If at Faust You Don't Succeed Read online

  Faust beheld in the glass a man rather more robust than he remembered himself. His skin had lost the waxy whiteness of old age and had taken on the ruddy hue of the middle years. His eyesight was improved, too, as well as his hearing. His features were still recognizably his own, but the demon had fined down his rather peremptory nose, brought out his chin a bit, and taken away his dewlaps. All in all he was a better-looking man than before, though he was still not likely to win one of the male beauty contests that were held secretly in some parts of Italy.

  "It's better," Faust admitted, studying himself in the mirror, "but it's still not good enough. It is my right to have the full rejuvenation treatment!"

  The demon shrugged and turned away. The witch said, "Let us not speak of rights. We gave you this much out of the goodness of our hearts. Never say that witches are all bad! For the full works, you will have to get a requisition slip signed by Mephistopheles himself, or one of the other great princes of Light or Dark. Only then can we requisition the materials from Central Supply."

  "I'll get that," Faust said, "and a lot else besides. Where did Mephistopheles say he was going next?"

  "He didn't mention it to us."

  "In what direction did he decamp?"

  "Straight up in the air, in a cloud of fire and smoke, as is his wont."

  Faust knew that he could not do that. His Transportation Spell was too limited. It had brought him to this place, but it had not the power to carry him further. He would have to return to Earth and make his plans.

  CHAPTER 8

  It was a disconsolate Faust who rematerialized inside the pentagram chalked on the floor of his chambers. Coming from the workmanlike bustle of the Witches' Kitchen, his own quarters struck him as unbearably shabby and forlorn. That damned servant girl hadn't even dusted his skeleton! And his cloaks were still mud-caked from the spring rains. There were going to be some changes around here, he decided. He gnashed his teeth.

  This was what came of being nice to people: impostors without even a casual knowledge of alchemy thought they could come in and steal your long-awaited pact with the devil. Like hell they could! He'd show them!

  Meanwhile, there was his rejuvenation to consider. He noticed that he seemed to have a lot more energy than before. His irascible nature, which had begun to soften with age, returned now with a rush. Damn it, he was Faust! He was strong! And he was hungry!

  Without further ado he left his room, went down the stairs, and out into the street. It was evening now, a blue and delightful evening, fit consort of the fabulous Easter day. Faust paid it no heed. He had better things to do than sing strophes to the weather! He crossed the street and clumped into the tavern he frequented.

  "Landlord!" he cried. "I'll have a slice of your roast suckling pig, and don't be stingy with the crackling!"

  The landlord was surprised to see this sudden change of humor in the usually sober and morose-sounding Faust. But he merely enquired, "Barley and groats on the side, sir?"

  "No groats, damn it, I'll have a full serving of Polish fried potatoes instead. And have the serving wench fetch me a pitcher of decent wine, not that wretched, thin Polack red."

  "Tokay okay?"

  "Yes, and Rhine's fine, too, just hurry up and bring it."

  Faust took a table apart from the common customers, for he wanted to think. The tavern was shadowy, with a small fire in the big hearth. There were tallow wicks burning on a wagon wheel overhead. It rocked ever so slightly from its long chains set into the ceiling beam due to the draft that blew in through the ill-made door. A serving girl brought his wine, and Faust quaffed half a pint without looking up. The girl soon reappeared with his slice of pork on a wooden trencher, with an oily heap of Polish fried potatoes on the side, and even a little plate of spiced red cabbage. Faust's stomach would have rebelled at such fare a day ago, but now it suited him to a T. So did the serving girl, who had bent low to put down the trencher, revealing a bounteous bosom beneath her embroidered off-the-shoulder white peasant's blouse. She straightened, pushing back the lustrous chestnut hair that framed her oval face in comely waves, and cascaded along her neck and plump shoulders. Faust, who had thought such interests were long behind him, looked up and blinked, reacted, and then found his tongue.

  "You must be new around here," he said. "I don't remember seeing you before, and I would if I had."

