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霍乱时期的爱情|Love in the Time of Cholera

第一章|Chapter 1

属类： 双语小说 【分类】双语小说 -[作者: 加夫列尔-加西亚-马尔克斯] 阅读：[4835]
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我想要表达的是：它们现在已有了戴王冠的仙女。——莱昂德罗-迪亚斯。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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“真蠢，最糟糕的事情终于发生了。”

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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。”

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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。

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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。

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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。”

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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。

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“不过，找不到也没关系。”他说，“一切费用由我承担。”

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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。

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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。

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“我深知此人是个圣者。”他说。

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“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。

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但那是上帝的事情。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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“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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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“没有什么特别的东西。”他说，“是他最后的一些嘱托。”

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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。

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“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。”

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。”

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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。

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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！”

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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。

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“那么说，您当时知道他要死了？”他惊叫道。

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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。

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“您的责任是告发他。”医生说。

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“我不能对他做这种事！”她愤怒地说，“我太爱他了。”

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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。

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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。”

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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。

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“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。

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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。”

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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。

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他有他的道理：只有玩世不恭的人才会从痛苦中得到满足。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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枪杀勿论，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。

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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枪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。

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“不会说话的东西不准进咱们的家11。”’他说。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。”

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。

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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。”

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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。

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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！”

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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。

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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。”

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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。

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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，并非象她固执地认为的那样是由于他的粗心，而是由于生理上的原因。他年轻时小便又准又直，在中学里比赛往瓶子里撒尿，他曾数次荣获第一。但上了年岁，不仅小便劲头没有那么大了，而且歪歪斜斜，滴滴喀喀撒得满处都是，根本没法掌握，尽管他主观上还在竭力想瞄准方向。他说：“抽水马桶肯定是对男人一无所知的人发明的。”他用自己的日常行动来求得家庭的安宁，对妻子更多的是低声下气，而不是谦恭。他每天小便时，都用卫生纸把便池边擦干净。她知道这件事，当浴室里氨气的味道不是十分明显的时候，她什么也不说。不过，一旦氨气的味道浓重起来，她就会象发现一桩罪行似的嚷道：“臭得连兔窝里都能闻到。”将近晚年时，乌尔比诺医生终于想出了最后解决这一麻烦的办法：象妻子一样蹲着小便，这样不仅可以保持便池清洁，而且也省力得多。

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那时他生活自理的能力已相当差，他尽量避免淋浴，因为在浴池里摔上一跤，足以使他送命。他的家是现代化的，没有古城府邸中常见的那种带狮腿的金属浴缸，他从卫生的角度把这种浴缸取消了。他说：“浴缸是欧洲人最脏的东西之一，他们只在每月的最后一个星期五洗澡，而且是在被他们身上的脏物弄脏的水里洗澡。”

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因此，他让人用结实的愈疮木做了一个特大号木盆，费尔米纳用它来给丈夫洗澡，就象给新生婴儿洗澡一样。每次沐浴要拖一个多小时。用锦葵叶和桔皮煮成的黑褐色的水，对他有良好的镇静效果，有时他不知不觉地便在散发着香气的浴盆中睡着了。洗完澡后，费尔米纳就帮他穿衣服，把滑石粉敷在他两腿中间，把可可油涂在他的烫伤之处，她如此爱抚地替他穿上裤衩，仿佛他是一个在襁褓中的婴儿。她接着一件件地替他穿下去，从袜子一直穿到用黄玉别针打领带结。夫妇之间和睦相处，黎明时的争吵已成为过去。他似乎又重新回到了被子女们夺走的童年，而她则每天忙于家务，并且随着岁月流逝，上了年纪，睡觉的时间越来越少，在满七十岁之前，她总是醒得比丈夫早。

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在圣灵降临节的那个星期日，当乌尔比诺医生掀开毛毯来看阿莫乌尔的遗体时，他发现了一点在他医生和信徒的最光辉的航程中一直否定掉的东西。在他同死人打了那么多年交道之后，在同死神做了那么多年争夺之后，在反过来复过去经常触摸死人之后，他仿佛第一次敢于面对面地看一个死人，而死者也在以同样的方式注视着他。他以前一直没有面对面看过死人，并非由于恐惧。因为多年以来，恐惧就象个幽灵似的一直和他形影不离。那是从一天晚上他被恶梦惊醒之后开始的。他意识到，死亡对于他，不仅象他感觉到的那样随时都具有可能性，而且是一种很快就会发生的事实。相反，那天他看到的是一件事情的物质表现形式。那件事情过去一直是仅仅存在于他的想象之中的。他很高兴上帝出其不意地以阿莫乌尔作为工具向他揭示了那件事情。他向来把阿莫乌尔看做是一个圣人。但是，那封遗书表明了他的真实身分，他的邪恶的历史和不可思议的耍阴谋的能力，使乌尔比诺医生感到一种不可移易、难以追回的东西在他的生活中已经失落了。

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费尔米纳并没有受他忧郁的情绪所感染。当她帮他把腿伸进裤子和扣上一大排衬衣纽扣时，他是想用自己的情绪感染她的，但是他没有达到目的。费尔米纳不是那么容易动感情的，何况死的是一个与她无关的男人。她几乎不知道阿莫乌尔是个使用拐杖的残废人，她从来没有见过他，也不知道他是在安第列斯群岛某个岛屿的一次暴动中——那儿发生过无数次暴动——从行刑队的枪声中逃出来的，史不知道他为了生计做了儿童摄影师，而且是全省生意最兴隆的人。她也不知道他曾赢过某人一盘象棋，那个人似乎叫托雷莫利诺斯，而实际上叫卡帕布兰卡。

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“他是一名因为犯了一桩凶残的罪行而被判无期徒刑的卡耶纳的逃犯。”乌尔比诺医生说，“你设想一下，他甚至还吃过人肉！”

