for a sceptre, and offer him a broken crown, which he is to glue
together with 'sweat and blood.' It is like some horrid nightmare. We
feel as if we were going mad; and so does Faust himself. But suddenly he
catches sight of a magic mirror, in which he sees a form of ravishing
beauty--not that of Gretchen or Helen, but some form of ideal
loveliness. He stands there entranced.
But at this moment the cauldron boils over. A great flame shoots up the
chimney. With a scream the witch comes clattering down, and launches
curses at the intruders--not recognising the devil in his costume as
modern roue. He abuses her roundly and tells her that his horns, tail
and cloven hoof are gone out of fashion, modern culture having tabooed
them; and he forbids her to address him as Satan. That name is not
up-to-date: he is now 'der Herr Baron.'
With a hocus-pocus of incantations she brews the magic draught, which
Faust drinks. He is then hurried away by Mephistopheles back into the
world of humanity.
We have now come to the story of Margarete or Gretchen, which by many,
perhaps by most, is looked upon as constituting the main subject of
Goethe's _Faust_. It is doubtless the part which attracts one, which
appeals to one's _heart_, more than any other, and it forms by itself a
pathetic little tragedy. The story itself is merely the old sad story of
passion, weakness and misery, which has been told thousands of times in
all ages and all languages.
It would be worse than useless to endeavour by any dissecting process to
discover how by some act of creative power Goethe has inspired this
little story with such wondrous vitality that there is probably in all
literature scarcely any character that lives for us, that seems so real,
as Gretchen. Possibly to feel this one needs a knowledge of the original
poem and an acquaintance not only with that Germany which is generally
known to the English visitor, but also with just that class of which
Gretchen is typical, and with just those little ways and those forms of
expression which are peculiar to that class and to the part of Germany
to which Gretchen belonged. Every single word that she utters is so
absolutely true to nature that we seem to hear the voice of some real
living Gretchen, and can hardly believe that she merely exists in our
imagination. This may perhaps be asserted of other poetic creations; but
I confess that I know no other, not even in Shakespeare, that produces
on me quite the same kind of illusion. Homer's Nausicaa, the Antigone
and Electra of Sophocles, Rosalind, Miranda, Imogen, Portia,
Cordelia--all these live for me, but not quite as Gretchen. Their
presence I feel as something living, but a little visionary. Gretchen I
can see, and hear and almost touch. I need not recount at length her
story, for it is too well known. I need only recall to you memories of
certain facts and scenes: that first meeting in the street; the
mysterious presents from the unknown lover; the meeting in the
neighbour's garden and Gretchen's innocent prattlings about her home
life; Faust's growing passion, and the vain battlings of his higher
nature; the insidious promptings and cynical ridicule of his demonic
companion; the song of Gretchen at her spinning-wheel; her loving
anxiety as to Faust's religious opinions, and his celebrated confession
of faith; the sleeping draught by which Gretchen causes the death of her
mother; her shame, remorse and despair; Gretchen kneeling with her gift
of tear-sprent flowers before the Virgin's image; the return of her
brother, the young soldier, Valentin, and _his_ death--stabbed by her
lover (or rather by Mephisto) at night beneath her window, and cursing
her as he dies; the scene in the Cathedral; the pealing organ and the
solemn tones of the Dies Irae mingling with the terrible words of the
accusing spirit, till Gretchen sinks fainting to the ground.
And where is Faust? He has fled. The avengers of blood are on his track.
His selfish passion has been the cause of death to Gretchen's mother and
brother and has brought ruin on her--to end in madness, infanticide and
the block.
I have often wondered whether the limitations of art might not allow the
possibility of some drama on the same lines as _Faust_ in which he might
be saved by the purity and nobility of womanhood, as in the story of
Cyprian and Justina, instead of, as here, using the ruin of a poor girl
as a stepping-stone in his career of self-salvation. Or, what if he had
felt such horror and remorse at her fate that he had broken his compact
and freed himself from the demon? It will be said, perhaps, that this
would have been undramatic and that such a view is merely sentimental
and subversive of all true art. But, once more, what if he had bravely
stood by Gretchen, or had even shared her fate when she refused to be
saved by him?
Anyhow, Goethe did not choose any of these methods; and if he had done
so we should have had no second Part of _Faust_--nor indeed our next
scene, the _Walpurgisnacht_.
