假如给我三天光明(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)

作者：海伦·凯勒

出版社：清华大学出版社

格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT

假如给我三天光明试读：

海伦·凯勒（Helen Keller, 1880—1968），美国盲聋女作家、教育家、慈善家、社会活动家。

1880年6月27日，海伦·凯勒出生在亚拉巴马州北部小城塔斯卡姆比亚。在19个月大的时候，她被猩红热病夺去了视力和听力；不久，她又丧失了语言表达能力。1887年，安妮·莎莉文老师来到她的身边，用爱心和智慧引导她走出了无尽的黑暗和孤寂。在导师安妮·莎莉文的谆谆教诲和帮助下，海伦自强不息，用顽强的毅力克服生理缺陷所造成的精神痛苦，创造出了震撼全人类的伟大奇迹：她不但学会了读书、写字和说话，并且通晓英语、法语、德语、拉丁语和希腊语5种语言；她还以惊人的毅力完成了在哈佛大学拉德克利夫学院4年的学业，成为世界上第一位获得文学学士学位的盲聋人，美国费城大学和格拉斯哥大学曾先后赠予了她“荣誉博士”学位。她热爱生活，会骑马、滑雪、下棋，还喜欢戏剧演出，喜爱参观博物馆和名胜古迹。她走遍美国和世界各地，为盲人学校募集资金，把自己的一生献给了盲人福利和教育事业。她赢得了世界各国人民的赞扬，并得到许多国家政府的嘉奖。1964年，美国政府授予她美国公民的最高荣誉“总统自由奖章”，她被美国《时代周刊》评选为“20世纪美国十大英雄偶像”之一。英国首相温斯顿·丘吉尔对海伦·凯勒高度评价，认为她是我们这个时代最伟大的女性。美国著名作家马克·吐温说：“十九世纪有两个杰出人物，一个是拿破仑，另一个就是海伦·凯勒。”海伦被誉为“人类意志力的伟大偶像”，美国总统罗斯福的夫人埃利塔说：“海伦·凯勒的故事永远也不会完结，因为人类精神的美一旦被人认识，我们就永远不会忘记，凯勒小姐给我们这些没有那么多困难需要克服的人们上了一堂永远不能遗忘的课。”她的事迹也被拍成了电影。1968年6月1日，海伦·凯勒平静地走完了她艰辛而又充满荣耀的一生。

海伦·凯勒一生勤于写作，共创作了14部文学作品，其中著名的有《我生活的故事》、《我生活的世界》、《石墙之歌》、《走出黑暗》、《中流》、《假如给我三天光明》和《我的老师》等，海伦·凯勒因而被视为20世纪最富感召力的作家之一，受到了全世界的尊崇。命运给予她不幸，她却并不因此而屈服于命运，她坚持在黑暗中寻找光明，在不幸中播种希望，并最终凭着这股不屈不挠的奋斗精神和对幸福快乐的执著追求，为自己赢得了光明和欢乐。她在1902年至1903年间创作的《我生活的故事》是她的处女作，作品一发表便立即在美国引起了轰动，被称为“世界文学史上无与伦比的杰作”，出版的版本超过百余种，在世界上产生了巨大的影响。《假如给我三天光明》是海伦·凯勒的散文代表作，在世界上有着广泛的影响，她以一个身残志坚的柔弱女子的视角，告诫身体健全的人们应珍惜生命，珍惜大自然赐予的一切。

海伦·凯勒在中国同样有着广泛的影响，她的故事影响和激励着一代又一代的人。基于以上原因，我们决定编译海伦·凯勒励志故事中的经典：《我生活的故事》和《假如给我三天光明》，并采用中文导读英文版的形式出版。在中文导读中，我们尽力使其贴近原作的精髓，也尽可能保留原作的风格。我们希望能够编出为当代中国读者所喜爱的经典读本。读者在阅读英文故事之前，可以先阅读中文导读内容，这样有利于了解故事背景，从而加快阅读速度。我们相信，这两部经典著作的引进对加强当代中国读者，特别是青少年读者的科学素养和人文修养是非常有帮助的。

本书主要内容由王勋、纪飞编译。参加本书故事素材搜集整理及编译工作的还有郑佳、刘乃亚、赵雪、左新杲、黄福成，冯洁、徐鑫、马启龙、王业伟、王旭敏、陈楠、王多多、邵舒丽、周丽萍、王晓旭、李永振、孟宪行、熊红华、胡国平、熊建国、徐平国、王小红等。限于我们的文学素养和英语水平，书中难免有不当之处，衷心希望读者朋友批评指正。我生活的故事The Story of My Life第一章Chapter 1导　读

