The banker recalled all this, and thought:
“To-morrow at twelve o’clock he receives his freedom. Under the
agreement, I shall have to pay him two millions. If I pay, it’s all
over with me. I am ruined for ever....”
Fifteen years before he had too many millions to count, but now he was
afraid to ask himself which he had more of, money or debts. Gambling on
the Stock-Exchange, risky speculation, and the recklessness of which
he could not rid himself even in old age, had gradually brought his
business to decay; and the fearless, self-confident, proud man of
business had become an ordinary banker, trembling at every rise and
fall in the market.
“That cursed bet,” murmured the old man clutching his head in
despair.... “Why didn’t the man die? He’s only forty years old. He will
take away my last farthing, marry, enjoy life, gamble on the Exchange,
and I will look on like an envious beggar and hear the same words from
him every day: ‘I’m obliged to you for the happiness of my life. Let
me help you.’ No, it’s too much! The only escape from bankruptcy and
disgrace--is that the man should die.”
The clock had just struck three. The banker was listening. In the house
everyone was asleep, and one could hear only the frozen trees whining
outside the windows. Trying to make no sound, he took out of his safe
the key of the door which had not been opened for fifteen years, put
on his overcoat, and went out of the house. The garden was dark and
cold. It was raining. A keen damp wind hovered howling over all the
garden and gave the trees no rest. Though he strained his eyes, the
banker could see neither the ground, nor the white statues, nor the
garden-wing, nor the trees. Approaching the place where the garden-wing
stood, he called the watchman twice. There was no answer. Evidently
the watchman had taken shelter from the bad weather and was now asleep
somewhere in the kitchen or the greenhouse.
“If I have the courage to fulfil my intention,” thought the old man,
“the suspicion will fall on the watchman first of all.”
In the darkness he groped for the stairs and the door and entered the
hall of the garden-wing, then poked his way into a narrow passage and
struck a match. Not a soul was there. Someone’s bed, with no bedclothes
on it, stood there, and an iron stove was dark in the corner. The seals
on the door that led into the prisoner’s room were unbroken.
When the match went out, the old man, trembling from agitation, peeped
into the little window.
In the prisoner’s room a candle was burning dim. The prisoner himself
sat by the table. Only his back, the hair on his head and his hands
were visible. On the table, the two chairs, the carpet by the table
open books were strewn.
Five minutes passed and the prisoner never once stirred. Fifteen years
confinement had taught him to sit motionless. The banker tapped on the
window with his finger, but the prisoner gave no movement in reply.
Then the banker cautiously tore the seals from the door and put the key
into the lock. The rusty lock gave a hoarse groan and the door creaked.
The banker expected instantly to hear a cry of surprise and the sound
of steps. Three minutes passed and it was as quiet behind the door as
it had been before. He made up his mind to enter. Before the table
sat a man, unlike an ordinary human being. It was a skeleton, with
tight-drawn skin, with a woman’s long curly hair, and a shaggy beard.
The colour of his face was yellow, of an earthy shade; the cheeks were
sunken, the back long and narrow, and the hand upon which he leaned his
hairy head was so lean and skinny that it was painful to look upon.
His hair was already silvering with grey, and no one who glanced at
the senile emaciation of the face would have believed that he was only
forty years old. On the table, before his bended head, lay a sheet of
paper on which something was written in a tiny hand.
“Poor devil,” thought the banker, “he’s asleep and probably seeing
millions in his dreams. I have only to take and throw this half-dead
thing on the bed, smother him a moment with the pillow, and the most
careful examination will find no trace of unnatural death. But, first,
let us read what he has written here.”
The banker took the sheet from the table and read:
“To-morrow at twelve o’clock midnight, I shall obtain my freedom and
the right to mix with people. But before I leave this room and see the
sun I think it necessary to say a few words to you. On my own clear
conscience and before God who sees me I declare to you that I despise
freedom, life, health, and all that your books call the blessings of
the world.
“For fifteen years I have diligently studied earthly life. True,
I saw neither the earth nor the people, but in your books I drank
fragrant wine, sang songs, hunted deer and wild boar in the forests,
loved women.... And beautiful women, like clouds ethereal, created by
the magic of your poets’ genius, visited me by night and whispered me
wonderful tales, which made my head drunken. In your books I climbed
the summits of Elbruz and Mont Blanc and saw from thence how the
sun rose in the morning, and in the evening overflowed the sky, the
ocean and the mountain ridges with a purple gold. I saw from thence
how above me lightnings glimmered cleaving the clouds; I saw green
forests, fields, rivers, lakes, cities; I heard syrens singing, and the
playing of the pipes of Pan; I touched the wings of beautiful devils
who came flying to me to speak of God.... In your books I cast myself
into bottomless abysses, worked miracles, burned cities to the ground,
preached new religions, conquered whole countries....
“Your books gave me wisdom. All that unwearying human thought created
in the centuries is compressed to a little lump in my skull. I know
that I am more clever than you all.
“And I despise your books, despise all wordly blessings and wisdom.
Everything is void, frail, visionary and delusive like a mirage. Though
you be proud and wise and beautiful, yet will death wipe you from the
face of the earth like the mice underground; and your posterity, your
history, and the immortality of your men of genius will be as frozen
slag, burnt down together with the terrestrial globe.
“You are mad, and gone the wrong way. You take lie for truth and
ugliness for beauty. You would marvel if by certain conditions there
should suddenly grow on apple and orange trees, instead of fruit,
frogs and lizards, and if roses should begin to breathe the odour of
a sweating horse. So do I marvel at you, who have bartered heaven for
earth. I do not want to understand you.
“That I may show you in deed my contempt for that by which you live,
I waive the two millions of which I once dreamed as of paradise, and
which I now despise. That I may deprive myself of my right to them, I
shall come out from here five minutes before the stipulated term, and
thus shall violate the agreement.”
When he had read, the banker put the sheet on the table, kissed the
head of the strange man, and began to weep. He went out of the wing.
Never at any other time, not even after his terrible losses on the
Exchange, had he felt such contempt for himself as now. Coming home,
he lay down on his bed, but agitation and tears kept him long from
sleep....
The next morning the poor watchman came running to him and told him
that they had seen the man who lived in the wing climbing through the
window into the garden. He had gone to the gate and disappeared.
Together with his servants the banker went instantly to the wing and
established the escape of his prisoner. To avoid unnecessary rumours he
took the paper with the renunciation from the table and, on his return,
locked it in his safe.