I knew there was resistance from my wife, and I also knew that both the disposable space in it and our resources were very limited. I had acted, as I always do, not so much guided by principles but from a natural disposition without trying to calculate what expense that my impulse would place upon us (this always seemed to me to appear anti-evangelic). But relying on God is one thing while forcing obligations on others is another. It soon appeared to me that I had given Amélie a heavy task, so heavy that I was at first confused by it.

 

I did my best to help her with cutting the hair of the little girl which I saw that she had only done with disgust. But when it came to washing and cleaning her, I had to leave this task to my wife, and I understood that I would be avoiding the heaviest and most disagreeable kinds of care.

 

In fact, Amélie did not make the slightest protest. It seemed that she had reflected upon this during the night and had accepted her part in this new burden. She even seemed to take some pleasure in it, and I saw her smile after she had finished getting Gertrude ready. A white bonnet was covering the shaved head upon which I had applied some cream. Some of Sarah’s old clothes and some clean linen replaced the sordid rags that Amélie just threw into the fire. This name of Gertrude was chosen by Charlotte and accepted by all of us right away because we did not know the real name of this orphan or how to find out what it was. She seemed to be a little bit younger than Sarah because the clothes that Sarah had stopped wearing last year fit her reasonably well.

 

I must confess here the profound disappointment and sinking feeling I felt in those first days. Certainly I had conceived a complete novel about the education of Gertrude, but the reality of the situation forced me to cut back those aspirations. The indifferent and obtuse expression on her face, or rather her absolute blank looks, iced over my goodwill to the core. She stayed all day long next to the fire, on the defensive, and when she heard our voices, or above all when someone approached her, her features seemed to harden. They only ceased being inexpressive when she showed hostility, for if we made a small effort to attract her attention, she would start to groan and grumble like an animal. This sulking only stopped at the approach of mealtime. I served her myself, and she threw herself into what I offered her with a bestial greed that was difficult to watch. And just as love responds to love, I felt a feeling of aversion come over me in front of the obstinate refusals of this soul. Yes, really, I confess that those first 10 days dispirited me and even caused me to be disinterested in her to the point that I regretted my initial reactions and that I wished that I had never brought her here. And what stung the most was that Amélie acted a bit triumphant in front of these feelings that I could not hide from her, and she was more lavish with her care and was in better spirits, it seemed, since she felt that Gertrude had become a burden to me and that her presence among us was mortifying me.

 

I was in that state of mind when I was visited by my friend, Doctor Martins, of Val Travers, during the course of his rounds to visit sick patients. He was very interested in what I had to tell him about the condition of Gertrude, very much astonished at first that she remained in such a state of mental retardation since she was only blind. But I explained to him that her infirmity was magnified by the deafness of the old woman who up until then was the only person who had ever taken care of her, and who had never spoken to her, such that the poor child remained in a state of total abandonment. He told me that in such a case I was wrong to be dispirited, but I did not really agree with him.

 

“You want to lay the groundwork,” he told me, “before you can be assured of being on solid ground. Think that everything is chaos in this poor soul and that even the first outlines of it are not yet drawn out. To begin with, connect several touch and taste sensations together like a bundle and attach to them a sound and a word, almost like a label, that you will repeat to her again and again and then you will try to get her to repeat them herself.

 

“Above all, try not to go too fast. Work with her at regular hours and don’t work too long during each session.”

 

“You should realize that there is nothing magic about this method,” he added, after having described it to me in great detail. “I did not invent it, and others have applied it already. Don’t you remember when we were together studying philosophy in school that our professors taught us about Condillac and his statue where he employed similar tactics? Or perhaps I read about it and another case in some psychological journal. That doesn’t matter. In any case I was struck by a story, and I even remember the name of this poor child who was even worse off than Gertrude, for she was blind and a deaf-mute.