Part 14 (1/2)
His tutors hara.s.sed and oppressed the people, once happy under the dominion of his father; they corrupted the heart and the mind of the future regent, who having enervated his body through early pleasure, they rule him now he is come of age, and are his and his people's tyrants.
Hadst thou not compelled me to murder the father, he would have brought up his son in his own maxims; he would have developed his faculties, and have made him a man fit to govern a nation. The numerous subjects who are now groaning beneath iron-handed oppression, and whose misery is all to be imputed to thee, would then have been the happiest in Germany. Let their tears, their despair, and the horrors of an approaching insurrection, reward thee for having rashly exercised the duty of a judge.
”Madman! in obedience to thy command, I burnt the castle of the fierce Wildgrave, with all its inhabitants, with his wife and his infant. What crime had they committed? It was a moment of delight to me. If the infant was consumed on the breast of the mother, it was thy work. If the Wildgrave attacked a neighbouring n.o.bleman as the cause of the conflagration, set fire to his house, and ignominiously whipped him, it was thy work. Thousands have already fallen beneath their reciprocal vengeance, and tranquillity will not be restored to that part of Germany until the hostile families shall be completely exhausted and annihilated.
And thus, poor worm, hast thou avenged the innocent; thou, who all thy life hast been wallowing in the grossest sensuality; thou, who didst pull me out of h.e.l.l merely to satiate thy l.u.s.ts. Groan and weep; but I will overwhelm thee with fresh horrors.
”By thy order I infused the poison of l.u.s.t into the heart of the innocent Angelica, she who was the ornament of her s.e.x and of the world. Thou didst enjoy her in the wild intoxication of thy senses, and she scarcely knew what had happened to her. Shudder at the consequences! I, who find pleasure in evil and destruction, think with pity and compa.s.sion on her end. She fled from her native place, and a feeling of shame forced her to conceal the state in which she found herself, and to which thou hadst reduced her. Alone, in solitude, and without help, amid agonising throes and deadly pains, she became a mother. The child died as soon as it saw the light of day. She, the wretched victim of thy momentary pleasure, was cast into prison, and publicly executed as an infanticide. Thou shouldst have seen her in the last moments of her life; thou shouldst have seen her pure blood spouting high into the air, when the sword of the executioner separated her lovely neck.”
Faustus gave a loud groan. Despair was raging in his heart.
_Devil_. The daughter of the miser in France, whom thou didst seduce, and in whose bosom thou didst cause slumbering desire to awake, became shortly afterwards the mistress of the youthful king. She ruled him entirely, and in order that he might not disturb her in her intercourse with another lover, she urged him to the disastrous expedition into Italy, and brought misfortunes upon France which many future reigns will not be able to heal. The flower of the French n.o.bility, and the heroes of the kingdom, are rotting on the sun-scorched plains of Italy; and the king has returned home overwhelmed with shame and ignominy. Thus, wherever thou hast wandered, thou hast scattered around thee the seeds of misery, which have sprung up, and will bear fruit to all eternity.
”Thou didst not pay attention to the look I gave thee when I tore down the house upon the cruel physicians at Paris. I had previously told thee that, by my destructive hand, thou didst mangle the moral world worse than they did the flesh of their fellow-creatures. Thou didst pay no attention to that look--hear now the cause of it. Those wretches deserve to perish beneath the ruins of their laboratory; but what evil had the poor people committed who lodged in the lower part of the house, and who were totally ignorant of what was going forward above their heads? Why should an innocent, happy family be crushed along with those monsters?
To satisfy thy blind vengeance, I was forced to bury them beneath stones and falling timbers. Judge and avenger at the same time, thou hadst not thought of this. Consider now all the consequences of thy delirium and thy folly; cast thine eyes along the whole chain, extending to the remotest posterity, and then sink beneath the terrible survey. Did I not once tell thee that man is much more rash in his decisions and in his vengeance, than the Devil is in the accomplishment of wickedness?”
Faustus opened his haggard eyes, and looked towards heaven.
_Devil_. It is deaf to thee. Be proud of having lived a moment when thy atrocity was so great that it almost made the deeds of the devils themselves forgotten. I speak of that moment when thou didst command me to withdraw the veil which concealed the Eternal from thy sight. The angel whose charge it was to register thy sins averted his face, and struck thy name from the Book of Life.
_Faustus_ (_springing up_). Cursed be thou; cursed be myself; cursed be the hour of my birth; cursed be he who begot me; cursed be the breast which I sucked!
_Devil_. O the delightful moment! Precious reward of my toils! h.e.l.l rejoices at thy curses, and expects a yet more frightful one from thee.
Fool! wast thou not born free? Didst thou not bear in thy breast, like all who live in flesh, the instinct of good as well as of evil? Why didst thou transgress, with so much temerity, the bounds which had been prescribed to thee? Why didst thou endeavour to try thy strength with and against Him who is not to be reached? Did not G.o.d create you in such a manner, that you were as much elevated above the devils as above the beasts of the earth? Did he not grant you the perceptive faculty of good and evil? Were not your will and choice free? We wretches are without choice, without will; we are the slaves of evil and of imperious necessity; constrained and condemned to all eternity to wish nothing but evil, we are the instruments of revenge and punishment upon you. Ye are kings of the creation, free beings, masters of your destiny, which ye fix yourselves; masters of the future, which only depends upon your actions.
