She accuses me of being the cause of our disaster! She says, with
apparent sincerity and truth, that the Serpent assured her that the
forbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts. I said I was
innocent, then, for I had not eaten any chestnuts. She said the Serpent
informed her that “chestnut” was a figurative term meaning an aged and
mouldy joke. I turned pale at that, for I have made many jokes to pass
the weary time, and some of them could have been of that sort, though I
had honestly supposed that they were new when I made them. She asked me
if I had made one just at the time of the catastrophe. I was obliged to
admit that I had made one to myself, though not aloud. It was this. I
was thinking about the Falls, and I said to myself, “How wonderful it
is to see that vast body of water tumble down there!” Then in an
instant a bright thought flashed into my head, and I let it fly,
saying, “It would be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble up
there!”—and I was just about to kill myself with laughing at it when
all nature broke loose in war and death, and I had to flee for my life.
“There,” she said, with triumph, “that is just it; the Serpent
mentioned that very jest, and called it the First Chestnut, and said it
was coeval with the creation.” Alas, I am indeed to blame. Would that I
were not witty; oh, would that I had never had that radiant thought!