The struggle for admission to college was ended, and I could now enter Radcliffe whenever I pleased. Before I entered college, however, it was thought best that I should study another year under Mr. Keith. It was not, therefore, until the fall of 1900 that my dream of going to college was realized.
为进入大学的拼搏结束了，现在我随时可以进入拉德克利夫学院。然而，大家认为我在上大学前最好再跟基思先生学一年。因此，我的大学梦到1900年秋天才实现。
I remember my first day at Radcliffe. It was a day full of interest for me. I had looked forward to it for years. A potent force within me, stronger than the persuasion of my friends, stronger even than the pleadings of my heart, had impelled me to try my strength by the standards of those who see and hear. I knew that there were obstacles in the way; but I was eager to overcome them. I had taken to heart the words of the wise Roman who said, “To be banished from Rome is but to live outside of Rome.”Debarred from the great highways of knowledge, I was compelled to make the journey across country by unfrequented roads — that was all; and I knew that in college there were many bypaths where I could touch hands with girls who were thinking, loving and struggling like me.
进入拉德克利夫学院第一天的情景，我至今记忆犹新。那天对我来说充满了新奇。那一天我已经期盼了很多年。我心底蕴藏着一股强大的力量，它比朋友的规劝更具说服力，甚至比我自己内心的祈求更强烈，驱策我全力向耳聪目明的人看齐。我明白征途上有障碍，但是，我渴望去扫除一切障碍。我铭记那位罗马智者的格言：“若被逐出罗马，即活在罗马城外。”对我而言，不就是被挡在知识大道之外，被迫通过人迹罕至的小路来旅行吗？我知道，大学里有许多这样的小路，我可以和与自己一样勤于思考、热爱知识、斗志昂扬的女生携手前进。
I began my studies with eagerness. Before me I saw a new world opening in beauty and light, and I felt within me the capacity to know all things. In the wonderland of Mind I should be as free as another. Its people, scenery, manners, joys, tragedies should be living, tangible interpreters of the real world. The lecture-halls seemed filled with the spirit of the great and the wise, and I thought the professors were the embodiment of wisdom. If I have since learned differently, I am not going to tell anybody.
我热切地开始了大学学习。我看到面前出现了一个美丽而光明的新世界，自信有能力掌握一切知识。在精神的奇境里，我应该与别人一样自由。这个王国的子民、风景、习俗、欢乐和悲伤也应该是真实世界生动具体的反映。在我看来，这里的讲堂里挤满了伟大而睿智的灵魂，教授们都是智慧的化身。如果我从此以后有了不同的学习方法，没人会觉得奇怪。
The one I felt and still feel most is lack of time. I used to have time to think, to reflect, my mind and I. We would sit together of an evening and listen to the inner melodies of the spirit, which one hears only in leisure moments when the words of some loved poet touch a deep, sweet chord in the soul that until then had been silent. But in college there is no time to commune with one’s thoughts. One goes to college to learn, it seems, not to think. When one enters the portals of learning, one leaves the dearest pleasures — solitude, books and imagination — outside with the whispering pines. I suppose I ought to find some comfort in the thought that I am laying up treasures for future enjoyment, but I am improvident enough to prefer present joy to hoarding riches against a rainy day.
我过去感到、现在依然感受到的不利因素是缺乏时间。我曾经有时间沉思、反省，与心灵对话。我们常常在晚间静坐，聆听心灵深处的乐音。这乐音只有在安闲时刻才能听到。此时，心爱诗人吟诵的诗行拨动那沉寂已久、低沉悦耳的心弦。而在大学里，人们没有时间与心灵对话。他们上大学仿佛只是为了学习，而不是思考。进入大学之门后，人们将许多最宝贵的乐趣——孤独、书本和想象——连同那窃窃私语的松树一起弃之门外。我估计应该这样来安慰自己：我现在累积财富为的是将来享受，但我并无远谋，宁可即时享受，不愿未雨绸缪。
But I soon discovered that college was not quite the romantic lyceum I had imagined. Many of the dreams that had delighted my young inexperience became beautifully less and “faded into the light of common day.” Gradually I began to find that there were disadvantages in going to college.
