Faust. Adolphe d'Ennery
I intend to create a living being. Understand, Doctor, I intend to create someone in my image; finally I intend to give it life.
Fridolin
Heavens! You are going to get married?
Wagner
Fie! That’s an old way which besides they could contest the invention with me.
Fridolin
Ah! It’s not possible.
Wagner
It’s a hackneyed way.
Magnus
Hackneyed! Hackneyed! But which could really be used for a long time.
Wagner
As for me, I intend to give existence to it, without associating a simple woman in my glory.
Fridolin
Ah! Bah!
Wagner
Yes—with the aid of combined substances, extracts and essences—
Fridolin
That’s fine that is—And what sex will he or she be?
Wagner
I intend to create something lovable, gracious, spiritual—
Fridolin
It’s a woman—
Wagner
A model of submission.
Fridolin
It’s a man—
Wagner
Faithful.
Fridolin
It’s a dog in that case.
Wagner
I’ve exhausted all the formulas; I’ve been ready to succeed, but at the supreme moment, I always lack something—
Magnus
You lack spirit.
Fridolin
There you go.
Wagner
What do you mean, spirit?
Magnus
(Rising) The breath, the soul, in the end life—
Wagner
Yes, life—! Absolutely, it only lacked that to animate my creature.
Magnus
It’s a little thing. (Giving him a flask) And by pouring this into the mix—the contents of this little viol—I believe it will be able to guarantee you success.
Wagner
What—in there?
Magnus
It’s what you lack.
Wagner
There’s spirit in there?
Magnus
Yes.
Wagner
There’s soul, breath—?
Magnus
(Cocking his ear) Be quiet. Hide that very carefully—your Master—
Wagner
My Master! Ah! I am going to be his, now. (Goes to right)
Faust
(Enters, bouquet in hand) I was able to master the storm; I was able to turn away lightning—and I am unable to restore to these flowers a little of their lost freshness—(Places the bouquet to the left) (Noticing Magnus) A stranger!
Magnus
A friend! Magnus, your old correspondent from Nurnberg.
Faust
Magnus. (To Fridolin and Wagner) Leave us.
Wagner
(Aside) Patience! I will soon have my slave whom I’ll order about in my turn.
Faust
Will you be gone? Obey!
Fridolin
Yes, Master.
Wagner
(To Fridolin) Get going, obey! (He leaves)
Fridolin
(Aside, following him) What could I indeed create? Me, too! (Faust brings up an armchair for Magnus)
Faust
(Sitting to the right, Magnus to the left) The savant, the illustrious Magnus at my home.
Magnus
Illustrious, savant—! My friend, we give ourselves these titles before the vulgar; but when we are alone, let’s agree that the greatest among us is, indeed, little, and that the wisest know they don’t know very much.
Faust
Yes, yes—to know that one doesn’t know, that’s the most real fruit of human study.
Wagner
No one is here to hear us. You’ve consecrated your whole life to work—are you quite satisfied with the result of your long career?
Faust
(Shaking his hand) And you?
Magnus
Alas! So many fine years wasted, friend! I wanted to appreciate the mysteries of creation.
Faust
We pale when confronted with the unknown secrets of nature.
Magnus
And backs bent and head whitened—leaning over our books—
Faust
And one day, you raise your eyes, everything has changed around you, time has fled, carrying off the objects of your affection, all that made you smile, all that you used to love, and if, by chance, a friend survives who extends to you his old, trembling hand—(He extends his hand and presses Magnus’s) There are so many regrets in this silent embrace.
Magnus
And when one sees young couples who are going about joyfully, arms entwined, as they say—what have I done with my youth?
Faust
And when one hears under the big green trees, or behind the flowering briars, words of love which are exchanged, the give and take of kisses as they say to themselves: What have I done with my heart?
Magnus
Yes, study bears a bitter fruit—and that fruit is called deception.
Faust
(Rising and passing to the left) It’s my fault, heaven warned me of it a hundred times. I shut my ears.
Magnus
(Ironic) Ah! Ah! Heaven spoke to you? (Rising) Health to the elect of the Lord!
Faust
God speaks to all men, for each of them he has a language. He’s the God of Armies, and he speaks to soldiers in the voice of trumpets; the poet hears a celestial voice which sings in his heart; God speaks also for others in the murmur of the water, in the perfume of flowers, in the song of birds. As for me, shut in this somber laboratory, absorbed completely in study, from my youth it was the clocks that seemed to me to be speaking to me. (Gesture by Magnus) Don’t smile, Doctor, I really heard what seemed celestial voices mixed with their voices of bronze; yes the clocks said to me, when I was twenty, each Sunday and at Christmas and Palm Sunday “Greetings, greetings to youth—this is the hour when everything smiles—the hour of prayer, the hour of love; it’s the time when hearts choose each other, it’s the time when marriages are blessed. Come pray, come love,