海倫·凱勒自傳《我的生活》第40期

　　第十七章

　　In the summer of 1894, I attended the meeting at Chautauqua of the American Association toPromote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf. There it was arranged that I should go to the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York City. I went there in October, 1894, accompanied by Miss Sullivan. This school was chosen especially for the purpose of obtaining the highest advantages in vocal culture and training in lip-reading. In addition to my work in these subjects, I studied, during the two years I was in the school, arithmetic, physical geography, French and German.

　　1894年夏天，我參加了美國(guó)聾啞人語(yǔ)言教育促進(jìn)協(xié)會(huì)在肖陶擴(kuò)湖舉辦的文化講習(xí)班。根據(jù)安排，我應(yīng)該前往紐約市的賴特休梅森聾啞人學(xué)校。在蘇立文小姐的陪伴下，我于1894年10月到了那里。這是一所專門為發(fā)展高級(jí)有聲文化和唇讀訓(xùn)練而興建的學(xué)校。除去必修的科目，在這所學(xué)校學(xué)習(xí)的兩年之中，我還要學(xué)習(xí)算術(shù)、自然地理學(xué)、法語(yǔ)和德語(yǔ)課程。

　　Miss Reamy, my German teacher, could use the manual alphabet, and after I had acquired a small vocabulary, we talked together in German whenever we had a chance, and in a few months I couldunderstand almost everything she said. Before the end of the first year I read "Wilhelm Tell" with the greatest delight. Indeed, I think I made more progress in German than in any of my other studies. I found French much more difficult. I studied it with Madame Olivier, a French lady who did not know the manual alphabet, and who was obliged to give her instruction orally. I could not read her lips easily; so my progress was much slower than in German. I managed, however, to read "Le Mecin Malgr?Lui" again. It was very amusing but I did not like it nearly so well as "Wilhelm Tell."

　　瑞米小姐是我的德語(yǔ)老師，她能用手語(yǔ)字母同我交流，在我掌握了少量詞匯后，我們就利用每一次機(jī)會(huì)用德語(yǔ)談話。幾個(gè)月之后，我?guī)缀跄苈?tīng)懂她所說(shuō)的任何事。在第一年快結(jié)束的時(shí)候，我懷著極大的興致閱讀了《威廉·退爾》。事實(shí)上，我認(rèn)為我在德文學(xué)習(xí)上取得的進(jìn)步要遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)勝過(guò)其他學(xué)科。我發(fā)現(xiàn)法語(yǔ)相當(dāng)難學(xué)。我跟隨奧里維埃夫人學(xué)習(xí)法語(yǔ)，這位法國(guó)女士不懂手語(yǔ)字母，因此她只能口述授課，而讀懂她的唇語(yǔ)實(shí)屬不易，所以同德語(yǔ)相比，我學(xué)習(xí)法語(yǔ)的速度要慢得多。盡管如此，我仍設(shè)法重讀了《屈打成醫(yī)》，這本書確實(shí)非常有趣，但是兩相比較，我更喜歡《威廉·退爾》。

　　My progress in lip-reading and speech was not what my teachers and I had hoped and expected it would be. It was my ambition to speak like other people, and my teachers believed that this could be accomplished; but, although we worked hard and faithfully, yet we did not quite reach our goal. I suppose we aimed too high, and disappointment was therefore inevitable. I still regarded arithmetic as a system of pitfalls. I hung about the dangerous frontier of "guess," avoiding withinfinite trouble to myself and others the broad valley of reason. When I was not guessing, I was jumping at conclusions, and this fault, in addition to my dullness, aggravated my difficulties more than was right or necessary.

　　我在唇讀和講話方面取得的進(jìn)步同老師們的授課并沒(méi)有直接關(guān)系，我的動(dòng)力只有一個(gè)，我希望能像其他人一樣開(kāi)口說(shuō)話。而我的老師們也相信這個(gè)目標(biāo)一定能夠?qū)崿F(xiàn)，但是，盡管我們同心協(xié)力攜手向前，我們?nèi)匀粵](méi)有達(dá)到理想目標(biāo)。我想，或許是目標(biāo)定得太高，因此失望也就在所難免了。我依然把算術(shù)當(dāng)做一門充滿陷阱的學(xué)科，我徘徊在豎立著“猜想”標(biāo)牌的危險(xiǎn)邊境，還要避免給自己，以及身在寬闊幽谷中的人們?nèi)且簧砺闊?。?dāng)我不再猜想時(shí)，我便欣然接受各種結(jié)論，而這樣做的結(jié)果只能是錯(cuò)上加錯(cuò)。另外，我感官上的遲鈍更加劇了我的理解困難。