Chapter V (13)

Anna is also very fond of all the younger deaf and dumb children. She takes them on her knees, carries them in her arms, pets and punishes them, and adopts a general and motherly air of kindness and protection toward them. One of them the other day happened to be in an exceedingly troublesome and tormenting mood. Anna could not keep her quiet, or prevent her teasing; and at last, rather than lose her temper, and strike her, as she would formerly have done, she left her usual place, and went to sit at the opposite side of the room. In fact, she never now attempts to attack any of her companions, though she does not fail in some way or other to pay back any provocation she has received. She takes nothing belonging to others, but attaches herself strongly to her own possessions, and is particularly indignant if they attempt to meddle with her objects for instruction. One of the blind children happened to take a sheet of her writing in points, in order to try and read it; but Anna was no {335} sooner aware of the theft than she angrily reclaimed it. The next day the same child begged as a favor that she would lend her a sheet, in order to practise her reading; but Anna curtly refused, observing, that yesterday she had taken it without leave, and that to-day she certainly should not have it, even for the asking. Anna's chief pet and charge among the little children is a child, blind, and maimed of one arm, called Eugenie. When this little thing was coming first to the establishment Anna was told of it, and the expected day named for her arrival. She immediately set to work and made all sorts of arrangements in her own mind for the reception of the new child. The mistress would, of course, teach it to read; but it would have a seat beside Anna, and with the companion whom she already had, there would be three to walk and amuse themselves together. It so happened that Eugenie did not arrive on the expected day. Anna was quite downcast in consequence; and when at last it did appear, it instantly became the object of all her tenderest petting and endearment. She led it to its seat, tried to make it understand all that it would have to do and learn, and at last, when she touched its little arm, and found that it was maimed, and incapable of being used, she burst into tears, and was for a long time inconsolable. I tried to find out the cause of her grief, and in what she considered the greatness of the child's misfortune to consist, and she immediately directed my attention to the fact that the child would never be able to learn to knit. The power of occupation had been such an inestimable boon to herself, that she naturally felt any inability on that score to be the most intolerable misfortune that could befall a human being. When we assured her that Eugenie would be able to knit as well and easily as she did herself, she became calm. The next day, however, she was discovered trying to knit with both hands shut, as if they had been maimed like the blind child's, and she immediately made her mistress observe that in such a state she could neither knit, blow her nose, nor dress herself, ending all by expressing the immense happiness she felt at possessing the free use of her hands. Providence has provided an antidote to every misfortune. The blind child pities the deaf-mute, the deaf-mute sighs over the blind, and the blind, deaf, and dumb girl feels her heart filled with inexpressible compassion for one deprived of the free use of her hands. Anna kept her word, and took great care of the little Eugenie. She placed herself indeed somewhat in the position of a mother to the child, watched over its conduct, examined its work, and went so far as occasionally to administer a slight correction.

If the weather was cold, she never went to bed herself without feeling that Eugenie was well covered up, and giving her her blessing; a good deed she always took care to make known to me in the morning. When first the little thing came it was rather refractory and disinclined to submit to rules, and the mistress acquainted Anna with the fact. "Does not she like to knit?" asked Anna. "It is not with that," answered the mistress, "but with her reading lesson, that she will not take pains." Anna immediately went over to the child, to try and persuade her to fulfil her duty. She took her hand, laid it on the book, remained for at least a quarter of an hour persuading and encouraging her; and then, perceiving that she had begun to be really attentive, bade her get up and ask pardon of her mistress for her past disobedience.

Another day she examined the child's knitting, and finding it badly done, shook her head gravely, in sign of disapprobation. She then took Eugenie's hand, made her feel with her own fingers the long loose stitches she had made; and making her kneel down in the middle of the room, pinned the work to her back, with threats of even more serious punishment in the future. Just then the {336} mistress joined the class, and found Eugenie in tears, and on her knees, with her work pinned behind her. "Eugenie," she asked, "what are you doing there, and why do you cry?" "The deaf and dumb girl has punished me because my knitting was badly done," said the child; "and she says, when M. Carton comes in, he will throw a glass of water in my face." In order to prevent this terrible assault, the mistress advised her to ask pardon of Anna, which she immediately did; but the latter felt it due to the dignity of the situation to allow herself to be entreated a long time before she consented to grant it.

