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The E String (or The Magic Fiddle)
An unpublished film scenario, circa 1920s.
According to the synopsis, it is 'The story of the soul of an artist, of its paramount need of expression, the mill-stone of the contending Forces of Good and Evil, impersonated by characters in the play, and of the birth of Will, to guide and direct Love.' This is the most didactic of the Crowley film-scripts, with references to "Love under Will," etc. with God appearing in disguise as a character named "Weishaupt."
This film scenario was one of a number sent by Crowley to his American disciple Wilfred Talbot Smith with the intent that they be anonymously promoted to Hollywood studios.
Persons of the Play:
The story of the soul of an artist, of its paramount need of expression, the mill-stone of the contending Forces of Good and Evil, impersonated by characters in the play, and of the birth of Will, to guide and direct love.
Julius Egger is playing the fiddle at the dinner hour in a peasants' café. He is eighteen but looks much older—is intensely pale, face pinched with hunger, hair unkempt, eyes wild, clothes ragged; his violin is of the cheapest kind. The face is refined and delicate, the brow noble, but the mouth loose and the jaw weak.
The waitress, Frieda Bachfisch, is a slim girl of 16, with masses of blond hair. She is cuffed about and sworn at continually by the proprietor. Her eyes are large and tender but full of pain, and the face is drawn with suffering. She is dressed in flimsy, gaudy, fancy clothes.
Julius takes his cap round but is rebuffed. He almost faints from weakness. Frieda sees this and shyly slips a crust into his hand. The proprietor notices the act and cuffs her away brutally. The students protest but the man comes down and confronts them, pushes up his sleeves and brow beats them.
The scene has, however, attracted the notice of a big virago, Gretel, flashily dressed, who is sitting with a younger woman and the lover of the latter. She beckons Julius, makes him sit down with her, gives him her beer and orders a plate of goulache for him. He resents her familiarities but his hunger masters him. She makes him dance for her, caressing him coarsely.
Frieda is almost in tears.
The dance drags for lack of music. At this moment the door opens and a man enters with a violin under his arm. He is very tall but stoops to an unusual extent. His head is disproportionately large. He has drooping moustaches so long that the points touch his shoulders. He has neither hair nor eyebrows. His chin is long and sharp; so is his nose. His right eye is closed, thus his face appears distorted. His expression is solemn and sinister. He bows to the woman Gretel.
The newcomer, dressed in fashionable black clothes, long frock coat, black gloves, pointed patent leather boots and an exceptionally tall silk hat, begins to play. All listen.
Julius claps his hands in ecstacy and is transfigured by his rapture. The player, Schwartzkopf, fixes his eye on him. Julius becomes the prey of violent emotion, as if two terrific forces were struggling in his soul. At this moment Gretel comes up behind him and fastens her lips on the back of his neck. Julius struggles, then half collapses in her arms.
Schwartzkopf changes his Adagio to a lively dance. This seems to magnetize Julius, who returns Gretel's caresses and they whirl off together, fast and furiously.
They sit down after the dance and Gretel talks earnestly in his ear. She is inviting him to her house.
(A flash of this house is shown — solid, substantial, full of coarse plenty.)
The expression of Julius changes and tears come into his eyes. He contrasts the house she describes with his own. This he sees. His mother is lying on a miserable pallet in a wretched shack. The scene is one of abject poverty.
This vision contorts the face of Julius with pain, but he registers love for his mother and, opening his eyes, has a fit of repulsion at Gretel.
Frieda has been watching this, and she takes the coppers given her as tips from her shoe, their hiding place, and puts them in the hand of Julius. He is greatly moved. Gretel sees this and makes a scene with the girl. This embarrasses Julius.
Gretel appeals to Schwartzkopf, who begins to play, Frieda seems to recognize that the music will decide Julius to rebuff her and she turns on Schwartzkopf in passionate indignation. He cringes, and his E string snaps.
Gretel jumps up, cursing; Schwartzkopf makes a gesture of despairing impotence and glides out of the café.
