Helen Adams Keller：The Story of My Life (4)

海倫‧凱勒 著  東年 譯

據說我是一歲開始走路。那時候我母親剛把我從澡盆抱出來放在膝上，我突然被樹葉閃爍不定的影子吸引了；平滑的地板上，它們看起來是在陽光下跳舞。我溜下母親的膝上，幾乎是對著它們跑去，直到衝力消失，跌倒了，我哭著喊我母親來抱我。 

這些快樂的時光並不長久。一個伴奏有知更鳥和仿舌鳥的短暫春天、富有水果和玫瑰的夏天、金色和深紅色的秋天，飛馳而去；但是，它們在一個熱情、快樂的孩子腳下，留下了禮物。接著，在一個陰鬱的二月，我生病了，這病關閉我的視覺和聽覺，並且使我陷入新生嬰兒那樣的無意識。這是一種腦和胃急性充血的病，醫生認為我活不久了。可是，有一天清晨奇蹟出現：我的發燒突然退了。那天早上，我的家人非常高興，但是沒有誰，甚至於醫生也沒發現到我將永遠不可能再看得到聽得見。 

我以為我還記得患病時的混亂往事。我特別記得我母親的體貼；在我醒時煩燥痛苦，或從輾轉恍惚的半眠中醒來而苦惱困惑，她總是親切的努力給我安慰。她也會讓我乾燥熱躁的眼睛，轉向牆壁，以避開曾經是可愛的光亮；它使我的視力一天比一天模糊黯淡。可是，除了這些飛掠而過的記憶，如果它們...確實…是記憶，我覺得全部看來恰好像是很不真實的，像惡夢。漸漸的，我習慣了將我圍困的寂靜和黑暗，也忘了這和以前有不同。直到她來了──我的老師──她來解放我的心靈。在最初的十九個月，我的生命已經撞見遼闊青翠的原野、晴朗天空、樹林和各種花的微光；這是隨後追趕來的黑暗無法遮掩的。但願我們已經同時看到，「我們的機會來了，還有這機會中的景象。」

They tell me I walked the day I was a year old. My mother had just taken me out of the bath-tub and was holding me in her lap, when I was suddenly attracted by the flickering shadows of leaves that danced in the sunlight on the smooth floor. I slipped from my mother's lap and almost ran toward them. The impulse gone, I fell down and cried for her to take me up in her arms.

These happy days did not last long. One brief spring, musical with the song of robin and mocking-bird, one summer rich in fruit and roses, one autumn of gold and crimson sped by and left their gifts at the feet of an eager, delighted child. Then, in the dreary month of February, came the illness which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a new-born baby. They called it acute congestion of the stomach and brain. The doctor thought I could not live. Early one morning, however, the fever left me as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come. There was great rejoicing in the family that morning, but no one, not even the doctor, knew that I should never see or hear again.

I fancy I still have confused recollections of that illness. I especially remember the tenderness with which my mother tried to soothe me in my waking hours of fret and pain, and the agony and bewilderment with which I awoke after a tossing half sleep, and turned my eyes, so dry and hot, to the wall, away from the once-loved light, which came to me dim and yet more dim each day. But, except for these fleeting memories, if, indeed, they be memories, it all seems very unreal, like a nightmare. Gradually I got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me and forgot that it had ever been different, until she came–my teacher–who was to set my spirit free. But during the first nineteen months of my life I had caught glimpses of broad, green fields, a luminous sky, trees and flowers which the darkness that followed could not wholly blot out. If we have once seen, "the day is ours, and what the day has shown."