It is on account of these prerogatives that we detest you, and rejoice when, by your follies, your impatience, and your crimes, you cease to be masters of yourselves. It is only in resignation, Faustus, that present or future happiness consists. Hadst thou remained what thou wast, and had not doubt, pride, vanity, and voluptuousness torn thee out of the happy and limited sphere for which thou wast born, thou mightst have followed an honourable employment, and have supported thy wife and children; and thy family, which is now sunk into the refuse of humanity, would have been blooming and prosperous; lamented by them, thou wouldst have died calmly on thy bed, and thy example would have guided thy posterity along the th.o.r.n.y path of life.
_Faustus_. Ah, the greatest torment of the d.a.m.ned is, no doubt, to hear the devil preach penitence.
_Devil_. It is pleasant enough that you force us to moralise; but, wretch, if the voice of truth and of penitence were to echo down from heaven, you would close your ears to it.
_Faustus_. Destroy me at once, and do not kill me by thy prattling, which tears my heart without convincing my spirit. Pour out thy venom, and do not distil it upon me drop by drop. I am not to blame if, having sown the seeds of good, bad has arisen from them. A good action has caused the ignominious death of my son, and a good action has precipitated my family into the most profound misery.
_Devil_. Why dost thou boast to me of thy good deed? How does it deserve that name? I suppose because thou didst give me a command, which, by the by, did not cost thee much. To have made the action meritorious, thou shouldst have cast thyself into the water, and have saved the young man at the risk of thine own life. I brought him to the sh.o.r.e, and disappeared; he would have known thee, and, moved by grat.i.tude, would probably have become the protector, instead of the destroyer, of thy family.
_Faustus_. Thou canst torment me, Devil; but thou canst not, from stupidity, or thou wilt not, from wickedness, dispel my doubts. Never have they torn my heart more venomously than at this moment, when I consider the miseries of my existence and of my after-destination. Is human life any thing else than a tissue of crimes, torments, pains, hypocrisy, contradictions, and false virtues? What are free agency, choice, will, and that so much vaunted faculty of distinguis.h.i.+ng good from evil, if the pa.s.sions drown the feeble voice of reason, as the roar of the sea drowns the voice of the pilot whose vessel is about to be dashed against the rocks? Is it possible for man to destroy and root out of his breast the germ of evil which has been designedly introduced there? I hate, more bitterly than ever, the world, my fellow-creatures, and myself. Destined to suffer, why was I born with the desire of being happy? Born for darkness, why was I filled with the desire of seeing light? Why had the slave the thirst for freedom? Why had the worm the wish to fly? Why had I a boundless imagination, the teeming mother of bold desires, daring wishes and thoughts? Tear from my uncertain and doubtful soul the flesh which envelops it; destroy in it all remembrance of its ever having animated a human body: I wish to become henceforward one of you, and only to live in the desire of evil. Ah, Devil, this is not so pleasant to thy ears as the hissing, howling song of despair which thou didst expect. But loosen the enchantment which fetters me in this circle; and let me perform my last sad duty. I will not attempt to escape from thee; if I could, I would not, for the pain of h.e.l.l cannot be greater than that which I now feel.
_Devil_. Faustus, I am pleased with thy courage, and I would sooner hear what thou hast said than the wild shriek of despair. Be proud that the force of thy spirit has carried thee even to madness and blasphemy, for which the pain of h.e.l.l awaits thee. Step out of thy circle; bury that wretched youth; thy part will then be played here, and thou must begin another, which will never end.
Faustus climbed the gibbet, and cut the rope from the neck of his son.
He then bore him into a neighbouring field which the plough had lately turned up, and scratching a grave with his hands, he buried the body of the unfortunate youth. He then returned to the Devil, and said, in a wild tone:
”The measure of my wretchedness is full; break now the vase which can hold nothing more; but I have yet courage to struggle with thee for my life. I will not perish like the slave who yields without resistance to the might of his master. Appear to me under whatever form thou wilt, and I will grapple with thee. For freedom, for independence, I once drew thee out of h.e.l.l; on its verge I will yet a.s.sert my right to both; on the verge of the frightful gulf I will use my strength, and remember that I once saw thee tremble before my magic circle, when I threatened to scourge thee with my rod. The tears which thou seest in my eyes ore tears of indignation, of hate, and of disgust. Not the fiend, but my own heart, triumphs over me.
_Devil_. Insipid braggart! With this form I tear off the mask which belied my courage. Vengeance is at hand, and Leviathan is himself once more!
He stood in gigantic stature before him. His eyes glowed like full-laden thunder-clouds, which reflect the rays of the descending sun. The noise of his breath was like the rus.h.i.+ng of the tempest-blast. The earth groaned beneath his iron feet. The storm rustled in his hair, which waved round his head like the tail from the threatening comet. Faustus lay before him like a worm; for the horrible sight had deprived him of his senses and his strength. The Devil uttered a contemptuous laugh, which hissed over the surface of the earth; and seizing the trembling being, he tore him to pieces, as a capricious boy would tear an insect.
He strewed the b.l.o.o.d.y members with fury and disgust about the field, and plunged with the soul into the depths of h.e.l.l.
The devils were a.s.sembled round Satan, who was consulting with his princes concerning the punishments which should be inflicted upon Pope Alexander the Sixth. His crimes, and the last moments of his life, had been unparalleled, so that even the worst devils found themselves at a loss to allot him a punishment suitable to his deserts. The Pope stood before his judges, who treated him as contemptuously as a tribunal of princes treats an accused person who has nothing else to recommend him than his being a man. All of a sudden Leviathan rushed triumphantly into the midst, held the soul of Faustus on high, and then hurled it with violence upon the table, saying: