Extracts from Adam's Diary, translated from the original ms. Read online

cannot find another one, howcould it?

  Five Months Later

  It is not a kangaroo. No, for it supports itself by holding toher finger, and thus goes a few steps on its hind legs, and thenfalls down. It is probably some kind of a bear; and yet it hasno tail--as yet--and no fur, except on its head. It still keepson growing--that is a curious circumstance, for bears get theirgrowth earlier than this. Bears are dangerous--since ourcatastrophe--and I shall not be satisfied to have this one prowlingabout the place much longer without a muzzle on. I have offeredto get her a kangaroo if she would let this one go, but it did nogood--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 onetooth. It has no tail yet. It makes more noise now than it everdid before--and mainly at night. I have moved out. But I shallgo over, mornings, to breakfast, and to see if it has more teeth.If it gets a mouthful of teeth, it will be time for it to go, tailor no tail, for a bear does not need a tail in order to bedangerous.

  Four Months Later

  I have been off hunting and fishing a month, up in the region thatshe calls Buffalo; I don't know why, unless it is because thereare not any buffaloes there. Meantime the bear has learned topaddle around all by itself on its hind legs, and says "poppa"and "momma." It is certainly a new species. This resemblance towords may be purely accidental, of course, and may have no purposeor meaning; but even in that case it is still extraordinary, andis a thing which no other bear can do. This imitation of speech,taken together with general absence of fur and entire absence oftail, sufficiently indicates that this is a new kind of bear. Thefurther study of it will be exceedingly interesting. Meantime Iwill go off on a far expedition among the forests of the North andmake an exhaustive search. There must certainly be another onesomewhere, and this one will be less dangerous when it has companyof its own species. I will go straightway; but I will muzzle thisone first.

  Three Months Later

  It has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I have had no success. Inthe mean time, without stirring from the home estate, she hascaught another one! I never saw such luck. I might have huntedthese woods a hundred years, I never should have run across thatthing.

  Next Day

  I have been comparing the new one with the old one, and it isperfectly plain that they are the same breed. I was going to stuffone of them for my collection, but she is prejudiced against itfor some reason or other; so I have relinquished the idea, thoughI think it is a mistake. It would be an irreparable loss to scienceif they should get away. The old one is tamer than it was, andcan laugh and talk like the parrot, having learned this, no doubt,from being with the parrot so much, and having the imitative facultyin a highly developed degree. I shall be astonished if it turnsout 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, sincethose first days when it was a fish. The new one is as ugly nowas the old one was at first; has the same sulphur-and-raw-meatcomplexion and the same singular head without any fur on it. Shecalls it Abel.

  Ten Years Later

  They are boys; we found it out long ago. It was their coming inthat 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 hadstayed a bear it would have improved him. After all these years,I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is betterto live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.At first I thought she talked too much; but now I should be sorryto have that voice fall silent and pass out of my life. Blessedbe the chestnut that brought us near together and taught me toknow the goodness of her heart and the sweetness of her spirit!