It was J.-J. Virey, the scientist who had written a report about Victor years earlier when he first came to the Institute for Deaf-Mutes. Seventeen years had passed. Victor was twenty-nine now. The scientist was curious: Had the Savage ever learned to talk? And the answer, of course, was no. Maybe, as J.-J. Virey sat in their little house, Victor looked at him with fear. For how was Victor (or even Madame Guérin) to know the scientist hadn’t come to take Victor away to be studied? After all, it had happened before. Twice. Maybe Victor and Madame Guérin were both relieved when, after a short visit, the scientist left. In any case, all that J.-J. Virey thought worth noting down about Victor now was this: “Today he understands several things, without saying words. . . . He remains fearful, half wild, incapable of learning to speak, despite all the efforts that were made.” Dr. Itard once wrote that people looked at the wild boy without really seeing him, passed judgment on him without knowing him, and that after that, they “spoke no more about him.”
