Ethics

Ethics

Linda Pastan
(b. 1932)

In ethics class so many years ago
our teacher asked this question every fall:
if there were a fire in a museum
which would you save,  a Rembrandt painting
or an old woman who hadn’t many
years left anyhow?  Restless on hard chairs
caring little for pictures or old age
we’d opt one year for life, the next for art
and always half-heartedly.  Sometimes
the woman borrowed my grandmother’s face
leaving her usual kitchen to wander
some drafty, half-imagined museum.
One year, feeling clever, I replied
why not let the woman decide herself?
Linda, the teacher would report, eschews
the burden of responsibility.
This fall in a real museum I stand
before a real Rembrandt, old woman,
or nearly so, myself.  The colors
within this frame are darker than autumn
darker even than winter – the browns of earth,
though earth’s most radiant elements burn
through the canvas.  I know now that woman
and painting and season are almost one
and all beyond saving by children.


I cannot believe that anyone would chose to save a painting over a woman. i do not care how old she is or if she dies one second after they get her out of the building because human life is more important than a painting. No matter who painted i and that he is dead it is just a painting. The old woman is living and breathing and has a family or friends who care about her. Think of going to your grandmothers funeral and then a woman walking up to you and saying "i am really sorry but the Rembrandt was just more important than your grandmothers life." I just cannot fathom anyone choosing a painting over anyone's life. There are reprints of every famous painting that look the same but a picture of  a woman would not suffice. I do not understand the last line though. "I know now that woman
and painting and season are almost one
and all beyond saving by children."
What does that mean?