怀着一种恐惧的心情，我开始写我的人生历史。可以说，我在揭开如同金色薄雾般笼罩着我的童年时光的金色面纱时，我有一种迷信的犹豫。写自传真是一件困难的工作。当我试图梳理那些最早的印象，我发现，在跨过连接过去和现在的岁月之后，事实和想象看起来是相像的。女人在自己的幻想里描画自己的童年经历。我早年的少数经历会很生动地浮现，但“其余的则被笼罩在牢狱的阴影中”。此外，童年的许多快乐和痛苦已经失去了当时的强烈，还有许多早期教育中重要的事情也在重大发现的激动中被忘却了。所以，为了不显得沉闷，我将尝试着用一系列的概述仅仅来介绍那些在我看来最有趣、最重要的经历。

我于一八八〇年七月二十七日出生在阿拉巴马州北部的一个小镇塔斯哥伦比亚。我的父系家族是凯斯帕·凯勒的后裔，他是瑞士本土人，定居在马里兰。我的一个瑞士祖先是苏黎世的第一个聋人教师，还写了一本关于聋人教育方面的书，这可真不是一般的巧合。正所谓“国王的祖先里定有做奴隶的，奴隶的祖先里也定有做国王的”。

我的祖父，即凯斯帕·凯勒的儿子，到了广袤的阿拉巴马地区，最终定居在那里。曾经有人告诉我说，他每年一次骑马从塔斯哥伦比亚去费城购置农用工具。我姑妈收藏了许多他写给家里的信，信里对那些旅行作了迷人而生动的描述。

My Grandmother Keller was a daughter of one of Lafayette's aides, Alexander Moore, and granddaughter of Alexander Spotswood, an early Colonial Governor of Virginia. She was also second cousin to Robert E. Lee.

My father, Arthur H. Keller, was a captain in the Confederate Army, and my mother, Kate Adams, was his second wife and many years younger. Her grandfather, Benjamin Adams, married Susanna E.Goodhue, and lived in Newbury, Massachusetts, for many years. Their son, Charles Adams, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and moved to Helena, Arkansas. When the Civil War broke out, he fought on the side of the South and became a brigadier-general. He married Lucy Helen Everett, who belonged to the same family of Everetts as Edward Everett and Dr. Edward Everett Hale. After the war was over the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee.

I lived, up to the time of the illness that deprived me of my sight and hearing, in a tiny house consisting of a large square room and a small one, in which the servant slept. It is a custom in the South to build a small house near the homestead as an annex to be used on occasion. Such a house my father built after the Civil War, and when he married my mother they went to live in it. It was completely covered with vines, climbing roses and honeysuckles. From the garden it looked like an arbour. The little porch was hidden from view by a screen of yellow roses and Southern smilax. It was the favourite haunt of humming-birds and bees.

The Keller homestead, where the family lived, was a few steps from our little rose-bower. It was called “Ivy Green” because the house and the sur-rounding trees and fences were covered with beautiful English ivy. Its old-fashioned garden was the paradise of my childhood.

我的祖母是拉斐德侯爵的副官的女儿，她的外祖父亚历山大·斯波茨伍德是弗吉尼亚早期的殖民总督。她也是罗伯特·李的第二代堂兄妹。

我的父亲亚瑟·凯勒是联邦军队的一个上尉。我的母亲凯特·亚当斯是他的第二任妻子，比他小好几岁。母亲的祖父本杰明·亚当斯与苏娜·E.古德休结婚，他们在马萨诸塞州的纽勃里波特居住了好几年。他们的儿子查理·亚当斯出生在马萨诸塞州的纽勃里波特港口，之后移居阿肯色州的赫勒那。当内战爆发时，查理·亚当斯为南方军作战，而且成为一名准将。他与露西·海伦·埃弗雷特结婚，他的妻子与爱德华·埃弗雷特和爱德华·埃弗雷特·黑尔博士属于同一个埃弗雷特家族。战后他们举家迁往田纳西州的孟菲斯。

