CHAPTER VI

這時我有了開啟一切語言文字的鑰匙，因此急切的想開始學習。聽得到聲音的小孩，毫不費力就能在空中捕捉別人唇間落下的話語，欣喜的學到語言文字，然而失聰的小孩卻只能在遲鈍且經常是痛苦的過程中逐一捕捉。但，不管是怎樣辛苦的過程，成果是驚人的。漸漸的，從命名一個物體開始，逐步進展，在第一次結結巴巴發音和最後能夠理解莎士比亞劇本中一句台詞的思想之間，我們橫越了非常遙遠的旅程。

起先，當我的老師為我講解新東西的時候，我很少發問；因為我沒什麼概念，會用的辭彙也不多。但是，隨著我對事物的認識有所增長，所學的辭彙越積越多，我疑問的領域變得很寬廣，我總是會熱切的對同樣題材再三反問，去追根究底。時常，所學的新辭彙會喚醒深烙在我腦中的印象，讓我想起早期的經驗。

我記得那個我初次問愛這個字是什麼意思的早晨；那時我認得的字還很少，我拿在花園發現的有點早開了的紫羅蘭，送給蘇利文老師。她認真想吻我，但，在那時，除了家母我不喜歡任何人吻我。因此，她一手溫柔的擁抱我，一手在我手心上拼寫：我愛海倫。

「愛是什麼？」我問。 

她抱緊我，指點我的胸口說：「愛在這兒。」

這是我第一次意識到自己的心跳。除了非常困惑，我無法理解她說什麼，因為那時我必須觸摸得到才能認識東西。 

我聞著她手上的紫羅蘭，半以手勢半以詞彙表達這樣的疑問：愛是花的芳香嗎?

「不是。」她寫。

我又開始思索…溫暖的陽光曬著我們。「這不是愛嗎？」我指著陽光的方向問：「這不是愛嗎？」依我當時的看法，沒有任何東西可能比太陽更美麗，它的溫暖發育萬物。 

但是，蘇利文老師搖了搖頭；我因此非常困惑和失望。我的老師無法指教我愛是什麼讓我覺得不可思議。

I HAD now the key to all language, and I was eager to learn to use it. Children who hear acquire language without any particular effort; the words that fall from others' lips they catch on the wing, as it were, delightedly, while the little deaf child must trap them by a slow and often painful process. But whatever the process, the result is wonderful. Gradually from naming an object we advance step by step until we have traversed the vast distance between our first stammered syllable and the sweep of thought in a line of Shakespeare.

At first, when my teacher told me about a new thing I asked very few questions. My ideas were vague, and my vocabulary was inadequate; but as my knowledge of things grew, and I learned more and more words, my field of inquiry broadened, and I would return again and again to the same subject, eager for further information. Sometimes a new word revived an image that some earlier experience had engraved on my brain.

I remember the morning that I first asked the meaning of the word, "love." This was before I knew many words. I had found a few early violets in the garden and brought them to my teacher. She tried to kiss me: but at that time I did not like to have any one kiss me except my mother. Miss Sullivan put her arm gently round me and spelled into my hand, "I love Helen."

"What is love?" I asked.

She drew me closer to her and said, "It is here," pointing to my heart, whose beats I was conscious of for the first time. Her words puzzled me very much because I did not then understand anything unless I touched it.

I smelt the violets in her hand and asked, half in words, half in signs, a question which meant, "Is love the sweetness of flowers?"

"No," said my teacher.

Again I thought. The warm sun was shining on us.

"Is this not love?" I asked, pointing in the direction from which the heat came. "Is this not love?"

It seemed to me that there could be nothing more beautiful than the sun, whose warmth makes all things grow. But Miss Sullivan shook her head, and I was greatly puzzled and disappointed. I thought it strange that my teacher could not show me love.