Julius accepts the coppers, saying that he will buy food for his sick mother. He disengages himself violently from Gretel's clutch and, snatching his violin, runs out of the café. He buys food for his mother, gathers firewood and makes her a meal. Night falls on him playing to her. Her face is lit with seraphic rapture.
He goes out again to play, this time at the corner of a street in the village. A touring car passes. In it are two men, Ludwig Mendel and his manager. They pass Julius, Mendel insists on stopping the car though his manager protests, and walks back and listens to Julius. The boy finishes playing, turns and sees Ludwig. He is stricken with fear, recognizing Ludwig, for the greatest violinist of the day. Ludwig pats his shoulder kindly and says: “With two years training and a good fiddle, you would beat us all.” He takes out his pocket-book, extracts its wad of bank-notes and thrusts them into the hands of the boy, saying: “Any time I can help you, let me know.” The boy, trembling, kisses his hand and Ludwig runs off to his waiting machine. Julius goes home and shows the money to his mother, who is overjoyed. She tells him how proud of him she is and how sure of his success. She says" “Love is the lever that moves the world.” It is her last flicker. She sinks back and dies.
Julius is left alone with the corpse by the dying fire. He becomes agitated, fearful, starting at shadows, as though awaiting he knew not what.
Schwartzkopf approaches the cottage, playing as he walks. He is hardly distinguishable in the gloom but the firelight from the Egger window falls on his face when he reaches the cottage. His expression is devilish.
The music excites Julius intensely. Schwartzkopf moves on. Julius remembers Ludwig's words. He has seen that this fiddle is a priceless instrument and thinks that he will use Ludwig's money to buy it. He follows Schwartzkopf through the night.
Schwartzkopf leaves the town, still playing; Julius follows the sound, but cannot catch up, though he runs fast whenever the road is easy.
Schwartzkopf turns off and ascends a little hill, thickly wooded, called “The Devil's Hump.” Tradition says that Goethe used to retire to this hill to think out his Faust; and on a natural terrace, from which a view over the country is to be obtained through a clearing in the forest, has been erected a monument to Goethe. The poet is shown wrapped in his cloak and seated in thought, with a huge slab of marble on his lap. His right arm is extended. It holds a huge pen resembling a sword with eagle's wings forming the guard. He points to the rock above him, where is a group of Faust, Mephistopheles and Margerite.
Schwartzkopf approaches the terrace. The light of the waning moon makes him and the group visible. He stops but continues to play.
Julius, out of breath, arrives. He offers Schwartzkopf his money for the fiddle—keeping back, however 122 marks, the amount necessary for his mother's burial and to repay Frieda. In silence Schwartzkopf kindles a fire of dry sticks. They sit down and he counts the money, but hands it back saying: “It is 122 marks short.”
The boy pleads. Schwartzkopf is inexorable. Julius struggles with himself, then rises to go. Schwartzkopf begins to play. Julius, with a violent gesture, tears forth the rest of his money, thrusts it into Schwartzkopf's hands, snatches the fiddle and rushes wildly down the hill. He throws himself, weeping shamefully, on the straw where his mother lies, kisses her cold hands and swoons. The fire flickers.
Morning. Julius awakes bewildered, not certain whether he has dreamt. He is agonised to find his mother dead and horrified when his eyes fall on the fiddle. He goes out to play, choosing the best café in the village. A waiter wants to put him out because he is so ragged but his first notes have entranced the guests and they interfere on his behalf. He makes a fine collection.
He then goes to the old café to play and to repay Frieda. He begins another tune and his E string snaps. He goes off to buy another. He fits one after another to his fiddle; in every case they snap instantly, to the amazement of both himself and the shopkeeper. There are no more to try. He turns in despair to his cottage. If he is to go to the city to buy a string, he will not be able to bury his mother. His dilemma produces a mental storm. Schwartzkopf knocks at the door. The boy welcomes him, overjoyed. Schwartzkopf explains that he has come to ask if the bargain has proved satisfactory. Julius explains his dilemma; says that he can now earn money easily and asks Schwartzkopf to lend him the price of his trip to the city.
