ALTMAYER

It was a blow that went through every limb! 
Give me a chair!  I sink! my senses swim.

FROSCH

But what has happened, tell me now?

SIEBEL

Where is he?  If I catch the scoundrel hiding,
He shall not leave alive, I vow.

ALTMAYER

I saw him with these eyes upon a wine-cask riding
Out of the cellar-door, just now. 
Still in my feet the fright like lead is weighing.
(He turns towards the table.)
Why!  If the fount of wine should still be playing?

SIEBEL

’Twas all deceit, and lying, false design!

FROSCH

And yet it seemed as I were drinking wine.

BRANDER

But with the grapes how was it, pray?

ALTMAYER

Shall one believe no miracles, just say!

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

VI

WITCHES’ KITCHEN

(Upon a low hearth stands a great caldron, under which a fire is burning.  Various figures appear in the vapors which rise from the caldron.  An ape sits beside it, skims it, and watches lest it boil over.  The he-ape, with the young ones, sits near and warms himself.  Ceiling and walls are covered with the most fantastic witch-implements.)

FAUST MEPHISTOPHELES

FAUST

These crazy signs of witches’ craft repel me! 
I shall recover, dost thou tell me,
Through this insane, chaotic play? 
From an old hag shall I demand assistance? 
And will her foul mess take away
Full thirty years from my existence? 
Woe’s me, canst thou naught better find! 
Another baffled hope must be lamented: 
Has Nature, then, and has a noble mind
Not any potent balsam yet invented?

MEPHISTOPHELES

Once more, my friend, thou talkest sensibly. 
There is, to make thee young, a simpler mode and apter;
But in another book ’tis writ for thee,
And is a most eccentric chapter.

FAUST

Yet will I know it.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Good! the method is revealed
Without or gold or magic or physician. 
Betake thyself to yonder field,
There hoe and dig, as thy condition;
Restrain thyself, thy sense and will
Within a narrow sphere to flourish;
With unmixed food thy body nourish;
Live with the ox as ox, and think it not a theft
That thou manur’st the acre which thou reapest;—­
That, trust me, is the best mode left,
Whereby for eighty years thy youth thou keepest!