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他把那封遗书交给了她，信中的秘密他至死不想告诉任何人。但是她没有把信打开，直接把它放在梳妆台上，而且用钥匙锁上了抽屉。她已经习惯了丈夫莫名其妙、大惊小怪的毛病，习惯了他随着年龄的增长变得更加难以理解的夸大其词，以及那种与其仪表不相称的狭隘的见解。但是那一次她超越了自己的界限。她以为丈夫之所以尊敬阿莫乌尔并非由于这个人过去的历史，而是由于他作为一个流亡者提着行李到达这儿以后开始的所作所为。她不明白为什么他对阿莫乌尔最后暴露身份感到如此惊讶和沮丧。也不明白为什么他对他窝藏女人感到深恶痛绝，因为这是他那种阶级的男人的一种世代相传的风气，包括他自己在忘恩负义的时刻也是这么干的。此外，她认为那女人帮助阿莫乌尔实现了死亡的决心，是一种令人肛肠寸断的为爱情的牺牲。她说：“如果你也跟他同样严肃地决定自杀，我的义务也将是跟她做同样的事。”乌尔比诺医生又一次处在呆头呆脑无法理解的十字路口上，这种不理解使他在半个世纪中一直感到惶惑。

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“你什么也不懂，”他说，“使我愤慨的不是他过去是什么人和干过什么事，而是他欺骗了我们大家这么多年。”

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他的眼睛开始噙满了泪水，但是她装做没看见。

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“他做得对。”她反驳说，“如果他过去说了真话，不管是你还是那个可怜的女人，或是这个地方的任何人，都不会那么爱他。”

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她替他把表链挂在背心的扣眼里，帮他打好领带给，别上黄部两厂篮西湖舱顶露抽油饰噱旮哟铜期于上的泥机一最后把手帕放在他胸前的口袋里，手帕的四角张开着，宛如一朵洋玉兰。这时，大厅里的挂钟响了十一下。

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“快走吧。”她挽起他的胳膊，“我们要迟到了。”

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奥利贝利亚医生的妻子和他的七个聪明过人的女儿已经为那顿纪念从业二十五周年的午饭做好了一切准备，她们决心要使那顿午餐成为当年社会上的一件大事。

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医生的家坐落在过去的市中心，那里原是一所造币厂，由一位在这儿掀起过一阵革新邪风的意大利弗罗伦萨建筑师改建成如今的豪华邸宅。这位建筑师曾把四、五个十七世纪的历史遗址变成了威尼斯式的大教堂。医生的邸宅拥有六间卧室，一个饭厅，一个会客室，宽大明敞，通风良好，但是它只能用于接待特邀前来的外地客人，对本地的来宾是不敷应用的。邸宅的院子跟修道院里带回廊的院子一样，中央有个石砌的喷泉，不时发出悦耳的鸣响，花坛上的香水草散发着醉人的芳香。但是，那连拱的回廊是不宜接待大量的贵宾的，因此他们决定把午宴设在乡间别墅，开车只有十分钟的路程。这个别墅有六千六百平方米的院子，到处是巨大的印度月桂树，在平静的小河里长着本地的睡莲。堂?桑乔客店的工人们在奥利贝利亚夫人的指挥下，在没有树荫的空地上搭起了五彩缤纷的帆布帐篷。在月桂树下面用小桌排成长台，长台上摆了一百二十套餐具，铺着亚麻台布，主宾席上还摆了新鲜的玫瑰花。

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他们还专门为管乐队搭了个长台，这管乐队只吹奏对舞和民族华尔兹舞曲，艺术学校的四重奏弦乐队也坐在那儿。奥利贝利亚夫人的这种惊人之举是她丈夫敬爱的老师意想不到的，今天的午宴将由这位老师主持。尽管今天实际上并不是医生大学毕业的日子，但他们还是选择了圣灵降临节这个星期日，以增强欢庆的气氛。

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午餐的准备工作在三个月之前就开始了，因为他们担心由于时间不够而有什么必不可少的事情做不了。他们从金沼泽地弄来许多活母鸡，那种母鸡在整个沿海地区是有名的——不仅由于它们体壮味美，而且由于它们在冲积土里觅食，有时可以在它们的嗓囊里找到纯金的砂粒。奥利贝利亚夫人亲自带领她的女儿和仆役们爬上远洋轮船，选择来自世界各地的最好的东西，以颂扬她丈来的功业。除了下雨以外，一切都预见到了。那天早上，当她去望大弥撒时，空气潮湿得厉害，气压很低，天空乌云密布，连海平线都看不到，她担心很可能要下雨了。尽管有这些不祥的预兆，气象观测台的台长在望弥撒时却说：“在这座城市多灾多难的历史上，即使在最严寒的冬季，圣灵降临节这一天也从来没有下过雨。”然而，当时钟敲响十二点，来宾们正在露天吃开胃品时，突然一声霹震撼了大地，海上吹来的狂风掀翻了桌椅，把帐篷卷到空中，灾难性的暴雨随即从天而降，天仿佛要塌下来了。

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乌尔比诺医生好不容易在大雨滂泊中跟同路的最后一批来宾一起到了乡间别墅。

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他也想跟别的来宾一样，由下车的地方从一块石头跳上另一块石头穿过积水的院子，但最后他只能不大体面地接受了打着黄色帆布大伞的堂?桑乔工人的帮助，被挟在臂下抱了过去。东倒西歪的桌子重新在室内摆开，连卧室都被利用上了。来宾们毫不掩饰他们对那场劫难的沮丧。屋里热得有如轮船上的锅炉房，因为他们不得不关上全部窗户，以避免大风再度把雨水刮进来。在院子里，桌上本来都摆好了来宾的名签，按照习惯，男女分座。桌子移到屋里来后，名签全乱了，大家只好随便就坐，乱糟糟的，至少不太雅观。在这场灾难中，奥利贝利亚夫人几乎无处不在，同时出现在各个地方。尽管秀发淋得透湿，华丽的服装上面溅满了泥浆，但是面对那种尴尬的局面，她脸上始终挂着微笑，这是从丈夫那里学来的本领，她向来遇到逆境不温不怒，不急不躁，再大的困难也不认输。靠了和她在同一个熔炉里锻炼出来的女儿们的帮助，她不仅重新布置了主宾席，而且尽量安排得妥妥贴贴，让乌尔比诺医生坐在中央，雷伊大主教坐在他右边。费尔米纳象往常那样靠近丈夫就坐，她担心他会在午宴中间睡着，或把场洒在衣服的翻领上。对面的位子上坐着奥利贝利亚医生，他是个带有女人气的五十岁的老人，身体保养得很好，他的乐观的精神对他准确的诊断毫无影响。在主桌就坐的还有省市两级的官员和前一年选出的美女，省长挽着她的手臂让她在他旁边就坐。尽管并不要求来宾穿特别华丽的衣服，更何况是乡间别墅的午宴，女人们还是穿上了夜礼服，戴上了贵重的宝石首饰。大多数男人庄严地穿着深色的衣服，打着黑色的领带，有些人还穿了呢料大礼服。只有那些见惯大场面的人，其中包括乌尔比诺医生，才穿便服。每个座位上都有一张法文菜单，上面印着烫金图案。

