As a mature youth who slept away his childhood and youth, too old to be considered still a child, too childishly ignorant to be considered a youth; with no companions his own age, a citizen of no country, with no parents or relatives, the only creature of his species: Every moment reminds Kaspar of his loneliness amid the bustle of a world that overwhelms him; of his powerlessness, weakness, and helplessness against the power of the circumstances that rule his fate, especially his personal dependence on people’s goodwill or the lack of it. This is the origin of his accomplished ability to observe people, a measure forced upon him for self-defense, as it were, his vigilant perspicacity with which he quickly takes in their peculiarities and weakness; his intelligence, which his enemies have called slyness or shrewdness, which helps him to come to terms with those who have the power to hurt or help him, to avoid attacks, to please, to skillfully further his wishes, and to take advantage of the goodwill of his friends and well-wishers. Childish pranks, vandalism, practical jokes, are as foreign to him as meanness and falseness: For the former he is too serious, and has too much cool common sense; for the latter he is too goodwilled and has an almost pedantic sense of what is permissible.
Without doubt, one of the biggest mistakes in the education and formation of this person was that, instead of giving him a general humane education appropriate to his idiosyncrasies, he was sent for the last few years to a classical high school. Even worse, he had to start in a higher grade.68 This poor neglected youth, who only recently got his first glimpse of the world, and still has to catch up with what our children learned at their mother’s breast and in the laps of their nurses, suddenly had to break his head over Latin grammar, Latin exercises, with Cornelius Nepos and finally even Caesar’s The Gallic Wars. Squeezed in Latin thumbscrews, his mind suffered a kind of second imprisonment. Now the dusty walls of the classroom are keeping him from nature and from life, just as the walls of his dungeon did so earlier. Instead of useful things, he was given words and phrases whose meaning and relevance he could not understand, and so his childhood was once again perversely prolonged.
While his time and his in any case limited strength were wasted on shallow school nonsense, he was continually starved of the most simple basic knowledge of things that could feed and delight his soul, that could somewhat compensate his injured nature for his lost youth, and which could prove useful as a basis for some future profession. “I really don’t know,” he said more than once, in despair and half angry, “what am I supposed to do with all this Latin stuff, since I cannot become a priest and don’t want to become a priest.” When a pedant once replied to this by saying that learning the Latin language is essential for learning the German language, and that to learn German properly, one has to have learnt Latin thoroughly, his healthy common sense retorted: “Did the Romans have to learn German in order to speak and write Latin thoroughly?” One can judge how well Latin suited Kaspar and vice versa, by the fact that this bearded student of elementary Latin, when he was living with me in the Spring of 1831, had still not understood the fact that objects seen at a distance appear smaller than they actually are. He was puzzled by the fact that the trees on the side of a quiet avenue we were walking along, are smaller and shorter, and the road in the distance gets more and more narrow, so that when-we reach the end it will be too narrow to walk through at all. He had not yet seen anything like this while he was in Nuremberg. He was as astonished as if he had seen a magic trick, when he at last found as he walked down the avenue with me, that each of these trees was equally high, and the path equally wide everywhere.
He had a depressing feeling of his own ignorance, helplessness, and dependency, the conviction that he would never be in a position to recall his lost youth, to catch up with boys his own age and become a useful member of society; with his youth taken away, not only was he robbed of the most beautiful part of a person’s life, but also the whole rest of his life-was stunted and crippled. Finally, added to all this, was the terrifying thought that the atrophied rest of his allotted days was threatened at every moment by an invisible murderous ax and a hidden bandit’s knife. Such is the heavy content of the dark clouds that shadow his forehead, which when external circumstances cause them to thicken, frequently pour down in tears and melancholy lamentations.
