It was in the spring of 1890 that I learned to speak. The impulse to utter audible sounds had always been strong within me. I used to make noises, keeping one hand on my throat while the other hand felt the movements of my lips. I was pleased with anything that made a noise and liked to feel the cat purr and the dog bark. I also liked to keep my hand on a singer’s throat, or on a piano when it was being played. Before I lost my sight and hearing, I was fast learning to talk, but after my illness it was found that I had ceased to speak because I could not hear. I used to sit in my mother’s lap all day long and keep my hands on her face because it amused me to feel the motions of her lips; and I moved my lips, too, although I had forgotten what talking was. My friends say that I laughed and cried naturally, and for awhile I made many sounds and word-elements, not because they were a means of communication, but because the need of exercising my vocal organs was imperative. There was, however, one word the meaning of which I still remembered, WATER. I pronounced it “wa-wa.” Even this became less and less intelligible until the time when Miss Sullivan began to teach me. I stopped using it only after I had learned to spell the word on my fingers.
1890年春天，我开始学习讲话。我很早就有发出声音的强烈冲动。我常常把一只手放在喉咙上，另一只手放在嘴唇上，发出一些声音来。对任何能够发出声音的东西，我都抱有浓厚的兴趣。无论是听到猫儿的喵喵声还是狗儿的汪汪叫，我都爱用手去触摸它们。听人唱歌，我喜欢用手去触碰他们的喉部；听人弹琴，我喜欢抚摸钢琴。丧失听力和视力之前，我学说话的速度很快。但那场大病之后，我不再说话，因为我失去了听觉。我整天坐在母亲膝头，双手抚摸她的脸颊，因为感受母亲嘴唇的开合使我觉得很有趣。我也嚅动嘴唇，尽管早已忘了怎么说话。朋友们说我哭和笑的声音都很正常。有时，我会发出一些声音或模糊的音节，这并非在和别人说话，而是我有意在锻炼自己的发音器官。有一个字的意思我至今依然记得，那就是“水”（water），我经常把它发成“wa…wa”的声音。即便如此，这个音也越来越含混不清，沙利文小姐教会我用手指拼写之后，我就不再发音了。
I had known for a long time that the people about me used a method of communication different from mine; and even before I knew that a deaf child could be taught to speak, I was conscious of dissatisfaction with the means of communication I already possessed. One who is entirely dependent upon the manual alphabet has always a sense of restraint, of narrowness. This feeling began to agitate me with a vexing, forward-reaching sense of a lack that should be filled. My thoughts would often rise and beat up like birds against the wind, and I persisted in using my lips and voice. Friends tried to discourage this tendency, fearing lest it would lead to disappointment. But I persisted, and an accident soon occurred which resulted in the breaking down of this great barrier — I heard the story of Ragnhild Kaata.
我早就知道自己和周围人们的交流方式不一样。甚至在我还不知道聋孩能学会说话之前，我就意识到自己对现有的交流方式不满。完全依赖手语交流，总让人感觉四处受限。这种感觉慢慢使我烦躁不安，去填补这种空白的愿望越发急切。我的思想常常像逆风的鸟儿竭力振翅一样。我一个劲儿地嚅动着嘴唇想要说话。朋友们怕我学不好会灰心丧气，所以试图阻止我说话，可我却毫不让步。不久，我偶然听到了关于朗希尔德·卡达的故事。这使我所有学说话的障碍顷刻之间消失殆尽。
In 1890 Mrs. Lamson, who had been one of Laura Bridgman’s teachers, and who had just returned from a visit to Norway and Sweden, came to see me, and told me of Ragnhild Kaata, a deaf and blind girl in Norway who had actually been taught to speak. Mrs. Lamson had scarcely finished telling me about this girl’s success before I was on fire with eagerness. I resolved that I, too, would learn to speak. I would not rest satisfied until my teacher took me, for advice and assistance, to Miss Sarah Fuller, principal of the Horace Mann School. This lovely, sweet-natured lady offered to teach me herself, and we began the twenty-sixth of March, 1890.
