《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》

“and the very old men --some in their brushed Confederate uniforms--on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years.”
谈论死亡与回忆
“The violence of breaking down the door seemed to fill this room with pervading dust. A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man's toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured. Among them lay a collar and tie, as if they had just been removed, which, lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent in the dust. Upon a chair hung the suit, carefully folded; beneath it the two mute shoes and the discarded socks. ”
这是篇很浓烈的福克纳版《躺在你的衣柜》。
奇怪的是，全篇和rose一点关系没有，题目的rose用意何在？或许可以作弗洛伊的式的解读：如李敖言，女人喜欢让男人送花，花是个什么东西，不就是性器官吗。Emily一生追寻而不得爱情（福克纳用的词是“deserted ”），为父亲所压迫，最终杀人藏尸。这朵玫瑰难道能作为补偿吗？我觉得还是理解为《公民凯恩》里那个观众知道，而片子里头无人知晓的代表主人公童年的小雪橇的名字“rosemary”更妥。
一个人的回忆是私密的，如作者所言仿佛一条“diminishing road”，而他人的印象仅仅是“divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years”。所谓他人即地狱，这朵玫瑰终究也是送给自己的。
ps：发现一个很有意思的测试网站：http://reverent.org/，题目为分辨福克纳和电脑翻译的文本，猿猴和艺术家的创作等。福克纳那个得了93%，很运气。猿猴艺术那个33%，瞎了。