Dejected in this failure, Faust contemplates suicide, but is held back by the sounds of the beginning Easter celebrations.

He joins his assistant Wagner for an Easter walk in the countryside, among the celebrating people, and is followed home by a poodle.

Faust signs in blood, and Mephistopheles first takes him to Auerbach's tavern in Leipzig, where the devil plays tricks on some drunken revellers.

Having then been transformed into a young man by a witch, Faust encounters Margaret (Gretchen) and she excites his desires.

Gretchen discovers that she is pregnant, and her torment is further increased when Faust and Mephistopheles kill her enraged brother in a sword fight.

At the end of the drama, as Faust and Mephistopheles flee the dungeon, a voice from heaven announces Gretchen's salvation.

It is shown that the outcome of the bet is certain, for "a good man, in his darkest impulses, remains aware of the right path", and Mephistopheles is permitted to lead Faust astray only so that he may learn from his misdeeds.

Science having failed him, Faust seeks knowledge in Nostradamus, in the "sign of the Macrocosmos", and from an Earth-spirit, still without achieving satisfaction.

His approach to learning is a bright, cold quest, in contrast to Faust, who is led by emotional longing to seek divine knowledge.

However he is halted by the sound of church bells announcing Easter, which remind him not of Christian duty but of his happier childhood days.

When Faust attempts to repel it with sorcery, the dog transforms into Mephistopheles, in the disguise of a travelling scholar.

[3] Auerbach's Cellar in Leipzig In this, and the rest of the drama, Mephistopheles leads Faust through the "small" and "great" worlds.

These scenes confirm what was clear to Faust in his overestimation of his strength: he cannot lose the bet, because he will never be satisfied, and thus will never experience the "great moment" Mephistopheles has promised him.

Mephistopheles appears unable to keep the pact, since he prefers not to fulfill Faust's wishes, but rather to separate him from his former existence.

In a magic mirror, Faust sees the image of a woman, presumably similar to the paintings of the nude Venus by Italian Renaissance masters like Titian or Giorgione, which awakens within him a strong erotic desire.

Evening Margarete brings the jewellery to her mother, who is wary of its origin, and donates it to the Church, much to Mephistopheles's fury.

Forest and Cave Faust's monologue is juxtaposed with Gretchen's soliloquy at the spinning wheel in the following scene.

The text of this scene was notably put to music by Franz Schubert in the lied Gretchen am Spinnrade, Op.

"At the Well" and "By the City Wall" In the following scenes, Gretchen has the first premonitions that she is pregnant as a result of Faust's seduction.

She uses the opening of the Stabat Mater, a Latin hymn from the thirteenth century thought to be authored by Jacopone da Todi.

Cathedral Gretchen seeks comfort in the church, but she is tormented by an Evil Spirit who whispers in her ear, reminding her of her guilt.

[citation needed] The Evil Spirit's tormenting accusations and warnings about Gretchen's eternal damnation at the Last Judgement, as well as Gretchen's attempts to resist them, are interwoven with verses of the hymn Dies irae (from the traditional Latin text of the Requiem Mass), which is being sung in the background by the cathedral choir.

Mephistopheles lures Faust into the arms of a naked young witch, but he is distracted by the sight of Medusa, who appears to him in "his lov'd one's image": a "lone child, pale and fair", resembling "sweet Gretchen".

Open Field" The first of these two brief scenes is the only section in the published drama written in prose, and the other is in irregular unrhymed verse.

Faust has apparently learned that Gretchen has drowned the newborn child in her despair, and has been condemned to death for infanticide.