Empathy—died sometime before

共情——在2017年1月20日之前

January 20,2017. The gate vanished

的某个时刻死了。大门消失了，而

But we don’t know when. The doorbell

我们却不知道是在什么时候。门铃

Vanished.The trains stopped moving.

消失。火车停运。有人偷了“北极”

Someone stole the North Pole sign. I

的标志。我是你，是你，还有你。

am you, and you, and you. But there

但横在我们中间的有太多的障碍。

are so many obstacles between

我永远无法感受到母亲的病痛或是

us. I can never feel my mother’s

父亲的痴呆。乐谱上的黑色音符只

illness or my father’s dementia. The

代表了声音，琴键必须敲击特定的

black notes on the score are only

琴弦，而琴弦是由钢丝制成的，而

representations of sound, the keys

钢丝是由地下得来的铁和碳冶炼而

must knock certain strings which are

成。我们为什么要制造钢琴这样的

made of steel, steel is made of iron

事物来表现美或痛？我们为什么要

and carbon from the earth. Why do

画下看到的事物？谈到绘画，母亲

we make things like a piano that try

常说：“临摹就行。”艺术家只是探

to represent beauty or pain? Why

访了痛并去想象它。我们赞美的是

must we always draw what we see?

艺术家，而不是苹果，也不是正被

Just copy it, my mother used to say

慢慢谋杀的苹果的影子。一定有某

about drawing. The artist is only

种作画的方式，让画不至于成为一

visiting pain, imagining it. We praise

首挽歌。

the artist, not the apple, not the

apple’s shadow which is murdered

slowly. There must be some way of

drawing a picture so that it doesn’t

become an elegy.