“That is true; but the noblest fruit of the garden, the only one securing to you perfect happiness, is denied to your lips.” “Have we not abundance of fruit of every color and flavor--only one is forbidden?” “And if you knew why that one is forbidden, you would find little pleasure in tasting the others.” “Do you know?” “I do, and for that reason am I so cast down. This fruit alone gives eternal youth and health, whereas all the others give weakness, disease, old age and death, which is the cessation of life with all its joys.” “Why, dearest serpent, did you never tell me this before? Whence know you these things?” “An angel told me this as I lay under the forbidden tree.” “I must also see him,” said Eve, leaving her tent and going towards the tree. At this moment Eblis flew out of the serpent’s mouth, and stood in human form beneath the tree. “Who art thou, wondrous being, the like of whom I have not seen before?” asked Eve. “I am a man who have become an angel.” “And how didst thou become an angel?” “By eating of this fruit,” answered the tempter,--“this fruit which is denied us through the envy of God. I dared to break His command as I grew old and feeble, and my eyes waxed dim, my ears dull, and my teeth fell out, so that I could neither speak plainly nor enjoy my food; my hands shook, my feet tottered, my head was bent upon my breast, my back was bowed, and I became so hideous that all the beasts of the garden fled from me in fear. Then I sighed for death, and hoping to find it in the fruit of this tree, I ate, and lo! instantly I was young again; though a thousand years had elapsed since I was made, they had fled with all their traces, and I enjoy perpetual health and youth and beauty.” “Do you speak the truth?” asked Eve. “I swear by God who made me.” Eve believed this oath, and broke a branch from the wheat-tree. Before the Fall, wheat grew to a tree with leaves like emeralds. The ears were red as rubies and the grains white as snow, sweet as honey, and fragrant as musk. Eve ate one of the grains and found it more delicious than any thing she had hitherto tasted, so she gave a second grain to Adam. Adam resisted at first, according to some authorities for a whole hour, but an hour in Paradise was eighty years of our earthly reckoning. But when he saw that Eve remained well and cheerful, he yielded to her persuasions, and ate of the second grain which Eve had offered him daily, three times a day, during the hour of eighty years. Thereupon all Adam’s heaven-given raiment fell from him, his crown slipped off his head, his rings dropped from his fingers, his silken garments glided like water from his shoulders, and he and Eve were naked and unadorned, and their fallen garments reproached them with the words, “Great is your misfortune; long will be your sorrows; we were created to adorn those who serve God; farewell till the resurrection!”