This, according to the terms of my imagined miracle, is to be my third and last day of sight. I shall have no time to waste in regrets or longings; there is too much to see. The first day I devoted to my friends, animate and inanimate. The second revealed to me the history of man and Nature. Today I shall spend in the workaday world of the present, amid the haunts of men going about the business of life. And where can one find so many activities and conditions of men as in New York? So the city becomes my destination.
依据我假想的奇迹的期限，这将是我有视觉的第三天，也是最后一天。我将来不及遗憾和渴望，因为有太多的东西要去看。我把第一天奉献给了我有生命和无生命的朋友。第二天我去了解了人与自然的历史。今天，我将在当前的工作世界中度过，到为生活奔忙的人们活动的地方去。而哪儿能像在纽约一样找得到人们如此多的活动和状况呢？所以，城市成了我的目的地。
The following morning, I should again greet the dawn, anxious to discover new delights, for I am sure that, for those who have eyes which really see, the dawn of each day must be a perpetually new revelation of beauty.
接下来一天的清晨，我将再次迎接黎明，渴望发现新的喜悦，因为我相信，对于那些真正会观察的人，每天的黎明永远都又是一个美的展现。
I start from my home in the quiet little suburb of Forest Hills, Long Island. Here, surrounded by green lawns, trees, and flowers, are neat little houses, happy with the voices and movements of wives and children, havens of peaceful rest for men who toil in the city. I drive across the lacy structure of steel which spans the East River, and I get a new and startling vision of the power and ingenuity of the mind of man. Busy boasts chug and scurry about the river — racy speed boat, stolid, snorting tugs. If I had long days of sight ahead, I should spend many of them watching the delightful activity upon the river.
我从我的家，长岛的福里斯特希尔小而安静的郊区出发。这里环绕着绿色草地、树木和鲜花，有着整洁的小房子，到处是妇女儿童快乐的声音和活动，是城里为生活奔忙的人们安静的港湾。我驱车驶过横跨东河的钢制带状桥梁，对人脑的力量和独创性有了一个深刻的新认识。忙碌的船只在河中轧轧急驶——高速行驶的快艇，还有慢悠悠、喷着鼻息的拖船。如果我能长时间拥有视力，我会用许多时光来眺望这河中令人欢快的景象。
Now I begin my rounds of the city. First, I stand at a busy corner, merely looking at people, trying by sight of them to understand something of their lives. I see smiles, and I am happy. I see serious determination, and I am proud, I see suffering, and I am compassionate.
现在，我开始周游这座城市。首先，我站在一个繁华的街角，只看看人，试着凭借对他们的观察去了解他们的生活。看到他们的笑颜，我感到快乐；看到他们严肃的决定，我感到骄傲；看到他们的痛苦，我充满同情。
I hurry to the top of one of those gigantic structures, the Empire State Building, for there, a short time ago, I “saw” the city below through the eyes of my secretary. I am anxious to compare my fancy with reality. I am sure I should not be disappointed in the panorama spread out before me, for to me it would be a vision of another world.
我匆匆赶到那些庞大建筑物之一——帝国大厦的顶部，因为不久以前，我在那里曾凭借我秘书的眼睛“俯视”过这座城市，我渴望把我的想象同现实作一比较。我相信，展现在我面前的全景一定不会令我失望，因为对我来说，它是另一个世界的景色。
I look ahead, and before me rise the fantastic towers of New York, a city that seems to have stepped from the pages of a fairy story. What an awe-inspiring sight, these glittering spires, these vast banks of stone and steel-structures such as the gods might build for themselves! This animated picture is a part of the lives of millions of people every day. How many, I wonder, give it so much as a second’s glance? Very few, I fear. Their eyes are blind to this magnificent sight because it is so familiar to them.
我向前远望，我的前面耸立着纽约奇异的高塔，这是一个仿佛从神话故事中走出来的城市。多么令人敬畏的景象啊！这些绚丽的尖塔，这些辽阔的石头与钢铁的堤岸——真像诸神为他们自己修建的建筑一般。这幅生动的画面是几百万人民每天生活的一部分。我不知道有多少人会回头多看它一眼，只怕寥寥无几。对这种壮丽的景色，他们视而不见，因为这一切对他们来说是太熟悉了。
I stroll down Fifth Avenue. I throw my eyes out of focus, so that I see no particular object but only a seething kaleidoscope of colors. I am certain that the colors of women’s dresses moving in a throng must be a gorgeous spectacle of which I should never tire. But perhaps if I had sight I should be like most other women — too interested in styles and the cut of individual dresses to give much attention to the splendor of color in the mass. And I am convinced, too, that I should become an inveterate window shopper, for it must be a delight to the eye to view the myriad articles of beauty on display.
