Faust (19 page)

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Authors: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

BOOK: Faust

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FAUST.

Thank you, my appetite is good enough without such titillations.

MEPHISTOPHELES.

	No nonsense now, I’m serious.
	Once for all, the matter is not easy.
	You need some time to get this child.
	You cannot take the citadel by storm;
	we must employ some skill and strategy.

FAUST.

	Get me a token from my angel’s dress!
2660	Lead me to her bed and chamber!
	Get me a kerchief from her breast,
	a garter for my passionate desire.

MEPHISTOPHELES.

	Your pangs of love, as you shall see,
	are not without my sympathy;
	we must not lose a moment’s time;
	I’ll guide you to her room this very day.

FAUST.

And shall I see her, have her?

MEPHISTOPHELES.

	No!
	She will be in her neighbor’s house.
	Meanwhile you may indulge yourself alone
2670	in your hopes of future ecstasies
	and stay to breathe the fragrance of her chamber.

FAUST.

May we go now?

MEPHISTOPHELES.

It’s still too soon.

FAUST.

	Get me a gift for her this afternoon.
	( Exits .)

MEPHISTOPHELES.

	A gift so soon? That’s nice! It bodes success for you.
	I know of several likely places
	and several treasures buried long ago;
	I’d better scout about a bit.
	( Exits .)

EVENING

A small, neatly kept room.

MARGARET
(
braiding and tying up her hair
)
.

	I’d give anything if only I could know
	who was that gentleman today!
2680	I think he cut a gallant figure
	and is of noble family.
	I could plainly see it in his face—
	else he’d not have been so bold with me.
	( Exits .)

(
MEPHISTOPHELES, FAUST
.)

MEPHISTOPHELES.

Step in—softly now—but enter!

FAUST
(
after keeping silent for some time
)
.

I beg of you—leave me alone!

MEPHISTOPHELES
(
looking around
)
.

	Not every girl’s this neat and tidy.
	( Exits .)

FAUST.

	Welcome, lovely twilight glow,
	how you pervade this sacred shrine!
	Grip my heart, O keen-edged lover’s pain,
2690	that languishes on mere dewdrops of a hope.
	A sense of peace breathes in this room,
	of order and contentment!
	What fullness in this poverty,
	what blessedness within this cell.
	( He throws himself into a leather armchair next to the bed .)
	You who once with open arms received the joys
	and sorrows of a world gone by, oh, take me in!
	How often round about this soft ancestral throne
	have swarms of children clung!
	Perhaps on Christmas Eve, in gratitude,
2700	my round-cheeked sweetheart kissed her grandsire’s wilted hand.
	I feel, O girl, the whisper of your spirit,
	of order and abundance everywhere,
	which, motherly, instructs you daily how
	to spread the cloth upon the table,
	and even how to smooth the sand beneath your feet.
	Beloved hand, so godlike and so sweet!
	Through you this cottage is a paradise.
	And here!
	( He lifts a bed-curtain .)

	What raptures come over me!
2710	Here I could while away the fullest hours.
	O Nature, here you shaped in airy dreams
	your very own angelic child!
	Here lay the girl, her tender bosom filled
	with warm and vibrant breath of life,
	and here, on Nature’s purest looms,
	was wrought the semblance of divinity.

	And you, what led you to this chamber?
	How deeply you are stirred!
	Your heart is heavy, and you feel so out of place.
2720	Wretched Faust! Who are you anyway?

	Am I moving in a magic haze?
	I came to seize the crassest pleasure,
	and now I dissolve in dreams of love!
	Are we the sports of every whim of the weather?

	And should she enter at this very moment,
	how you would rue your crude transgression!
	Then Faust would suddenly be very small
	and languish helpless at her feet.

MEPHISTOPHELES
(
entering
)
.

Quick, my friend! I see her coming down below.

FAUST.

2730	Away from here, and never to return!

MEPHISTOPHELES.

	I have a little jewel box, not very heavy,
	which I acquired at another place.
	Relax, and put it in the wardrobe there;
	I swear she’ll be beside herself with pleasure.
	I enclosed some little trinkets
	which were meant for someone other.
	But a child’s a child and a game is a game.

FAUST.

I don’t know—shall I?

MEPHISTOPHELES.

	Don’t ask questions!
	You mean to keep the trinkets for yourself?
2740	May I advise Your Lustfulness
	to use the happy daylight hours
	and spare me further toil and trouble!
	I hope you’re not a stingy man!
	I scratch my head and rub my palms—
	( He places the box in the wardrobe and clicks the lock shut.)
	Away from here! Let’s hurry—
	so we may bend the sweet young thing
	to your wish and heart’s desire.
	You stand there with a sad expression
	like a student entering the lecture hall,
2750	as if before you in gray majesty
	stood Physics and Metaphysics in person!
	Away from here!
	( Exits .)

MARGARET
(
carrying a lamp
).

	It is so close, so sultry here,
	( She opens the window .)
	and yet it’s not too warm outside.
	It makes me feel so—I don’t know.
	If only Mother would come home.
	I feel a chill go down my spine—
	I’m such a silly, fearful girl.
	( She begins to sing, while undressing .)
	There was a king in Thule,
2760	Was true unto the grave.
	To him his dying lady
	A golden goblet gave.

	And he prized nothing dearer;
	At feasts he drained it dry.
	And when he held the goblet,
	The tears would fill his eye.

	And when he came to dying,
	He counted land and town.
	He gave all to his children,
2770	But kept the cup his own.

	With him in his great chamber
	Sat knights of high degree.
	They held the royal dinner
	In the castle by the sea.

	There stood the old carouser
	And drank his last red wine,
	Then flung the holy vessel
	Into the foamy brine.

	He saw it sway and falter
2780	And slip into the sea;
	His eyes did sink forever,
	And nevermore drank he. ²⁹
	( She opens the wardrobe to arrange her dresses and notices the jewel box.)

	How did that handsome jewel case get here?
	I am quite sure I locked the wardrobe door.
	It’s very strange! I wonder what’s inside?
	Perhaps some neighbor brought it as a pawn,
	for which my mother lent some money.
	There is a key tied neatly to a ribbon;
	I have a mind to open it and see.
2790	What’s that? My God in Heaven! Look!
	I never saw the like of this before.
	It’s jewelry! The greatest lady
	could wear this piece on highest holidays.
	How would these jewels look on me?
	Whose could they ever be?
	( She adorns herself with the jewels and steps before the mirror.)
	I wish these earrings were my own.
	One looks so different right away.
	What good is youth and beauty for the like of us!
	They say, “All that is very good,”
2800	and then they leave us as we are.
	Their praise is half in pity.
	They race after gold
	and cling to gold,
	and we stay poor forever.