在疾病夺去了我的视觉和听觉以前，我一直住在一所小房子里，里面有一个四四方方的大房间，还有一个供仆人睡的小房间。在南方，在田园周围建一所附加的房子以备不时之需是一种习俗。“南北战争”结束后，我父亲就建了这么一所小房子，和母亲结婚后他们就搬到里面住了。这所小房子完全被藤蔓覆盖，爬满了玫瑰和金银花，从花园看去就像一个小凉亭。小小的门廊被黄玫瑰和南方茯苓构成的屏风给遮住了，它是蜂鸟和蜜蜂最爱光顾的地方。

家族居住的凯勒田庄离我们的小玫瑰凉亭只有几步路，小玫瑰凉亭被戏称为“绿色常春藤”，因为房子周围的树以及篱笆都被漂亮的英国常春藤爬满了。那个老式花园是我童年的天堂。

Even in the days before my teacher came, I used to feel along the square stiff boxwood hedges, and, guided by the sense of smell, would find the first violets and lilies. There, too, after a fit of temper, I went to find com-fort and to hide my hot face in the cool leaves and grass. What joy it was to lose myself in that garden of flowers, to wander happily from spot to spot, until, coming suddenly upon a beautiful vine, I recognized it by its leaves and blossoms, and knew it was the vine which covered the tumble-down summer-house at the farther end of the garden! Here, also, were trailing clematis, drooping jessamine, and some rare sweet flowers called butterfly lilies, because their fragile petals resemble butterflies' wings. But the roses—they were loveliest of all.Never have I found in the greenhouses of the North such heart-satisfying roses as the climbing roses of my southern home. They used to hang in long festoons from our porch, filling the whole air with their fragrance, untainted by any earthy smell; and in the early morning, washed in the dew, they felt so soft, so pure, I could not help wondering if they did not resemble the asphodels of God's garden.

The beginning of my life was simple and much like every other little life. I came, I saw, I conquered, as the first baby in the family always does. There was the usual amount of discussion as to a name for me. The first baby in the family was not to be lightly named, every one was emphatic about that. My father suggested the name of Mildred Campbell, an ances-tor whom he highly esteemed, and he declined to take any further part in the discussion. My mother solved the problem by giving it as her wish that I should be called after her mother, whose maiden name was Helen Everett. But in the excitement of carrying me to church my father lost the name on the way, very naturally, since it was one in which he had declined to have a part. When the minister asked him for it, he just remembered that it had been decided to call me after my grandmother, and he gave her name as Helen Adams.

I am told that while I was still in long dresses I showed many signs of an eager, self-asserting disposition. Everything that I saw other people do I insisted upon imitating. At six months I could pipe out “How d'ye,” and one day I attracted every one's attention by saying “Tea, tea, tea” quite plainly. Even after my illness I remembered one of the words I had learned in these early months. It was the word “water,” and I continued to make some sound for that word after all other speech was lost. I ceased making the sound “wah-wah” only when I learned to spell the word.

在我的老师到来之前，我经常摸着坚硬的方形黄杨木树篱，靠嗅觉的指引找到第一朵开放的紫罗兰和百合花。也是在这里，每每发了一通脾气之后，我都会来寻找安慰，把烫乎乎的脸埋进阴凉的树叶和草丛中。最好玩的是让自己迷失在开满花的园子里，还挺高兴地从一个地方转悠到另一个地方，直到突然遇上了一株漂亮的葡萄藤，从其叶子和花瓣我能认出它就是覆盖在摇摇欲坠的凉亭上的那棵葡萄藤，那个凉亭远在花园的另一端。这里有蔓延着的铁线莲，垂吊着的茉莉花，还有非常香的被称之为蝴蝶百合的花，此花得名的原因是它的脆生生的花瓣很像蝴蝶的翅膀。但是玫瑰才是群芳当中最可爱的，我从未在北方的温室里找到像我家园子里的这种最漂亮的攀爬玫瑰。它们常常悬挂在门廊上，像长长的花彩，在空气里挥发出浓郁的芳香，没有一点儿泥土的腥味。在清晨，露水濯洗过后，它们是那么柔和、那么纯洁，我禁不住想：它们是不是上帝的花园里的常春花呢？