At the time he was staying with me, I often took him on my walks. One bright sunny morning I took him to one of the so-called mountains from which there was a beautiful clear view of the lovely tiny city at its feet, and of the sweet little valley surrounded by hills. Kaspar, at first delighted with this view, soon became quiet and sad. In response to my question as to the cause of his changed mood, he answered:
I was just thinking about how there is so much beauty in the world, and how hard it is for me, to have lived as long as I have, and not seen any of it. How fortunate are the children who were able to see all this from their first years, and can still see it. I am already so old, and I still have to learn what children have already known for so long. I wish I had never come out of my cage. Whoever put me in should have left me there. For then I would have known nothing of all this beauty, and would not have missed it, and would not have been miserable over the fact that I was never really a child, and have come into the world so late.
I tried to provide him solace when I told him that, with respect to the beauty of nature, he really had no cause to complain, compared to our children and to those people who have been in this world since their childhood. Most people who have grown up amid these wonders look upon them with indifference, as something ordinary, everyday, and carry this apathy with them through their whole life. In general they feel for the wonders of nature nothing more than does the beast in the pasture. But for him (Kaspar), who stepped, as an adolescent, into a world that was to him brand-new, these pleasures retained all their freshness and purity. This provides him with a not-inconsiderable replacement for the loss of his early years, whereby he gains a significant advantage over other people. He didn’t say anything to me in reply, and seemed, if not convinced, at least to some extent comforted. Nonetheless he will never at any time be completely reconciled to his fate. He is a small, tender tree, whose foliage has been removed and whose deepest root has been eaten by a worm.
In such moods, when he felt that way about his situation, it was religion, the belief in God and religious faith in His providence, that had to find access to his soul so in need of comfort. He is now, in the real sense of the word, a pious person. He speaks with devotion of God and happily occupies himself reading sensible, edifying spiritual tracts. On the other hand, he certainly would not swear by any of the symbolic books, and even less would he feel comfortable in a pious society of Hengstenberg69 & Co.70 Removed early on from the superstitious tales of a wet-nurse, buried as a child; as a mature adolescent resurrected to a new life, he brought with him into the world of light a soul devoid of categories, but also one without prejudices, free of any superstition. He for whom at first it was so difficult to become aware of his own spirit is even less capable and inclined to imagine ghostly spirits. He ridicules the belief in ghosts as the most incomprehensible of all human stupidities and fears nothing except the invisible, the secret, the uncanny, whose murderous weapon he has already felt. If he were to be given assurance that he would be safe from this man, he would go at any hour of the night to a cemetery and sleep on the graves without any fear.
His way of life is almost entirely like that of other ordinary people. He enjoys every kind of food except pork, but of course, without hot spices. His favorite spices are still caraway, fennel, and coriander. His drink still consists of water. Only in the morning does he drink a cup of healthful hot chocolate. All alcoholic drinks, beer, wine, as well as tea and coffee, continue to repel him, and should somebody try to force a drop on him, it would certainly make him sick.
The extraordinary, almost supernatural development of his senses has also at present completely diminished, and is almost reduced to the common level. True, he still sees in the
dark, so that there is no real night for him, only twilight, but he is no longer capable as he once was of reading in the dark or of being able to recognize the smallest objects at a great distance. Where he used to see in darkest night far better and sharper than by day, now it is the reverse. Just like other people, he can now bear the sunlight and even loves it, for it no longer, as it once did, injures his eyes. Of the great power of his memory and other astonishing qualities not a trace is to be found. There is no longer anything extraordinary about him, except for his extraordinary fate and his indescribable gentleness and loveableness.
—End.—
Notes to von Feuerbach’s Kaspar Hauser
1 [Translator’s note: La vida es sueño (Life Is a Dream) is the title of one of the great plays of Spanish literature, by Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-81). The main character is Sigismund, a prince who is locked up in a tower. No doubt this is Feuerbach’s way of hinting to his readers that he considers Kaspar Hauser to be a prince.]
2 [Translator’s note: Philip Henry, fifth earl of Stanhope 1805-75). At the time that Feuerbach dedicated his book to him, he knew him only as the wealthy English lord who was paying the city for the upkeep of Kaspar Hauser and who offered to adopt him and take him to his palace in England. Feuerbach did not live to see Stanhope turn into the greatest enemy of Kaspar Hauser.]
