Helen Adams Keller：The Story of My Life (10)

海倫‧凱勒 著  東年 譯

CHAPTER III

那時我漸漸變得渴望表達自己；我能使用的那麼少手勢，越來越少能滿足我的需要，而沒有能力讓別人了解我，總是讓我一次次爆鬧情緒。我覺得自己好像被一雙看不見的手扼著，而發狂的盡力掙扎，以求解脫。我蹣跚前進──並非是使勁掙扎有助於事，而是由我內心堅強的反抗精神使我振作。總體而言，我在淚水和筋疲力竭中崩潰。假使我母親正好在附近，我就會不知不覺的爬進她臂彎，那樣痛苦悲哀甚至就不明白這狂亂的起因。很快的，需要一些有效的傳達方法變成我固執的希望，這以後，我會天天鬧情緒，間或時時爆發。

我爸媽非常傷心，而且不知所措。我們家離任何盲校或聾校都很遠，看來也不可能會有任何人願意來我們塔斯坎比亞這樣偏僻的地方，教一個又聾又盲的小孩。確實哦，我的朋友和親人有時會懷疑我是否可能學到什麼。我母親僅有的希望之光，來自英國小說家狄更斯訪美時寫的《美國札記》（American Notes）。她讀過他對於蘿菈‧布里基曼的描述，隱約記得這女孩也是又聾又盲，可是她受了教育。此外，在無助的痛苦中我母親也想起撒牡爾‧郝醫生，他發現教育聾啞者的方法；這位醫生過世許多年了。他的方法很可能也已經和他一起消失；如果不是，那麼，一個住在阿拉巴馬州偏遠市鎮的小女孩要如何才能得到那種恩寵?

東年註：

撒牡爾‧郝醫生（Samuel G. Howe，1801-1876）於1832年在麻塞州創設柏金斯盲校( Perkins School for the Blind)，1837年採用點字及手語，成功教導盲聾啞的蘿菈‧布里基曼（Laura Bridgman，1829-1889），受到全世界的矚目；她是全世界第一位受教成功的盲聾者。

蘿菈兩歲時，腥紅熱(病毒感染的急性扁桃腺炎)奪走她兩個姐姐，她倖存但遭致又盲又聾。撒牡爾‧郝醫生看到新聞，將她帶去柏金斯盲校。

約五十年後，蘇莉文小姐用以教育海倫‧凱勒….

MEANWHILE the desire to express myself grew. The few signs I used became less and less adequate, and my failures to make myself understand were invariably followed by outbursts of passion. I felt as if invisible hands were holding me, and I made frantic efforts to free myself. I struggled–not that struggling helped matters, but the spirit of resistance was strong within me; I generally broke break down in tears and physical exhaustion. If my mother happened to be near I crept into her arms, too miserable even to remember the cause of the tempest. After awhile the need of some means of communication became so urgent that these outbursts occurred daily, sometimes hourly.

My parents were deeply grieved and perplexed. We lived a long way from any school for the blind or the deaf, and it seemed unlikely that any one would come to such an out-of-the-way place as Tuscumbia to teach a child who was both deaf and blind. Indeed, my friends and relatives sometimes doubted whether I could be taught. My mother's only ray of hope came from Dickens's "American Notes." She had read his account of Laura Bridgman, and remembered vaguely that she was deaf and blind, yet had been educated. But she also remembered with a hopeless pang that Dr. Howe, who had discovered the way to teach the deaf and blind, had been dead many years. His methods had probably died with him; and if they had not, how was a little girl in a far-off town in Alabama to receive the benefit of them?