  "This is my first day on the job," the girl said, smiling with sulky and provocative beauty. "My name is Marguerite, and I come from Mecklenburg where I was a goosegirl until the armies of Gustavus Adolphus and his wild Swedes came down from the north bringing fire and rapine and causing me to flee to the east to avoid what proved to be not inevitable after all."

  Faust nodded, enthralled by her idle prattle, enchanted by her womanly charms—a fascination rejuvenated along with the Test of him.

  "I am Dr. Johann Faust," he said. "You may have heard of me."

  "Indeed I have, sir," Marguerite said. For in those days alchemists were among the star acts on the entertainment circuit and a really successful one like Faust could expect to be known far and wide. "Are you really master of those arts that call up precious stones and custom-designed clothing?'

  "I must depart," Marguerite said, "to serve wine among swine."

  "Why don't you come around to my place this evening?" Faust asked. "We'll divert ourselves by playing around with a spell or two."

  "Delighted," Marguerite said. "I'm off at eight. Till then, hasta la vista." Surprising him with her unexpected gift of languages, she hurried away to serve the other customers.

  CHAPTER 9

  Faust finished his meal and returned home. Before Marguerite's arrival, he took the opportunity of sprucing up his chambers. He carried to the back door the trash from the last week's experiments—dead cats that he had been trying to get to dance for him, old borscht and porridge containers from his most recent take-out meals, and a big pile of scholar's gray gowns that the servant had been supposed to wash and press. He pulled back heavy curtains all the way, opened shutters, and gave the place a good airing.

  Women, not being scholars themselves, cared about such things. When he had the room to his satisfaction he burned some frankincense in a copper basin, filling the air with pungent sweetness. Then he heated water and, stripping off all his clothes, scrubbed himself thoroughly. He felt a little foolish doing it, but what the hell, it was spring and he needed a cleaning anyhow after the long winter's funk. He put on a fresh gown and combed his hair, which had become wiry and unruly since his rejuvenation at the Witches' Kitchen. An unaccustomed yet familiar excitement suffused his newly young body. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd had a date.

  Marguerite came to him shortly after eight, at the time of deep blue twilight, and her entrance into Faust's chambers seemed to be accompanied by a pink spotlight that hovered around her as she darted here and there, exclaiming over his alchemical equipment, gazing with wonder at his books and manuscripts, and, with her womanly and sweet-smelling presence, spreading an air of general well-being withal.

  Faust's good spirits were tempered only by his sense of loss and outrage at the criminal carelessness of the infernal powers. Mephistopheles had apparently not even asked the impostor for any identification!

  He had just taken him at his word! It was outrageous.

  A little later, Faust found himself telling the story of his grievances to Marguerite as they lay nicely curled together in his narrow scholar's bed, with a flagon of barley wine close to hand to stimulate merriment and amorousness. Marguerite was sympathetic to his tale, though her mind tended to race off on tangents of its own.

  "What a wonder it would be," she said, "if you could regain the riches that Mephistopheles was no doubt going to offer you. For then, if you had a girlfriend, you could shower her with largesse and other fine gifts, and her appreciation of these things would bring you much pleasure."

  "I suppose that's true," Faust said, "though I never before thought of it that w
ay. But speaking of gifts, have you ever seen this one?" And he took a copper ring and spun it in the air and muttered certain words and the ring came down shining with the white fire of a diamond, though it was only a zircon in this case, the spell being a minor one. Marguerite was delighted, and although the ring was a little big for her small hand, declared that she knew a jeweler who would size it for a smile. And did Faust happen to have any other tricks like that? Faust obliged by turning a bunch of dried hollyhocks into a bouquet of roses with the dew fresh on them, and Marguerite said that was a good one, too, but did he have any more of the jewelry ones, which especially captured her fancy? Faust had several, and showered her with pins and brooches of showy workmanship but no great value, since there is a limit to what even so great a magician as Faust can do while lying in bed in a state of tumescence, with his head on a woman's soft bosom.

  "That's amazing!" Marguerite cried. "How do you do that?"

  Faust rippled his fingers. "It's all in the hands. And in the know-how, of course."

