Adam looked into the ink-red wine in his glass. “I got a shiver when you mentioned it,” he said.

“Two stories have haunted us and followed us from our beginning,” Samuel said. “We carry them along with us like invisible tails—the story of original sin and the story of Cain and Abel. And I don’t understand either of them. I don’t understand them at all but I feel them. Liza gets angry with me. She says I should not try to understand them. She says why should we try to explain a verity. Maybe she’s right—maybe she’s right. Lee, Liza says you’re a Presbyterian—do you understand the Garden of Eden and Cain and Abel?”

“She thought I should be something, and I went to Sunday School long ago in San Francisco. People like you to be something, preferably what they are.”

Adam said, “He asked you if you understood.”

“I think I understand the Fall. I could perhaps feel that in myself. But the brother murder—no. Well, maybe I don’t remember the details very well.”

Samuel said, “Most people don’t read the details. It’s the details that astonish me. And Abel had no children.” He looked up at the sky. “Lord, how the day passes! It’s like a life—so quickly when we don’t watch it and so slowly when we do. No,” he said, “I’m having enjoyment. And I made a promise to myself that I would not consider enjoyment a sin. I take a pleasure in inquiring into things. I’ve never been content to pass a stone without looking under it. And it is a black disappointment to me that I can never see the far side of the moon.”

“I don’t have a Bible,” Adam said. “I left the family one in Connecticut.”

“I have,” said Lee. “I’ll get it.”

“No need,” said Samuel. “Liza let me take her mother’s. It’s here in my pocket.” He took out the package and unwrapped the battered book. “This one has been scraped and gnawed at,” he said. “I wonder what agonies have settled here. Give me a used Bible and I will, I think, be able to tell you about a man by the places that are edged with the dirt of seeking fingers. Liza wears a Bible down evenly. Here we are—this oldest story. If it troubles us it must be that we find the trouble in ourselves.”

“I haven’t heard it since I was a child,” said Adam.

“You think it’s long then, and it’s very short,” said Samuel. “I’ll read it through and then we’ll go back. Give me a little wine, my throat’s dried out with wine. Here it is—such a little story to have made so deep a wound.” He looked down at the ground. “See!” he said. “The boys have gone to their sleep, there in the dust.”

Lee got up. “I’ll cover them,” he said.

“The dust is warm,” said Samuel. “Now it goes this way. ‘And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, “I have gotten a man from the Lord.” ’ ”