Chapter 12 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks why the teller tells against himself. He says plainly that he used “to steal a part of their store”, and he says it in the same paragraph as the turn. Just after the two younger ones set food before the old man and keep none, “This trait of kindness moved me sensibly”, and he stops. Nothing in his story needed the theft; he could have begun with the berries and the firewood. The student decides what the stealing does in his telling. The chapter finds the family’s poverty but not its cause, and the card should not guess at it.

One reading

To show the turn. Without the stealing there is no change to tell. He sets the old habit right beside the sight that ended it, so his listener sees a creature who learns from what he watches. The stealing is the “before” that makes the “after” count.

• This trait of kindness moved me sensibly.
• when I found that in doing this I inflicted pain on the cottagers, I abstained

Another reading

Because he will not spare himself. He uses the plain word “steal”, says the food went to his “own consumption”, and names what it cost people who were already hungry. Elsewhere in the chapter he does not flatter himself either; he is “an imperfect and solitary being”. An honest account has to hold the worst of it.

• I had been accustomed, during the night, to steal a part of their store for my own consumption
• They often, I believe, suffered the pangs of hunger very poignantly
• an imperfect and solitary being

Listen for

• Notices the order in the paragraph: their kindness moves him first, and only then does he find that his stealing hurt them.
• Notices the plain word “steal”, where a softer one was open to him.
• May connect it to the plea for the ass, where he also owns a fault before he asks for better treatment.
• Leaves the verdict on what he is for the last question.

If stuck

• What did he do at night before he found their poverty?
• What do the two younger ones do at meals?
• Who is he telling this to, and what could he have left out?

A strong answer A strong response gives the stealing a job in his story and points to the page. One reader says it shows the turn: he sets the habit beside the sight that ended it, so the change can be seen. Another says he will not spare himself: he uses the word “steal” and names the hunger it fed on. The best answers notice that the same move, owning a fault before asking for better, comes back in his plea for the ass.

What it asks It asks the student to weigh a kindness that hides itself. At night he takes Felix’s tools, brings home “firing sufficient for the consumption of several days”, clears their path of snow, and is back in the hovel before they wake. He resolved at the chapter’s start to stay hidden, and the family never sees the giver. The student names what secrecy gives him. What the cottagers say about the giver belongs to the last question, and the card leaves it there.

One reading

Safety. He remembers “too well” what the villagers did the night before, and he means to stay in his hovel “for the present”. Giving in the dark is the only way he can give at all. Secrecy is a wall, and the gift goes over it.

• I remembered too well the treatment I had suffered the night before from the barbarous villagers
• that for the present I would remain quietly in my hovel

Another reading

A place in their lives. Unseen, he can watch what his gifts do: Felix stays home to mend the cottage, and the family is astonished. He does Felix’s own work with Felix’s own tools. In secret he becomes part of the family’s day without asking leave.

• I observed, with pleasure, that he did not go to the forest that day
• performed those offices that I had seen done by Felix
• these labours, performed by an invisible hand, greatly astonished them

Listen for

• Notices “with pleasure”: he enjoys watching what his gift does.
• Notices that he uses Felix’s tools and does “those offices that I had seen done by Felix”.
• Weighs what the family cannot do with a giver they never see: thank him, or turn him away.
• May notice that the same secrecy lets him watch them for months while they know nothing of him.

If stuck

• What does he do at night, and with whose tools?
• What does Felix do on the first day he finds the wood?
• What happened the last time people saw him?

A strong answer A strong response names a gain and grounds it. One reader stresses safety: the villagers taught him to hide, and the dark lets him help without being seen. Another stresses belonging: he watches “with pleasure” as Felix stays home, and he does Felix’s work with Felix’s tools. The best answers also weigh what the secret costs, since a giver no one sees cannot be thanked or known.

What it asks It asks why one set of words comes easily and another does not. He learns the names of things he can see and handle, then the names the cottagers call each other. Three more words he can tell apart “without being able as yet to understand or apply them”. The student says what stands between him and those three. The chapter’s own account of his early trouble is that their words had no “apparent connection with visible objects”.

One reading

Time and study. These three point to nothing he can see, which is exactly what baffled him at first. He learned the names of things by watching what they were said over. Words for feelings and judgments take longer, and he is still learning “by degrees”.

• the words they uttered, not having any apparent connection with visible objects, I was unable to discover any clue
• I distinguished several other words without being able as yet to understand or apply them

Another reading

Someone to say them to. “Dearest” is a word one person gives another. He has learned that words work on “the minds and countenances of the hearers”, and each of these three needs a hearer. A hidden watcher can study “dearest” but has no one to call by it, and no one calls him by it.

