Eve to Her Daughters
by Judith Wright
It was
not I who began it.
Turned
out into draughty caves,
hungry
so often, having to work for our bread,
hearing
the children whining,
I was nevertheless
not unhappy.
Where
Adam went I was fairly contented to go.
I
adapted myself to the punishment: it was my life.
But
Adam, you know ā¦.. !
He kept
on brooding over the insult,
over the
trick They had played on us, over the scolding.
He had
discovered a flaw in himself
and he
had to make up for it.
Outside
Eden the earth was imperfect,
the
seasons changed, the game was fleet-footed,
he had
to work for our living, and he didnāt like it.
He even
complained of my cooking
(it was
hard to compete with Heaven).
So he
set to work.
The
earth must be made a new Eden
with
central heating, domesticated animals,
mechanical
harvesters, combustion engines,
escalators,
refrigerators,
and
modern means of communication
and
multiplied opportunities for safe investment
and
higher education for Abel and Cain
and the
rest of the family.
You can
see how his pride had been hurt.
In the
process he had to unravel everything,
because
he believed that mechanism
was the
whole secret ā he was always mechanical-minded.
He got to
the very inside of the whole machine
exclaiming
as he went, So that is how it works!
And now
that I know how it works, why, I must have invented it.
As for
God and the Other, they cannot be demonstrated,
And what
cannot be demonstrated
doesnāt
exist.
You see,
he had always been jealous.
Yes, he
got to the centre
where
nothing at all can be demonstrated.
And
clearly he doesnāt exist; but he refuses
to
accept the conclusion.
You see,
he was always an egotist.
It was
warmer than this in the cave;
There was
none of this fall-out.
I would
suggest, for the sake of the children,
that
itās time you took over.
But you
are my daughters, you inherit my own faults of character;
you are
submissive, following Adam
even
beyond existence.
Faults
of character have their own logic
and it
always works out.
I
observed this with Abel and Cain.
Perhaps
the whole elaborate fable
right
from the beginning
is meant
to demonstrate this; perhaps itās the whole secret.
Perhaps
nothing exists but our faults?
At least
they can be demonstrated.
But itās
useless to make
such a
suggestion to Adam.
He has
turned himself into God,
who is
faultless, and doesnāt exist.
Comments