滾球

I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a freight yard in Atlantic City and landing on my head. Now I am thirty-two. I can vaguely remember the brightness of sunshine and what red color is. It would be wonderful to see again， but a calamity can do strange things to people.

4歲那年在大西洋城，我從貨場一輛棚車上摔下來，頭先著地，雙目失明了。現在我32歲了。我能模糊地記得陽光的燦爛和紅色的鮮艷。能恢復視力固然好，但災難也能對人產生奇妙的作用。

It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn’t been blind. I believe in life now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply， otherwise. I don’t mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.

前幾天我突然想到，倘若我不是盲人，我或許不會變得像現在這樣熱愛生活。現在我相信生活，但我不能肯定如果自己視力正常，會不會像現在這樣深深地相信生活。我并沒有寧愿成為盲人的意思，我的意思只是失去視力使我更加珍惜我還剩的其他能力。

Life， I believe， asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. The more readily a person is able to make these adjustments， the more meaningful his own private world will become. The adjustment is never easy. I was bewildered and afraid， but I was lucky. My parents and my teachers saw something in me—a potential to live， you might call it ——which I didn’t see， and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.

我相信，生活要求人不斷地自我調整以適應現實。一個人越能及時地做出這些調整，他的個人世界就會變得越有意義。調整絕非易事。我曾感到茫然害怕，但我很幸運。父母和老師在我身上發現了某種東西——你可以稱之為活下去的潛力吧——我自己卻沒有發現，而他們激勵我誓與失明拼搏到底。

The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. That was basic. If I hadn’t been able to do that， I would have collapsed and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say believing in myself， I am not talking about simply the kind of self-confidence that helps me down an unfamiliar staircase alone. That is part of it. But I mean something bigger than that： an assurance that I am， despite imperfections， a real， positive person that somewhere in the sweeping， intricate pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myself fit.

我必須學會的最艱難的一課就是相信自己。那是基本條件。如果做不到這一點，我的精神就會崩潰，只能坐在前門廊的搖椅中度過余生。當我說相信自己時，并不僅僅指支持我獨自走下陌生樓梯的那種自信，那是一部分。而我指的是更大的事：是堅信盡管自己有缺陷，卻是一個真正有進取心的人，堅信在蕓蕓眾生，錯綜復雜的格局中，自有我可以安身立命的一席之地。

It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the most elementary things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball. I thought he was mocking me and I was hurt. “I can’t use this，” I said. “Take it with you，” he urged me， “and roll it around.” The words stuck in my head. “Roll it around！” By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible： playing baseball. At Philadelphia’s Overbrook School for the Blind， I invented a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.

我花了很長時間才發現并不斷加強這一信念。它要從最基本的事做起。有一次一個人給我一個室內玩的棒球。我以為他在嘲笑我，心里很難受。“我不能使這個，”我說。“你拿去，”他竭力勸我，“在地上滾。”他的話在我腦子里生了根。“在地上滾！” 滾球使我聽見它朝哪里滾動。這讓我馬上想到一個我曾認為不可能達到的目標：打棒球。在費城的奧弗布魯克盲人學校，我發明了一種很受人歡迎的棒球游戲。我們稱它為地面球。

All my life I have set ahead of a series of goals and then tried to reach them， one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good trying for something I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.

我這一輩子給自己樹立了一系列目標，然后努力去達到，一次一個。我必須了解我能力有限。一開始就知道某個目標根本達不到卻硬要去實現，那不會有任何好處，因為那只會帶來失敗的苦果。盡管我有時也失敗過，但一般來說我總有進步。

Vocabulary

freight n. 貨運

vaguely adv. 含糊地；曖昧地；茫然地

calamity n. 災難；不幸事件

occur v. 發生；出現；閃現

otherwise adv. 否則；另外

adjustment n. 調整，調解

readily adv. 快捷地

bewilder v. 使迷惑；使為難

collapse v. 倒塌；崩潰

porch n. 門廊；游廊；走廊

staircase n. 樓梯

despite prep. 不管；雖有

intricate adj. 錯綜復雜的；難理解的

urge v. 催促；推進

limitation n. 限制；局限

bitterness n. 苦味；苦難