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我的生活海伦·凯勒自传
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

英文中文双语对照双语交替

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Chapter XX	第二十章

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.	为踏入大学校门所做的拼搏结束了，现在，只要我愿意，我随时都可以进入拉德克利夫学院。然而，在入学之前，人们认为最为稳妥的计划，就是我应该在凯斯先生门下再学一年。因此，直到1900年秋天，我才实现了上大学的梦想。
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.	我仍然记得入学第一天的情景，对我而言，那真是兴味盎然的一天。我期盼这一天已经很多年了。在我心里蕴涵着一股强大的力量，它比朋友们的规劝更具有说服力，它甚至比我内心的祈求更加强烈，它驱策我竭尽全力向那些耳目功能俱全的正常人看齐。我深知行路艰难，但是我有克服一切困难的雄心。我将睿智的古罗马格言铭记于心：“虽然被逐出罗马，却依旧活在罗马城下。”我已被阻挡在知识的大道之外，那么我只能迫使自己穿越人迹罕至的乡村小路——这就是我所做的一切。我当然知道大学里面遍布着许多条这样的小路，在行进途中，我用双手触摸到的姑娘们都怀着和我一样的心理，她们勤于思考，热爱知识，而且斗志昂扬。
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.	我满怀激情地开始了我的大学生涯。在我面前，我看到了一个光明而美丽的新世界；内心深处，我已经做好了接纳一切知识的准备。在神奇的精神王国里，我会拥有像其他人一样的自由。这个王国的子民、风景、习俗、欢乐和悲伤也应该是鲜活而真切的。这里的讲堂挤满了伟大而睿智的灵魂，我把讲台上的教授们视做智慧的化身。
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.	但是我很快就发现大学并非如我想象的那样浪漫。我那年幼无知的美丽梦想随即变得暗淡无光，如同平淡无奇地过日子。渐渐地，我开始感受到了上大学的种种不利因素。
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.	令我感触最深的是时间不够用。过去，我习惯于利用时间来思考问题或表达观点。我们会在某个夜晚围坐在一起，倾听发自心灵的歌声，只有在悠闲恬静的时刻，你才能听到诗一般的旋律在深深地拨动着灵魂的心弦。但是在大学里，你没有时间同自己的思想谈心。你上大学就是为学习来的，似乎并不是为了思考而来的。一旦你步入学习的大门，你就要把最钟情的乐趣——独处、书籍和幻想——连同飒飒作响的松树一起留在外面。我想我应该从思想中寻找到一些慰藉，并以此作为我未来幸福的积蓄。但问题是我没有足够的资本来支取当下的快乐，因而也不可能储存对抗凄风苦雨的财富。
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, Moli鑢e, 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."	我第一年主修的科目有法语、德语、历史、英文写作和英国文学。在法语读物方面，我阅读了高乃依、莫里哀、拉辛、阿尔弗莱德·德·缪塞和圣伯夫的著作。我阅读的德语作品主要来自歌德和席勒。此外，我还迅速地重温了从罗马帝国陷落到18世纪这一阶段的全部历史。在英国文学方面，我尝试用批评性的眼光研读了弥尔顿的诗歌和《论出版自由》。
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.	常有人问及我是如何克服大学学习的不便的。当然，在课堂上我的情况是独一无二的。教授的声音很微弱，他似乎正在通过一个电话来说话。授课内容会（被苏立文小姐）以尽可能快的速度拼写在我的手上，在努力跟上老师讲话速度的同时，老师本人的个性反而在我面前消失了。滔滔不绝的词语流淌过我的手心，恰如猎犬追逐行将消失的野兔。即使是在这种情形下，我也不觉得自己比用笔记录的姑娘们差到哪里。假如整个心思被机械性的听讲和手忙脚乱的记录所占据，那么你就不可能过多地留意到讲义的内涵或风格。我无法在上课时做笔记，因为我的双手正忙于“听讲”。通常我会在到家后把能记得的内容草草写下来。此外，我还要在打字机上做习题，记笔记，写评论，完成课堂测验和期中期末考试，这样教授们就不难发现我掌握的内容是多么有限。当我开始学习拉丁文音韵学时，我设法向我的导师解释了一套显示不同音节和词汇量的（盲文）系统。
