The Wild Child

by Jeffrey Masson

  But not everybody wants to come from a different family. Those who do do so for good reasons: They have been hurt. All this means, then, is that one wishes one had not been hurt. “Dysfunctional families” merely translates the insight Tolstoy had long ago: Happy families are all alike, only the unhappy ones are interesting. They are interesting because they teach us about what happened to us that we have “repressed.” We only repress what is intolerable. It was Freud’s later belief that small children imagined, wished for, desired, and fantasized sexual assaults, and that these fantasies, when remembered in adolescence, caused a neurosis (since one could not acknowledge the desire behind the fantasy). It is not a very logical idea, and one that runs counter to ordinary experience. We do not wish for horrible things to happen to us. We do, however, often try to make those that did happen disappear, and one way to do this is to imagine that they never happened in the first place, to deny them any reality. Contrary to Freudian doctrine, then, I believe that it is not fantasies that make us ill, but memories that cannot or will not be remembered. Sometimes these memories cannot be remembered because they cover deep wounds that still hurt every time they are touched: The mind balks at any attempt to get close to them. On the other hand, I believe Freud was right when he claimed that ghosts can only be laid to rest when they are brought to the light of day. Until we can acknowledge and think about what has happened to us in the past, we cannot deprive the memory of whatever hurting power it still has over us. Every buried memory, then, contains, embedded in it, a longing for derepression—that is a wish or a need to remember, a kind of built-in self-healing device. We need to make ourselves whole by possessing our own memories. It is this desire to know what has happened to us, to remember it, and to think about it with ever decreasing pain that lies, I think, at the heart of the European obsession with le pauvre Gaspard. To think about the suffering of Kaspar Hauser and the mysteriousness of it is to think about our own past suffering in an attempt to undo that mystery, recover our past, and emerge scathed but whole.

  But Kaspar Hauser was not just any hurt child. He was kept in a dungeon for twelve years, from the age of four to sixteen, the most important years of one’s life. What, one cannot help but wonder, would have happened to me in such a situation? And who, exactly, is the me, the self, that then emerges? This case raises many issues of how we can discover the past. Suppose a good historian, or even a good psychologist (something of an oxymoron in my view), were to have had access to Kaspar Hauser and wanted to help him recapture his own past—what could he or she have done? Well, the first thing would be to shelter Kaspar Hauser from contamination from the outside. We would want his memories, not those others think he should have had. This is the complaint that Feuerbach lodged against Binder’s proclamation—that suggestion could easily have been at the heart of Kaspar Hauser’s memories. We could, as Daumer did, ask him to write down everything he could remember. But the difference is obvious: Writing was not his medium. He did it with great difficulty. Neither was speaking; this too was hard for him.

  Nobody ever asked Kaspar Hauser how long he thought, afterward, he was kept in the dungeon. (It would not be accurate, but it would be interesting.) Did he have any sense of time? (For example, did he have a bowel movement once or twice a day?) The times when he was emotional, as when he said that the man with whom he had always been had not done anything to harm him, would have been the times to ask him exactly what the man did do to him. In contrast, when he was most frightened—for example, when he said that he saw a man lurking in the bushes and that frightened him—would have been the time to ask what he was frightened of. We know that Kaspar Hauser read the book by Feuerbach (but not if he read the book by Daumer).148 However, we know nothing of his reaction. Did he read the “proclamation” by Mayor Binder? To learn more about Kaspar Hauser’s earlier life is to learn more about what happens to memories under the influence of traumas.

  Kaspar Hauser, too, asked himself in the passage from Daumer quoted above what he thought about in his prison, what he imagined, what he knew of a world outside. But he gave no answer. Or at least he could find none. He believed that he remembered no such thoughts. But he seemed uneasy with this notion, and so are we. There were thoughts, of course, and either they were repressed or forgotten. But given the poverty of his environment, the question must at least be asked whether this impoverishment had more than a psychological and a cognitive effect. Could it also have had a physiological effect, which in turn would have further impoverished his thinking? That the brain can be physically (as well as psychologically) hurt by trauma is clear.

