Gambling with your Life

Some people argue that life imprisonment would be a worse punishment than a death sentence but who can know. In this story, a young man willingly undertakes to give up his freedom for a sum of money to accept solitary confinement for 15 years in the belief that it will be no great punishment and indeed preferably to death.

It was a dark autumn night at the old bank. I was walking up and down his study and remembering how 15 years ago he had thrown a party one autumn evening they had been many clever men there, and there were exciting conversations among other things they have talked of capital punishment the majority of the guests which included many journalists and intelligent men disapproved of the death penalty they considered that form of punishment out-of-date immoral and unsuitable for Australia in the opinion of some of them the definitely or to be replaced everywhere by “I do not agree with you,” said that host the banker.

I have not tried either the death penalty or imprisonment for life, but the death penalty is more moral and more humane than imprisonment for life if one may judge between the two. Capital punishment kills a man at once, but long-life imprisonment kills him slowly, which executioner is the more humane, he kills you in a few minutes or he who drags the life out of you in several years.

Both are equally in Moral said one of the guest’s. Both have the same objective to take away life. The government is not God. It does not have the right to take away what it cannot restore when it wants to

Among the guests was a young lawyer age 25 when he asked his opinion, he said. The death sentence in the life sentence are equally Moral, but if I had to choose between the death penalty and imprisonment for life, I would certainly choose the second to live anyhow is better than not at all.

A live.ly discussion arose. The banker, who was younger and more nervous these days, was certainly carried away by the excitement he struck the table with his fist and shouted at the young man. It is not valid. I bet you 2 million dollars that you would not stay in solitary confinement for five years. If you mean that an Earnest said the young man . I will take the bet, but I would not stay for 5; I will remain for 15 years.

Fifteen done cried the banker. Gentlemen, I stake you 2 million. Agreed you stake your millions and stake take my freedom said the young man.

This senseless wild bet was carried out. The banker spoilt and rich with millions behind his means was delighted at the chance for dinner he made fun of the young man.

There is still time, to me, 2 million dollars is nothing, but you are losing 3 or 4 of the best years of your life. I say three or four because you won’t stay longer. Don’t forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary confinement is a great deal harder to bear than compulsory. The thought that you have the right to step out in liberty at any moment will poison your whole existence in prison. I feel sorry for you.

And now the banker walking to and fro remembered all this and asked himself.

What was the object of the bet? What is the good of the man losing 15 years of his life? And of me throwing away 2million dollars. How does this prove that the death penalty is better or worse than imprisonment for life? No, it was all Ludacris and meaningless on my part. Was it the gloating of a pampered man and his simple part greed for money?

Then he remembered what followed that evening. The young man would spend the years of his captivity under strict supervision in one of the lodges in the bankers garden. That the 15 years, he should not be free to cross the threshold of the lodge to see human beings to hear the human voice order received letters and newspapers. He was allowed to have a musical instrument and books and was allowed to write letters and smoke by the terms of the agreement. The only relation he would have from the outer world or buy a little window made for that purpose he might have anything he wanted books music tobacco and so on in any quantity, he desired by writing in order by could only receive them through the window

The agreement provided for every detail that would make his imprisonment strictly solitary. It bound the young man to stay there exactly 15 years beginning from 12 November the 10th 2019 and finishing on 12 November 10th, 2034 the slightest attempt on his part to break the conditions even if it were for only 2 minutes before the end release the banker from the obligation to pay him 2million dollars.

For the first year of his confinement, as far as anyone could judge from his brief notes, the prisoner suffered severely from loneliness and depression. The sounds of the piano could be heard day and night continually from his lodge tobacco, and he wrote it excites the desires are the worst photos of the prisoner although he did not smoke yet as tobacco spoilt the air of his room.

In the first year, the books he sent for when novels with a complicated love plot, sensational and fantastic stories, and so one and the second year the piano was silent in the lodge, the prisoner only asked for the classics

In the 5th year, music was audible again, and the prisoner asks for tobacco. Those who watched him through the window said 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, spend hours writing and in the morning, tear up all that he had written.

More than once, he could be her crying.

In the second half of the six-year, the prisoner begins zealously studying languages, philosophy and history. He threw himself quickly into these studies so much that the banker received the letter from his prisoner.

My dear Jailer,

I write you these lines in 6 languages, show them to the people who know the languages let them read them if they don’t find 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 all and speak different languages. Still, the same flame burns in all of them. Oh, if you only knew what earthly happiness my soul feels now from understanding them.

The prisoner’s efforts paid off, and the banker ordered the two shots into the garden. After the 10th year, the prisoner sat immobile at the table and read nothing but the Bible.

In the last two years of his confinement, the prisoner read in an immense quantity of books indiscriminately when he was busy with the natural sciences. Then he would ask for Shakespeare, and there were notes in which he demanded at the same time books on chemistry and a manual of medicine. His reading suggested a man swimming in the sea among the wreckage of his ship and trying to save his life by greedily cutting first at one spar and then at another.

The old banker remembered all this and thought.

Tomorrow at 12, he will regret his freedom, but our agreement I ought to pay him 2 million dollars. If I deliver it to him, it is all over with me. I will be ruined. Fifteen years before, his millions of dollars had been beyond his reckoning. He was afraid to ask himself, which was greater his debts or his assets?

