12 AUGUST 1995, Page 34

The Making of Eve

And kneeling one day at the sea's edge God scooped a fist of mud from the earth and pressed it into a shape called man. Its coldness spread like an ache through his fingers and as He stooped to warm them by chance a small cloud of breath seeped into the shape and it lived.

But by and by when the sun was high up in the sky man began to crack and fall into pieces. Then God lifted some salt water into his cupped hands and called it woman, smoothing it into the fractured clay. Now whenever man got hot he hankered for a long cool sip from woman and she assented sometimes wanting a place to rest safe from the tireless assaults of the wind and craving for a while a different sort of medium to move in.

Julia Copus