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奥利贝利亚夫人慑于热浪袭人，在房间里走来走去，要求客人们宽衣就餐，但是谁都不敢带这个头。大主教提醒乌尔比诺医生，这次午宴从某种程度上说是一次具有历史意义的午宴：自从国家独立以来，这是曾把国家淹没在血泊中的内战双方第一次愈合了伤口，消除了仇恨，坐在同一张桌子上用餐。主教的这一思想，正好同自由党人特别是青年自由党人的热望相吻合，他们在保守党独揽大权四十五年之后，终于选出了他们党的总统。乌尔比诺医生不同意大主教的观点。他认为自由党总统和保守党没有什么两样，只是自由党总统更不讲究穿着罢了。然而，他不想使大主教不悦。他本来就想告诉大主教，大家之所以来出席午宴，是由于那位出身名门的医生的光辉成就，而不是象他想的那样。的确，医生的高贵的门第和伟大功绩是凌驾于政治风云和内战恐怖之上的。所以那次午宴没有一个人缺席。

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暴雨象突然开始那样又突然停息了，太阳立即在万里无云的晴空烈火一般地照耀着大地。但是大风是如此猛烈，以致把一些树连根拔起，积水把院子变成了沼泽。

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这次大灾难也冲击了厨房，在房子后面露天里用砖砌了几个柴火灶，厨师几乎没有来得及把钥搬到避雨的地方。他们好不容易急急忙忙地挤入已经进满水的厨房，又在后面走廊里临时搭了几个新的炉灶。到下午一点钟，一切必需的食品都准备好了，只有桑塔?克拉拉修道院修女还没有把饭后点心送来，他们本来答应在十一点之前送到的。人们担心象在不太冷的冬天那样，公路旁山沟里的水又漫了出来，果真如此，点心就要等到下午两点钟才能送来。暴雨一停，窗户马上打开了，房间里吹进被暴雨中的硫黄净化的新鲜空气，显得十分凉爽，乐队在门廊的平台上秦华尔兹舞曲，铜管乐器在室内轰鸣，使得人们不得不提高嗓门交谈。奥利贝利亚夫人等得不耐烦了，她眼里含着泪水微笑着，吩咐上菜开始午宴。

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艺术学校的乐队开始演奏了，在一片在严的肃静中，奏起了莫扎特的快滑步舞曲。尽管人们讲话的声音越来越高，越来越嘈杂，堂?桑乔的黑人仆役又在放着热气腾腾的菜肴的餐桌中间挤来挤去，乌尔比诺医生还是给乐队留出了一块空地，让他们把节目全部演完。他的精神和记忆力一年不如一年，甚至下棋时每步都要记在纸上，才能知道已经走到哪里。但他还是能一边进行严肃的谈话，一边有条不紊地指挥演奏，虽然他还没有达到一个德国乐队指挥的们熟程度。那个德国乐队指挥是他在奥地利时的好友，他能够一边听《扬好色》一边读胜?乔万尼胭的乐谱。

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第二支曲子是舒伯特的“死亡和姑娘”，乌尔比诺医生认为演奏轻快而富有戏剧性。他一边在盘子和刀叉的碰击声中费劲地听着，一边盯着一位向他点头打招呼的有着玫瑰色脸庞的年轻人。无疑他在什么地方见过他，但已记不起了。这样的情况时有发生，甚至很熟悉的人的名字或者过去曾经听过的曲调他都忘记了，这使他万分痛苦，以致有一天晚上他宁可死去，也不愿在这种折磨中等待天明。他正在急得要死的时候，突然一道仁慈之光照亮了他的记忆，那个年轻人前一年曾做过他的学生。他在这个人材基本的地方看见他感到很惊讶，奥利贝利亚医生提醒他，那是卫生部长的公子，他到这里来是为了准备法医论文。乌尔比诺医生做了个手势，高兴地向他打招呼，这位年轻医生站起身来，行礼作答。但是，不管那时还是后来，他都没有意识到，他就是那天早晨在阿莫马尔家跟他在一起的实习医生。

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由于又一次战胜了老年的健忘症，他感到轻松了。于是他沉溺于最后一支充满激情的、清亮流利的乐曲中，他既听不出那是什么曲子，也不知道是谁的作品。后来，乐队中有位刚刚从法国回来的青年告诉他，那是加富列夫?福尔的弦乐四重奏。

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乌尔比诺医生从来没有听到过此人的名字，尽管他对欧洲的所有新鲜事儿一向十分注意。费尔米纳象往常那样照料他，特别是看到他在公众面前发呆的时候，她就停止吃饭，把他的手拉过来放到她的手上，对他说：“你就别在意啦！”乌尔比诺医生销魂地向她微笑着，就在这时，他重新想起了她所担心的事情。他记起了阿莫乌尔，他穿着一身假军装，戴着昔日的勋章，在儿童照片的谴责的目光下，此时正静静地躺在棺材里。他转过身去告诉大主教他自杀的消息，但大主教早已得到消息。

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做完大弥撒之后，这事就广泛传开了，他甚至收到了陆军上校阿尔戈特以加勒比海地区全体流亡者的名义写的一份申请书，要求把死者葬在圣地。他说：“我认为这种请求不够严肃。”然后，他以更富有人情味的语调问乌尔比诺医生是否知道自杀的原因。乌尔比诺医生灵机一动，用非常肯定的语气回答说，阿莫乌尔死于老年忧郁症。奥利贝利亚医生在关照他的宾客，一时没有注意他的老师跟大主教的谈话，这时插言道：“至今还发生为爱情而自杀的事，实在令人遗憾。”乌尔比诺医生看到他的爱徒的思想跟自己一致，并不感到惊诧。

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“更糟的是，”他说，“是服氰化金自杀。”

