The Bet

Posted by Tommy Gunn from cache.luanda.mstelcom.com (207.241.179.66) on Saturday, March 02, 2002 at 9:52am :

This is a message from an inspiring screenwriter. This is Kent's first time, so tell him what you think of his brilliant adaptation.
Tommy

Please tell me your HONEST opinions of this.
First off, this wasn't my idea to do... I only agreed to pen it out (I sometimes wonder why any teacher would want me to
write it!) Personally, I don't think too much about the actual storyline...
If there are any mistakes that you notice, or anything you feel you need to correct, PLEASE post it.
I don't want to look like a total moron in front of the entire school.

the bet
NARRATOR:
It Is a Dark Autumn Night. A rich industrialist has hosted a party. There are many clever men there. With clever,
interesting conversations. Among other things they spoke of capitol punishment. The majority of the guests, among who
were doctors, men of science, and intellectuals, disapproved of the death penalty. They considered this form of
punishment…

INT. THE DINING ROOM – NIGHT

GUEST #1
(slamming fist on table):
out of date, immoral, and unsuitable for Christian states.

GUEST #2
(slowly):
I highly agree. The death penalty ought to be replaced everywhere by imprisonment for life.

GUEST #3
Capital punishment is simply the carrying out of man's law, rather than God's law. God will administer his brand of justice
on his own time. As Christ said "Render unto Cesar that which is Cesar's. Render unto God that which is God's..."

HENRY:
I disagree
A beat
I have not tried either death penalty or imprisonment for life, but if one may judge a priori, the death penalty is more moral
and more humane than imprisonment for life

Guest #2 Begins to interject, but Henry raises a finger to silence him

HENRY:
Capitol punishment kills a man at once, lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly.
A beat
Ask yourselves… which executioner is the more humane? He who kills you in a few seconds? Or he who drags the life out
of you?

PROFESSOR ANTHONY STARK:
Both are equally immoral. For they both have the same object—to take away life. The state is not God. It has not the right
to take away what it cannot restore when it wants to.

ROSALINE:
(disgustedly)
You psychologists and your foolish beliefs. The Criminal, for convenience sake, a murderer, did not have the right to take
his victim's life in the first place…

HENRY:
(cutting in)
Nathaniel, I believe you have been quite quiet this evening.
You are a lawyer aren’t you? Surely you have an opinion on the matter.

NATHANIEL:
The death sentence and the life sentence are equally immoral, but if I had to choose between the death penalty and
imprisonment for life, I would certainly choose the latter. To live anyhow is better than not at all.

HENRY:
It’s not true! I’ll bet you two hundred thousand dollars you wouldn’t stay in solitary confinement for five years.

NATHANIEL:
If you mean that in earnest.
A beat.
I’ll take the bet, but I would stay not five. But 15 years.

HENRY:
Fifteen? Done!
Gentlemen, I stake two hundred thousand dollars

At this, the table is excited, each wanting to get their own share of the bet, each making a bet against Nathaniel. Anthony
Stark makes a wager in favor of Nathaniel.

HENRY:
Think better of it, young man, while there is still time. To me two hundred thousand dollars is a trifle, but you are losing
three or four 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 am sorry for you.

After a long pause
GUEST #3:
What are the provisions?

HENRY:
Excuse me?

GUEST #3:
How will he spend captivity

HENRY:
Ah yes.

To Nathaniel
You shall spend your years under the strictest supervision in one of my lodges in my garden.
It will be agreed that for your fifteen years you should not be free to cross the threshold of the lodge, to see human beings,
to hear human voice, or to receive letters and newspapers.
You will be allowed to have a musical instrument and books, and will be allowed to write letters, to drink wine, and to
smoke.
By the terms of this agreement, the only relations you can have with the outside world will be by a little window made
purposely for that object.
You can have anything you want—books, music, wine, and so on—in any quantity you desire, by writing an order, but can
receive them only through the window.
Your life imprisonment will begin at twelve o’clock of November 14, 19(date yet do be determined)
And ending at twelve o’clock of November 14, 19(date yet do be determined)
The slightest attempt to break these conditions, if only two minutes before the end, releases me from the obligation to pay
you the two hundred thousands.

EXT. GARDEN – MORNING

Nathaniel and Anthony stand alone, outside the lodge that would soon be his cell.

ANTHONY STARK:
I know you can make it.
You have the heart of a lion.
I only hope I’m around to see Henry’s face when you step out 15 years later.

They stand there alone for several seconds. Neither speaks a word.

