
~ Extracts from Adam's Diary ~
From "The Writings of Mark Twain Volume XX"
by Mark Twain
 |
|
-- 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.
-- 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.
-- 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.
-- 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.
-- 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.
-- 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.
-- 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.
-- 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.
-- 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.
-- 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.
-- Pulled through.
-- 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.
-- 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.
-- 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.
-- Pulled through.
-- 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.
-- 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.
-- 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.

Next Page
|