The Diaries of Adam and Eve

This volume collects two short comic works by Mark Twain: "Extracts from Adam's Diary," first published in 1904, and "Eve's Diary," published in 1906. Both are presented as translated manuscripts and retell the biblical story of the first man and woman, from creation through the Fall and into old age. The diary format gives each character a distinct comic voice, and together the two pieces form a love story told from contrasting perspectives.

Adam's diary opens with his irritated observations about a new creature with long hair that follows him everywhere. He is unused to company and wishes it would stay with the other animals. The creature names everything it encounters, claiming each thing "looks like" its name, and renames Adam's estate from "Garden of Eden" to "Niagara Falls Park," posting a "KEEP OFF THE GRASS" sign without consulting him. Adam finds its constant talking offensive to ears accustomed to silence, and when he builds a rain shelter, it intrudes. When he tries to remove it, it sheds water from its eyes and makes distressed noises. The creature announces its name is Eve and insists it is not an "it" but a "she." Adam finds this doubtful and remains indifferent, wishing only to be left alone. Eve litters the estate with directional signs and begs Adam to stop going over the Falls, saying it makes her shudder. He does not understand her concern and continues his stunts. Desperate for solitude, he builds a hidden shelter two days away, but Eve tracks him with a tamed wolf, and he is forced to return.

Eve studies the lions and tigers, puzzled that creatures with predatory teeth live on grass and flowers. Adam dismisses this as foolish, noting that eating each other would introduce death, which has not yet entered the world. Eve befriends a snake that advises her to try the forbidden fruit, promising a great education. Adam warns her that eating it would bring death, but his warning backfires: Eve reasons she could use death to save a sick buzzard and feed fresh meat to the lions and tigers. She refuses to stay away from the tree. Adam flees on horseback, hoping to leave before trouble begins, but the next morning thousands of peacefully grazing animals erupt into violent chaos. Eve has eaten the fruit, and death has entered the world.

Adam finds a place outside the Park. Eve tracks him down, and he is not entirely sorry she came, since food is scarce and she brought apples. He eats them despite his principles, conceding that principles lose their force when a person is hungry. Both feel a new impulse toward modesty and fashion suits from animal skins. Adam reflects that Eve is a good companion and admits he would be lonesome without her. Eve accuses Adam of causing the disaster: The Serpent told her the forbidden fruit was not apples but "chestnuts," meaning aged, stale jokes. Adam recalls making a pun about the Falls just before the catastrophe, and Eve reports the Serpent called that jest "the First Chestnut," as old as creation itself. Adam accepts blame and laments his own wit.

The following year, Eve "catches" a new creature, Cain, in the timber while Adam is away trapping. Baffled by its small size, Adam concludes it must be a fish and tries to test this theory by putting it in water, but it sinks and Eve snatches it out. As it grows, Adam reclassifies it from fish to enigma to kangaroo, naming it "Kangaroorum Adamiensis" and hunting fruitlessly for another specimen. Over months, the creature learns to walk upright and say "poppa" and "momma." Adam considers this a remarkable imitation of speech for a new species of bear. While he is away on a three-month hunt, Eve "catches" a second creature, Abel. Ten years later, Adam acknowledges that they are boys and that girls have arrived too. He reverses his initial judgment of Eve, declaring it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her. He blesses the "chestnut" that brought them together and taught him the goodness of her heart.

Eve's diary then offers her perspective on the same events. On her first full day of existence, she feels like an experiment and suspects the rest of creation is part of the same experiment, with herself as the main part. She marvels at the beauty of the world and confesses that the core of her nature is a love of the beautiful. She follows a creature she suspects is a man, describing him humorously as tapering like a carrot and classifying him as possibly a reptile or a piece of architecture. She discovers he is trying to escape her rather than chase her. She tags along after Adam, taking over the naming of animals because she believes she is saving him from embarrassment. When he avoids her, she experiences her first sorrow. Lonely, she visits her reflection in a pool, which she regards as a sister and her only friend.

Eve discovers fire by rubbing sticks together and names the smoke, flames, and embers instinctively. Adam shows no interest in the discovery, but Eve finds that cooked apples taste better than raw ones and predicts fire will someday prove useful. Fire also teaches her a new emotion, fear, which she tries to explain to Adam, but he has not yet discovered it and cannot understand. A passage from Adam's diary interrupts Eve's narrative: Adam admits Eve is "a quite remarkably comely creature" (30) and, watching her on a boulder in the sunlight, recognizes she is beautiful. Eve describes her passion for experimentation, testing whether water runs uphill and whether objects float, finding the process of discovery more exciting than the answers. She concludes she was made to search out the world's secrets, be happy, and thank the creator.

In a section titled "After the Fall," Eve looks back on the Garden as a lost dream but declares she has found Adam and is content. She catalogues everything she does not love him for, including his singing, his brightness, and his chivalry, and concludes she loves him "Merely because he is masculine" (36) and because he is hers. She notes he told on her after the Fall but does not blame him, calling it a peculiarity of his sex. She affirms that at bottom he is good, and she loves him for that, though she could love him without it. She would love him even if he were plain or a wreck. She concludes that this kind of love is not a product of reasoning but simply arrives, unexplained and needing no explanation.

In a final section titled "Forty Years Later," Eve prays that she and Adam may die together, but if one must go first, she hopes it will be her, because life without him would not be life. She declares this prayer immortal and says it will be repeated by every wife who loves. The book closes at Eve's grave, where Adam speaks its final line: "Wheresoever she was, there was Eden" (37).