death robbed
thy wife not long ago of her last stiver; thy friend whom we preserved
from beggary refused thy old father the slightest assistance, and spurned
thy children from his door when they came to him for bread. And I will
now show thee thy family, in order that thou mayest see to what a state
thou hast reduced them. I will then bring thee here again, and hold
reckoning with thee; for I am no longer thy slave--thou art mine. The
worm of despair begins to gnaw within thee; thou art no longer fit to
live, and hell only is fit to receive thee.

The Devil seized the wretched man, flew with him to Mayence, and showed
him his wife and two youngest children sitting at the gate of the
Franciscan convent in expectation of the remnant of the monks' supper.
When the mother beheld Faustus, she screamed, "O Heaven! Faustus! your
father--" then, covering her eyes with her hands, she fell into a swoon.
The children ran to him, clung about him, and cried for bread.

_Faustus_. Devil, decide upon my fate: let it be more frightful than the
heart of man can support or conceive, but supply these unfortunate
creatures with bread, and rescue them from misery and hunger.

_Devil_. I have plundered for thee the earth of its treasures; thou hast
sacrificed them to thy infamous pleasures, without once thinking of these
wretches. Feel now thy folly; thou hast spun the web of their destiny,
and thy hungry, beggarly, miserable brood will transmit to their remotest
posterity the misery of which thou art the cause. Thou didst beget
children--wherefore hast thou not been a father to them? Wherefore hast
thou sought happiness where mortal never yet found it? Look at them once
more. In hell thou shalt see them again; and they will there curse thee
for the inheritance which thou didst entail upon them.

He tore him from his miserable family at the moment the wife was about to
embrace his knees, and to ask his pardon. Faustus wished to comfort her;
but the Devil grasped him, and placed him once more beneath the gibbet at
Worms.

Night sunk dark upon the earth. Faustus stood gazing on the remains of
his unfortunate son; madness glowed in his brain, and he cried, in the
wild tone of despair:

"Devil, let me bury this poor victim; take then my life, and bear me to
hell, where I shall never again see men in flesh and bone. I have learnt
to know them; I am disgusted with them, with their destination, with the
world, and with life. S