起初乔纳思不觉得有什么特别，只感觉到老人的手轻轻地触摸他的背。
他尽量放松，保持规律的呼吸。整个房间静悄悄的，乔纳思有点担心自己会在受训的第一天就出丑,因为他快要睡着了。
就在这时，他哆嗦了一下。他知道是触摸他的那只手突然间变冷了。在这同时，他发现吸入的空气也变得很冷。他舔舔嘴唇，感觉舌头一阵冰凉。
他大吃一惊，却一点也不害怕，反而觉得全身上下充满活力，他再吸一大口气，让冰凉的空气流窜到身体各处。现在，他感觉得到寒冷的空气在周遭回绕，拂在他的手上，笼罩在他的背上。
老人的触摸似乎不见了。
现在他有了一种全新的感觉。是针扎吗？不，针扎不会这样柔软又没有痛楚。细小的、冰冷的、羽毛般的触感，落在他的身上和脸上。他再伸出舌头，捕捉一次次寒冷的接触。那种感觉很快就消失，但很快地又一个接一个从不同的地方冒出来。他不禁笑了起来。
他知道自己躺在床上，躺在安尼斯的房间里，却又觉得自己端坐在某个地方，身体下不是柔软华丽的床单，而是平坦又坚硬的地面。他的手虽然一动也不动地放在身边，却感觉到是握着一根粗糙、潮湿的绳子。
虽然眼睛闭着，他却看得见景象。他看见四周白茫茫一片，晶莹、旋转的结晶体自空中缓缓飘落，聚积在他的手背上，好像一层冰冷的软毛。
他的呼吸清晰可见。
现在他终于了解老人所说的“雪”是什么东西了。穿透层层雪花，他可以眺望到极远的地方。他现在身在高处，地上是厚厚的积雪，他因为坐在一个坚硬、平坦的物体上，才能突出雪地。
雪橇，他突然明白了，他正坐在一部雪橇上。他的脚下是蜿蜒地势的最高点，但雪橇却安稳地停在上头。最先闪现在他脑海的是“土堆”这个词，但是新的知觉告诉他这叫“山丘”。
然后，雪橇载着他穿越纷纷飘落的雪花，往前滑行。乔纳思立刻明白自己正在下坡。没有任何说明，完全是他亲身体验出来的。
当雪橇开始急速下降、冰冷的空气拂过他的脸庞时，他穿越的物质叫做雪，他脚下的工具叫做雪橇，而推动雪橇前进的就是滑板。他终于完全了解了。他整个人沉浸在喜悦中：速度、清新的冷空气、完全的静谧，还有平衡、兴奋、祥和的感受。
下降的速度慢慢趋缓，在接近土堆——不对，应是山丘——的底端时，雪橇前进的速度变慢了，上面也堆满了雪花。他用身体推动雪橇前进，不想这么快结束这段刺激的旅程。
但是积雪挡住去路，雪橇上的薄滑板再也前进不了了，他停了下来。他坐了一会儿，冰冷的手握着绳子，喘着气。
他试探性地张开眼睛——不是坐雪橇时的眼睛——看见自己躺在床上，动也没动过。
老人依然坐在床边打量他：“怎么样？”他问。
乔纳思坐起身子，试着说出真实的感受，好一会儿才回答：“不可异议。”
老人用袖口抹去额头的汗水，“哎，”他说，“真累啊。不过，希望你明白，即使只传送你这样小的经历，我也觉得负担减轻了。”
“您的意思是……我可以问问题吗？”
老人点点头，鼓励他发问。
“您的意思是您现在已经没有那段记忆了——那段坐雪橇的经历——再也没有了？”
“没错，所以我这副臭皮囊稍微变轻些了。”
“但是那段经历很有趣啊！现在您完全没有了，被我拿走了！”
老人笑了笑：“我只是给你一趟在某个山丘上、某次下雪的时候、驾一辆雪橇的旅程记忆。在我的记忆库里，有全世界各地的滑雪经历。我可以一个一个地传送给你，即使传送上千次，我还会剩下一大堆。”
“您是说，我——我是指我们——还可以再来一次？”
乔纳思问，“我非常乐意。我想我应该会拉绳子操控雪橇。这次我没试，因为这次的经历对我来说太新奇了。”
老人边笑边摇头：“也许改天再来玩吧！时间所剩不多了，不能只顾着玩。我只是想让你了解如何转移记忆。”
“现在，”他换了副严肃的表情，“再躺下来，我想要……”
乔纳思照做，他渴望再获得一点新的感受。但就在这当儿，脑海里突然涌现出许多疑问。
“为什么现在没有雪、雪橇和山丘了呢？”他问，“以前有吗？我爸妈年轻的时候玩过雪橇吗？您呢？”
老人耸耸肩，勉强一笑：“没有，”他告诉乔纳思，“那是非常古老的记忆，这也是我这么费劲的原因——我必须回到好几代以前把这段记忆拉回来。在我刚晋升为记忆传承人时，前一任的记忆传承人也是回到古代才把这段记忆拉回来传送给我。”
“为什么雪和其他东西通通不见了呢？”
