海倫·凱勒自傳《我的生活》第40期

Chapter XVII

第十七章

In the summer of 1894, I attended the meeting at Chautauqua of the American Association to Promote 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，我參加了美國聾啞人語言教育促進協會在肖陶擴湖舉辦的文化講習班。根據安排，我應該前往紐約市的賴特休梅森聾啞人學校。在蘇立文小姐的陪伴下，我於1894年10月到了那裏。這是一所專門爲發展高級有聲文化和脣讀訓練而興建的學校。除去必修的科目，在這所學校學習的兩年之中，我還要學習算術、自然地理學、法語和德語課程。

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 could understand 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老師，她能用手語字母同我交流，在我掌握了少量詞彙後，我們就利用每一次機會用德語談話。幾個月之後，我幾乎能聽懂她所說的任何事。在第一年快結束的時候，我懷着極大的興致閱讀了《威廉·退爾》。事實上，我認爲我在德文學習上取得的進步要遠遠勝過其他學科。我發現法語相當難學。我跟隨奧裏維埃夫人學習法語，這位法國女士不懂手語字母，因此她只能口述授課，而讀懂她的脣語實屬不易，所以同德語相比，我學習法語的速度要慢得多。儘管如此，我仍設法重讀了《屈打成醫》，這本書確實非常有趣，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 with infinite 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.

我在脣讀和講話方面取得的進步同老師們的授課並沒有直接關係，我的動力只有一個，我希望能像其他人一樣開口說話。而我的老師們也相信這個目標一定能夠實現，但是，儘管我們同心協力攜手向前，我們仍然沒有達到理想目標。我想，或許是目標定得太高，因此失望也就在所難免了。我依然把算術當做一門充滿陷阱的學科，我徘徊在豎立着“猜想”標牌的危險邊境，還要避免給自己，以及身在寬闊幽谷中的人們惹一身麻煩。當我不再猜想時，我便欣然接受各種結論，而這樣做的結果只能是錯上加錯。另外，我感官上的遲鈍更加劇了我的理解困難。