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当说这句话时，他感到同情心已超过了那封信带给他的痛苦。这一点他并不感激他的妻子，而归功于音乐的神奇力量。这时他跟大主教谈起了在傍晚悠然地下象棋时认识的那位世俗的圣人，谈起了他把自己的艺术贡献给孩子们的幸福，谈起了他罕见的博学，对世上的事情无不知晓，谈起了他斯巴达式的习俗……此刻，医生竟为那个跟自己的过去突然彻底决裂的纯洁灵魂而感到惊讶。然后，他又告诉市长，应该买下那位儿童摄影师的底片档案，以便把一代人的形象保存下来，而这一代人，除了拍照片之外，也许再也不会有幸福，然而城市的未来就掌握在这一代人手中。

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一个正统的有文化修养的天主教徒公然声称自杀是圣洁高尚的行为，这使大主教很不高兴，但他同意把底片存档的建议。市长想知道向谁去买这些底片，乌尔比诺医生看了急，一时不知说什么是好，因为他要保守秘密。但他还是沉住了气，没有把遗产继承者的姓名公布出来。他说：“这事交给我去办好了。”他由于自己对那个女人的忠诚而产生一种赎罪的感觉，因为他在五个小时前背弃了她。费尔米纳注意到了这一点，她要他低声答应将去参加葬礼。他说，他当然要这么做，这是理所当然的事。于是，他感到松了一口气。

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讲话是简短而迅速的。管乐队开始演奏一支节目单上没有的俚曲。来宾在平台上散步，等待着堂?桑乔旅店的传者把院子中的雨水排干，看看谁有跳舞的兴致。

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只有主宾席上的客人们还留在客厅里喝茶。乌尔比诺医生把最后的半杯白兰地一饮而尽。他以前只能喝少许葡萄酒，吃一盘特制的莱，谁都不记得他喝过白兰地。但那天下午他的心情驱使他这样做，从而使他的软弱得到了补偿。多年以来，他终于又有了唱歌的兴趣。如果那位年轻的乐师向他提出这种请求，并且自告奋勇为他伴奏的话，他肯定会高高兴兴地唱上一曲的。不巧的是，开来了一辆全新的小轿车，在穿过泥泞的院子时，溅了乐师们一身泥浆，把鸭子惊得在围栏里嘎嘎乱叫。汽车停在门廊对面。乌尔比诺?达萨医生和他的妻子，每只手手托着一只用呢绒花边布盖着的托盘，笑盈盈地下了车。汽车里摆满了同样的托盘，一直摆到司机的脚下。

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那是本应及时送到的餐后点心。在热烈的掌声和亲切的带有嘲弄性的口哨声停歇之后，乌尔比诺?达萨医生郑重地作出解释：修女们请他在暴雨之前务必把点心送到，但是他在路上拐了个弯，因为有人告诉他，他父母的家里失火了。乌尔比诺医生没等儿子把话说完，就惊恐起来，他的妻子及时提醒他说，消防队员只是应他本人之请前去抓鹦鹉而已。尽管已经喝过了咖啡，精神焕发的奥利贝利亚夫人还是决定让大家在平台上用餐后点心。乌尔比诺医生和他的妻子没有吃点心就告辞了，在参加葬礼之前，他必须为神圣不可侵犯的午觉腾出时间。

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他这次午睡的时间很短，而且睡得很不好，因为他回到家中时，看到了消防队员造成的破坏如此严重，丝毫不亚于一场大火灾。为了吓唬鹦鹉，他们用高压水龙带把那棵树的叶子全打光了。由于瞄错了地方，一股激流从卧室的窗户射进去，给家具和挂在墙上的无辜的祖父母的照片造成了无可挽回的损失。听到消防车的铃声，居民们纷纷赶来，以为真的失了火。好在星期日学校停课，才没有造成更大的混乱。

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当消防队员们看到再高的梯子也不可能把鹦鹉抓住时，他们便动手砍起树来，幸好乌尔比诺?达萨医生及时赶到，才阻止了他们把树干锯掉。他们走时留下话说，打算五点钟以后再来锯树。他们不仅把露台和客厅的地板踩得到处是泥，还踩破了费尔米纳最喜爱的土耳其地毯。消防队造成了那么严重的灾难，但毫无收获，鹦鹉大概已趁着混乱逃到邻居的院子里去了。乌尔比诺在树丛中找了它好一阵子，鹦鹉既没有用任何语言也没有用口哨或歌声来回答他。他认为鹦鹉是丢定了，大约在三点钟时，便去睡午觉了。上床之前，他还蹲在厕所里，尽情地嗅了一阵摆在那儿的温馨的石刁相薄郁的花香。

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他在悲伤中醒来。这不是早晨在朋友遗体前的那种悲伤，而是午觉醒来之后笼罩着他的心灵的无形的云雾。他认为那是一种神谕，告诉他大限已近，他正在度过他的最后的一个下午。五十岁前，他对自己内脏的大小、重量和状况不大了然。但是一过五十，渐渐地，每当他在午睡之后闭着眼睛躺着的时候，内脏的一切情况他都能体察得到，甚至能感到那正在跳动的心脏，神秘的肝脏，奇妙的胰腺。他发现就连比他年长的老人都比他年轻。在他的同代人中，他已是留在世上的最后一人了。

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当他发现自己已经开始忘事时，他采用了从医科学校的一位老师那儿听来的办法：“失去记忆的人要用纸来帮忙。”然而，那也只不过是一种瞬息即逝的幻想，因为他的记忆力甚至衰退到这样的地步：他记不起口袋里那些纸条上写的是什么意思；戴着眼镜到处找眼镜；锁上门以后还在匙孔中转钥匙；读书时，读着读着就再也读不下去了，他忘记了情节的逻辑和人物之间的关系。最使他不安的是他已相信自己的理智：他已逐渐陷入了不可避免的灾难，失去了正确的判断能力。

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凭着经验，乌尔比诺医生知道，大多数致命的疾病都有一种特殊的气味，而进入老年期后的气味比任何气味都更为独特。这一点，他从解剖台上已经解剖过的尸体中也能嗅闻出来，即使无法看清死者的年龄，尸体散发的气味也骗不过他的鼻子，他甚至从他自己的衣服的汗味和熟睡着的妻子的微弱的呼吸中，都能够辨别出那进入老年期的气味。从本质上讲，事情确实如此，否则一个老式的基督教徒也许会同意阿莫乌尔的意见：老年是一种不体面的状况，应该及时防止。