  "If you can turn out stuff like that," Marguerite said, "you could be rich. Why do you live like this?" Her gesture embraced the chamber that, though sufficient for Faust's needs, did nothing to enhance the reputation of his interior decorator.

  "I've never wanted riches," Faust told her. "My treasure was knowledge, and I sought the Philosopher's Stone, which is wisdom, not gold as the unenlightened believe."

  "I understand that," Marguerite said, "But what's the payoff?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Well, people always do one thing in order to get another. Haven't you noticed? They raise grain because they want to eat bread. They march to war because they want peace. They murder in order to save lives.

  It's always the other thing they're doing it for, the other thing which is the payoff."

  "Bless you, my child," Faust said, "in your untutored way and all unwittingly you have raised a question of rather interesting philosophical implications. You are asking, what is the goal or purpose of my quest for wisdom?"

  "You say it so well," Marguerite said.

  Faust smiled. "Knowledge, wisdom, these are goals in themselves and require no 'payoff,' as you pungently but delightfully put .it."

  "In that case, why are you so angry at this impostor you told me about? His taking your reward doesn't hinder your pursuit of knowledge."

  "Hmm," said Faust.

  "What were you going to do," Marguerite asked, "when you became as wise as you needed to be?"

  "Become wiser still."

  "And when you had all of it you could have?"

  "Dross or not," Marguerite said, "after you've got wisdom, what other payoff can they give you? Body and spirit, Dr. Faust. When you're through feeding the one, it's time to feed the other."

  "There is religion, of course," Faust said. "It is thought highly of as an end in itself. Not for me, of course; accepting what is handed down, dogma, that which is traditional and generally accepted without question, interferes with the spirit of free enquiry that Faust stands for, and which tells him to follow his own judgment and the dictates of his reason, not what some superstitious priest may have said to him."

  So intoxicated with his words was he that Faust jumped out of bed and, wrapping himself in a long cloak, proceeded to walk up and down the room, reasoning aloud.

  "It is the perfection of the moment that a philosopher seeks, if truth be told. He wants to come across a moment so perfect that he would say to it, Stay a little longer, O precious moment. If someone could provide me with that, that man or demon could have my soul. It was probably some such matter that Mephistopheles came to talk to me about. He came here with some kind of offer. And it involved great things, because why else would Mephistopheles cause me, or rather, the impostor me, to be rejuvenated at the beginning of it? Damn it, he's going to show that man the wonders of the worlds, both visible and invisible, and probably give him plenty of luxury to wallow in, too, because that's the sort of thing devils do, not realizing, apparently, that it takes far less than a seductive woman to entice a man from the true path of virtue. Usually temptation is easy; you just have to make the merest suggestion and the sinner will run to his sin. But I digress. He's taken all that from me! For this was the grandeur of Faust, that he knew that someday he would be discovered in a big way. Do you understand, Marguerite? It was a chance to play the big time, and it will not come again."

  "You can't let them get away with that!" Marguerite cried.

  "I shall not!" cried Faust, and then, in a lower voice, "But what can I do? Mephistopheles and the impostor could be anywhere!"

  Just then the bells of the churches of the city began to toll for the evening service. Their great brazen tones and quivering and long-resonating reverberations and their little rippling evanescent overtones vibrated in the deep labyrinths of Faust's ear, bearing with them a message of import, if only he could decipher it…

  Easter services. Celebrated on Earth and in Heaven. And among the Powers of Darkness, it was the time of the great anti-Easter Sabbat…

  And that, of course, was where he'd find them, Mephistopheles and the impostor!

  "I know where they must be!" Faust cried. "I shall go after them and pursue my destiny!"

  "How wonderful!" Marguerite said. "Ah, if only I could share some tiny part of that destiny with you!"

  "And so you shall!" Faust cried. "You, Marguerite, shall accompany me and help me on this mission, and share in my reward!"

  "That's just what I'd like," Marguerite said. "But alas, sir, I am but a goosegirl who was only recently made serving wench. I know no alchemy."

