Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/759

Rh The report soon spread through Nuremberg that the police had in prison a strange being, of queer appearance, who only answered, "I don't know," to every question that was asked him. The innocent became the object of a lively curiosity, and, in a short time, of tender compassion. The public came to see him, they examined him from head to foot, and tried to make him talk. Nuremberg had at the time as its head burgomaster a very respectable, good-hearted man, of a simplicity that was easily taken in. He put himself in relations with Caspar Hauser and obtained from the mute his story of some things which he had, he said, been peremptorily forbidden to reveal. From his most tender infancy he had lived shut up in a close cellar, having two little windows that let in only a very uncertain and dim light. He had lived there for long years, dragging himself on the hard ground, without ever getting a sight of the sky, the sun, or the moon, or hearing a human voice, the song of a bird, the cry of an animal, or the sound of a footstep. His ration of food was brought to him while he was asleep: when he awoke he would perceive near his straw mat a piece of bread and a mug of water. For companions in his captivity he had nothing but a few wooden playthings.

One morning he had seen his door open, and a middling-sized man, rather poorly dressed, told him that he should know his father some day, and that he was destined to be a cavalry man as he had been, but must first learn to read and write and cipher. The unknown man came back every five days afterward to teach him the alphabet. At last, one night the unknown took him on his back, carried him out of the cellar, dressed him, and taught him how to walk. They traveled together for several days and nights, and then "the black man" gave Caspar the two letters, with his final instructions, and disappeared like a dream.

The burgomaster took the pains to tell this wonderful history to all Germany, and all Germany was moved by it. But a few brave minds refused to put any faith in it. They argued that Caspar Hauser hardly looked like a young man who had been sequestered for many years in a close, dark cellar, and that he had neither the color nor the face nor the walk of such a person. He looked well, and had a good figure and the freedom of all his limbs. Was it probable, too, that such a prisoner, who had never used his legs, had performed a march of several days and nights without the soles of his feet bearing the mark of a blister or an abrasion?

The striking contradictions between his new ways of speaking and acting, and his attitude in the first days, should also be remarked. He had come to Nuremberg with too tight boots, but they did not prevent his going and coming with ease. Other, larger ones, were given him. On putting them on, he pretended to be as awkward about them as a monkey that has to wear boots for the first time; and to be not able to stand up or to walk. When he was presented to Herr von