Whatever pleasure Faustus derived from the certainty that his desires would be gratified, he was nevertheless much displeased that the Devil should always be in the right. That same evening the abbess herself introduced him, under the disguise of the Dominican, into Clara’s cell while the nuns were at vespers. Clara herself soon appeared, and after she had commended herself to St. Ursula, she laid herself down. Her imagination, which had once been directed to a certain object, often repeated to her in dreams her former vision; and she lay in just such a transport, when Faustus approached her, and embodied the apparition, upon which Clara awoke, and still believed herself merely in a dream. The abbess in the mean time did penance in her cell, and made a vow to fast every week for the good of her soul. But the consequences of this night were horrible to poor Clara.
* * * * *
The next morning Faustus took leave of his family. Few tears were shed; but his old father, in a mournful tone, gave him wholesome advice.
As Faustus, with the Devil, rode over the bridge which leads across the Rhine, thinking of last night’s adventure, and making comments upon the abbess, he saw afar off a man in the water, who seemed upon the point of drowning, and only feebly struggled against approaching death. He commanded Leviathan to save the man. The Devil answered, with a significant look:
“Think well of what thou requirest; he is a youth, and perhaps it will be better for him and for thee that he ends his life here.”
Faustus. Thou fiend, only ready for mischief, wouldst thou have me withstand the sacred feeling of nature? Hasten and save him, I repeat.
Devil. Canst thou not swim thyself? No. Well, the consequences be thy reward; thou wilt repent of this.
He rushed into the stream, and rescued the youth. Faustus consoled himself with the idea of having, by this good act, atoned for the preceding night of sin; and Leviathan laughed at the consolation.
CHAPTER III.
The Devil now led Faustus through a series of adventures which were to serve as a prelude to the most afflicting vicissitudes. What Faustus had hitherto seen had embittered his heart; but the scenes which now opened upon him by degrees so wounded his spirit, that his mind was unable either to support or remedy them; and only one of the worldly great, or, what is nearly synonymous, a worker and designer of human misery, could have witnessed them unmoved.