by John Church

As a chemistry major planning to go to graduate school, I took four years of German.  In my final year we read Goethe’s masterpiece “Faust,” based on the legend of a Doctor Faust who sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for worldly pleasures. 

Along the way we read a story by Nobel laureate Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) called “An Evening with Doctor Faust.”  I decided to tune up my rusty German by translating it.  Astronomers will note that this story refers to the accurate prediction of solar eclipses far into the future. It then continues by exploring the idea that we should also be able to predict ordinary events by simply applying the law of cause and effect.  Like eclipses, it would seem that the future of humankind is already fixed in stone and cannot be changed.

Einstein was a determinist when it came to the behavior of atoms.  He opposed quantum theory and once said to his friend the eminent Niels Bohr, “God does not play dice.” Whereupon Bohr famously retorted, “Don’t tell God what to do.”

Hesse was not a fan of mid-1930’s culture.  He became a Swiss citizen in 1923 and steered clear of politics.

An Evening with Doctor Faust

by Hermann Hesse, 1935
Translated by John Church, 2025

Doctor Johann Faust was spending a quiet evening in his dining room together with his friend Doctor Eisenbart. The remains of their repast had been taken away, but an excellent Rhine wine was still fragrant in the heavy gilded goblets upon the table.  Two musicians, a lutist and a flautist, had already departed.

          “I’m now going to carry out my planned experiment,” said Doctor Faust, while taking another deep draught of wine. He was no longer a young man.  This was two or three years before his horrible death.

          “My assistant has fashioned a marvelous device with which one can see and hear many things, both near and far away, not only in the present but in the past and even in the future.  This evening we’re going to explore the future.  As you know, we’ve already enjoyed tales of the past, with heroes, beautiful women, and so on.  But now we can hear things that haven’t actually happened yet, provided that the receiving apparatus has been properly adjusted.”

          Doctor Eisenbart wondered if his good friend had perhaps been hoodwinked by his assistant.

          “I doubt it,” replied Faust. “Anyone who has been properly trained can apply the well-known laws of cause and effect to explore the future.  As with the past, the future cannot be changed, although this can be difficult to see directly. You are aware that astronomers can predict the exact circumstances of a solar eclipse far ahead of time. Correspondingly, if we had the right tools, we should be able to see and hear human things that are yet to come.  My assistant Mephistopheles has made a sort of divining rod for the ear, in which we can discern the sounds that will be heard right here in this very room, hundreds of years from now. We’ve already tried it.  Sometimes we hear nothing, because we’ve found an empty spot in the future.  Occasionally though, we hear a poem in which my own deeds are described.  But enough! Let’s begin.”

          Faust called in his helper, dressed in his usual gray, who set down his small machine with its amplifier and warned the onlookers to remain silent.  Then he turned the device on and it began to hum softly.  Nothing happened for a long time.  Then it suddenly emitted a devilish howl, as if a dragon were being relentlessly pursued through the room.  Doctor Eisenbart turned white as the screams faded off in the distance.

          Silence then followed.  Then there was a man’s voice, apparently coming from far away, in an impressive sermon-like tone.  The listeners could understand portions of it and took down notes, for example:

“— and it proceeds irresistibly, similar to America’s shining example of economic progress, towards its own victorious conclusion and realization — while on the other hand the quality of workers’ lives has reached unprecedented heights — and we can without presumption state that the childhood dreams of an earlier age of paradise through modern production techniques more than — ”

Again there was silence.  The came a new deep and earnest voice that said: “Ladies and gentlemen, please listen to a new poem, a creation of the great Nicholas Unterschwang, who has laid bare the most secret places in the heart of our times: the sense and nonsense of our daily existence.”

                              He holds the chimney in his hand,
With fins on both of his cheeks;
While consulting the barometer,
He climbs a ladder without rungs.

                             He ascends the long ladder
With clouds in his coat lining.
At length he becomes afraid,
And is overcome with vacillation.

Faust was able to write down most of this poem.  Eisenbart also took copious notes.

          The sleepy voice of an older woman now became audible.  She said: “Boring program!  As if they invented the radio just for this! Ah, here’s a little music.”

Then came a wild and exceedingly rhythmic music, now blaring, now languishing, a completely unknown, strange, indecent, evil music emitted from howling, squeaking, and cackling wind instruments, vibrating with gongs, interrupted with singing and the screaming of lyrics in an unknown language.  

At intervals there was this message in rhymed verse: “Everyone will admire your hair if you use Goo-Goo regularly!”

Once again came those screaming, howling tones, those dragon-like wails full of fear and anger, louder and louder.

As the laughing assistant brought his machine to a standstill, the two learned gentlemen blinked strangely at one another with embarrassment and shame, as if they had been witnessing an indecent performance. They looked at their notes and pointed at one another.

“What do you make of it?”  asked Faust.

Doctor Eisenbart took a drink from his goblet.  He looked at the floor and remained quiet and reflective for a long time.  Finally he said, “It’s horrible!  There can be no doubt that from this fragment we have just heard, that mankind is insane!  These are our sons, the great-grandchildren of our great-grandchildren, who were saying such dubious, sad, confusing things, emitting such terribly arousing screams, singing such incomprehensibly idiotic songs.  Our descendants, friend Faust, will end in madness.”

          “I’m not completely convinced of that,” said Faust.  “Your prediction is not at all improbable, but it is perhaps more pessimistic than necessary.  If here, in this one little place on Earth, we hear such wild, despairing, indecent and doubtful noises, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all of mankind will have gone crazy.  It’s possible that in a few hundred years a madhouse will stand here, and all that’s happened is that we’ve stumbled upon a sample of it.  It’s also possible that we’ve heard a company of drunkards giving way to their fancies.  Think about a carnival and all the noise that that makes!  Very similar, in my opinion.   But what really puzzles me is all those other sounds, those screams, that couldn’t possibly have come from human voices or musical instruments.  They are absolutely devilish! Only demons could do this.”

          He turned to Mephistopheles. “Do you know anything about this? Can you tell us something about these sounds?”

          “We have,” said his assistant, “actually heard demonic sounds. The Earth has already been half taken over by the Devil.  Eventually he will own it all and it will be a province of Hell itself.  Gentlemen, you’ve expressed great negativity about what you’ve heard.  It’s remarkable and fitting that music and poetry will still exist in Hell.  Belial is in charge of this department.  I think he’s doing a great job!”