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.”