Answer:
Jonas reports to the Annex of the House of the Old for his first day of training. An Attendant admits him to the Receiver’s living area, which is locked to ensure the Receiver’s privacy, even though no one else in the community locks their doors. The living area is more luxurious than average, and its walls are lined with hundreds of thick, beautifully bound books, very different from the three reference volumes (dictionary, community volume, Book of Rules) available in every other household. Jonas cannot imagine what could be inside them. He meets the Receiver, who greets him as the new Receiver of Memory and tells him that although he, the old Receiver, is not as old as he looks, he will need to use the last of his strength to train Jonas. He says that the process involves transmitting all of the memories he has of the past to Jonas. Jonas wonders why listening to stories from the old man’s childhood is so important that he cannot just do it in his spare time, leaving him free to work at an adult job in the community. The Receiver replies that the memories he will give Jonas are not just memories from his childhood. They are the memories of the entire world, going back through generations and generations of Receivers. These memories of communities and worlds before Jonas’s community bring wisdom and help the community to shape its future. The Receiver feels weighed down by so many memories and compares the feeling to a sled slowing down as it has to push against more and more accumulated snow.