From the Diary of Adam and Eve

by Mark Twain

EVE'S DIARY: AFTER THE FALL

When I look back, the Garden is a dream to me. It was beautiful, surpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and now it is lost, and I shall not see it anymore.

The Garden is lost, but I have found him, and am content. He loves me as well as he can; I love him with all the strength of my passionate nature. If I ask myself why I love him, I find I do not know, and do not really much care to know; so I suppose that this kind of love is not a product of reasoning and statistics, like one's love for other reptiles and animals. I think that this must be so. I love certain birds because of their song but I do not love Adam on account of his singing--no, it is not that. Yet I ask him to sing, because he likes to do so, and because I wish to learn to like everything he is interested in. I am sure I can learn, because at first I could not stand it, but now I can. It sours the milk,but it doesn't matter; I can get used to that kind of milk.

He is as God made him, and this is sufficient.

Then why is it that I love him? At bottom he is good, and I love him for that. He is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him and am proud of him, but I could love him without those qualities. If he were plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should love him; and I would work for him, pray for him, and watch over him until I died.

Yes, I think I love him merely because he is mine. There is no other reason, I suppose. And so I think it is as I first said; that this kind of love is not a product of reasonings and statistics. It just comes--none knows when--and cannot explain itself. And doesn't need to.

FORTY YEARS LATER.
It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life together. But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I; for he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to me--life without him would not be life; how could I endure it? This prayer is immortal, and will not cease from being offered while my race of female continues. I am the first wife; and in the last wife I shall be repeated.

AT EVE'S GRAVE.
Said Adam, "Wheresoever she was, there was Eden."

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