Devil. Yes, tricked you. He saw how little you cared for money, and has made a noble harvest out of you. Think not that the table of this miser would be so well provided, and that he would be so prodigal of the richest wines, and that thou wouldst see so many guests around him, provided thy gold did not work these miracles. At every moment he trembles lest we should leave
his house. I see by thy astonishment that thou hast been a spendthrift all thy life, and that thou hast never felt this thirst for gold, which can extinguish all the desires of the heart, and even the most pressing wants of nature. Follow me, but tread softly.
They descended a staircase, went through several subterranean passages, and came at last to an iron door. The Devil then said to Faustus: “Look through the key-hole.” Faustus perceived in a vault, illumined by the feeble light of a lamp, the gentleman seated by the side of a strong-box, in which were many sacks of money, which he was looking at with tenderness. He then flung the money he had won from Faustus into another box, and wept because he saw there was not sufficient to fill it. The Devil said softly to Faustus: “For the sum which is wanting to fill that box, he will sell thee his daughter.”
Faustus was incredulous. The Devil waxed wroth, and said impatiently:
“I will show thee that gold has such irresistible power over the minds of men, that even
at this moment some fathers and mothers belonging to the village are in the neighbouring wood selling for money their babes and sucklings to the emissaries of the king, although they are well aware that the poor little things are destined to be slaughtered, in order that the king may drink their blood, with the foolish hope of renovating and refreshing the corrupt tide which flows in his own veins.
Faustus (with a shudder). Then the world is worse than hell, and I shall quit it without regret. But I will be convinced with my own eyes before I credit any thing so horrible.
They now went into the wood, and concealed themselves among the bushes, where they perceived the emissaries of the king in conference with some men and women, and the priest of the parish. Four little children were stretched upon the grass, one of them crying pitiably. The mother lifted it up and gave it pap, in order to quiet it; whilst the others crept upon the ground, and played with the flowers. The emissaries counted money into the hands of the husbands;
the priest had his share, and the children were delivered up. The echoes of the wood repeated for a long time the cries of the little wretches as they were carried away. The mothers groaned; but the men said to them, “Here is gold; let us go to the public-house and buy wine, and drink to a fresh offspring. It is better that the king should eat the brats now they are young than flay them when they are old, or tie them up in a sack and fling them into the Seine. It would have been much better for us if we had been devoured as soon as we were born.”
The priest comforted them, and said: