Their clothes were of many
delicate colours and clung to them, and they were tall and graceful and had
yellow hair. Their robes trailed over the grass. They glided in and out
among the trees, and over their heads hung yellow fruit like large pears of
melted gold.
I said, "It is very fair; I would go up and taste the--"
God said, "Wait."
And after a while I noticed a very fair woman pass: she looked this way
and that, and drew down a branch, and it seemed she kissed the fruit upon
it softly, and went on her way, and her dress made no rustle as she passed
over the grass. And when I saw her no more, from among the stems came
another woman fair as she had been, in a delicate tinted robe; she looked
this way and that. When she saw no one there she drew down the fruit, and
when she had looked over it to find a place, she put her mouth to it
softly, and went away. And I saw other and other women come, making no
noise, and they glided away also over the grass.
And I said to God, "What are they doing?"
God said, "They are poisoning."
And I said, "How?"
God said, "They touch it with their lips, when they have made a tiny wound
in it with their fore-teeth they set in it that which is under their
tongues: they close it with their lip--that no man may see the place, and
pass on."
I said to God, "Why do they do it?"
God said, "That another may not eat."
I said to God, "But if they poison all then none dare eat; what do they
gain?"
God said, "Nothing.
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