This is the leading motive of all that follows. With ever-deepening disgust and contempt Faust, in his quest for truth through the jungles and quagmires of human passions, follows his guide. If ever Faust seems to catch sight of any far-off vision of eternal truth and beauty--as he does at times in his love for Gretchen, and again in his passion for ideal beauty in Helen, and once again in that devotion to the cause of Humanity which finally allows him to express a satisfaction in life, and thus causes his life to end--if ever Faust shows any sign of real interest or satisfaction, it is just _then_ that Mephistopheles displays most clearly his utter inability to understand the 'human spirit in its aspirations'; and it is _then_ that he shows most plainly his own diabolic nature, pouring out his cynical contempt and gnashing his teeth at what he deems Faust's irrational disgust for all those bestialities that seem to him (Mephistopheles) the sweetest joys of existence. His very first attempt is a dead failure. He has carried Faust off through the air to Leipzig, and here he brings him into what to the Mephisto-nature doubtless seems highly desirable and entertaining company--to the 'sing-song' (as I believe it is called in England) of tippling brawling students. The scene is Auerbach's Cellar, a well-known Leipzig 'Kneipe'--a kind of Wine taproom or Bodega. Among these brawling comic-songsters Mephistopheles is in his element, and he treats them to a comic ditty: Of old there lived a king, Who had a great big flea As dear as any thing, Or any son, could be ... and so on. We need not linger over the repulsive scene--so graphically described. Finally Mephistopheles bores holes in the table and draws wine from them. The students come to handicuffs over it; they spill the wine, and it turns into flame. Amidst their drunken uproar Faust and Mephistopheles disappear. During the whole of this scene Faust _speaks no single word_, except a curt but polite greeting on entering the Cellar and an appeal to Mephistopheles to take him away from this 'scene of swinish bestiality.' How different from the part that Faust plays in the old story where he himself, not Mephistopheles, joins in the revelry and buffoonery! Auerbach's Cellar existed till lately, though the house above it had been rebuilt. It was the original 'Keller' that is mentioned in the old legend. In it were to be seen two old pictures (with the date 1525). One represented Faust sitting at table with students; in the other he is flying off through the door astride on a wine cask. A weird scene now ensues: the Witches' Kitchen.