MEPHISTOPHELES: 
What! 
I must exert my authority in the house. 
Place for young Voland! pray make way, good people. 
Take hold on me, doctor, an with one step 220
Let us escape from this unpleasant crowd: 
They are too mad for people of my sort. 
Just there shines a peculiar kind of light—­
Something attracts me in those bushes.  Come
This way:  we shall slip down there in a minute. 225

FAUST: 
Spirit of Contradiction!  Well, lead on—­
’Twere a wise feat indeed to wander out
Into the Brocken upon May-day night,
And then to isolate oneself in scorn,
Disgusted with the humours of the time. 230

MEPHISTOPHELES: 
See yonder, round a many-coloured flame
A merry club is huddled altogether: 
Even with such little people as sit there
One would not be alone.

FAUST: 
Would that I were
Up yonder in the glow and whirling smoke, 235
Where the blind million rush impetuously
To meet the evil ones; there might I solve
Many a riddle that torments me.

MEPHISTOPHELES: 
Yet
Many a riddle there is tied anew
Inextricably.  Let the great world rage! 240
We will stay here safe in the quiet dwellings. 
’Tis an old custom.  Men have ever built
Their own small world in the great world of all. 
I see young witches naked there, and old ones
Wisely attired with greater decency. 245
Be guided now by me, and you shall buy
A pound of pleasure with a dram of trouble. 
I hear them tune their instruments—­one must
Get used to this damned scraping.  Come, I’ll lead you
Among them; and what there you do and see, 250
As a fresh compact ’twixt us two shall be. 
How say you now? this space is wide enough—­
Look forth, you cannot see the end of it—­
An hundred bonfires burn in rows, and they
Who throng around them seem innumerable:  255
Dancing and drinking, jabbering, making love,
And cooking, are at work.  Now tell me, friend,
What is there better in the world than this?

NOTE: 
254 An 1824; A editions 1839.

FAUST: 
In introducing us, do you assume
The character of Wizard or of Devil? 260

MEPHISTOPHELES: 
In truth, I generally go about
In strict incognito; and yet one likes
To wear one’s orders upon gala days. 
I have no ribbon at my knee; but here
At home, the cloven foot is honourable. 265
See you that snail there?—­she comes creeping up,
And with her feeling eyes hath smelt out something. 
I could not, if I would, mask myself here. 
Come now, we’ll go about from fire to fire: 
I’ll be the Pimp, and you shall be the Lover. 270
[TO SOME OLD WOMEN, WHO ARE SITTING ROUND A HEAP OF GLIMMERING COALS.]
Old gentlewomen, what do you do out here? 
You ought to be with the young rioters
Right in the thickest of the revelry—­
But every one is best content at home.