Faust, an aged German student, satiated with human knowledge and despairing of his ability to unravel the secrets of nature, summons the evil spirit Mephistopheles to his assistance and contracts to give him his soul in exchange for a restoration to youth.
Mephistopheles effects the transformation and reveals to him the vision of Marguerite, a beautiful village maiden with whom Faust at once falls in love.
Faust and Mephistopheles set out upon their travels and encounter Marguerite at the Kermesse. She has been left by her brother, Valentin, a soldier, in the care of Dame Martha, who proves herself a careless guardian.
Their first meeting is a casual one, but subsequently Faust finds Marguerite in her garden. With the help of the subtle Mephistopheles, Faust succeeds in engaging the young girl's affection. Her simple lover, Siebel, is discarded.
When Valentin returns from the wars he learns of Marguerite's temptation and subsequent ruin. He challenges the seducer and in the encounter is slain by the intervention of Mephistopheles. Overcome by the horror of her situation, Marguerite becomes insane and in her frenzy kills her child. She is thrown into prison, where Faust and Mephistopheles find her.
Faust urges Marguerite to fly with them, but she refuses and places her reliance for salvation upon earnest prayer and sorrow for the wrong she has done. Pleading for forgiveness, she expires. As Mephistopheles exults at the catastrophe he has wrought, angels appear amid the music of the celestial choirs and bear the sufferer to heaven.
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