NATHANIEL:
You know, I've always been of the opinion that what "civilized" nations call justice is simply legitimized revenge.

ANTHONY STARK:
Excuse me?

NATHANIEL:
Oh, it was nothing, a bit of a small observation.

They continue to stand alone in silence, neither of them knowing what to say to the other.

INT. HENRY’S LIVING ROOM –MORNING

The Henry and his daughter sit alone, at opposite ends of the room. Both are quiet.
Finally Rosaline speaks up.
ROSALINE:
(her face down)
I hate him.

HENRY:
Who?

ROSALINE:
Anthony Stark.
(Quoting Anthony, exaggeratedly)
Oh, I must agree with you, Psychology isn’t even a science.

HENRY:
(Trying to comfort her)
It’s the only weakness I ever saw in him –he has to look smart, smarter than anybody. He’s been doing it for years.

ROSALINE:
I hate him. And his friend Nathaniel. I hope he doesn’t last five days.

HENRY:
(Unsure of what to say, looks down at his watch.)
Well, it’s almost twelve. We should be there to see him off.

NARRATOR:
For the first year of his confinement, as far as one could judge from his brief notes, Nathaniel suffered severely from
loneliness and depression. The sounds of the piano could be heard continually day and night from his lodge. He refused
wine 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 spoiled the air of his room. In the first year
the books he sent for were principally of light character; novels with a complicated love plot, sensational and fantastic
stories, and so on.

I would like to get a few small scenes with the HENRY and another character speaking, about the first year and events that
has happened in the outside world.

NARRATOR:
In the second year the piano was silent in the lodge, and the prisoner asked only for the classics.

Maybe some shorter dialog play between the HENRY and a different character over the event of the second year both
inside the lodge and the world events.

NARRATOR:
In the fifth year music was audible again, and the prisoner asked for wine. Those who watched him through the window
said all that year he spent doing nothing but eating and drinking and lying on his bed, frequently yawning and talking
angrily 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.

INT. HENRY’S LIVING ROOM –DAY

HENRY:
Have you heard? About Professor Stark?

GUEST:
Only that he died. What happened?

HENRY:
After he heard about the stocks crash. After he knew he had lost his entire fortune, he leapt from the window of his office.
Thirty stories down I was told.

GUEST:
This depression may kill us all.
By the way, how did you manage to survive?

HENRY:
Well, you see, my money was tied up not so much in the stock market, which was a paper tiger, but in tangible things like
shipyards, coal mines, factories or oil fields. Even in a depressed economy things like fuel and heavy consumer goods are
still necessary, so people like me in those industries have survived the depression. The Depression has tended to hurt
smaller, private investors, who were buying up stock "on margin", and banks who also invested people's money in those
sort of inflated stocks. And when the banks failed, people couldn't get their money out of their accounts and people who
owed a lot of credit to the bank, like farmers, whose money is often tied up in land and livestock, get burned. This is a tad
simplified, but it is mostly how I did it.

NARRATOR:
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 Henry 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 Henry received
the following letter from his prisoner:

NATHANIEL:
My dear Jailer, I write you these lines in six languages. Show them to people who know the languages. Let them read. 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!

NARRATOR:
The prisoner’s desire was fulfilled. Henry ordered two shots to be fired in the Garden.

Dialog play between the HENRY and another character about the tragic death of his daughter Rosaline.

NARRATOR:
Then, after the tenth year, the prisoner sat immovable at the table and read nothing but the Gospel. It seemed strange to
Henry 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.

Dialog play between the HENRY and another character over the events of the past years.

NARRATOR:
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 times books on chemistry, and a manual of medicine, and a novel, and some treatise on philosophy
or theology. His reading suggested a man swimming 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.

INT. HERY’S LIVING ROOM – NIGHT

He sits in a large chair, another man sits across from him on a couch.

HENRY:
Tomorrow at twelve o’clock he will regain his freedom. By our agreement I ought to pay him two hundred thousand
dollars. If I do pay him, it is all over with me: I shall be utterly ruined.
Fifteen years before, my millions had been beyond my own reckoning; now I am afraid to ask myself which is greater, my
debts or my assets. Despite gambling on the Stock Exchange, wild speculation, and the excitability which I could not get
over even in advancing years, had by degrees led to the decline of my fortune, and the proud, self-confident millionaire has
become a banker of middling rank, trembling at every rise and fall in his investments.
Cursed bet.
Why couldn’t he 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 debted to you for
the happiness of my life, let me help you!”

GUEST:
You could always kill him. Blame on the watchman.

HENRY:
You’re right.
The one means of being saved from bankruptcy and disgrace is the death of that man.

