the christmas pantomime was the high spot of the year, although alan himself later recalled of christmas 'that as a small child i was quite unable to predict when it would fall, i didn't even realise that it came at regular intervals.' back at dreary baston lodge, his head was buried in maps. he asked for an atlas as a birthday present and pored over it by the hour. he also liked recipes and formulae, and wrote down the ingredients for a dock-leaf concoction for the cure of nettle-stings. the only books he had were little nature-study notebooks, supplemented by his mother reading the pilgrim's progress aloud. once she cheated by leaving out a long theological dissertation, but that made him very cross. 'you spoil the whole thing, ' he shouted, and ran up to his bedroom. perhaps he was responding to the uncompromising note of bunyan's plain-speaking englishman. but once the rules were agreed then they must be followed to the bitter end, without bending or cheating. his nanny found the same when playing with him.

圣诞童话剧是一年的高潮，但艾伦却不怎么感兴趣。艾伦后来回忆说，小时候我觉得这剧总是没完没了，我不知道它是周期性上演的。后来，他们回到沉闷的巴斯顿住宅，艾伦喜欢上了研究地图。他过生日时，要了一个地图作礼物，并且马上钻研了一遍。他还喜欢药方，把治疗荨麻疹的酸模合剂的成分抄下来。他有一本书，是一小本自然科学笔记，这是他母亲读的《天路历程》的补充资料。有一次，艾赛儿在给他讲书时，偷懒跳过了一篇很长的理论论文，这令艾伦生气地喊叫「你全给搞糟了！」然后跑回了卧室。不管是谁，一旦答应了艾伦的要求，就必须坚持到底，不能变卦也不能骗他。幼儿园的南尼，也发现了这一点，在跟艾伦玩的时候：

the thing that stands out most in my mind was his integrity and his intelligence for a child so young as he then was, also you couldn't camouflage anything from him. i remember one day alan and i playing together. i played so that he should win, but he spotted it. there was commotion for a few minutes. …

我现在印象最深的就是，他那么小的时候，就表现出一种正直和智慧，你不能跟他耍任何虚伪的东西。我记得有一次跟艾伦一起玩，我故意让他赢，但他马上就指出来，并且吵闹了好长时间……

in february 1919, mr turing returned after three years' separation. it was not easy for him to re-establish his authority with alan, who had a good line in answering back. he told alan once to untwist his boot-tongues. 'they should be flat as a pancake, ' he said. 'pancakes are generally rolled up, ' piped back alan. if alan had an opinion, he said that he knew, or that he always knew; he always knew that the forbidden fruit of the garden of eden was not an apple but a plum. in the summer, mr turing took them for a holiday at ullapool, in the far north-west of scotland, this time a distinctly posh holiday, complete with gillie. while mr turing and john lured the trout, and mrs turing sketched the loch, alan gambolled in the heather. he had the bright idea of gathering the wild bees' honey for their picnic tea. as the bees buzzed past, he observed their flight-paths and by plotting the intersection point located the nest. the turings were vividly impressed by this direction-finding, more than by the murky honey he retrieved.

1919年2月，在三年的分离之后，朱利叶斯.图灵先生回来了。然而，现在再想在艾伦面前重建威信，可不是那么容易的，艾伦已经可以轻松地顶嘴了。有一回，朱利叶斯叫他把鞋舌整理好，说鞋舌应该像烙饼一样平。艾伦立即反驳说，烙饼明明是卷的。艾伦如果有什么想法，他会习惯说「我知道」或者是「我早就知道」，比如说，他早就知道伊甸园的禁果不是苹果，而是李子。夏天时，图灵先生带他们到阿勒浦度假。阿勒浦在苏格兰遥远的西北地区。因为有钓鱼教练，所以这次豪华的假期令他们觉得非常愉快。朱利叶斯和约翰在钓鳟鱼，图灵夫人在画海湾的素描，而艾伦则在石楠花丛中自己玩耍。他想了一个收集蜂蜜的好主意，准备在野餐时泡茶。当蜜蜂嗡嗡飞过时，他就在观察它们的飞行路线，并用标出交会点，确定蜂巢的方位。那点脏乎乎的蜂蜜不算什么，但他的这种聪明，给朱利叶斯留下了深刻的印象。

but that december his parents steamed away and alan was left again with the wards, while john returned to hazelhurst. their father was transferred at last to the metropolis of madras to serve in the revenue department, but alan stagnated in the deathly ennui of st leonards-on-sea, concocting recipes. his development was so held back that he had not even learnt how to do long division by the time of his mothers return in 1921, when he was nearly nine.

这一年的11月，艾伦的父母又走了，他又被留在沃德家，而约翰则回到了海兹赫斯特。图灵先生被调到马德拉斯的一个大城市，做财政工作，艾伦在圣伦纳兹的海边，每天配配无聊的食谱。1921年，当他的母亲再回来时，他已经快要九岁了，但还没有学会比较长的除法。

his mother perceived him as changed from 'extremely vivacious – even mercurial – making friends with everyone' to being 'unsociable and dreamy'. there was a wistful, withdrawn expression in photographs of his ten-year-old face. she took him away from st leonards and, after a summer holiday in brittany, somewhat spoilt by the constant counting of francs, she taught him herself in london, where he alarmed her by looking for iron filings in the gutter with a magnet. mr turing, who in may 1921 had again been promoted to be secretary to the madras government development department, responsible for agriculture and commerce throughout the presidency, returned once more in december and they all went to st moritz, where alan learnt to ski.

他母亲发现，这时的艾伦发生了，从极度活泼，变得不爱交际了。在照片中，他那十岁的小脸庞，甚至还透着强烈的抑郁和孤僻。于是，她带着艾伦离开了圣伦纳兹，在法国西北部的布列塔尼度过暑假之后，他们来到了伦敦，她在那里自己教艾伦。在伦敦，艾伦总是喜欢拿一块磁铁，在下水道里找铁屑玩，这让艾赛尔很操心。1921年5月，朱利叶斯.图灵被提拔为马德拉斯政府发展部副部长，负责农业和商业。12月，他回到英国，全家一起去圣摩瑞兹过冬，艾伦在这里学会了滑雪。

miss taylor, the headmistress of st michael's, had said that alan 'had genius', but this diagnosis was not allowed to modify the programme. in the new year of 1922, alan was launched on the next stage of the process and was sent off to hazelhurst like his brother.

然后，艾伦该去上学了，可是圣迈克尔学校却不要他。女校长泰勒说，艾伦确实挺有天分，但是学校也有学校的制度。这事儿一直拖到1922年新年，艾伦的人生终于走进了新阶段，他跟哥哥一样，来到海兹赫斯特。