Pursued not only by the avengers of blood but by the avenging furies of
his own conscience, Faust has plunged into a reckless life and
experiences those after-dreams of intellectual and aesthetic extravagance
which so often follow such riotous living. This period--that of sensual
riot and aesthetic dalliance--Goethe has, I think, symbolized by two wild
and curious scenes, the _Walpurgisnacht_ and Oberon's Wedding, a kind of
'after-dream' of the _Walpurgisnacht_.
The connexion of these scenes with the main action of the play has
puzzled many critics, especially the curious Intermezzo which follows
the _Walpurgisnacht_, the 'Golden Wedding of Oberon and Titania,' a kind
of dream-vision, or rather nightmare, in which besides the fairies of
Shakespeare's fairyland, besides will-o'-the-wisps and weather-cocks and
shooting stars, numerous authors, philosophers and artists and other
characters appear, including Goethe himself as the 'Welt-kind.' This
scene was not originally written for _Faust_, but Goethe inserted it (I
imagine) as an allegorical picture of over-indulgence in aestheticism and
intellectualism (the 'opiate of the brain,' as Tennyson calls it)--a
vice into which one is apt to be seduced by the hope of deadening pain
of heart. Although not written for the play, this Intermezzo cannot be
said to be superfluous, for the subject of _Faust_ is one that admits of
almost any imaginative conception that is descriptive of the experiences
of human nature in its quest of truth.
But let us return to the _Walpurgisnacht_. On the 1st of May a great
festival was held by the ancient Druids, who on the preceding night used
to perform on the mountains their terrible sacrifices, setting ablaze
huge wickerwork figures filled with human beings. Hence in later times
the superstition arose that on this night witches ghouls and fiends held
their revels on the Brocken, or Blocksberg, in the Harz mountains. The
name of Saint Walpurga (an English nun, who came to Germany in the
eighth century) became associated with this Witches' Sabbath, as the 1st
of May was sacred to her. To this midnight orgy of the _Walpurgisnacht_
Mephistopheles takes Faust.... They are lighted on their toilsome ascent
of the Blocksberg by a will-o'-the-wisp. A vast multitude of witches and
goblins are flocking to the summit; the midnight air resounds with their
shrieks and jabberings; weird lights flash from every quarter, revealing
thronging swarms of ghoulish shapes and dancing Hexen. The trees
themselves are dancing. The mountains nod. The crags jut forth long
snouts which snort and blow. Amid the crush and confusion Faust has to
cling fast to his guide. Once the two get parted, and Mephistopheles is
in anxiety lest he should lose Faust entirely, the idea being, I
suppose, that sometimes a human being outruns the devil himself in the
orgies of sensuality. At last they reach the dancers. Mephistopheles is
here in his element and joins in the dances with eagerness, bandying
jokes with the old hags and flirting with the younger witches. Nor does
Faust seem at all disinclined to follow suit. He however desists
dismayed when, as he is dancing with a witch of seductive loveliness, a
red mouse jumps out of her mouth.
At length, when Mephisto, who finds it getting too hot even for him,
comes again to Faust, he discovers him silently gazing at a weird
sight--one that might well have sobered him. 'Look!' says Faust:
'Look! seest thou not in the far distance there,
Standing alone, that child, so pale and fair?
She seems to move so slowly, and with pain,
As if her feet were fettered by a chain.
I must confess, I almost seem to trace
My poor good Gretchen in her form and face.'
Mephistopheles answers:
'Let her alone! It's dangerous to look.
It's a mere lifeless ghoul, a spectre-spook.
Such bogeys to encounter is not good;
Their rigid stare freezes one's very blood,
And one is often almost turned to stone.
Medusa's head, methinks, to thee is known!'
But Faust will not be convinced. It _is_ Gretchen--his 'poor good
Gretchen' as he calls her. And what is that red bleeding gash around
her neck? What terrible thought does it suggest!
'How strange that round her lovely neck,
That narrow band of red is laid
No broader than a knife's keen blade!'
'Quite right!' answers Mephistopheles with a ghastly joke--
'Quite right! I plainly see it's so.
Perseus cut off her head, you know.
She often carries it beneath her arm.'
He hurries Faust away. But soon these terrible presentiments are
realized. Faust learns--how we are not told--that Gretchen is in prison,
and condemned to death on the scaffold; for in her madness--yes, surely
in madness--she has drowned her own child.
Instead of attempting to describe what follows, I shall offer a literal
prose translation of some parts of the concluding scene, asking you to
supply by your imagination, as best you may, the power and harmony of
Goethe's wonderful verse.
