All the apparatus had the air of being second-hand.
There was no luster of exquisitely annealed glass and highly
polished metals, such as dazzles one in the laboratory of the
prosperous analyst. The makeshifts of poverty were everywhere
visible. The crucibles were broken, or gallipots were used instead
of crucibles. The colored tests were not in the usual transparent
vials, but were placed in ordinary black bottles. There is nothing
more melancholy than to behold science or art in distress. A
threadbare scholar, a tattered book, or a battered violin is a mute
appeal to our sympathy.
I approached the wretched pallet bed on which the victim of
chemistry was lying. He breathed heavily, and had his head turned
toward the wall. I lifted his arm gently to arouse his attention.
"How goes it, my poor friend?" I asked him. "Where are you hurt?"
In a moment, as if startled by the sound of my voice, he sprang up
in his bed, and cowered against the wall like a wild animal driven
to bay. "Who are you? I don't know you. Who brought you here?
You are a stranger. How dare you come into my private rooms to spy
upon me?"
And as he uttered this rapidly with a frightful nervous energy, I
beheld a pale distorted face, draped with long gray hair, glaring
at me with a mingled expression of fury and terror.
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