• the words they spoke sometimes produced pleasure or pain, smiles or sadness, in the minds and countenances of the hearers
• The youth and his companion had each of them several names, but the old man had only one

Listen for

• Notices that his first words name things he eats, burns or carries, and that the next are names people call each other.
• Notices that Felix and Agatha each have “several names” and the old man one, “father”, while no one in the cottage has yet spoken to him at all.
• Hears why he calls speech “a godlike science”: it changes the faces of those who hear it.
• May notice that “unhappy” is the one word of the three he has already seen in their faces.

If stuck

• Which words does he learn first, and what do they name?
• What does he notice words do to the people who hear them?
• Who in the cottage could say “dearest”, and to whom?

A strong answer A strong response names what is missing and shows it from the page. One reader says it is study: these words point to nothing he can see, and that is what “baffled” him from the start. Another says it is a hearer, since “dearest” only works when someone says it to someone. The best answers notice that the cottagers call one another by name, and no one has yet spoken to the watcher.

What it asks It asks the student to reconstruct the picture the reflection broke. In the sentence before the pool, the teller says “the contrast perpetually presented to my eyes” had made him acquainted with “the deformity of my figure”. Yet the pool terrifies him, and at first he cannot believe the face is his. The student decides what he had pictured. The question stops before what he calls himself; that word belongs to the last question.

One reading

One of them. All winter his eyes have been on “the perfect forms of my cottagers”, and he has lived alongside them, doing Felix’s work and feeling their moods as his own. Without a mirror, he had borrowed their faces. The pool hands him back his own.

• I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers—their grace, beauty, and delicate complexions
• when they were unhappy, I felt depressed; when they rejoiced, I sympathised in their joys.

Another reading

Nothing so plain. He knew he was not formed like them; the contrast had told him that much. But knowing it by comparison is not meeting it. The pool turns a fact he had reasoned out into a face, and belief comes in two steps, first “unable to believe”, then “fully convinced”.

• for with this also the contrast perpetually presented to my eyes had made me acquainted
• At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror
• and when I became fully convinced

Listen for

• Notices “unable to believe” and then “fully convinced”: belief takes time to arrive.
• Notices that the pool sentence opens with the cottagers’ beauty, so he meets his face with theirs in mind.
• Notices that his first move, “I started back”, is a recoil from himself.
• Holds back from turning the pool into a lesson that looks do not matter; the pool shows how much they matter to him.

If stuck

• Whose faces has he looked at all winter?
• What does he do the moment he sees the reflection?
• What did he already know about his figure before the pool?

A strong answer A strong response names the picture the pool broke and shows where it came from. One reader says he expected something like the cottagers, whose “perfect forms” are the faces he has studied all winter. Another says he knew he was unlike them but had only reasoned it out, and the pool made it a face he had to look at. The best answers notice that he steps back from himself, the very thing he imagines the cottagers will do when they are “disgusted”.

What it asks It asks the student to judge his plan from inside the chapter. In his own picture of the meeting, the first look goes against him, and words have to undo it. He has watched words change the faces of those who hear them, and he means to be “master of their language” before he shows himself, so that they will “overlook the deformity of my figure”. The chapter does not show the meeting, so the plan is judged on what he has seen so far. The student builds a thesis, tests it against the strongest objection, and revises. No answer may rest on what happens later.

One reading

Sound, as far as he can see. In this cottage, voices do outweigh faces. Felix has the saddest face, but his voice is “more cheerful” when he speaks to his father. The old man’s cheerful talk leaves Agatha brighter even when her eyes have filled. And the old man, as the creature noticed early, is blind.

• But if his countenance was more sorrowful, his voice was more cheerful than that of his sister, especially when he addressed the old man.
• her countenance and tone were more cheerful after having listened to the exhortations of her father
• The old man, whom I soon perceived to be blind

Another reading

Doubtful, by his own evidence. He could not get past his own face: at the pool he “started back”. His voice is “very unlike the soft music of their tones”, and he still cannot follow a conversation. His own fable gives the ass “affectionate” intentions and still has it beaten.

• At first I started back
• not sufficiently to follow up any kind of conversation
• deserved better treatment than blows and execration

Listen for

• Notices that disgust is part of his plan: in his own picture, words come after the first look, not instead of it, and they have to be good enough to undo it.
• Finds the places in the cottage where a voice and a face say different things.
• Weighs the ass and the lap-dog: does the fable support the plan or warn against it?
• Keeps to the chapter; the meeting has not happened.

If stuck

• What does he hope his words will do?
• Where in the cottage does a voice say something different from a face?
• What did he do when he saw his own face?

