Thy son, having taken his grandfather’s part, and threatened the life of his mother’s seducer, was by him turned out of the house also. The boy wandered among the woods and wildernesses till he was half famished. Arriving at length in this city, and being ashamed to beg, he stole a few pence from the poor-box in a church, in order to assuage his hunger; but he committed this theft so artlessly, that several people perceived him, and the most worshipful magistrate, in consideration of his youth, sentenced him only to be hanged: he was accordingly hanged; although he protested, with tears, that for the last four days he had swallowed nothing but grass. Thy daughter is at Frankfort, where she subsists upon the earnings of vice; thy second son is in the profligate service of an infamous prelate. The young man whom thou didst save from death robbed thy wife not long ago of her last stiver; thy friend whom we preserved from beggary refused thy old father the slightest assistance, and spurned thy children from his door when they came to him for bread. And I will now show thee
thy family, in order that thou mayest see to what a state thou hast reduced them. I will then bring thee here again, and hold reckoning with thee; for I am no longer thy slave—thou art mine. The worm of despair begins to gnaw within thee; thou art no longer fit to live, and hell only is fit to receive thee.
The Devil seized the wretched man, flew with him to Mayence, and showed him his wife and two youngest children sitting at the gate of the Franciscan convent in expectation of the remnant of the monks’ supper. When the mother beheld Faustus, she screamed, “O Heaven! Faustus! your father—” then, covering her eyes with her hands, she fell into a swoon. The children ran to him, clung about him, and cried for bread.
Faustus. Devil, decide upon my fate: let it be more frightful than the heart of man can support or conceive, but supply these unfortunate creatures with bread, and rescue them from misery and hunger.
Devil. I have plundered for thee the earth of its treasures; thou hast sacrificed them to thy
infamous pleasures, without once thinking of these wretches. Feel now thy folly; thou hast spun the web of their destiny, and thy hungry, beggarly, miserable brood will transmit to their remotest posterity the misery of which thou art the cause. Thou didst beget children—wherefore hast thou not been a father to them? Wherefore hast thou sought happiness where mortal never yet found it? Look at them once more. In hell thou shalt see them again; and they will there curse thee for the inheritance which thou didst entail upon them.
He tore him from his miserable family at the moment the wife was about to embrace his knees, and to ask his pardon. Faustus wished to comfort her; but the Devil grasped him, and placed him once more beneath the gibbet at Worms.
Night sunk dark upon the earth. Faustus stood gazing on the remains of his unfortunate son; madness glowed in his brain, and he cried, in the wild tone of despair:
“Devil, let me bury this poor victim; take then my life, and bear me to hell, where I shall
never again see men in flesh and bone. I have learnt to know them; I am disgusted with them, with their destination, with the world, and with life. Since one good action brings on my head such inexpressible evils, I have reason to believe that the wicked only have a right to happiness. If such be the order of things in this world, hurl me at once into hell. Its darkness is a thousand times preferable to the light of day.