“Quite useless; you cannot buy E-strings for this fiddle. Such strings must be made from the boy of someone you love.” Julius shrinks in horror. Schwartzkopf laughs at him and takes out a portfolio, showing a number of strings. He tells Julius he had to cast off his most promising student, an angelic youth, thereby causing that youth to commit suicide, so that he might fashion his E strings. He points toward the dead woman, saying: “Your task is easier.”
Julius retreats in angry disgust. Schwartzkopf fits a string and plays. Julius, in a nervous crisis, seizes the fiddle but the E string hangs loose and no amount of screwing up avails to tighten it. Schwartzkopf laughs that it must be someone that the player himself loves.
Julius breaks down and Schwartzkopf whispers in his ear. As one possessed, Julius moves out of the scene.
Fade in Schwartzkopf assisting Julius to fashion E strings, the latter being now in a state of insane excitement. He fits a string and plays with success. In his ecstacy he does not notice that Schwartzkopf has disappeared. Realizing this, he is seized with superstitious dread. His eyes fall on the mutilated corpse and he rushes out of the cottage and stumbles blindly away from the village.
Frieda, in her garret, kisses the two marks which Julius had returned to her and begins to sob. There is a little crucifix on her wall with a shelf below it, and she lays the coins therein.
A blind beggar, named Weishaupt, passes the cottage of Julius shortly after his flight. He enters and finds the body. He takes it up in his arms and carries it to the door of a rustic chapel in the woods. Here he buries it with snow, putting a little cross at the head, fashioned roughly of two broken branches. He then returns to the cottage where he finds the old cheap fiddle of Julius. He takes this under his arm and goes to Frieda's café.
He begins to play it, but the E string immediately snaps. He laments the misfortune, saying that a new one will cost two marks and he has not got one pfennig. No one shows sympathy except Frieda, who gets her two marks and gives them to him. He pats her head in thanks, then asks her name and story. She has never known her parents. The beggar goes off to a splendid country house, where the servants receive him as their master. He opens his eyes and throws off his straggly grey hair and beard and straightens himself. He bathes and dresses and is a young handsome man, evidently a great lord. He goes to his library and opens a tin case, marked “Von Waldar.”
It appears that Count Von Waldar was his greatest friend. The Countess died in childbirth, his only daughter was nursed by a woman who intrigued to marry the widower. Dismissed by the count, she arranged for the child to be kidnapped. Von Walder, dying, left Weishaupt sole executor and trustee for this child when found. Weishaupt has made sure of Frieda's identity by five moles below the right ear, noted when patting her head, as the likeness to her father had struck him at first glance.
Weishaupt and his mother go to the café and rescue Frieda. A chaperone is found for her and she goes to live in her father's house in Munich. Weishaupt wants her to take a souvenir from his house; she chooses the “little old fiddle” once belonging to Julius.
Julius in his wild flight is met by Gretel, and he rushes to her as if to take refuge from himself. She take shim to her house, and from here they go in her auto to the city, where she has an apartment. She sends for tailors, boot-makers, etc., and has him fitted out as a man of fashion. His long hair is most poetically dressed. She covers his fingers with rings. She has him taught the violin by a world famous virtuoso. His nature is completely degraded by association with her. He becomes callous, sensual and disdainful.
But one day, practicing, a strolling violinist passes. It is spring. Julius is in a minor mood. He throws the man a coin and playfully challenges him to a duet. His E string instantly snaps and he turns away in a black fury.
He goes to a reception where Ludwig Mendel is playing. Ludwig recognizes him. Julius wants to display his good fortune and takes Ludwig home to dine. After dessert, Julius plays. Ludwig is first amazed at the boy's brilliancy, then grows ghastly pale. He asks to examine the fiddle. After a moment he pushes it away with a kind of fear and repulsion.
