It is nine months since I have written, on these sheets, those words,
'Her progress is like....' being the beginning of some narrative in
which something interrupted me: and since then I have had no impulse to
write.

But I was thinking just now of the curious tricks and uncertainties of
my memory, and seeing the sheets, will record it here. I have lately
been trying to recall the name of a sister of mine--some perfectly
simple name, I know--and the name of my old home in England: and they
have completely passed out of my cognizance, though she was my only
sister, and we grew up closely together: some quite simple name, I
forget it now. Yet I can't say that my memory is bad: there are
things--quite unexpected, unimportant things--which come up in my mind
with considerable clearness. For instance, I remember to have met in
Paris (I think), long before the poison-cloud, a little Brazilian boy of
the colour of weak coffee-and-milk, of whom she now constantly reminds
me. He wore his hair short like a convict's, so that one could spy the
fish-white flesh beneath, and delighted to play solitary about the
stairs of the hotel, dressed up in the white balloon-dress of a Pierrot.
I have the impression now that he must have had very large ears. Clever
as a flea he was, knowing five or six languages, as it were by nature,
without having any suspicion that that was at all extraordinary. She has
that same light, unconscious, and nonchalant cleverness, and easy way of
life. It is little more than a year since I began to teach her, and
already she can speak English with a quite considerable vocabulary, and
perfect correctness (except that she does not pronounce the letter 'r');
she has also read, or rather devoured, a good many books; and can write,
draw, and play the harp. And all she does without effort: rather with
the flighty naturalness with which a bird takes to the wing.