“因为气候受到控制的缘故。雪会妨碍农作物生长，限制耕作时间。它那飘忽不定、难以预测的动向还会影响交通，非常不实用，所以在建立同化社区的时候，就被废除了。”
“山丘也是一样，”他补充说，“搬运物品的时候，爬山越岭非常不便，还会减慢卡车、公共汽车的速度，所以他一挥手，好像这样就可以让山丘消失：“也被同化了。”他下个结论。
乔纳思惋惜地说：“真希望那些东西一直都在。”
老人微微一笑：“我也这么想，”他说，“但是我们无法选择。”
“但是，先生，”乔纳思建议，“既然您拥有那么大的权力……”
老人纠正他：“是荣耀，”他坚定地说，“我获得很大的荣耀。未来你也一样。但是你会发现那跟权力是两码事。
现在安静地趴下来。既然谈到气候，我就再给你一些这方面的经历。为了测试你的接收程度，这一次，我不事先说明，看你能不能自己领悟这个名词。刚才我已经事先告诉了你雪、雪橇、下坡和滑板。”
用不着指示，乔纳思主动闭上眼睛。他再度感觉到背上那双手。他等着。
感觉来得好快。这一次那双手不再发冷，而是释放出略带潮湿的暖意。暖和的感觉慢慢扩散，先横越肩膀，往上到达脖子，再漫延到脸庞。即使是穿着衣服的部位，也可以领略到那愉快、满布全身的温暖。他舔舔嘴唇，感觉到空气又热又潮。
他没有移动，这里没有雪橇，所以他的姿势维持不变。他独自一个人，躺在户外的地上，暖意来自遥远的上方。虽然不像上次驾雪橇那般刺激，但是感觉非常愉快、舒服。
突然，他领悟到用来形容这种感觉的字眼：阳光。他还察觉到是来自天空。
就在这时，感觉消失了。
“阳光！”他大喊，一边张开眼睛。
“很好，你确实领受到这个字眼了。这样我的工作就轻松多了，不必多做解释。”
“而且它来自天上。”
“没错，”老人说：“以前就是这样。”
“在同化之前，在气候控制之前。”乔纳思补充。
老人笑了起来：“你的接收力很强，学得又快。真高兴跟你一起工作。我想今天就到这里为止，我们有个很好的开始。”
乔纳思却有些困惑：“先生，”他说，“首席长老告诉我——她也告诉了每一个人——而您也跟我提过，受训的过程非常痛苦：所以我被吓到了。但是它一点也不痛啊，我还觉得很享受呢。”他带着调皮的神情看着老人。
老人叹了一口气：“我特意选择愉快的经历开始。上一次的失败教训让我获得智能，知道应该这么做比较好。”他深深地吸了几口气，“乔纳思，训练的确很痛苦，但现在还不是时候。”
“我很勇敢，真的很勇敢。”乔纳思坐得更加挺直。
老人定定地望了他好一会儿，微笑着说：“我看得出来。
好吧，既然你问了这个问题——我想我也还有体力再做一次传送。”
“再躺下来，这是今天最后一次了。”
乔纳思很开心地服从指示。他闭上眼睛，等着，再度感觉到那双手。接着，他又感觉到那股暖意，感觉到阳光从天空泼洒而下。这一次，他躺在舒适无比的暖意下，慢慢地感觉到时光的流逝。他知道真实的自己只不过是过了一、两分钟，但是他那正在接收记忆的另一部分，却已经在太阳底下待了好几个小时。他的皮肤开始觉得刺痛，他忍耐不住，挪动了一下手臂，才稍微弯曲，手肘内侧立刻传来一阵灼痛。
“哎呦！”他大叫一声，在床上换个姿势。“哎呦呦！喔喔……”他缩起身子，就连张嘴说话脸部都疼痛不堪。
他知道有适当的字可以形容这种感觉，但是他被痛苦淹没了，说不出来。
突然，痛苦结束了。他张开眼睛，不舒服地蜷缩着身子。
“好痛。”他告诉老人，“我掌握不到那个词。”
“这就是晒伤。”老人告诉他。
“好痛！”乔纳思说，“但是我很高兴您把它转移给我。
真的很有趣。现在我比较有概念了，知道为什么它会带来痛苦。”
老人没有回答，沉默地坐了一秒钟才说：“起来吧，你该回家了。”
他们两人一起走到房间中央。乔纳思穿上衣服。“再见了，先生。”他说，“谢谢您给我上了第一课。”
老人点点头，看起来很疲惫，还有一点感伤。
“先生？”乔纳思怯生生的说。
“什么事？你还有问题吗？”
“我还不知道您的大名呢。我本来认为您是记忆传承人,但是您又说我现在才是记忆传承人。所以我不知道该怎么称呼您。”
老人坐回椅子，动了动肩膀，好像要藉此消除身体的疲惫。他似乎筋疲力尽了。
“就叫我传授人好了。”
Chapter 12
"You slept soundly, Jonas?" his mother asked at the morning meal. "No dreams?"
