Dungeon

Before an iron door in a dungeon, Faust with a bunch of keys and a lamp. He hesitates: the whole anguish of mankind has taken hold of him. He unlocks the door and enters. From inside, Gretchen is singing — a fragment of a nursery-rhyme horror: "My mother, the whore, who killed me! My father, the rogue, who ate me! My little sister gathered up the bones..." She does not know he is coming. She hears the chains rattle, the straw rustle, and cries out — woe, they are coming, bitter death.

Faust calls to her softly. She doesn't recognize him at first. She is in a cell where she has been waiting for dawn — for the execution — and her mind has come partly undone. She talks about the child, about her mother, about the neighbors. Slowly she begins to recognize his voice and his touch. She reaches for him. She weeps and talks and weeps. He begs her to flee: now, tonight, there is a horse outside, it is not too late. She will not go. She has things she needs to do first — the child must be buried properly, she must find the right spot. She is not coming.

The dawn is coming up. Mephistopheles calls from outside the door: come away or it will be too late. The horsemen outside are growing restless. Gretchen hears Mephistopheles's voice and recoils — it is him, the one who gives her shivers. She cries out to the divine: her judge, have mercy. A voice from above: she is saved. Mephistopheles, outside: she is condemned. He seizes Faust and they flee into the dawn. Gretchen is left calling Faust's name. The play ends.