我怀着惶恐的心情着手写这本自传。童年的生活已经远去，记忆或模糊或清晰，难免会借助自己的想象力。我在这里只选取最有趣和最有价值的事情略加陈述。

我于1880年6月27日出生于亚拉巴马州北部的一个叫塔斯卡姆比亚的小城。在我生病之前，我们全家住在凯勒老宅里，老宅上长满了英国常青藤，老宅里的一座旧式花园是我童年的乐园，我小时候常在飘满香味的藤荫中爬来爬去。

我的出生简单而普通，无异于别的小生命。身为家庭里的第一个孩子，我很快成了家庭的中心，父母为了给我取名而产生了不同意见，最终决定采用外祖母的名字。据说我婴儿时期就显露出好学且自信的气质，还不会走路时就会说话，刚满周岁的那天就学会了走路。次年二月，我得了严重的急性脑充血，奄奄一息的我忽然在一天清晨退烧，家人为此欣喜若狂，却没料到我从此再也看不见、听不见了。这真像一场噩梦，我渐渐对周围的静寂和黑暗习以为常，直到我的老师的到来，我才获得了精神的解放。

IT is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life. I have, as it were, a superstitious hesitation in lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist. The task of writing an autobiography is a difficult one. When I try to classify my earliest impressions, I find that fact and fancy look alike across the years that link the past with the present. The woman paints the child's experiences in her own fantasy. A few impressions stand out vividly from the first years of my life; but "the shadows of the prison-house are on the rest." Besides, many of the joys and sorrows of childhood have lost their poignancy, and many incidents of vital importance in my early educa-tion have been forgotten in the excitement of great discoveries. In order, therefore, not to be tedious I shall try to present in a series of sketches only the episodes that seem to me to be the most interesting and important.

I was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a little town of northern Alabama.

The family on my father's side is descended from Caspar Keller, a native of Switzerland, who settled in Maryland. One of my Swiss ancestors was the first teacher of the deaf in Zurich and wrote a book on the subject of their education-rather a singular coincidence; though it is true that there is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and to slave who has not had a king among his.

My grandfather, Caspar Keller's son, "entered" large tracts of land in Alabama and finally settled there. I have been told that once a year he went from Tuscumbia to Philadelphia on horseback to purchase supplies for the plantation, and my aunt has in her possession many of the letters to his family, which give charming and vivid accounts of these trips.

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 cov-ered 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 surrounding trees and fences were covered with beautiful English ivy. Its old-fashioned garden was the paradise of my childhood.

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 comfort 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 south-ern 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 ancestor 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.

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 attracted 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 mockingbird, 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 unconsciousness of a new-born baby. They called it acute congestion of the stomach and brain. The doctor thought I could not live. Early one morning, however, the fever left me as suddenly and mys-teriously 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 fleeting 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."第二章Chapter 2导　读

我只记得自己痊愈之后，常坐在母亲的膝上，在母亲做家务时拉着她的衣服东走西跑。不久，我感到自己需要和其他人交流信息，便学着用简单的动作示意，母亲也想出办法，让我明白她的意思。我对周围的一切都了如指掌，五岁时就学会了叠收衣服，还会梳妆打扮。

我察觉出自己是与众不同的，我注意到周围的人跟别人交流时，不是像我那样做手势，而是用嘴说话。我常摸着正在说话的人的嘴唇，也动着嘴唇想要说话，但是别人弄不懂我的意思，我便十分着急，甚至发怒。

那时我有两个朝夕相处的伙伴——厨师的孩子玛莎和老猎犬贝尔。贝尔又老又懒，不听使唤，我便去找玛莎玩。玛莎是个黑人小姑娘，很懂我的手势，我也经常仗着自己身强力壮欺负她。我们俩都很淘气，经常在厨房里做游戏，在花丛中寻找珍珠鸡下的蛋，在牲口栏里跑闹、摸动物，圣诞节时分享大人给我们的食物，拿剪刀剪东西等。