Jonas simply smiled and nodded, not ready to lie, not willing to tell the truth. "I slept very soundly," he said.
"I wish this one would," his father said, leaning down from his chair to touch Gabriel's waving fist. The basket was on the floor beside him; in its corner, beside Gabriel's head, the stuffed hippo sat staring with its blank eyes.
"So do I," Mother said, rolling her eyes. "He's so fretful at night."
Jonas had not heard the new child during the night because as always, he had slept soundly. But it was not true that he had no dreams.
Again and again, as he slept, he had slid down that snow-covered hill. Always, in the dream, it seemed as if there were a destination: a something — he could not grasp what — that lay beyond the place where the thickness of snow brought the sled to a stop.
He was left, upon awakening, with the feeling that he wanted, even somehow needed, to reach the something that waited in the distance. The feeling that it was good. That it was welcoming. That it was significant.
But he did not know how to get there.
He tried to shed the leftover dream, gathering his schoolwork and preparing for the day.
School seemed a little different today. The classes were the same: language and communications; commerce and industry; science and technology; civil procedures and government. But during the breaks for recreation periods and the midday meal, the other new Twelves were abuzz with descriptions of their first day of training. All of them talked at once, interrupting each other, hastily making the required apology for interrupting, then forgetting again in the excitement of describing the new experiences.
Jonas listened. He was very aware of his own admonition not to discuss his training. But it would have been impossible, anyway. There was no way to describe to his friends what he had experienced there in the Annex room. How could you describe a sled without describing a hill and snow; and how could you describe a hill and snow to someone who had never felt height or wind or that feathery, magical cold?
Even trained for years as they all had been in precision of language, what words could you use which would give another the experience of sunshine?
So it was easy for Jonas to be still and to listen.
After school hours he rode again beside Fiona to the House of the Old.
"I looked for you yesterday," she told him, "so we could ride home together. Your bike was still there, and I waited for a little while. But it was getting late, so I went on home."
"I apologize for making you wait," Jonas said.
"I accept your apology," she replied automatically.
"I stayed a little longer than I expected," Jonas explained.
She pedaled forward silently, and he knew that she expected him to tell her why. She expected him to describe his first day of training. But to ask would have fallen into the category of rudeness.
"You've been doing so many volunteer hours with the Old," Jonas said, changing the subject. "There won't be much that you don't already know."
"Oh, there's lots to learn," Fiona replied. "There's administrative work, and the dietary rules, and punishment for disobedience — did you know that they use a discipline wand on the Old, the same as for small children? And there's occupational therapy, and recreational activities, and medications, and — "
They reached the building and braked their bikes.
"I really think I'll like it better than school," Fiona confessed.
"Me too," Jonas agreed, wheeling his bike into its place.
She waited for a second, as if, again, she expected him to go on. Then she looked at her watch, waved, and hurried toward the entrance.
Jonas stood for a moment beside his bike, startled. It had happened again: the thing that he thought of now as "seeing beyond." This time it had been Fiona who had undergone that fleeting indescribable change. As he looked up and toward her going through the door, it happened; she changed. Actually, Jonas thought, trying to recreate it in his mind, it wasn't Fiona in her entirety. It seemed to be just her hair. And just for that flickering instant.
He ran through it in his mind. It was clearly beginning to happen more often. First, the apple a few weeks before. The next time had been the faces in the audience at the Auditorium, just two days ago. Now, today, Fiona's hair.
Frowning, Jonas walked toward the Annex. I will ask the Giver, he decided.
The old man looked up, smiling, when Jonas entered the room. He was already seated beside the bed, and he seemed more energetic today, slightly renewed, and glad to see Jonas.
"Welcome," he said. "We must get started. You're one minute late."
"I apologi — " Jonas began, and then stopped, flustered, remembering there were to be no apologies.
He removed his tunic and went to the bed. "I'm one minute late because something happened," he explained. "And I'd like to ask you about it, if you don't mind."