但是，我不久就发现，大学并非是我想象中的浪漫学府。许多曾给年幼无知的我带来欢乐的梦想逐渐变得不那么美好，并且“消失在平淡无奇的日子里”。渐渐地，我开始感受到，上大学也有其不利因素。
I am frequently asked how I overcome the peculiar conditions under which I work in college. In the classroom I am of course practically alone. The professor is as remote as if he were speaking through a telephone. The lectures are spelled into my hand as rapidly as possible, and much of the individuality of the lecturer is lost to me in the effort to keep in the race. The words rush through my hand like hounds in pursuit of a hare which they often miss. But in this respect I do not think I am much worse off than the girls who take notes. If the mind is occupied with the mechanical process of hearing and putting words on paper at pell-mell speed, I should not think one could pay much attention to the subject under consideration or the manner in which it is presented. I cannot make notes during the lectures, because my hands are busy listening. Usually I jot down what I can remember of them when I get home. I write the exercises, daily themes, criticisms and hour-tests, the mid-year and final examinations, on my typewriter, so that the professors have no difficulty in finding out how little I know. When I began the study of Latin prosody, I devised and explained to my professor a system of signs indicating the different meters and quantities.
常有人问起，我是怎样克服大学里学习的种种不便的。当然，我在教室里实际上是孤独的。教授的声音很遥远，仿佛在通过电话讲课。授课内容会被快速拼写到我手上，我在努力赶速度时，授课者的个性特点在我面前消失了。词语奔过我的手心，恰如猎犬追逐野兔，往往追不上。不过，我认为在这方面，自己并不比用笔记录的姑娘差。如果一个人一边机械地听课一边手忙脚乱地记录，那么，我觉得他就不可能留意讲课的主题和该主题提出的方式。我无法在上课时做笔记，因为我的双手正忙于听讲。通常，我到家后会把能记得的内容草草写下来。我在打字机上做习题，写每日短文、评论，完成测验、学期考试、学年考试。这样，教授们就不难发现我知道的多么有限。我开始学习拉丁语诗体学时，设计了一套显示不同韵律和音长的系统，并解释给教授听。
My studies the first year were French, German, history, English composition and English literature. In the French course I read some of the works of Corneille, Moliere, Racine, Alfred de Musset and Sainte-Beuve, and in the German those of Goethe and Schiller. I reviewed rapidly the whole period of history from the fall of the Roman Empire to the eighteenth century, and in English literature studied critically Milton’s poems and “Areopagitica.”
我第一年学习的课程有法语、德语、历史、英文写作和英国文学。法语课上，我读了高乃依[36]、莫里哀、拉辛、阿尔弗雷德·德缪塞[37]和圣伯夫[38]的一些作品。德语课上，我读了歌德和席勒的作品。我快速重温了自罗马帝国衰落到18世纪的历史。英国文学课上，我评读了弥尔顿[39]的诗歌和《论出版自由》。【注：[36]1606—1684，法国古典主义悲剧的代表作家。代表作有《熙德》等。[37]1810—1857，法国剧作家、诗人、小说家。[38]1804—1869,19世纪法国文学批评的代表人物。[39]1608—1674，英国诗人、政治家、民主斗士。代表作有《失乐园》、《神曲》等。】
Very few of the books required in the various courses are printed for the blind, and I am obliged to have them spelled into my hand. Consequently I need more time to prepare my lessons than other girls. The manual part takes longer, and I have perplexities which they have not. There are days when the close attention I must give to details chafes my spirit, and the thought that I must spend hours reading a few chapters, while in the world without other girls are laughing and singing and dancing, makes me rebellious; but I soon recover my buoyancy and laugh the discontent out of my heart. For, after all, everyone who wishes to gain true knowledge must climb the Hill Difficulty alone, and since there is no royal road to the summit, I must zigzag it in my own way. I slip back many times, I fall, I stand still, I run against the edge of hidden obstacles, I lose my temper and find it again and keep it better, I trudge on, I gain a little, I feel encouraged, I get more eager and climb higher and begin to see the widening horizon. Every struggle is a victory. One more effort and I reach the luminous cloud, the blue depths of the sky, the uplands of my desire. I am not always alone, however, in these struggles. Mr. William Wade and Mr. E. E. Allen, Principal of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind, get for me many of the books I need in raised print. Their thoughtfulness has been more of a help and encouragement to me than they can ever know.
