Faust Read Online Free PDF Page B

thicken,
 
the moon conceals her light—
470
the lamp goes dark!
 
Smoke envelops me—scarlet flashes
 
dart about my head—a chilling breath
 
sifts downward from the vault
 
and seizes me!
 
I feel it, you surround me, spirit that I crave.
 
Reveal yourself!
 
My heart, ah, how it tears in me!
 
How all my senses swirl,
 
well up to novel feelings.
480
I know my heart is at your bidding!
 
You must! You must, and if I die for it!
 
        (
He grips the book and solemnly murmurs the spell of the Earth Spirit. There is a flash of reddish flame in which the
SPIRIT
appears
.)
    SPIRIT.
 
Who calls?
    FAUST (
averts his face
).
 
                                   Terrifying vision! 4
    SPIRIT.
 
I felt a mighty pull from you,
 
you have long been sucking at my sphere,
 
and now—
    FAUST.
 
              No! I can’t endure you!
    SPIRIT.
 
You have sought me breathlessly,
 
longed for my voice and countenance;
 
your strong pleadings have my sympathy.
 
Now I am here!—What pitiable terror
490
seizes you, you superman? Where is the outcry of your soul,
 
where the breast that built its inward world
 
and bore and fostered it and swelled with joyful tremor,
 
intent on rising to the level of the spirits?
 
Where are you, Faust, whose voice rang out,
 
who forced himself on me with all his might?
 
Are you he who at my very exhalation
 
shivers to his depths,
 
a frightened, cringing worm?
    FAUST.
 
Should I flinch before you, flaming apparition?
500
I stand my ground as Faust, your equal!
    SPIRIT.
 
In the tides of life and action
 
I rise and descend
 
and fling the shuttle back and forth.
 
The cradle and the grave,
 
a perennial sea,
 
a flickering fabric,
 
a glowing life,
 
I toil at the whirring loom of time
 
and weave the godhead’s living vesture.
    FAUST.
510
You roam the ample world, my bustling spirit;
 
how close I feel to you!
    SPIRIT.
 
You’re like the spirit that you grasp.
 
You’re not like me.
 
        (
The
SPIRIT
vanishes
.)
    FAUST (
overwhelmed
).
 
Not your equal?
 
Then whom do I resemble?
 
I, the image of the godhead!
 
And not your equal?
 
        (
A knock at the door
.)
 
Oh, death, I know that knock—my famulus—
 
So ends my fairest hour!
520
Why must this shriveled crawler
 
destroy the fullness of my vision?
 
        (
Enter
WAGNER ,
in dressing gown and nightcap, lamp in hand
. FAUST ,
annoyed, turns to him
.)
    WAGNER.
 
Excuse me, but I heard your declamation;
 
was it a passage from Greek tragedy?
 
I should like to profit from such elocution,
 
for nowadays it’s a great help.
 
I’ve often heard it said that an actor
 
could give lessons to a preacher.
    FAUST.
 
Yes, whenever the preacher is also an actor,
 
which may happen now and then.
    WAGNER.
530
Ah! when we’re cooped in our chambers
 
and scarcely see the world on holidays—
 
from far away as through a telescope—
 
how can we guide it by persuasion?
    FAUST.
 
You will never conquer it unless you feel it,
 
unless a surging from your soul,
 
a primal, joyful energy
 
compels the heart of all your listeners.
 
Go sit down and paste your words together,
 
concoct a stew from morsels left by others
540
and try to get some feeble flames
 
from your puny heap of ashes!
 
And if your palate craves for this,
 
you may have apes and infants stand in awe,
 
but you’ll never move another’s heart
 
unless your own pours forth its energy.
    WAGNER.
 
Yet elocution is the speaker’s greatest tool;
 
it’s clear to me, I’m far behind. 5
    FAUST.
 
Go seek advancement honorably.
 
Don’t be a jingling fool!
550
Clear thinking and some honesty
 
need little art for their delivery.
 
And once you speak in earnest,
 
must you still hunt for words?
 
The tinseled glittering