Three Days to See假如给我三天光明翻译

BY Helen Keller

翻译：Mac

All of us have read thrilling stories in which the hero had only a limited and specified time to live. Sometimes it was as long as a year; sometimes as short as twenty-four hours. But always we were interested in discovering just how the doomed man chose to spend his last days or his last hours. I speak, of course, of free men who have a choice, not condemned criminals whose sphere of activities is strictly delimited.

我们每一个人都曾经看过扣人心弦的故事，这些故事的主公翁只剩下一个限定和指定的时间生存。有时候可能是一年那么长，而有时候可能只有24小时那么短。但我们最关心的往往只是在于去揭晓这个注定要死的人选择怎么样渡过他最后的日子或者时光。当然，我所说的是有选择权利的自由人，而不是活动范围被严格限制的重囚。

 

　　Such stories set us thinking, wondering what we should do under similar circumstances. What events, what experiences, what associations should we crowd into those last hours as mortal beings? What happiness should we find in reviewing the past, what regrets?

这些故事会引发我们思考，疑惑在相似的情况下我们会怎么做。作为一个将死的人，我们会将什么事情，什么经历，什么社交关系包罗入最后的那几个小时？当在回顾过去的时候，我们又会发现什么幸福和后悔的事？

　　Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should die tomorrow. Such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life. We should live each day with a gentleness, a vigor, and a keenness of appreciation which are often lost when time stretches before us in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come. There are those, of course, who would adopt the Epicurean motto of "Eat, drink, and be merry," but most people would be chastened by the certainty of impending death.

有时候，我在想，如果每天都怀着明天我们会死去的想法去生活，那可能会是一个很不错的主意。因为这样的生活态度能够鲜明地强调生命的价值。我们应该怀着和善的态度，充沛的精力和欣赏的热情过好每一天，而当岁月推移，在经常瞻观未来之时日、未来之年月中，这些又常常会被遗失。当然，有些人会以Epricurean(伊壁鸠鲁)的信条：“吃，喝和快乐”去生活，但大多数人都将会被即将到来的死亡的这一现实所惩罚。

　　In stories the doomed hero is usually saved at the last minute by some stroke of fortune, but almost always his sense of values is changed. he becomes more appreciative of the meaning of life and its permanent spiritual values. It has often been noted that those who live, or have lived, in the shadow of death bring a mellow sweetness to everything they do.

在故事中，那注定要死的主人翁是在最后的几分钟常会因为种种的幸运而会得救，但是几乎总是他的价值观从此发生改变。他更加赞赏生命的意义和生命永恒的精神价值。这是常被提到的，那些正在或者是曾经生活在死亡的阴影下的人，会对他们所做的每一件都赋予醇厚甘甜。

　　Most of us, however, take life for granted. We know that one day we must die, but usually we picture that day as far in the future. When we are in buoyant health, death is all but unimaginable. We seldom think of it. The days stretch out in an endless vista. So we go about our petty tasks, hardly aware of our listless attitude toward life.

然而，我们大多数人，认为生命是理所当然的。我们知道某一天我们会死，但我们常想像那一天远在未来。当我们体魄健康时，死亡是想都不会想的。随着时间向无尽头的远方延伸，我们着手做那些琐碎的事，几乎没有意识到我们对生活的那种懒散的态度。

　　The same lethargy, I am afraid, characterizes the use of all our faculties and senses. Only the deaf appreciate hearing, only the blind realize the manifold blessings that lie in sight. Particularly does this observation apply to those who have lost sight and hearing in adult life. But those who have never suffered impairment of sight or hearing seldom make the fullest use of these blessed faculties. Their eyes and ears take in all sights and sounds hazily, without concentration and with little appreciation. It is the same old story of not being grateful for what we have until we lose it, of not being conscious of health until we are ill.

同样的懒散，我恐怕，刻画了我们的本能和感知的利用。只有聋子会珍惜听力，只有盲人才体会能看见光明的幸福。这个结论特别适用于那些在成年期失去视力和听力的人。但那些从没有受过视力和听力衰退的煎熬的人很少能充分利用这些上天恩赐的本能。他们的眼睛和耳朵模模糊糊地接收所有的景象和声音，毫无重点和没有欣赏可言。正如一句老话所说，直到失去了才懂得去珍惜，直到生病了才懂得注意健康。

I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight; silence would taech him the joys of sound.

我以前常认为如果让每个人在他们的成年期都被致盲和致聋一段时间那将会是一件幸福的事。黑暗会让他们更懂得珍惜光明，寂静会教会他们享受声音。

　　Now and then I have tested my seeing friends to discover what they see. Recently I was visited by a very good friends who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, and I asked her what she had observed.. "Nothing in particular, " she replied. I might have been incredulous had I not been accustomed to such reposes, for long ago I became convinced that the seeing see little.

现在和那时，我曾询问我视力正常的朋友，去了解他们所看见的东西。最近，一位刚在森林里走过一段长路回来很要好的朋友来拜访我，我问她观察到什么了。“没有什么特别的”她回应说。如果我不是习惯了这样的回应，我可能会觉得很奇怪，但很久以前我就一直坚信可以看见东西的人能看见的东西很少。

　　How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In the spring I touch the branches of trees hopefully in search of a bud the first sign of awakening Nature after her winter's sleep. I feel the delightful, velvety texture of a flower, and discover its remarkable convolutions; and something of the miracle of Nature is revealed to me. Occasionally, if I am very fortunate, I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a bird in full song. I am delighted to have the cool waters of a brook rush thought my open finger. To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug. To me the pageant of seasons is a thrilling and unending drama, the action of which streams through my finger tips.

这怎么可能？我问我自己，在森林里走了一小时却没有什么值得去关注？我，一个不能看见东西的人，仅仅通过触摸都觉得成千上万的东西都让我很感兴趣。我可以感受到一片叶子的完美对称性。我疼爱地将我的手放在欧洲桦的光滑树皮，或者是松树那粗糙的树干上。在春天，我触摸树的嫩枝去寻找一个花蕾，大自然在冬眠后苏醒的象征。我感受到那花儿的妩媚和鹅绒毛般的质地，感受到它那神奇的旋状；一些大自然的鬼斧神功展显给我了。有时，如果我十分幸运的话，我将我的手轻轻放在一棵小树上能感受到正在高声歌唱的鸟儿的颤抖。对我而言，一张铺满松针的和海绵般柔软的绿草的地毯比起最名贵华丽的波斯地毯还要受欢迎。对我而言，四季的盛会就是一部扣人心弦、无穷尽的戏剧，这部戏剧里的演出是从我指尖间流趟出来的。

At times my heart cries out with longing to see all these things. If I can get so much pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight. Yet, those who have eyes apparently see little. the panorama of color and action which fills the world is taken for granted. It is human, perhaps, to appreciate little that which we have and to long for that which we have not, but it is a great pity that in the world of light the gift of sight is used only as a mere conveniences rather than as a means of adding fullness to life.

有时，因极渴求看见所有的东西我的心会不住地哭泣。如果仅公是触摸我就能得到这么多的快感，那么视觉能够展显多少更美丽的东西！但是，那些有眼睛的人明显是看得很少的。他们将充满整个世界美景的色彩和动作看作是理所当然的。也许这就是人类的天性，不懂得珍惜和欣赏那些我们拥有的，反而是渴求那些我们没有的。一个极大的遗憾是仅将这光明的世界和神赐的视力作为是方便，而不是一个增添生活美满的途径。

　　If I were the president of a university I should establish a compulsory course in "How to Use Your Eyes". The professor would try to show his pupils how they could add joy to their lives by really seeing what passes unnoticed before them. He would try to awake their dormant and sluggish faculties.

如果我是一个大学的校长，我会开设一门必修课“怎么用我们的眼睛”。教授应该致力于向他的学生展示如何通过看那些一闪而逝的东西来增添生活的乐趣。他应该要试图唤醒学生的懒散和呆滞的本能。

　　Perhaps I can best illustrate by imagining what I should most like to see if I were given the use of my eyes, say, for just three days. And while I am imagining, suppose you, too, set your mind to work on the problem of how you would use your own eyes if you had only three more days to see. If with the on-coming darkness of the third night you knew that the sun would never rise for you again, how would you spend those three precious intervening days? What would you most want to let your gaze rest upon?

也许，如果我恩赐能使用我的眼睛，哪怕只是三天，我能通过想像最完美地说明我最想看见的东西。当我想像的时候，假如你也是一样，用心去解决在这三天里怎么样利用你自己的眼睛的这一问题。如果，在第三天晚上，夜幕降临之时，你知道永远不能再看见明天的黎明，你会怎么样利用那插进来的珍贵的三天？你最想让你的目光注视在什么事物上？

　　I, naturally, should want most to see the things which have become dear to me through my years of darkness. You, too, would want to let your eyes rest on the things that have become dear to you so that you could take the memory of them with you into the night that loomed before you.

我，自然而然，最想看见的是那些在我黑暗的岁月里已经是我最爱的那些人。你，也一样，想让你的眼睛注视在那些你最亲爱的人身上，这样，你就可以带着他们的记忆陪伴你副近的黑暗世界。

 

I should want to see the people whose kindness and gentleness and companionship have made my life worth living. First I should like to gaze long upon the face of my dear teacher, Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy, who came to me when I was a child and opened the outer world to me. I should want not merely to see the outline of her face, so that I could cherish it in my memory, but to study that face and find in it the living evidence of the sympathetic tenderness and patience with which she accomplished the difficult task of my education. I should like to see in her eyes that strength of character which has enabled her to stand firm in the face of difficulties, and that compassion for all humanity which she has revealed to me so often.

