The opera begins, like Goethe’s dramatic poem, after the prologue, with the scene in Faust’s study.  The aged philosopher has grown weary of fruitless inquiry into the mystery of nature and its Creator, and longs for death.  He has just passed a night in study, and as the morning breaks he salutes it as his last on earth and pledges it in a cup of poison.  As he is about to put the cup to his lips, the song of a company of maidens floats in at the window.  It tells of the joy of living and loving and the beauty of nature and its inspirations.  Faust’s hand trembles, strangely, unaccountably; again he lifts the cup, but only to pause again to listen to a song sung by a company of reapers repairing to the fields, chanting their gratitude to God for the loveliness surrounding them, and invoking His blessing.  The sounds madden the despairing philosopher.  What would prayer avail him?  Would it bring back youth and love and faith?  No.  Accursed, therefore, be all things good—­earth’s pleasures, riches, allurements of every sort; the dreams of love; the wild joy of combat; happiness itself; science, religion, prayers, belief; above all, a curse upon the patience with which he had so long endured!  He summons Satan to his aid.  Mephistopheles answers the call, in the garb of a cavalier.  His tone and bearing irritate Faust, who bids him begone.  The fiend would know his will, his desires.  Gold, glory, power?—­all shall be his for the asking.  But these things are not the heart’s desire of Faust.  He craves youthfulness, with its desires and delights, its passions and puissance.  Mephistopheles promises all, and, when he hesitates, inflames his ardor with a vision of the lovely Marguerite seated at her spinning-wheel.  Eagerly Faust signs the compact—­the devil will serve Faust here, but below the relations shall be reversed.  Faust drinks a pledge to the vision, which fades away.  In a twinkling the life-weary sage is transformed into a young man, full of eager and impatient strength.

Mephistopheles loses no time in launching Faust upon his career of adventures.  First, he leads him to a fair in a mediaeval town.  Students are there who sing the pleasures of drinking; soldiers, too, bent on conquest—­of maidens or fortresses, all’s one to them; old burghers, who find delight in creature comforts; maids and matrons, flirtatious and envious.  All join in the merriest of musical hubbubs.  Valentin, a soldier who is about to go to the wars, commends his sister Marguerite to the care of Siebel, a gentle youth who loves her.  Wagner, a student, begins a song, but is interrupted by Mephistopheles, who has entered the circle of merry-makers with Faust, and who now volunteers to sing a better song than the one just begun.  He sings of the Calf of Gold ("Le veau d’or est toujours debout"), and the crowd delightedly shouts the refrain.  The singer accepts a cup of wine, but, finding it not at all to his taste, he causes vintages to the taste of every one to flow from the cask which serves as