  Nonetheless, I think Kaspar Hauser was telling Daumer the truth here, and it was one of those moments when he told a deep truth—a truth that one does not expect to hear from the mouth of a sixteen-year-old. It was obvious that he suffered greatly. Where was that suffering? What happened to it? Where was it put? In his inability to learn like a normal person? In his melancholia, which struck everybody? In his compassion for all small creatures?

  What happens to the memories of a person who suffers greatly? Are they obliterated? Distorted? Does it become dangerous to remember, either because one has been ordered not to (or knows without an order that one must not), as Feuerbach hints in his letter to Elise von der Recke, or because to remember is to relive the pain? Or is it even possible that the person recognizes that the memories will not be believed—that people will turn their backs on such suffering by denying their accuracy or in some other way minimizing their significance? For so many years society has refused to acknowledge the depth of human suffering caused by child abuse. Any memory that points to the authenticity of such experiences is bound to be received with the same cold rejection. Ultimately it is too dangerous for society to acknowledge the world it has created for children. Far easier to claim that the memories are specious, that their bearer is mentally ill, that such events cannot have taken place because otherwise the world we live in would be an intolerable place of injustice, crime, and suffering.

  Conclusion

  Why do we know so much more about Kaspar Hauser than about other children of his time? Is it only because it was suspected that he was the legitimate heir to the throne of Baden? Why, actually, would that have such a deep effect on people? Though at the time it had serious dynastic consequences, it is interesting but not more. And it was much more interesting closer to its own time than it is to us today. Yet Kaspar Hauser still holds the modern reader in thrall. Hardly a year goes by without a new book appearing about him. True, fashions change, and whereas his story was once the touchstone for thinking about “nature” versus “nurture,” a few years ago it was more likely to be a means of testing the limits of language, as in Peter Handke’s 1967 play Kaspar Hauser,149 and today it is a crucial document in the debate over memory and reconstruction. What has not yet been noticed is the extent to which the abuse to which Kaspar Hauser was subjected, while practically unique, is not really so foreign to our own experiences. Therein, I believe, lies the key to the endless fascination.

  Kaspar Hauser may or may not have been the prince of Baden, but it is worth noting that the world today knows more about, and is more interested in, Kaspar Hauser than in any prince of Baden who ever lived. Something about his perplexity in the face of the world touches a chord deep in everyone: Kaspar Hauser, c’est moi!

  TRANSLATION Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach’s

  Kaspar Hauser

  Life Is a Dream1 * Heaven, I beseech you,

  What crime did I commit by being born

  That you treat me in this abominable fashion?

  —Sigismund, in Calderon’s

  Ansbach, 1832

  To his Lordship, Count Stanhope,2 Earl of Great Britain, etc.

  Your Lordship: Nobody has greater claims on this book than you do. Providence has sent you to the young boy with no childhood and no youth, to be his paternal friend and all-powerful protector. On the other side of the ocean, in beautiful Old England you have prepared a safe have
n for him, until such time as the rising sun of truth will drive away the darkness which lies over the mysterious fate of this human being. Perhaps, in what remains of his half-murdered life, some days await him in which he will no longer lament having seen the light of this world. For such a deed, only the genius [?] of mankind can reward you.

  In the vast desert of our time, where the blazing sun of selfish passion parches and turns dry our hearts, to have finally found a true human being is one of the most beautiful and unforgettable experiences I have had in the evening of my life.

  With love and deepest respect, from your Lordship’s most devoted servant: von Feuerbach.

  Chapter I

  The second day of Pentecost belongs, in Nuremberg, to those major holidays on which the inhabitants find diversion in the countryside or in neighboring villages. Nuremberg was very spread out, given how few people lived there at the time. On this beautiful spring day it was so quiet and empty that it seemed more like an enchanted city in the Sahara than the busy trading and commercial center it is. Especially in the more outlying areas of the city, many a secret thing could easily happen in public yet remain secret.

