The next important event in my life was my visit to Boston, in May, 1888. As if it were yesterday I remember the preparations, the departure with my teacher and my mother, the journey, and finally the arrival in Boston. How different this journey was from the one I had made to Baltimore two years before! I was no longer a restless, excitable little creature, requiring the attention of everybody on the train to keep me amused. I sat quietly beside Miss Sullivan, taking in with eager interest all that she told me about what she saw out of the car window: the beautiful Tennessee River, the great cotton-fields, the hills and woods, and the crowds of laughing negroes at the stations, who waved to the people on the train and brought delicious candy and popcorn balls through the car. On the seat opposite me sat my big rag doll, Nancy, in a new gingham dress and a beruffled sunbonnet, looking at me out of two bead eyes. Sometimes, when I was not absorbed in Miss Sullivan’s descriptions, I remembered Nancy’s existence and took her up in my arms, but I generally calmed my conscience by making myself believe that she was asleep.
我人生中的第二件大事，便是1888年5月的波士顿之行了。从作好出发前的各种准备，到与老师、母亲一同启程，旅途中的所见所闻，以及最后抵达波士顿的种种情形，一切都宛如昨日，历历在目。这次旅行和两年前的巴尔的摩之行迥然不同。此时的我已不再是当时那个容易激动、一会儿也闲不住、需要车上大家注意我才高兴的小淘气。我安静地坐在沙利文小姐身旁，专心致志地听她给我描述她所见到的车窗外的一切：美丽的田纳西河、一望无际的棉花地、连绵的山丘、苍翠的森林和火车进站后蜂拥而至的黑人。他们大声笑着向火车上的旅客招手，来到一节节车厢叫卖香甜可口的糖果和爆米花。对面位子上坐着我破旧的大娃娃南希，她身穿方格花布新衣，头戴褶皱的太阳帽，一双珠子做的眼睛直盯着我。有时在听老师讲述中开小差时，我便想起了南希，把她抱在怀里，不过我通常都相信她是熟睡着的。
As I shall not have occasion to refer to Nancy again, I wish to tell here a sad experience she had soon after our arrival in Boston. She was covered with dirt — the remains of mud pies I had compelled her to eat, although she had never shown any special liking for them. The laundress at the Perkins Institution secretly carried her off to give her a bath. This was too much for poor Nancy. When I next saw her she was a formless heap of cotton, which I should not have recognized at all except for the two bead eyes which looked out at me reproachfully.
我恐怕没有机会再提到南希，所以，我希望在此说一说我们到达波士顿后她的悲惨遭遇。她全身粘满了泥土，是我在车上逼她吃泥派残屑的结果，尽管她从来没有对泥派表现出兴趣。珀金斯盲人学校的洗衣女工看到娃娃这么脏，便偷偷给她洗了个澡。可我那可怜的南希怎么经得起用水洗呵。等我再见到她时，她已成了一堆乱棉花，要不是那两颗珠子眼睛以责备的目光瞪着我，我简直都认不出它了。
When the train at last pulled into the station at Boston it was as if a beautiful fairy tale had come true. The “once upon a time” was now; the’far-away country” was here.
火车终于进站，我们到达波士顿了，仿佛一个美丽的童话故事变成了现实。“从前”变成了“现在”，“遥远的地方”变成了“近在眼前”。
We had scarcely arrived at the Perkins Institution for the Blind when I began to make friends with the little blind children. It delighted me inexpressibly to find that they knew the manual alphabet. What joy to talk with other children in my own language! Until then I had been like a foreigner speaking through an interpreter. In the school where Laura Bridgman was taught I was in my own country. It took me some time to appreciate the fact that my new friends were blind. I knew I could not see; but it did not seem possible that all the eager, loving children who gathered round me and joined heartily in my frolics were also blind. I remember the surprise and the pain I felt as I noticed that they placed their hands over mine when I talked to them and that they read books with their fingers. Although I had been told this before, and although I understood my own deprivations, yet I had thought vaguely that since they could hear, they must have a sort of “second sight,” and I was not prepared to find one child and another and yet another deprived of the same precious gift. But they were so happy and contented that I lost all sense of pain in the pleasure of their companionship.
一到珀金斯盲人学校，我就和那里的盲童交上了朋友。当我知道他们会手语时，真是高兴得无法用言语表达。我终于可以用自己的语言同其他孩子交谈了，怎能不叫我高兴呢？在这以前，我一直像个外国人，得通过翻译同人说话。而在这里——劳拉·布里奇曼曾经在这儿学习过的珀金斯盲人学校里，我好像回到了自己的故乡。过了好些日子，我才知道我的新朋友都是盲人。我知道自己看不见，但却从来没有想到，那些围着我又蹦又跳、活泼可爱的小伙伴们也看不见。至今我还记得，当我发觉他们把手放在我的手上和我谈话，读书也用手指触摸时，我是多么惊奇，又多么痛苦啊！虽然他们早已经告诉我，而我也知道自己身体上的缺陷，但我一直模模糊糊地认为，既然他们可以听到，必然是有某种“第二视觉”。我万万没有想到，原来一个又一个孩子也像我一样，一点儿也看不见。但是他们是那么高兴，那么活泼，同他们一起沉浸在这种快乐的气氛中，我很快就忘掉了痛苦。
The next day we went to Plymouth by water. This was my first trip on the ocean and my first voyage in a steamboat. How full of life and motion it was! But the rumble of the machinery made me think it was thundering, and I began to cry, because I feared if it rained we should not be able to have our picnic out of doors. I was more interested, I think, in the great rock on which the Pilgrims landed than in anything else in Plymouth. I could touch it, and perhaps that made the coming of the Pilgrims and their toils and great deeds seem more real to me. I have often held in my hand a little model of the Plymouth Rock which a kind gentleman gave me at Pilgrim Hall, and I have fingered its curves, the split in the centre and the embossed figures “1620,” and turned over in my mind all that I knew about the wonderful story of the Pilgrims.