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他过去身体相当强健，聊以为慰的是慢性欲慢慢地消失，逐渐在不知不觉中达到性的平静。到了入十一岁，他的头脑还相当清醒，他知道自己的生命只是由几根细线维系在这个世界上，这些细线，甚至他在睡梦中简单地换个姿势都有可能在毫无痛苦的情况下断掉。如果说他在尽一切努力维持这些细线的话，那是因为他害怕在死亡的黑暗中找不到上帝。

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费尔米纳已经把被消防队员破坏的卧室重新整理就绪。快到四点钟时，她吩咐给丈夫送去一杯常喝的加冰柠檬水，并且提醒他，应该穿上衣服，准备去参加葬礼了。这天下午，乌尔比诺医生手头放着两本书，一本是亚历克西?卡雷尔的《人类之谜》，另一本是阿克塞尔?芒特的《圣?米歇尔传》。后面一本还没有开负，他要厨娘迪格纳?帕尔多把他忘在卧室里的象牙裁纸刀给他拿来。可是，当她把裁纸刀拿来时，他已经在读《人类之谜》中用一个信封夹着的那一页，那本书他很快就要读完了。他读得很慢，在午宴上最后碰杯时他喝了半小杯白兰地，此时稍感头痛。

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阅读停下来时，他便呷一口柠檬水，或慢慢地在嘴里化一块冰。他穿上了袜子，穿上了一件没有假领的衬衣。带有绿色条纹的松紧带挂在裤腿的两旁。一想到必须更衣去参加葬礼，他就感到厌烦。他很快就停止读书，把它放在另一本书上，尔后开始在柳条摇椅上来回晃悠，心情沉重地观看着院子里沼泽地上的小香蕉树，光秃秃的芒果树，雨后出来的蚂蚁和另一个值得怀念的即将一去不复返的那下午短暂而绚丽的光彩。他已经忘记他曾经有过一只帕拉马里博鹦鹉，而且他象爱一个人似地爱着它。这时，他忽然听到一个声音说：“真正的小鹦鹉。”这声音很近，几乎就是在他身旁，他立即在芒果树最下面的枝头上找到了它。

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“不要脸的东西。”他对它喊道。

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鹦鹉以同样的声音反道：“你更不要脸，医生。”

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他继续跟它谈着话，并且一直盯着它，同时小心翼翼地穿上短筒靴，以便不把它吓跑。接着，他把松紧带拉到肩膀上，起身往污泥满地的院里走去。在下平台的三道台阶时，为了避免滑倒，他用拐杖试探着。鹦鹉没有动，而且站得很低，他象往常一样把拐杖伸过去，想让它站在银柄上，但鹦鹉躲开了，它跳到了旁边较高的树枝上。在消防队到来之前，家里的精子就一直架在那儿，现在更容易捉住了。乌尔比诺医生估摸了一下高度，认为只要爬上两级，就能够抓住它。他爬上了梯子的第一级，唱着歌儿来转移那个不听话的家伙的注意力，而它没有唱，却在重复着他的歌词。医生顺手抓它时，它在枝头上左躲右闪，医生又用双手紧紧抓住梯子，不费力气地爬上了第二级。鹦鹉没有挪动地方，并且开始重复着他的歌曲。他感到刚才低估了树枝的高度，他又往上爬上了第三级和第四级。那时，他左手抓紧梯子，用右手去捉鹦鹉。老女仆帕尔多来了，她想提醒他天已不早，该去参加葬礼了。她进来时，看到有人爬在梯子上，要不是那条绿色的松紧吊裤带，她真不相信那就是乌尔比诺医生。

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“天哪！”她喊道，“您会摔死的！”

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乌尔比诺医生抓住鹦鹉的脖子，带着胜利的神情，高兴地舒了一口气：“啊，终于把你抓到了。”但是，他立即又把鹦鹉放走了，梯子在他的脚下滑开了。他悬在空中的一刹那，意识到自己死了。在圣灵降临节的这个星期天的下午四点零七分，来不及接受圣餐仪式，来不及忏悔，也来不及同任何人告别，他死了。

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费尔米纳正在厨房品尝晚饭的场，忽然听到了帕尔多的可怕的尖叫声和佣仆们的吵嚷声，随之而来的是邻居们的哄闹声。她扔下汤勺，拼命往外跑，她上了年纪，心有余而力不足，怎样也跑不动。她象疯子似地喊叫着，不知道在枝繁叶茂的芒果树下发生了什么事。看到丈夫仰面躺在泥地上时，她的心几乎要从胸膛里跳出来了。

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他已奄奄一息，还在抵抗着死神最后的打击，等候她的到来。他终于在混乱的人群中认出了她，眼里含着最后的痛苦的眼泪。他最后看了她一眼，在他们共同生活的半个世纪中，她从来没有看到过他的目光如此明亮，如此悲伤，如此充满感激之情。

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他用尽最后的力气对她说：“只有上帝才能知道我多么爱你。”

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乌尔比诺医生之死当然是值得纪念的。他刚从法国学成归国时，就在全国享有盛名，他采用新奇而激烈的措施制止了全省最后一次霍乱病的蔓延。上一次霍乱病流行时，他还在欧洲，那次霍乱病在不到三个月的时间内夺去了城里四分之一人的生命，包括他的父亲在内。他父亲也是一位有名望的医生。由于他名声大振，家产激增，他创办了一个医学研究会，这是多年来在加勒比海诸省建立的第一个，也是唯一的一个医学研究会，而且由他自己担任终身主席。他建设了第一条导水管和第一个下水道系统，还建立了有遮篷的公共市场，这个市场避免了阿尼马斯海湾污秽物的侵入。此外，他还是语言研究院和历史研究院的院长。由于他对教会的贡献，耶路撒冷的拉丁国家总主教授予他圣墓骑士团骑士的头衔。法国政府则授予了他来誉军团骑士团团长的军衔。他是本市所有爱国宗教团体的积极支持者，他全力支持爱国委员会，这个委员会的成员是城里那些没有官职的领袖人物，他们以当时过于激进的思想对政府和商界施加压力。在这些进步思想中，最值得纪念的是气体静力学的气球试验。第一次试飞时，他们通过气球把一封信带给沼泽地的圣?胡安，这一想法要比开创航空邮路的设想早出许多年。成立艺术中心也是这些人的主意，后来艺术中心又在同一幢房子里开设了美术学院，艺术中心和美术学校的旧址至今依然存在。多年来，艺术中心还是四月花会的赞助者。