  And so it happened that on the second day of Pentecost, May 26, 1828, between four and five o’clock in the evening, the following occurred:

  A resident3 of what people call Unschlitt Square (close to the infrequently visited small Haller Gate) was lingering in front of his house, about to go to the so-called New Gate, when, looking around, he noticed not far away a young boy dressed like a peasant, standing in a most remarkable posture, who, like a drunkard, was trying to move forward without really being able to stand straight or control his feet. The resident approached the stranger, who held a letter out to him. The letter was addressed as follows: “To the well born captain of the Fourth Squadron of the Sixth Regiment of Light Horses in Nuremberg.”

  Since the captain in question4 lived near the New Gate, the resident took the young boy, a stranger, with him to the guard and from there to the nearby house of Captain W., the commanding officer of the Fourth Squadron of the abovementioned regiment.5 Keeping his hat on his head, and holding his letter in his hand, the boy approached the servant6 of Captain von W. as the door of the house opened and said: “I want to be such a one as my father was.” The servant asked him what he wanted, who he was, where he came from. But the stranger did not seem to understand any of the questions and only continued to repeat the words: “I want to be such a one as my father was.” Or: “Dunno!” According to the deposition of the captain’s servant, the boy was so exhausted that he did not so much walk as “staggered.” Weeping, and expressing severe pain, he pointed to his feet, which were beginning to give way on him. He seemed to be suffering both from hunger and thirst. He was given a small piece of meat, but no sooner did the first bite touch his mouth than he began to shake and his facial muscles went into violent spasms. He spat it out with obvious disgust. He displayed the same signs of revulsion when he was given a glass of beer and tasted a few drops. He devoured a piece of dark bread and drank a glass of fresh water eagerly and with the most apparent relish. In the meantime, every effort to find out something about him and how he made his way there was in vain. He seemed to hear without understanding, to see without taking anything in, to move his legs without being able to walk. His language consisted primarily of tears, groans of pain, unintelligible sounds, or the frequently recurring words: “I want to be a rider the way my father was.” In the captain’s house he was at once taken for a wild man, and led to the stable until the master returned. There he promptly stretched himself out on the straw and fell into a deep sleep.

  He had been sleeping for several hours when the captain returned home and went to the stable immediately to see the wild man, of whom his children had, on greeting him, told him so many strange things. He remained in the deepest sleep. They tried to awaken him. They jiggled him, they shook him, they poked him, but all in vain. They picked him up off the floor and tried to get him to stand on his feet, but he continued to sleep as if he were dead. The only thing that distinguished him from somebody truly dead was the fact that he was still warm. Finally, after many exertions, which had their effect on the sleeper, he opened his eyes, woke up, saw the captain in his colorful shining uniform, and seemed to admire it with childish delight. Then he moaned his usual “Rider,” etc., etc.7

  Captain von W. did not know the young stranger; neither was he able to explain why the letter was addressed to him. Finally, as no more could be gotten out of the boy by questioning him, beyond his repeating over and over “Want to be a rider,” etc., etc., or “Dunno,” there was nothing more to do but to leave the solution to the riddle and the care of the unknown stranger to the municipal police. Consequently he was taken there. Captain von W. was to say in his later court deposition: “From what I was in a position to observe of this man’s mental state, I would have to say that he appeared to have been totally neglected, or he was behaving like a small child, which contrasted with his size.”

