Faust Part 30

FAUST

I know not, should I do it?

MEPHISTOPHELES

Ask you, pray?

Yourself, perhaps, would keep the bubble?

Then I suggest, 'twere fair and just To spare the lovely day your l.u.s.t, And spare to me the further trouble.

You are not miserly, I trust?

I rub my hands, in expectation tender-

(He places the casket in the press, and locks it again.)

Now quick, away!

The sweet young maiden to betray, So that by wish and will you bend her; And you look as though To the lecture-hall you were forced to go,- As if stood before you, gray and loath, Physics and Metaphysics both!

But away!

[Exeunt.

MARGARET (with a lamp)

It is so close, so sultry, here!

(She opens the window)

And yet 'tis not so warm outside.

I feel, I know not why, such fear!- Would mother came!-where can she bide?

My body's chill and shuddering,- I'm but a silly, fearsome thing!

(She begins to sing while undressing)

There was a King in Thule, Was faithful till the grave,- To whom his mistress, dying, A golden goblet gave.

Naught was to him more precious; He drained it at every bout: His eyes with tears ran over, As oft as he drank thereout.

When came his time of dying, The towns in his land he told, Naught else to his heir denying Except the goblet of gold.

He sat at the royal banquet With his knights of high degree, In the lofty hall of his fathers In the Castle by the Sea.

There stood the old carouser, And drank the last life-glow; And hurled the hallowed goblet Into the tide below.

He saw it plunging and filling, And sinking deep in the sea: Then fell his eyelids forever, And never more drank he!

(She opens the press in order to arrange her clothes, and perceives the casket of jewels.)

How comes that lovely casket here to me?

I locked the press, most certainly.

'Tis truly wonderful! What can within it be?

Perhaps 'twas brought by some one as a p.a.w.n, And mother gave a loan thereon?

And here there hangs a key to fit: I have a mind to open it.

What is that? G.o.d in Heaven! Whence came Such things? Never beheld I aught so fair!

Rich ornaments, such as a n.o.ble dame On highest holidays might wear!

How would the pearl-chain suit my hair?

Ah, who may all this splendor own?

(She adorns herself with the jewelry, and steps before the mirror.)

Were but the ear-rings mine, alone!

One has at once another air.

What helps one's beauty, youthful blood?

One may possess them, well and good; But none the more do others care.

They praise us half in pity, sure: To gold still tends, On gold depends All, all! Alas, we poor!

IX

PROMENADE

(FAUST, walking thoughtfully up and down. To him MEPHISTOPHELES.)

MEPHISTOPHELES

By all love ever rejected! By h.e.l.l-fire hot and unsparing!

I wish I knew something worse, that I might use it for swearing!

FAUST

What ails thee? What is't gripes thee, elf?

A face like thine beheld I never.

MEPHISTOPHELES

I would myself unto the Devil deliver, If I were not a Devil myself!

FAUST

Thy head is out of order, sadly: It much becomes thee to be raving madly.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Just think, the pocket of a priest should get The trinkets left for Margaret!

The mother saw them, and, instanter, A secret dread began to haunt her.

Keen scent has she for tainted air; She snuffs within her book of prayer, And smells each article, to see If sacred or profane it be; So here she guessed, from every gem, That not much blessing came with them.

"My child," she said, "ill-gotten good Ensnares the soul, consumes the blood.

Before the Mother of G.o.d we'll lay it; With heavenly manna she'll repay it!"

But Margaret thought, with sour grimace, "A gift-horse is not out of place, And, truly! G.o.dless cannot be The one who brought such things to me."

A parson came, by the mother bidden: He saw, at once, where the game was hidden, And viewed it with a favor stealthy.