t's sword, and the faithful brother is much against Faust's
own will slain, cursing his sister with his last breath.

Now Margaretha awakes to the awful reality of her situation and she
shrinks from her brother's murderer. Everybody shuns her, and she
finds herself alone and forsaken. In despair she seeks refuge in
church, but her own conscience is not silenced; it accuses her more
loudly than all the pious songs and prayers. Persecuted by evil
spirits, forsaken and forlorn, Margaretha's reason gives way, and she
drowns her new-born child.

Meanwhile Mephisto has done everything to stifle in Faust the pangs of
conscience. Faust never {203} wills the evil, he loves Margaretha
sincerely, but the bad spirit urges him onward. He shows him all the
joys and splendors of earth, and antiquity in its most perfect form in
the person of Helena, but in the midst of all his orgies Faust sees
Margaretha. He beholds her, pale, unlike her former self, in the white
dress of the condemned, with a blood-red circle round the delicate
neck. Then he knows no rest, he feels that she is in danger, and he
bids Mephisto save her.

Margaretha has actually been thrown into prison for her deed of madness
and now the executioner's axe awaits her. She sits on the damp straw,
rocking a bundle, which she takes for her baby, and across her poor
wrecked brain there flit once more pictures of all the scenes of her
short-lived happiness. Then Faust enters with Mephisto, and tries to
persuade her to escape with them. But she instinctively shrinks from
her lover, loudly imploring God's and the Saint's pardon. God has
mercy on her, for, just as the bells are tolling for her execution; she
expires, and her soul is carried to Heaven by angels, there to pray for
her erring lover. Mephisto disappears into the earth.

MARTHA

Comic Opera in four acts by FLOTOW.

Text by W. FRIEDRICH.

This charming opera finally established the renown of its composer, who
had first found his way to public favor through "Stradella".--It {204}
ranks high among our comic operas, and has become as much liked as
those of Lortzing and Nicolai.

Not the least of its merits lies in the text, which Friedrich worked
out dexterously, and which is amusing and interesting throughout.

Lady Harriet Durham, tired of the pleasures and splendours of Court,
determines to seek elsewhere for a pastime, and hoping to find it in a
sphere different from her own, disguises