A strong answer A strong thesis judges the plan on the evidence he has. A student might argue it is sound: in this cottage words lift faces, Felix’s voice outruns his sorrow, and the old man is blind. The strongest objection is the creature’s own evidence: he “started back” from his reflection, he calls his speech organs “harsh”, and he still cannot follow a conversation. A good revision might say the plan is the best a hidden watcher could make, and that it stakes everything on words undoing a first look he already expects to lose.

What it asks It asks the student to read the spring with both voices in hand. The creature living through the winter hopes. The creature telling it to Victor knows how things went, and twice he breaks in: after the pool (“Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable deformity”) and in the middle of his plans (“foolish wretch!”). Yet he lets the last paragraph run its full length with no word from the present. The student builds a thesis about what the asides do to the ending, tests it, and revises. The chapter does not say what the “fatal effects” are, and the card does not either.

One reading

As a hope already lost. The teller has twice told the reader he knows better, so the spring arrives with a shadow on it. “The past was blotted from my memory” is true of the creature then and false of the teller now, who is remembering it aloud. Even “gilded” is a surface word: gold laid thin over something else.

• I thought (foolish wretch!) that it might be in my power to restore happiness to these deserving people.
• Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable deformity.
• the past was blotted from my memory

Another reading

As a hope that was real. The teller calls himself foolish for one belief, that he could “restore happiness” to the family, not for hoping to be loved. At the end he does not break in at all; he gives the spring “Happy, happy earth!” at full strength. A teller who knows the end and still lets the hope stand may want his listener to feel what there was to lose.

• Happy, happy earth!
• My spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature
• the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipations of joy.

Listen for

• Tells the two voices apart: the creature then, and the teller now, speaking to Victor.
• Notices exactly which belief “foolish wretch!” is attached to.
• Notices that the last paragraph has no aside, and asks why.
• Leaves the “fatal effects” unnamed; the chapter does not show them.

If stuck

• Who is telling this story, and to whom?
• What is he hoping for when the teller calls him a “foolish wretch”?
• Does the teller break in anywhere in the last paragraph?

A strong answer A strong thesis says what the asides do to the last sentence and tests it. A student might argue that the hope reads as already lost: “Alas!” and “foolish wretch!” have taught the reader to distrust the spring, and the telling itself undoes “blotted from my memory”. The strongest objection is that the teller stays silent at the end and lets the hope speak, and that “foolish” is pinned to one belief, not to hope itself. A good revision might hold both: the reader hears the hope as real and as threatened at once, which may be how the teller hears it too.

What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. Finding their wood cut and their path cleared by “an invisible hand”, the family say “good spirit, wonderful”, words he hears but does not yet understand. At the pool he becomes “fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am”, and the teller keeps that present tense. One name comes from what he does unseen; the other from what he sees. The student builds a thesis, tests it against the strongest other reading, and revises. The chapter does not settle it, and the card does not either.

One reading

“Good spirit” is truer. It is the only name in the chapter given for what he does: he stops stealing when he sees their hunger, goes without, cuts their wood, clears their snow, and feels their sorrows as his own. The cottagers judge by deeds because deeds are all they have of him. “Monster” judges a face, and it is his own verdict, reached in a moment of shock.

• I abstained and satisfied myself with berries, nuts, and roots
• I cleared their path from the snow and performed those offices that I had seen done by Felix
• when they were unhappy, I felt depressed

Another reading

“Monster” is harder to dismiss. “Good spirit” is a guess about someone they have never seen, and it fits only because he hides. He stole before he gave, he watches them for months without their knowing, and he plans to “win their favour and afterwards their love.” The teller, who knows far more than the cottagers, still says “the monster that I am”, and the present tense is his choice.

• I had been accustomed, during the night, to steal a part of their store for my own consumption
• when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am
• I should first win their favour and afterwards their love.

Listen for

• Notices who gives each name, and what each namer can and cannot know.
• Notices that he hears “good spirit” without understanding it (“good” is one of the words he cannot yet apply), while he learns “monster” from a face.
• Weighs the present tense in “the monster that I am”.
• Does not decide it by what happens later; the chapter ends before any meeting.

If stuck

• What does the family know of him, and what do they call it?
• What does he see in the pool, and what does he call it?
• Which name is about what he does, and which is about how he looks?

A strong answer A strong thesis chooses a name and holds it against the other. A student might argue for “good spirit”: every deed in the chapter is a gift, and the name comes from the people who received them. The strongest objection is that the cottagers name a giver they have never seen, while the teller, who knows himself and what came after, still says “the monster that I am”. A good revision might ask whether either name reaches the whole of him: one answers his hiding, the other his face, and the chapter does not say which of the two the cottagers will meet first.