Faust boiled, mixed and studied. Above his fires stood pots full of green, purple and blue stuff. Out of the chimney came a smell that made no one any wiser. Not even him. What he was looking for, he did not find.
Then the devil appeared.
‘You could also accept some help.’
Faust first wanted to hear the terms.
For seven years the devil would do everything for him. Deliver everything he wanted. Life would become one long succession of granted wishes.
‘And after that?’
The devil named his usual price.
‘My soul, then.’
A small contract was already waiting. Faust only had to sign it in his blood. So he did.
For everyday use they called the new servant Joost. That was an ordinary human name and at the same time an old Dutch name for the devil. That way Faust did not have to shout for Satan through the castle every time he wanted something from the shop.
Joost worked fast. For errands he went to Amsterdam or Paris just as easily as to Bommel.
On a scorching day Faust longed for snow and ice. Joost went to fetch it. In winter, when the rivers were frozen over and the cold bit into every crack, Faust wanted grapes. Joost brought grapes.
A carriage with four horses that never grew tired? Joost arranged it. Faust drove to Constantinople, today's Istanbul, and back again. Sometimes he only went to Bommel.
Then he first had a bridge built across the Waal.
As soon as he had crossed, he whistled his servant back.
‘Get rid of it. Before you know it, those people will get some use out of it too.’
Joost tore the bridge down.
Faust found something every day. In an inn he ordered a barrel of beer from Tiel. The innkeeper rolled it for him, sweating and groaning. Faust sat on it and rode the barrel to the castle, as if it were a horse.
There his servant was waiting.
Faust had flour bought and thrown into the moat.
‘Get it out again,’ he said to Joost. ‘And bring it back clean.’
The devil scooped up water, mud and flour. He had to separate the one from the other while the sour smell hung over the moat. His back ached. Faust had another idea.
After a working day like that, he scattered grain into the thorn hedge.
‘Tomorrow morning I want every grain back.’
Joost pushed his hands between the branches. The thorns tore his fingers open. Grain by grain he worked his way through the night. When he was done, another day began on which Faust wanted something.
After four years the devil knocked.
Faust called out that he could come in, in a tone that already assumed it was taking too long.
Joost stayed by the door.
‘I have served you faithfully for four years.’
‘And?’
‘I would like to leave.’
Faust looked up.
‘We agreed on seven.’
‘You need not pay me,’ said Joost. ‘Not with your soul either. Let me go, and those four years will have been for nothing.’
Faust sent him back to his work.
‘You're tired. I'm not.’
Joost went back to work.
For three more years he obeyed. There was no task he did not carry out, no order left lying. His master finally had staff he could count on.
Then the seven years were up.
At twelve o'clock at night Joost seized him by the hair. He dragged Faust through the bars of the high tower window and took him to hell. Blood spattered against the wall.
The contract had been honoured to perfection.