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ANDRÁS VISKY
Lucifer conceives of himself as intrinsically the loser right at the start (“You
triumphed over me since it’s my fate / Incessantly to fail in all my struggles”);*"
this is why Adam’s request that he lead him all the way through history, in
and of itself, puts Lucifer in the losing position again. History is, after all, the
framework of the divine story of salvation, and Lucifer knows it: God pro¬
claims not only the exile but also the promised arrival of the Messiah, which
places the woman at the center of the recital of history. Lucifer cannot resist
Adam’s request and shows him human history in the “horrifying visions” ofa
dream, but he hopes that Adam, having seen the horrors piling up over time,
will refuse to take that path in reality. And Lucifer nearly succeeds with this
hypothesis — Adam wants to commit suicide:
I can still defy you, God, yes, even You.
Though fate may keep repeating: Live so long!
I could laugh it out of court if I were dead.
For am I not alone in all the world?
There stands the cliff before me, there the drop:
One final leap, the last act of the play...
Then I may say the comedy is ended...”
Eve saves him. Not even Eve, but the Child to be born: the turning point in
the great story of salvation.
His production of Faust stamps its imprint onto Purcarete’s conception of
Lucifer, and the resulting conflict over Lucifer’s motivating intention becomes
staggeringly gripping. Mephistopheles is a more human, understanding devil,
capable of feeling, while Lucifer, perhaps because modernity began to point
out his self-contradictions, is more committed: he wants not only to regain
his power but to force the created universe back into formlessness, into non¬
existence. Lucifer seeks to prepare the way for the Lord’s downfall, and this
is why he requires Man. Mephistopheles, for his part, is even capable of ex¬
periencing the laughable insults of old age (“You have been fooled in your old
days,” as Charles Passage has it, or “You're fucked over on reaching old age,”
in Laszl6 Marton’s daring Hungarian translation); indeed, what is surprising
overall is that he is capable of identifying with Job’s suffering, to the extent
that he himself becomes Job by the end: “What is this! — I am raw with sores
for nothing?’ Satan replied. ‘Have you not put your hedge around him and his household and
everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are
spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and
he will surely curse you to your face.’ The Lord said to Satan, ‘Very well, then, everything he
has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.’ Then Satan went out from
the presence of the Lord.” (Job 1:8-12).
31 Madäch: Ibid., Scene 1, 27.
32 Madäch: Ibid., Scene 15, 252.
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