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.

我現在已經領悟了所有語言的真諦，并且有些迫不及待地想加以應用。通常對于聽力健全的孩子來說，學習語言是一件輕松的事情，只要捕捉到別人說的單詞的時候，他們就可以模仿它，當然這對充滿好奇的孩子來說，不僅不是一件痛苦的事，相反還是一件有趣的事情。但對于喪失聽力的孩子來說，那可就是一個痛苦緩慢的過程了。但不管過程多么艱辛，結果卻令人歡欣鼓舞。我們從事物的名稱開始學起，一步一步地前進，最終跨過了那看似難以逾越的鴻溝，從只會斷斷續續地發幾個音節，到可以在莎士比亞的十四行詩中領略文學的魅力。

起初，當老師向我介紹新鮮事物時，我的問題很少，因為我對事物的概念模糊，掌握的單詞有限。而隨著知識的增長，詞匯量的增大，我的問題也就越來越多，涉及的面也越來越廣，常常是就一個問題一再地提問、思索，一定要打破砂鍋問到底。有時候，一個新生詞還可能喚醒我的某些記憶，使腦海中呈現出以前的畫面。

我至今還清楚地記得問老師“愛”一詞意義的那個清晨。當時，我的詞匯量還很少。我在花園里找到了幾朵早開的紫羅蘭，于是拿來獻給了莎莉文老師。她非常高興，激動得想親吻我，但我那時并不愿意母親以外的人親吻我，當然也包括莎莉文。她輕輕地把我摟抱在懷中，在我的手上寫道：“我愛海倫！”

“什么是愛？”我問她。

她把我抱得更緊了，用手在我的心口比劃說：“這就是愛。”我第一次感覺到了心臟的跳動，但是對于她的話還是懵懂無知，因為任何無法觸摸到的東西，對我來說都是難以理解的。

我聞著她手中紫羅蘭的芳香，邊比劃邊問她：“愛，就是花兒的香味嗎？”“不，”她回答我。

我又搜索了一下記憶。此時，溫暖的陽光正灑落在我們的身上。

“這就是愛吧？”我指著陽光射來的方向問，“愛就是太陽吧？”

對我來說，這世上沒有比太陽更美麗的東西了，因為它滋養著萬物。

但莎莉文老師還是搖搖頭，我愈發的困惑和失望。我想“愛”一定是個古怪的東西，否則老師就不會無法準確告訴我它是什么了。

又過了一兩天。我試著用線把大小不一的珠子均勻地串起來，先是兩個大的，然后是三個稍小的，如此反復依次遞加。我失敗了很多回，莎莉文老師則不厭其煩地耐心幫我糾正錯誤。最后，我發現有一段明顯串的位置不對，就決定集中注意力，冥思苦想怎樣才不會串錯。莎莉文老師摸了摸我的額頭，帶著強調意味地拼寫下了“想”一詞。

仿佛醍醐灌頂一般，我突然明白了這個詞指的就是在我頭腦里正進行的活動。于是，我第一次領悟了抽象的概念。我靜靜地坐了好長一段時間，并不是在思索串珠的方法，而是想從剛才的啟迪中找到理解“愛”一詞的線索。那天一直是陰天，間或下點零星小雨。可是突然間，太陽破云而出，發出了耀眼的光芒。

我再一次的問老師：“愛難道不是太陽嗎？”

“愛有點像太陽出來前天空中的云彩。”她回答我。為了便于我的理解，她用盡可能淺顯的語言解釋給我聽，但是在當時我仍然不能完全明白她話中的意思。

“你無法觸摸到云彩，但是你卻能感覺到雨水，體會到干涸的大地與花兒在烈日暴曬一天之后得到雨水滋潤時的歡暢。同樣的，愛雖然不可觸摸，但你能體會到飽含著愛在其中的一切甜蜜幸福。沒有愛，你就不會快活，也不會想玩耍了。”

剎那間，智慧的火花迸發在我的腦海之中，我感到仿佛有無數條繩索連接著我與他人的心靈，這就是人與人之間千絲萬縷的情感吧！

從我學習開始，莎莉文老師就像對其他正常孩子一樣不停地和我對話。唯一不同的是她把生詞寫在我的掌心，而不是讀出來。如果我不知道用什么樣的詞語和俗語表達我的想法時，她就會教給我，當我不能與別人順暢地溝通時，她也會提示我。

這樣的學習過程持續了好幾年，對一個失聰的孩子來說，要在一個月甚至是兩到三年的時間里掌握與運用最簡單的日常生活用語，畢竟是不現實的。正常的孩子學習語言靠不停的重復與模仿，他們在家里聽到家人的交談，容易自發形成對事物的想法以及眾多的話題，同時也激發了表達自我的本能。但是失聰卻阻礙了聾啞孩子與其他人的自然交流。莎莉文老師認識到這一點后，就想盡各種辦法來彌補我的缺陷，激發我的語言表達能力。每一句話，她都盡可能逐字不斷重復，并告訴我怎樣與人交流。盡管這樣，我還是用了相當長的一段時間才能夠與人交談，以后又用了更長的時間，才知道在什么樣的場合該說什么樣的話。

單是聽不見或單是看不見的人就已經很難體會到交談的愉悅感，而對于那些既聽不見又看不見的人來說，與人交流就更是難上加難！在沒有幫助的情況下，他們無法分辨談話者語調的高低升降、語氣強弱輕重的變化，也就無從知曉其中所包含的意義；同時，他們又看不見對方臉上的表情，不能從中覺察其內心的真實想法。