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整整一个世纪认为几乎不可能办到的事，他却办到了：从殖民时期以来已经变成斗鸡场和公鸡饲养场的喜剧院，被重新修复了，那堪称是一场惊心动魄的爱国运动的顶峰，本市各界都卷了过去，无一例外。人们被广泛地发动起来，参与这项公认的宏伟的事业。总之，喜剧院在既无座位又无灯光的情况下举行了落成的典礼，开始演戏。观众不得不自带座位，幕间休息时他们点起自己带来的灯笼。剧院的节目公演时，也象欧洲那般隆重，贵妇们利用这个机会，在加勒比海地区的大伏天，争相炫耀她们的长礼服和皮大衣。不过，剧院也必须准许仆人进入，由他们搬椅子，提灯笼，携带各种他们认为必要的吃食。节目一演就没完没了，有的节目一直拖到做晨弥撒时方告结束。首先在这个剧院演出的，是一个法国歌剧团，这个乐队的新型乐器——竖琴——使人大开眼界。但最令人难忘并引以为骄傲的，是一位才华出众的土耳其女高音，她不仅歌喉婉转无可挑剔，而且赤着脚演唱，脚趾上戴着贵重的宝石戒指，更增加了她演出的戏剧效果。从第一幕开始，人们就几乎看不到舞台，密密麻麻的椰油灯里冒出的黑烟笼罩着舞台的空间，熏得歌唱家们走了调。城里的新闻记者对这些小小的不足之处毫不介意，他们交口赞扬那些值得纪念的东西。无可置疑，演出歌剧是由乌尔比诺医生倡议的，他的倡议是那样的富有感染力，以致使歌剧热一直影响到本市最偏僻的角落， 甚至导致了《特里斯坦和依索尔德》 、《澳赛罗人洞依达》和《齐格弗里行》等著名歌剧的出现，造就了瓦格纳、威尔地式的整整一代著名作曲家。然而，歌剧始终没有发展到乌尔比诺所希望的顶点，因为意大利派和瓦格纳派在幕间休息时并没有象预期那样面对面地敲着拐杖争论得面红耳赤。

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乌尔比诺医生从不接受任何委任。他无情地抨击那些利用职业威望捞取政治地位的医生。他一向被认为是个自由党人，而且在选举中他常常投自由党候选人的票，但与其说他站在自由党一边是由于信念，还不如说是由于传统。当大主教华丽的四轮马车通过时，也许他是最后一个当街下跪的贵族的成员。他认为自己是天生的和平主义者，主张为了祖国的利益，自由党和保守党应该彻底妥协。然而，他在公开的行动中一贯自行其是，以致谁都不把他当做自己人。自由党人把他看做山洞里的哥特人，保守党人认为他几乎是共济会成员，而共济会员们又把他视做替罗马教廷效劳的暗藏的牧师，对他深恶痛绝。对他的批评不那么愤恨的人也认为，他只不过是全民族被无休止的内战血泊淹没之时的一名在花会中逍遥自在的贵族而已。

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只有两件事同他的这一形象不符。一件是他把家搬到了暴发户区，新居是用卡萨尔杜埃罗侯爵古老的宫殿式的楼房换来的，那座楼房一个多世纪以来一直是这个家族的邸宅；另一件是和一位既无名望又无财产的本地美女联姻，从而遭到那些有着长长姓名的夫人们的暗中嘲笑。鉴于那位姑娘的“高贵出身”和“气质”，她们无法不相信她比她们所有的人都更为优越。乌尔比诺医生对那些议论和许多其它有关他公开形象的议论，一向心中有数，而且知道他自己正是那个正在消亡中的姓氏的最后一个主角，这一点，他比谁都清楚。他的子女是家族中两个平平庸庸的人。

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儿子同他一样，是个医生，就像历代的所有长子一样，毫无建树，年过五十，连个儿子都没有。女儿和新奥尔良银行一个善良的职员结了婚，已进入更年期，膝下有三个女儿，没有一个男孩。在历史的长河里，他的氏族血统将由此而中断，这使他伤心不已，可是更令这位医生操心的是在他死后费尔米纳的孤独的生活。没有他，她如何打发日子!

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那场悲剧震撼了医生的全家人，也影响到了全城，百姓们都走到大街上，想把事情打听个究竟。全市宣布致哀三天，各种机构和商店都降了半旗，所有教堂的钟声都在不停地敲响，直到死者的尸体在家庭陵园里入葬。美术学院一个班的学生，做了一个遗体的真容模型，以便为将来塑半身像留下个模特儿。但是，这计划刚开始便被取消，人们都这样认为，那个逼真地塑出了医生最后一到恐怖神情的真容模型有失庄重。一个凑巧打这儿经过的欧洲艺术名家画了一幅伤感现实主义的大油画，再现了乌尔比诺医生在梯子上伸手捕捉鹦鹉的致命的一刹那。画面上唯一与原来事实不符的是，一他穿的不是无领衬衣和用绿色吊带系着的裤子，而是戴着蘑菇帽，穿着霍乱流行期报上经常刊登的版画人物身上的黑呢大礼服。这幅画在乌尔比诺医生逝世几个月之后陈列在一个名叫“金铃裆”的大画廊里，让民众一饱眼福；尔后又挂在公私机关的墙上展出，这些机关都认为应向这位杰出的贵族表示敬意。最后，这幅画陈列在美术学院，并为此在那儿举行了第二次葬礼。又过了多年，美术学校的学生把它拿到大学广场上烧掉了，他们把它看做一种美学的象征，也把它看做一个令人厌恶的时代的象征。

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费尔米纳从成为未亡人的那一刻起，就不像她丈夫担心的那样孤独和无用。她下了决心，毫不妥协，不允许利用她丈夫遗体做任何事情，包括共和国总统拍来的电报都没有用，那个电报命令把尸体放在红箱子里摆在省府会议厅让人们瞻仰。她也以同样冷静的头脑反对在教堂为丈夫守灵。那是大主教亲自要求的，她只答应在举行葬礼弥撒时把尸体移到教堂去。被各种各样的要求弄得手足无措的儿子出来调停，她也仍然毫不动摇地坚持她的农村观念：死者不属于任何人，只属于他的家庭。

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他们应在自己家里喝着苦咖啡，吃着奶酪饼守灵，每个人都享有充分的自由，想怎样哭就怎样哭。他们将免去传统的守灵九昼夜的仪式，在葬礼之后就把大门关闭，除了最知己的客人之外，不接待任何来访者。