INT. HENRY’S STUDY – 3 O’clock

Henry slips quietly into his study, retrieves a small key from a small safe and Exits. He puts on his overcoat and slips out
the door.

EXT. LODGE GROUNDS

Rain is falling. A damp, howling wind was racing about the garden.
He retrieves his key from his overcoat and slips into the lodge.

INT. LODGE
HENRY:
(Ominously)
Poor creature! He is asleep and most likely dreaming of the millions. And I have only to take this half-dead man, throw
him on the bed, stifle him a little with the pillow, and the most conscientious expert would find no sign of violent death. But
let us first read what he has written here…

NATHANIEL:
(Aged)
Tomorrow 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 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 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 boars in the forests, have loved women…
Beauties as ethereal as clouds, created by the magic of your poets and geniuses, have visited me at night, and have
whispered in my ears wonderful tales that have set my brain in a whirl. In your books I have climbed to the peaks of Elburz
and Mont Blanc, and from there I have seen the sun rise and have watched it at evening flood the sky, the ocean, and the
mountaintops with gold and crimson. I have watched form there the lightning flash over my head and cleaving the storm
clouds. I have seen green forests, fields, rivers, lakes, and towns. I have heard the singing of the sirens, and the strains of
the shepherds pipes; 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, burned towns, preached new religions,
conquered whole kingdoms…
Your books have given me wisdom. All that the unresting thought of man has created in the ages is compressed into a
small compass in my brain. I know that I am wiser than all of you.
And I despise your books, I despise wisdom and the blessings of this world. It is all worthless, fleeting, 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 mice burrowing under the floor, and your posterity, your history, your immortal geniuses 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 on 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 millions of which I once dreamed as of
paradise and which I now despise. To deprive myself of the right to the money I shall go out from here five minutes before
the time fixed, and so breaking the contract.

The after reading this the baker laid the note back on the table, and quietly left the lodge.

INT. HENRY’S STUDY

Three watchmen ran into the study out of breath.

WATCHMAN #2
(disbelieving)
He’s gone. We saw him climb out the window into the garden, go to the gate, and disappear. He gave up the money

HENRY:
(smiling)
I know.

INT. HENRY’S STUDY
Henry sits alone at a small desk

NARRATOR:
Some odd twenty years later:

HENRY:
What was the object of that bet? What is the good of that man’s losing fifteen years of his life and my throwing away two
hundred thousand dollars? Can it prove the death penalty is better or worse than imprisonment for life? No, no. It was all
nonsensical and meaningless. On my part it was the caprice of a pampered man, and on his part simple greed for money…

the end.

