Back to Methuselah Part 9

EVE [_shaking him_] Adam: you must not brood. You think too much.

ADAM [_angrily_] How can I help brooding when the future has become uncertain? Anything is better than uncertainty. Life has become uncertain. Love is uncertain. Have you a word for this new misery?

THE SERPENT. Fear. Fear. Fear.

ADAM. Have you a remedy for it?

THE SERPENT. Yes. Hope. Hope. Hope.

ADAM. What is hope?

THE SERPENT. As long as you do not know the future you do not know that it will not be happier than the past. That is hope.

ADAM. It does not console me. Fear is stronger in me than hope. I must have certainty. [_He rises threateningly_]. Give it to me; or I will kill you when next I catch you asleep.

EVE [_throwing her arms round the serpent_] My beautiful snake. Oh no.

How can you even think such a horror?

ADAM. Fear will drive me to anything. The serpent gave me fear. Let it now give me certainty or go in fear of me.

THE SERPENT. Bind the future by your will. Make a vow.

ADAM. What is a vow?

THE SERPENT. Choose a day for your death; and resolve to die on that day. Then death is no longer uncertain but certain. Let Eve vow to love you until your death. Then love will be no longer uncertain.

ADAM. Yes: that is splendid: that will bind the future.

EVE [_displeased, turning away from the serpent_] But it will destroy hope.

ADAM [_angrily_] Be silent, woman. Hope is wicked. Happiness is wicked.

Certainty is blessed.

THE SERPENT. What is wicked? You have invented a word.

ADAM. Whatever I fear to do is wicked. Listen to me, Eve; and you, snake, listen too, that your memory may hold my vow. I will live a thousand sets of the four seasons--

THE SERPENT. Years. Years.

ADAM. I will live a thousand years; and then I will endure no more: I will die and take my rest. And I will love Eve all that time and no other woman.

EVE. And if Adam keeps his vow I will love no other man until he dies.

THE SERPENT. You have both invented marriage. And what he will be to you and not to any other woman is husband; and what you will be to him and not to any other man is wife.

ADAM [_instinctively moving his hand towards her_] Husband and wife.

EVE [_slipping her hand into his_] Wife and husband.

THE SERPENT [_laughs_]!!!

EVE [_s.n.a.t.c.hing herself loose from Adam_] Do not make that odious noise, I tell you.

ADAM. Do not listen to her: the noise is good: it lightens my heart.

You are a jolly snake. But you have not made a vow yet. What vow do you make?

THE SERPENT. I make no vows. I take my chance.

ADAM. Chance? What does that mean?

THE SERPENT. It means that I fear certainty as you fear uncertainty. It means that nothing is certain but uncertainty. If I bind the future I bind my will. If I bind my will I strangle creation.

EVE. Creation must not be strangled. I tell you I will create, though I tear myself to pieces in the act.

ADAM. Be silent, both of you. I _will_ bind the future. I will be delivered from fear. [_To Eve_] We have made our vows; and if you must create, you shall create within the bounds of those vows. You shall not listen to that snake any more. Come [_he seizes her by the hair to drag her away_].

EVE. Let me go, you fool. It has not yet told me the secret.

ADAM [_releasing her_] That is true. What is a fool?

EVE. I do not know: the word came to me. It is what you are when you forget and brood and are filled with fear. Let us listen to the snake.

ADAM. No: I am afraid of it. I feel as if the ground were giving way under my feet when it speaks. Do you stay and listen to it.

THE SERPENT [_laughs_]!!!

ADAM [_brightening_] That noise takes away fear. Funny. The snake and the woman are going to whisper secrets. [_He chuckles and goes away slowly, laughing his first laugh_].

EVE. Now the secret. The secret. [_She sits on the rock and throws her arms round the serpent, who begins whispering to her_].

_Eve's face lights up with intense interest, which increases until an expression of overwhelming repugnance takes its place. She buries her face in her hands_.

ACT II

_A few centuries later. Morning. An oasis in Mesopotamia. Close at hand the end of a log house abuts on a kitchen garden. Adam is digging in the middle of the garden. On his right, Eve sits on a stool in the shadow of a tree by the doorway, spinning flax. Her wheel, which she turns by hand, is a large disc of heavy wood, practically a flywheel. At the opposite side of the garden is a thorn brake with a pa.s.sage through it barred by a hurdle.

The two are scantily and carelessly dressed in rough linen and leaves.

They have lost their youth and grace; and Adam has an unkempt beard and jaggedly cut hair; but they are strong and in the prime of life. Adam looks worried, like a farmer. Eve, better humored (having given up worrying), sits and spins and thinks._

A MAN'S VOICE. Hallo, mother!

EVE [_looking across the garden towards the hurdle_] Here is Cain.

ADAM [_uttering a grunt of disgust_]!!! [_He goes on digging without raising his head_].

_Cain kicks the hurdle out of his way, and strides into the garden. In pose, voice, and dress he is insistently warlike. He is equipped with huge spear and broad bra.s.s-bound leather s.h.i.+eld; his casque is a tiger's head with bull's horns; he wears a scarlet cloak with gold brooch over a lion's skin with the claws dangling; his feet are in sandals with bra.s.s ornaments; his s.h.i.+ns are in bra.s.s greaves; and his bristling military moustache glistens with oil. To his parents he has the self-a.s.sertive, not-quite-at-ease manner of a revolted son who knows that he is not forgiven nor approved of._