But you
have made the serpent our enemy: she has left the garden, or is dead: I
never see her now. So I have to come back and listen to Adam saying the
same thing for the ten-thousandth time, or to receive a visit from the
last great-great-grandson who has grown up and wants to impress me with
his importance. Oh, it is dreary, dreary! And there is yet nearly seven
hundred years of it to endure.
CAIN. Poor mother! You see, life is too long. One tires of everything.
There is nothing new under the sun.
ADAM [_to Eve, grumpily_] Why do you live on, if you can find nothing
better to do than complain?
EVE. Because there is still hope.
CAIN. Of what?
EVE. Of the coming true of your dreams and mine. Of newly created
things. Of better things. My sons and my son's sons are not all diggers
and fighters. Some of them will neither dig nor fight: they are more
useless than either of you: they are weaklings and cowards: they are
vain; yet they are dirty and will not take the trouble to cut their
hair. They borrow and never pay; but one gives them what they want,
because they tell beautiful lies in beautiful words.
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