很多课程所需的教材没有盲文版，我只得让人把书中内容拼写在我手上。因此，我要比别的女生花更多时间预习功课。这种手工活动耗时费力，我还要面对别人没有的困惑。有时，我得集中精力于细枝末节，感到焦躁不安；有时，想到自己得花好几个小时阅读几章内容，而女孩们在外面的世界里嬉笑、歌舞，不免产生抗拒心理。但没过多久，我就找回了愉快的感觉，将心中的不满一笑置之。毕竟，每一个渴望获得真知的人都要独自攀登“险峰”。既然没有一条大路直达顶峰，我就要以自己的方式蜿蜒行进。我滑落过很多次，但是，跌倒在地，再站起身，向隐藏的障碍冲去；我大发脾气，又制服脾气，控制脾气；我跋涉前行，小有收获，信心倍增；我的渴望越发强烈，越爬越高，开始看到宽广的地平线。每一次抗争都意味着一次胜利。再加一把劲，我就能抵达光明的云端、蓝天的深处、希望的高地。不过，在这些抗争中，我并不总是孤身一人。威廉·韦德先生和宾夕法尼亚盲人教育学院院长E.E。艾伦先生为我提供了很多凸印书。他们的体贴关切给我的帮助与鼓励之大，远远出乎他们的意料。
I use the Hammond typewriter. I have tried many machines, and I find the Hammond is the best adapted to the peculiar needs of my work. With this machine movable type shuttles can be used, and one can have several shuttles, each with a different set of characters — Greek, French, or mathematical, according to the kind of writing one wishes to do on the typewriter. Without it, I doubt if I could go to college.
我现在用的是哈蒙德牌打字机。我曾试用过多种打字机，发现哈蒙德牌打字机最符合我工作的特殊要求。在这种打字机上可以使用活动字梭，还可以配备若干字梭，每个字梭就是一套不同的字母——希腊语、法语或者数学字符，视你使用的情况而定。缺少这种打字机，我都怀疑自己是否能上大学。
Last year, my second year at Radcliffe, I studied English composition, the Bible as English composition, the governments of America and Europe, the Odes of Horace, and Latin comedy. The class in composition was the pleasantest. It was very lively. The lectures were always interesting, vivacious, witty; for the instructor, Mr. Charles Townsend Copeland, more than anyone else I have had until this year, brings before you literature in all its original freshness and power. For one short hour you are permitted to drink in the eternal beauty of the old masters without needless interpretation or exposition. You revel in their fine thoughts. You enjoy with all your soul the sweet thunder of the Old Testament, forgetting the existence of Jahweh and Elohim; and you go home feeling that you have had “a glimpse of that perfection in which spirit and form dwell in immortal harmony; truth and beauty bearing a new growth on the ancient stem of time.”
去年，即我在拉德克利夫学院的第二年，我的课程有英文写作、英语圣经文学、美国和欧洲政治学、贺拉斯[40]颂诗和拉丁喜剧。英语写作的课堂气氛生动活泼，每堂课总是妙趣横生、生机勃勃、诙谐机智，因为查尔斯·唐森·科普兰先生与以往任何老师都不一样，他能让你领略到文学的清新脱俗和震撼力量。在短短一个小时时间里，没有多余的解释和说明，你就能尽情享受到古典大师的永恒魅力。你沉醉于他们的高尚情操，全身心地欣赏《旧约全书》的美妙之声，忘记耶和华和伊洛希姆[41]的存在。你回家时会感到，自己已经“窥见精神与形体永恒和谐结合的典范，真与美在时间的古老枝干上发出了新芽”。【注：[40]前65—前8，古罗马诗人、批评家。著有《诗艺》。[41]都指上帝。】
This year is the happiest because I am studying subjects that especially interest me, economics, Elizabethan literature, Shakespeare under Professor George L. Kittredge, and the History of Philosophy under Professor Josiah Royce. Through philosophy one enters with sympathy of comprehension into the traditions of remote ages and other modes of thought, which erewhile seemed alien and without reason.
这一年是最快乐的一年，因为我对所学科目特别感兴趣：经济学、伊丽莎白时期的文学、乔治·L。基特里奇教授主讲的莎士比亚以及约西亚·罗伊斯教授主讲的哲学史。远古的传统及思维模式，以前被认为是异己思想而且缺乏理性，步入哲学殿堂后却因为理解而产生共鸣。
But college is not the universal Athens I thought it was. There one does not meet the great and the wise face to face; one does not even feel their living touch. They are there, it is true; but they seem mummified. We must extract them from the crannied wall of learning and dissect and analyze them before we can be sure that we have a Milton or an Isaiah, and not merely a clever imitation. Many scholars forget, it seems to me, that our enjoyment of the great works of literature depends more upon the depth of our sympathy than upon our understanding. The trouble is that very few of their laborious explanations stick in the memory. The mind drops them as a branch drops its overripe fruit. It is possible to know a flower, root and stem and all, and all the processes of growth, and yet to have no appreciation of the flower fresh bathed in heaven’s dew. Again and again I ask impatiently, “Why concern myself with these explanations and hypotheses?” They fly hither and thither in my thought like blind birds beating the air with ineffectual wings. I do not mean to object to a thorough knowledge of the famous works we read. I object only to the interminable comments and bewildering criticisms that teach but one thing: there are as many opinions as there are men. But when a great scholar like Professor Kittredge interprets what the master said, it is “as if new sight were given the blind.” He brings back Shakespeare, the poet.
