At first, when my teacher told me about a new thing I asked very few questions. My ideas were vague, and my vocabulary was inadequate; but as my knowledge of things grew, and I learned more and more words, my field of inquiry broadened, and I would return again and again to the same subject, eager for further information. Sometimes a new word revived an image that some earlier experience had engraved on my brain.
起初，当老师告诉我一些新事物的时候，我很少发问，因为我了解的事物有限，脑子里没有清晰的概念，掌握的词汇也很少；但是，随着我对外界的了解逐渐增多，掌握的词汇越来越多，问题也多了起来。我常常就一件事情一而再、再而三地追根问底，想了解得更多更细。有时候学到一个新词，便会想到从前发生的相关事情。
I remember the morning that I first asked the meaning of the word,”love.” This was before I knew many words. I had found a few early violets in the garden and brought them to my teacher. She tried to kiss me: but at that time I did not like to have any one kiss me except my mother. Miss Sullivan put her arm gently round me and spelled into my hand, “I love Helen.”
我还记得第一次向沙利文老师问起“爱”这个词的清晨，那时我认识的字还不多。那天我在花园里摘了几朵初绽的紫罗兰送给沙利文老师，她高兴地想吻我的额头，可那时除了母亲之外，我不习惯其他任何人吻我。于是，她把我轻轻搂在怀里，在我手里拼写出“我爱海伦”这几个字。
I had now the key to all language, and I was eager to learn to use it. Children who hear acquire language without any particular effort; the words that fall from others’ lips they catch on the wing, as it were, delightedly, while the little deaf child must trap them by a slow and often painful process. But whatever the process, the result is wonderful. Gradually from naming an object we advance step by step until we have traversed the vast distance between our first stammered syllable and the sweep of thought in a line of Shakespeare.
如今，我已经掌握了语言，便急于学会运用。听力正常的孩子学起语言来是一件轻而易举的事，别人说的话他们能够轻松愉快地理解并模仿出来。而小小的聋孩子们要想掌握一门语言，必须要经过一番缓慢的训练，过程往往很痛苦。不过尽管过程艰辛，结果却是令人欣喜的。我从周围每一件东西的名字学起，由最初含混不清的发音，终于进展到可以抒发出自己对莎士比亚诗篇的种种遐想。
I smelt the violets in her hand and asked, half in words, half in signs, a question which meant, “Is love the sweetness of flowers?”
我闻了闻她手里的紫罗兰，半是拼写半是打手势地问：“爱是花儿的甜美芬芳吗？”
“No,” said my teacher.
“不是呀。”她答道。
She drew me closer to her and said, “It is here,” pointing to my heart, whose beats I was conscious of for the first time. Her words puzzled me very much because I did not then understand anything unless I touched it.
她把我搂得更紧，用手指着我心脏的地方告诉我：“爱在这里。”我第一次感觉到了心的跳动。她的话使我感到困惑不解，因为当时我还无法理解摸不着的事物。
“What is love?” I asked.
“爱是什么？”我问道。
“Is this not love?” I asked, pointing in the direction from which the heat came. “Is this not love?”
“那这个是爱吗？”我指着阳光射来的方向问，“太阳是不是爱？”
Again I thought. The warm sun was shining on us.
我又想了想。这时，温暖和煦的阳光正照耀着我们。
It seemed to me that there could be nothing more beautiful than the sun, whose warmth makes all things grow. But Miss Sullivan shook her head, and I was greatly puzzled and disappointed. I thought it strange that my teacher could not show me love.
在我看来，世上再没有比太阳更美好的东西了，它的温暖使万物生长。可沙利文小姐还是连连摇头。我既迷惑又失望，真是奇怪，老师为什么就不能告诉我爱究竟是什么呢？
A day or two afterward I was stringing beads of different sizes in symmetrical groups — two large beads, three small ones, and so on. I had made many mistakes, and Miss Sullivan had pointed them out again and again with gentle patience. Finally I noticed a very obvious error in the sequence and for an instant I concentrated my attention on the lesson and tried to think how I should have arranged the beads. Miss Sullivan touched my forehead and spelled with decided emphasis, “Think.”
大约过了一两天，我坐在那里用细线穿珠子玩。珠子大小不一，我摸索着按照两大三小的次序把它们穿起来，可总是出错。沙利文老师便不厌其烦地反复为我纠正错误。最后，我发现前面穿好的部分里还是出现了明显的错误，于是，我静静地坐在那里，想着怎样才能把这些珠子按次序穿好。正在这时，沙利文小姐轻轻摸摸我的额头，然后用力在我掌心拼写出了“想”这个单词。
Again I asked my teacher, “Is this not love?”
