Kaspar was taught to write
by the gaoler's little boy, though he could write when he came--in the
same hand as the author of his mysterious letter. Though he had but
half a dozen words on May 26, according to Feuerbach, by July 7 he had
furnished Binder with his history--pretty quick work! Later in 1828 he
was able to write that history himself. In 1829 he completed a work of
autobiography.
Kaspar wrote that till the age of sixteen he was kept in 'a prison,'
'perhaps six or seven feet long, four broad, and five high.' There
were two small windows, with closed black wooden shutters. He lay on
straw, lived on bread and water, and played with toy horses, and blue
and red ribbons. That he could see colours in total darkness is a
proof of his inconsistent fables, or of his 'hyperaesthesia'--abnormal
acuteness of the senses. 'The man' who kept him was not less
hyperaesthetic, for he taught Kaspar to write in the dark. He never
heard any noise, but avers that, in prison, he was alarmed by the town
clock striking, on the first morning, though Feuerbach says that he
did not hear the bells for several days.
Such is Kaspar's written account (1829); the published account of July
1828, derived from 'the expressions of a half-dumb animal' (as
Feuerbach puts it), is much more prolix and minute in detail.
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