Abel was a sweet and tender boy wich blond hair and milk-white skin. His bulging eyes were dripping with goodness as he eyed his brother sheepishly. He stretched his little fat hands out in supplication, pleaded with him, and tried to rub his cheek against his brother's shoulder as he always used to do; his rose-colored cheek that felt like the damp muzzle of a little kitten. But Cain was tlooded with hatred from a thousand boyhood days-the disgust collected from hundreds of meals taken together-and he struck, struck him down with a limb he had broken off a tree to fashion himself a bow-and he saw his brother's light-blue calf-eyes turn to glass, and feit ne pity. Then the sky roared black. Clouds cleaved open-darkening abysses ringing with the icy echo of the green moon. Cain sped forward. He arched his chest and shot toward the forest. The holt of lightning that the Lord threw at him creased his heels. He bounded through the underbrush like a stag. For days he holed up in a cave and starved. He strangled Abel through many dreams. And when he kicked the corpse with his feet, he stretched his broad shoulders in freedom. Abel had never wronged him. Yet he hated him. He trembled whenever Abel Said a kind word to him. He rebelled against being the target of his brother's love. He smelled him like slime sleeping next to him. He felt antagonism in the blood that should have pulsed in unison. During long and sleepless nights, behind half-closed eyelids, he rehearsed the game of slaying his brother for the thousandth time. He rushed at him with clenched fists and faltered into emptiness.' Fingers did not touch living flesh but sank into a sticky, shapeless mass. His manliness splashed against mud; his broad forehead encountered no resistance. That sweet mouth irritated him. He slew the one whom God loved best. He hated God. God, who loved to smell the swirling smoke rising from Abel's offerings. He struck the little virgin Abel hoping to strike God, who had created that effeminate boy in his own likeness. His image. His friend. His brother. His son. His own white-skinned ego. Cain slew Abel in the revolt of the eternal other devoured in gigantic Flame.
Cain lived in the forest. From the hard wood of the ash-tree he carved arrows. He hunted the stag, caught fish with his bare hands, and took eggs from swaying nests. He carried moss and dried leaves into his cavern and made a bed. One humid night he climbed over the mountain range and from a strange valley he abducted a child. The little girl grew up without memory of her human ancestors. She cooked his birds, made his bed, and slept with him. Whenever he furrowed his high brows, she cringed with humble solicitude. She washed his feet and drowned in the sea of his eyes. He taught her to make him sacrihce of animals and rare fruits. When the sacrihcial smoke whirled about him, she bowed her head to her hands and worshipped him. He took revenge an God. He killed God in her heart; he trampled Him to death; he rooted Him out at the core; and he put himself in His place. She bore him Bons and daughters. They spoke his name with godlike veneration. They exulted when the green lightning bolt from Heaven cut close over the tree tops, and they laughed at the black thunder rumbling over the forest. But the lightning from Cain's eyes brought them to their knees and the thunder of his voice made them tremble with fear.
When he was old and ready to die, he ordered them to come to the cave. With his last strength he sealed the entrance with a huge boulder. They lighted sacrihcial fires and surrounded him with prayers. White smoke asphyxiated them. Rigid, he gazed into their imploring eyes; then his whole body convulsed and shook violently. Death seized him. He collapsed and with his face extinguished the last small fire that burned for him.