海倫·凱勒自傳《我的生活》第43期

Each day Miss Sullivan went to the classes with me and spelled into my hand with infinite patience all that the teachers said. In study hours she had to look up new words for me and read and reread notes and books I did not have in raised print. The tedium of that work is hard to conceive. Frau Gre, my German teacher, and Mr. Gilman, the principal, were the only teachers in the school who learned the finger alphabet to give me instruction. No one realized more fully than dear Frau Gre how slow and inadequate her spelling was. Nevertheless, in the goodness of her heart she laboriously spelled out her instructions to me in special lessons twice a week, to give Miss Sullivan a little rest. But, though everybody was kind and ready to help us, there was only one hand that could turn drudgery into pleasure.

每天，蘇立文小姐都會陪我走進課堂，她會以無限的耐心把老師們講的所有內容在我手上拼寫出來。其間，她還要幫我查找生詞，並且一遍又一遍地爲我讀筆記和尚未譯成盲文的書籍。這種冗長乏味的工作是常人難以想象的。我的德文老師弗勞·格魯特女士和院長吉爾曼先生是學院裏僅有的兩位能用手語字母授課的老師。沒有人能切實體會到可愛的弗勞·格魯特女士的拼寫是多麼地緩慢和不熟練。儘管如此，她仍然不辭辛勞地一週兩次爲我拼讀授課，而蘇立文小姐也可以稍作喘息。可以說，每一個人都會對我們慷慨相助，但最終只有“一隻手”能夠把苦差變爲樂事。

That year I finished arithmetic, reviewed my Latin grammar, and read three chapters of Caesar's "Gallic War." In German I read, partly with my fingers and partly with Miss Sullivan's assistance, Schiller's "Lied von der Glocke" and "Taucher," Heine's "Harzreise," Freytag's "Aus dem Staat Friedrichs des Grossen," Riehl's "Fluch Der Schheit," Lessing's "Minna von Barnhelm," and Goethe's "Aus meinem Leben." I took the greatest delight in these German books, especially Schiller's wonderful lyrics, the history of Frederick the Great's magnificent achievements and the account of Goethe's life. I was sorry to finish "Die Harzreise," so full of happy witticisms and charming descriptions of vine-clad hills, streams that sing and ripple in the sunshine, and wild regions, sacred to tradition and legend, the gray sisters of a long-vanished, imaginative age--descriptions such as can be given only by those to whom nature is "a feeling, a love and an appetite."

那一年，我結束了算術課程的學習，複習了拉丁文語法，還讀完了三章《高盧戰記》。另外，一半靠蘇立文小姐的幫助，一半靠我自己的手指，我還“閱讀”了一些德文著作。席勒的《鍾之歌》和《潛水者》，海涅的《哈爾茨山遊記》，弗賴塔格的《從弗雷德里希大帝的國度來》，里爾的《美的詛咒》，萊辛的《明娜·馮·巴爾赫姆》，以及歌德的《詩與真》。我懷着極大的興致閱讀了這些德文名著，尤其是席勒筆下的恢弘詩篇，比如他對腓特烈大帝所取得的歷史成就的讚頌，以及對歌德個人生活的描述。我懷着戀戀不捨的心情讀完了《哈爾茨山遊記》，這部詩集可謂妙語連珠，對醉人美景的描寫隨處可見——紫藤覆蓋的山野，陽光下水波瀲灩的溪流，蠻荒之地，神聖的儀軌和傳奇，塵封已久的“灰衣姊妹”，富於想象力的年紀——只有那些對大自然懷有“真摯的感情和獨特鑑賞品位”的人，才能夠寫出如此生動的詩句。

Mr. Gilman instructed me part of the year in English literature. We read together, "As You Like It," Burke's "Speech on Conciliation with America," and Macaulay's "Life of Samuel Johnson." Mr. Gilman's broad views of history and literature and his clever explanations made my work easier and pleasanter than it could have been had I only read notes mechanically with the necessarily brief explanations given in the classes.

那年，吉爾曼先生曾教過我一段時間的英語文學。我們一起閱讀《皆大歡喜》，伯克的《與美國和解的演講》，還有麥考雷的《塞繆爾·約翰遜的一生》。吉爾曼先生廣博的歷史學識和文學素養，加之其巧妙的講解方式，使我切實體會到了學習的輕鬆與快樂，這完全不同於我在課堂上被灌輸的那些教條性知識。

Burke's speech was more instructive than any other book on a political subject that I had ever read. My mind stirred with the stirring times, and the characters round which the life of two contending nations centred seemed to move right before me. I wondered more and more, while Burke's masterly speech rolled on in mighty surges of eloquence, how it was that King George and his ministers could have turned a deaf ear to his warning prophecy of our victory and their humiliation. Then I entered into the melancholy details of the relation in which the great statesman stood to his party and to the representatives of the people. I thought how strange it was that such precious seeds of truth and wisdom should have fallen among the tares of ignorance and corruption.

伯克的演講比我所讀過的任何一本政論書籍更具有教育意義。我心潮起伏，在我面前，兩個生活在共同屋檐下的敵對民族似乎在朝着和解的道路上邁進。令我越來越不解的是，面對伯克那激昂澎湃而富於雄辯的演講，喬治國王和他手下的衆臣怎麼可能充耳不聞，置我們的勝利和他們的恥辱於不顧呢？對於這位大政治家所持的黨派立場和人民的立場之間的關係，我在隨後的研讀中進行了深入的思考。我覺得，像這樣一粒如此珍貴，蘊涵着真理和智慧的種子，竟然被湮沒在無知和*的稗子中，這的確是一件很奇怪的事。