1890年，刚从挪威和瑞典归来的拉姆森夫人前来看我，她曾是劳拉·布里奇曼的老师。拉姆森夫人告诉我，挪威有一个叫朗希尔德·卡达的又盲又聋的女孩子已经学会了说话。不等她说完故事，我学说话的渴望就已经犹如烈火熊熊燃烧起来。我暗自下定决心，一定要学会开口说话。我缠着沙利文小姐，让她带我去见霍勒斯·曼学校的校长萨拉·富勒小姐，请她给予建议和帮助。这位女士和蔼亲切，她决定亲自为我授课。我的学习开始于1890年3月26日。
Miss Fuller’s method was this: she passed my hand lightly over her face, and let me feel the position of her tongue and lips when she made a sound. I was eager to imitate every motion and in an hour had learned six elements of speech: M, P, A, S, T, I. Miss Fuller gave me eleven lessons in all. I shall never forget the surprise and delight I felt when I uttered my first connected sentence, “It is warm.” True, they were broken and stammering syllables; but they were human speech. My soul, conscious of new strength, came out of bondage, and was reaching through those broken symbols of speech to all knowledge and all faith.
富勒小姐的教学方法是这样的：她发音的时候，让我把手轻轻地放在她的脸上，来感觉她的舌头和嘴唇的位置。我迫不及待地模仿她的每一个动作，一个小时后学会了用嘴说M、P、A、S、T、I这六个字母。富勒小姐一共给我上了十一节课。我一辈子也忘不了当我第一次连贯地说出“天气很温暖”这个句子时的惊喜。不错，我当时说得结结巴巴，也不连贯，但这毕竟是人类的语言。我意识到，一种新的力量为我解除了灵魂的桎梏，使我通过那些结结巴巴的言语象征，奔向知识，奔向信仰。
No deaf child who has earnestly tried to speak the words which he has never heard — to come out of the prison of silence, where no tone of love, no song of bird, no strain of music ever pierces the stillness — can forget the thrill of surprise, the joy of discovery which came over him when he uttered his first word. Only such a one can appreciate the eagerness with which I talked to my toys, to stones, trees, birds and dumb animals, or the delight I felt when at my call Mildred ran to me or my dogs obeyed my commands. It is an unspeakable boon to me to be able to speak in winged words that need no interpretation. As I talked, happy thoughts fluttered up out of my words that might perhaps have struggled in vain to escape my fingers.
当一个聋童迫不及待地要表达那些闻所未闻的字眼，并渴望走出无声世界的时候——他期待可以走出没有温柔低语、虫鸣鸟叫与美妙乐声的死寂世界，他无论如何也不会忘记说出第一个字眼时，那如同电流般席卷全身的狂喜。只有这样的人才知道，我是怀着多么热切的心情与玩具、石头、树木和不会说话的动物们交谈的；也只有这样的人才知道，当米尔德丽德听到我的呼唤向我跑来，狗儿听从我的命令时，我的喜悦之情是多么溢于言表。能够使用可以飞翔的语言说话而无需别人解释，是一种妙不可言的天赐恩惠。我说话时，快乐的思想通过词句轻快地飞出，而在以前通过手指表达时可能是徒劳费力。
All teachers of the deaf know what this means, and only they can at all appreciate the peculiar difficulties with which I had to contend. In reading my teacher’s lips I was wholly dependent on my fingers: I had to use the sense of touch in catching the vibrations of the throat, the movements of the mouth and the expression of the face; and often this sense was at fault. In such cases I was forced to repeat the words or sentences, sometimes for hours, until I felt the proper ring in my own voice. My work was practice, practice, practice. Discouragement and weariness cast me down frequently; but the next moment the thought that I should soon be at home and show my loved ones what I had accomplished, spurred me on, and I eagerly looked forward to their pleasure in my achievement.
只有教过聋童的老师才能明白这意味着什么，也只有他们才能体会到摆在我面前的巨大困难。我完全依靠手指来感受沙利文老师的发音：通过触觉来感受她声带的颤动、嘴唇的开合与脸部的表情，而这样的感觉往往并不准确。在这种情况下，我被迫一遍遍重复那些词语和句子，有时一练就是几小时，直到我说对了为止。我的任务就是练习，练习，再练习。气馁与烦闷常常困扰着我，但一想到快要回家与家人分享学习的成果，我便信心大增，因为我是那么期待他们为我的成功感到快乐。
But it must not be supposed that I could really talk in this short time. I had learned only the elements of speech. Miss Fuller and Miss Sullivan could understand me, but most people would not have understood one word in a hundred. Nor is it true that, after I had learned these elements, I did the rest of the work myself. But for Miss Sullivan’s genius, untiring perseverance and devotion, I could not have progressed as far as I have toward natural speech. In the first place, I laboured night and day before I could be understood even by my most intimate friends; in the second place, I needed Miss Sullivan’s assistance constantly in my efforts to articulate each sound clearly and to combine all sounds in a thousand ways. Even now she calls my attention every day to mispronounced words.
