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Sometimes I lost all courage and betrayed my feelings in a way I am ashamed to remember, especially as the signs of my trouble were afterward used against Miss Sullivan, the only person of all the kind friends I had there, who could make the crooked straight and the rough places smooth.
有时候我感到勇气尽失，而且脾气恶劣，我的坏脾气甚至指向了苏立文小姐，而在我所有的良师益友当中，她是唯一一个能抚平我内心伤痛的人，她能够“将曲线捋直，令崎岖之地变成坦途”。
Little by little, however, my difficulties began to disappear. The embossed books and other apparatus arrived, and I threw myself into the work with renewed confidence. Algebra and geometry were the only studies that continued to defy my efforts to comprehend them. As I have said before, I had no aptitude for mathematics; the different points were not explained to me as fully as I wished. The geometrical diagrams were particularly vexing because I could not see the relation of the different parts to one another, even on the cushion. It was not until Mr. Keith taught me that I had a clear idea of mathematics.
渐渐地，我的困难开始消失了。随着凸版书籍和一些辅助用具的增添，我带着重拾的信心重新投入到学习之中。代数和几何这两门课程仍在继续同我的努力相抗衡。正如我以前说过的那样，我天生缺乏数学头脑，对不同的点面关系总是不能很好地理解。那些几何图形很是令人头痛，因为我无法看到不同图形之间的关系，即使在垫子上摆放也不行。直到凯斯先生教了我一些数学知识之后，我才踏进了几何学的门槛。
I was beginning to overcome these difficulties when an event occurred which changed everything.
正当我开始克服种种困难的时候，随后发生的一件事改变了一切。
Just before the books came, Mr. Gilman had begun to remonstrate with Miss Sullivan on the ground that I was working too hard, and in spite of my earnest protestations, he reduced the number of my recitations. At the beginning we had agreed that I should, if necessary, take five years to prepare for college, but at the end of the first year the success of my examinations showed Miss Sullivan, Miss Harbaugh (Mr. Gilman's head teacher), and one other, that I could without too much effort complete my preparation in two years more.
就在我需要的（盲人）专用书快要到位的时候，吉尔曼先生不顾我的严词反对，对苏立文小姐纵容我的用功过度提出了忠告，他还削减了我背诵课文的次数。起初，我们曾达成协议，如果有必要的话，我应该用五年的时间为上大学做准备。但是在第一年年终的时候，我以优良的考试成绩向苏立文小姐、哈勃小姐（吉尔曼先生聘用的院长），还有其他任何人证明，我并不需要那么漫长的准备时间，有两年时间足矣。
