He could
say "Yes" and "No," as she thought intelligently, but he could not utter
a coherent sentence nor write a word, except like a child in imitation
of his copy. She taught him to repeat after her the names of the
inanimate objects in the room, then the names of the doctor, his
attendant, the servant, and, finally, her own under her Christian
prenomen, with frontier familiarity; but when she pointed to himself he
waited for HER to name him! In vain she tried him with all the masculine
names she knew; his was not one of them, or he would not or could not
speak it. For at times she rejected the professional dictum of the
doctor that the faculty of memory was wholly paralyzed or held in
abeyance, even to the half-automatic recollection of his letters, yet
she inconsistently began to teach him the alphabet with the same method,
and--in her sublime unconsciousness of his manhood--with the
same discipline as if he were a very child. When he had recovered
sufficiently to leave his room, she would lead him to the porch before
her window, and make him contented and happy by allowing him to watch
her at work at her desk, occasionally answering his wondering eyes with
a word, or stirring his faculties with a question.
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