


MARK TWAIN


EXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY




MONDAY. -- This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in
the way. It is always hanging around and following me about. I
don't like this; I am not used to company. I wish it would stay
with the other animals.... Cloudy today, wind in the east; think
we shall have rain. WE? Where did I get that word? -- I remember
now -- the new creature uses it.

TUESDAY. -- Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest
thing on the estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara
Falls -- why, I am sure I do not know. Says it LOOKS like Niagara
Falls. That is not a reason, it is mere waywardness and
imbecility. I get no chance to name anything myself. The new
creature names everything that comes along, before I can get in a
protest. And always that same pretext is offered -- it looks like
the thing. There is the dodo, for instance. Says the moment one
looks at it one sees at a glance that it "looks like a dodo." It
will have to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret
about it, and it does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more
like a dodo than I do.

WEDNESDAY. -- Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not
have it to myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I
tried to put it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with,
and wiped it away with the back of its paws, and made a noise
such as some of the other animals make when they are in distress.
I wish it would not talk; it is always talking. That sounds like
a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur; but I do not mean it
so. I have never heard the human voice before, and any new and
strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these
dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And
this new sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder,
right at my ear, first on one side and then on the other, and I
am used only to sounds that are more or less distant from me.

FRIDAY. -- The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I
can do. I had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical
and pretty -- GARDEN OF EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it
that, but not any longer publicly. The new creature says it is
all woods and rocks and scenery, and therefore has no resemblance
to a garden. Says it LOOKS like a park, and does not look like
anything BUT a park. Consequently, without consulting me, it has
been new-named -- NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently
high-handed, it seems to me. And already there is a sign up:

KEEP OFF
THE GRASS

My life is not as happy as it was.

SATURDAY. -- The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going
to run short, most likely. "We" again -- that is ITS word; mine,
too, now, from hearing it so much. Good deal of fog this morning.
I do not go out in the fog myself. The new creature does. It goes
out in all weathers, and stumps right in with its muddy feet. And
talks. It used to be so pleasant and quiet here.

SUNDAY. -- Pulled through. This day is getting to be more and
more trying. It was selected and set apart last November as a day
of rest. I had already six of them per week before. This morning
found the new creature trying to clod apples out of that
forbidden tree.

MONDAY. -- The new creature says its name is Eve. That is all
right, I have no objections. Says it is to call it by, when I
want it to come. I said it was superfluous, then. The word
evidently raised me in its respect; and indeed it is a large,
good word and will bear repetition. It says it is not an It, it
is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it is all one to me;
what she is were nothing to me if she would but go by herself and
not talk.

TUESDAY. -- She has littered the whole estate with execrable
names and offensive signs:

THIS WAY TO THE WHIRLPOOL.
THIS WAY TO GOAT ISLAND.
CAVE OF THE WINDS THIS WAY.

She says this park would make a tidy summer resort if there was
any custom for it. Summer resort -- another invention of hers --
just words, without any meaning. What is a summer resort? But it
is best not to ask her, she has such a rage for explaining.

FRIDAY. -- She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the
Falls. What harm does it do? Says it makes her shudder. I wonder
why; I have always done it -- always liked the plunge, and the
excitement and the coolness. I supposed it was what the Falls
were for. They have no other use that I can see, and they must
have been made for something She says they were only made for
scenery -- like the rhinoceros and the mastodon.

I went over the Falls in a barrel -- not satisfactory to her.
Went over in a tub -- still not satisfactory. Swam the Whirlpool
and the Rapids in a fig-leaf suit. It got much damaged. Hence,
tedious complaints about my extravagance. I am too much hampered
here. What I need is change of scene.

SATURDAY. -- I escaped last Tuesday night, and traveled two days,
and built me another shelter in a secluded place, and obliterated
my tracks as well as I could, but she hunted me cut by means of a
beast which she has tamed and calls a wolf, and came making that
pitiful noise again, and shedding that water out of the places
she looks with. I was obliged to return with her, but will
presently emigrate again when occasion offers. She engages
herself in many foolish things; among others, to study out why
the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and flowers,
when, as she says, the sort of teeth they wear would indicate
that they were intended to eat each other. This is foolish,
because to do that would be to kill each other, and that would
introduce what, as I understand it, is called "death"; and death,
as I have been told, has not yet entered the Park. Which is a
pity, on some accounts.

SUNDAY. -- Pulled through.