Desperate gambling on the stock exchange, wild speculation and the impulsiveness which he had, he could not get over even in advancing years. Had lead to the decline of his fortune, and the proud, fearless self-confident millionaire had become a banker of middle in rank, trembling at every rise and fall in his investments.

Cursed bet muttered the older man clutching his head in despair.

Why didn’t the man died his only 40? Now he will take my last dollar from me. You will marry a pretty lady, have a couple of kids and enjoy life be able to gamble on the stock 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 3 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 fireplace fireproof safe the key of the door which had not been open for 15 years put on his coat and went out of the house

It was dark and cold in the garden rain is falling a damp cutting wind was racing around the garden howling and giving the trees No Rest, the banker strained his eyes but could not see neither the Earth nor the white statues the lodge all the trees going to the spot with the lodge good he twice called the Watchman no answer followed evidently the watch man had sought shelter from the weather and was now asleep somewhere either in the kitchen or in the greenhouse.

If I had the insanity to carry out my intention thought the old man , suspicion would for first upon the watch man as he pondered the thought of losing his last millions. He felt in the darkness for the steps and the door and went to the entry of the lodge then he groped his way into a little passage and little match there was not a soul there, there was a bed with no bedding on it in the corner was a dark little cooking stove through the seals on the door leading to the Prisoner rooms were intact.

When the match went out the old man trembling with emotion peeped through the window a candle was burning dimly in the prisoners room, he was sitting at the table nothing could be seen but his back and the hair on his head and his hands open books for lying on the table in on the carpet near the table 5 minutes past and the prisoner did not once stir.

15 years of imprisonment has taught him to sit still the banker tapped at the window with his finger and the prisoner made no movement whatsoever in response Ben the banker cautiously broke the seals of the door and put the key in the keyhole the rusty lock gave a grating sound, and the door creaked the banker expected to hear at once footsteps and a cry of astonishment but 3 minutes past and it was a quiet as ever in the room he made up his mind to go in at the table.

A man like unlike ordinary people with sitting Motionless he was a skeleton with the skin drawn type over his bones long curls like a woman in a shaggy beard his face was yellow with an earthly hint tint and his cheeks were hollow, his long his back long and narrow and the hand on which his Shaggy hand is propped was so thin and delicate that was dredfull to look at.

His hair was already streaked with silver, and seeing his aged looking face, no one would have believed that he was only forty. He was asleep… and in front of his bowed head there lay on the table a sheet of paper on which there was something written in fine handwriting.

Poor creature, thought the banker.

He is asleep and most likely dreaming of the millions. And I only have to take this half dead man, throw him on the bed, smother him a little with the pillow and the most conscientious expert would find no sign of a violent death. But let us first read what he has written here…

The banker took the page from the table and it read as follows:

Tommorrow at twelve o’clock I regain my freedom and the right to associate with other men, but before I leave this room and see the sunshine, I think it is necessary to say a few words to you.

With a clear conscience I tell you, as before God, who beholds me, that I despise freedom and life and health, and all that in your good books is called the good things of the world. For fifteen years I have been intently studying earthly life. It is true I have not seen the earth nor men, but in your books I have drunk fragrant wine, I have sung songs, I have hunted stags and wild pigs in the forests, and I have loved women… Beauties as wonderful as clouds, created by the magic of your poets and geniuses, they have visted me at night, and have whispered in my ears wonderful tales that have set my brain in a spin.

In your books I have climbed to the peaks of Mt. Everest, and from there I have seen the sun rise and watch it at evening flood the sky, the ocean and the mountain tops, with gold and crimson. I have watched from there the lighting over my head and cleaving the storm clouds. I have seen green forests, fields, rivers, lakes and towns. I have touched the wings of comely devils who flew down to converse with me of God. In your books I have flung myself into the bottomless pit, performed miracles, slain and burnt towns, preached new religions, and conquered whole kingdoms… Your books have given me wisdom and I know that I am wiser than all of you. And I dispise your books, I dispise wisdom and the blessings of the world. It is all worthless, illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage. You may be proud, wise, and fine, but death will wipe you off the face of the earth as though you were no more than mise burrowing under the floor, and your prosperity, your history, your immortal genisues will burn or freeze together with the earthly globe.

You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for Beauty. You would marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly grew an apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse, so I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth.

I don’t want to understand you!

To prove to you in action how I despise all that you live by, I renounce the two million dollars of which I once dreamed as a pradise and of which now despise. To deprive myself of the right to the money I shall go out from here five hours before the time fixed, and so break the contract.

When the banker had read this he laid the page on the table, kissed the strange man on the head, and went out of the lodge, weeping. At no other time, even when he had lost heavily on the stock exchange, had he felt so great a contempt for himself. When he got home, he lay on his bed, but his tears and emotion kept him for hours from sleeping. The next morning the watchman ran in with plae faces, and told him they had seen the man who was prisoner in the lodge, climb out of the window into the garden, run up through the gate, and disappear. The banker went out at once to the lodge and made sure of the runaway of his prisoner. As he got there, noticing the window open and bare stale room to avoid unnecessary talk he took from the table the writing in which the millions were renounced, and when he got home locked it up in the fireproof safe.

In a sense, imprisment has given the man life, not taken it away from him. It has certainly altered his perception of how life ought to be lived