第二天，我们乘船去普利茅斯。这是我第一次在海上旅行，也是第一次乘轮船。海上的生活真是丰富而又热闹！但机器的隆隆声使我感到像是在打雷，心想若下了雨，便不能在户外野餐了，心中一急，竟哭了起来。普利茅斯最令我感兴趣的是当年移民们登陆时踩过的那块大岩石——普利茅斯岩。用手摸着这块岩石，当年移民们艰苦跋涉的伟大事迹仿佛栩栩如生地展现在我眼前。参观移民博物馆时，一位亲切的先生在普利茅斯厅送给我一块普利茅斯岩的模型。我将它握在手里，抚摸它那凸凹不平的表面、中间的一条裂缝以及刻在上面的“1620年”字样时，脑海中便浮想起那时候移民们初来乍到时的种种事迹。
One day spent with the blind children made me feel thoroughly at home in my new environment, and I looked eagerly from one pleasant experience to another as the days flew swiftly by. I could not quite convince myself that there was much world left, for I regarded Boston as the beginning and the end of creation.
和盲童们在一起待了一天之后，我便在新环境中感到无拘无束。日子一天天飞快地过去，每天我都在热切地寻求一个又一个快乐的经历。我把波士顿看成是世界之始，也是世界之末，我几乎不能相信，除此之外还有其他更广阔的世界。
While we were in Boston we visited Bunker Hill, and there I had my first lesson in history. The story of the brave men who had fought on the spot where we stood excited me greatly. I climbed the monument, counting the steps, and wondering as I went higher and yet higher if the soldiers had climbed this great stairway and shot at the enemy on the ground below.
在波士顿期间，我们参观了邦克山，在那里，沙利文小姐给我上了第一堂历史课。当我知道这座山就是当年英雄们激战的地方时，真是激动万分。我数着一级级台阶，越爬越高，心里面想象着英雄们奋勇攀爬，居高临下向敌人射击的情形。
How my childish imagination glowed with the splendour of their enterprise! I idealized them as the bravest and most generous men that ever sought a home in a strange land. I thought they desired the freedom of their fellow men as well as their own. I was keenly surprised and disappointed years later to learn of their acts of persecution that make us tingle with shame, even while we glory in the courage and energy that gave us our “Country Beautiful.”
在我那时稚嫩的心灵中，他们的事迹何其崇高！在我看来，他们在异乡落户，白手起家，他们是最勇敢慷慨的大英雄。他们追寻自由不仅仅是为了自己，也是为了同胞们。然而，若干年后，我得知了他们的迫害行为，这让我既震惊又失望，为他们感到羞耻。尽管他们不畏艰险，为我们开创出一片“美丽的疆土”，我还是不能原谅这种暴行。
Among the many friends I made in Boston were Mr. William Endicott and his daughter. Their kindness to me was the seed from which many pleasant memories have since grown. One day we visited their beautiful home at Beverly Farms. I remember with delight how I went through their rose-garden, how their dogs, big Leo and little curly-haired Fritz with long ears, came to meet me, and how Nimrod, the swiftest of the horses, poked his nose into my hands for a pat and a lump of sugar. I also remember the beach, where for the first time I played in the sand. It was hard, smooth sand, very different from the loose, sharp sand, mingled with kelp and shells, at Brewster. Mr. Endicott told me about the great ships that came sailing by from Boston, bound for Europe. I saw him many times after that, and he was always a good friend to me; indeed, I was thinking of him when I called Boston “the City of Kind Hearts.”
在波士顿我认识了不少新朋友，其中最让我难忘的是威廉·恩迪科特先生和他的女儿。他们待我的善意使我留下许多快乐的记忆，至今难以忘怀。有一天，我们去贝弗利农场拜访他们。当我们穿过美丽的玫瑰园时，他们家的两只狗便一路跑来迎接客人，大狗利奥与长耳朵的卷毛小家伙弗里茨热情的欢迎真让人心情愉悦。农场里跑的最快的马儿尼姆罗德还把鼻子伸到我的手边，撒着娇要我拍拍它，给它糖吃。那农场附近的沙滩也让我印象深刻，我生平第一次到沙滩上玩耍。那里的沙子硬实而光滑，同布鲁斯特海滨松软而尖锐、混杂着海草和贝壳的沙子完全不一样。恩迪科特先生告诉我，这里是大型船只从波士顿起航去往欧洲的必经之路。在我们后来的几次会面中，这位先生总是那么友善，因为他的缘故，我将波士顿称为“友善之城”。
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