It was a dark autumn night. The oldbanker was walking up and down his study and remembering how, fifteen years before, he had given a party one autumn evening.
The bet will to serve 5 years in confindment for 2 million dollars
5 years, i'd do it for 15 years!
after the tenth year, the prisoner sat immovably at the table and readnothing but the Gospel. It seemed strange to the banker that a man who in fouryears had mastered six hundred learned volumes
last two years of his confinement the prisoner read an immense quantityof books quite indiscriminately.At one time he was busy with the natural sciences, then he would ask for Byronor Shakespeare. There were notes in which he demanded at the same time books onchemistry, and a manual of medicine, and a novel, and some treatise onphilosophy or theology
He was asleep ... In front of his bowedhead there lay on the table a sheet of paper on which there was somethingwritten in fine handwriting.Poor creature! thought the banker, he is asleep andmost likely dreaming of the millions. And I have only to take this half-deadman, throw him on the bed, stifle him a little with the pillow, and the mostconscientious expert would find no sign of a violent death. But let us firstread what he has written here ...