Wild Boy by Mary Losure Read Free Book Online Page A

acted as though they didn’t understand!
    Victor’s arms were flailing, almost as though he were having a seizure, when Dr. Itard finally gave him the water. “It would have been inhuman to insist further,” Itard wrote later.
    The next day when Victor sat down to breakfast and held out his cup for milk, Dr. Itard said,
“Lait!”
(pronounced “lay,” which in French means “milk”).
Lait
. He looked at Victor.
“Lait!”
he said again.
    Victor was silent.
    It happened the next day, too. Victor held out his cup for milk, and Dr. Itard just looked at him.
“Lait!”
said Dr. Itard, but Victor didn’t respond.
    On the fourth day, Victor held out his cup for milk. As it poured into his cup, he said something very softly, almost under his breath.
    “Lait,”
he said. Then he repeated it.
“Lait.”
    Dr. Itard was pleased, but he wasn’t satisfied.
    Victor hadn’t said the word
before
he’d gotten the milk. He’d still asked for milk in his old way, by holding out his cup, but Dr. Itard wanted Victor to ask for milk, with a word, not a gesture.
    Now every time Victor wanted milk and held out his cup, Dr. Itard would stall, hoping Victor would ask for it in words.
    But Victor had his
own
way of asking — by holding out his cup.
    Only when, “despairing of success,” Dr. Itard had given Victor his milk would he say anything.
    “Lait,”
Victor would say happily, as the milk poured into his cup.
“Lait!”
    Victor had no way of knowing it, of course, but after that, Dr. Itard devised another plan: if Victor wouldn’t
say
words to ask for things, maybe he could learn to ask with
written
words. Itard hoped to teach him bit by bit, in little, tiny steps.
    So one day when Dr. Itard came to Victor’s room, he brought a blackboard and chalk. First he drew outlines on it: a key, scissors, and a hammer. Then he set a real key, scissors, and hammer on the blackboard, each object on top of its outline. Next, he picked up all the objects and took them to another room.
    Back at the blackboard, he pointed to an outline to show what he wanted, then motioned to Victor to bring that thing. One by one, Victor had to go to the other room and fetch whatever Itard wanted. After a while, to save himself the trouble of trotting back and forth, Victor just brought everything at once, but Dr. Itard didn’t like that.
    So Dr. Itard tried keeping all the objects in the same room as the chalkboard. All Victor had to do was pick each one up and place it on its correct outline. It wasn’t hard, and Victor was successful at matching objects to outlines.
    After a while, Dr. Itard brought many more objects and drew their outlines on the board. Victor looked at each one, searched for its outline on the blackboard, then placed it where it belonged.
    So then Dr. Itard made the exercises harder. He brought in a variety of cardboard shapes in a variety of colors, for Victor to match up in pairs. To match them, Victor had to tell the difference not just between a circle and a square but also between a square and a slightly flattened square, and not just between red and blue but also between sky blue and gray blue, and so on. Each day, the shapes became more complicated and difficult. If Victor made a mistake or was uncertain, Dr. Itard made him do the task over and over and over.
    One day, Victor threw all the cardboard pieces on the floor and stomped off toward his bed.
    Dr. Itard made him pick up the shapes and match them.
    The next day, there were more shapes; the day after that, more. . . .
    Sometimes Victor ran to his bed and bit the sheets and blanket. He attacked the fireplace, scattering ashes and red-hot coals and tossing aside the iron frames that held the logs.
    One day he got so angry, it seemed as though he were having a seizure.
    But every day, there were more cards, and more shapes.
    Then one day when Victor went into a fit of anger, Dr. Itard remembered something that had happened some time earlier, when Victor and Madame Guérin