East of Eden

“That’s right—for murder.”

“And God branded him?”

“Did you listen? Cain bore the mark not to destroy him but to save him. And there’s a curse called down on any man who shall kill him. It was a preserving mark.”

Adam said, “I can’t get over a feeling that Cain got the dirty end of the stick.”

“Maybe he did,” said Samuel. “But Cain lived and had children, and Abel lives only in the story. We are Cain’s children. And isn’t it strange that three grown men, here in a century so many thousands of years away, discuss this crime as though it happened in King City yesterday and hadn’t come up for trial?”

One of the twins awakened and yawned and looked at Lee and went to sleep again.

Lee said, “Remember, Mr. Hamilton, I told you I was trying to translate some old Chinese poetry into English? No, don’t worry. I won’t read it. Doing it, I found some of the old things as fresh and clear as this morning. And I wondered why. And, of course, people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen. And I here make a rule—a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting—only the deeply personal and familiar.”

Samuel said, “Apply that to the Cain-Abel story.”

And Adam said, “I didn’t kill my brother—” Suddenly he stopped and his mind went reeling back in time.

“I think I can,” Lee answered Samuel. “I think this is the best-known story in the world because it is everybody’s story. I think it is the symbol story of the human soul. I’m feeling my way now—don’t jump on me if I’m not clear. The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt—and there is the story of mankind. I think that if rejection could be amputated, the human would not be what he is. Maybe there would be fewer crazy people. I am sure in myself there would not be many jails. It is all there—the start, the beginning. One child, refused the love he craves, kicks the cat and hides his secret guilt; and another steals so that money will make him loved; and a third conquers the world—and always the guilt and revenge and more guilt. The human is the only guilty animal. Now wait! Therefore I think this old and terrible story is important because it is a chart of the soul—the secret, rejected, guilty soul. Mr. Trask, you said you did not kill your brother and then you remembered something. I don’t want to know what it was, but was it very far apart from Cain and Abel? And what do you think of my Oriental patter, Mr. Hamilton? You know I am no more Oriental than you are.”

Samuel had leaned his elbows on the table and his hands covered his eyes and his forehead. “I want to think,” he said. “Damn you, I want to think. I’ll want to take this off alone where I can pick it apart and see. Maybe you’ve tumbled a world for me. And I don’t know what I can build in my world’s place.”

Lee said softly, “Couldn’t a world be built around accepted truth? Couldn’t some pains and insanities be rooted out if the causes were known?”

“I don’t know, damn you. You’ve disturbed my pretty universe. You’ve taken a contentious game and made an answer of it. Let me alone—let me think! Your damned bitch is having pups in my brain already. Oh, I wonder what my Tom will think of this! He’ll cradle it in the palm of his mind. He’ll turn it slow in his brain like a roast of pork before the fire. Adam, come out now. You’ve been long enough in whatever memory it was.”

Adam started. He sighed deeply. “Isn’t it too simple?” he asked. “I’m always afraid of simple things.”

“It isn’t simple at all,” said Lee. “It’s desperately complicated. But at the end there’s light.”

“There’s not going to be light long,” Samuel said. “We’ve sat and let the evening come. I drove over to help name the twins and they’re not named. We’ve swung ourselves on a pole. Lee, you better keep your complications out of the machinery of the set-up churches or there might be a Chinese with nails in his hands and feet. They like complications but they like their own. I’ll have to be driving home.”

Adam said desperately, “Name me some names.”

“From the Bible?”

“From anyplace.”

“Well, let’s see. Of all the people who started out of Egypt only two came to the Promised Land. Would you like them for a symbol?”

“Who?”

“Caleb and Joshua.”

“Joshua was a soldier—a general. I don’t like soldiering.”

“Well, Caleb was a captain.”

“But not a general. I kind of like Caleb—Caleb Trask.”

One of the twins woke up and without interval began to wail.

“You called his name,” said Samuel. “You don’t like Joshua, and Caleb’s named. He’s the smart one—the dark one. See, the other one is awake too. Well, Aaron I’ve always liked, but he didn’t make it to the Promised Land.”

The second boy almost joyfully began to cry.

“That’s good enough,” said Adam.

Suddenly Samuel laughed. “In two minutes,” he said, “and after a waterfall of words. Caleb and Aaron—now you are people and you have joined the fraternity and you have the right to be damned.”

Lee took the boys up under his arms. “Have you got them straight?” he asked.

“Of course,” said Adam. “That one is Caleb and you are Aaron.”

Lee lugged the yelling twins toward the house in the dusk.

“Yesterday I couldn’t tell them apart,” said Adam. “Aaron and Caleb.”

“Thank the good Lord we had produce from our patient thought,” Samuel said. “Liza would have preferred Joshua. She loves the crashing walls of Jericho. But she likes Aaron too, so I guess it’s all right. I’ll go and hitch up my rig.”

Adam walked to the shed with him. “I’m glad you came,” he said. “There’s a weight off me.”

Samuel slipped the bit in Doxology’s reluctant mouth, set the brow band, and buckled the throatlatch. “Maybe you’ll now be thinking of the garden in the flat land,” he said. “I can see it there the way you planned it.”