我沿着第五大道漫步。我没有将目光集中在某一点上，而只看看万花筒般热烈的色彩。我确信，那些在人群中穿梭的妇女的服装色彩一定是一幅永不会令我厌烦的华丽景象。然而如果我有视觉的话，我也许会像其他大多数妇女一样，对服装的式样和剪裁太过注重，而忽略了总体上壮丽的色彩。而且，我还确信，我将成为一位根深蒂固的橱窗爱好者，因为观赏无数精美的陈列品一定是一种眼福。
From Fifth Avenue I make a tour of the city — to Park Avenue, to the slums, to factories, to parks where children play. I take a stay-at-home trip abroad by visiting the foreign quarters. Always my eyes are open wide to all the sights of both happiness and misery so that I may probe deep and add to my understanding of how people work and live. My heart is full of the images of people and things. My eye passes lightly over no single trifle; it strives to touch and hold closely each thing its gaze rests upon. Some sights are pleasant, filling the heart with happiness; but some are miserably pathetic. To these latter I do not shut my eyes, for they, too, are part of life. To close the eye on them is to close the heart and mind.
从第五大道起，我开始环城游览——到公园大道去，到贫民窟去，到工厂去，到孩子们玩耍的公园去。我还将参观外国人居住区，进行一次不出门的海外旅行。我始终密切关注着幸福和悲惨的全部景象，以便能够深入调查，进一步了解人们是怎样工作和生活的。我的心充满了人和物的形象。我的眼睛决不轻易放过一件小事，密切关注它所看到的每一件事物。有些景象令人愉快，让心中充满幸福感；有些则是极其凄惨，令人怜悯。对于后者，我决不闭上我的双眼，因为它们也是生活的一部分。在它们面前闭上眼睛，就等于关闭了心房，关闭了思想。
My third day of sight is drawing to an end. Perhaps there are many serious pursuits to which I should devote the few remaining hours, but I am afraid that on the evening of that last day I should again run away to the theater, to a hilariously funny play, so that I might appreciate the overtones of comedy in the human spirit.
我能够看见的第三天即将结束了。也许有很多重要的事情需要我利用这剩下的几个小时去做。但是，在最后一个夜晚，我恐怕还会再次跑到剧院去，看一场热闹而有趣的戏剧，好让我领略一下人类思想中的喜剧成分。
At midnight my temporary respite from blindness would cease, and permanent night would close in on me again. Naturally in those three short days I should not have seen all I wanted to see. Only when darkness had again descended upon me should I realize how much I had left unseen. But my mind would be so crowded with glorious memories that I should have little time for regrets. Thereafter the touch of every object would bring a glowing memory of how that object looked.
到了午夜，我摆脱失明的短暂片刻就要结束了，永久的黑夜将再次向我逼近。在那短短的三天，我自然不能看到我想要看到的一切。只有在黑暗再次向我袭来时，我才感到我还有很多东西没来得及去看。然而，我的内心充满了灿烂的回忆，因此我不会有时间去懊悔。此后，我每摸到一件物品，我的记忆都将鲜明地反映出那件物品是个什么样子。
Perhaps this short outline of how I should spend three days of sight does not agree with the program you would set for yourself if you knew that you were about to be stricken blind. I am, however, sure that if you actually faced that fate your eyes would open to things you had never seen before, storing up memories for the long night ahead. You would use your eyes as never before. Everything you saw would become dear to you. Your eyes would touch and embrace every object that came within your range of vision. Then, at last, you would really see, and a new world of beauty would open itself before you.
我将怎样度过有视力的三天这个简短的描述，和假如你知道自己即将失明时为自己定下的规划也许不一致。不过我能肯定的是，如果你真的面临这样的命运，你的眼睛会看到之前你从未看见过的东西，为即将来临的漫长黑夜储存记忆。你会以从来没有过的方式使用你的眼睛。对你来说，你看见的每一样东西都会变得珍贵。你的眼睛会接触和接受每一样进入你视线的物体。这个时候，你才真正拥有了视力，一个美丽的新世界才会在你面前展现。
I who am blind can give one hint to those who see — one admonition to those who would make full use of the gift of sight: use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to the other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense: glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact which Nature provides. But of all the senses, I am sure that sight must be the most delightful.
我，一个盲人，能够给有视力的人一个提醒——给将要充分利用视力这一天赐之物的人一个告诫：像明天就要失明那样去使用你的眼睛。同样的道理也适用于其他官能。倾听声音的美妙、小鸟的歌唱、管弦乐队强有力的旋律，仿佛明天你将失聪。触摸你想触摸的每一件东西，仿佛明天你会失去触觉。闻闻花香，津津有味地品尝每一小口食物，仿佛明天你将永远不再有嗅觉和味觉了。最大限度地用好每一个感官，享受世界通过大自然赋予你的几种接触方式给你带来的方方面面的快乐和美。但是在所有的感官之中，我相信视觉必定是最使人快乐的。
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