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The Adventure Of The German Student..........................................................................................................1

On a stormy night, in the tempestuous times of the French Revolution, a young German was returning to his

lodgings, at a late hour, across the old part of Paris. The lightning gleamed, and the loud claps of thunder

rattled through the lofty narrow streetsbut I should first tell you something about this young German.

Gottfried Wolfgang was a young man of good family. He had studied for some time at Göttingen, but being

of a visionary and enthusiastic character, he had wandered into those wild and speculative doctrines which

have so often bewildered German students. His secluded life, his intense application, and the singular nature

of his studies, had an effect on both mind and body. His health was impaired; his imagination diseased. He

had been indulging in fanciful speculations on spiritual essences, until, like Swedenborg, he had an ideal

world of his own around him. He took up a notion, I do not know from what cause, that there was an evil

influence hanging over him; an evil genius or spirit seeking to ensnare him and ensure his perdition. Such an

idea working on his melancholy temperament produced the most gloomy effects. He became haggard and

desponding. His friends discovered the mental malady preying upon him, and determined that the best cure

was a change of scene; he was sent, therefore, to finish his studies amidst the splendors and gayeties of Paris.

Wolfgang arrived at Paris at the breaking out of the revolution. The popular delirium at first caught his

enthusiastic mind, and he was captivated by the political and philosophical theories of the day: but the scenes

of blood which followed shocked his sensitive nature, disgusted him with society and the world, and made

him more than ever a recluse. He shut himself up in a solitary apartment in the Pays Latin, the quarter of

students. There, in a gloomy street not far from the monastic walls of the Sorbonne, he pursued his favorite

speculations. Sometimes he spend hours together in the great libraries of Paris, those catacombs of departed

authors, rummaging among their hoards of dusty and obsolete works in quest of food for his unhealthy

appetite. He was, in a manner, a literary ghoul, feeding in the charnelhouse of decayed literature.

Wolfgang, thought solitary and recluse, was of an ardent temperament, but for a time it operated merely upon

his imagination. He was too shy and ignorant of the world to make any advances to the fair, but he was a

passionate admirer of female beauty, and in his lonely chamber would often lose himself in reveries on forms

and faces which he had seen, and his fancy would deck out images of loveliness far surpassing the reality.

While his mind was in this excited and sublimated state, a dream produced an extraordinary effect upon him.

It was of a female face of transcendent beauty. So strong was the impression made, that he dreamt of it again

and again. It haunted his thoughts by day, his slumbers by night; in fine, he became passionately enamored of

this shadow of a dream. This lasted so long that it became one of those fixed ideas which haunt the minds of

Such was Gottfried Wolfgang, and such his situation at the time I mentioned. He was returning home late on

stormy night, through some of the old and gloomy streets of the Marais, the ancient part of Paris. The loud

claps of thunder rattled among the high houses of the narrow streets. He came to the Place de Grève, the

square, where public executions are performed. The lightning quivered about the pinnacles of the ancient

Hôtel de Ville, and shed flickering gleams over the open space in front. As Wolfgang was crossing the

square, he shrank back with horror at finding himself close by the guillotine. It was the height of the reign of

terror, when this dreadful instrument of death stood ever ready, and its scaffold was continually running with

the blood of the virtuous and the brave. It had that very day been actively employed in the work of carnage,

and there it stood in grim array, amidst a silent and sleeping city, waiting for fresh victims.

Wolfgang's heart sickened within him, and he was turning shuddering from the horrible engine, when he

beheld a shadowy form, cowering as it were at the foot of the steps which led up to the scaffold. A succession

of vivid flashes of lightning revealed it more distinctly. It was a female figure, dressed in black. She was

seated on one of the lower steps of the scaffold, leaning forward, her face hid in her lap; and her long

dishevelled tresses hanging to the ground, streaming with the rain which fell in torrents. Wolfgang paused.

There was something awful in this solitary monument of woe. The female had the appearance of being above

the common order. He knew the times to be full of vicissitude, and that many a fair head, which had once

been pillowed on down, now wandered houseless. Perhaps this was some poor mourner whom the dreadful

axe had rendered desolate, and who sat here heartbroken on the strand of existence, from which all that was

He approached, and addressed her in the accents of sympathy. She raised her head and gazed wildly at him.

What was his astonishment at beholding, by the bright glare of the lighting, the very face which had haunted

Trembling with violent and conflicting emotions, Wolfgang again accosted her. He spoke something of her

being exposed at such an hour of the night, and to the fury of such a storm, and offered to conduct her to her

friends. She pointed to the guillotine with a gesture of dreadful signification.

