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For over a year he pored incessantly over his books of magic, until at last he found a formula for warding off death. Then he called his disciple Famulus to him and explained that he was going to test the formula. "You have always obliged me without question," said Twardowski, "and I expect you to now. Take this knife and thrust it into my heart." "God forbid!" cried Famulus.
"Gray fiddlesticks!" interrupted the Conrector; "it was nothing but Archivarius Lindhorst's little old Famulus, who had thrown a gray cloak over him and was seeking the student Anselmus." "It may be," answered Registrator Heerbrand, "but, I must confess, I am quite downcast in spirit; the whole night through there was such a piping and organing."
The school porter the Famulus as they classically called him a fine-looking man, whose honest English face showed an amount of thought and refinement above his station, opened the gate, and, consigning Walter's play-box and portmanteau to one of the school servants, directed Mr Evson across the court and along some cloisters to the house of Dr Lane, the headmaster.
Luther tells of a demon who served as famulus in a monastery, fetching beer for the monks, and always insisting on honest measure for his money. There is one case on record where the Devil appealed to the courts for protection in his rights. A monk, going to visit his mistress, fell dead as he was passing a bridge. The good and bad angel came to litigation about his soul.
At six o'clock the kind-hearted Famulus brought him a lamp, some tea, and one or two books, which he had no heart to read. No one was allowed to visit the private room under heavy penalties, so that Walter had no other visitor until eight, when Somers, the monitor who had taken him to Dr Lane, looked in and icily observed, "You're to sleep in the sickroom, Evson; come with me."
He flung himself on the floor, and as he thought of the irreparable cruelty which he had inflicted on a man who had been severe indeed, but never unkind to him, and of the apparent malignity to which all who heard it would attribute what he had done, he sobbed and sobbed as though his heart would break. At one o'clock the Famulus returned with some dinner.
The danger, whatever its nature, seems to have threatened him as a member of the practising faculty at Rome rather than as the persecuted ex-teacher of Pavia and Bologna. Rodolfo Sylvestro was not the only one of his former associates near him in his old age, for he notes that Simone Sosia, who had been his famulus at Pavia in 1562, was still in his service at Rome.
"Why are you frightened? I know what, I am doing. Take the knife and kill me, as the parchment directs." "I cannot." "You must," insisted Twardowski. "It is impossible!" "No more exclamations. Do as I tell you." "Oh, oh, oh!" wailed Famulus. "Strike!" thundered Twardowski, "or I will kill you this instant." Then Famulus did as he was bid and forced the blade into his master's heart.
And when he tells his famulus 'Fire a shot at that strange fellow, and make him show his colors, possibly the mighty stranger may disdain the summons. That would be vexatious: we should all be incensed at that. But no matter. What's a nebula, what's a world, more or less?
Faustus seems at first to have settled as a practising physician, and at this period of his life Wagner appears as his famulus; for we never find this Philister among scholars as a companion of the travelling Faustus, although his connection with him was apparently lasting.
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