"I'll get that," Faust said, "and a lot else besides. Where did Mephistopheles say he was going next?"
"He didn't mention it to us."
"In what direction did he decamp?"
"Straight up in the air, in a cloud of fire and smoke, as is his wont."
Faust knew that he could not do that. His Transportation Spell was too limited. It had brought him to this place, but it had not the power to carry him further. He would have to return to Earth and make his plans.
CHAPTER 8
It was a disconsolate Faust who rematerialized inside the pentagram chalked on the floor of his chambers. Coming from the workmanlike bustle of the Witches' Kitchen, his own quarters struck him as unbearably shabby and forlorn. That damned servant girl hadn't even dusted his skeleton! And his cloaks were still mud-caked from the spring rains. There were going to be some changes around here, he decided. He gnashed his teeth.
This was what came of being nice to people: impostors without even a casual knowledge of alchemy thought they could come in and steal your long-awaited pact with the devil. Like hell they could! He'd show them!
Meanwhile, there was his rejuvenation to consider. He noticed that he seemed to have a lot more energy than before. His irascible nature, which had begun to soften with age, returned now with a rush. Damn it, he was Faust! He was strong! And he was hungry!
Without further ado he left his room, went down the stairs, and out into the street. It was evening now, a blue and delightful evening, fit consort of the fabulous Easter day. Faust paid it no heed. He had better things to do than sing strophes to the weather! He crossed the street and clumped into the tavern he frequented.
"Landlord!" he cried. "I'll have a slice of your roast suckling pig, and don't be stingy with the crackling!"
The landlord was surprised to see this sudden change of humor in the usually sober and morose-sounding Faust. But he merely enquired, "Barley and groats on the side, sir?"
"No groats, damn it, I'll have a full serving of Polish fried potatoes instead. And have the serving wench fetch me a pitcher of decent wine, not that wretched, thin Polack red."
"Tokay okay?"
"Yes, and Rhine's fine, too, just hurry up and bring it."
Faust took a table apart from the common customers, for he wanted to think. The tavern was shadowy, with a small fire in the big hearth. There were tallow wicks burning on a wagon wheel overhead. It rocked ever so slightly from its long chains set into the ceiling beam due to the draft that blew in through the ill-made door. A serving girl brought his wine, and Faust quaffed half a pint without looking up. The girl soon reappeared with his slice of pork on a wooden trencher, with an oily heap of Polish fried potatoes on the side, and even a little plate of spiced red cabbage. Faust's stomach would have rebelled at such fare a day ago, but now it suited him to a T. So did the serving girl, who had bent low to put down the trencher, revealing a bounteous bosom beneath her embroidered off-the-shoulder white peasant's blouse. She straightened, pushing back the lustrous chestnut hair that framed her oval face in comely waves, and cascaded along her neck and plump shoulders. Faust, who had thought such interests were long behind him, looked up and blinked, reacted, and then found his tongue.
"You must be new around here," he said. "I don't remember seeing you before, and I would if I had."
"This is my first day on the job," the girl said, smiling with sulky and provocative beauty. "My name is Marguerite, and I come from Mecklenburg where I was a goosegirl until the armies of Gustavus Adolphus and his wild Swedes came down from the north bringing fire and rapine and causing me to flee to the east to avoid what proved to be not inevitable after all."
Faust nodded, enthralled by her idle prattle, enchanted by her womanly charms—a fascination rejuvenated along with the Test of him.
"I am Dr. Johann Faust," he said. "You may have heard of me."
"Indeed I have, sir," Marguerite said. For in those days alchemists were among the star acts on the entertainment circuit and a really successful one like Faust could expect to be known far and wide. "Are you really master of those arts that call up precious stones and custom-designed clothing?'
"I must depart," Marguerite said, "to serve wine among swine."
"Why don't you come around to my place this evening?" Faust asked. "We'll divert ourselves by playing around with a spell or two."
"Delighted," Marguerite said. "I'm off at eight. Till then, hasta la vista." Surprising him with her unexpected gift of languages, she hurried away to serve the other customers.
CHAPTER 9
Faust finished his meal and returned home. Before Marguerite's arrival, he took the opportunity of sprucing up his chambers. He carried to the back door the trash from the last week's experiments—dead cats that he had been trying to get to dance for him, old borscht and porridge containers from his most recent take-out meals, and a big pile of scholar's gray gowns that the servant had been supposed to wash and press. He pulled back heavy curtains all the way, opened shutters, and gave the place a good airing.
Women, not being scholars themselves, cared about such things. When he had the room to his satisfaction he burned some frankincense in a copper basin, filling the air with pungent sweetness. Then he heated water and, stripping off all his clothes, scrubbed himself thoroughly. He felt a little foolish doing it, but what the hell, it was spring and he needed a cleaning anyhow after the long winter's funk. He put on a fresh gown and combed his hair, which had become wiry and unruly since his rejuvenation at the Witches' Kitchen. An unaccustomed yet familiar excitement suffused his newly young body. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd had a date.
Marguerite came to him shortly after eight, at the time of deep blue twilight, and her entrance into Faust's chambers seemed to be accompanied by a pink spotlight that hovered around her as she darted here and there, exclaiming over his alchemical equipment, gazing with wonder at his books and manuscripts, and, with her womanly and sweet-smelling presence, spreading an air of general well-being withal.
Faust's good spirits were tempered only by his sense of loss and outrage at the criminal carelessness of the infernal powers. Mephistopheles had apparently not even asked the impostor for any identification!
He had just taken him at his word! It was outrageous.
A little later, Faust found himself telling the story of his grievances to Marguerite as they lay nicely curled together in his narrow scholar's bed, with a flagon of barley wine close to hand to stimulate merriment and amorousness. Marguerite was sympathetic to his tale, though her mind tended to race off on tangents of its own.
"What a wonder it would be," she said, "if you could regain the riches that Mephistopheles was no doubt going to offer you. For then, if you had a girlfriend, you could shower her with largesse and other fine gifts, and her appreciation of these things would bring you much pleasure."
"I suppose that's true," Faust said, "though I never before thought of it that way. But speaking of gifts, have you ever seen this one?" And he took a copper ring and spun it in the air and muttered certain words and the ring came down shining with the white fire of a diamond, though it was only a zircon in this case, the spell being a minor one. Marguerite was delighted, and although the ring was a little big for her small hand, declared that she knew a jeweler who would size it for a smile. And did Faust happen to have any other tricks like that? Faust obliged by turning a bunch of dried hollyhocks into a bouquet of roses with the dew fresh on them, and Marguerite said that was a good one, too, but did he have any more of the jewelry ones, which especially captured her fancy? Faust had several, and showered her with pins and brooches of showy workmanship but no great value, since there is a limit to what even so great a magician as Faust can do while lying in bed in a state of tumescence, with his head on a woman's soft bosom.