As the class members shuffled through pages of material, the teacher started reading French phrases in different intonations. Then, stately classical music began in the
background. The fifteen men and women leaned back, closed their eyes, and embarked on developing hypermnesia, more easily called supermemory. The teacher kept reciting. Sometimes her voice was businesslike as if ordering work to be done, sometimes it sounded soft, whispering, then unexpectedly hard and commanding.
Shadows began to darken in the room, it was sunset, yet the teacher kept on, repeating in a special rhythm French words, idioms, translations. Finally, she stopped. They weren’t through yet; they still had to take a test. At least the class members weren’t as keyed up. Somehow during the session their anxiety had been smoothed, the usual kinks relaxed. But they still didn’t hold much hope for decent test scores.
Finally the teacher told them, “The class average is ninety-seven percent. You learned one thousand words in a day!”