Julius asks him to play on it. Ludwig masters his real emotion with common sense and takes the instrument. The E string is like the shriek of a woman in deadly agony. Ludwig puts it down, appalled and trembling all over, and he makes his excuses for a hasty exit.
Julius and Gretel roar with laughter.
Julius makes his debut in Munich. The reception is hysterical but rather bacchanal. During the recital several people of a very refined type left the hall disgusted. Frieda and her chaperone, with the Weishaupts, are present. She is evidently distressed, but her love for Julius enthralls her.
Julius acknowledges the applause with cynical pride. Coming on for his last number, he notices Frieda in her box. Her changed circumstances make recognition difficult but as they look at each other, the pain comes into her eyes and he knows it is she. He almost faints and leans on the piano. The pianist thinks she is ill and starts to help. Julius waves him back. He is himself again, but himself transformed. He sees the worthlessness of his success, knows that Frieda lobes him and he her. He determines to cut loose from Gretel. He comes to the front to play a love song for Frieda. In the stalls are rival impresarios, who have been most enthusiastic.
Julius begins on the G string. The moment he touches the E string, it snaps. He returns and fits a spare string, boiling with rage, and comes on with he eyes fixed on Gretel, who is in his stage box, opposite Frieda's.
The audience are thrilled by the gross passion of his playing. Frieda begins to cry. Julius gets restless and his eyes turn to her with conscious intention. His E string snaps again.
He fits a third, his last. Again it snaps and he rushes wildly from the stage. He takes his spare fiddle, apologizes and begins again, but all his power is gone. The impresarios shrug their shoulders in disdain; they wash their hands of his musical career.
Julius sees the effect on the audience and looses confidence. Even Gretel sneers. But Frieda radiates divine pity. He turns to her imploringly, gains her assurance; and finishes triumphantly. The crowd applauds enthusiastically but the impresarios shake their heads. They go behind the stage to meet him — no one will give him a contract.
Ludwig Mendel has been present and goes to Julius consolingly, saying: “You cannot master the fiddle until you have mastered the man.” Gretel has become furious and is leaving her box when she finds a hand on her shoulder. It is Schwartzkopf, who points across the theatre to Frieda, saying: “There is the cause, and the cure.” At first Gretel fails to recognize Frieda and then has a flashback to the scene with her in the café. Schwartzkopf makes her sit down and whispers passionately to her. He explains that the fiddle is enchanted and that the E string must be made as previously explained. He says that Julius loves Frieda and his musical career depends on sacrificing her to get his E strings. He wants Gretel to bring this about. Gretel fears, loathes and obeys Schwartzkopf. She inquires of his plan. Schwartzkopf says that Frieda must be driven to suicide by Julius. She agrees.
Gretel proceeds to disgust Julius with herself, by scenes of insolent and indolent vulgarity, rage, etc. In one of these she drives him from the house. He wanders the streets in despair and decides to call on Frieda. Frieda is shocked by his degradation and misery. He attempts to embrace her. She refuses: he must be worthy to love. She offers to send him away to study music in new surroundings. He is broken down completely and after a terrible outburst of weeping accepts.
Frieda adjures his to respect manhood and honour. He returns to Gretel to break with her, and finds Schwartzkopf there. Gretel demands that he should marry her. He shrinks, horrified. Schwartzkopf insists that Gretel has done everything for him, squandering immense sums to make him fashionable and famous, bringing the world to his feet; even sacrificing he honour — Julius should repair that wrong.
Julius in agony, consents, and the ceremony takes place. But he knows that his playing is cold, that he lacks the Magic Fiddle. Julius calls on Frieda to explain. She is heartbroken, but has to approve.
Julius is now intensely wretched, his music being his soul's fondest expression. Schwartzkopf finds him in despair, fits a string and enraptures the boy. “How can I play again?” he cries. Schwartzkopf tells him that Frieda must be sacrificed. Julius strikes Schwartzkopf, who slinks away, giggling.