_A gloomy day. Open country._
_FAUST and MEPHISTOPHELES. FAUST is speaking._
FAUST. In misery! In despair! Piteously wandering day after
day o'er the face of the earth,--and now imprisoned! That
sweet unhappy being shut up in a dungeon, as a criminal, and
exposed to horrible torments! Has it come to _this_!--to
this!... Treacherous, villainous spirit! and _this_ thou
hast concealed from me!... Stand there, stand, and roll thy
devilish eyes in fury! Imprisoned! In hopeless misery!
Delivered over to evil spirits and the heartless verdict of
mankind!... And _thou_ meantime hast lulled me with
loathsome dissipation ... thou hast hidden from me her
ever-deepening despair, and hast suffered her to perish
helplessly.
MEPH. She isn't the first.
FAUST. Dog! Abominable monster! Turn him, O Infinite Spirit,
turn this reptile back into his dog-shape ... that he may
crawl on his belly before me ... that I may trample the
abandoned wretch underfoot. Not the first!... Woe! Woe not
to be grasped by any human soul, that _more_ than _one_
should sink into this abyss of misery--that the _first_, in
her writhing agony before the eyes of the All-merciful,
should not have made satisfaction for the guilt of all
others. The misery of this _one_ pierces with agony my
deepest soul--and _thou_ calmly grinnest at the fate of
thousands!
MEPH. Here we are again, at the end of our wits!--where the
common sense of you mortals loses its hold and snaps. Why
dost thou make fellowship with us, if thou canst not carry
it through? Wilt thou fly, and art not secure from
dizziness? Did we thrust ourselves upon thee, or thou
thyself upon us?
FAUST. Gnash not thy ravening teeth at me! I loathe thee!
Mighty, glorious Spirit--thou who didst deign to appear to
me, and knowest my heart and soul, why dost thou fetter me
to this satellite of shame, who revels in evil and gluts
himself on destruction?
MEPH. Hast thou done?
FAUST. Save her, or woe to thee! The most terrible curse on
thee for thousands of years!
MEPH. I cannot loose the bonds of the avenger--cannot undo
his bolts. _Save her!_... Who was it that ruined her ... I
or thou?
[_FAUST glares wildly round him._
MEPH. Wilt thou grasp after a thunderbolt? 'Tis well that it
was not given to you miserable mortals!...
FAUST. Take me to her! She _shall_ be free!... Take me to
her, I say, and liberate her!
MEPH. I will take thee to her--and do what I _can_ do.
Listen! Have I all power in heaven and on earth?--I will
becloud the jailer's senses. Then do thou get possession of
the keys, and lead her forth with human hand. I will keep
watch.--The magic steeds will be at hand ... I will carry
you off. So much lies in my power.
* * * * *
_Night. The open country. FAUST and MEPHISTOPHELES
galloping past on black horses. They pass a group of
witches busy round their cauldron. They reach the prison.
Within is heard the voice of GRETCHEN singing an old
plaintive ballad. FAUST listens:_
'She dreams not' (he says) 'that her loved one is
listening, and hears her chains rattle and the straw as it
rustles.'
[_He unlocks the prison door and steps in._
GRETCHEN (_crouching into her bed of straw_). Woe, woe--they
are coming! Bitter death!
FAUST. Hush! hush! I am come to free thee.
GRETCHEN (_grovelling before him_). If thou art a man, O
pity my distress!
FAUST. Thou wilt awaken the watchmen with thy cries. [_He
seizes her chain to unlock it._
GRETCHEN (_kneeling_). Who has given you, heads-man, this
power over me? You have come for me already at midnight.
Pity me, and let me live! Is to-morrow morning not soon
enough? And I am still so young--and I must die! Fair was I
too, and that was my ruin. Pity me! What harm have I ever
done to thee! I never saw thee before in all my life.
FAUST. Can I endure this misery?
GRETCHEN. I am wholly in your power. But let me first suckle
my child. I held it in my bosom all the night. They took it
from me, to vex me, and _now_ they say I've killed it....
And I shall never be happy any more!
FAUST (_kneels beside her_). He that loves thee kneels
before thee.
GRETCHEN. O let us kneel and call upon the saints. But ...
ah!... Look!... Under those steps, under the threshold, hell
is flaming. The Evil One is raging there so furiously.
Listen, how he roars and thunders!
FAUST. Gretchen! Gretchen!
