mossed gentleman! even a learned man studies on because he can do nothing else. So one can build a middling-sized card house: but the greatest spirit cannot build it fully up: your master, however, he is a clever one; who knows him not, the noble doctor Wagner, the first now in the learned world! It is he alone who holds it together, the daily increaser of wisdom: knowledge-seeking listeners and hearers gather round him in a crowd. He alone shines from the professor's chair: he uses the key like St. Peter, and opens that which is beneath as well as that which is above. When he glows and sparkles before all, no reputation—no fame can resist; even Faustus's name becomes darkened,- he alone is it who has invented. Servitor. Pardon, most noble sir! If I tell you, if I dare to contradict you; of all this it is not the question: modesty is his allotted part. He cannot understand the incomprehensible disappearance of that lofty man; he prays for comfort and health from his return. The chamber, as in Doctor Faustus's days, still undisturbed since he has been away, waits for its old master. Scarcely do I dare to venture in. What must the astral hour be? The wall appears to me to be awe-struck: the door-posts shook, the bolts sprang open, or else yourself could not have entered. Mephistopheles. Where has the man got to? Lead me to him, or bring him here. Servitor. Ah! his prohibition was too strict, I know not whether I may dare it. Months long, for the sake of great work, he has lived in the most silent of all silence. The most delicate of all scholars, he now looks like a charcoal-burner, begrimed from ear to nose, his eyes red with fire-blowing, so he grasps at every moment, whilst clang of pincers makes the music. Mephistopheles. Shall he deny me entrance? him luck. I am the man to bring (The Servitor departs, Mephistopheles sits gravely down.) Scarcely have I taken post here, when a guest, known to me, moves from behind. Yet this time he is of the most recent school, and will be boundlessly daring. Bachelor (storming along the passage). I find gate and doors open! Now we may at last hope, that the living one is not, as formerly, wasting in corruption, spoiling, and dying of life itself,-the living like the dead. These walls, these partitions, are bowing, sinking to their end; and if we do not soon escape, ruin and overthrow will reach us. I am as daring as any, but no one will get me any farther. Yet what shall I to-day learn! Was it not here, so many years ago, when I, anxious and troubled, had come like a good fresh-man? When I trusted these bearded fellows, and was edified by their prating, they lied to me what they knew out of the old musty books what they knew, and themselves believed not; and robbed themselves, and me of life. How? There, behind, in the cell, sits one still darkly bright! Approaching, I see with wonder, that he still sits in the brown fur coat, truly, just as I left him; still wrapped in the rough fleece! He seemed then, very clever, when I as yet understood him not. To day it will be of no effect: so here goes at him. If, old gentleman, Lethe's dimming waters have not swum through your sideways-bent bald head, look and recognise the scholar coming here, grown out of academical rods. I find you still as I left you. I stand here another person. Mephistopheles. I am glad Î have rung you here; even then I did not value you a little; the grub and the chrysalis already show the future variegated butterfly. You felt a childish pleasure in your curling hair and laced collar. You probably never wore a pigtail?-Now I see you quite a crophead. You look resolute and determined: only do not come here absolute. Bachelor. My old gentleman! we are in the old place; but bethink you of the course of renovated times, and spare your double-meaning words; we listen now very differently. You made game of the good faithful youth; you did that without trouble which now nobody dares do. Mephistopheles. If one tells youth pure truth, it in no wise pleases the youngsters; but when they, in after years, have experienced it painfully on their own skin, then they fancy that it is all come out of their own heads; then they say-the master was a fool. Bachelor. A rogue, perhaps. For what teacher tells us the truth direct to our face. Every one can increase or diminish, now earnest, now cheerfully prudent, to benefit children. Mephistopheles. There is indeed a time for learning; you, I perceive, are yourself ready for teaching. After many moons, and some suns, you have doubtless got the fulness of experience. Bachelor. Experience! foam and dust! and not equal rank with the spirit. Confess! what man has formerly known is altogether not worth knowing. Mephistopheles (after a pause). Methought long ago I was a fool: now I appear to myself quite silly and stupid. Bachelor. That I am glad of. Here I hear reason. You are the first old man I have found sensible. Mephistopheles. I sought for hidden golden treasures, and only raised horrible coals. Bachelor. Confess now; your scull, your bald