我想看见那些人，他们的仁慈，温柔和友谊让我的生命有生存价值。首先，我最想长久凝视的是我亲爱的Anne Sullivan Macy老师的面容。在我还是小孩的时候，她来到我身边向我打开了外面世界的窗口。我不仅仅是想看她的脸的轮廓，那么我可以珍藏在我的记忆里面， 而且，我还要仔细研究她的脸寻找那些富有同情心的温柔和耐性的活证据，她以这些攻克了我教育上的难题。我还想看她那眼睛里透露的让她无畏于任何困难的性格的力量，还有她常展显给我的那份对人们的怜悯之心。

　　I do not know what it is to see into the heart of a friend through that "Window of the soul", the eye. I can only "see" through my finger tips the outline of a face. I can detect laughter, sorrow, and many other obvious emotions. I know my friends from the feel of their faces. But I cannot really picture their personalities by touch. I know their personalities, of course, through other means, through the thoughts they express to me, through whatever of their actions are revealed to me. But I am denied that deeper understanding of them which I am sure would come through sight of them, through watching their reactions to various expressed thoughts and circumstances, through noting the immediate and fleeting reactions of their eyes and countenance.

我不知道什么是通过“灵魂之窗”——眼睛，看透一个朋友的心，我仅可以通过我的指尖去“看”脸的轮廓。我可以察觉到笑声，悲伤，和很多其它明显的情绪。我通过我朋友的脸部表情可以了解他们。但是我不能真的通过触摸来想像他们的性格。当然，我可以通过其它的方法了解他们的性格，通过他们向我表达的想法，通过他们所有展显给我的动作。我不否认对他们没有深刻的了解，但我确信这些能够通过看见他们，看他们对各样思想和情况的反应，留意他们的眼睛和表情的瞬时和短暂的反应能得到。

　　Friends who are near to me I know well, because through the months and years they reveal themselves to me in all their phases; but of casual friends I have only an incomplete impression, an impression gained from a handclasp, from spoken words which I take from their lips with my finger tips, or which they tap into the palm of my hand.

那些我身边的朋友我十分了解，因为在日复一日，年复一年的岁月里，他们向我展显了他们的所有方面。但对普通朋友，我只有一个不完整的印象，一个从握手，从我用手指在他们嘴唇上感知的话语，或者是他们在我手掌里敲写的文字里得到这些印象。

How much easier, how much more satisfying it is for you who can see to grasp quickly the essential qualities of another person by watching the subtleties of expression, the quiver of a muscle, the flutter of a hand. But does it ever occur to you to use your sight to see into the inner nature of a friends or acquaintance/ Do not most of you seeing people grasp casually the outward features of a face and let it go at that?

对于你来说多么简单，多么称心的事，你通过看他的表达的微妙，颤动的肌肉，摇摆的手快速掌握另一个人的重要品质。但你是否曾经用你的视觉去看一个朋友或者陌生人的内在本质？难道你们大多数可以看见东西的人不是随笔地让掌握了脸部的外在特征然后就不再去想了？

　　For instance can you describe accurately the faces of five good friends? some of you can, but many cannot. As an experiment, I have questioned husbands of long standing about the color of their wives' eyes, and often they express embarrassed confusion and admit that they do not know. And, incidentally, it is a chronic complaint of wives that their husbands do not notice new dresses, new hats, and changes in household arrangements.

例如，你能否精确描述你5位好友的面容？有些人可以，但很多的人不能。作为一次实验，我询问了一些和妻子相处多年的丈夫，他们妻子的眼睛是什么颜色的。但他们常表现出尴尬的疑惑和承认他们不知道。无独有偶的是，妻子们长期来的报怨，他们的丈夫不关注她们的新裤子，帽子和家居安排的变动。

 

　　The eyes of seeing persons soon become accustomed to the routine of their surroundings, and they actually see only the startling and spectacular. But even in viewing the most spectacular sights the eyes are lazy. Court records reveal every day how inaccurately "eyewitnesses" see. A given event will be "seen" in several different ways by as many witnesses. Some see more than others, but few see everything that is within the range of their vision.

能看见东西的人的眼睛很快就会变得习惯他们日常的四周环境，而且人他们实际上只看见一些令人吃惊的和壮观的东西。但是即使是在看最壮观的景象眼睛也是懒惰的。法庭记录展示着多么的不精确那些“目击者”所看见的。一个给出的事件会很多的目击者用几种不同的方式所“看见”。一些人看得比别人多，但很少人看见每一件事，而那些事是在他们的视线范围内的。

　　Oh, the things that I should see if I had the power of sight for just three days!

噢！如果我有视觉能力，哪怕只有三天，这些都是我应该看看的。