The Student Killed by a Curious Glance

Of this street I have found the following tale. Years ago a student lodged here on the ground floor with a poor woman, a Pole of some sort. He was very poor and therefore diligent as well, as it often happens that the poorest pupils are the most diligent. He busied himself eagerly with chemistry, and his little room was full of retorts, flasks and strange apparatus; he studied and experimented far into the night, and what he sought with such persistence no one knows. Once again after midnight he was producing some kind of gases in his chamber when a late reveller, out of curiosity, climbed up from the street to the window to see what was going on inside. By chance the student looked towards the window at that very moment, and when he saw there a black figure strangely lit by the light from the room, he took fright — and at that instant his vessels flew apart. In the morning he was found dead beneath them.