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

Chapter 6: Friday

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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.

Friday

The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty —GARDEN-OF-EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but not any longer publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it looks like a park, and does not look like anything but a park. Consequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named —NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. And already there is a sign up:

KEEP OFF THE GRASS

My life is not as happy as it was.