Consort Lessons

Perhaps the devil suspects that there are lingering traces of religious awe in Faustus’ appreciation of the scenery they’re passing; he has conjured for himself a bench (pretty craftsmanship for something made in Hell, and varnished in suspiciously lavish rust-red) and a lute, which he commences to play. It does not immediately disturb Faustus from his pacing – unbearable, how a pretty orchard with its trees dropping their white flowers can make him think of Hell’s blackest pits – until the melody worms its way into his ears and makes him turn his head.

The devil sits with head bowed and legs prettily crossed, the body of the instrument resting on his red-satin lap. It’s not sacred music he plays by any means. His fingertips dance on the strings, prickling at them with exquisite care; never has Faustus heard a musician play with such deftness, and too long spent in the company of theoreticians and students has made him forget that music could even sound so sweet. The composition is nothing he’s ever heard before, though he’s never given much care to these things, and it is executed with such nimbleness and plaintive sweetness that he could easily weep. His ears are tingling, not unpleasantly, and other regions besides.

His awe is badly-concealed, though he doesn’t dare exclaim his surprise and risk drowning out the pleasures of these sounds. Mephistophilis halts mid-progress, and looks up at him without raising his head, a dark-eyed creature that would have been at home attending the gods of Olympus.

“Could you teach me?” Faustus asks.

Mephistophilis pauses from his virtuosic plucking, a lamentable necessity, and waves him over with a narrow hand. Of course his devil is capable of anything he requests – well, almost anything, and there he is thinking of damnation again and would much rather be hearing music.

He shifts forward just slightly, looking (like usual) mildly put-upon.

“Sit, Faustus, and you will see how I will instruct.”

“Yes.”

“Close behind me. And your hands, here.”

“Yes.”

His hands brush Faustus’ own to guide them, so light as to remind him he is as good as insubstantial; he’s learned to be wary of his touches sometimes, and how they can burn with hellfire one moment and be cold as the grave the next. Faustus must press himself tightly against his back, a position of moderate discomfort given the narrowness of the bench (obviously intended for one rather lean devil) and the effect this next piece seems to be having on him. His ink-stained hands are less clumsy than he expects them to be, they find the right fret-places and pluck out notes quick and clear without the need for a plectrum. Yet Mephistophilis’ instruction is rather laissez-faire, an irritable word or two or a soundless shifting of his limbs’ position and then returning to those notes that Faustus knows not. His eyes even begin to close; Faustus can practically taste the spiciness of his skin, pressed so close to his drowsing.

When the lesson ends, he springs back as if burned, and finds himself in no condition to continue walking. His devil laughs.