episode is poetically justified, of course, by the eighth scene of Goethe’s drama, and there was not wanting one German writer who boldly came to the defence of Marguerite on the ground that she moved on a higher moral plane than Gretchen.  The French librettists, while they emptied the character of much of its poetical contents, nevertheless made it in a sense more gentle, and Gounod refined it still more by breathing an ecstasy into all of its music.  Goethe’s Gretchen, though she rejects Faust’s first advances curtly enough to be called impolite, nevertheless ardently returns Faust’s kiss on her first meeting with him in the garden, and already at the second (presumably) offers to leave her window open, and accepts the sleeping potion for her mother.  It is a sudden, uncontrollable rush of passion to which Marguerite succumbs.  Gretchen remains in simple amaze that such a fine gentleman as Faust should find anything to admire in her, even after she has received and returned his first kiss; but Marguerite is exalted, transfigured by the new feelings surging within her.

  Il m’aime! quel trouble en mon coeur! 
  L’oiseau chante!  Le vent murmure! 
  Toutes les voix de la nature
  Semblent me repeter en choeur: 
    Il t’aime!

I resume the story.  Martha, the neighborhood gossip, comes to encourage Marguerite in a belief which she scarcely dares cherish, that the jewels had been left for her by some noble admirer, and her innocent pleasure is interrupted by the entrance of Faust and Mephistopheles.  The latter draws Martha away, and Faust wooes the maiden with successful ardor.  They have indulged in their first embrace, and said their farewells till to-morrow:  Faust is about to depart, when Mephistopheles detains him and points to Marguerite, who is burdening the perfumed air with her new ecstasy.  He rushes to her, and, with a cry of delight, she falls into his arms.

Goethe’s scene at the fountain becomes, in the hands of the French librettists, a scene in the chamber of Marguerite.  The deceived maiden is cast down by the jeers and mockings of her erstwhile companions, and comforted by Siebel.  It is now generally omitted.  Marguerite has become the talk of the town, and evil reports reach the ear of her brother Valentin on his return from the wars with the victorious soldiery.  Valentin confronts Faust and Mephistopheles while the latter is singing a ribald serenade at Marguerite’s door.  The men fight, and, through the machinations of Mephistopheles, Valentin is mortally wounded.  He dies denouncing the conduct of Marguerite, and cursing her for having brought death upon him.  Marguerite seeks consolation in religious worship; but the fiend is at her elbow even in the holy fane, and his taunts and the accusing chant of a choir of demons interrupt her prayers.  The devil reveals himself in his proper (or improper) person at the end, and Marguerite falls in a swoon.