emmerich -12

 I saw Adam and Eve walking through Paradise for the first time. 

The animals ran to meet and follow them, but they appeared to be more familiar with Eve than with Adam. Eve was in fact more taken up with the earth and created things. She glanced below and around more frequently than Adam. She appeared the more inquisitive of the two. Adam was more silent, more absorbed in God.

 

Among the animals was one... 

that followed Eve more closely than the others. 

It was a singularly gentle [buitengewoon zachtaardig, adellijk] and winning [innemend], though artful [listig, geslepen] creature. I know of none other to which I might compare it. It was slender and glossy [slank en glanzend], and it looked as if it had no bones. It walked upright on its short hind feet [achterpoten], its pointed tail trailing [slepend] on the ground. 

Near the head, which was round with a face exceedingly shrewd [schrander, scherp], it had little short paws [pootjes], and its wily [sluw] tongue was ever in motion. The color of the neck, breast, and under part of the body was pale yellow, and down the back it was a mottled [gevlekt] brown very much the same as an eel. 

It was about as tall as a child of ten years. It was constantly around Eve, and so coaxing [vleiend, verleidelijk] and intelligent, so nimble [behendig] and supple that she took great delight in it. 

But to me there was something horrible about it. 

I can see it distinctly even now. 

I never saw it touch either Adam or Eve. 

Before the Fall, the distance between man and the lower animals was great, and I never saw the first human beings touch any of them. They had, it is true, more confidence in man... 

but they kept at a certain distance from him.

~bron~