Extracts from Adam's Diary, translated from the original ms.

Chapter 4: Tuesday

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About This Book

The work presents a comic diary of the first man in a primeval garden, recording his bewilderment at a newly arrived companion, the scramble over naming animals and places, and the awkward negotiations of domestic life. Short entries mix wry observations about language, curiosity, and solitude with comic episodes such as renaming landmarks, disputes over food and leisure, curious experiments with animals, and daring excursions near a great waterfall, as both adjust to each other and to the unfamiliar realities of human companionship.

Tuesday

Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on the estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls—why, I am sure I do not know. Says it looks like Niagara Falls. That is not a reason; it is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to name anything myself. The new creature names everything that comes along, before I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offered—it looks like the thing. There is the dodo, for instance. Says the moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it “looks like a dodo.” It will have to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and it does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than I do.