: The Moth Decides: A Novel by Jewell Edward Alden - Love stories; Mate selection Fiction; United States Social life and customs 20th century Fiction; Resorts Michigan Fiction

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In Frankfort, which is at the present day the asylum of science, Faustus, however, hoped for better fortune. He offered his Bible to the reverend Town Council for two hundred gold guilders; but, as a large sum had just been expended in purchasing five hogsheads of prime Rhenish for the council cellar, his demand came rather unseasonably. He paid his court to the town-clerk, to the speaker, and to the senators,--from the proud patrician to the yet prouder head of the shoemaker guild. He was promised by all favour, protection, and assistance.

At length he attached himself to the then presiding mayor, from whom he for a long time gained nothing; but, as if in recompense, the lady-mayoress kindled a violent passion in his susceptible heart. One evening the mayor assured him that the council, on their next day of meeting, would come to a determination, by virtue of which the assembled members would most probably pay down the sum for the Bible. Faustus replied, that his children might very possibly die of hunger before so enlightened an assembly had decided; and, maddened with despair, he now returned to his solitary apartment. In this moment he suddenly recollected his magic formula. The thought of running some bold risk, and of purchasing independence of man by an alliance with the Devil, rushed more vividly than ever through his brain. Yet the idea terrified him. With hasty steps, furious gestures, and fearful cries, he strode up and down the chamber, struggling with his rebellious spirit, which urged him to penetrate the surrounding darkness; still his soul shuddered and was unresolved. The clock struck eleven from the neighbouring tower. Black night hung about the earth. The north-wind howled, and clouds obscured the face of the full moon. Nature now appeared in a second chaos. A night more suited to bewilder an excited imagination could not be conceived. Yet was the beam of his mind balanced. In one scale hung religion and its firm supporter--the hope of immortality; while thirst for independence and knowledge, pride, pleasure, malevolence, and bitterness filled the other.

At length Faustus, according to the custom of magic, drew the horrible circle which was for ever to remove him from the providential care of the Omnipotent, and from the sweet ties of humanity. His eyes sparkled, his heart beat louder, and his yellow tresses stood erect on his head. At this moment he thought he saw his aged father and his blooming wife and children wring their hands in despair, and fall down upon their knees to pray for him to that Being whom he was about to renounce. "It is their misery, it is their situation, that maddens me," he wildly shrieked, and stamped on the ground with his foot. He now became enraged at the weakness of his heart, and advanced towards the circle; the storm rattled against the windows, the foundation of the house trembled: a noble angelic figure appeared before him, exclaiming, "Stay, Faustus!" and the following colloquy ensued:

"Farewell, unhappy man," sighed the Genius, and disappeared.

Faustus cried, "Am I to be frightened on the very brink of hell by nursery-tales? But they shall not prevent me from piercing the darkness; I will know what the gloomy curtain conceals, which a tyrannical hand has drawn before our eyes. And who is to blame, I repeat? Was it I that formed myself so that trifling exertion exhausts my strength? Did I plant in my bosom the seeds of passion? Did I place there that impulse for aggrandisement which never lets me rest? Did I fashion my soul, so that it will not submit, and will not bear contempt? Perhaps I am like the earthen pot, which, formed by a strange hand, is broken into pieces, because it does not hit the fancy of the maker, and because it does not answer the use for which it appears to have been designed. Alas! I am a mere vessel; yet wherefore then this struggle with my destiny, which would fetter my noblest resolves? And was mind given for no purpose? Surely not! The bull trusts in his horns, and the stag in his swiftness to escape from the hunter; and is that which so eminently distinguishes man less his own? Mind I possess; I employed it for the benefit of my fellow-men, and neglect was my reward; perhaps the devils will respect it more."

Here he sprung furiously into the circle; while the lamentations of his wife, father, and children seemed to echo, in the deep tones of despair, "Lost! for ever lost!"

Satan, ruler of hell, had, by the hoarse sound of his trumpets, which echoed even to the glowing sides of the sun, announced to all the fallen spirits dispersed through the upper and lower world, that he intended on this day to give a great festival. The spirits assembled at the mighty call. Even his envoys at the papal stool, and at the different courts of Europe, forsook their posts; for the invitation led them to expect something great and important.

