Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was an American novelist, Dark Romantic, and prolific short story writer.

'The Adventure of the German Student' is a ghost story set during the French Revolution. A young German student who is depressed and lonely has a recurrent dream about a beautiful female face. He begins to obsess over the features day and night.

Then one evening as he is walking home through the Place de Grève, where the guillotine stands, he sees the figure of a woman sitting and grieving on the steps of the scaffold. It is the woman from his dream. From this point things take a very strange turn....