"The good Bagoas is really a little prolix," whispered Parysatis to Merodach.
Bagoas heard the interruption and continued tranquilly:
"'This is my garden,' said Adam; and his words implied not only that I was an intruder, and that he was a proprietor, but also that the garden was beautiful, and that he was proud of it. I explained that I had lost my way, that I was hungry, that I was tired; and even as I spoke a young woman rose up out of the wheat and looked at me curiously.
"They led me to their cabin of boughs, and brought me food; and they were naked and were not ashamed. They were strangers to the use of fire, and my meal consisted of nuts and honey, goat's milk and dates, such food as, our poets say, nourished the people of the golden age. In front of their cabin was an apple-tree, similar to the one upon which the birds had congregated, only with golden instead of ruddy fruit. I asked Adam if he would give me an apple from it.
"'The tree is dedicated,' he said; 'and we may not eat of the fruit; it is forbidden to us.'
"'We may not even touch it with our hands,' said the woman, who was called Eve; and she looked at the fruit covetously.
"'To what god is it dedicated?' I enquired of them.
"'It is dedicated to God,' replied Adam simply.
"And I was surprised that this man, who had so many needs, should have only one god; but very soon I found that his monotheism was but a rude crystallisation of the spiritual forces of earth and air, a kind of shamanism, though with the many considered as one. His god was the god of fertility, who had caused the earth to put forth grass, and the trees to bear fruit, and all things to bring forth after their kind; a god whose voice was heard on the wind of the day, and who breathed into man the breath of life. In his loneliness Adam had told himself stories as children do, and, as with children, his imagination had laid hold with such intensity of vision upon these fanciful adventures of his mind that he seemed to live in a little world of his own creating, a land of enchantment and of dreams. The wind, the waters, the leaves of the never silent trees, the birds and the beasts of the field, all spoke in what was to him an intelligible voice; and his god was a being not far removed from himself, enjoying, even as Adam himself did, the cool of the day, the blithe air, and the breath of the sweet flowers.