MONDAY. -- I believe I see what the week is for: it is to give
time to rest up from the weariness of Sunday. It seems a good
idea.... She has been climbing that tree again. Clodded her out
of it. She said nobody was looking. Seems to consider that a
sufficient justification for chancing any dangerous thing. Told
her that. The word justification moved her admiration -- and
envy, too, I thought. It is a good word.

TUESDAY. -- She told me she was made out of a rib taken from my
body. This is at least doubtful, if not more than that. I have
not missed any rib. ....She is in much trouble about the buzzard;
says grass does not agree with it; is afraid she can't raise it;
thinks it was intended to live on decayed flesh. The buzzard must
get along the best it can with what it is provided. We cannot
overturn the whole scheme to accommodate the buzzard.

SATURDAY. -- She fell in the pond yesterday when she was looking
at herself in it, which she is always doing. She nearly
strangled, and said it was most uncomfortable. This made her
sorry for the creatures which live in there, which she calls
fish, for she continues to fasten names on to things that don't
need them and don't come when they are called by them, which is a
matter of no consequence to her, she is such a numskull, anyway;
so she got a lot of them out and brought them in last night and
put them in my bed to keep warm, but I have noticed them now and
then all day and I don't see that they are any happier there than
they were before, only quieter. When night comes I shall throw
them outdoors. I will not sleep with them again, for I find them
clammy and unpleasant to lie among when a person hasn't anything
on.

SUNDAY. -- Pulled through.

TUESDAY. -- She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals
are glad, for she was always experimenting with them and
bothering them; and I am glad because the snake talks, and this
enables me to get a rest.

FRIDAY. -- She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of
that tree, and says the result will be a great and fine and noble
education. I told her there would be another result, too -- it
would introduce death into the world, That was a mistake -- it
had been better to keep the remark to myself; it only gave her an
idea -- she could save the sick buzzard, and furnish fresh meat
to the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her to keep away
from the tree. She said she wouldn't. I foresee trouble. Will
emigrate.

WEDNESDAY. -- I have had a variegated time. I escaped last night,
and rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get
clear out of the Park and hide in some other country before the
trouble should begin; but it was not to be. About an hour after
sun-up, as I was riding through a flowery plain where thousands
of animals were grazing, slumbering, or playing with each other,
according to their wont, all of a sudden they broke into a
tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was a
frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor. I
knew what it meant -- Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was
come into the world. ....The tigers ate my horse, paying no
attention when I ordered them to desist, and they would have
eaten me if I had stayed -- which I didn't, but went away in much
haste.... I found this place, outside the Park, and was fairly
comfortable for a few days, but she has found me out. Found me
out, and has named the place Tonawanda -- says it LOOKS like
that. In fact I was not sorry she came, for there are but meagre
pickings here, and she brought some of those apples. I was
obliged to eat them, I was so hungry. It was against my
principles, but I find that principles have no real force except
when one is well fed.... She came curtained in boughs and bunches
of leaves, and when I asked her what she meant by such nonsense,
and snatched them away and threw them down, she tittered and
blushed. I had never seen a person titter and blush before, and
to me it seemed unbecoming and idiotic. She said I would soon
know how it was myself. This was correct. Hungry as I was, I laid
down the apple half-eaten -- certainly the best one I ever saw,
considering the lateness of the season -- and arrayed myself in
the discarded boughs and branches, and then spoke to her with
some severity and ordered her to go and get some more and not
make such a spectacle of herself. She did it, and after this we
crept down to where the wild-beast battle had been, and collected
some skins, and I made her patch together a couple of suits
proper for public occasions. They are uncomfortable, it is true,
but stylish, and that is the main point about clothes.... I find
she is a good deal of a companion. I see I should be lonesome and
depressed without her, now that I have lost my property. Another
thing, she says it is ordered that we work for our living
hereafter. She will be useful. I will superintend .

TEN DAYS LATER. -- She accuses ME of being the cause of our
disaster! She says, with apparent sincerity and truth, that the
Serpent assured her that the forbidden fruit was not apples, it
was chestnuts. I said I was innocent, then, for I had not eaten
any chestnuts. She said the Serpent informed her that "chestnut"
was a figurative term meaning an aged and mouldy joke. I turned
pale at that, for I have made many jokes to pass the weary time,
and some of them could have been of that sort. though I had
honestly supposed that they were new when I made them. She asked
me if I had made one just at the time of the catastrophe. I was
obliged to admit that I had made one to myself, though not aloud.
It was this. I was thinking about the Falls, and I said to
myself, "How wonderful it is to see that vast body of water
tumble down there!" Then in an instant a bright thought flashed
into my head, and I let it fly, saying, "It would be a deal more
wonderful to see it tumble UP there!" -- and I was just about to
kill myself with laughing at it when all nature broke loose in
war and death and I had to flee for my life. "There," she said,
with triumph, "that is just it; the Serpent mentioned that very
jest, and called it the First Chestnut, and said it was coeval
with the creation." Alas, I am indeed to blame. Would that I were
not witty; oh, that I had never had that radiant thought!