Julius sinks from depth to depth, and joins Gretel in the lowest orgies in the foulest slums. He becomes physically a wreck. He neglects his appearance. Shambling through the streets he meets Frieda, who is appalled at the change. She pleads with him to conquer himself. Her beauty stirs the lurking beast in him and he replies by attempting gross caresses. She flings him off and he lurches home, hating her.
Schwartzkopf awaits him; they drink together and Schwartzkopf inflames Julius's hate to madness and takes the violin. The boy slowly fights his way toward it, crouching like a panther. He snatches the fiddle to his heart and kisses it greedily. Schwartzkopf makes him swear to ruin Frieda and get the strings, and takes him to a writing desk and dictates a letter.
The note is sent by a servant, who returns with Frieda.
Gretel receives her rudely, registering baffled jealousy. She flings open the door of the bedroom where Julius is in bed, then closes it quickly with a triumphant laugh and turns the key in the lock.
Julius jumps out of bed and catches Frieda by the wrist. There is a violent struggle in which he completely looses control of himself. Frieda collapses, and falls unconscious. Julius flings himself on her and kisses her brutally.
Frieda comes to herself in an agony of pain and shame. Gretel is boisterously jovial. Her gestures emphasize her rival's catastrophe. She then goes out and comes back, feigning surprise and indignation at the sight, and she calls her men servants. She exclaims on the effrontery of such an act in her house. The men nudge each other but pretend shocked sympathy. Gretel pretends to faint and a servant brings brandy to restore her. She works herself into a sham rage and flings her empty glass in Frieda's face, grasps her dog whip and beats Frieda. She then tells her servants to throw her into the street, which they do.
Gretel then rouses Julius and covers him with passionate embraces. He is, however, practically insane and has fits of senseless laughter and his actions are violent and extravagant.
Frieda faints on the street and is takes by a policeman to the station. She refuses all account of herself and is taken home. Serious illness follows and her life and reason hang long in the balance. She recovers but seems as if in a dream, wandering about the house aimlessly.
On one of the doctor's visits he discovers inexplicable symptoms which surprise him. He declares her to be pregnant. She is too innocent to understand this but her chaperone explains, becomes furiously indignant and leaves the house, outrages.
Frieda sinks into hopeless misery. Her expression is quite blank, till one day she finds, in a bureau, the little old fiddle. Her mind goes back to the café and her soul awakes in her to spiritual rapture. Then the memory of the crime comes back. She spurns the fiddle and runs shrieking from the room, stumbling and falling unconscious on the stairs. She is carried to bed and wakes fully conscious of everything. Her loneliness, her shame, which has made even her own servants point and sneer at her, as she has seen them do in her mirror; the hideous result of her pure love; all these things have broken down her faith in God and man.
In the drawer of her table at her bedside is a small pistol, which she regards with fascinated fear. She tries it against her ear, her breast; she struggles with herself; her eyes fall on the elaborate coat of arms which forms the centre of a trophy of ancient armour. She appeals to it. She feels that she cannot kill herself in a room made sacred by a line of noble women. She thrusts the pistol into her bosom as her servant enters with breakfast.
A newspaper is on the tray. She opens it distractedly, and her eye is caught by a paragraph as follows:
Frieda has a flashback of Euler's brutalities and tyrannies, but says: After all, he fed me. The last act of my life shall be to save life.” She dresses and says good-bye to her favourite bits of the house. She finds the fiddle and takes it saying: Let me die with this in my arms.”
One of her servants is in the pay of Schwartzkopf and he reports daily the condition of his mistress.
Julius is in a very unbalanced condition. Gretel and Schwartzkopf have to keep him half drunk. Every time he sobers, he has fits of remorse.
The spy telephones Gretel that Frieda has left the house, taking a pistol. They rouse Julius, whom they find on his knees, clasping the useless fiddle in anguish. They tell him the moment has come to restore it to life. He has a strong spasm of revulsion, but they give him a drink and Schwartzkopf is seen getting a knife.
