Here in the wilderness it was different.  There were no paths.  The jungle grew up tall and threatening.  Thorns leant out to tear one’s flesh.  If it hadn’t been for the elephant uprooting trees in his fits of temper, no one would have been able to travel anywhere.  One by one the animals slunk away and began to lead their own lives independently, making lairs for themselves.  Every day that went by they avoided the Man and Woman more and more.  At first they used to peep out of the thicket to jeer at their helplessness; soon they learnt to disregard them as if they were not there.  From having believed himself to be the wisest of living creatures the Man discovered himself to be the most incompetent.  Often and often he would creep to the gold-locked gates and peer between the bars, hoping to see God walking there as formerly.  But God walked no more.  As He had climbed back into Heaven, He had destroyed the sky-blue stairs behind Him.  There was no way in which the Man could reach Him to ask His advice or pardon.

But it was the Woman who caused the Man most unhappiness.  It wasn’t that she despised and blamed him.  He’d grown used to that since leaving Eden.  Everybody, except the dog and the robin, despised and blamed him.  The Woman caused him unhappiness because she was unwell—­really unwell; not just an upset stomach or a headache.  In Eden she had always been strong and beautiful, like sunlight leaping on the smooth, green lawn—­so white and pink and darting.  Her long gold hair had swayed about her like a flame; her white arms had parted it as though she were a swimmer.  Her eyes had been shy and merry from dawn to dusk.  She had been a darling; never a cross word had she spoken.  The furry creatures of the woods had been her playmates and the birds had perched upon her shoulders to sing their finest songs.

Now she was wan and thin as a withered branch.  Like the elephant uprooting trees, she often lost her temper.  Sometimes she was sorry for her crossness; more often she wasn’t.  When the Man offered her things to eat, no matter what trouble he’d taken to get them, she’d say she wasn’t hungry.  And yet he loved her none the less for her perverseness.  He was so afraid....  He couldn’t have told you of what he was afraid, for nobody had had time to die in the world as yet.  He was filled with dread lest, like God, she might vanish and walk the earth no more.  So he cudgelled his brains to find things to cure her.  He invented wrong remedies, just as in Eden he had invented wrong answers to the animals’ questions.  He was never certain whether they would do her good or harm; but he always assured her gravely that, if she’d only try them, she’d feel instantly better.  She never did; on the contrary she felt worse and worse.  Perhaps the wilderness was the cause.  Perhaps it was the forbidden fruit she had eaten.  Perhaps it was a little of both, plus a touch of Eden-sickness.  She had never known an hour’s ill-health up to the moment when she had eaten the fruit and been turned out of the garden.  The poor Man was distracted.  He didn’t care what he did or whom he robbed, if only he might hear her singing again and see her once more smiling.