University of Virginia Library

SCENE XX.

Cathedral.
Mass is being celebrated by organ and choir. Gretchen is among the crowd, an Evil Spirit behind her.
Evil Spirit.
How different, Gretchen, with thee,
When, full of innocence still,
Here to the altar come,
From the much-thumbed little prayer-book
Thy prayers thou lispedst,
Half in childish play,
Half with God in thy heart!
Gretchen!
What of thy head?
And, in thy heart there,
What most foul misdeed?
Prayest thou for thy Mother's soul, through thee,
After its long, long pain sinking through sleep to death?
Upon thy threshold whose blood is that?—
And—there, beneath the heart
Stirs not some quickening life,
Torturing itself and thee
With its ill-boding presence now?

Gretchen.
Woe! woe!
Were I from these thoughts but free,
That o'er me come, and slowly pass away,
In spite of me!

Choir.
Dies Irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla.

(Organ tones.)
Evil Spirit.
Wrath seizes thee,
The last trumpet sounds!
The graves are heaving!
And from thy heart
From ashen rest
For fiery torment
Now again is shapen,
Arise!

Gretchen.
Would I were hence!
It seems as though the organ's tone
Were stifling my breathing,
The holy hymn
Loosening my heart-strings.

Choir.
Judex ergo cum sedebit,
Quidquid latet adparebit,
Nil inultum remanebit.

Gretchen.
I smother here!
The walls' huge pillars
Close round me now!
The massy ceiling
Weighs on me—Air!

Evil Spirit.
Hide thyself! Sin and shame
Remain not hidden.
Air? Light?
Woe to thee!

Choir.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus,
Quem Patronem rogaturus,
Cum vix justus sit securus?

Evil Spirit.
The Saints in glory
Their faces turn from thee.
The pure their hands refuse thee
Shuddering in horror!
Woe!

Choir.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?

Gretchen.
Neighbour Your smelling-bottle—

(She falls in a fainting-fit.)