"You may ask me anything."
Jonas tried to sort it out in his mind so that he could explain it clearly. "I think it's what you call seeing-beyond," he said.
The Giver nodded. "Describe it," he said.
Jonas told him about the experience with the apple. Then the moment on the stage, when he had looked out and seen the same phenomenon in the faces of the crowd.
"Then today, just now, outside, it happened with my friend Fiona. She herself didn't change, exactly. But something about her changed for a second. Her hair looked different; but not in its shape, not in its length. I can't quite — " Jonas paused, frustrated by his inability to grasp and describe exactly what had occurred.
Finally he simply said, "It changed. I don't know how, or why.
"That's why I was one minute late," he concluded, and looked questioningly at The Giver.
To his surprise, the old man asked him a question which seemed unrelated to the seeing-beyond. "When I gave you the memory yesterday, the first one, the ride on the sled, did you look around?"
Jonas nodded. "Yes," he said, "but the stuff — I mean the snow — in the air made it hard to see anything."
"Did you look at the sled?"
Jonas thought back. "No. I only felt it under me. I dreamed of it last night, too. But I don't remember seeing the sled in my dream, either. Just feeling it."
The Giver seemed to be thinking.
"When I was observing you, before the selection, I perceived that you probably had the capacity, and what you describe confirms that. It happened somewhat differently to me," The Giver told him. "When I was just your age — about to become the new Receiver — I began to experience it, though it took a different form. With me it was...well, I won't describe that now; you wouldn't understand it yet.
"But I think I can guess how it's happening with you. Let me just make a little test, to confirm my guess. Lie down."
Jonas lay on the bed again with his hands at his sides. He felt comfortable here now. He closed his eyes and waited for the familiar feel of The Giver's hands on his back.
But it didn't come. Instead, The Giver instructed him, "Call back the memory of the ride on the sled. Just the beginning of it, where you're at the top of the hill, before the slide starts. And this time, look down at the sled."
Jonas was puzzled. He opened his eyes. "Excuse me," he asked politely, "but don't you have to give me the memory?"
"It's your memory, now. It's not mine to experience any longer. I gave it away."
"But how can I call it back?"
"You can remember last year, or the year that you were a Seven, or a Five, can't you?"
"Of course."
"It's much the same. Everyone in the community has one-generation memories like those. But now you will be able to go back farther. Try. Just concentrate."
Jonas closed his eyes again. He took a deep breath and sought the sled and the hill and the snow in his consciousness.
There they were, with no effort. He was again sitting in that whirling world of snowflakes, atop the hill.
Jonas grinned with delight, and blew his own steamy breath into view. Then, as he had been instructed, he looked down. He saw his own hands, furred again with snow, holding the rope. He saw his legs, and moved them aside for a glimpse of the sled beneath.
Dumbfounded, he stared at it. This time it was not a fleeting impression. This time the sled had — and continued to have, as he blinked, and stared at it again — that same mysterious quality that the apple had had so briefly. And Fiona's hair. The sled did not change. It simply was — whatever the thing was.
Jonas opened his eyes and was still on the bed. The Giver was watching him curiously.
"Yes," Jonas said slowly. "I saw it, in the sled."
"Let me try one more thing. Look over there, to the bookcase. Do you see the very top row of books, the ones behind the table, on the top shelf?"
Jonas sought them with his eyes. He stared at them, and they changed. But the change was fleeting. It slipped away the next instant.
"It happened," Jones said. "It happened to the books, but it went away again."
"I'm right, then," The Giver said. "You're beginning to see the color red."
"The what?"
The Giver sighed. "How to explain this? Once, back in the time of the memories, everything had a shape and size, the way things still do, but they also had a quality called color.
"There were a lot of colors, and one of them was called red. That's the one you are starting to see. Your friend Fiona has red hair — quite distinctive, actually; I've noticed it before. When you mentioned Fiona's hair, it was the clue that told me you were probably beginning to see the color red."
"And the faces of people? The ones I saw at the Ceremony?"
The Giver shook his head. "No, flesh isn't red. But it has red tones in it. There was a time, actually — you'll see this in the memories later — when flesh was many different colors. That was before we went to Sameness. Today flesh is all the same, and what you saw was the red tones. Probably when you saw the faces take on color it wasn't as deep or vibrant as the apple, or your friend's hair."
The Giver chuckled, suddenly. "We've never completely mastered Sameness. I suppose the genetic scientists are still hard at work trying to work the kinks out. Hair like Fiona's must drive them crazy."
Jonas listened, trying hard to comprehend. "And the sled?" he said. "It had that same thing: the color red. But it didn't change, Giver. It just was."
