ADAM. There is a voice in the garden that tells me things.
EVE. The garden is full of voices sometimes. They put all sorts of thoughts into my head.
ADAM. To me there is only one voice. It is very low; but it is so near that it is like a whisper from within myself. There is no mistaking it for any voice of the birds or beasts, or for your voice.
EVE. It is strange that I should hear voices from all sides and you only one from within. But I have some thoughts that come from within me and not from the voices. The thought that we must not cease to be comes from within.
ADAM [despairingly] But we shall cease to be. We shall fall like the fawn and be broken. [Rising and moving about in his agitation]. I cannot bear this knowledge. I will not have it. It must not be, I tell you. Yet I do not know how to prevent it.
EVE. That is just what I feel; but it is very strange that you should say so: there is no pleasing you. You change your mind so often.
ADAM [scolding her] Why do you say that? How have I changed my mind?
EVE. You say we must not cease to exist. But you used to complain of having to exist always and for ever. You sometimes sit for hours brooding and silent, hating me in your heart. When I ask you what I have done to you, you say you are not thinking of me, but of the horror of having to be here for ever. But I know very well that what you mean is the horror of having to be here with me for ever.
ADAM. Oh! That is what you think, is it? Well, you are wrong. [He sits down again, sulkily]. It is the horror of having to be with myself for ever. I like you; but I do not like myself. I want to be different; to be better, to begin again and again; to shed myself as a snake sheds its skin. I am tired of myself. And yet I must endure myself, not for a day or for many days, but for ever. That is a dreadful thought. That is what makes me sit brooding and silent and hateful. Do you never think of that?
EVE. No: I do not think about myself: what is the use? I am what I am: nothing can alter that. I think about you.