  "You don't need alchemy to run my errands to the pharmacy," Faust said. He pulled on his scholar's gown. "Come, get dressed, let's begin!"

  And so Faust embarked on a frenzy of preparation. First he needed a list. Sitting down at his desk, and dipping his quill in the inkwell, he wrote down all the items he would need to produce a really first-rate Traveling Spell. Then he sat back in dismay. It would take him months, years, to assemble the ingredients he required for a spell of sufficient power to take him to the Witches' Sabbat and wherever else he might want to go after that. He had to take Marguerite into consideration, too, for he meant to take her along.

  The trouble was, there was no time to acquire this stuff by legal means. But he had to have it, else the Faust story, the great story of human ability and creativity against Otherworldly machinations, would never be toy.

  It seemed to Faust that if he wanted to win his point, it was time to consider desperate expedients, even if they were not entirely legal. If, in the long history of argumentation, the ends have ever justified the means, this was one of those times.

  Then, abruptly, he knew what he had to do. He rose and picked up a packet of alchemist's tools that sometimes came in handy when Unlocking Spells weren't working. He also took a sack of Spanish wine, for he might need some fortifying before the end of this enterprise.

  "Come," he said to Marguerite, "we've got work to do."

  The Jagiellonian Museum, a great mass of gray stone set by itself in the Parque of the Belvedere just to the right of St. Rudolph's Gate stood dark and deserted. Marguerite stood by as Faust muttered an Unlocking Spell at the tall bronze doors of the front entrance. As he had feared, something was off tonight. Sometimes a wrong intonation will throw off a spell entirely, to the extent that wizards and magicians with head colds frequently have to desist lest they call up their own destruction through the production of a snuffling sound in the wrong place. Whatever was wrong, it didn't matter, for Faust had come prepared. Taking out his packet of little instruments, Faust made short work of the lock, and, taking a swig of wine for courage, pushed open the door enough to let him and Marguerite slip through.

  They were in the museum's great central hall, but the exhibits were swathed in gloom. The darkness was relieved only to a minor extent by the great windows set slantwise in the sloping roof that permitted errant rays of moonlight to enter. But h
e knew this place well enough to pull Marguerite along—she was gawking at the tableaux of ancient Polish kings—until the corridor ended in a stone wall.

  "What now?" she asked.

  "Watch. I'll show you something about the Jagiellonian most people don't know."

  He felt along the wall until his fingers encountered a familiar indentation. He pressed it in a certain way.

  With a low rumble a section of wall rolled back on well-balanced hinges, revealing a narrow passage ahead.

  "Where does this lead?" Marguerite asked.

  He led her down the passageway. It took them to a lofty room crowded with exhibit tables. In this place even Faust was in awe, for it was said that this chamber had existed long before Europe had reached its present state of civilization. Faust and Marguerite tiptoed down the aisles, and saw mystical copper rings from Ur of the Chaldeans, bronze divining rings from Tyre, sacrificial flint knives from Judaea, multiuse Egyptian wish-granting scarabs, sickle-bladed sacrificial knives of the rainbow-worshiping Celts, and more modern objects, such as the brazen head of Roger Bacon, Raymond Lull's machine of universal knowledge said to be useful for converting the heathen, several of Giovanni Battista Vico's Seals and Shadows in easy-to-interpret form, and much else besides.

  "This is more like it," Faust said. Already his arms were full of magical objects.

  "They'll hang you for this!" Marguerite said.

  "They'll have to catch me first," Faust replied. "That's the original Mantle of Turin over there. I wonder if we should take it."

  "I've got a bad feeling about this," Marguerite said, draping it over her shoulders nonetheless.

  Just then there was a clang of metal from the door by which they had entered, and there was the loud stomping noise of metal-toed shoes of the sort guards wear to prevent enraged criminals from stamping on their toes.

  "They have us!" Marguerite cried. "There's no way out!"

  "Watch this," Faust said, and put the objects he had taken in a certain order. He waved his hands, words issued from his lips, words which must never be repeated lest they upset the natural order of things.