colonel Aureliano Buendía saw once more that warm March afternoon on which his father had interrupted the lesson in physics and stood fascinated, with his hand in the air and his eyes motionless, listening to the distant pipes, drums, and jingles of the gypsies, who were coming to the village once more, announcing the latest and most startling discovery of the sages of Memphis.
They were new gypsies, young men and women who knew only their own language, handsome specimens with oily skins and intelligent hands, whose dances and music sowed a panic of uproarious joy through the streets, with parrots painted all colors reciting Italian arias, and a hen who laid a hundred golden eggs to the sound of a tambourine, and a trained monkey who read minds, and the multi-use machine that could be used at the same time to sew on buttons and reduce fevers, and the apparatus to make a person forget his bad memories, and a poultice to lose time, and a thousand more inventions so ingenious and unusual that José Arcadio Buendía must have wanted to invent a memory machine so that he could remember them all. In an instant they transformed the village. The inhabitants of Macondo found themselves lost is their own streets, confused by the crowded fair.
Holding a child by each hand so as not to lose them in the tumult, bumping into acrobats with gold-capped teeth and jugglers with six arms, suffocated by the mingled breath of manure and sandals that the crowd exhaled, José Arcadio Buendía went about everywhere like a madman, looking for Melquíades so that he could reveal to him the infinite secrets of that fabulous nightmare. He asked several gypsies, who did not understand his language. Finally he reached the place where Melquíades used to set up his tent and he found a taciturn Armenian who in Spanish was hawking a syrup to make oneself invisible. He had drunk down a glass of the amber substance in one gulp as José Arcadio Buendía elbowed his way through the absorbed group that was witnessing the spectacle, and was able to ask his question. The gypsy wrapped him in the frightful climate of his look before he turned into a puddle of pestilential and smoking pitch over which the echo of his reply still floated: "Melquíades is dead." Upset by the news, José Arcadio Buendía stood motionless, trying to rise above his affliction, until the group dispersed, called away by other artifices, and the puddle of the taciturn Armenian evaporated completely. Other gypsies confirmed later on that Melquíades had in fact succumbed to the fever on the beach at Singapore and that his body had been thrown into the deepest part of the Java Sea. The children had no interest in the news. They insisted that their father take them to see the overwhelming novelty of the sages of Memphis that was being advertised at the entrance of a tent that, according to what was said, had belonged to King Solomon. They insisted so much that José Arcadio Buendía paid the thirty reales and led them into the center of the tent, where there was a giant with a hairy torso and a shaved head, with a copper ring in his nose and a heavy iron chain on his ankle, watching over a pirate chest. When it was opened by the giant, the chest gave off a glacial exhalation. Inside there was only an enormous, transparent block with infinite internal needles in which the light of the sunset was broken up into colored stars. Disconcerted, knowing that the children were waiting for an immediate explanation, José Arcadio Buendía ventured a murmur:
"It's the largest diamond in the world."
"No," the gypsy countered. "It's ice."
José Arcadio Buendía, without understanding, stretched out his hand toward the cake, but the giant moved it away. "Five reales more to touch it," he said. José Arcadio Buendía paid them and put his hand on the ice and held it there for several minutes as his heart filled with fear and jubilation at the contact with mystery. Without knowing what to say, he paid ten reales more so that his sons could have that prodigious experience. Little José Arcadio refused to touch it. Aureliano, on the other hand, took a step forward and put his hand on it, withdrawing it immediately. "It's boiling," he exclaimed, startled. But his father paid no attention to him. Intoxicated by the evidence of the miracle, he forgot at that moment about the frustration of his delirious undertakings and Melquíades' body, abandoned to the appetite of the squids. He paid another five reales and with his hand on the cake, as if giving testimony on the holy scriptures, he exclaimed:
"This is the great invention of our time."