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.	我使用一台哈蒙德牌打字机。我曾尝试过很多机型，但是我发现哈蒙德牌打字机是最符合我工作要求的机器。这种打字机具有可变动的键盘，你可以移动若干滑梭，每移动一次就会转换成不同的字体——你可以在希腊语、法语或者数学字符之间转换，总之，完全视你使用的情况而定。缺少了这种打字机，恐怕我就无法上大学了。
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, every one 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.	在诸多课程之中，盲文版本的课本屈指可数，所以在看书时，我只得把书中内容拼写在手上。同别的同学相比，我要花更多的时间准备功课。手指阅读耗时费力，而且我还要面对别人不会遇到的困惑。每时每刻，我都要集中精力让自己的意识处于兴奋状态，我会一口气花好几个小时阅读几章内容。事实上，我生活在一个没有女孩嬉笑、歌唱和舞蹈的世界里，而这样的生活常会令我生起抗拒心理。但是没过多久，我就找回了愉快的感觉，我为心中的不满情绪感到好笑。毕竟，每一个渴望获得真才实学的人都必须要独自攀登“希尔要塞”，对我而言，那里没有直达顶峰的大道通衢，我必须以我自己的方式蜿蜒行进。我滑倒过很多次，但是我仍然会爬起来向着隐藏的重重障碍冲击。我每发一次脾气，就能更好地学会控制自己的情绪。我步履蹒跚，长途跋涉，只为了取得那一点点的收获。我备受世人的鼓励，我满怀期盼越爬越高，宽广的地平线已经浮现在我的眼前。每一次的抗争都意味着一次胜利。艰苦的努力使我触摸到了辉煌的云海，湛蓝的天空，以及愿望的高地。而且，我并不总是凭借一己之力独自奋争的。宾夕法尼亚盲人教育学院的院长威廉·韦德先生和艾伦先生为我提供了很多凸版印刷的（盲文）书籍。他们细致周到的服务给予了我莫大的帮助，他们对我的鞭策弥足珍贵，已远远超越了常人的想象。
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 any one 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，也就是我在拉德克利夫学院的第二年，我主修的科目有英文写作，《圣经》文学，美国和欧洲政体，贺拉斯颂诗，及拉丁文喜剧。最有趣，课堂气氛最活跃的是写作课。查尔斯·唐森·科普兰先生的写作课总是充满了妙趣横生、诙谐而睿智的语言，就那个学期而言，我觉得他比其他任何老师教得都好。他让你领略到的是最纯粹和最具震撼力的文学。在短短一个小时中，你可以尽情赏析前辈大师们的永恒魅力，你听不到多余的解释和说明，一切都让作品本身说话。由此，你会沉醉在他们那深邃的思想之中；你会全身心地陶醉于《旧约》那黄钟大吕般的雷声之中，乃至于忽略了耶和华上帝的存在；你会带着这样一种心情回家——你已经“窥见到不朽的灵魂以一种和谐的方式常驻人间，而真善美则是同上古精神一脉相承的不二准则”。
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.	这真是令人愉快的一年，因为我所学的科目特别合我的胃口，比如经济学，伊丽莎白时期文学，还有乔治·L.吉特莱芝教授主讲的莎士比亚，约西亚·罗伊斯教授主讲的哲学史。一旦步入哲学的殿堂，你就会领略到久远年代的种种传统及其思想模式的精妙，而在不久前，这些知识在世人眼中还是陌生而不知所云的。
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，大学并不是万能的“雅典学园”。你不会在这里遇到伟大的灵魂，也不会与智慧面面相对，你甚至感觉不到他们手指的触摸。虽然他们是确实存在的，但是他们似乎已经变成了干枯的木乃伊。在我们确信已经拥有了弥尔顿或者以赛亚之前，我们必须要将他们从知识的缝隙中抽取出来，并对其进行细致入微的分析，而不仅仅是自作聪明的模仿。在我看来，很多学者都忘记了这样一个事实，我们因伟大文学作品而产生的共鸣，更多地是依赖于我们深切的同情心，而非我们的理解力。问题是留存在人们记忆中的文化精髓极其稀少。不妨说，精髓的传承犹如枝条上垂下的成熟果实——你能够寻觅到一朵花、一条根茎和一束枝条的生长轨迹，但是你却不会对滋润鲜花的天堂雨露心存感激。我不耐烦地反复问自己：“为什么你要在意那些个解释和臆测？”这样的念头在我的脑中飞来飞去，就像失明的鸟儿无助地在空中扑打着翅膀。当然，对于我们所读过的那些著名作品的精髓，我并没有全盘否定的意思。我所反对的只是冗长而令人困惑的评论，但有一件事是肯定的：有多少人就有多少种观点。像吉特莱芝教授这样的大学者在阐释大师作品时曾说过，大师之作“恰如赐予盲人的新视觉”。的确，他正是把莎士比亚的诗人地位复原如初的先驱，也是带给我们光明的使者。
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-?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，当我试图卸载掉一半的课业负担时，结果却是每每而不可得；事实上，过重的思维负担会令你无暇分享知识所蕴涵的巨大价值。在一天之内阅读四本或五本不同科目不同语种的书籍，而且又不遗漏细枝末节，这显然是不可能的事。当你带着焦虑不安的心情匆匆阅读，心里只想着各种测验和考试时，你的大脑就会变得无所适从，似乎有太多无用的小摆设堆在你面前，而如何选择就成了一个问题。当时，我的脑子里塞满了各种各样的问题，以至于无法将思路理清。无论何时，只要我一踏入意识王国的领地，我就会感到自己像一头闯进瓷器店的公牛。成千上万种零零碎碎的知识就像冰雹一样在我的脑中四处飞溅，当我试图逃离险境时，传说中的妖精和校园水鬼就会紧追不舍，直到我愿意——或者说迁就那些邪恶的意识肆虐横行！——或许，我应该把顶礼膜拜的偶像统统砸碎。
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 formulae and indigestible dates--unpalatable diets, until you wish that books and science and you were buried in the depths of the sea.	不妨说，各种各样的考试正是我大学生涯面临的首要难题。虽然我曾经面对过许多次考试，而且每次都把它们打得大败而回，但是它们总是再次反扑，并且用挑衅的表情大肆要挟。直到像鲍勃·阿克莱斯这样的人物出现以后，我才感觉到信心又渐渐回到了指端。就在这些考验降临前夕，你的脑子里面塞的全都是神秘的公式和令人难以消化的椰枣——面对味道不佳的食品，你真想把自己连同书本和科学一起葬入大海深处。
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，恐惧时刻降临，如果你觉得自己准备就绪，那么你实在是抢到了一个有利位置，这就是说，你能够在恰当的时间召唤到你思想的潜能，从而有助于你向更高的层次迈进。有一种情况是经常发生的——任凭你百般召唤也无人理睬。而最令人感到困惑和懊恼的是，正当你需要调动记忆和缜密的鉴别力的当口，你所有的这些能力竟然振翅高飞，离你而去了。也就是说，你已经在不知不觉间储存了如此多的问题，而这些问题总会在紧要关头将你拉下马。
"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.	“请对哈斯和他的功绩做简要说明。”哈斯是谁？他都做了些什么？这个名字看起来似曾相识。于是，在你储备的历史事件中，你上下求索，其过程好似在一个塞满碎布头的口袋中寻找一小块丝绸。你确信这个信息就在距你思维阶梯顶端不远的地方——你曾在查找“宗教改革运动”初期历史时见到过它。但是现在它究竟藏在哪里？于是，你翻出所有零零碎碎的知识储备——宗教革命，教会分裂，集体屠杀，政权体制——可是“哈斯”这个人在哪里呢？你会惊奇地发现，你所了解的那些事件并没有在试卷上表现出来。失望之余，你只得攫取知识储备，还要把你所学过的每一样东西悉数查验，终于，你要找的人就躲藏在一个角落里——他静静地沉浸在自己的思绪之中，全然没有意识到加负在他人身上的精神磨难。
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，监考官却通知你考试结束时间已到。于是，怀着满腔愤懑，你一脚把思维的残片踢到角落里；你的头脑里塞满了革命性的计划——你想废除教授们的神圣特权，为什么他们能随意提问而无须经过被提问者的同意？
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.	在这一章的最后两三页里，我已经隐约提到了几个人物——他们一定会转过身来嘲笑我。哈，这正是他们的风格——在我面前趾高气扬，用混合了种种隐喻的言辞冷嘲热讽；他们用手指着那头因遭受冰雹袭击而闯进瓷器店的公牛，以及各种面色惨白的怪物，说这是一些未经鉴别的物种！让他们嘲笑去吧。如果用十分准确的语言来描述我的生存环境，那么，面对磕磕绊绊、四处冲撞的思想意识，我会这样说：我已经对它们视而不见，而且，我还要故作深沉地说，我已经完全转变了对大学的看法。
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.	我在拉德克利夫学院的学习生涯仍处在来日方长的（起步）阶段，但是浪漫的光环已然褪去。从浪漫到现实的转变过程中，我所获颇丰，可以说，如果没有实践经验，你永远也不会了解到事物的真谛。在诸多经验之中，最宝贵的就是关于“忍耐的学问”。“忍耐”教给我们这样一种求学心态——我们应该把接受教育的过程视做一次乡间散步，从容不迫之间，我们的思想就会敞开胸怀，尽情地接纳天地万物。这样求得的知识犹如一波无声的思想潮汐，将我们的灵魂悄然浸润。“知识就是力量”固然正确，但是，知识更应该是愉快的，因为要拥有知识——特别是广博、深奥的知识——就需要我们具备去芜存真、点石成金的本事。了解人类进步过程中的思想和行为，你就会触摸到几个世纪以来最伟大的人性脉搏；如果你感觉不到脉搏的律动和爬向天国的脚步，那么你一定是个对生命的和弦充耳不闻之辈。