但是，一定不要以为我能在这么短的时间内真正学会说话。我只是掌握了一些说话的基本要素。富勒小姐和沙利文老师能听懂我的话，可对其他大部分人来说，我说一百个单词，他们未必听懂一个。也不要认为，掌握这些要素后，其余的就靠我自己了。没有沙利文老师的天分，没有她不懈的坚持和不倦的奉献，我绝不会如此神速地学会自然的语言。最初，我夜以继日地苦练，才使密友们能听懂我的意思。随后，我在沙利文小姐的帮助下，反复练习每一个字的发音和各种音节的组合发音。一直到现在，沙利文小姐仍然每天提醒我注意发错音的词。
Just here, perhaps, I had better explain our use of the manual alphabet, which seems to puzzle people who do not know us. One who reads or talks to me spells with his hand, using the single-hand manual alphabet generally employed by the deaf. I place my hand on the hand of the speaker so lightly as not to impede its movements. The position of the hand is as easy to feel as it is to see. I do not feel each letter any more than you see each letter separately when you read. Constant practice makes the fingers very flexible, and some of my friends spell rapidly — about as fast as an expert writes on a typewriter. The mere spelling is, of course, no more a conscious act than it is in writing.
说到这里，也许应该解释一下我们使用的手语字母。那些不了解我们的人似乎对手语有些困惑不解。我把手轻轻地放在说话者的手上，并不妨碍其手指的运动。就像你能很容易看到手指的移动一样，我也能很容易感受到它们的动作。与人们看书一样，我能感觉到一个个字母。不断的练习会使手指灵活自如。我有些朋友字母拼写得非常快，就像专业作家在打字机上打字一样。当然，单纯的拼写只不过是写作中一种自觉的动作。
“My little sister will understand me now,” was a thought stronger than all obstacles. I used to repeat ecstatically, “I am not dumb now.” I could not be despondent while I anticipated the delight of talking to my mother and reading her responses from her lips. It astonished me to find how much easier it is to talk than to spell with the fingers, and I discarded the manual alphabet as a medium of communication on my part; but Miss Sullivan and a few friends still use it in speaking to me, for it is more convenient and more rapid than lip-reading.
“我的小妹快能听懂我说话了！”这已成为我战胜一切困难的坚强信念。我常常狂喜不已地念叨：“我已经不是哑巴了。”每每想到我将能够与母亲说话，能够理解她口形变化的不同含义，我就充满了信心。当我发现开口说话比用手指拼字容易很多时，真是惊讶不已。我不再用手语字母跟人交谈，但沙利文小姐和一些朋友依然用这种方式与我说话，因为它比读唇更加方便快捷。
When I had made speech my own, I could not wait to go home. At last the happiest of happy moments arrived. I had made my homeward journey, talking constantly to Miss Sullivan, not for the sake of talking, but determined to improve to the last minute. Almost before I knew it, the train stopped at the Tuscumbia station, and there on the platform stood the whole family. My eyes fill with tears now as I think how my mother pressed me close to her, speechless and trembling with delight, taking in every syllable that I spoke, while little Mildred seized my free hand and kissed it and danced, and my father expressed his pride and affection in a big silence. It was as if Isaiah’s prophecy had been fulfilled in me, “The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands!”
当我开口说话时，我迫不及待想要回家。归程的快乐时刻终于来临了。我一路上不停地和沙利文小姐说话，并不是为说而说，而是决心不断改进到最后一刻。不知不觉地，列车停靠在塔斯坎比亚车站，站台上站着我的全家人。母亲紧紧地将我搂在怀里，全身颤抖着，激动得说不出话来，默默听着我发出的每一个音节。小米尔德丽德抓住我的手一个劲地亲，高兴得直蹦。父亲站在旁边没有说话，但慈祥的面庞却满是自豪。一想到这相会的情形，我便不禁要落下泪来，真好像是以赛亚[10]的预言在我身上得到了应验：“山岭齐声欢唱，树木欢呼鼓掌。”【注：[10]《圣经》中的先知。】
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