  The trip to the police station was made around eight o’clock in the evening; in his condition the walk was sheer torture. Apart from some low-level officials, several members of the military police were present in the police station. The strange youth also struck all of them as a very odd apparition. They could not decide in which of the usual judicial categories to place him. Official policelike questions were directed to him: What is your name? What is your social class and occupation? Where are you from? Why are you here? Where is your passport? These and similar questions had absolutely no effect on him. “Want to be a rider like my father was,” or “Dunno,” or something he would often repeat with tears in his voice: “Take me home!” These were the only words with which he would respond to all and sundry inducements.8 He did not seem to know or even grasp where he was. He betrayed neither fear nor puzzlement nor embarrassment, but rather an almost animallike apathy. He either took no notice of his surroundings or stared without thought, allowing everything to pass by without being affected. His tears, his whimpers while pointing to his wobbly feet, his helplessness, his childlike and childish personality soon won the compassion of all of those present. A soldier brought him a piece of meat and a glass of beer, but just as he had in W’s house, he pushed them away with revulsion and ate only bread and drank fresh water. Another soldier gave him a coin. He displayed a small child’s joy over it, and played with it and made hand gestures, saying over and over, “Horse! Horse!” which seemed to indicate that he wanted to hang this coin on some “horse.” His behavior, his whole being, showed him to be barely a two-or three-year-old child in the body of an adolescent. Most of the policemen there were divided only as to whether he should be considered an insane idiot or a half-wild man. There were a few, however, who thought that it was actually possible that a clever imposter was hiding in the person of this boy, an opinion that earned itself a not-inconsiderable plausibility from the following circumstance: It occurred to somebody to see if perhaps he could write. So he was given pen and ink, paper was placed in front of him, and he was told to write. He seemed to display pleasure at the idea, took the pen between his fingers in a manner that was anything but clumsy, and wrote, to the astonishment of everybody present, in firm, legible letters the name:

  Kaspar Hauser9

  He was then further asked to write down the name of the place from which he came. But he did nothing but repeat in a moaning tone his “Rider want to be,” etc. etc., his “Take me home,” and his “Dunno.”

  Since for the moment nothing else could be done with him, the rest was left to time. He was handed over to a policeman who took him to the Vestner Gate Tower, which is set aside for minor criminals, vagabonds, etc., etc.10 This is a relatively short walk—yet he collapsed, groaning at almost every step he took—if his staggering could even be called walking at all. When he got to his cell—where he had another prisoner for company—he collapsed on his straw sack and immediately fell into a deep sleep.

  * The notes to
this translation appear at the end of the section. The notes by the translator are in brackets and are preceded by the words “translator’s note.” All other notes are original notes by Feuerbach. Similarly, anything in the text within parentheses is by Feuerbach. What is in brackets has been added by the translator. All emphases are Feuerbach’s own.

  Chapter II

  Kaspar Hauser—the name he has kept to this day—arrived in Nuremberg wearing on his head a round felt hat lined with yellow silk and stitched with red leather. It was a somewhat common town hat, in which one could still make out a half-scratched-out picture of the city of Munich. You could see the toes of his bare feet sticking out from torn high-heeled half-boots that did not fit him, their soles hammered together with horseshoe nails. A black silk scarf was tied around his neck. He was wearing a gray cloth jacket that country folk call a Janker or a Shalk over both a coarse shirt11 and a linen vest with red dots that showed signs of many washings. Only later, on closer examination by experts, did it turn out that the tailor did not fashion this as an ordinary peasant jacket but rather, as the collar showed, as a tail-coat. The back part had been cut out and the top half had been stitched together clumsily by somebody who knew nothing about sewing. The somewhat more refined gray cloth pants were reinforced with the same gray cloth material between the legs, much as riding pants are; they must originally have belonged to a servant, a stable boy, a forester, or someone in that category rather than to a peasant. Kaspar was carrying with him a white-and-red-checked handkerchief with the initials K.H. embroidered in red. He was also carrying some rags in his pockets with blue and white flowers on them, a German [?] key, and a small envelope with some gold dust in it, which one would not expect to find in a peasant’s hut. He also had prayer beads made of horn, and a substantial supply of spiritual objects. Besides Catholic prayers, several were printed religious texts of the kind generally found in Southern Germany—especially at pilgrim sites—which are sold to pious crowds for a good bit of money. Some had no place of publication on them, others were from Altöttingen, Burghausen, Salzburg, and Prague. They had such edifying titles as: “Spiritual Sentry”; “Spiritual Forget-me-not”; “A Very Powerful Prayer by Means of Which One Can Participate in the Benefits of All Holy Masses”; “Prayer to the Holy Guardian Angel”; “Prayer to the Holy Blood”; and so on. One of these precious little spiritual works, entitled “The Art of Replacing Lost Time and Years Badly Spent” (n.d.), seems to allude cynically to this young man’s life as he later told it. It can hardly be doubted, to judge from the religious objects he brought with him, that more than worldly hands played a role in this matter.