Clearly, these explanations must not be taken literally. Cain and Abel are symbols, examples meant to illustrate the main motivations that drive individuals to hate, bloodshed, war and, ultimately, self-destruction: sexual obsession, material power and religious fanaticism—or just plain fanaticism.

Yet the event remains unexplained; the file remains open. However logical or ingenious, none of the theses presented is irrefutable. We grope in the dark. We still do not know why Cain killed and why Abel did not resist.

While conducting its investigation, should the Midrash not have asked the elementary, the key question asked by any detective: Who benefited from the crime? Well, it did not ask, and for good reason: the question is troublesome, for it implicates someone other than the assassin. In any case, there is no need to look for the assassin; his identity is known from the start. What escapes us is the motive. In other circumstances, the Midrash might have had recourse to the convenient and devoted services of Satan and saddled him with the responsibility. Not this time. The Midrash was well aware that all questions and all answers must begin and end with man: even those questions to which there is no answer.

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(Where are questions allowed to remain unanswered? In art, particularly in literature. And that is how the Talmud views Cain and Abel—as characters in a novel. And why not? We know that a bad novel has three characters: the famous triangle. A good novel has only two. A great novel limits itself to one. Did Cain eliminate Abel for purely literary reasons?)

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As for the murder itself, the Midrash does nothing to elude it or to mitigate its horror. On the contrary, it furnishes us with a rather realistic, almost visual description. The two enemy brothers were alone, with no one to incite or appease them. They were not playing; they did what they meant to do. They were determined to examine everything, to get to the bottom of things. A settling of accounts that had to end badly. When Abel panicked and ran, Cain stormed after him in pursuit. Abel climbed a hill with Cain at his heels. And so they bounded from mountaintop to valley, from valley to forest, from one end of the world to the other, from one world to the other; until finally there they stood, face to face, breathless and fierce, until they locked in a final struggle, the fatal embrace. And then, abruptly, the Midrash shifts, and we see the characters in a different light. Till then we were shown a powerful, almost invincible Cain, who forced his foe into flight. Suddenly, without any transition, Abel emerges as the stronger of the two. The frail and awkward dreamer gained the upper hand. And when Cain, distraught and unrecognizable, begged for pardon and mercy, Abel pretended not to hear. But Cain knew his weak point—his parents: Abel, my brother, we are alone here; if you come home without me, what will you tell our parents? And Abel, imagining his mother and father in mourning, opened himself to pity. He loosened his grip. Cain saw his chance: swift as a wild beast, he jumped to his feet and struck. And killed. Abel had fallen victim to his own pity.