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 moldy 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.
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