Faustus. Oh, save her and the new-born babe!
Devil. It is too late. The mother pressed the boy in her arms, and he was burnt to ashes upon her bosom.
This episode made Faustus shudder, and he exclaimed, “How ready is the Devil to destroy!”
Devil. Not so ready as daring men are to decide and punish. Had ye but our might, ye would long ago have shattered the vast globe, and reduced it to a chaos. Are you not a proof of this yourself, since you so madly abuse the power
which you have over me? Go to; go to. The man who does not bridle himself resembles the wheel which rolls down the steep: who can stop its course? It springs from rock to rock till it is shivered. Faustus, I would willingly have permitted the babe to grow up and commit sin; for I am now deprived both of him and his mother. Yes, Faustus; she endeavoured to preserve him from the scorching flames with her arms, the flesh of which was already frightfully burnt.
Faustus. Thou drivest it home to my very heart. (Hiding his face in his mantle, already wet with his tears.)
The desire of avenging the virtuous and the innocent upon the wicked now began to cool in the heart of Faustus. He however comforted his spirit, tormented by the last spectacle, with the thought of the mother and the suckling being preserved from hell. Besides this, his hot blood, his eagerness for pleasure, his desire for change, and finally his doubts, did not permit any sensation to make a lasting impression upon his heart. As he was attracted by every new object, his feelings,
therefore, burnt like sky-rockets, which for a moment illumine the darkness of the night, and then suddenly disappear. The rich meal and the delicious wines which he enjoyed in the next city where they arrived soon chased away his melancholy fancies; and as the grand fair was being held there at that time, Faustus and the Devil, after they had dined, went into the market-place to see the crowd.
They now found themselves in a strange city. There lived in one of the convents a young monk, who had, by means of a heated imagination, succeeded in so powerfully convincing himself of the force of religious faith, that he believed he should be able to remove mountains, and to prove himself a new apostle in deeds and miracles, if once his soul received the true inspiration, and the Holy Spirit worked its way through him. Besides this, he imbibed all the follies and quackeries which others had rejected,—a circumstance in which visionaries entirely differ from philosophers. The young monk, like every theorist who is inspired with the importance of his subject, was a fiery
orator; he thereby soon won over the minds of the simple, especially of the women, who were easily caught by any warm and impassioned appeal. His imagination, however, quickly formed for him another magic wand; for as he, on account of his alliance with the highest of all beings, had a lofty opinion of man, he formed the design of physiognomically dissecting the masterpiece of creation, this favourite of heaven, and of allotting to him his interior qualities by means of his exterior appearance. Men of his character so frequently deceive themselves, that it is impossible to say whether some remaining spark of understanding had whispered to him that this new delusion would give a fresh polish to the old one; and that more pious souls would come to him than ever, in order to be told so many wondrous things about their faces. As he had only seen the four walls of his cell, his penitents, and people of his own cast, and as he was as ignorant in regard to mankind, the world, and true science, as men of sanguine imaginations usually are,—it may be concluded that fancy alone excited him to this