ADAM [scrambling up in horror] Make you die!!!  What a frightful thought!

THE SERPENT.  Kill, kill, kill, kill.  That is the word.

EVE.  The new Adams and Eves might kill us.  I shall not make them. [She sits on the rock and pulls him down beside her, clasping him to her with her right arm].

THE SERPENT.  You must.  For if you do not there will be an end.

ADAM.  No:  they will not kill us:  they will feel as I do.  There is something against it.  The Voice in the garden will tell them that they must not kill, as it tells me.

THE SERPENT.  The voice in the garden is your own voice.

ADAM.  It is; and it is not.  It is something greater than me:  I am only a part of it.

EVE.  The Voice does not tell me not to kill you.  Yet I do not want you to die before me.  No voice is needed to make me feel that.

ADAM [throwing his arm round her shoulder with an expression of anguish] Oh no:  that is plain without any voice.  There is something that holds us together, something that has no word—­

THE SERPENT.  Love.  Love.  Love.

ADAM.  That is too short a word for so long a thing.

THE SERPENT [laughs]!!!

EVE [turning impatiently to the snake] That heart-biting sound again! 
Do not do it.  Why do you do it?

THE SERPENT.  Love may be too long a word for so short a thing soon.  But when it is short it will be very sweet.

ADAM [ruminating] You puzzle me.  My old trouble was heavy; but it was simple.  These wonders that you promise to do may tangle up my being before they bring me the gift of death.  I was troubled with the burden of eternal being; but I was not confused in my mind.  If I did not know that I loved Eve, at least I did not know that she might cease to love me, and come to love some other Adam and desire my death.  Can you find a name for that knowledge?

THE SERPENT.  Jealousy.  Jealousy.  Jealousy.

ADAM.  A hideous word.

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?