Samuel closed the loose cover of the book almost with weariness. “There it is,” he said. “Sixteen verses, no more. And oh, Lord! I had forgotten how dreadful it is—no single tone of encouragement. Maybe Liza’s right. There’s nothing to understand.”

Adam sighed deeply. “It’s not a comforting story, is it?”

Lee poured a tumbler full of dark liquor from his round stone bottle and sipped it and opened his mouth to get the double taste on the back of his tongue. “No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us. What a great burden of guilt men have!”

Samuel said to Adam, “And you have tried to take it all.”

Lee said, “So do I, so does everyone. We gather our arms full of guilt as though it were precious stuff. It must be that we want it that way.”

Aron broke in, “It makes me feel better, not worse.”

“How do you mean?” Samuel asked.

“Well, every little boy thinks he invented sin. Virtue we think we learn, because we are told about it. But sin is our own designing.”

“Yes, I see. But how does this story make it better?”

“Because,” Adam said excitedly, “we are descended from this. This is our father. Some of our guilt is absorbed in our ancestry. What chance did we have? We are the children of our father. It means we aren’t the first. It’s an excuse, and there aren’t enough excuses in the world.”

“Not convincing ones anyway,” said Lee. “Else we would long ago have wiped out guilt, and the world would not be filled with sad, punished people.”

Samuel said, “But do you think of another frame to this picture? Excuse or not, we are snapped back to our ancestry. We have guilt.”

Adam said, “I remember being a little outraged at God. Both Cain and Abel gave what they had, and God accepted Abel and rejected Cain. I never thought that was a just thing. I never understood it. Do you?”

“Maybe we think out of a different background,” said Lee. “I remember that this story was written by and for a shepherd people. They were not farmers. Wouldn’t the god of shepherds find a fat lamb more valuable than a sheaf of barley? A sacrifice must be the best and most valuable.”

“Yes, I can see that,” said Samuel. “And Lee, let me caution you about bringing your Oriental reasoning to Liza’s attention.”

Adam was excited. “Yes, but why did God condemn Cain? That’s an injustice.”

Samuel said, “There’s an advantage to listening to the words. God did not condemn Cain at all. Even God can have a preference, can’t he? Let’s suppose God liked lamb better than vegetables. I think I do myself. Cain brought him a bunch of carrots maybe. And God said, ‘I don’t like this. Try again. Bring me something I like and I’ll set you up alongside your brother.’ But Cain got mad. His feelings were hurt. And when a man’s feelings are hurt he wants to strike at something, and Abel was in the way of his anger.”

Lee said, “St. Paul says to the Hebrews that Abel had faith.”

“There’s no reference to it in Genesis,” Samuel said. “No faith or lack of faith. Only a hint of Cain’s temper.”

Lee asked, “How does Mrs. Hamilton feel about the paradoxes of the Bible?”

“Why, she does not feel anything because she does not admit they are there.”

“But—”

“Hush, man. Ask her. And you’ll come out of it older but not less confused.”

Adam said, “You two have studied this. I only got it through my skin and not much of it stuck. Then Cain was driven out for murder?”

“That’s right—for murder.”

“And God branded him?”

“Did you listen? Cain bore the mark not to destroy him but to save him. And there’s a curse called down on any man who shall kill him. It was a preserving mark.”

Adam said, “I can’t get over a feeling that Cain got the dirty end of the stick.”

“Maybe he did,” said Samuel. “But Cain lived and had children, and Abel lives only in the story. We are Cain’s children. And isn’t it strange that three grown men, here in a century so many thousands of years away, discuss this crime as though it happened in King City yesterday and hadn’t come up for trial?”

One of the twins awakened and yawned and looked at Lee and went to sleep again.

Lee said, “Remember, Mr. Hamilton, I told you I was trying to translate some old Chinese poetry into English? No, don’t worry. I won’t read it. Doing it, I found some of the old things as fresh and clear as this morning. And I wondered why. And, of course, people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen. And I here make a rule—a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting—only the deeply personal and familiar.”

Samuel said, “Apply that to the Cain-Abel story.”

And Adam said, “I didn’t kill my brother—” Suddenly he stopped and his mind went reeling back in time.

“I think I can,” Lee answered Samuel. “I think this is the best-known story in the world because it is everybody’s story. I think it is the symbol story of the human soul. I’m feeling my way now—don’t jump on me if I’m not clear. The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt—and there is the story of mankind. I think that if rejection could be amputated, the human would not be what he is. Maybe there would be fewer crazy people. I am sure in myself there would not be many jails. It is all there—the start, the beginning. One child, refused the love he craves, kicks the cat and hides his secret guilt; and another steals so that money will make him loved; and a third conquers the world—and always the guilt and revenge and more guilt. The human is the only guilty animal. Now wait! Therefore I think this old and terrible story is important because it is a chart of the soul—the secret, rejected, guilty soul. Mr. Trask, you said you did not kill your brother and then you remembered something. I don’t want to know what it was, but was it very far apart from Cain and Abel? And what do you think of my Oriental patter, Mr. Hamilton? You know I am no more Oriental than you are.”