But though Anna considered it a part of her duty to punish Eugenie for her idleness, she was always otherwise very gentle to the child. In giving her a lesson, her mistress, with a view of testing her knowledge of the verb in question, once bade her "strike Eugenie." Anna behaved very prettily on this occasion. Before she would perform the act required, she took the blind child's hand and laid it on the letters, in order to show her that if she struck her, it was not because she was angry with her, but simply because that phrase had been given to her as an exercise in language. On another occasion one of the blind children disturbed the arrangement of her words in their separate cases, and one or two of them were lost. Anna wept bitterly; and not content with doing everything in her own power to discover the author of the mischief, she asked her mistress to assist in her researches. The guilty one was found out at last, and, in the heat of the moment, Anna demanded that she should be punished; but yielding afterward to the natural goodness of her heart, she went herself and interceded for the little criminal. "She is blind, like myself," she said, by way of excuse; and then embraced her with great cordiality in token of forgiveness. From that time, however, she became suspicious, and scarcely dared to leave her place for fear of a similar misfortune. Some one, seeing this, advised her to keep her letters in her pocket. "Very pleasant indeed!" she answered, bursting into a fit of laughter; "and a nice way, certainly, of preventing confusion! No; I will ask M. Carton to give me a lock and key for my box, and then no one can touch them without my knowing it." This was accordingly done; and the key once safe in her pocket, Anna could leave her property in perfect security that it would not be injured or stolen in her absence.

Anna likes dainty food, and is very fond of fruit. I suspected, however, when first she came, that she had not an idea of the way in which it was procured. She had been so shut up in her old home, that nature was still an unexplored page to her; and blind, deaf, and dumb as she was, it was only through the fingers that even now this poor child could ever be taught to read and comprehend it. It is not difficult, therefore, to imagine her astonishment and joy at each new discovery of this kind which she makes. One day I led her to an apricot tree, and made her feel and examine it all over. She dislikes trees extremely, probably because in her solitary excursions she must have often hurt herself against them. She obeyed me, however, though very languidly and unwillingly at first; but I never saw such astonishment on any face before as I did on hers, when, after a short delay, I took her hand and laid it on an apricot. She clasped her hands delightedly together, then made me touch the fruit, as if she expected that I also would be astonished; and then recommenced her examination of the tree, returning over and over again, with an expression of intense joy over all her person, to the fruit she had so unexpectedly discovered. I permitted her at last to pull the fruit and eat it, and she kissed my hand most affectionately, in token of gratitude for the immense favor I had conferred upon her. After classtime she returned alone to the garden; {337} and as I foresaw that the discovery of the morning would not be sterile, but that, once put on the track, she would continue her explorations on her own account, I watched her closely. So, in fact, it happened.

She was no sooner in the garden than she began carefully to examine all the plants and trees around her, and it was amusing beyond anything to watch her making her way cautiously among the cabbages, touching the leaves and stems, and trying with great care and prudence to discover if this plant also produced apricots. I suffered her to continue this exercise for a little time in vain; then coming to the rescue, after making her comprehend that cabbages, though good in themselves to be eaten, did not bear apricots, I led her to various kinds of fruit-trees growing in the garden. I did not name any of them to her then, for I knew that in time she would learn to distinguish one from the other, and she had still so much to discover of nature and her ways, that I did not like to delay her by dwelling on distinctions which were, comparatively speaking, of little consequence to her in that early stage of her education. This little course of botany we continued throughout the year. She was taught to observe the fall of the leaf, encouraged to examine the tree when entirely bereft of foliage, and when the spring-buds began to swell she was once more brought to touch them, and made to understand that they were about to burst again into leaf and flowers. The moment the leaves were visible she inquired of one of her companions if the tree was going to bear fruit likewise; and received for answer that it would certainly do so whenever the weather should become sufficiently warm. Satisfied with this information, she waited some time with patience; but a few very warm days chancing to occur in the month of May, she reminded her companion of what she had been told, and inquired eagerly if the fruit was at last come.

In this way, during all that summer, she found constant amusement in watching the progress of the different fruit-trees, and I found her one day examining a pear with great attention. She had not met with one before, so it was quite a discovery to her, and she begged me to let her have it in order that she might show it to her mistress and learn its name. With all her love of fruit, however, I must record it to the honor of this poor child that she never attempted to touch it without permission; and that having been guided once to a tree by one of her deaf-mute companions, and incited to gather the fruit, she made a very intelligible sign that it must not be done without an order from me. On another occasion I gave her a bunch of currants and told her to eat them, but the moment she touched them she discovered that they were not ripe, and made signs to me that she "must wait for a few days longer, and that then they would be good to eat."

Her delicacy of touch is in fact surprising. I have often effaced her letters, and flattened them with my nail until it seemed impossible to discover even a trace of them, and yet with her finger she has never failed in following out the form. She often also finds pins and small pieces of money, and picks them up when walking. She is very proud on these occasions, and takes good care to inform any one who comes near her of the fact. She is very active now, and always ready to go and look for any thing or person that she wants; and if she does not succeed in finding them, she engages one of her companions to aid her in the search. She seemed indeed always to suspect that we knew better than she did what was passing around us; though it was probably some time before she asked herself what the nature of her own deficiency might be. A day came, however, upon which she obtained some clearer knowledge on the subject; and this was the way it happened.

