look well about thee and bethink thyself better, and I wish thee to change thy mind, for if thou keep not what thou hast promised in thy writing, we will tear thee in pieces, like the dust under thy feet.  Therefore, sweet Faustus, think with what unquiet life, anger, strife, and debate thou shalt live in when thou takest a wife.  Therefore, change thy mind.”  Faustus abandons his purpose for the time being, but within two hours summons his spirit again and demands his consent to marriage; whereupon up there comes a whirlwind, which fills the house with fire and smoke and hurls Faustus about until he is unable to stir hand or foot.  Also there appears an ugly devil, so dreadful and monstrous to behold that Faustus dares not look upon him.  This devil is in a mood for jesting.  “How likest thou thy wedding?” he asks of Faustus, who promises not to mention marriage more, and is well content when Mephistopheles engages to bring him any woman, dead or alive, whom he may desire to possess.  It is in obedience to this promise that Helen of Troy is brought back from the world of shades to be Faustus’s paramour.  By her he has a son, whom he calls Justus Faustus, but in the end, when Faustus loses his life, mother and child vanish.  Goethe uses the scene of the amour between Faust and the ancient beauty in the second part of his poem as does Boito in his “Mefistofele,” charging it with the beautiful symbolism which was in the German poet’s mind.  In the Polish tale of Pan Twardowsky, built on the lines of the old legend, there is a more amusing fling at marriage.  In return for the help which he is to receive, the Polish wizard has the privilege of demanding three duties of the devil.  After enjoying to the full the benefits conferred by two, he commands the devil to marry Mme. Twardowska.  This is more than the devil had bargained for, or is willing to perform.  He refuses; the contract is broken, and Twardowsky is saved.  The story may have inspired Thackeray’s amusing tale in “The Paris Sketch-book,” entitled “The Painter’s Bargain.”

For the facts in the story of the composition and production of Gounod’s opera, we have the authority of the composer in his autobiography.  In 1856 he made the acquaintance of Jules Barbier and Michel Carre, and asked them to collaborate with him in an opera.  They assenting, he proposed Goethe’s “Faust” as a subject, and it met with their approval.  Together they went to see M. Carvalho, who was then director of the Theatre Lyrique.  He, too, liked the idea of the opera, and the librettists went to work.  The composer had written nearly half of the score, when M. Carvaiho brought the disconcerting intelligence that a grand melodrama treating the subject was in preparation at the Theatre de la Porte Saint-Martin.  Carvalho said that it would be impossible to get the opera ready before the appearance of the melodrama, and unwise to enter into competition with a theatre the luxury of whose stage mounting would have attracted