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green life of the Garden. And our first parents knew naught of these as
yet unutterable mysteries, any more than they knew that their roses
bloomed over a tomb: so that when all animate creatures came to Adam to
be named, the meaning of this living allegory which passed before him
was in great part hidden, and he saw no sharp line dividing the
firmament below from the firmament above; rather he leaned toward the
ground, as one does in a garden, seeing how quickly it was fashioned
into the climbing trees, into the clean flowers, and into his own
shapely frame. It was upon the ground he lay when that deep sleep fell
upon him from which he woke to find his mate, lithe as the serpent, yet
with the fluttering heart of the dove.

As the Dove, though winged for flight, ever descended, so the Serpent,
though unable wholly to leave the ground, tried ever to lift himself
therefrom, as if to escape some ancient bond. The cool nights revived
and nourished his memories of an older time, wherein lay his subtile
wisdom, but day by day his aspiring crest grew brighter. The life of
Eden became for him oblivion, the light of the sun obscuring and
confounding his reminiscence, even as for Adam and Eve this life was
Illusion, the visible disguising the invisible, and pleasure
veiling pain.

In Adam the culture of the ground maintained humility. He was held,
moreover, in lowly content by the charm of the woman, who was to him
like the earth grown human; and since she was the daughter of Sleep, her
love seemed to him restful as the night. Her raven locks were like the
mantle of darkness, and her voice had the laughter of streams that
lapsed into unseen depths.

But Eve had something of the Serpent's unrest, as if she too had come
from the Under-world, which she would fain forget, seeking liberation,
urged by desire as deep as the abyss she had left behind her, and
nourished from roots unfathomably hidden--the roots of the Tree of Life.
She thus came to have conversation with the Serpent.

In the lengthening days of Eden's one Summer these two were more and
more completely enfolded in the Illusion of Light. It was under this
spell that, dwelling upon the enticement of fruit good to look at, and
pleasant to the taste, the Serpent denied Death, and thought of Good as
separate from Evil. "Ye shall not surely die, but shall be as the gods,
knowing good and evil." So far, in his aspiring day-dream, had the
Serpent fared from his old famili