Translations:Victor of Aveyron/35/en

But to admit, with still more reason, the existence of this cause, we must prove that it has operated a number of years: And to reply to the objection which may be made, and which has indeed been already started, that the pretended Savage was only a poor silly child, whom his parents, in disgust, had lately abandoned altogether at the entrance of the woods — if those who maintained this opinion had observed him within a short time after his arrival at Paris, they would have noticed that all his habits bore the stamp of a wandering and solitary life; an unconquerable aversion from society and its customs, from our clothes, our furniture, our apartments, and modes of preparing our food; a complete indifference towards the objects of our pleasures, and our factitious wants; — an impassioned taste for the liberty of the fields; so much alive to his past situation, despite his new wants, and his growing affections, that during a short stay which he made at Montmorenci, he would have infallibly escaped into the forest but for the most severe precautions; and twice he did get from the hospital of the deaf and dumb, notwithstanding the watchfulness of his attendant; — an extraordinary swiftness; slow, indeed, as long as he wore shoes and stockings, but always remarkable for the difficulty with which he conformed to our grave and measured mode of walking, and for the perpetual propensity that he showed to set off on a trot or gallop; — an obstinate habit of smelling at everything* which came in bis way, even bodies which to us appeared inodorous; mastication, not less astonishing, uniformly executed by the hasty action of the cutting teeth, sufficiently indicating, by its analogy with some other animals that our savage lived chiefly on vegetable productions; I say chiefly because it appears, by the following trait, that, under certain circumstances, lie would have made a prey of small animals deprived of life: A dead canary-bird was one day given him, and instantly he stripped off its feathers, great and small, tore it open with his nails, smelt it, and threw it away.