不过，大学并不是我原先想象的包罗万象的雅典。你在这里不会与伟人和智者面对面，甚至感觉不到他们的现实存在。然而，他们确实存在，不过似乎已经僵化。我们需要从知识的残垣里将其抽取出来，并对其进行细致的剖析后，才能确信拥有真实的弥尔顿或以赛亚，而不只是巧妙的赝品。在我看来，很多学者似乎忘记，欣赏伟大的文学作品，与其说是依赖我们的理解力，不如说是依赖我们的共鸣。麻烦的是，费尽口舌的讲解偏偏留不下什么记忆，人们弃之犹如枝头落下熟果。你可能认识花朵，全面了解花根、花茎及其生长轨迹，但是，你却不能欣赏沾满天堂朝露的鲜花。我不耐烦地反复问自己：“为什么要在意这些解释和假设呢？”这些解释和假设在我头脑中飘来飘去，就像失明的鸟儿徒劳地扑打着翅膀。我并不是反对透彻地理解名著，只是反对冗长的评论和令人困惑的批评，因为那样只会教人明白一件事：仁者见仁，智者见智。然而，当基特里奇教授这样的大学者阐释大师作品时，则使人有“仿佛盲人得到新视觉”之感。他复原了诗人莎士比亚。
There are, however, times when I long to sweep away half the things I am expected to learn; for the overtaxed mind cannot enjoy the treasure it has secured at the greatest cost. It is impossible, I think, to read in one day four or five different books in different languages and treating of widely different subjects, and not lose sight of the very ends for which one reads. When one reads hurriedly and nervously, having in mind written tests and examinations, one’s brain becomes encumbered with a lot of choice bric-a-brac for which there seems to be little use. At the present time my mind is so full of heterogeneous matter that I almost despair of ever being able to put it in order. Whenever I enter the region that was the kingdom of my mind I feel like the proverbial bull in the china shop. A thousand odds and ends of knowledge come crashing about my head like hailstones, and when I try to escape them, theme-goblins and college nixies of all sorts pursue me, until I wish — oh, may I be forgiven the wicked wish!– that I might smash the idols I came to worship.
然而，有时候我渴望扔掉一半准备学习的课目，因为负担过重的大脑无法享受须付最大代价才能得到的珍宝。一天之内读四五本学科各异、语言不同的书，而且又不遗漏细枝末节，这显然是不可能的事。当你心里想着测验和考试，紧张不安地匆匆读书时，你的大脑里就会装满太多无用的小摆设，让你无从选择。当时，我的脑子里塞满了乱七八糟的东西，无法理出头绪。每当我踏入心灵王国的领地，我就会感到自己像谚语中那头闯进瓷器店的公牛。林林总总的知识就像冰雹一样朝我头上砸来。当我试图逃离它们时，各种各样的作文妖精、校园水怪就会紧追不舍，我真想把顶礼膜拜的偶像统统砸碎——哦，请原谅我这些邪恶的念头。
But the examinations are the chief bugbears of my college life. Although I have faced them many times and cast them down and made them bite the dust, yet they rise again and menace me with pale looks, until like Bob Acres I feel my courage oozing out at my finger ends. The days before these ordeals take place are spent in cramming your mind with mystic formula and indigestible dates — unpalatable diets, until you wish that books and science and you were buried in the depths of the sea.
不过，大学生活中主要的鬼怪还要数各种各样的考试。虽然我经历过许多次考试，把它们打倒在地，让它们嘴啃泥，但它们又爬起来，面色苍白地来威胁我，直吓得我灵魂出窍。考试前那些日子，你拼命往脑子里塞一些神秘的公式和令人难以消化的年代资料——味同嚼蜡的食物，真想把自己连同书本和科学一起葬入大海深处。
“Give a brief account of Huss and his work.” Huss? Who was he and what did he do? The name looks strangely familiar. You ransack your budget of historic facts much as you would hunt for a bit of silk in a rag-bag. You are sure it is somewhere in your mind near the top — you saw it there the other day when you were looking up the beginnings of the Reformation. But where is it now? You fish out all manner of odds and ends of knowledge — revolutions, schisms, massacres, systems of government; but Huss — where is he? You are amazed at all the things you know which are not on the examination paper. In desperation you seize the budget and dump everything out, and there in a corner is your man, serenely brooding on his own private thought, unconscious of the catastrophe which he has brought upon you.
