Escorted to the gates of heaven by the angelic host, the Redeemer descends alone to earth, where he arrives in the garden in the cool of the evening. At his summons Adam and Eve emerge from their hiding-place, and, when Adam shamefacedly claims they hid because they were naked, his maker demonstrates how his very words convict him of guilt, and inquires whether they have eaten of the forbidden fruit. Unable to deny his transgression, Adam states he is in a quandary, for he must either accuse himself wrongfully or lay the guilt upon the wife whom it is his duty to protect. When he adds that the woman gave him the fruit whereof he did eat, the judge sternly demands whether Adam was bound to obey his consort, reminding him that woman was made subject to man and declaring that by yielding to Eve's persuasions he incurred equal guilt. Then, turning to the woman, the judge demands what she had done, and Eve, abashed, confesses the serpent beguiled her until she ate. Having thus heard both culprits, the judge pronounces sentence upon the serpent in veiled terms, for, as yet, man is not to understand what is divinely planned. Then, having disposed of the archenemy, he predicts Eve will bring forth her children in suffering and will be subject to her husband's will, ere he informs Adam that henceforth he will have to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, for the earth will no longer bear fruit for him without labor. Having thus pronounced his judgment, the judge postpones the penalty of death indefinitely, and taking pity upon our first parents, clothes them in the skins of beasts, to enable them to bear the harsher air to which they are soon to be exposed. Meantime Sin and Death peer forth through hell's open gateway, hoping to each some glimpse of returning Satan. Weary of waiting, Sin finally suggests to Death the folly of remaining idle, since Satan cannot fail to succeed, and proposes that they follow him over the abyss, building as they go a road to facilitate intercourse hereafter between hell and earth. This proposal charms Death, whose keen nostrils already descry the smell of mortal change, and who longs to reach earth and prey upon all living creatures. These two terrible shapes, therefore, venture out through the waste, and by making "the hard soft and the soft hard," they fashion of stone and asphalt a broad highway from the gates of hell to the confines of the newly created world.