One evening, he had to pack up his modest belongings and leave his poor shelter with a knapsack on his back, because he had been in arrears with his rent for weeks. With no prospect of a warm place to sleep, he wandered through the streets of Prague until he found himself in front of Faust’s house. And because he unafraid, he said to himself: Why should I sleep under a bridge when there’s a whole palace waiting for me here? He tried the rusty handle, and the front door creaked open. Everything looked ghostly in the moonlight: twisted furniture and strange statues peered out from the dark corners of the corridors, a spacious dining room with a large table and chairs, a study with stacks of documents and books, all covered with a layer of dust. In the bedroom, Mladota discovered a welcoming four-poster bed and he didn’t think twice, jumped into it and fell into a sound slumber. When he woke up in the morning, he looked around curiously. He was most interested in the study, which was partly furnished as a laboratory. In addition to documents and books, there were also numerous bottles, flasks and cruets on the long table, still containing remnants of their original contents. And in the middle of the mess, in a stone bowl, lay a polished silver thaler! “Jackpot,” thought the student, picking up the thaler and hurrying to join his friends at the pub. There he told them how comfortable his new home was and that he still had enough money left over for a good lunch and a few pints. He celebrated his good fortune with his friends so thoroughly that dusk caught him in the same pub, so he went back to Faust’s house to sleep. He sank into the duvet, fell asleep, and when he woke up, the sun was already high in the sky. Something whispered to him to go and see if there was any money in the bowl again. And there it was, round, shiny, silver. “I don’t mind such ghosts at all, if they keep bringing me money,” thought the student. He went straight to the pub and everything recurred as it had the day before. He soon got used to this strange way of life. Every morning he took a thaler from the bowl, drank it away with his friends, went to bed in the evening and didn’t even think about his studies. His friends envied him the lifestyle, but deep down, none of them would have traded places with him. Mladota was too reckless and did not consider that magical favours always come at a price. One day, however, he did not go to the pub. It occurred to him that he might find more thalers in the bowl, and what’s more, there might even be gold coins! He dusted off the spell books and began to look through them. He was particularly intrigued by the largest one. He leafed through it until late into the night and again the next day. Since he had learned something during his studies, he soon deciphered the strange writing and understood that it was used to conjure dark spirits. A week went by and the student did not show up among his friends. They thought he must be ill, so a few brave souls set off for Faust’s house. They knocked on the front door in vain, until they decided to climb over the wall into the garden and from there through a window into the palace. They looked for Mladota and called his name, but no one answered. When they entered the study, they were met with a horrific sight. Everything was destroyed, books torn apart and bottles smashed. The table with the large book was overturned, and there was a large black hole in the ceiling. Filled with terror, the students fled Faust’s house and told everyone that Mladota had been carried away by the devil himself through a hole in the ceiling. Based on the book 77 pražských legend by Alena Ježková (77 Prague Legends).