is midnight orgy of the _Walpurgisnacht_
Mephistopheles takes Faust.... They are lighted on their toilsome ascent
of the Blocksberg by a will-o'-the-wisp. A vast multitude of witches and
goblins are flocking to the summit; the midnight air resounds with their
shrieks and jabberings; weird lights flash from every quarter, revealing
thronging swarms of ghoulish shapes and dancing Hexen. The trees
themselves are dancing. The mountains nod. The crags jut forth long
snouts which snort and blow. Amid the crush and confusion Faust has to
cling fast to his guide. Once the two get parted, and Mephistopheles is
in anxiety lest he should lose Faust entirely, the idea being, I
suppose, that sometimes a human being outruns the devil himself in the
orgies of sensuality. At last they reach the dancers. Mephistopheles is
here in his element and joins in the dances with eagerness, bandying
jokes with the old hags and flirting with the younger witches. Nor does
Faust seem at all disinclined to follow suit. He however desists
dismayed when, as he is dancing with a witch of seductive loveliness, a
red mouse jumps out of her mouth.

At length, when Mephisto, who finds it getting too hot even for him,
comes again to Faust, he discovers him silently gazing at a weird
sight--one that might well have sobered him. 'Look!' says Faust:

'Look! seest thou not in the far distance there,
Standing alone, that child, so pale and fair?
She seems to move so slowly, and with pain,
As if her feet were fettered by a chain.
I must confess, I almost seem to trace
My poor good Gretchen in her form and face.'

Mephistopheles answers:

'Let her alone! It's dangerous to look.
It's a mere lifeless ghoul, a spectre-spook.
Such bogeys to encounter is not good;
Their rigid stare freezes one's very blood,
And one is often almost turned to stone.
Medusa's head, methinks, to thee is known!'

But Faust will not be convinced. It _is_ Gretchen--his 'poor good
Gretchen' as he calls her. And what is that red bleeding gash around
her neck? What terrible thought does it suggest!

'How strange that round her lovely neck,
That narrow band of red is laid
No broader than a knife's keen blade!'

'Quite right!' answers Mephistopheles with a ghastly joke--

'Quite right! I plainly see it's so.
Perseus cut off her head, you know.
She often carries it beneath her arm.'

He hurries Faust