lect 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 wonderful new colors. She rears her head slowly from the
bed of Johnswort, and speaks into Eve's ear in a strange seductively
musical whisper.

THE SERPENT. Eve.

EVE [_startled_] Who is that?

THE SERPENT. It is I. I have come to shew you my beautiful new hood. See
[_she spreads a magnificent amethystine hood_]!

EVE [_admiring it_] Oh! But who taught you to speak?

THE SERPENT. You and Adam. I have crept through the grass, and hidden,
and listened to you.

EVE. That was wonderfully clever of you.

THE SERPENT. I am the most subtle of all the creatures of the field.

EVE. Your hood is most lovely. [_She strokes it and pets the serpent_].
Pretty thing! Do you love your godmother Eve?

THE SERPENT. I adore her. [_She licks Eve's neck with her double
tongue_].

EVE [_petting her_] Eve's wonderful darling snake. Eve will never be
lonely now that her snake can talk to her.

THE SNAKE. I can talk of many things. I am very wise. It was I who
whispered the word to you that you did not know. Dead. Death. Die.

EVE [_shuddering_] Why do you remind me of it? I forgot it when I saw
your beautiful hood. You must not remind me of unhappy things.

THE SERPENT. Death is not an unhappy thing when you have learnt how to
conquer it.

EVE. How can I conquer it?

THE SERPENT. By another thing, called birth.

EVE. What? [_Trying to pronounce it_] B-birth?

THE SERPENT. Yes, birth.

EVE. What is birth?

THE SERPENT. The serpent never dies. Some day you shall see me come out
of this beautiful skin, a new snake with a new and lovelier