Translations:Victor of Aveyron/43/en

But he did not always manifest such lively and boisterous expressions of joy at the sight of the grand phenomena of Nature. In some cases, they appeared to induce the quiet expression of sorrow and melancholy; a remark hazarded in opposition to the opinions of metaphysicians, but which we could not avoid making, when we observed this unfortunate youth, with attention, under the operation of certain circumstances. A\ lien the severity of the season drove every other person out of the garden, he delighted in taking a great many turns about it; after which lie used to seat himself on the edge of a basin of water. I have often sloped for whole hours together, and, with unspeakable pleasure, to examine him in this situation; to observe how all his convulsive motions and that continual balancing of his whole body diminished, and gradually subsided, to give place to a more tranquil attitude; and how insensibly his face, insignificant or distorted as it might be, took the well-defined character of sorrow, or melancholy reverie, in proportion as his eyes were steadily fixed on the surface of the water, and when he threw into it, from time to time, some remains of withered leaves. When, in a moon-light night, the rays of that luminary penetrated into his room, he seldom railed to awake out of his sleep and to place himself before the window. There he remained, during a part of the night, standing motionless, his neck extended, his eyes fixed towards the country illuminated by the moon, and, carried away in a sort of contemplative ecstasy, the silence of which was interrupted only by deep-drawn inspirations, alter considerable intervals, and which were always accompanied by a feeble and plaintive sound.