EVE.  What is the life?

THE SERPENT.  That which makes the difference between the dead fawn and the live one.

EVE.  What a beautiful word!  And what a wonderful thing!  Life is the loveliest of all the new words.

THE SERPENT.  Yes:  it was by meditating on Life that I gained the power to do miracles.

EVE.  Miracles?  Another new word.

THE SERPENT.  A miracle is an impossible thing that is nevertheless possible.  Something that never could happen, and yet does happen.

EVE.  Tell me some miracle that you have done.

THE SERPENT.  I gathered a part of the life in my body, and shut it into a tiny white case made of the stones I had eaten.

EVE.  And what good was that?

THE SERPENT.  I shewed the little case to the sun, and left it in its warmth.  And it burst; and a little snake came out; and it became bigger and bigger from day to day until it was as big as I. That was the second birth.

EVE.  Oh!  That is too wonderful.  It stirs inside me.  It hurts.

THE SERPENT.  It nearly tore me asunder.  Yet I am alive, and can burst my skin and renew myself as before.  Soon there will be as many snakes in Eden as there are scales on my body.  Then death will not matter:  this snake and that snake will die; but the snakes will live.

EVE.  But the rest of us will die sooner or later, like the fawn.  And then there will be nothing but snakes, snakes, snakes everywhere.

THE SERPENT.  That must not be.  I worship you, Eve.  I must have something to worship.  Something quite different to myself, like you.  There must be something greater than the snake.

EVE.  Yes:  it must not be.  Adam must not perish.  You are very subtle:  tell me what to do.

THE SERPENT.  Think.  Will.  Eat the dust.  Lick the white stone:  bite the apple you dread.  The sun will give life.

EVE.  I do not trust the sun.  I will give life myself.  I will tear. another Adam from my body if I tear my body to pieces in the act.

THE SERPENT.  Do.  Dare it.  Everything is possible:  everything.  Listen.  I am old.  I am the old serpent, older than Adam, older than Eve.  I remember Lilith, who came before Adam and Eve.  I was her darling as I am yours.  She was alone:  there was no man with her.  She saw death as you saw it when the fawn fell; and she knew then that she must find out how to renew herself and cast the skin like me.  She had a mighty will:  she strove and strove and willed and willed for more moons than there are leaves on all the trees of the garden.  Her pangs were terrible:  her groans drove sleep from Eden.  She said it must never be again:  that the burden of renewing life was past bearing:  that it was too much for one.  And when she cast the skin, lo! there was not one new Lilith but two:  one like herself, the other like Adam.  You were the one:  Adam was the other.

EVE.  But why did she divide into two, and make us different?