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kicks it. Eve Oh don’t! Why doesn’t it wake? Adam I don’t know. It is not asleep. Eve Not asleep? Adam Try. Eve Trying to shake it and roll it over. It is stiff and cold. Adam Nothing will wake it. Eve It has a queer smell. Pah! She dusts her hands, and draws away from it. Did you find it like that? Adam No. It was playing about; and it tripped and went head over heels. It never stirred again. Its neck is wrong. He stoops to lift the neck and show her. Eve Don’t touch it. Come away from it. They both retreat, and contemplate it from a few steps’ distance with growing repulsion. Eve Adam. Adam Yes? Eve Suppose you were to trip and fall, would you go like that? Adam Ugh! He shudders and sits down on the rock. Eve Throwing herself on the ground beside him, and grasping his knee. You must be careful. Promise me you will be careful. Adam What is the good of being careful? We have to live here forever. Think of what forever means! Sooner or later I shall trip and fall. It may be tomorrow; it may be after as many days as there are leaves in the garden and grains of sand by the river. No matter: some day I shall forget and stumble. Eve I too. Adam Horrified. Oh no, no. I should be alone. Alone forever. You must never put yourself in danger of stumbling. You must not move about. You must sit still. I will take care of you and bring you what you want. Eve Turning away from him with a shrug, and hugging her ankles. I should soon get tired of that. Besides, if it happened to you, I should be alone. I could not sit still then. And at last it would happen to me too. Adam And then? Eve Then we should be no more. There would be only the things on all fours, and the birds, and the snakes. Adam That must not be. Eve Yes: that must not be. But it might be. Adam No. I tell you it must not be. I know that it must not be. Eve We both know it. How do we know it? Adam There is a voice in the garden that tells me things. Eve The garden is full of voices sometimes. They put all sorts of thoughts into my head. Adam To me there is only one voice. It is very low; but it is so near that it is like a whisper from within myself. There is no mistaking it for any voice of the birds or beasts, or for your voice. Eve It is strange that I should hear voices from all sides and you only one from within. But I have some thoughts that come from within me and not from the voices. The thought that we must not cease to be comes from within. Adam Despairingly. But we shall cease to be. We shall fall like the fawn and be broken. Rising and moving about in his agitation. I cannot bear this knowledge. I will not have it. It must not be, I tell you. Yet I do not know how to prevent it. Eve That is just what I feel; but it is very strange that you should say so: there is no pleasing you. You change your mind so often. Adam Scolding her. Why do you say that? How have I changed my mind? Eve You say we must not cease to exist. But you used to complain of having to exist always and forever. You sometimes sit for hours brooding and silent, hating me in your heart. When I ask you what I have done to you, you say you are not thinking of me, but of the horror of having to be here forever. But I know very well that what you mean is the horror of having to be here with me forever. Adam Oh! That is what you think, is it? Well, you are wrong. He sits down again, sulkily. It is the horror of having to be with myself forever. I like you; but I do not like myself. I want to be different; to be better, to begin again and again; to shed myself as a snake sheds its skin. I am tired of myself. And yet I must endure myself, not for a day or for many days, but forever. That is a dreadful thought. That is what makes me sit brooding and silent and hateful. Do you never think of that? Eve No: I do not think about myself: what is the use? I am what I am: nothing can alter that. I think about you. Adam You should not. You are always spying on me. I can never be alone. You always want to know what I have been doing. It is a burden. You should try to have an existence of your own, instead of occupying yourself with my existence. Eve I have to think about you. You are lazy: you are dirty: you neglect yourself: you are always dreaming: you would eat bad food and become disgusting if I did not watch you and occupy myself with you. And now some day, in spite of all my care, you will fall on your head and become dead. Adam Dead? What word is that? Eve Pointing to the fawn. Like that. I call it dead. Adam Rising and approaching it slowly. There is something uncanny about it. Eve Joining him. Oh! It is changing into little white worms. Adam Throw it into the river. It is unbearable. Eve I dare not touch it. Adam Then I must, though I loathe it. It is poisoning the air. He gathers its hooves in his hand and carries it away in the direction from which Eve came, holding it as far from him as possible. Eve looks after them for a moment; then, with a shiver of disgust, sits down on the rock, brooding. The body of the serpent becomes visible, glowing with