Each day Miss Sullivan went to the classes with me and spelled into my hand with infinite patience all that the teachers said. In study hours she had to look up new words for me and read and reread notes and books I did not have in raised print. The tedium of that work is hard to conceive. Frau Gre, my German teacher, and Mr. Gilman, the principal, were the only teachers in the school who learned the finger alphabet to give me instruction. No one realized more fully than dear Frau Gre how slow and inadequate her spelling was. Nevertheless, in the goodness of her heart she laboriously spelled out her instructions to me in special lessons twice a week, to give Miss Sullivan a little rest. But, though everybody was kind and ready to help us, there was only one hand that could turn drudgery into pleasure.
每天，苏立文小姐都会陪我走进课堂，她会以无限的耐心把老师们讲的所有内容在我手上拼写出来。其间，她还要帮我查找生词，并且一遍又一遍地为我读笔记和尚未译成盲文的书籍。这种冗长乏味的工作是常人难以想象的。我的德文老师弗劳·格鲁特女士和院长吉尔曼先生是学院里仅有的两位能用手语字母授课的老师。没有人能切实体会到可爱的弗劳·格鲁特女士的拼写是多么地缓慢和不熟练。尽管如此，她仍然不辞辛劳地一周两次为我拼读授课，而苏立文小姐也可以稍作喘息。可以说，每一个人都会对我们慷慨相助，但最终只有“一只手”能够把苦差变为乐事。
That year I finished arithmetic, reviewed my Latin grammar, and read three chapters of Caesar's "Gallic War." In German I read, partly with my fingers and partly with Miss Sullivan's assistance, Schiller's "Lied von der Glocke" and "Taucher," Heine's "Harzreise," Freytag's "Aus dem Staat Friedrichs des Grossen," Riehl's "Fluch Der Schheit," Lessing's "Minna von Barnhelm," and Goethe's "Aus meinem Leben." I took the greatest delight in these German books, especially Schiller's wonderful lyrics, the history of Frederick the Great's magnificent achievements and the account of Goethe's life. I was sorry to finish "Die Harzreise," so full of happy witticisms and charming descriptions of vine-clad hills, streams that sing and ripple in the sunshine, and wild regions, sacred to tradition and legend, the gray sisters of a long-vanished, imaginative age--descriptions such as can be given only by those to whom nature is "a feeling, a love and an appetite."
那一年，我结束了算术课程的学习，复习了拉丁文语法，还读完了三章《高卢战记》。另外，一半靠苏立文小姐的帮助，一半靠我自己的手指，我还“阅读”了一些德文著作。席勒的《钟之歌》和《潜水者》，海涅的《哈尔茨山游记》，弗赖塔格的《从弗雷德里希大帝的国度来》，里尔的《美的诅咒》，莱辛的《明娜·冯·巴尔赫姆》，以及歌德的《诗与真》。我怀着极大的兴致阅读了这些德文名著，尤其是席勒笔下的恢弘诗篇，比如他对腓特烈大帝所取得的历史成就的赞颂，以及对歌德个人生活的描述。我怀着恋恋不舍的心情读完了《哈尔茨山游记》，这部诗集可谓妙语连珠，对醉人美景的描写随处可见——紫藤覆盖的山野，阳光下水波潋滟的溪流，蛮荒之地，神圣的仪轨和传奇，尘封已久的“灰衣姊妹”，富于想象力的年纪——只有那些对大自然怀有“真挚的感情和独特鉴赏品位”的人，才能够写出如此生动的诗句。
Mr. Gilman instructed me part of the year in English literature. We read together, "As You Like It," Burke's "Speech on Conciliation with America," and Macaulay's "Life of Samuel Johnson." Mr. Gilman's broad views of history and literature and his clever explanations made my work easier and pleasanter than it could have been had I only read notes mechanically with the necessarily brief explanations given in the classes.
那年，吉尔曼先生曾教过我一段时间的英语文学。我们一起阅读《皆大欢喜》，伯克的《与美国和解的演讲》，还有麦考雷的《塞缪尔·约翰逊的一生》。吉尔曼先生广博的历史学识和文学素养，加之其巧妙的讲解方式，使我切实体会到了学习的轻松与快乐，这完全不同于我在课堂上被灌输的那些教条性知识。
Burke's speech was more instructive than any other book on a political subject that I had ever read. My mind stirred with the stirring times, and the characters round which the life of two contending nations centred seemed to move right before me. I wondered more and more, while Burke's masterly speech rolled on in mighty surges of eloquence, how it was that King George and his ministers could have turned a deaf ear to his warning prophecy of our victory and their humiliation. Then I entered into the melancholy details of the relation in which the great statesman stood to his party and to the representatives of the people. I thought how strange it was that such precious seeds of truth and wisdom should have fallen among the tares of ignorance and corruption.
伯克的演讲比我所读过的任何一本政论书籍更具有教育意义。我心潮起伏，在我面前，两个生活在共同屋檐下的敌对民族似乎在朝着和解的道路上迈进。令我越来越不解的是，面对伯克那激昂澎湃而富于雄辩的演讲，乔治国王和他手下的众臣怎么可能充耳不闻，置我们的胜利和他们的耻辱于不顾呢？对于这位大政治家所持的党派立场和人民的立场之间的关系，我在随后的研读中进行了深入的思考。我觉得，像这样一粒如此珍贵，蕴涵着真理和智慧的种子，竟然被湮没在无知和*的稗子中，这的确是一件很奇怪的事。
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