GRETCHEN (_listening_). That was the voice of my friend!
Where is he? I heard him call.... Right through the howling
and uproar of hell, through the horrid laughter of the
devils, I recognized that sweet loving tone.
FAUST. It is I.
GRETCHEN. Thou!... O say it once more! (_Clasping him._) It
is! it is he! Where is now all my pain? Where is the anguish
of the dungeon and the chain?
FAUST. Come! Come with me!
GRETCHEN. O stay!... I am so happy at thy side.... What! not
one kiss!... Ah, woe, thy lips are cold. Where is all thy
love? Who has stolen it from me?
FAUST. Come! Follow!... Be courageous, loved one! Come with
me!
GRETCHEN. Thou art loosening my chain.... Know'st thou, my
friend, _whom_ thou art releasing?
FAUST. Come, come! Night is already on the wane.
GRETCHEN. My mother I have killed. I have drowned my child.
Was it not given to thee and to me? Yes, to thee too.... And
thou art really here! Thou! I can scarce believe it. Give me
thy hand--thy dear hand! _Ah_, but it is wet. Wipe it, wipe
it! It looks like blood upon it. O God, what hast thou done!
Put up thy sword, I beg thee! Put it away!
FAUST. Let the past be past. Thou art killing me.
GRETCHEN. No--_thou_ must live!... I will tell thee about
the graves that thou must provide to-morrow. Give mother
the best place, and brother close to her--and me a little on
one side ... only not too far away. And lay the little one
in my bosom.... No one else shall lie with me. To cling to
thy side, that was once such sweet blissful joy ... but I
seem no longer able ... as if I had to force myself, and as
if thou didst thrust me back.... And yet it _is_ thou, and
thou look'st so kind and good.
FAUST. If thou feel'st that it is I, then come!
GRETCHEN. Out _there_?
FAUST. To freedom!
GRETCHEN. I dare not. For me there is no hope more. What is
the use to flee? They are lurking after me.... It's so
wretched to have to beg, and that too with a bad conscience.
It's so wretched to wander about in strange lands ... and
they'll catch me all the same.
FAUST. I shall be with thee.
GRETCHEN. _Quick! Quick!_ Save it! Save my child!... Onward!
Right up that path alongside the stream ... over the bridge
... there!... into the wood.... There! to the left! there,
where the plank lies--in the pond! Catch hold of it! Catch
it! It's rising!... It's struggling! Save it! save it!
FAUST. Bethink thyself! One step and thou art free!
GRETCHEN. If only we were over that hill!... There's mother
sitting there on a stone. (Ah! what was that, like an icy
hand, grasping my hair?) ... She sits and wags with her
head--she does not beckon or nod to us ... her head droops
so heavily. Yes, she slept so long, and she will wake no
more. She slept that we might have joy. Ah, those were happy
times!
FAUST. No entreaty avails--no words are of use. I shall have
to carry thee away. [_Seizes hold of her._
GRETCHEN. _Let me go!_ I will not suffer violence. Seize not
hold of me so murderously. All _else_ I did for _love_ of
thee.
FAUST. The day is dawning! Dearest! dearest!
GRETCHEN. _Day?_ Yes--the day is coming! The last day is
dawning! It was to have been my wedding day. Woe to my
wreath! But what is, must be! We shall see each other again
... but not at the dance! The crowd is thronging.... One
hears no word.... The square, the streets, cannot contain
them.... The bell is tolling--the staff is broken.... They
seize me! They bind me fast! I am being dragged already to
the block! Each feels the axe at his own neck as its keen
blade flashes down on _mine_ ... and the world lies dark and
silent as the grave.
FAUST. O that I never had been born!
MEPH. (_appears at the door_). Come! or you are lost!...
Foolish, useless hesitation--delaying and gossiping! My
horses are shuddering and the morning twilight breaks.
GRETCHEN (_seeing MEPHISTOPHELES_). What is this that rises
from the ground? He! _He!_ Send him away! What does _he_
want at this holy spot?
MEPH. (_to FAUST_). Come! come! or I shall leave you in the
lurch.
GRETCHEN. I am thine, Father--save me! Ye angels, holy
cohorts, encamp around me and defend me! (_To FAUST._)
Heinrich, I shrink from thee in horror.
MEPH. She is judged.
VOICE FROM ABOVE. She is saved.
MEPH. _to_ FAUST. Here! to me!