一天，我为了烤干弄湿的围裙，被火烧着了，好在最后被老奶奶解救。我还发现了钥匙的妙用，曾将母亲和刚来我们家的莎莉文小姐锁在房间里。五岁时，我们家搬到了一个大屋子里。我的父亲仁慈、宽厚、好客，精于打猎，善于经营花园，还很会讲故事，在我学会说话后，父亲常用手指在我的手掌上描划字母。母亲对我十分宠爱，反使我很难说起她。我们家后来添了妹妹米尔德瑞德，我那时认为她抢了我在家独宠的位置。一次，我发现妹妹睡在我心爱的摇篮里，我竟将摇篮推翻。受到教育之后，我便和妹妹情同手足。

I CANNOT recall what happened during the first months after my illness. I only know that I sat in my mother's lap or clung to her dress as she went about her household duties. My hands felt every object and observed every motion, and in this way I learned to know many things. Soon I felt the need of some communication with others and began to make crude signs. A shake of the head meant "No" and a nod, "Yes," a pull meant "Come" and a push, "Go." Was it bread that I wanted? Then I would imitate the acts of cutting the slices and buttering them. If I wanted my mother to make ice-cream for dinner I made the sign for working the freezer and shivered, indicating cold. My mother, moreover, succeeded in making me understand a good deal. I always knew when she wished me to bring her something, and I would run upstairs or anywhere else she indicated. Indeed, I owe to her loving wisdom all that was bright and good in my long night.

I understood a good deal of what was going on about me. At five I learned to fold and put away the clean clothes when they were brought in from the laundry, and I distinguished my own from the rest. I knew by the way my mother and aunt dressed when they were going out, and I invariably begged to go with them. I was always sent for when there was company, and when the guests took their leave, I waved my hand to them, I think with a vague remembrance of the meaning of the gesture One day some gentlemen called on my mother, and I felt the shutting of the front door and other sounds that indicated their arrival. On a sudden thought I ran upstairs before any one could stop me, to put on my idea of a company dress. Standing before the mirror, as I had seen others do, I anointed mine head with oil and covered my face thickly with powder. Then I pinned a veil over my head so that it covered my face and fell in folds down to my shoulders, and tied an enormous bustle round my small waist, so that it dangled behind, almost meeting the hem of my skirt. Thus attired I went down to help entertain the company.

I do not remember when I first realized that I was different from other people; but I knew it before my teacher came to me. I had noticed that my mother and my friends did not use signs as I did when they wanted anything done, but talked with their mouths. Sometimes I stood between two persons who were conversing and touched their lips. I could not understand, and was vexed. I moved my lips and gesticulated frantically without result. This made me so angry at times that I kicked and screamed until I was exhausted.

I think I knew when I was naughty, for I knew that it hurt Ella, my nurse, to kick her, and when my fit of temper was over I had a feeling akin to regret. But I cannot remember any instance in which this feel-ing prevented me from repeating the naughtiness when I failed to get what I wanted.

In those days a little coloured girl, Martha Washington, the child of our cook, and Belle, an old setter and a great hunter in her day, were my constant cempanions. Martha Washington understood my signs, and I seldom had any difficulty in making her do just as I wished. It pleased me to domineer over her, and she generally submitted to my tyranny rather than risk a hand-to-hand encounter. I was strong, active, indifferent to consequences. I knew my own mind well enough and always had my own way, even if I had to fight tooth and nail for it. We spent a great deal of time in the kitchen, kneading dough balls, helping make ice-cream, grinding coffee, quarreling over the cake-bowl, and feeding the hens and turkeys that swarmed about the kitchen steps. Many of them were so tame that they would eat from my hand and let me feel them. One big gobbler snatched a tomato from me one day and ran away with it. Inspired, perhaps, by Master Gobbler's success, we carried off to the woodpile a cake which the cook had just frosted, and ate every bit of it. I was quite ill afterward, and Iwonder if retribution also overtook the turkey.

The guinea-fowl likes to hide her nest in out-of-the-way places, and it was one of my greatest delights to hunt for the eggs in the long grass. I could not tell Martha Washington when I wanted to go egghunting, but I would double my hands and put them on the ground, which meant something round in the grass, and Martha always sunderstood. When we were fortunate enough to find a nest I never allowed her to carry the eggs home, making her understand by emphatic signs that she might fall and break them.

The sheds where the corn was stored, the stable where the horses were kept, and the yard where the cows were milked morning and evening were unfailing sources of interest to Martha and me. The milkers would let me keep my hands on the cows while they milked, and I often got well switched by the cow for my curiosity.