head, is worth no more than those hollow ones there. Mephistopheles (placidly). Perhaps you do not know friend, how rude you are? Bachelor. In German, one lies if one is polite. Mephistopheles (moving with his wheel-chair towards the proscenium to the pit). Up here, I am deprived of light and air; I shall perhaps find a refuge with yon? Bachelor. I find it presumptuous, that at the worst time people want to be something when they are no more anything. Man's life lives in blood, and in whom does blood stir as in youth? That is living blood in fresh vigour, that gets for itself new life out of life. There all moves, there is something done, the weak falls, the vigorous steps forward. Whilst we have won half the world, what have you done? Nodded, thought, dreamed, weighed, plan and ever plan. Truly old age is a cold fever in the frost of whimmy trouble: as soon as one is past thirty, he is as good as dead. It were the best to kill you early. Mephistopheles. The devil can add no more to this. Mephistopheles (aside). The devil will trip you up some day. Bachelor. This is youth's noblest privilege! The world existed not till I created it; I brought the sun forth out of the sea; the moon began with me its course of change: then day adorned itself upon my paths, the earth became green and bloomed for me. At my beck, on that first night, the beauty of all the stars unfolded itself. Who, beside me, unbound you from all the fetters of thoughts confining you within the region of common-place? But I, free, as it speaks within my spirit, joyfully pursue my inward light, and walk boldly in inmost delight,brightness before me, and darkness behind. [Exit. Mephistopheles. Thou original, be gone in thy majesty! how would the truth vex thee: who can think of anything stupid or wise which the fore-world has not already thought? Yet we are not endangered by this: in a few years it will be otherwise; though the Must may behave itself quite absurdly, yet at last it may be wine. (To the young part of the pit, which does not applaud.) You remain cold at my words, I will let it pass for you, good children; think, the devil is old; then grow old to understand him! SCENE. Laboratory, in the fashion of the Middle Ages, extensive, clumsy apparatus, for fantastic purposes. Wagner (at the hearth). The bell sounds, and fearfully causes the rusted walls to shudder, the uncertainty of this most earnest expectation can no longer last. Already the darkness grows bright, already it is glowing like living coal in the inmost part of the phial, scattering lightnings through the darkness, like the most splendid carbuncle. A bright white light appears! O that I may not lose it this time! Good God, what's that rustling at the door? Mephistopheles (entering). Welcome! It is a friend. Wagner (alarmed). Welcome! to the star of the hour! [in a low voice]. Yet keep your words and breath fast in your mouth; a noble work is just being perfected. Mephistopheles (in a low voice). What is it, then? Wagner (still lower). A man is being made. Mephistopheles. A man? And what loving couple have you shut up in this smoky hole? Wagner. God forbid! The old mode of begetting we declare to be stupid nonsense. The tender point out of which life sprang, the gentle strength which pressed from the inmost, and took and gave, intended to trace itself, to appropriate first that which is nearest, then that which is foreign, is now deposed from its dignity; if the beast delights itself still in it, man, with his great gifts, must, for the future, have a purer, higher origin. [Turning to the hearth] See! it flashes! Now we may indeed hope, that, if we leisurely compound the materials of man out of many hundred substances, through mixing (for on mixing it depends), if we enclose them in a retort, and properly combine them, the work will in silence be done. [Turning again to the hearth.] It is forming. The mass moves clearer. The conviction becomes truer and truer ! What people called mysterious in nature, we dare, with understanding, to experiment on; and what they formerly did by organisation, we do by crystallisation. Mephistopheles. He who lives long has learnt much; nothing new can happen to him in this world; already, in my years of pilgrimage, have I seen crystallised men. Wagner (with his attention still fixed to the phial). It rises, it lightens, it piles itself together; in a moment it is done! A great plan at first appears mad; yet, for the future, we will laugh at accident; and such a brain as shall think excellently for the future, will also make a thinker. [Contemplating the phial with delight.] The glass rings with lovely power; it dims, it clears: thus must it form; I see a beautiful mannikin moving in elegant form. What can we wish, what can the world wish more? For the mystery is brought to light: only listen to this sound, it will become a voice, will become speech! Yet Homunculus (in the phial to Wagner.) Now, fatherkin, how goes it? It was no joke! Come, press me right tenderly to thy heart! not too firmly, that the glass may not