“简述胡斯[42]及其功绩。”胡斯是谁？他做过什么？这个名字看起来似曾相识。你在储备的历史事件里搜索，好似在一个塞满布头的包中寻找一小块丝绸。你确信它在头脑顶部的某个地方，你那天在查找宗教改革发端的资料时还见过它。但是，现在它在哪里？于是，你翻出所有零碎的知识储备——历次革命、教会分裂、集体屠杀、政权体制，可是胡斯在哪里呢？你惊奇地发现，所有你知道的东西，试卷上都没有考到。你气急败坏地把储备的内容统统倒出来。在一个角落里有你要找的人，他静静地沉浸在自己的思绪之中，全然没有意识到自己带给你的精神磨难。【注：[42]扬·胡斯（1369—1415），捷克宗教思想家、改革家。】
At last the dreaded hour arrives, and you are a favoured being indeed if you feel prepared, and are able at the right time to call to your standard thoughts that will aid you in that supreme effort. It happens too often that your trumpet call is unheeded. It is most perplexing and exasperating that just at the moment when you need your memory and a nice sense of discrimination, these faculties take to themselves wings and fly away. The facts you have garnered with such infinite trouble invariably fail you at a pinch.
终于，恐怖的时刻降临了。如果你觉得已准备就绪，能够适时想起合乎标准的观点，在最后努力中助你一臂之力，那你确实是个幸运儿。往往会出现这样一种情况，你百般召唤，却无人理睬。最令人困惑和恼怒的是，当你需要调动你的记忆库和缜密的鉴别力的时候，你的这些能力竟然张开翅膀，离你远去。你不辞劳苦储存的这些事实资料，在紧要关头总是想不起来。
While my days at Radcliffe were still in the future, they were encircled with a halo of romance, which they have lost; but in the transition from romantic to actual I have learned many things I should never have known had I not tried the experiment. One of them is the precious science of patience, which teaches us that we should take our education as we would take a walk in the country, leisurely, our minds hospitably open to impressions of every sort. Such knowledge floods the soul unseen with a soundless tidal wave of deepening thought. “Knowledge is power.” Rather, knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge — broad, deep knowledge — is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low. To know the thoughts and deeds that have marked man’s progress is to feel the great heart-throbs of humanity through the centuries; and if one does not feel in these pulsations a heavenward striving, one must indeed be deaf to the harmonies of life.
在我还没有上拉德克利夫学院的时候，大学生涯对我来说有着浪漫的光环，现在光环已然退去。从浪漫到现实的转变过程中，我学到了许多东西。如果没有这段经历，我永远不会有这些认识。认识之一便是忍耐力的宝贵。忍耐让我们有这样一种心态：我们应该把教育视作一次乡间散步，从容不迫，敞开思想，尽情接纳天地万物。这样的知识犹如一波无声的深刻思想的潮汐，将我们的灵魂悄然浸润。“知识就是力量。”但是，知识更应该是愉快的，因为拥有知识——广博、深奥的知识——需要我们具备去芜存真、区分高下的本事。认识标志着人类进步的思想和行为，就要触摸几个世纪以来人类的伟大脉动；如果一个人不能从这些脉动中感受到崇高的奋斗目标，那么他一定不懂得生命的和谐乐章。
Just then the proctor informs you that the time is up. With a feeling of intense disgust you kick the mass of rubbish into a corner and go home, your head full of revolutionary schemes to abolish the divine right of professors to ask questions without the consent of the questioned.
就在这时，监考官通知你考试结束时间已到。你满怀愤懑，一脚把垃圾踢到墙角，然后回家。你头脑里塞满革命计划，要废除教授们不经被提问者同意就发问的神圣权力。
It comes over me that in the last two or three pages of this chapter I have used figures which will turn the laugh against me. Ah, here they are — the mixed metaphors mocking and strutting about before me, pointing to the bull in the china shop assailed by hailstones and the bugbears with pale looks, an unanalyzed species! Let them mock on. The words describe so exactly the atmosphere of jostling, tumbling ideas I live in that I will wink at them for once, and put on a deliberate air to say that my ideas of college have changed.
在本章最后两三页里，我使用了一些象征，可能会引起嘲笑。哈，那些混合性象征在我面前冷嘲热讽、趾高气扬，指着遭冰雹和脸色惨白的新怪物袭击而闯进瓷器店的公牛！让它们嘲笑去吧。这些词语准确地描述了我四处冲撞、磕磕绊绊的生存环境，我对它们不屑一顾，郑重其事地说，我对大学的看法已经改变。
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