FAUST

Well, for the life of me, I cannot read you!

Yet let me ask: why such an eager will To serve a man into whose rooms you came By chance to-night? Why give yourself such pains To furnish him a paradise?

SATAN

There is No mystery in that. I would ally You to myself.

FAUST

Thanks, I decline.

SATAN

You fail To understand me. For I ask not this As promise of you.

FAUST

What, then, do you mean?

What do you count on? Whence do you expect Pay for your trouble and your risk--a risk Not trivial, I warn you?

SATAN

Let me make The matter clear to you. I know quite well The risk is nothing, since my paradise Will utterly delight you. Granting this, You see my profit: you will stay with me Willingly there forever, to my ends An interested a.s.sistant. I will serve Forth on my tables such delicious fare That you will freely choose to be my guest Through time and through eternity. I say: Fie for a bond written in scrawly blood!

A bond of choice is better. Could a saint Speak fairer to you? I risk everything, And you risk nothing but a little time; And time, as you are placed, seems not so dear That you need h.o.a.rd it.

FAUST

But your ends are--what?

SATAN

How can it matter now--if seeing them You shall approve them?

FAUST

Are you serious?

SATAN

My jests have other aspect.

FAUST

I accept.

Your game is to my taste. For thirty years Have I made search through all the lands of earth, The realms of learning, and the tangled groves Of fancy, for some region which my soul Might with entire approval view; but none Has been vouchsafed me. If the Devil can In this surpa.s.s the world's established powers, Then I am his disciple willingly....

But if you fail, friend Satan!--I shall tie You to a cart's tail and exhibit you Like a dead whale throughout the country--or Make you curator of an orphanage!

SATAN

I shall not fail.

OLDHAM (_enters_)

I beg your pardon, Faust; I thought you'd be alone. My brother left, Not waiting for me; and, as I pa.s.sed by, I saw your lights, and thought I would look in Just for a moment. I had things to say That are perhaps much better left unsaid.

Good-bye, my dear friend. I will not disturb you.

Good night again.

FAUST

Wait, Oldham; do not go.

I have a visitor whose name you know, But not, perhaps, his person. Let me have The pleasure of presenting you. This is The Devil--Mr. Oldham.

OLDHAM

You are mad!

What jest is this?

SATAN

I am indeed the Devil.

Look in my eyes intently.... Shall I tell you Your thought, two minutes since?... Or what you hold Clutched now against your side?... _Or where you go When you go hence to-night?_...

OLDHAM

No!... I believe you....

Although it is incredible!...

FAUST

You come Just at the proper moment for good-bye, For I am going with him on a journey, And do not know how soon I shall return.

If I return at all.

OLDHAM

A journey? Where?

SATAN

To paradise.

FAUST

He offers paradise That will suffice my wish, and gives himself As pledge of his success.

SATAN

Come, we must haste, For it is very far.