海倫·凱勒自傳《我的生活》第32期

　　As I lay in my bed that night, I wept as I hope few children have wept. I felt so cold, I imagined I should die before morning, and the thought comforted me. I think if this sorrow had come to me when I was older, it would have broken my spirit beyond repairing. But the angel of forgetfulnesshas gathered up and carried away much of the misery and all the bitterness of those sad days.

　　那晚我躺在床上，我難過得哭了，我希望別的孩子不要遭受我這樣的痛苦。我渾身發(fā)冷，我覺得自己在天亮之前就會死去;而且，這種想法令我感到了一絲寬慰。我想，假如在我長大后遇到這種傷心事，那么我的靈魂一定會破碎到無法修補的境地。但是，遺忘天使遲早會收集起痛苦歲月的所有悲傷，并且將其徹底清除出脆弱的心靈。

　　Miss Sullivan had never heard of "The Frost Fairies" or of the book in which it was published. With the assistance of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, she investigated the matter carefully, and at last it came out that Mrs. Sophia C. Hopkins had a copy of Miss Canby’s "Birdie and His Friends" in 1888, the year that we spent the summer with her at Brewster. Mrs. Hopkins was unable to find her copy; but she has told me that at that time, while Miss Sullivan was away on a vacation, she tried to amuse me by reading from various books, and although she could not remember reading "The Frost Fairies" any more than I, yet she felt sure that "Birdie and His Friends" was one of them. She explained the disappearance of the book by the fact that she had a short time before sold her house and disposed of many juvenile books, such as old schoolbooks and fairy tales, and that "Birdie and His Friends" was probably among them.

　　蘇立文小姐從來沒有聽說過《冰雪仙子》的故事，也不知道有這么一本書。在亞歷山大·格雷厄姆·貝爾博士的幫助下，她仔細地調(diào)查了這件事，最后終于有了些眉目。1888年，索菲婭·C.霍普金斯夫人有一本肯拜小姐的《布萊迪和他的伙伴們》。那一年，我們和她一起在布魯斯特度過了夏天?；羝战鹚狗蛉艘呀?jīng)無法找到那本書，但是她告訴我，當(dāng)時蘇立文小姐正在外出休假，為了逗我開心，她就為我讀各種各樣的書。雖然她不記得曾為我讀過《冰雪仙子》的故事，但是她確信《布萊迪和他的伙伴們》應(yīng)該是其中的一本書。她向我解釋了那本書消失的原因。事實上，在把房子賣掉之前，她就處理了大量的青少年讀物、老課本和童話故事，而《布萊迪和他的伙伴們》很可能就夾在其中。

　　The stories had little or no meaning for me then; but the mere spelling of the strange words wassufficient to amuse a little child who could do almost nothing to amuse herself; and although I do not recall a single circumstance connected with the reading of the stories, yet I cannot help thinking that I made a great effort to remember the words, with the intention of having my teacher explain them when she returned. One thing is certain, the language was ineffaceably stamped upon my brain, though for a long time no one knew it, least of all myself.

　　當(dāng)時，這些故事并沒有給我留下什么印象，不過，那些奇異的單詞拼寫足以讓一個沒有任何樂趣的小孩子開心一陣子了。雖然我連任何一個同故事有關(guān)的情節(jié)都記不起來了，但是我無法忘掉學(xué)習(xí)單詞的艱苦過程。在老師休假歸來后，我馬上讓老師給我解釋那些陌生的詞。因此，有一件事是肯定的——語言在我頭腦中留下的烙印是無法抹煞的，只是很久以來，我并沒有去特別留意這個問題。

　　When Miss Sullivan came back, I did not speak to her about "The Frost Fairies," probably because she began at once to read "Little Lord Fauntleroy," which filled my mind to the exclusion of everything else. But the fact remains that Miss Canby’s story was read to me once, and that long after I had forgotten it, it came back to me so naturally that I never suspected that it was the child of another mind.

　　蘇立文小姐回來后，我并沒有對她講《冰雪仙子》的事，這可能是因為她一回來就給我讀《小爵爺方特勒羅伊》，我滿腦子里裝的都是這個故事，就暫時把別的事都拋到了一邊。但實際情況是，曾經(jīng)有人把肯拜小姐的故事讀給我聽，這是一種殘存的記憶，雖然時間會令人遺忘，但是對我而言，記憶恢復(fù)時還是顯得那么自然。我從不懷疑那個故事就是某個孩童的另一個頭腦的產(chǎn)物。

　　In my trouble I received many messages of love and sympathy. All the friends I loved best,except one, have remained my own to the present time.

　　在那段艱難的日子里，我得到了很多人的同情和關(guān)愛，我的朋友們無一例外地伸出援手，把我從低谷中拉上來。