Before Adam | Page 8

their occurrence
in the Younger World, occurred with me within the space of several
minutes, or seconds.
It was all a jumble, but this jumble I shall not inflict upon you. It was
not until I was a young man and had dreamed many thousand times,
that everything straightened out and became clear and plain. Then it
was that I got the clew of time, and was able to piece together events
and actions in their proper order. Thus was I able to reconstruct the

vanished Younger World as it was at the time I lived in it--or at the
time my other-self lived in it. The distinction does not matter; for I, too,
the modern man, have gone back and lived that early life in the
company of my other-self.
For your convenience, since this is to be no sociological screed, I shall
frame together the different events into a comprehensive story. For
there is a certain thread of continuity and happening that runs through
all the dreams. There is my friendship with Lop-Ear, for instance. Also,
there is the enmity of Red-Eye, and the love of the Swift One. Taking it
all in all, a fairly coherent and interesting story I am sure you will
agree.
I do not remember much of my mother. Possibly the earliest
recollection I have of her--and certainly the sharpest--is the following:
It seemed I was lying on the ground. I was somewhat older than during
the nest days, but still helpless. I rolled about in the dry leaves, playing
with them and making crooning, rasping noises in my throat. The sun
shone warmly and I was happy, and comfortable. I was in a little open
space. Around me, on all sides, were bushes and fern-like growths, and
overhead and all about were the trunks and branches of forest trees.
Suddenly I heard a sound. I sat upright and listened. I made no
movement. The little noises died down in my throat, and I sat as one
petrified. The sound drew closer. It was like the grunt of a pig. Then I
began to hear the sounds caused by the moving of a body through the
brush. Next I saw the ferns agitated by the passage of the body. Then
the ferns parted, and I saw gleaming eyes, a long snout, and white
tusks.
It was a wild boar. He peered at me curiously. He grunted once or twice
and shifted his weight from one foreleg to the other, at the same time
moving his head from side to side and swaying the ferns. Still I sat as
one petrified, my eyes unblinking as I stared at him, fear eating at my
heart.
It seemed that this movelessness and silence on my part was what was
expected of me. I was not to cry out in the face of fear. It was a dictate

of instinct. And so I sat there and waited for I knew not what. The boar
thrust the ferns aside and stepped into the open. The curiosity went out
of his eyes, and they gleamed cruelly. He tossed his head at me
threateningly and advanced a step. This he did again, and yet again.
Then I screamed...or shrieked--I cannot describe it, but it was a shrill
and terrible cry. And it seems that it, too, at this stage of the
proceedings, was the thing expected of me. From not far away came an
answering cry. My sounds seemed momentarily to disconcert the boar,
and while he halted and shifted his weight with indecision, an
apparition burst upon us.
She was like a large orangutan, my mother, or like a chimpanzee, and
yet, in sharp and definite ways, quite different. She was heavier of build
than they, and had less hair. Her arms were not so long, and her legs
were stouter. She wore no clothes--only her natural hair. And I can tell
you she was a fury when she was excited.
And like a fury she dashed upon the scene. She was gritting her teeth,
making frightful grimaces, snarling, uttering sharp and continuous cries
that sounded like "kh-ah! kh-ah!" So sudden and formidable was her
appearance that the boar involuntarily bunched himself together on the
defensive and bristled as she swerved toward him. Then she swerved
toward me. She had quite taken the breath out of him. I knew just what
to do in that moment of time she had gained. I leaped to meet her,
catching her about the waist and holding on hand and foot--yes, by my
feet; I could hold on by them as readily as by my hands. I could feel in
my tense grip the pull of the hair as her skin and her muscles moved
beneath with her efforts.
As I say, I leaped to