She had dropped one of her knitting-needles, and after a vain attempt to {338} find it for herself, she was obliged to have recourse to her mistress, who immediately picked it up and gave it back to her. Anna appeared to reflect earnestly for a moment, and then drawing the sister toward her writing-table, she wrote: "Theresa," naming one of the pupils of the institution--"Theresa is deaf; Lucy is deaf; Jane is blind; I am blind and deaf; you are--;" and then she presented her tablets to the sister, in order that the latter might explain to her the nature of that other faculty which she possessed, and which enabled her to find so easily anything that was lost.

This was a problem which had evidently occupied her for a long time; and with her head bent forward and fingers ready to seize the slightest gesture, Anna waited eagerly for the answer by which she hoped the mystery would be solved to her at last. In a second or two the embarrassment of the mistress was nearly equal to the eagerness of the pupil; but after a minute's hesitation she, with great tact, resolved to repeat the action which had caused Anna's question. Making the blind-mute walk down the room with her, she desired her once more to drop her needle and then to pick it up again, after which she wrote upon the board, "The needle falls; you touch the needle with your hand; you pick it up with your fingers." Anna read these words with an air which seemed to say, "I know all that already; but there must be something more;" and so there was.

Her mistress made her once more drop her needle; and then, just as Anna was stooping to pick it up, she dragged her, in spite of the poor girl's resistance, so far from it that she could not touch it either with her hands or feet. "It is ever so far away," Anna said, in her mute language; and stooping down to the floor, she stretched out her hand as far as ever it would go in a vain attempt to reach it. The sister waited until she was a little pacified, and then wrote: "The needle falls." Anna answered: "Yes." "The needle is far off," the sister wrote again; and Anna replied: "Alas, it is." "Sister N. cannot touch the needle with her hand." "Nor I either," Anna wrote in answer. "Sister N. can touch the needle with her eyes." Then followed a mimic scene, in which the thing expressed by words was put into action. Anna understood at last; but, evidently in order to make certain that she did, she desired the sister to guide her hand once more to the fallen needle. Her mistress complied with her request, and Anna was convinced. The experiment was repeated over and over again. Anna threw her needle into various places, and then asked the sister if she could touch it without stooping. "Yes," replied her mistress; "I touch the needle with my eyes." "Can you pick it up with your eyes?" asked Anna. The sister made her feel that her eyes were not fingers; and then once more picking up the needle she gave it to Anna, to be satisfied that she at last understood the nature of the faculty which her instructress possessed and which was wanting in herself.

From that time she invariably made a distinction between the blind children and those who were merely deaf-mutes. She had always hitherto been ready enough to avenge herself on any of her companions who struck her, whether accidentally or on purpose. Now if she found it was a blind child who had done so, she would of her own accord excuse her, saying, "She is blind; she cannot touch me with her eyes when I am at a distance from her." In the same manner, if she lost anything, she would ask the first deaf-mute whom she met to help her to look for it, while she never attempted to seek a similar service from any of the children whom she knew to be blind. She showed her knowledge of the difference between the two classes most distinctly upon one occasion, when her knitting having got irretrievably out of order, she communicated her perplexity to the {339} blind child at her side. The latter wanted to take it from her in order to arrange it; but Anna drew it back, and, touching first the eyes of the child and then her own, as if she would have said, "You also are blind, and can do no better than myself," she waited quietly until she could give it to the mistress to disentangle for her.

Anna delights in telling her companions all her adventures, though she takes care never to mention her faults or their punishment. She will acknowledge the former if taxed with them, but she does not like to be reminded either of the one or of the other. "I have done my penance," she says: "it is past; you must not speak of it any more." With this exception she tells all that she has done or intends to do; and she is enchanted beyond measure when she can inform them that she has succeeded in playing a trick on her mistress. She will tell the story with infinite glee, and always contrives exceedingly well to put the thing in its most ridiculous light before them.

She was fond of milk, and observed, or was told, one day that a cup of milk had been given to a child who was sick. The next morning, while in chapel, she burst into tears. Her mistress led her from the class, and asked what was the matter. She coughed, showed her tongue, held out her hand, that the mistress might feel her pulse; in fact she was as ill as she could be, and excessively thirsty. A cup of milk was brought; and the medicine was so good, that five minutes afterward she managed to eat her breakfast with an excellent appetite. During the recreation that followed, she took care to explain to her companions the means by which she had procured herself the milk. A few days afterward she recommenced the comedy, and played it so well, that, thinking she really was ill, her mistress desired her to go to bed. This was more than she wished for; but she went upstairs, trusting, no doubt, that something would happen to extricate her from the dilemma. Her mistress went to see her; and finding her sitting on the side of the bed, asked why she did not get into it, as she had been desired. "Madame," said Anna, "it is very cold, but I should get warm if you would give me a cup of milk; that would cure me in no time; and a little bread and butter with it would also do me good." The sister then perceived how the case really stood, and answered promptly, "If you will get into bed you shall have the milk, but not the bread and butter. If, on the contrary, you prefer to go downstairs, you shall have the bread and butter, but not the milk. Which do you choose?" "Both," quoth Anna. But as both were not to be had, she was obliged to content herself with the amusement of telling her intended trick to her companions, which she did with many regrets that it had not been successful.