我又问老师：“爱是阳光吗？”
For a long time I was still — I was not thinking of the beads in my lap, but trying to find a meaning for “love” in the light of this new idea. The sun had been under a cloud all day, and there had been brief showers; but suddenly the sun broke forth in all its southern splendour.
我静静地坐了很久，不是在想搁在膝头的珠子们该如何排列，而是在用刚刚意识到的思维方式来思考爱的含义。那天，太阳一直躲在云层后面，时不时还飘着零星小雨，可是顷刻间云破日出，阳光倾泻而下。
In a flash I knew that the word was the name of the process that was going on in my head. This was my first conscious perception of an abstract idea.
我刹那间如同醍醐灌顶，突然明白了“想”指的就是我头脑中正在发生的这个过程。这是我第一次领悟到抽象的概念。
“Love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before the sun came out,” she replied. Then in simpler words than these, which at that time I could not have understood, she explained: “You cannot touch the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into everything. Without love you would not be happy or want to play.”
“爱啊，有点像太阳出来之前天空中的云彩。”也许老师意识到我仍然无法理解，便改用更加浅显直白的话继续解释说，“你虽然没法摸到云彩，可你能感受到雨水。你也知道，在经过一整天酷日暴晒后，花草树木和干旱的大地得到雨水的滋润时该有多快乐啊。爱也是这样，你摸不到它，但是你能感受到它带来的甜蜜与快乐，要是没有爱，你就再也不会开心，日子过得也没意思啦。”
The beautiful truth burst upon my mind — I felt that there were invisible lines stretched between my spirit and the spirits of others.
那一秒我似乎从她的话中悟出了什么。明白了其中含义之后，我感觉到无数看不见的细丝正穿梭连接在我和别人的心灵之间。
This process was continued for several years; for the deaf child does not learn in a month, or even in two or three years, the numberless idioms and expressions used in the simplest daily intercourse. The little hearing child learns these from constant repetition and imitation. The conversation he hears in his home stimulates his mind and suggests topics and calls forth the spontaneous expression of his own thoughts. This natural exchange of ideas is denied to the deaf child. My teacher, realizing this, determined to supply the kinds of stimulus I lacked. This she did by repeating to me as far as possible, verbatim, what she heard, and by showing me how I could take part in the conversation. But it was a long time before I ventured to take the initiative, and still longer before I could find something appropriate to say at the right time.
这种学习过程延续了好几年，一个聋孩子根本无法在一个月甚至两三年间掌握最简单的日常生活用语。正常的孩子学说话是靠不断的重复和模仿，也可以在听别人讲话的同时开动脑筋，展开丰富的联想，从而发掘话题来表达自己的思想。但这一切对于聋孩子们却是可望而不可及。沙利文老师意识到了这一点，决心弥补我生理上的缺陷。她以极大的耐心把她听到的话一字一句重复给我，告诉我如何与人交谈。但过了很久，我才鼓起勇气主动和别人说话，又过了很长时间，我才渐渐学会了在不同的时机说恰当的话。
From the beginning of my education Miss Sullivan made it a practice to speak to me as she would speak to any hearing child; the only difference was that she spelled the sentences into my hand instead of speaking them. If I did not know the words and idioms necessary to express my thoughts she supplied them, even suggesting conversation when I was unable to keep up my end of the dialogue.
从教育我的第一天开始，沙利文老师就像对待听力正常的孩子一样跟我说话，唯一不同的是，她是将要说的话逐字逐句拼写在我的手上，而不是直接口头说出来。我如果一时无法找到合适的字句表达思想，她就会提醒我；与别人对话出现沟通障碍时，她也会在一边给我提示。
The deaf and the blind find it very difficult to acquire the amenities of conversation. How much more this difficulty must be augmented in the case of those who are both deaf and blind! They cannot distinguish the tone of the voice or, without assistance, go up and down the gamut of tones that give significance to words; nor can they watch the expression of the speaker’s face, and a look is often the very soul of what one says.
单是聋人或是盲人要想掌握对话的技巧已经是困难重重了，而对于既盲又聋的人来说，摆在他们面前的困难不知道要大多少倍。一方面，他们听不见，无法辨别对方说话的语气与腔调，从而也无法领会其中微妙的含义；另一方面，他们看不见说话者的面部表情，而神色却恰恰正是说话者心灵的自然流露啊。
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