"If a stranger dare make an offer," said he, "without danger of being misunderstood, I would offer my humble

dwelling as a shelter; myself as a devoted friend. I am friendless myself in Paris, and a stranger in the land;

but if my life could be of service, it is at your disposal, and should be sacrificed before harm or indignity

There was an honest earnestness in the young man's manner that had its effect. His foreign accent, too, was in

his favor; it showed him not to be a hackneyed inhabitant of Paris. Indeed, there is an eloquence in true

enthusiasm that is not to be doubted. The homeless stranger confided herself implicitly to the protection of

He supported her faltering steps across the Pont Neuf, and by the place where the statue of Henry the Fourth

had been overthrown by the populace. The storm had abated, and the thunder rumbled at a distance. All Paris

was quiet; that great volcano of human passion slumbered for a while, to gather fresh strength for the next

day's eruption. The student conducted his charge through the ancient streets of the Pays Latin, and by the

dusky walls of the Sorbonne, to the great dingy hotel which he inhabited. The old portress who admitted them

stared with surprise at the unusual sight of the melancholy Wolfgang, with a female companion.

On entering his apartment, the student, for the first time, blushed at the scantiness and indifference of his

dwelling. He had but one chamberan oldfashioned saloonheavily carved, and fantastically furnished

with the remains of former magnificence, for it was one of those hotels in the quarter nobility. It was

lumbered with books and papers, and all the usual apparatus of a student, and his bed stood in a recess at one

When lights were brought, and Wolfgang had a better opportunity of contemplating the stranger, he was more

than ever intoxicated by her beauty. Her face was pale, but of a dazzling fairness, set off by a profusion of

raven hair that hung clustering about it. Her eyes were large and brilliant, with a singular expression

approaching almost to wildness. As far as her black dress permitted her shape to be seen, it was of perfect

symmetry. Her whole appearance was highly striking, though she was dressed in the simplest style. The only

thing approaching to an ornament which she wore, was a broad black band round her neck, clasped by

The perplexity now commenced with the student how to dispose of the helpless being thus thrown upon his

protection. He thought of abandoning his chamber to her, and seeking shelter for himself elsewhere. Still he

was so fascinate by her charms, there seemed to be such a spell upon his thoughts and senses, that he could

not tear himself from her presence. Her manner, too, was singular and unaccountable. She spoke no more of

the guillotine. Her grief had abated. The attentions of the student had first won her confidence, and then,

apparently, her heart. She was evidently an enthusiast like himself, and enthusiasts soon understand each

In the infatuation of the moment, Wolfgang avowed his passion for her. He told her the story of his

mysterious dream, and how she had possessed his heart before he had even seen her. She was strangely

affected by his recital, and acknowledge to have felt an impulse towards him equally unaccountable. It was

the time for wild theory and wild actions. Old prejudices and superstitions were done away; everything was

under the sway of the "Goddess of Reason." Among other rubbish of the old times, the forms and ceremonies

of marriage began to be considered superfluous bonds for honorable minds. Social compact were the vogue.

Wolfgang was too much of theorist not to be tainted by the liberal doctrines of the day.

"Why should we separate?" said he: "our heart are united; in the eye of reason and honor we are as one. What

The stranger listened with emotion: she had evidently received illumination at the same school.

"You have no home nor family," continued he: "Let me be everything to you, or rather let us be everything to

one another. if form is necessary, form shall be observed there is my hand. I pledge myself to you

The stranger clasped the hand extended to her: "Then I am yours," murmured she, and sank upon his bosom.

The next morning the student left his bride sleeping, and sallied forth at an early hour to seek more spacious

apartments suitable to the change in his situation. When he returned, he found the stranger lying with her

head hanging over the bed, and one arm thrown over it. He spoke to her, but received no reply. He advanced

to awaken her from her uneasy posture. On taking her hand, it was coldthere was no pulsationher face

Horrified and frantic, he alarmed the house. A scene of confusion ensued. The police was summoned. As the

He stepped forward; undid the black collar round the neck of the corpse, and the head rolled on the floor!

The student burst into a frenzy. "The fiend! the fiend has gained possession of me!" shrieked he; "I am lost

They tried to soothe him, but in vain. He was possessed with the frightful belief that an evil spirit had

reanimated the dead body to ensnare him. He went distracted, and died in a madhouse.

"A fact not to be doubted," replied the other. "I had it it from the best authority. The student told it me