3 [Translator’s note: Georg Leonhard Weickmann, fifty-three at the time, a shoemaker. His deposition is published by Pies in Die Wahrheit über Kaspar Hausers Auftauchen und erste Nürnberger Zeit.]
4 [Translator’s note: Friedrich von Wessenig, fifty-two, captain of the Cheveauxlégerregiment, commander of the Fourth Squadron. He seems not to have liked Kaspar Hauser, and was responsible for a cruel joke, telling Kaspar that he had a letter from his mother. His deposition can be found in Pies, Augenzeugenberichte und Selbstzeugnisse (Eyewitness accounts and personal statements), 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Robert Lutz Verlag, 1925), reprint edited by Johannes Mayer (Stuttgart: Urachhaus, 1985).]
5 I feel entitled to be brief in giving the above account. This is because the documents that give the exact circumstances under which Kaspar was taken by the citizen I mentioned from the Unschlitt Square to the Guard and from there to the house of Captain von W. are both incomplete and unsatisfactory as well as being open to critical and historical doubts with respect to the alleged circumstances. For example: the citizen in question claims that while he was walking along with K. he tried to start up a conversation and asked him several questions. Finally he noticed that K. knew nothing about anything and had no conception of what he was talking about and therefore no longer spoke to him [emphasis in original]. This is how K. appeared then, and also the same evening at Captain von W’s and later at the Guard Station, as well as during the next few days and weeks. Nevertheless, this same citizen maintains that K., when asked the question: “Where are you from?” answered: “From Regensburg.” Moreover, he claims that K. told him when they got to the New Gate: “This must just have been built, since it is called the New Gate,” and so on. I do not doubt that the witness believed that he heard this and similar things from K. Nor do I doubt that K. did not say them. Everything that follows provides the irrefutable proof. What probably happened is that Kaspar had a stock phrase for everything: “Rider want to be like my father was.” The man who was guiding him took him for a simpleton and didn’t pay all that much attention to his answers, so he believed he was able to make out the words he quoted him as saying. In general, however, the police files that accumulated over this affair were compiled in such a manner, contain so many contradictions, treat so much so lightly, and are so completely anachronistic in some of their most important details, that as a historical source they can only be used with the greatest of caution.
6 [Translator’s note: Johann Mathias Merk.]
7 [Translator’s note: Kaspar Hauser, in his autobiography, a fragment of which was published by Daumer in 1832, says about this: “I saw the captain’s uniform and his saber, and was amazed and delighted by it, and wanted to have one for myself. I said: “I would like to be such a rider as my father was.” By this I meant to say that I should be given such a shining beautiful thing.” (Text reproduced in Pies, Augenzeugenberichte und Selbstzeugnisse, p. 430).]
8 These phrases, namely, “Want to be rider,” etc., held no particular meaning for him, as we found out later. They were nothing but sounds he had memorized just parrot fashion, with which he gave general expression to all his ideas, feelings, and desires.
9 [Translator’s note: How Kaspar Hauser received this name is not clear. Undoubtedly it was given to him by his jailer, but why, and what significance it has, is not known. Stéphanie de Beauharnais intended to name her first son Gaspard. Kaspar’s jailer claims that both the shirt Kaspar wore and the handkerchief he carried had the initial K sewn in them. When, at the beginning of a deposition of October 28, 1829 (reproduced in Pies, Augenzeugenberichte, p. 474) Kaspar was asked his name, he replied: “As far as I know, my name is Kaspar Hauser.”]
