Summary

1. Perina describes the complicated circumstances within which Victor came to live in his home: the large, age-varied collection of children already in residence; and Victor’s lasting, troubling difficulties with socialization. “Needless to say,” Perina says, he (Perina) “spent as much time as possible abroad” (300). Eventually, he writes, Victor learned how to behave properly; several of the older children left; and he (Perina) began to travel for pleasure, including making a visit to Owen. After several years, however, he began to travel back to U’ivu, and once again started collecting children, wondering as he did whether there might be something wrong with him. “What was I hoping each new [child] might provide me that the previous thirty-odd had not? What was it that I wanted?” (310).

2. Perina then begins describing the rapid chain of circumstances that led...