NEXT YEAR. -- We have named it Cain. She caught it while I was up
country trapping on the North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the
timber a couple of miles from our dug-out -- or it might have
been four, she isn't certain which. It resembles us in some ways,
and may be a relation. That is what she thinks, but this is an
error, in my judgment. The difference in size warrants the
conclusion that it is a different and new kind of animal -- a
fish, perhaps, though when I put it in the water to see, it sank,
and she plunged in and snatched it out before there was
opportunity for the experiment to deter mine the matter. I still
think it is a fish, but she is indifferent about what it is, and
will not let me have it to try. I do not understand this. The
coming of the creature seems to have changed her whole nature and
made her unreasonable about experiments. She thinks more of it
than she does of any of the other animals, but is not able to
explain why. Her mind is disordered -- everything shows it.
Sometimes she carries the fish in her arms half the night when it
complains and wants to get to the water. At such times the water
comes out of the places in her face that she looks out of, and
she pats the fish on the back and makes soft sounds with her
mouth to soothe it, and betrays sorrow and solicitude in a
hundred ways. I have never seen her do like this with any other
fish, and it troubles me greatly. She used to carry the young
tigers around so, and play with them, before we lost our
property, but it was only play; she never took on about them like
this when their dinner disagreed with them.

SUNDAY. -- She doesn't work, Sundays, but lies around all tired
out, and likes to have the fish wallow over her; and she makes
fool noises to amuse it, and pretends to chew its paws, and that
makes it laugh. I have not seen a fish before that could laugh.
This makes me doubt.... I have come to like Sunday myself.
Superintending all the week tires a body so. There ought to be
more Sundays. In the old days they were tough, but now they come
handy.

WEDNESDAY. -- It isn't a fish. I cannot quite make out what it
is. It makes curious devilish noises when not satisfied, and says
"goo-goo" when it is. It is not one of us, for it doesn't walk;
it is not a bird, for it doesn't fly; it is not a frog, for it
doesn't hop; it is not a snake, for it doesn't crawl; I feel sure
it is not a fish, though I cannot get a chance to find out
whether it can swim or not. It merely lies around, and mostly on
its back, with its feet up. I have not seen any other animal do
that before. I said I believed it was an enigma; but she only
admired the word without understanding it. In my judgment it is
either an enigma or some kind of a bug. If it dies, I will take
it apart and see what its arrangements are. I never had a thing
perplex me so.

THREE MONTHS LATER. -- The perplexity augments instead of
diminishing. I sleep but little. It has ceased from lying around,
and goes about on its four legs now. Yet it differs from the
other fourlegged animals, in that its front legs are unusually
short, consequently this causes the main part of its person to
stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and this is not
attractive. It is built much as we are, but its method of
traveling shows that it is not of our breed. The short front legs
and long hind ones indicate that it is of the kangaroo family,
but it is a marked variation of the species, since the true
kangaroo hops, whereas this one never does. Still it is a curious
and interesting variety, and has not been catalogued before. As I
discovered it, I have felt justified in securing the credit of
the discovery by attaching my name to it, and hence have called
it KANGAROORUM ADAMIENSIS.... It must have been a young one when
it came, for it has grown exceedingly since. It must be five
times as big, now, as it was then, and when discontented it is
able to make from twenty-two to thirty-eight times the noise it
made at first. Coercion does not modify this, but has the
contrary effect. For this reason I discontinued the system. She
reconciles it by persuasion, and by giving it things which she
had previously told it she wouldn't give it. As already observed,
I was not at home when it first came, and she told me she found
it in the woods. It seems odd that it should be the only one, yet
it must be so, for I have worn myself out these many weeks trying
to find another one to add to my collection, and for this one to
play with; for surely then it would be quieter and we could tame
it more easily. But I find none, nor any vestige of any; and
strangest of all, no tracks. It has to live on the ground, it
cannot help itself; therefore, how does it get about without
leaving a track? I have set a dozen traps, but they do no good. I
catch all small animals except that one; animals that merely go
into the trap out of curiosity, I think, to see what the milk is
there for. They never drink it.

