EVIL-SPIRIT behind MARGARET

EVIL-SPIRIT

[Illustration:  VALENTINE’S DEATH Franz Simm]

How different, Gretchen, was it once with thee,
When thou, still full of innocence,
Here to the altar camest,
And from the small and well-con’d book
Didst lisp thy prayer,
Half childish sport,
Half God in thy young heart! 
Gretchen! 
What thoughts are thine? 
What deed of shame
Lurks in thy sinful heart? 
Is thy prayer utter’d for thy mother’s soul,
Who into long, long torment slept through thee? 
Whose blood is on thy threshold?—­
And stirs there not already ’neath thy heart
Another quick’ning pulse, that even now
Tortures itself and thee
With its foreboding presence?

MARGARET

Woe!  Woe! 
Oh, could I free me from the thoughts
That hither, thither, crowd upon my brain,
Against my will!

CHORUS

 Dies irae, dies illa,
 Solvet saeclum in favilla.

[The organ sounds.]

EVIL-SPIRIT

 Grim horror seizes thee! 
 The trumpet sounds! 
 The graves are shaken! 
 And thy heart
 From ashy rest
 For torturing flames
 Anew created,
 Trembles into life!

MARGARET

 Would I were hence! 
 It is as if the organ
 Choked my breath,
 As if the choir
 Melted my inmost heart!

CHORUS

 Judex ergo cum sedebit,
 Quidquid latet adparebit,
 Nil inultum remanebit.

MARGARET

 I feel oppressed! 
 The pillars of the wall
 Imprison me! 
 The vaulted roof
 Weighs down upon me!—­air!

EVIL-SPIRIT

 Wouldst hide thee? sin and shame
 Remain not hidden! 
 Air! light! 
 Woe’s thee!

CHORUS

 Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? 
 Quem patronum rogaturus! 
 Cum vix justus sit securus.

EVIL-SPIRIT

 The glorified their faces turn
 Away from thee! 
 Shudder the pure to reach
 Their hands to thee! 
 Woe!

CHORUS

 Quid sum miser tunc dicturus—­

MARGARET

Neighbor! your smelling bottle!

[She swoons away.]

[Illustration:  MARGARET’S DOWNFALL From the Painting by Wilhelm von Kaulbach]

WALPURGIS-NIGHT

THE HARTZ MOUNTAINS.  DISTRICT OF
SCHIERKE AND ELEND

FAUST and MEPHISTOPHELES