up.
Then
Victor had to put them all back, each in the right compartment.
Dr. Itard’s way was a lot more trouble, but Victor did it anyhow.
One morning at breakfast time, Dr. Itard arrived, bringing a board and four metal shapes.
Dr. Itard put the shapes on the board and pointed to them.
L-A-I-T
.
Then Madame Guérin gave Dr. Itard some milk.
Dr. Itard held the milk pitcher in one hand and gave the letters to Victor with the other.
Victor put the letters back on the board like this:
T-A-I-L
.
That
didn’t seem to be what his teacher wanted. So he tried again.
L-A-I-T
.
Both Dr. Itard and Madame Guérin seemed very pleased! Beaming, Madame Guérin poured the milk into his cup.
A week later, when it was time for his walk with Madame Guérin to the Observatory Gardens, Victor brought along his little wooden bowl, the same as he always did. But, unknown to anyone, he had also brought something else.
When they got to the house where he was always given milk, he reached into his pocket, took out four metal shapes, and laid them on the table.
L-A-I-T
.
V ICTOR COULD TELL when his teacher was happy.
And now, he’d made his teacher very,
very
happy.
But there was something deep inside Victor that still longed for his old life.
One night when the full moon shone through his window, Victor woke and stood looking out, past the formal gardens and over the Institute walls to where the moonlit fields began.
Downstairs, Madame Guérin heard his footsteps and went quietly up to his room to see what was happening. Victor stood by the window, his forehead close to the glass, his eyes fixed on the distant fields. Now and then, he drew deep breaths and made a sad little sound.
Madame Guérin noticed it happened often when the moon was full.
Only once since he’d come to Paris had Victor been allowed outside the city. He and Itard had driven to the countryside north of Paris, where Dr. Itard was visiting some friends. In the carriage, Victor stared eagerly out one window and then another, his joy showing in his eyes and his whole body. Whenever the horses slowed and seemed about to stop, his excitement grew.
When he and Itard reached the country house, “such was the effect of these outside influences, of these woods, these hills, with which he could never satisfy his eyes, that he appeared more impatient and wild than ever,” Itard wrote. The boy could scarcely eat: he seemed to Itard to be wishing he were back in his old life, “an independent life, happy and regretted.”
After that, Dr. Itard decided the country was too much of a temptation for Victor. Instead, he would be allowed to go only to formal gardens like the Luxembourg. There, the flowers were planted in squares, the trees grew in rows, and the fountains sat at the ends of straight paths. The gardens’ “straight and regular arrangement had nothing in common with the great landscapes of which wild nature is composed,” Dr. Itard wrote. They were nature civilized. Nature tamed.
Once, in the summertime, Victor and Dr. Itard were invited to dinner at the grand country house of an elegant, beautiful, very fashionable lady named Jeanne Françoise Julie Adélaïde Récamier. Madame Récamier, who was known for her glittering parties, thought that meeting the famous wild boy would amuse her other dinner guests. She’d invited a general, an ambassador, a number of French aristocrats, an English lord and his lady, two duchesses, and the future king of Sweden and Norway.
Dr. Itard and Victor arrived in a carriage. Victor hopped out.
Inside Madame Récamier’s château, the summer light shone through windows hung with silk draperies. Room after room was decorated with dark mahogany furniture, bronze candleholders, and marble statues. Madame Récamier’s couch, built in the style of the lost city of Pompeii, sat beneath a “garland of flowers, escaping from the beaks of two gilt-bronze swans.” Such couches were all the rage that year.
When they reached
Then
Victor had to put them all back, each in the right compartment.
Dr. Itard’s way was a lot more trouble, but Victor did it anyhow.
One morning at breakfast time, Dr. Itard arrived, bringing a board and four metal shapes.
Dr. Itard put the shapes on the board and pointed to them.
L-A-I-T
.
Then Madame Guérin gave Dr. Itard some milk.
Dr. Itard held the milk pitcher in one hand and gave the letters to Victor with the other.
Victor put the letters back on the board like this:
T-A-I-L
.
That
didn’t seem to be what his teacher wanted. So he tried again.
L-A-I-T
.
Both Dr. Itard and Madame Guérin seemed very pleased! Beaming, Madame Guérin poured the milk into his cup.
A week later, when it was time for his walk with Madame Guérin to the Observatory Gardens, Victor brought along his little wooden bowl, the same as he always did. But, unknown to anyone, he had also brought something else.
When they got to the house where he was always given milk, he reached into his pocket, took out four metal shapes, and laid them on the table.
L-A-I-T
.
V ICTOR COULD TELL when his teacher was happy.
And now, he’d made his teacher very,
very
happy.
But there was something deep inside Victor that still longed for his old life.
One night when the full moon shone through his window, Victor woke and stood looking out, past the formal gardens and over the Institute walls to where the moonlit fields began.
Downstairs, Madame Guérin heard his footsteps and went quietly up to his room to see what was happening. Victor stood by the window, his forehead close to the glass, his eyes fixed on the distant fields. Now and then, he drew deep breaths and made a sad little sound.
Madame Guérin noticed it happened often when the moon was full.
Only once since he’d come to Paris had Victor been allowed outside the city. He and Itard had driven to the countryside north of Paris, where Dr. Itard was visiting some friends. In the carriage, Victor stared eagerly out one window and then another, his joy showing in his eyes and his whole body. Whenever the horses slowed and seemed about to stop, his excitement grew.
When he and Itard reached the country house, “such was the effect of these outside influences, of these woods, these hills, with which he could never satisfy his eyes, that he appeared more impatient and wild than ever,” Itard wrote. The boy could scarcely eat: he seemed to Itard to be wishing he were back in his old life, “an independent life, happy and regretted.”
After that, Dr. Itard decided the country was too much of a temptation for Victor. Instead, he would be allowed to go only to formal gardens like the Luxembourg. There, the flowers were planted in squares, the trees grew in rows, and the fountains sat at the ends of straight paths. The gardens’ “straight and regular arrangement had nothing in common with the great landscapes of which wild nature is composed,” Dr. Itard wrote. They were nature civilized. Nature tamed.
Once, in the summertime, Victor and Dr. Itard were invited to dinner at the grand country house of an elegant, beautiful, very fashionable lady named Jeanne Françoise Julie Adélaïde Récamier. Madame Récamier, who was known for her glittering parties, thought that meeting the famous wild boy would amuse her other dinner guests. She’d invited a general, an ambassador, a number of French aristocrats, an English lord and his lady, two duchesses, and the future king of Sweden and Norway.
Dr. Itard and Victor arrived in a carriage. Victor hopped out.
Inside Madame Récamier’s château, the summer light shone through windows hung with silk draperies. Room after room was decorated with dark mahogany furniture, bronze candleholders, and marble statues. Madame Récamier’s couch, built in the style of the lost city of Pompeii, sat beneath a “garland of flowers, escaping from the beaks of two gilt-bronze swans.” Such couches were all the rage that year.
When they reached
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