第7章 领悟“爱”的真谛

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.

A day or two afterward I was stringing beads of different sizes in symmetrical groups-two large beads, three small ones, and so on. I had made many mistakes, and Miss Sullivan had pointed them out again and again with gentle patience. Finally I noticed a very obvious error in the sequence and for an instant I concentrated my attention on the lesson and tried to think how I should have arranged the beads. Miss Sullivan touched my forehead and spelled with decided emphasis,“Think.”

In a flash I knew that the word was the name of the process that was going on in my head. This was my first conscious perception of an abstract idea. For a long time I was still-I was not thinking of the beads in my lap, but trying to find a meaning for“love”in the light of this new idea. The sun had been under a cloud all day, and there had been brief showers; but suddenly the sun broke forth in all its southern splendour.

Again, I asked my teacher,“Is this not love?”

“Love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before the sun came out,”she replied. Then in simpler words than these, which at that time I could not have understood, she explained:

“You cannot touch the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into everything. Without love you would not be happy or want to play.”

The beautiful truth burst upon my mind- I felt that there were invisible lines stretched between my spirit and the spirits of others.

From the beginning of my education Miss Sullivan made it a practice to speak to me as she would to any hearing child; the only difference was that she spelled the sentences into my hand instead of speaking them. If I did not know the words and idioms necessary to express my thoughts she supplied them, even suggesting conversation when I was unable to keep up my end of the dialogue.

This process was continued for several years; for the deaf child does not learn in a month, or even in two or three years, the numberless idioms and expressions used in the simplest daily intercourse. The little hearing child learns these from constant repetition and imitation. The conversation he hears in his home stimulates his mind and suggests topics and calls forth the spontaneous expression of his own thoughts. This natural exchange of ideas is denied to the deaf child. My teacher, realizing this, determined to supply the kinds of stimulus I lacked. This she did by repeating to me as far as possible, verbatim what she heard, and by showing me how I could take part in the conversation. But it was a long time before I ventured to take the initiative, and still longer before I could find something appropriate to say at the right time.

The deaf and the blind find it very difficult to acquire the amenities of conversation. How much more this difficulty must be augmented in the case of those who are both deaf and blind! They cannot distinguish the tone of the voice or, without assistance, go up and down the gamut of tones that give significance to words; nor can they watch the expression of the speaker's face, and a look is often the very soul of what one says.

我现在已经领悟了所有语言的真谛，并且有些迫不及待地想加以应用。通常对于听力健全的孩子来说，学习语言是一件轻松的事情，只要捕捉到别人说的单词的时候，他们就可以模仿它，当然这对充满好奇的孩子来说，不仅不是一件痛苦的事，相反还是一件有趣的事情。但对于丧失听力的孩子来说，那可就是一个痛苦缓慢的过程了。但不管过程多么艰辛，结果却令人欢欣鼓舞。我们从事物的名称开始学起，一步一步地前进，最终跨过了那看似难以逾越的鸿沟，从只会断断续续地发几个音节，到可以在莎士比亚的十四行诗中领略文学的魅力。

起初，当老师向我介绍新鲜事物时，我的问题很少，因为我对事物的概念模糊，掌握的单词有限。而随着知识的增长，词汇量的增大，我的问题也就越来越多，涉及的面也越来越广，常常是就一个问题一再地提问、思索，一定要打破砂锅问到底。有时候，一个新生词还可能唤醒我的某些记忆，使脑海中呈现出以前的画面。

我至今还清楚地记得问老师“爱”一词意义的那个清晨。当时，我的词汇量还很少。我在花园里找到了几朵早开的紫罗兰，于是拿来献给了莎莉文老师。她非常高兴，激动得想亲吻我，但我那时并不愿意母亲以外的人亲吻我，当然也包括莎莉文。她轻轻地把我搂抱在怀中，在我的手上写道：“我爱海伦！”

“什么是爱？”我问她。

她把我抱得更紧了，用手在我的心口比划说：“这就是爱。”我第一次感觉到了心脏的跳动，但是对于她的话还是懵懂无知，因为任何无法触摸到的东西，对我来说都是难以理解的。

我闻着她手中紫罗兰的芳香，边比划边问她：“爱，就是花儿的香味吗？”“不，”她回答我。

我又搜索了一下记忆。此时，温暖的阳光正洒落在我们的身上。

“这就是爱吧？”我指着阳光射来的方向问，“爱就是太阳吧？”

对我来说，这世上没有比太阳更美丽的东西了，因为它滋养着万物。

但莎莉文老师还是摇摇头，我愈发的困惑和失望。我想“爱”一定是个古怪的东西，否则老师就不会无法准确告诉我它是什么了。

又过了一两天。我试着用线把大小不一的珠子均匀地串起来，先是两个大的，然后是三个稍小的，如此反复依次递加。我失败了很多回，莎莉文老师则不厌其烦地耐心帮我纠正错误。最后，我发现有一段明显串的位置不对，就决定集中注意力，冥思苦想怎样才不会串错。莎莉文老师摸了摸我的额头，带着强调意味地拼写下了“想”一词。

仿佛醍醐灌顶一般，我突然明白了这个词指的就是在我头脑里正进行的活动。于是，我第一次领悟了抽象的概念。我静静地坐了好长一段时间，并不是在思索串珠的方法，而是想从刚才的启迪中找到理解“爱”一词的线索。那天一直是阴天，间或下点零星小雨。可是突然间，太阳破云而出，发出了耀眼的光芒。

我再一次的问老师：“爱难道不是太阳吗？”

“爱有点像太阳出来前天空中的云彩。”她回答我。为了便于我的理解，她用尽可能浅显的语言解释给我听，但是在当时我仍然不能完全明白她话中的意思。

“你无法触摸到云彩，但是你却能感觉到雨水，体会到干涸的大地与花儿在烈日暴晒一天之后得到雨水滋润时的欢畅。同样的，爱虽然不可触摸，但你能体会到饱含着爱在其中的一切甜蜜幸福。没有爱，你就不会快活，也不会想玩耍了。”

刹那间，智慧的火花迸发在我的脑海之中，我感到仿佛有无数条绳索连接着我与他人的心灵，这就是人与人之间千丝万缕的情感吧！

从我学习开始，莎莉文老师就像对其他正常孩子一样不停地和我对话。唯一不同的是她把生词写在我的掌心，而不是读出来。如果我不知道用什么样的词语和俗语表达我的想法时，她就会教给我，当我不能与别人顺畅地沟通时，她也会提示我。

这样的学习过程持续了好几年，对一个失聪的孩子来说，要在一个月甚至是两到三年的时间里掌握与运用最简单的日常生活用语，毕竟是不现实的。正常的孩子学习语言靠不停的重复与模仿，他们在家里听到家人的交谈，容易自发形成对事物的想法以及众多的话题，同时也激发了表达自我的本能。但是失聪却阻碍了聋哑孩子与其他人的自然交流。莎莉文老师认识到这一点后，就想尽各种办法来弥补我的缺陷，激发我的语言表达能力。每一句话，她都尽可能逐字不断重复，并告诉我怎样与人交流。尽管这样，我还是用了相当长的一段时间才能够与人交谈，以后又用了更长的时间，才知道在什么样的场合该说什么样的话。

单是听不见或单是看不见的人就已经很难体会到交谈的愉悦感，而对于那些既听不见又看不见的人来说，与人交流就更是难上加难！在没有帮助的情况下，他们无法分辨谈话者语调的高低升降、语气强弱轻重的变化，也就无从知晓其中所包含的意义；同时，他们又看不见对方脸上的表情，不能从中觉察其内心的真实想法。