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COPYRIGHT 2005 Metropolitan Opera Guild, Inc.
What would you ask for, if you could have anything you wanted, in exchange for something you didn't value very much?
The magus Faust, as a sixteenth-century German chapbook recounts, asked for information: how were different parts of the universe constructed? What was Hell really like? He also wanted the power to foretell the future, and instant travel to distant places, and true visions of great moments from the past. He wanted beautiful women, too, naturally, and great wealth, and fruits and flowers out of season to dazzle his party guests. He is said to have used his satanic powers to communicate with persons far away, and to halt a plague or two, and he played nasty practical jokes on anyone who thwarted him. He repented in the end (say the moralizing authors), but not soon enough.
Today, most of the things Faust craved are available to us at a fraction of the price he paid. What lusts remain unsatisfied? What can we get only at the cost of our souls? Even our mortal bodies have turned out to be more malleable--and renewable--than he ever suspected: plastic surgery and the like promise a sort of eternal youth, and there are drugs to get us high, to make us calm, to get us busy or sleepy or sexy, or to evade pain. As with any demonic gift, the true cost of such things is seldom apparent at first--and if drugs are not a Faustian bargain, what is? Security from nuclear or environmental or financial disaster? Unlimited hours? A zero-percent APR? Tips on--shall we say--the futures market? If the devil told you what the market would do next week, or next month, would you believe...
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