This
strengthened an opinion which was then gradually gaining ground, that
Caspar was an impostor; for it was firmly believed by some that he had
inflicted this wound upon himself, as well as the one received in 1829,
in order to quicken the somewhat languishing interest taken in him. Nor
did they give up this opinion when the wound was found to be fatal. They
then boldly asserted that he had wounded himself more severely than
he had intended. And not content with simply maintaining this absurd
opinion, they taunted him with it on his death-bed, so that he was not
even allowed to die in peace. Nothing was wanting to fill his bitter
cup. How terrible must have been the mental torture to wring from
so resigned a soul the exclamation, "O God! O God! to die thus with
contumely and disgrace!" The German is still more expressive,--_"Ach,
Gott! ach, Gott! so abkratzen muessen mit Schimpf und Schande!"_
Such was the life of Caspar Hauser. For nearly seventeen years the
inmate of a dreary prison, shut out from the light, without a single
companion in his misery, drugged when it was necessary to change his
linen, with no food but bread,--for seventeen years did he thus exist,
--his mind a perfect blank.
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