{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8527/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8527","id":"gutenberg_8527","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8527","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. Genesis -- History of Biblical events -- Fiction","Category: American Literature","Category: Humour","Category: Novels","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Diary fiction","Eve (Biblical figure) -- Fiction","Humorous stories"],"text":"Produced by David Widger and Cindy Rosenthal\n\n\n\n\n\nEVE'S DIARY\n\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n\nIllustrated by Lester Ralph\n\n\n\n\nTranslated from the Original\n\n\nPart 2.\n\n\n\nSUNDAY.--It is pleasant again, now, and I am happy; but those were heavy\ndays; I do not think of them when I can help it.\n\nI tried to get him some of those apples, but I cannot learn to throw\nstraight.  I failed, but I think the good intention pleased him. They\nare forbidden, and he says I shall come to harm; but so I come to harm\nthrough pleasing him, why shall I care for that harm?\n\n\n\nMONDAY.--This morning I told him my name, hoping it would interest him.\nBut he did not care for it.  It is strange.  If he should tell me his\nname, I would care.  I think it would be pleasanter in my ears than any\nother sound.\n\nHe talks very little.  Perhaps it is because he is not bright, and is\nsensitive about it and wishes to conceal it.  It is such a pity that he\nshould feel so, for brightness is nothing; it is in the heart that the\nvalues lie.  I wish I could make him understand that a loving good heart\nis riches, and riches enough, and that without it intellect is poverty.\n\nAlthough he talks so little, he has quite a considerable vocabulary.\nThis morning he used a surprisingly good word. He evidently recognized,\nhimself, that it was a good one, for he worked in in twice afterward,\ncasually.  It was good casual art, still it showed that he possesses a\ncertain quality of perception. Without a doubt that seed can be made to\ngrow, if cultivated.\n\nWhere did he get that word?  I do not think I have ever used it.\n\nNo, he took no interest in my name.  I tried to hide my disappointment,\nbut I suppose I did not succeed.  I went away and sat on the moss-bank\nwith my feet in the water.  It is where I go when I hunger for\ncompanionship, some one to look at, some one to talk to. It is not\nenough--that lovely white body painted there in the pool--but it is\nsomething, and something is better than utter loneliness. It talks when\nI talk; it is sad when I am sad; it comforts me with its sympathy; it\nsays, \"Do not be downhearted, you poor friendless girl; I will be your\nfriend.\"  It IS a good friend to me, and my only one; it is my sister.\n\nThat first time that she forsook me! ah, I shall never forget that\n--never, never.  My heart was lead in my body!  I said, \"She was all I\nhad, and now she is gone!\"  In my despair I said, \"Break, my heart; I\ncannot bear my life any more!\" and hid my face in my hands, and there\nwas no solace for me.  And when I took them away, after a little, there\nshe was again, white and shining and beautiful, and I sprang into her\narms!\n\nThat was perfect happiness; I had known happiness before, but it was not\nlike this, which was ecstasy.  I never doubted her afterward. Sometimes\nshe stayed away--maybe an hour, maybe almost the whole day, but I waited\nand did not doubt; I said, \"She is busy, or she is gone on a journey,\nbut she will come.\"  And it was so: she always did.  At night she would\nnot come if it was dark, for she was a timid little thing; but if there\nwas a moon she would come. I am not afraid of the dark, but she is\nyounger than I am; she was born after I was.  Many and many are the\nvisits I have paid her; she is my comfort and my refuge when my life is\nhard--and it is mainly that.\n\n\n\nTUESDAY.--All the morning I was at work improving the estate; and I\npurposely kept away from him in the hope that he would get lonely and\ncome.  But he did not.\n\nAt noon I stopped for the day and took my recreation by flitting all\nabout with the bees and the butterflies and reveling in the flowers,\nthose beautiful creatures that catch the smile of God out of the sky and\npreserve it!  I gathered them, and made them into wreaths and garlands\nand clothed myself in them while I ate my luncheon--apples, of course;\nthen I sat in the shade and wished and waited. But he did not come.\n\nBut no matter.  Nothing would have come of it, for he does not care for\nflowers.  He called them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and\nthinks it is superior to feel like that.  He does not care for me, he\ndoes not care for flowers, he does not care for the painted sky at\neventide--is there anything he does care for, except building shacks to\ncoop himself up in from the good clean rain, and thumping the melons,\nand sampling the grapes, and fingering the fruit on the trees, to see\nhow those properties are coming along?\n\nI laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in it with\nanother one, in order to carry out a scheme that I had, and soon I got\nan awful fright.  