The bet (part 2)

and tobacco. Wine, he wrote, excites the desires, and desires are the worst foes of

the prisoner; and besides, nothing could be more dreary than drinking good wine

and seeing no one. And tobacco spoilt the air of his room. In the first year the

books he sent for were principally of a light character; novels with a complicated

love plot, sensational and fantastic stories, and so on.

In the second year the piano was silent in the lodge, and the prisoner asked only

for the classics. In the fifth year music was audible again, and the prisoner asked

for wine. Those who watched him through the window said that all that year he

spent doing nothing but eating and drinking and lying on his bed, frequently

yawning and angrily talking to himself. He did not read books. Sometimes at night

he would sit down to write; he would spend hours writing, and in the morning tear

up all that he had written. More than once he could be heard crying.

In the second half of the sixth year the prisoner began zealously studying

languages, philosophy, and history. He threw himself eagerly into these studies --

so much so that the banker had enough to do to get him the books he ordered. In

the course of four years some six hundred volumes were procured at his request.

It was during this period that the banker received the following letter from his

prisoner:

"My dear Jailer, I write you these lines in six languages. Show them to people who

know the languages. Let them read them. If they find not one mistake I implore

you to fire a shot in the garden. That shot will show me that my efforts have not

been thrown away. The geniuses of all ages and of all lands speak different

languages, but the same flame burns in them all. Oh, if you only knew what

unearthly happiness my soul feels now from being able to understand them!" The

prisoner's desire was fulfilled. The banker ordered two shots to be fired in the

garden.

Then after the tenth year, the prisoner sat immovably at the table and read

nothing but the Gospel. It seemed strange to the banker that a man who in four

years had mastered six hundred learned volumes should waste nearly a year over

one thin book easy of comprehension. Theology and histories of religion followed

the Gospels.

In the last two years of his confinement the prisoner read an immense quantity of

books quite indiscriminately. At one time he was busy with the natural sciences,

then he would ask for Byron or Shakespeare. There were notes in which he

demanded at the same time books on chemistry, and a manual of medicine, and a

novel, and some treatise on philosophy or theology. His reading suggested a manswimming in the sea among the wreckage of his ship, and trying to save his life by

greedily clutching first at one spar and then at another.

II

The old banker remembered all this, and thought:

"To-morrow at twelve o'clock he will regain his freedom. By our agreement I ought

to pay him two millions. If I do pay him, it is all over with me: I shall be utterly

ruined."

Fifteen years before, his millions had been beyond his reckoning; now he was

afraid to ask himself which were greater, his debts or his assets. Desperate

gambling on the Stock Exchange, wild speculation and the excitability which he

could not get over even in advancing years, had by degrees led to the decline of

his fortune and the proud, fearless, self-confident millionaire had become a banker

of middling rank, trembling at every rise and fall in his investments. "Cursed bet!"

muttered the old man, clutching his head in despair "Why didn't the man die? He is

only forty now. He will take my last penny from me, he will marry, will enjoy life,

will gamble on the Exchange; while I shall look at him with envy like a beggar, and

hear from him every day the same sentence: 'I am indebted to you for the

happiness of my life, let me help you!' No, it is too much! The one means of being

saved from bankruptcy and disgrace is the death of that man!"

It struck three o'clock, the banker listened; everyone was asleep in the house and

nothing could be heard outside but the rustling of the chilled trees. Trying to make

no noise, he took from a fireproof safe the key of the door which had not been

opened for fifteen years, put on his overcoat, and went out of the house.

It was dark and cold in the garden. Rain was falling. A damp cutting wind was

racing about the garden, howling and giving the trees no rest. The banker strained

his eyes, but could see neither the earth nor the white statues, nor the lodge, nor

the trees. Going to the spot where the lodge stood, he twice called the watchman.

No answer followed. Evidently the watchman had sought shelter from the weather,

and was now asleep somewhere either in the kitchen or in the greenhouse.

"If I had the pluck to carry out my intention," thought the old man, "Suspicion

would fall first upon the watchman."

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