海倫·凱勒自傳《我的生活》第40期

　　第十七章

　　In the summer of 1894, I attended the meeting at Chautauqua of the American Association toPromote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf. There it was arranged that I should go to the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York City. I went there in October, 1894, accompanied by Miss Sullivan. This school was chosen especially for the purpose of obtaining the highest advantages in vocal culture and training in lip-reading. In addition to my work in these subjects, I studied, during the two years I was in the school, arithmetic, physical geography, French and German.

　　1894年夏天，我參加了美國聾啞人語言教育促進協(xié)會在肖陶擴湖舉辦的文化講習班。根據(jù)安排，我應該前往紐約市的賴特休梅森聾啞人學校。在蘇立文小姐的陪伴下，我于1894年10月到了那里。這是一所專門為發(fā)展高級有聲文化和唇讀訓練而興建的學校。除去必修的科目，在這所學校學習的兩年之中，我還要學習算術、自然地理學、法語和德語課程。

　　Miss Reamy, my German teacher, could use the manual alphabet, and after I had acquired a small vocabulary, we talked together in German whenever we had a chance, and in a few months I couldunderstand almost everything she said. Before the end of the first year I read "Wilhelm Tell" with the greatest delight. Indeed, I think I made more progress in German than in any of my other studies. I found French much more difficult. I studied it with Madame Olivier, a French lady who did not know the manual alphabet, and who was obliged to give her instruction orally. I could not read her lips easily; so my progress was much slower than in German. I managed, however, to read "Le Mecin Malgr?Lui" again. It was very amusing but I did not like it nearly so well as "Wilhelm Tell."

　　瑞米小姐是我的德語老師，她能用手語字母同我交流，在我掌握了少量詞匯后，我們就利用每一次機會用德語談話。幾個月之后，我?guī)缀跄苈牰f的任何事。在第一年快結束的時候，我懷著極大的興致閱讀了《威廉·退爾》。事實上，我認為我在德文學習上取得的進步要遠遠勝過其他學科。我發(fā)現(xiàn)法語相當難學。我跟隨奧里維埃夫人學習法語，這位法國女士不懂手語字母，因此她只能口述授課，而讀懂她的唇語實屬不易，所以同德語相比，我學習法語的速度要慢得多。盡管如此，我仍設法重讀了《屈打成醫(yī)》，這本書確實非常有趣，但是兩相比較，我更喜歡《威廉·退爾》。

　　My progress in lip-reading and speech was not what my teachers and I had hoped and expected it would be. It was my ambition to speak like other people, and my teachers believed that this could be accomplished; but, although we worked hard and faithfully, yet we did not quite reach our goal. I suppose we aimed too high, and disappointment was therefore inevitable. I still regarded arithmetic as a system of pitfalls. I hung about the dangerous frontier of "guess," avoiding withinfinite trouble to myself and others the broad valley of reason. When I was not guessing, I was jumping at conclusions, and this fault, in addition to my dullness, aggravated my difficulties more than was right or necessary.

　　我在唇讀和講話方面取得的進步同老師們的授課并沒有直接關系，我的動力只有一個，我希望能像其他人一樣開口說話。而我的老師們也相信這個目標一定能夠?qū)崿F(xiàn)，但是，盡管我們同心協(xié)力攜手向前，我們?nèi)匀粵]有達到理想目標。我想，或許是目標定得太高，因此失望也就在所難免了。我依然把算術當做一門充滿陷阱的學科，我徘徊在豎立著“猜想”標牌的危險邊境，還要避免給自己，以及身在寬闊幽谷中的人們?nèi)且簧砺闊?。當我不再猜想時，我便欣然接受各種結論，而這樣做的結果只能是錯上加錯。另外，我感官上的遲鈍更加劇了我的理解困難。