break. That is the property of things the universe scarcely suffices for the natural, that which is artificial needs enclosed space. [To Mephistopheles.] But thou, cousin, rogue, art thou here? It is in the right moment, I thank thee. A good fate leads thee here to us; whilst I exist, I must be also active. I should like at once to gird myself to the work you are expert in shortening the way for me. Wagner. Only a word! Up to this time I was obliged to be ashamed of myself, for young and old overwhelmed me with problems; for example, nobody could comprehend how body and soul agree together so beautifully, hold together so fast, as never to part, and yet always make the day wretched to each other. So, then- Mephistopheles. Hold! I had rather ask how man and wife endure each other so badly? You'll never get clear of that, my friend. Here is something to do; that's what this little fellow wants. Homunculus. What is there to do? Mephistopheles (pointing to a side door). Here show your gifts. Wagner (still looking into the phial). Indeed you are a most beautiful boy! (The side door opens; Faust is seen stretched on the couch). Yet Homunculus (astonished). Important! [The phial slips from Wagner's hands; hovers over Faust, and shines on him.] Beautifully surrounded! Clear waters in the thick grove, ladies undressing themselves; the beautiful ones! It is growing better. Yet one, glittering, may be distinguished as being of the highest heroic, nay, divine race. She sets her foot into the transparent brightness; the sweet life-flame of her noble body is cooled in the yielding crystal of the waves. what rustling of quickly-moved wings; what splashing, dashing, disturbs the smooth mirror? The maidens fly scared; yet alone the queen looks calmly on, and sees with proud, womanly pleasure, the swan press to her knee, intrusively tame. He appears to accustom himself to it. But on a sudden rises up a vapour, and covers, with a thick-woven veil the most lovely of all scenes. N. S.-VOL. I. R R . Mephistopheles. Why, you can relate everything! You are as great a phantast as you are small. I see nothing Homunculus. That I believe. You out of the North, born in the cloudy age-in the confusion of chivalry and priestery, how could your eye be free? Thou art only at home in the gloomy. [Looking round]. Ye browned stones, mouldered, disagreeable, point-arched, fantastic, low! If this one awakes, there will be new trouble; he will die on the spot. Forest springs, swans, naked beauties, that was his meaning-pregnant dream; how would he accustom himself to this place! I, the most yielding, can scarce endure it. Now, away with him. Mephistopheles. The exit will rejoice me. Homunculus. Command the warrior in the battle, lead the maiden to the dance, then all is at once finished. Even now, as I have just recollected, in the classical Walpurgis-night, the best thing that could occur. Bring him to his element. Mephistopheles. Of that I have never heard. Homunculus. How should it come to your ears? You only know the spectres of romance; a spectre, to be true, has also to be classical. Mephistopheles. Whither, then, will the journey go? Antique colleagues already disgust me. Homunculus. Thy pleasure-grounds, Satan, are to the north-west; but this time we sail to the south-east. Peneus flows freely in a vast valley, surrounded with trees and bushes, in still and moist bays; the even ground extends to the mountain caves; and above lies new and old Pharsalus. Mephistopheles. O dear! Away! Don't talk of those strifes of tyranny and slavery: I am tired of them; for scarcely are they done, than they begin all over again; and no one remarks that he is only vexed by Asmodius who stands behind? They fight for freedom's rights (so is it called); if you look closely to them, they are slaves against slaves. Homunculus. Leave to men their quarrelsome being, each one must defend himself as he can, even from his youth; so he becomes at last a man! Here the only question is, how this one may enjoy himself? have a means, try it here; if not, leave it to me. If you Mephistopheles. We might try many Brocken-pieces; yet I find the heathen bolts pushed back beforehand. The Greeks were never worth much. Yet they dazzle you with the free-play of the senses, and entice man's breast to cheerful sins. People always find our scenes gloomy. And now, what's to be done? Homunculus. You used not to be modest: and if I talk of the Thessalian witches, I think I have said something. Mephistopheles (lustingly). Thessalian witches! Well! Those are persons after whom I have long asked. I do not think that it will please to dwell with them night after night; yet to the visit, the trial. Homunculus. Wrap your cloak here round the knight. You will, as before, carry the lappets one with the other; I will give light before. Wagner (alarmed). And I? Homunculus. O! you will remain at home to do a most important thing. Do you unfold the old parchments, collect according to recipe the elements of life, and add them prudently one to another. Bethink |