One Hundred Years of Solitude 百年孤独 Chapter 17

úRSULA HAD to make a great effort to fulfill ¹ her promise to die when it cleared. The waves of lucidity ² that were so scarce during the rains became more frequent after August, when an and wind began to blow and suffocated ⁴ the rose bushes and petrified ⁵ the piles of mud, and ended up scattering ⁶ over Macon-do the burning dust that covered the rusted ⁷ zinc ⁸ roofs and the age-old almond trees forever. úrsula cried in lamentation ⁹ when she discovered that for more than three years she had been a plaything for the children. She washed her painted face, took off the strips of brightly colored cloth, the dried lizards ¹⁰ and frogs, and the rosaries and old Arab necklaces that they had hung all over her body, and for the first time since the death of Amaranta she got up out of bed without anybody's help to join in the family life once more. The spirit of her invincible ¹² heart guided her through the shadows. Those who noticed her stumbling and who bumped into the archangelic arm she kept raised at head level thought that she was having trouble body, but they still did not think she was blind. She did not need to see to realize that the flower beds, cultivated with such care since the first rebuilding, had been destroyed by the rain and ruined by Aureli-ano Segun-do's excavations ¹³, and that the walls and the cement of the floors were cracked, the furniture mushy and discolored, the doors off their hinges, and the family menaced by a spirit of resignation and despair that was inconceivable in her time. Feeling her way along through the empty bedrooms she perceived the continuous rumble ¹⁴ of the termites ¹⁵ as they carved the wood, the snipping ¹⁶ of the moths ¹⁷ in the clothes closets, and the devastating ¹⁸ noise of the enormous red ants that had prospered ¹⁹ during the deluge ²⁰ and were undermining the foundations of the house. One day she opened the trunk with the saints and had to ask Santa Sofía de la Piedad to get off her body the cockroaches ²¹ that jumped out and that had already turned the clothing to dust. "A person can't live in neglect like this," she said. "If we go on like this we'll be devoured ²² by animals." From then on she did not have a moment of repose ²³. Up before dawn, she would use anybody available, even the children. She put the few articles of clothing that were still usable out into the sun, she drove the cockroaches off with powerful insecticide attacks, she scratched out the veins ²⁴ that the termites had made on doors and windows and asphyxiated ²⁵ the ants in their anthills quicklime. The fever of restoration finally brought her to the forgotten rooms. She cleared out the rubble ²⁶ cobwebs in the room where José Arcadio Buendía had lost his wits looking for the Philosopher's stone, she put the silver shop which had been upset by the soldiers in order, and lastly she asked for the keys to Melquíades' room to see what state it was in. Faithful to the wishes of José Arcadio Segun-do, who had forbidden anyone to come in unless there was a clear indication that he had died, Santa Sofía de la Piedad tried all kinds of subterfuges ²⁷ to throw úrsula off the track. But so inflexible ²⁸ was her determination not to surrender even the most remote corner of the house to the insects that she knocked down every obstacle in her path, and after three days of insistence ²⁹ she succeeded in getting them to open the door for her. She had to hold on to the doorjamb so that the stench would not knock her over, but she needed only two seconds to remember that the school-girls' seventy-two chamberpots were in there and that on one of the rainy nights a patrol of soldiers had searched the house looking for José Arcadio Segun-do and had been unable to find him., ,"Lord save us!" she exclaimed, as if she could see everything. "So much trouble teaching you good manners and you end up living like a pig.", ,José Arcadio Segun-do was still reading over the parchments. The only thing visible in the intricate tangle ³⁰ of hair was the teeth striped with green dime ³¹ and his motionless eyes. When he recognized his great--grandmother's voice he turned his head toward the door, tried to smile, and without knowing it repeated an old phrase of úrsula's., , ,"That's how it goes," úrsula said, "but not so much.", ,When she said it she realized that she was giving the same reply that Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía had given in his death cell, and once again she shuddered ³² with the evidence that time was not passing, as she had just admitted, but that it was turning in a circle. But even then she did not give resignation a chance. She scolded José Arcadio Segun-do as if he were a child and insisted that he take a bath and shave and lend a hand in fixing up the house. The simple idea of abandoning the room that had given him peace terrified José Arcadio Segun-do. He shouted that there was no human power capable of making him go out because he did not want to see the train with two hundred cars loaded with dead people which left Macon-do every day at dusk on its way to the sea. "They were all of those who were at the station," he shouted. "Three thousand four hundred eight." Only then did úrsula realize that he was in a world of shadows more impenetrable than hers, as unreachable and solitary ³³ as that of his great-grandfather. She left him in the room, but she succeeded in getting them to leave the padlock off, clean it every day, throw the chamberpots away except for one, and to keep José Arcadio Segun-do as clean and presentable as his great--grandfather had been during his long captivity ³⁴ under the chestnut ³⁵ tree. At first Fernanda interpreted that bustle ³⁶ as an attack of senile madness and it was difficult for her to suppress her exasperation ³⁷. But about that time José Arcadio told that he planned to come to Macon-do from Rome before taking his final vows ³⁸, and the good news filled her with such enthusiasm that from morning to night she would be seen watering the flowers four times a day so that her son would not have a bad impression of the house. It was that same incentive ³⁹ which induced her to speed up her correspondence with the invisible doctors and to replace the pots of ferns and oregano and the begonias on the porch even before úrsula found out that they had been destroyed by Aureli-ano Segun-do's exterminating ⁴⁰ fury. Later on she sold the silver service and bought ceramic ⁴¹ dishes, pewter bowls and soup spoons, and alpaca tablecloths ⁴², and with them brought poverty to the cupboards that had been accustomed to India Company chinaware and Bohemian crystal. úrsula always tried to go a step beyond. "Open the windows and the doors," she shouted. "Cook some meat and fish, buy the largest turtles around, let strangers come and spread their mats in the corners and urinate in the rose bushes and sit down to eat as many times as they want and belch ⁴⁴ and rant ¹¹ and muddy everything with their boots, and let them do whatever they want to us, because that's the only way to drive off rain." But it was a vain illusion. She was too old then and living on borrowed time to repeat the miracle of the little candy animals, and none of her descendants had inherited her strength. The house stayed closed on Fernanda's orders., ,This company should be able to fulfill our requirements.这家公司应该能够满足我们的要求 。,His writings were marked by an extraordinary lucidity and elegance of style.他的作品简洁明晰 ，文风典雅
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