Linda Pastan : 倫理學

林布蘭畫作（畫家母親肖像）

Ethics / Linda Pastan

倫理學

In ethics class so many years ago

許多年前，學校裡上倫理學，

our teacher asked this question every fall:

到了秋天，老師都這麼問：

if there were a fire in a museum

如果美術館發生火災，

which would you save, a Rembrandt painting

你會搶救林布蘭的畫作，

or an old woman who hadn't many

還是一位沒剩幾年好活的

years left anyhow? Restless on hard chairs

老婦？我們不耐的坐在課椅裡，

caring little for pictures or old age

不在乎畫作，也不在乎衰老，

we'd opt one year for life, the next for art

一年說人命關天，另一年說拯救藝術，

and always half-heartedly. Sometimes

而且總回答的心不在焉。有時，

the woman borrowed my grandmother's face

這老婦借用我祖母的臉，

leaving her usual kitchen to wander

走出待慣的廚房，走入想像的

some drafty, half-imagined museum.

空蕩美術館，瀏覽館藏。

One year, feeling clever, I replied

有一年，我故作聰明，如此回答：

why not let the woman decide herself?

何不讓那老婦自行決定？

Linda, the teacher would report, eschews

琳達，老師下了評語：責任感

the burden of responsibility.

這個重擔，妳企圖規避。

This fall in a real museum I stand

今秋，我佇立於一座真實的美術館，

before a real Rembrandt, old woman,

面對一幅真實的林布蘭，我，一位老婦，

or nearly so, myself. The colors

或說，即將成為一位老婦。

within this frame are darker than autumn,

畫框裡的顏色比秋天黝暗，

darker even than winter -- the browns of earth,

甚至比冬天黝暗 — 那是大地的棕褐色，

though earth's most radiant elements burn

然而，這最熱情的元素如此燃燒著，

through the canvas. I know now that woman

穿透了畫布。如今我領悟，女人、

and painting and season are almost one

畫作和四季幾乎渾然一體，而且

and all beyond saving by children.

全都超乎孩子的拯救與否。

(Mary May 譯 )