The making ready for Christmas was always a delight to me. Of course I did not know what it was all about, but I enjoyed the pleasant odours that filled the house and the tidbits that were given to Martha Washington and me to keep us quiet. We were sadly in the way, but that did not interfere with our pleasure in the least. They allowed us to grind the spices, pick over the raisins and lick the stirring spoons. I hung my stocking because the others did; I cannot remember, however, that the ceremony interested me especially, nor did my curiosity cause me to wake before daylight to look for my gifts.

Martha Washington had as great a love of mischief as I. Two little children were seated on the veranda steps one hot July afternoon. One was black as ebony, with little bunches of fuzzy hair tied with shoestrings sticking out all over her head like corkscrews. The other was white, with long golden curls. One child was six years old, the other two or three years older. The younger child was blind-that was I-and the other was Martha Washington. We were busy cutting out paper dolls; but we soon wearied of this amusement, and after cutting up our shoestrings and clipping all the leaves off the honeysuckle that were within reach, I turned my attention to Martha's corkscrews. She objected at first, but finally submitted. Thinking that turn and turn about is fair play, she seized the scissors and cut off one of my curls, and would have cut them all off but for my mother's timely interference.

Belle, our dog, my other companion, was old and lazy and liked to sleep by the open fire rather than to romp with me. I tried hard to teach her my sign language, but she was dull and inattentive. She sometimes started and quivered with excitement, then she became perfectly rigid, as dogs do when they point a bird. I did not then know why Belle acted in this way; but I knew she was not doing as I wished. This vexed me and the lesson always ended in a one-sided boxing match. Belle would get up, stretch herself lazily, give one or two contemptuous sniffs, go to the opposite side of the hearth and lie down again, and I, wearied and disappointed, went off in search of Martha.

Many incidents of those early years are fixed in my memory, isolated, but clear and distinct, making the sense of that silent, aimless, dayless life all the more intense.

One day I happened to spill water on my apron, and I spread it out to dry before the fire which was flickering on the sitting-room hearth. The apron did not dry quickly enough to suit me, so I drew nearer and threw it right over the hot ashes. The fire leaped into life; the flame sencircled me so that in a moment my clothes were blazing. I made a terrified noise that brought Viny, my old nurse, to the rescue. Throwing a blanket over me, she almost suffocated me, but she put out the fire. Except for my hands and hair I was not badly burned.

About this time I found out the use of a key. One morning I locked my mother up in the pantry, where she was obliged to remain three hours, as the servants were in a detached part of the house. She kept pounding on the door, while I sat outside on the porch steps and laughed with glee as I felt the jar of the pounding. This most naughty prank of mine convinced my parents that I must be taught as soon as possible. After my teacher, Miss Sullivan, came to me, I sought an early opportunity to lock her in her room. I went upstairs with something which my mother made me understand I was to give to Miss Sullivan; but no sooner had I given it to her than I slammed the door to, locked it, and hid the key under the wardrobe in the hall. I could not be induced to tell where the key was. My father was obliged to geta ladder and take Miss Sullivan out through the window-much to my delight. Months after I produced the key.

When I was about five years old we moved from the little vine-covered house to a large new one. The family consisted of my father and mother, two older half-brothers, and, afterward, a little sister, Mildred. My earliest distinct recollection of my father is making my way through great drifts of newspapers to his side and finding him alone, holding a sheet of paper before his face. I was greatly puzzled to know what he was doing. I imitated this action, even wearing his spectacles, thinking they might help solve the mystery. But I did not find out the secret for several years. Then I learned what those pa-pers were, and that my father edited one of them.

My father was most loving and indulgent, devoted to his home, seldom leaving us, except in the hunting season. He was a great hunter, I have been told, and a celebrated shot. Next to his family he loved his dogs and gun. His hospitality was great, almost to a fault, and he seldom came home without bringing a guest. His special pride was the big garden where, it was said, he raised the finest watermelons and strawberries in the county; and to me he brought the first ripe grapes and the choicest berries. I remember his caressing touch a she led me from tree to tree, from vine to vine, and his eager delight in whatever pleased me.

He was a famous story-teller; after I had acquired language he used to spell clumsily into my hand his cleverest anecdotes, and nothing pleased him more than to have me repeat them at an opportune moment.

I was in the North, enjoying the last beautiful days of the summer of 1896, when I heard the news of my father's death. He had had a short illness, there had been a brief time of acute suffering, then all was over. This was my first great sorrow-my first personal experience with death.

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