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家里笼罩着居丧的气氛。所有贵重的东西都放在安全的地方。光秃秃的墙壁上只留下挂过画画的痕迹。自家的椅子和从邻居那儿借来的椅子都摆在从客厅到卧室的墙边。除了摆在一个角落里用白床单盖着的钢琴外，大型家具都搬走了。空间似乎扩大了，声音发出鬼怪似的回响。书库的中央，在他父亲的写字台上，躺着医生的遗体，他的脸上带着最后的惊恐表情。他穿着黑斗篷，披着圣塞骑上的战刀。在遗体的旁边，身穿重孝，浑身颤抖，但自制力仍然很强的费尔米纳，忍着悲痛，庄严地接受人们的吊唁，坚持到第二天上午十一点钟，几乎纹丝不动。十一点钟一过，她便站在门廊上，挥着手帕向丈夫的遗体告别。

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自从她听到帕尔多在院子里喊叫，看见老头儿在泥地上奄奄一息地挣扎以来，现在能恢复到控制自如的状态委实不易。当时她的第一个反应是认为丈夫尚有希望，因为他还睁着眼睛，瞳孔是那样明亮，她从来就没见到过。她恳求上帝至少给她一点时间，以便让他知道，尽管他们之间出现过多次疑云，她却始终在爱着他。她实在不愿他在明了这一点之前就离开人世。她感到有一种强烈的难以抵制的愿望，希望同他重新开始生活，以便互相表达长期压在心头尚未出口的话，把过去没有安排妥当的事情重新做好。但是，在无情的死神面前，她只好投降了。她的痛苦变成了一种盲目的忿怒，她对谁都言词激烈，怒气冲冲，甚至对自己也是如此。这倒使她获得了自我控制的能力和独自忍受寂寞的勇气。从那一刻起，她便不停地做事，不让脸上露出任何痛苦的痕迹。唯一身不由己地流露出某种凄楚的时刻是星期日夜里十一点，当时根据大主教的命令，把还在散发着垫木的气味、打着铜箍、盖着红罩的棺材抬走了。乌尔比诺?达萨医生命令立即盖棺，在那难以忍受的炎热天气里，家中那么多花散发出的味道使得空气都变得稀薄了，他似乎看到父亲的脖颈上出现了最初的紫色痕迹。他在宁静中仿佛听到了一个漫不经心的声音：“人到了这个年纪，活着也烂了一半。”在盖棺之前，费尔米纳摘下结婚戒指，把它戴在亡夫手上，然后用自己的手捂住他的手，就象平常她看到他在公共场合信口开河地讲话时做的那样。

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“我们很快就会再见面的。”她对丈夫说。

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听了这话，躲藏在社会名流中的费洛伦蒂纳?阿里萨，感到象是在体侧被击了一枪。费尔米纳在最初吊唁的混乱中没有认出他来。其实，在处理那天晚上的紧急事故中，谁都没有他出现得及时，谁都没有他更起作用。是他把满满当当的厨房发排得井井有条，使咖啡得以充分供应。当从邻居借来的椅子不敷应用时，是他从别处弄来了椅子。当室内摆满了花圈时，是他命令把余下的花圈搬到院子里去。他为奥利贝利亚医生请来的客人端去了白兰地，那些客人是在庆祝从业二十五周年的高潮时听到噩耗后急急忙忙地赶到这里来的，他们在芒果树旁围成一圈坐下，继续吃喝作乐。当鹦鹉昂着脑袋张开翅膀半夜出现在饭厅时，他是唯一及时作出反应的人。

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鹦鹉的出现，使全家人不寒而栗，因为那仿佛是惩罚性的遗赠。阿里萨抓住鹦鹉的脖子，不让它叫出荒唐的话来，并把它放入带罩的鸟笼挂进了马厩。这一切，他做得是如此干净利落，以致没有一个人认为他介入了别人的家务，相反倒认为他在那个家里遭受厄运的时刻做出了无法估量的贡献。

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从表面来看，他是一个乐于助人的严肃的老人。躯干消瘦而笔挺，棕褐色的皮肤上汗毛稀少，白金架的眼镜后面藏着一对贪婪的眼睛，末端粘得很好的罗曼蒂克的小胡子已有点过时。他的最后几缕鬓发往上梳着，用发蜡紧紧贴在闪闪发亮的头顿中央，似乎这样就最后解决了他的秃顶问题。他的天然的文雅和郁郁寡欢的举止十分讨人喜欢，但同时也被视为一个顽固的光棍汉身上的两种可疑的品德。他花费了许多钱，用了许多心计，费了好大的力气，为的是不让人们看出在当年的三月份他已满了七十六岁，而且他在孤寂的心灵中深藏着一个信念，在这个世界上，没有哪个人比他爱得更深。

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那天，尽管六月的天气热得叫人透不过气，从听到乌尔比诺医生去世的消息起，直到晚上，他还是穿着惯常穿的衣服。深色的呢料坎肩，衬衣的硬领上系着丝带结。

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戴着毡帽，手热一把兼做拐杖的黑绸伞。黎明时分，他从守灵的地方离开了两个小时。太阳刚刚升起时，他又大大方方地回来了，胡子修聋得整整齐齐，美容洗发剂的香气四溢。他换上了一件黑呢料大礼服，这种衣服他平时一般不容，只有在参加葬礼和出席圣周弥撒时才正式穿用。他没有打领带，而是在硬翻领上别了艺术家的带状饰物，头上换了一顶蘑菇帽。他还是带着伞，但此时已不仅是出于习惯，而是因为他估计在十二点钟之前肯定有雨。他把下雨的迹象告诉死者的儿子乌尔比诺?达萨医生，以便让他考虑是否有可能提前安排葬礼。他们也真的试图这样做了，因为他们知道阿里萨出身于船主家庭，本人是加勒比海内河航运公司经理，对气象是个内行。但是他们无法及时在民政当局和军事当局、公共团体和私人团体、军乐队和艺术学校乐队，以及各宗教团体之间进行协调，大家早已同意在十一点举行葬礼，可仓促之间难以达成一致协议。这样一来，那次历史性的安葬仪式便被一场倾盆大雨弄得狼狈不堪。咕吱咕吱地踩着泥水到达家庭陵墓的送葬者寥寥无几。陵墓的庇护者是一棵欧洲木棉树，繁茂的枝叶一直探到墓地的墙外。就在同一棵木棉的树荫下，在墙外被指定埋葬自杀者的一座小墓上，前天下午，加勒比海地区的流亡者们埋葬了阿莫乌尔，根据他本人的意愿，他的爱犬和他同穴安眠。