They follow Frieda to the station, taking the fiddle, and arrive at Teufelswald where Frieda goes to the Police Station and acknowledges the forged signature as her own. Euler is released and his rough nature completely dissolves in dog-like gratitude. He begs Frieda to dine in his café.
Gretel has gone with Schwartzkopf and Julius to her house and they send a servant to watch Frieda's movements. They prime Julius with liquor.
Night has fallen when the servant returns to say that Frieda has gone out on foot, alone. They explain to Julius that he must do his job alone, they will remain to swear an alibi in case of enquiry about the mutilation of the body. Julius takes the fiddle and follows Frieda. He is in a state of frenzied passion about his fiddle, which he treats as if it were alive and he in love with it.
He follows Frieda at some distance. She leads him past the hovel in which his mother died. His walk is unsteady; he seems to not know where he is going and what he is doing. He lurches against the door and reels back. He recognizes the hut and acts as though he had seen a ghost, bolting in terror.
Frieda's course is at first random but the sight of the Devil's Hump, behind which the moon is just rising, reminds her of the story of Margerite. She sits down to rest and to cry and she takes down he fashionably dressed hair, making two long plaits which fall below her waist. She discards her smart hat, folds her arms on her breast and goes with firm step but bowed head straight for the Devil's Hump, with the air of a penitent pilgrim. She clasps the fiddle as though it were a child.
Julius follows her up the hill. She stops on the terrace before the group of statuary, lays the fiddle on Goethe's lap, kneels in prayer and then takes out her pistol.
Meanwhile, Euler is having a row with his wife, who says that Frieda's manner is wild and strange, and tells him that Countesses do not wander about alone with cheap fiddles. She divines that Frieda is in danger, claps Euler's hat on his head and pushes him out of the door to see that no harm comes to his benefactress. He runs vigorously in the direction Frieda has taken, passing Gretel's house just after Julius has left. Gretel scents interference and hastily determines to follow.
Euler has huntsman's craft and instead of following Frieda, makes by another way to the point at which she is aiming. Julius is second to ascend the hill. Frieda hears footsteps and hastily conceals herself among the trees. Julius reaches the terrace where the path ends but does not come into the open, his plan being to wait events.
Euler becomes agitated at not seeing Frieda. He finds the fiddle, goes on his knees and kisses it passionately, his breast heaving with sobs. Gretel steals up, sees and picks up the pistol. Euler hears her and turns. Gretel is furious at his interference and insults Frieda. Euler strides forward savagely; Gretel is scared and shoots. He springs forward and seizes her bearing her to the ground and strangles her with his hands before he dies.
Frieda, deep in the wood, is afraid to come forward, and Julius, bursting out from the trees is too late to do anything.
The tragedy brings him to himself. He throws his hands in anguish to heaven. He has a flashback of his temptation by Schwartzkopf. He goes among the trees and brings out the fiddle. The moonlight falls most brightly on the one object which is pure white in the picture: the marble slab on Goethe's lap. A close up of this slab has not previously been shown. Julius now goes up to it and reads: “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?” He picks up his own fiddle and thinks how much happier he was in his rags with his mother. He lays it reverently down and takes up the Magic Fiddle, cursing it.
He removes the silver string and twists it round his neck and ties it so as to choke himself, and falls.
Frieda comes stealthily back to the terrace and rushes forward on seeing the bodies. She wrenches at the string, and breaks it. Julius slowly returns to life. Frieda is now all pity and tenderness — Julius has atoned for everything. She asks: “Why did you follow me?” He blurts out the secret of the E string. She says that she would gladly give her body to perfect his art but that only evil music could come from that fiddle.
Her purity and nobility have made have made a new man of Julius. He seized the Magic Fiddle and smashed it in the statue of Goethe. He then breaks down like a lost child and picks up his old fiddle whose E string is still missing. He holds it out pitifully, calling attention to its defective condition: “Is the price of genius one's soul? Must the one I love best be sacrificed to my E string?”