But though Anna likes to tell all these little schemes and adventures to any one who will listen to her; and though, if taxed with them by her mistress, she is quite ready to acknowledge them with a laugh, it is far otherwise when the action itself contains anything seriously contrary to honesty or justice. In that case she takes good care to be silent on the subject; and if silence is impossible, she endeavors, in all manner of ways, to explain it away or excuse it.

One day she entered the schoolroom before any of the other pupils, and finding that a piece of wire, belonging to the pedal of the piano, was loose, she broke it quite off, put it into her pocket, and returned triumphantly to her place. Her mistress, happening to be in the room at the moment, saw the whole affair, and placed herself in her way, in order that Anna might know she had been observed. She then asked her what she had put in her pocket, and Anna instantly replied that it was her beads. Her mistress gave her to understand that she was trying to deceive her, and made her touch, as a {340} proof, the other end of the wire which she had broken. She was evidently confused, and became as red as fire, but with marvellous adroitness managed to let the wire slip out of her pocket to the ground. She had, of course, no idea that it would make a noise in falling; and fancying that she had concealed the theft, continued positively to deny it. In order still better to prove her innocence, she then knelt down and began feeling all over the floor, until she had found the wire which she had dropped, and holding it up in triumph, said, by signs, "I will ask M. Carton to give it to me that I may make it into a cross for my beads."

In this way she is always being ingenious in finding excuses for her faults. Her mistress once complained of her knitting, and she immediately held up her needles, which were bent, as if she would have said, "How is it possible to knit with such needles as these?" Another day, feeling more idle than usual, and wishing to remain in bed, she made them count her pulse, and begged by signs that they would send immediately for M. Verte, the physician of the house. We knew well it was only a trick to stay a little longer in bed, and she was the first to acknowledge it as soon as she had risen.

I like to watch her when she fancies herself alone, as I then often find in her most trivial actions a something interesting or suggestive for her future improvement. I discovered her once alone in the class-room and busily engaged in examining every corner of the desks. All at once she went toward the black table on which the deaf-mutes write their exercises, and taking a piece of chalk, began to trace lines upon it at random. I was curious to know what discovery she was trying to make, and in a few minutes I perceived it. As soon as she had traced her lines, she passed her hands over them to see if she could read them. She was aware that her companions read upon this board; and as she knew of no other method of reading than by letters in relief, she naturally supposed that the lines she had traced would be sufficiently raised to enable her to do so. For a few minutes she continued thus trying to follow with her finger the chalk-lines she had made; but finding considerable difficulty in doing so, she at last returned to her book, compared the letters in it with the lines on the board, and evidently pronounced a verdict in favor of the former. I could see, in fact, that she was quite delighted with its apparent superiority, and she never attempted to write on the black-board again.

She often makes signs that seem to indicate an inexplicable knowledge of things of which it is impossible she can naturally have any real perception. She was born blind; she can look at the sun without blinking, and the pupil of the eye is as opaque as the skin. Nevertheless her mistress happening to ask her one night why she had left off her work, she answered that it was too dark to work any longer, and that she must wait for a light. [Footnote 76] In chapel, also, she has evidently impressions which she does not receive elsewhere. She likes to go there; often asks to be permitted to do so, and while in it always remains in an attitude and with an expression of face which would indicate a profound consciousness of the presence of God. One of her companions once told her that I was ill. Anna perceived that the child was crying: "I will not cry," she said immediately, "but I will pray;" and she actually did go down on her knees, and remained in that position for nearly a quarter of an hour. She told me this herself, and I was enchanted; for who can doubt that God held himself honored by the supplicating attitude of his poor mutilated creature? And yet what passes in the mind of this child during the moments which she spends in the attitude of prayer? What is her idea of {341} God? What is the language of her heart when she thus places herself in solemn adoration in his presence? What is, in fact, her prayer? I know not; it is a mystery yet a mystery--which I trust she will some day find words to explain to me herself. One thing alone is certain;--there is _that_ in her heart and mind which has not been placed there by man, and which tells her there is a Father and a God for her in heaven.

[Footnote 76: She possibly may have learned the expression from some
of the deaf-mutes not blind.--TR.]