10 [Translator’s note: Kaspar was to remain in the tower for eight weeks. His jailer there was Andreas Hiltel, fifty-one years old, who took an enormous liking to his prisoner. Hiltel’s eleven-year-old son, Julius, and his three-year-old daughter were to become Kaspar’s constant companions during that time. Hiltel had eight children and said that had it not been for that, he would have liked to adopt Kaspar. He further said that Kaspar was so terrified the first few days he was in the tower that he even asked him whether his two-year-old child would hurt him. In 1830 Hiltel told Daumer that even if God himself were to say that Kaspar Hauser was a fraud, he would have to contradict him. He knew, and there could never be any doubt for him, that this child was completely innocent. He said that nobody who saw Kaspar Hauser in those first few days could possibly believe otherwise. See his comments, quoted in Hermann Pies, Kaspar Hauser: Eine Dokumentation, p. 20.]
11 All of this, including the boots, were thoughtlessly thrown out right away, allegedly because they were in such bad condition! This is how objects were treated that could have been of the greatest importance in terms of evidence!
12 [Translator’s note: the following letter is written in poor German with many spelling and grammatical mistakes. Not all of it is entirely intelligible. I have tried to reproduce the errors in English so that the reader has some idea what the letter actually looked like to a native speaker.]
13 [Translator’s note: The original reads: “so müssen Sie im abschlagen oder in Raufang auf henggen.” The meaning is unclear.]
14 The following personal description does not come from the police files, since it cannot be found there, but from my own observations and from written comments made by other trustworthy people.
15 [Translator’s note: This is not certain. The first person to examine Kaspar Hauser, the physician Dr. Preu, wrote, in an article published in Archiv für bomöopathische Heilkunst, in 1832: “Doch ist er geimpft, wie man am rechten Arm deutlich sieht.” (But he is vaccinated, as one can clearly see on his right arm.) But Daumer, on p. 170 of the manuscript I found, writes: “Geimpft ist Hauser nicht. Gleich anfangs behaupteten dies 2 Aerzte (Atedizinalrat v. Hoven und Dr. Osterhausen). Auch Dr. Preu nimmt jetzt seine Behauptung zurück.” (Hauser is not vaccinated. Right from the beginning two physicians, von Hoven and Dr. Osterhausen, claimed this. Dr. Preu also now retracts his claim.)]
16 The author of this book expressed at the time the desire to see Kaspar’s face painted by a skilled portraitist, because it would almost certainly soon change. The wish was to remain unfulfilled, but my suspicion [that the face would change] soon proved true.
17 [Translator’s note: Johann Karl Osterhausen. His observations on Kaspar Hauser are reprinted in Mayer and Tradowsky, Kaspar Hauser, pp. 38-41.]
18 It is an unfortunate circumstance that in the whole city of Nuremberg there was not a single person who displayed sufficient scientific interest to want to undertake physiological examinations of Kaspar Hauser. Even just
a chemical analysis of the urine, saliva, and other bodily discharges of this young man who had been raised exclusively on bread and water would have yielded considerable scientific material of some consequence. This scientific material in turn would have proved of judicial significance: It would have confirmed to the point of graphic certainty the fact that Kaspar until now really had been raised on bread and water. But when the judicial system finally, after many fruitless efforts on its part, was in a position to take up matters connected to Kaspar Hauser, the opportunity to undertake such examinations was long gone.
19 Apparently, though I cannot vouch for it, somebody is supposed to have shot at him with a rifle, to test him, as a joke.
20 [Translator’s note: Joseph Blaimer, thirty-three at the time, who accompanied Kaspar Hauser on his walks through the city. He was deposed several times, and his remarks can be found in Pies, Die Wahrheit über Kaspar Hausers Auftauchen und erste Nürnberger Zeit.]
21 His arms and legs remained extremely weak. Only in September 1828, when he had begun to eat meat, did his strength progress, through repeated exercise, to the point where he could just about lift a weight of about thirty pounds slightly off the ground with both hands.
22 Not long after that, however, the feeling of shame was awakened in him; and he became as bashful as the most chaste and delicate girl. Taking his clothes off now is for him something horrible. When the wild Brazilian girl, Isabella, whom Mrs. Spix and Maritus brought back with them to Munich, had lived for some time among civilized people and worn clothes, she could only be forced with enormous efforts, by threats and beatings, to take her clothes off in front of a person who was to draw her.
The Wild Child Page 16