Gerald Murnane - A Lifetime on Clouds

He said, ‘The union of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden was not only the first marriage — it was the most perfect marriage in history, because it was God who introduced the young couple to each other and because the way they behaved in marriage was exactly as He had intended.

‘You can imagine them meeting for the first time in some leafy clearing far more pleasant than any place we know of near Hepburn Springs. They were both naked — yes, stark naked, because Adam’s reason was in full control over his passions and there was no need for Eve to practise the virtue of modesty. With their perfect understanding of what God wanted them to do, they would have agreed to live together there and then — there was no long courtship such as we had to observe. No doubt they went through some simple wedding ceremony, and surely it was God who officiated. What a wonderful start to married life!

‘They had no need to go away for a honeymoon. There were scenic spots and secluded walks all round them already. What happened next? Well, we can deduce that their acts of sexual communion would have been the most perfect ever performed. They would have looked into each other’s eyes one afternoon and understood it was time to co-operate with God in creating a new human life. As they lay down together Adam’s body would have shown none of those signs of uncontrollable passion that you might have glimpsed on me some nights in bed. Of course, at the last moment, when it was time to deposit his seed in the receptacle designed for the purpose, his organ must have behaved more or less like mine, but whereas I (with my fallen human nature) tend to lose control of myself for a few moments, he would have lain there quite calmly with his reason fully operative. He may well have chatted to Eve about some gorgeous butterfly flitting above them or pointed out some inspiring view through the trees around them.

‘They lived in such close contact with God and obeyed His Will so completely that in all probability it was He who reminded them now and then that it was high time they mated again. The Bible tells us that God came and walked with them in the cool of the evening. You can imagine Him politely suggesting it to them as the sun sinks below the treetops of Eden. They smile and say what a good idea it is and then lie down on the nearest grassy bank and do it without any fuss.

‘Of course they wouldn’t have been the least ashamed to have God beside them while they did it. And He wouldn’t have been embarrassed either — after all, it was He who invented the idea of human reproduction. I can see Him strolling a little way off to look at a bird’s nest or let a squirrel run down his arm. Occasionally He glances back at the young couple and smiles wisely to Himself.

‘Just to remind you of the vast difference between our First Parents in their perfect state and ourselves with our fallen natures, I’d like you to imagine how we would have managed if we’d tried to live like Adam and Eve.

‘Think of me getting into your compartment on the Coroke train for the first time. I haven’t got a stitch of clothing on and neither have you. (We’ll have to suppose the other passengers are naked too.) I look at your face to try to assess your character, but I’m such a slave to my passions that I let my gaze fall on your other charms below. Meanwhile you notice the way I’m looking at you, and you can’t decide whether I’m thinking of you as a possible mate for life or just the object of my momentary lust. So you don’t know whether to sit still and meet my eyes or fold your arms in front of you and cross your legs tightly.

‘And when I put my schoolbag on the rack above your head and I lean on tiptoes over your seat and the most private parts of me are only a foot or so from your face, what do you do? If your human nature was as perfect as Eve’s in Paradise, you would look calmly at my organs to satisfy yourself that at least I was a fully developed man capable of fathering children. But because you have a fallen nature you’re too frightened or horrified to look at them dangling in front of your eyes, so you go on reading your library book.

‘This example might seem far-fetched, but believe me, it’s the way God intended us to court each other. It was the sin of our First Parents that made us shy with each other. If we hadn’t been born with Original Sin on our souls, our whole courtship would have been simple and beautiful. Instead of waiting all those months just to speak to you, I would have walked hand-in-hand with you to your parents’ place on the first night I met you. (Your home would have been a mossy nook with walls of some vivid flowering vine — Accrington before the Fall would have had a subtropical climate and vegetation.)

‘We find your parents sitting happily together coaxing a spotted fawn to eat from their hands. They come forward smiling to greet me — both naked, of course, but their bodies have no wrinkles or varicose veins or rolls of fat. I take no notice of your mother’s body because I’ve seen thousands like it all over Melbourne. Your parents talk to me and soon understand what an ideal partner I’d be for their daughter. Next morning I come to take you away. There’s no long-winded ceremony or speeches. They give us their blessing and we go off to find our own bower of blossoming foliage.

‘It all seems so impossible and of course it is, because we live nowadays in a fallen world. And the worst result of our First Parents’ sin is that a man can scarcely look at a woman now without his passions urging him to sin with her in thought or deed.

‘I can see you’re surprised to hear this, but you must remember that very few men have learned self-control the way I have. It’s unpleasant to talk about, I know, but many men use their wives entirely for their own selfish pleasure.

‘This sort of thing apparently began almost as soon as Adam and Eve’s descendants started to populate the earth. The oldest cities in the world, Sumer and Akkad, had their walls covered with obscene drawings and carvings, so Brother Chrysostom told us once in his history class. The men of those cities must have had sexual thoughts all day long. The hot climate probably helped, but the main reason would have been that they had never heard of the Ten Commandments.

‘You might have heard in your Christian Doctrine classes, Denise, that God gives every man a conscience, so that even a pagan in the days before Christ knew the difference between right and wrong. I’m afraid I find that hard to believe.

‘One day I deliberately imagined myself growing up in Sumer or Akkad in those days. I discovered I would have had no conscience at all. I would have been a thorough pagan like all the others and enjoyed scribbling filth on the temple walls. (Don’t be alarmed, darling. It’s not the real me I’m talking about. The real Adrian Sherd is the one who’s in bed beside you now.) I saw myself strolling along the terrace between the Hanging Gardens and the river. The sky was blue and cloudless. I was wearing sandals and a short tunic with nothing underneath. All the women walking past wore brief skirts and primitive brassieres.

‘Well, as soon as a young woman took my fancy, a kind of raving madness came over me. (Remember it’s only an experiment I’m describing.) No thought of conscience or right and wrong entered my head. I was very different from the young Catholic gentleman who courted you so politely and patiently in the Coroke train. I was as bold as brass with the pagan girl — asked her name and address and arranged to meet her that evening at one of the lonely oases beyond the city walls.

‘I didn’t wait to see what happened after that, but it wasn’t hard to guess from the storm of temptations rising up inside me. From that day on, I knew that if I hadn’t been lucky enough to be born a Catholic and learn the proper purpose of my instincts, I would have been some kind of beast. No girl in Sumer or Akkad would have been safe from me.