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阿里萨是为数不多的坚持到达墓地的人之一。他连内衣都湿透了。他提心吊胆地回到家里，这么多年以来，他一直小心翼翼、无微不至地爱护着自己的身体，生怕被这次大雨浇出肺炎来。他煮了一杯热柠檬水，又加了一点白兰地，躺在床上用它冲服下两片阿斯匹林，裹在毛毯里出了满身大汗，身体才暖和过来。他再度回到守灵的地方时，已感到精神抖擞了。费尔米纳重新挑起了操持家务的重担。房间已进行了清扫，可以接待客人了。书房里设了个祭坛，安放着一张已故丈夫的蜡笔肖像，像框上挂着黑纱。八点钟时就宾客盈门，天又象前一天夜晚那么炎热，于是在做完念珠祈祷之后，有人提出要早些告退，以便让亡者的遗孀稍事休息，从星期日下午以来，她一直未得消停。

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费尔米纳站在祭坛旁边，跟来客告别，把最后一批契友一直送到临街的门口之后，她象往常那样，要亲自把门关好。她正在关门时，却看到了穿着丧服站在空旷的客厅里的阿里萨。她感到意外惊异，因为多年以来，她就把他从她的生活中抹掉了。这是第一次她从忘却中恢复过来，清清楚楚地看到了他。在她尚未来得及为他的来访致谢之前，他已经浑身战栗着庄严地把帽子放在胸前，郁积在心中的话陡然引爆，那句话一直是他生命的支柱。

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“费尔米纳，”他对她说，“我为这个机会等了半个多世纪，为的是再一次向您表达我的誓言，我永远爱您，忠贞不渝。

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倘若费尔米纳?达萨没有想到阿里萨在此时此地出现是上帝的旨意的话，她真会以为站在她面前的是一个疯子。她的第一个冲动就是高声诅咒他，她的丈夫在坟墓里尸骨未寒，他就这样来到她的面前，这是对她家门的亵渎。但是，狂怒和尊严不允许她这么做。“滚开！”她对他说，“这辈子别让我再看到你。”她重新把刚要关上的临街大门彻底打开，最后加了一句：“但愿你在世界上的日子也不长了。”

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当她听到他的脚步声在寂静的街道上渐去渐远时，便慢慢地关上了门，上了门闩和插销。现在，她要独自面对自己的命运了。在这以前，她从未完全意识到她年满十八岁时发生的那场悲剧的轻重和后果。这场悲剧她必须一直演下去，直到她死去为止。自从那个灾难性的下午以来，她第一次悄悄地哭了。她为丈夫的死亡而哭，为她的孤独和忿怒而哭。当她走进空荡荡的卧室时，她又为自己而哭，她自从出嫁以来，很少一个人独自睡在那张床上。丈夫留下的一切都使她流泪不止：带穗头的拖鞋，枕头下面的睡衣，梳妆台上镜子里她丈夫的身影的空缺，以及她丈夫皮肤上散发的特有的气息。一种恍惚的思想震动了她：“一人被爱的人，死去时应当把一切带走。”她不愿在任何人的帮助下就眠，睡觉之前也不想吃任何东西。由于悲痛已极，她祈求上帝让她在睡梦中被死神召去，她怀着这样的幻想脱下了鞋，和衣而卧，很快就睡着了。她不知道自己已经入睡，睡梦中她还意识到自己还活着，意识到床上空出了一半，她象往常那样测躺在左边，而在右边缺少另一个身体跟她对称。

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她在梦寐中思虑着，她想她绝不能再这么下去，不禁呜咽起来。她在梦中哭泣了好一阵，雄鸡终于高啼，不受欢迎的晨光将她唤醒。她醒来时，看到身边没有丈夫，只有了然一个人，只是在那个时候，她才意识到她在梦中痛哭了很久，然而她并没有死。她还发现，自己在啜着睡觉时，想阿里萨的成分比想她死去的丈夫更多。

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The words I am about to express:They now have their own crowned goddess--LEANDRO DÍAZ

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IT WAS INEVITABLE : the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love. 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. The Antillean refugee Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, disabled war veteran, photographer of children, and his most sympathetic opponent in chess, had escaped the torments of memory with the aromatic fumes of gold cyanide.

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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.

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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 to him 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Dr. Juvenal Urbino 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 .

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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 .

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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.

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"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.

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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.

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"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.

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"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.

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"I understood this man was a saint," he said.

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"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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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"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.

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"It’s the third time I’ve missed Sunday Mass since I’ve had the use of my reason," he said.

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"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. L醕ides Olivella, his beloved disciple , who was celebrating his silver anniversary in the professionwith a formal luncheon that day.

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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.

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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 Gegen眉 ber, 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 .

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Despite his almost maniacal love for the city and a knowledge of it superior to anyone’s, Dr.

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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"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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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"So then you knew!" he exclaimed.

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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:

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cruel suffering.

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"Your duty was to report him," said the Doctor.

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"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

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. 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.

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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.

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"Last night, when I left him, he was no longer of this world," she said.

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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.

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"Remember me with a rose," he said to her.

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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.

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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.

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And for the remainder of the visit she gave him even more justification

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. 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.

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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

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. 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.

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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

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, 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.

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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 C醖 iz 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

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. 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.

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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

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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 S猫vresvases 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.

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But no other room displayed the meticulous solemnity of the library, the sanctuary of Dr.

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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

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. 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.

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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. L醕 ides 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.

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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 Su醨 ez,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.

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Urbino, who had insisted on that foolhardy invitation despite the sage warnings of his wife.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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 Cura莽 ao, 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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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"Nothing that does not speak will come into this house," he said.

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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 fromCura莽 ao 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.

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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.

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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

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. 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.

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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.

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Until just a short time before, in fact, fires had been put out by volunteers using brickmasons’

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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Liberated bodies, breathing freely, showed themselves forwhat they were. Even at the age of seventy-two.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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. 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

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as much as he did during thosefumbling moments.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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"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

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’ 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.

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The incident, of course, gave them the opportunity to evoke many other trivial quarrels frommany other dim and turbulent dawns.

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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.

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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

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