She treats him like a petulant child, pats him and makes him sit down. She takes the fiddle up and pulls a gold hair from her head, which she fastens to the instrument, saying: “All you need is one pure thought of one who loves you.” She gives him the fiddle and he plays, starting to his feet as the sound ravishes him with ecstacy. She claps her hands in delight.
In the glamour of the moonlight there gather glittering figures. There is the spirit of his mother, wiping her tears away and breaking into a radiant smile. There is the spirit of Euler, dressed like a knight; beneath his feet is the carcass of a wolf whose features resemble his. There is the spirit of Gretel weeping. She is bent almost double by the carcass of a sow dressed in her clothes and wearing her jewels, while she wears a ragged black shroud.
At the foot of the hill Weishaupt is riding. He hears the music, ties his horse to a tree and climbs the path.
Schwartzkopf has been impatiently pacing the house. He decides to follow Gretel. He reaches the terrace just as Weishaupt ties his horse. He stands a sinister shadow on the edge of the circle of brilliance which radiates from Frieda.
All the spirits, by the way, are inside the circle. Schwartzkopf stretches his hand and stamps his foot authoritatively, and the twilight beyond the circle is filled with phantoms. There are crowned kings, peers in their robes, bishops in full regalia, sculptors and painters and journalists, with a throng of beautiful women.
Schwartzkopf tells Julius that all these are ready to do homage if he will keep his oath. The eyes of Julius are fixed on Frieda; he doesn't seem to hear. Schwartzkopf holds out a fiddle, saying: “This was Paganini's; for this he sold his soul.” Julius says: “To be greater than Paganini is worth my soul indeed.”
Weishaupt has arrived on the terrace and stands looking on. Frieda says: “Your music satisfies me, is that not enough?” Julius answers: “Ho: a man needs love but he needs more than love, as the fiddle needs more than the E string. My soul must speak its truth to the whole world. I need the Magic Fiddle.”
Weishaupt enters the circle and examines the fiddle, of which he smiles approval. He says: “Nothing wrong there.” He takes the bow. The bow is very slender and weak. He says: “Boy, you lack will.” He strikes Schwartzkopf with the bow very gently. It bends almost double. He repeats the blow with increasing force. The bow grows longer and stronger, until he is lashing Schwartzkopf like a man killing a snake. Finally Swartzkopf falls underneath the blows. Weishaupt hands back the bow, thrice its original size, to Julius and, touching the fiddle, says: “Love under Will.” At the word ‘ Will’ he points to the bow.
(To make this clear a fiddle should be shown on the sub-title ‘ Love’ and a bow on the sub-title ‘ Will.’)
He motions Julius to play. At the first sweep Schwartzkopf writhes like a wounded snake. His struggles soon cease, and his phantoms offer homage to Julius. As they do so their regalia drop from them but their attitudes, which were servile or insincere and shallow, change to that of the wonder of awakening. The circle of light increases in size and each rank of phantoms, as it reaches them, stands up. They are all clothed in simple robes of white. They beam with intelligence and joy. Previously their expressions had been suggestive of the lower animals.
Schwartzkopf himself has disappeared as the light reaches him. Only his clothes are left and the light sets fire to them. They burn to ashes.
The spirit of the mother of Julius seems to lack something. Weishaupt notices this and makes a commanding gesture. She is joined by the spirit of an honest rugged peasant, who embraces her fondly. She points with pride to Julius and her husband puts his hand proudly on his son's head.
The mother then points to Frieda, goes to her and draws her forward. Julius and Frieda embrace with tears. He draws a ring from his finger and puts it on hers. Weishaupt joins their hands and raises his own saying “Love under Will.” He has increased to more than human size and his hunting suit has turned to silver armour; a brilliant light flashes from him.
After blessing them, he goes away, leaving the lovers kneeling together and facing him.
The light gradually fades, but as it does so the figure of Goethe, who has turned his head to watch the scene, lowers his arm and he begins to write eagerly on his slab.
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