THREE MONTHS LATER. -- The Kangaroo still continues to grow,
which is very strange and perplexing. I never knew one to be so
long getting its growth. It has fur on its head now; not like
kangaroo fur, but exactly like our hair except that it is much
finer and softer, and instead of being black is red. I am like to
lose my mind over the capricious and harassing developments of
this unclassifiable zoological freak. If I could catch another
one -- but that is hopeless; it is a new variety, and the only
sample; this is plain. But I caught a true kangaroo and brought
it in, thinking that this one, being lonesome, would rather have
that for company than have no kin at all, or any animal it could
feel a nearness to or get sympathy from in its forlorn condition
here among strangers who do not know its ways or habits, or what
to do to make it feel that it is among friends; but it was a
mistake -- it went into such fits at the sight of the kangaroo
that I was convinced it had never seen one before. I pity the
poor noisy little animal, but there is nothing I can do to make
it happy. If I could tame it -- but that is out of the question;
the more I try the worse I seem to make it. It grieves me to the
heart to see it in its little storms of sorrow and passion. I
wanted to let it go, but she wouldn't hear of it. That seemed
cruel and not like her; and yet she may be right. It might be
lonelier than ever; for since I cannot find another one, how
could IT?

FIVE MONTHS LATER. -- It is not a kangaroo. No, for it supports
itself by holding to her finger, and thus goes a few steps on its
hind legs, and then falls down. It is probably some kind of a
bear; and yet it has no tail -- as yet -- and no fur, except on
its head. It still keeps on growing -- that is a curious
circumstance, for bears get their growth earlier than this. Bears
are dangerous -- since our catastrophe -- and I shall not be
satisfied to have this one prowling about the place much longer
without a muzzle on. I have offered to get her a kangaroo if she
would let this one go, but it did no good -- she is determined to
run us into all sorts of foolish risks, I think. She was not like
this before she lost her mind.

A FORTNIGHT LATER. -- I examined its mouth. There is no danger
yet: it has only one tooth. It has no tail yet. It makes more
noise now than it ever did before -- and mainly at night. I have
moved out. But I shall go over, mornings, to breakfast, and see
if it has more teeth. If it gets a mouthful of teeth it will be
time for it to go, tail or no tail, for a bear does not need a
tail in order to be dangerous.

FOUR MONTHS LATER. -- I have been off hunting and fishing a
month, up in the region that she calls Buffalo; I don't know why,
unless it is because there are not any buffaloes there. Meantime
the bear has learned to paddle around all by itself on its hind
legs, and says "poppa" and "momma." It is certainly a new
species. This resemblance to words may be purely accidental, of
course, and may have no purpose or meaning; but even in that ease
it is still extraordinary, and is a thing which no other bear can
do. This imitation of speech, taken together with general absence
of fur and entire absence of tail, sufficiently indicates that
this is a new kind of bear. The further study of it will be
exceedingly interesting. Meantime I will go off on a far
expedition among the forests of the north and make an exhaustive
search. There must certainly be another one somewhere, and this
one will be less dangerous when it has company of its own
species. I will go straightway; but I will muzzle this one first.

THREE MONTHS LATER. -- It has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I
have had no success. In the meantime, without stirring from the
home estate, she has caught another one! I never saw such luck. I
might have hunted these woods a hundred years; I never would have
run across that thing.

NEXT DAY. -- I have been comparing the new one with the old one,
and it is perfectly plain that they are the same breed. I was
going to stuff one of them for my collection, but she is
prejudiced against it for some reason or other; so I have
relinquished the idea, though I think it is a mistake. It would
be an irreparable loss to science if they should get away. The
old one is tamer than it was and can laugh and talk like the
parrot, having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot
so much, and having the imitative faculty in a highly developed
degree. I shall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of
parrot; and yet I ought not to be astonished, for it has already
been everything else it could think of since those first days
when it was a fish. The new one is as ugly now as the old one was
at first; has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat complexion and the
same singular head without any fur on it. She calls it Abel.

TEN YEARS LATER. -- They are BOYS; we found it out long ago. It
was their coming in that small, immature shape that puzzled us;
we were not used to it. There are some girls now. Abel is a good
boy, but if Cain had stayed a bear it would have improved him.
After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the
beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than
inside it without her. At first I thought she talked too much;
but now I should be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass
out of my life. Blessed be the chestnut that brought us near
together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the
sweet- ness of her spirit!

END.