A thin, transparent bluish film rose out of the hole,\nand I dropped everything and ran!  I thought it was a spirit, and I WAS\nso frightened!  But I looked back, and it was not coming; so I leaned\nagainst a rock and rested and panted, and let my limbs go on trembling\nuntil they got steady again; then I crept warily back, alert, watching,\nand ready to fly if there was occasion; and when I was come near, I\nparted the branches of a rose-bush and peeped through--wishing the man\nwas about, I was looking so cunning and pretty--but the sprite was gone.\nI went there, and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole. I\nput my finger in, to feel it, and said OUCH! and took it out again.  It\nwas a cruel pain.  I put my finger in my mouth; and by standing first on\none foot and then the other, and grunting, I presently eased my misery;\nthen I was full of interest, and began to examine.\n\nI was curious to know what the pink dust was.  Suddenly the name of it\noccurred to me, though I had never heard of it before.  It was FIRE! I\nwas as certain of it as a person could be of anything in the world. So\nwithout hesitation I named it that--fire.\n\nI had created something that didn't exist before; I had added a new\nthing to the world's uncountable properties; I realized this, and was\nproud of my achievement, and was going to run and find him and tell him\nabout it, thinking to raise myself in his esteem--but I reflected, and\ndid not do it.  No--he would not care for it. He would ask what it was\ngood for, and what could I answer? for if it was not GOOD for something,\nbut only beautiful, merely beautiful--\n\nSo I sighed, and did not go.  For it wasn't good for anything; it could\nnot build a shack, it could not improve melons, it could not hurry a\nfruit crop; it was useless, it was a foolishness and a vanity; he would\ndespise it and say cutting words. But to me it was not despicable; I\nsaid, \"Oh, you fire, I love you, you dainty pink creature, for you are\nBEAUTIFUL--and that is enough!\" and was going to gather it to my breast.\nBut refrained. Then I made another maxim out of my head, though it was\nso nearly like the first one that I was afraid it was only a plagiarism:\n\"THE BURNT EXPERIMENT SHUNS THE FIRE.\"\n\nI wrought again; and when I had made a good deal of fire-dust I emptied\nit into a handful of dry brown grass, intending to carry it home and\nkeep it always and play with it; but the wind struck it and it sprayed\nup and spat out at me fiercely, and I dropped it and ran. When I looked\nback the blue spirit was towering up and stretching and rolling away\nlike a cloud, and instantly I thought of the name of it--SMOKE!--though,\nupon my word, I had never heard of smoke before.\n\nSoon brilliant yellow and red flares shot up through the smoke, and I\nnamed them in an instant--FLAMES--and I was right, too, though these\nwere the very first flames that had ever been in the world.  They\nclimbed the trees, then flashed splendidly in and out of the vast and\nincreasing volume of tumbling smoke, and I had to clap my hands and\nlaugh and dance in my rapture, it was so new and strange and so\nwonderful and so beautiful!\n\nHe came running, and stopped and gazed, and said not a word for many\nminutes.  Then he asked what it was.  Ah, it was too bad that he should\nask such a direct question.  I had to answer it, of course, and I did.\nI said it was fire.  If it annoyed him that I should know and he must\nask; that was not my fault; I had no desire to annoy him. After a pause\nhe asked:\n\n\"How did it come?\"\n\nAnother direct question, and it also had to have a direct answer.\n\n\"I made it.\"\n\nThe fire was traveling farther and farther off.  He went to the edge of\nthe burned place and stood looking down, and said:\n\n\"What are these?\"\n\n\"Fire-coals.\"\n\nHe picked up one to examine it, but changed his mind and put it down\nagain.  Then he went away.  NOTHING interests him.\n\nBut I was interested.  There were ashes, gray and soft and delicate and\npretty--I knew what they were at once.  And the embers; I knew the\nembers, too.  I found my apples, and raked them out, and was glad; for I\nam very young and my appetite is active. But I was disappointed; they\nwere all burst open and spoiled. Spoiled apparently; but it was not so;\nthey were better than raw ones. Fire is beautiful; some day it will be\nuseful, I think.\n\n\n\nFRIDAY.--I saw him again, for a moment, last Monday at nightfall, but\nonly for a moment.  I was hoping he would praise me for trying to\nimprove the estate, for I had meant well and had worked hard. But he was\nnot pleased, and turned away and left me.  He was also displeased on\nanother account:  I tried once more to persuade him to stop going over\nthe Falls.  That was because the fire had revealed to me a new passion\n--quite new, and distinctly different from love, grief, and those others\nwhich I had already discovered--FEAR.  And it is horrible!--I wish I had\nnever discovered it; it gives me dark moments, it spoils my happiness,\nit makes me shiver and tremble and shudder. But I could not persuade\nhim, for he has not discovered fear yet, and so he could not understand\nme.","title":"Eve's Diary, Part 2","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":1870}