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.
那个年幼的小孩是个盲童——这个孩子就是我——另一个孩子是玛莎·华盛顿。当时我们俩正埋头剪纸娃娃玩儿，可是没多久我们就厌倦了这个游戏，于是，我们俩又开始剪树叶，我们把能够到的金银花叶子都剪了下来。接着，我开始把注意力转到玛莎那像螺丝锥的头发上，起初她反对我打她头发的主意，但最终还是屈服了。就这样，我们俩轮流玩起了公平的游戏，她抓过剪刀剪掉我的一束鬈发。我想，要不是妈妈及时制止，她一定会把我的头发都剪光的。
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.
贝拉是我们家的狗，也是我的另一个伙伴，她又老又懒，喜欢在壁炉旁睡觉，而不太愿意同我玩耍。于是我努力教她我的“手势语言”，但是她总是反应迟钝，心不在焉。有时候，她会兴奋得浑身颤抖，变得跃跃欲试，就像狗儿们将目标锁定在一只鸟时所做的那样。我并不知道贝拉为什么会有如此表现，但是我知道她肯定没有按照我的要求去做。这令我十分懊恼，所以，我的训练课总是以对贝拉一通乱捶作为结束。而贝拉则会爬起来伸伸懒腰，然后轻蔑地打一两个响鼻儿，再跑到壁炉的另一边就地一躺。为此，我感到既无奈又失望，最后我只有丢下贝拉去找玛莎玩。
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.
早年的很多事情都被我牢牢地记在心里，虽然互不相干，但是它们是如此清晰，宛如历历在目，它们加剧了我对沉寂、无助而迷惘的生活的思考。