像其他的小生命一样，我的生活在开始时也是很简单的。我到了这个世界上，睁开了双眼，哇哇哭过一通后征服了恐惧。任何一个家庭里面迎来第一个孩子时总是那么兴奋，我们家也一样，为了给我取名，家里展开了很多讨论。父亲建议用他很崇敬的一个先人的名字：米尔德里德·坎贝尔，但是其他人也有他们想叫的名字，大家争论不休，最后还是母亲拍了板。按照她的愿望，我的名字要用外祖母的闺名海伦·埃弗雷特。但是在带我去教堂的路上，父亲太高兴了，竟把这个名字给忘记了，因为他不是很喜欢那个名字。很自然地，当牧师问他的时候他只记得决定叫我外祖母的名字，但却报了外祖母出嫁后的名字——海伦·亚当斯而不是闺名海伦·埃弗雷特。

听母亲说，当我还是一个襁褓中的婴孩时，就表现出一种对什么都很有兴趣、很自信的个性。我看到别人做什么都急于模仿，六个月大就挤出“你好”。有一天，我很清晰地说出“茶、茶、茶”，吸引了每个人的注意。即便在生病之后我还记得在最初的这几个月中所学的一些东西。其中就有单词“水”，在其他语音都丧失了以后我还会发出关于这个词的声音，一直到我学会了拼写这个单词才停止发出“wah-wah”的声音。

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 at-tracted 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 uncon-sciousness of a new-born baby. They called it acute congestion of the stom-ach 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 fleetings 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.”

据说我一岁那天开始走路。母亲把我从浴缸里抱出来放在膝上，我突然被光滑的地板上那在阳光里摇曳的树影给吸引住了，便从母亲的膝盖上溜下来，几乎是跑着冲向那些影子。但是冲动过后，我就摔倒了，哭着要母亲抱起来。

那些幸福的时光没有持续多久，一个充满知更鸟和嘲鸫婉转歌声的短暂的春天，一个盛开着玫瑰、水果遍地的夏天，一个深红色和金黄色的秋天飞一般地逝去了，把它的礼物留在一个热切而欣喜的孩子脚下。然后，那场疾病在沉闷的二月到来，让我闭上了眼睛和耳朵，把我推向一个新生婴儿般的无知状态。这种病被称为胃和脑急性充血，医生认为我活不下来了，然而有一天早上高烧突然退了，就像到来时那样神秘。那天早上家人们很高兴，然而包括医生在内，谁都不知道我将再也看不见，再也听不见了。

我想关于那场病我还有一些模糊的记忆。醒着的时候感觉焦躁、疼痛而且苦恼。睡到一半醒来后慌张迷乱，转动一下眼睛，十分的干燥，热辣辣的，真想撞到墙上去。别离了曾经钟爱的光线，感觉一天比一天昏暗，我尤其记得母亲在这个时候给予的亲切的抚慰。但是除了这些感觉方面的记忆——如果这些算作记忆的话，其他所有的都似乎很不真实，就像是一场噩梦。渐渐地我习惯了包围着的寂静和黑暗，且忘记了其实曾经并非如此，一直到她——我的老师，那个解放我灵魂的人到来。不过在我生命最初的十九个月里面，我瞥见过广阔的绿野、明亮的天空，还有花草树木，这些都是后来的黑暗所不能完全吞噬的。如果我们看见过，那么“我们就拥有白昼和白昼所展现的一切”。 V2X8hoyHL2GnKo6/5FD2/zNO+k3h5sjEvDtCYnb7LK1O3DdUPnkJyyP1QMsk96Md