rtainly never be content with the present moment. Secondly, he may
outgrow his pessimism, but never come to the point where he is willing
to check the flight of Time; when, that is, he shall have no more
plans, hopes, dreams, that reach into the future and seem worth living
for. The question is, then, whether Mephistopheles, by any lure at his
command, can subdue Faust's forward-ranging idealism. The Devil
expects to win; Faust wagers his immortal soul that the Devil will not
win. In the old story the Devil appears promptly at the end of the
twenty-four years, puts his victim to death, and takes possession of
his soul. Goethe's Mephistopheles is a gentleman of culture for whom
such savagery would be impossible. He will wait until his comrade dies
a natural death and then put in his claim in the Devil's fashion; and
it will be for the Lord in heaven to decide the case.

Such is the scheme of the drama, but after the compact is made we hear
no more of it until just before the end of the Second Part. The action
takes the form of a long succession of adventures undertaken for the
sake of experience. Duty, obligation, routine, have been left behind.
Faust has nothing to do but to go about and try experiments--first in
the "little world" of humble folk (the remainder of Part First), and
then in the "great world" of court life, government, and war (the
Second Part).

By way of beginning Faust is taken to Auerbach's Cellar, where four
jolly companions are assembled for a drinking-bout. He is simply
disgusted with the grossness and vulgarity of it all. He is too
old--so the Devil concludes--for the role he is playing and must have
his youth renewed. So they repair to an old witch, who gives Faust an
elixir that makes him young again. The scene in the witch's kitchen
was written in Italy in 1788, by which time Goethe had come to think
of his hero as an elderly man. The purpose of the scene was to account
for the sudden change of Faust's character from brooding philosopher
to rake and seducer. Of course the elixir of youth is at the same time
a love-philter.

Then come the matchless scenes that body forth the short romance of
Margaret, her quick infatuation, her loss of virgin honor, the death
of her mother and brother, her shame and misery, her agonizing death
in prison. Here we are in the realm of pure realism, and never again
did Goethe's art sound such depths of tragic pathos. The atmosphere of
the love-tragedy is entirely