Already the monstrous vaults of hell resounded with the wild cries of the fiendish populace, while myriads seated themselves upon the scorched ground. The princes then stepped forth, and commanded silence to the multitude, whilst Satan heard the intelligence brought by his envoys from the upper world. The devils obeyed, and a death-like stillness prevailed amid the thick, misty darkness, interrupted only by the groans of the damned. In the mean time the slaves of the fiends--shades who are neither worthy of happiness nor damnation--prepared the immeasurable tables for the banquet; and they deserved to be under the thraldom of such a task. When they were yet in flesh and blood, and ate the fruits of the earth, they were of that equivocal kind, who seem the friends of all men and yet are the friends of none; whose tongues continually prattle of the noble precepts of virtue, which they feel not in their hearts; who only abstain from evil because it is accompanied by danger, and from doing good because it requires courage and self-denial; who traffic with religion, and, like avaricious Jews, lay out their capital at interest, for the purpose of securing a comfortable berth for their miserable souls; and who worship God from fear, and tremble before Him like slaves.

The devils, who, to say the truth, are no better masters than the Polish, Livonian, and Hungarian nobility, drove them about in hell at a furious rate. Others were sweating in the infernal kitchen, and cooking the meal for their haughty lords--an unpleasant service for a soul which had once supported its own human body by eating and drinking. For although the devils originally neither ate nor drank, yet they had learnt from men the custom of celebrating every solemnity by means of the glass and platter; and on such occasions they feast on souls. The general of each legion chooses a certain number of damned souls, as food for his subalterns. These are delivered over to the slaves, who stew, broil, and baste them with infernal sauce. It frequently happens that these wretches have to stick their own wives, daughters, fathers, sons, or brothers upon the spits, and to keep up the purgatorial fire beneath them; a truly horrible and tragic employment, rendered yet more so, since their overseer, a capricious devil, like all understrappers of great lords, stands behind them with a whip in order to expedite the work. On the present occasion two popes, a conqueror, a celebrated philosopher, and a recently canonised saint, were intended to feast the palates of Satan, his viziers, and his favourites. Abundance of fresh victuals had just arrived for the common people. The pope had a little time before set by the ears two armies of French, Italians, Spaniards, and Germans, in order to fish up in the tumult certain districts, to add to the patrimony of St. Peter. They fought like heroes, and fell by thousands into the infernal regions. What happiness would it be for the souls intended for these devilish repasts, if they were thereby to find an end to their torments! But no sooner are they swallowed, digested, and returned piecemeal into the pools of hell than they are regenerated, and arise to become the patients of new suffering.

While these victims were writhing on the spits, the cellarers and butlers, slaves of the above-mentioned order, decked out the sideboards. The flasks were filled with tears of hypocrites, of would-be saints, of pretenders to sensibility, and of persons who repent from weakness of soul; with tears which envy squeezes out on hearing of another's prosperity; with tears of egotists who weep for joy because they themselves have escaped the misfortunes by which others are overwhelmed; and of sons who weep over the palls of their harsh and avaricious fathers. The flasks on the supper-table were filled with the tears of priests, who, like actors, play a part in the pulpit, in order to move their auditors; and to give the liquor a sharper flavour, it was mingled with tears of courtesans, who walk the streets weeping for hunger, until some inexperienced youth barters his dollar with them for sin. Reserved for Satan and his princes stood, on various sideboards, flasks of the noblest drink. This was heady and foaming, being a mixture of the tears of monarchs, who weep for the misery of their subjects, whilst they issue commands only calculated to perpetuate it; of the tears of maidens who weep for the loss of their chastity with streaming eyes; and of the tears of favourites who have fallen into disgrace, and now weep because they can no longer rob and oppress under the protection of their masters.

No sooner had the slaves decked the table, and stationed themselves behind the chairs of their masters, than the grandees poured forth from the chambers of Satan. The furies went foremost; the body-guards followed them, and were succeeded by the chamberlains. Then came pages bearing lighted torches, woven out of the souls of monks who entrap wives, and press round the deathbed of husbands to force them to leave their property to the Church, without reflecting that their own illegitimate spawn must beg for bread through the land. Then came Satan himself, closely followed by the remaining nobility of his court, according to their rank and favour. The devils bowed their heads in reverence, the pages placed the torches upon the table of their sovereign; while Satan, with a triumphant air, mounted his high throne, and delivered the following speech:

"Princes, potentates, immortal spirits, welcome! thrice welcome! Rapturous emotions glow through me when I cast my eyes along your squadrons of countless heroes. We are yet what we were when, for the first time, we awoke in this pool from the stunning consequences of our fall, and for the first time assembled here. Only one feeling still rules,--unanimity alone maintains her sway, and in this place only do all devote themselves to the same end. He who has the happiness of commanding you may easily forget all other glory. I own we have suffered, and still suffer, much, especially since the full exercise of our powers is restrained. But in the feeling of the vengeance which we take on the sons of dust,--in the contemplation of their madness and crimes, by which they continually thwart the purposes of their being,--lies a recompense for our suffering. Welcome, thrice welcome, all ye whom this sentiment inflames.

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