[_Disappears with FAUST._
[_A VOICE FROM WITHIN--the voice of GRETCHEN--calls on the
name of him she once loved--of him who has robbed her of
happiness and life itself. Fainter and fainter it calls,
then dies away into silence._
III
GOETHE'S 'FAUST'
PART II
The picture which Goethe has given us in _Faust_ is in its main outlines
the picture of Goethe's own life. The Faust of Part I is the Goethe of
early days--of the Sturm und Drang period--the Goethe of _Werther's
Leiden_, of _Goetz_, of _Prometheus_, of Gretchen, Lotte, Annette,
Friederike and Lili; the Faust of the earlier scenes of Part II is
Goethe at the ducal court of Weimar; the Faust of the _Helena_ is Goethe
in Italy, Goethe at Bologna, standing in ecstatic veneration before what
was then believed to be Raphael's picture of St. Agatha, or wandering
through the Colosseum at Rome, or writing his _Iphigenie_ on the shores
of the Lago di Garda; and the Faust of the last act of all is Goethe
reconciled to life and finding a certain measure of peace and happiness
in his home, in the sympathy of his good-natured but unrefined wife and
of others whom he loved, as well as in his scientific and philosophical
studies--until he seals up the MS. of his great poem and (to use his own
words) 'regards his life-work as ended and rests in the contemplation of
the past,' and then, a few months later, passes away from earth,
murmuring as he dies 'More light!'
It will be remembered that at the end of Part I Faust is dragged away by
Mephistopheles and leaves poor Gretchen to her doom. The fatal axe has
now fallen. Gretchen is dead.
In the opening scene of Part II we find him 'lying on a grassy bank,
worn out and attempting to sleep.' A considerable time has evidently
elapsed--a time doubtless of bitter grief and of the fiercest accusation
against his evil counsellor, that part of his human nature which is
represented by Mephistopheles and from which even in the last hour of
his life (as we shall see) he confesses it to be impossible wholly to
free himself:
Daemonen, weiss ich, wird man schwerlich los.
Das geistig-strenge Band is nicht zu trennen.
'From demons it is, I know, scarce possible to free oneself. The
spiritual bond is too strong to break.'
But it is not from grief or self-accusation that Faust is to gain new
inspiration. It is from the healing power of Nature--in which Goethe
believed far more than in remorse.
The scene amidst which Faust is now lying reminds one of some Swiss
valley. The rising sun is pouring a flood of golden light over the
snow-fields of the distant mountains and down from the edge of an
overhanging precipice is falling a splendid cataract, such as the
Reichenbach or the Staub-bach, amidst whose spray gradually forms
itself, as the sunshine touches it, an iridescent bow, brightening and
fading, but hanging there immovable. Through this scene are flitting
elfin forms--Ariel and his fays--singing to the liquid tones of Aeolian
harps and lapping Faust's world-worn senses in the sweet harmonies of
Nature, tenderly effacing the memories of the past and inspiring him
with new hopes and new strength to face once more the battle of life.
He watches the rising sun, but blinded by excess of light he turns away,
unable to gaze upon the flaming source of life, as erst he had turned
from the apparition of the Earth-spirit. He seeks to rest his dazzled
eyes in reflected light (a metaphor used, as you may remember, also by
Socrates in the parable of the Cave)--in the sun-lit mountain slopes,
the pine-woods and the glittering walls of rock, and in the colours of
the foam-bow suspended amidst the spray of the swift down-thundering
cataract. In the ever-changing colours but motionless form of this bow
hanging over the downward rush of the torrent Faust finds a symbol of
human life suspended with its ever-varying hues above the stream of
time.
It is one of the truest and the most beautiful of all similitudes, this
of pure sunlight refracted and broken into colours, symbolizing the One
and the Many, the perfect and the imperfect, the eternal and the
temporal. Doubtless you are already thinking of Shelley's magnificent
lines:
The One remains, the Many change and pass;
Heaven's light for ever shines, Earth's shadows fly,
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity.
Into such variegated scene of reflected and refracted light Faust is now
entering. He has passed through the 'little world' of personal
feeling--the world of the One, of the heart, and he is entering what
Mephistopheles calls the 'greater world' (for greater it appears to be
from the Mephistophelean standpoint)--the world of the 'many,' of
politics and ethics and art and literature and society--the world whose
highest ideal is success, or, at the best, the 'greatest good of the
greatest number' and the evolution of that terrible ghoul the so-called
Super-man.