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: This is a message from an inspiring screenwriter. This is Kent's first time, so tell him what you think of his brilliant adaptation. : Tommy : Please tell me your HONEST opinions of this. : First off, this wasn't my idea to do... I only agreed to pen it out (I sometimes wonder why any teacher would want me to : write it!) Personally, I don't think too much about the actual storyline... : If there are any mistakes that you notice, or anything you feel you need to correct, PLEASE post it. : I don't want to look like a total moron in front of the entire school. : : the bet : NARRATOR: : It Is a Dark Autumn Night. A rich industrialist has hosted a party. There are many clever men there. With clever, : interesting conversations. Among other things they spoke of capitol punishment. The majority of the guests, among who : were doctors, men of science, and intellectuals, disapproved of the death penalty. They considered this form of : punishment… : INT. THE DINING ROOM – NIGHT : GUEST #1 : (slamming fist on table): : out of date, immoral, and unsuitable for Christian states. : GUEST #2 : (slowly): : I highly agree. The death penalty ought to be replaced everywhere by imprisonment for life. : GUEST #3 : Capital punishment is simply the carrying out of man's law, rather than God's law. God will administer his brand of justice : on his own time. As Christ said "Render unto Cesar that which is Cesar's. Render unto God that which is God's..." : HENRY: : I disagree : A beat : I have not tried either death penalty or imprisonment for life, but if one may judge a priori, the death penalty is more moral : and more humane than imprisonment for life : Guest #2 Begins to interject, but Henry raises a finger to silence him : HENRY: : Capitol punishment kills a man at once, lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly. : A beat : Ask yourselves… which executioner is the more humane? He who kills you in a few seconds? Or he who drags the life out : of you? : PROFESSOR ANTHONY STARK: : Both are equally immoral. For they both have the same object—to take away life. The state is not God. It has not the right : to take away what it cannot restore when it wants to. : ROSALINE: : (disgustedly) : You psychologists and your foolish beliefs. The Criminal, for convenience sake, a murderer, did not have the right to take : his victim's life in the first place… : HENRY: : (cutting in) : Nathaniel, I believe you have been quite quiet this evening. : You are a lawyer aren’t you? Surely you have an opinion on the matter. : NATHANIEL: : The death sentence and the life sentence are equally immoral, but if I had to choose between the death penalty and : imprisonment for life, I would certainly choose the latter. To live anyhow is better than not at all. : HENRY: : It’s not true! I’ll bet you two hundred thousand dollars you wouldn’t stay in solitary confinement for five years. : NATHANIEL: : If you mean that in earnest. : A beat. : I’ll take the bet, but I would stay not five. But 15 years. : HENRY: : Fifteen? Done! : Gentlemen, I stake two hundred thousand dollars : At this, the table is excited, each wanting to get their own share of the bet, each making a bet against Nathaniel. Anthony : Stark makes a wager in favor of Nathaniel. : HENRY: : Think better of it, young man, while there is still time. To me two hundred thousand dollars is a trifle, but you are losing : three or four 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 am sorry for you. : After a long pause : GUEST #3: : What are the provisions? : HENRY: : Excuse me? : GUEST #3: : How will he spend captivity : HENRY: : Ah yes. : To Nathaniel : You shall spend your years under the strictest supervision in one of my lodges in my garden. : It will be agreed that for your fifteen years you should not be free to cross the threshold of the lodge, to see human beings, : to hear human voice, or to receive letters and newspapers. : You will be allowed to have a musical instrument and books, and will be allowed to write letters, to drink wine, and to : smoke. : By the terms of this agreement, the only relations you can have with the outside world will be by a little window made : purposely for that object. : You can have anything you want—books, music, wine, and so on—in any quantity you desire, by writing an order, but can : receive them only through the window. : Your life imprisonment will begin at twelve o’clock of November 14, 19(date yet do be determined) : And ending at twelve o’clock of November 14, 19(date yet do be determined) : The slightest attempt to break these conditions, if only two minutes before the end, releases me from the obligation to pay : you the two hundred thousands. : : EXT. GARDEN – MORNING : Nathaniel and Anthony stand alone, outside the lodge that would soon be his cell. : ANTHONY STARK: : I know you can make it. : You have the heart of a lion. : I only hope I’m around to see Henry’s face when you step out 15 years later. : They stand there alone for several seconds. Neither speaks a word. : NATHANIEL: : You know, I've always been of the opinion that what "civilized" nations call justice is simply legitimized revenge. : ANTHONY STARK: : Excuse me? : NATHANIEL: : Oh, it was nothing, a bit of a small observation. : They continue to stand alone in silence, neither of them knowing what to say to the other. : INT. HENRY’S LIVING ROOM –MORNING : The Henry and his daughter sit alone, at opposite ends of the room. Both are quiet. : Finally Rosaline speaks up. : ROSALINE: : (her face down) : I hate him. : HENRY: : Who? : ROSALINE: : Anthony Stark. : (Quoting Anthony, exaggeratedly) : Oh, I must agree with you, Psychology isn’t even a science. : HENRY: : (Trying to comfort her) : It’s the only weakness I ever saw in him –he has to look smart, smarter than anybody. He’s been doing it for years. : ROSALINE: : I hate him. And his friend Nathaniel. I hope he doesn’t last five days. : HENRY: : (Unsure of what to say, looks down at his watch.) : Well, it’s almost twelve. We should be there to see him off. : NARRATOR: : For the first year of his confinement, as far as one could judge from his brief notes, Nathaniel suffered severely from : loneliness and depression. The sounds of the piano could be heard continually day and night from his lodge. He refused : wine 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 spoiled the air of his room. In the first year : the books he sent for were principally of light character; novels with a complicated love plot, sensational and fantastic : stories, and so on. : I would like to get a few small scenes with the HENRY and another character speaking, about the first year and events that : has happened in the outside world. : NARRATOR: : In the second year the piano was silent in the lodge, and the prisoner asked only for the classics. : Maybe some shorter dialog play between the HENRY and a different character over the event of the second year both : inside the lodge and the world events. : NARRATOR: : In the fifth year music was audible again, and the prisoner asked for wine. Those who watched him through the window : said all that year he spent doing nothing but eating and drinking and lying on his bed, frequently yawning and talking : angrily 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. : INT. HENRY’S LIVING ROOM –DAY : HENRY: : Have you heard? About Professor Stark? : GUEST: : Only that he died. What happened? : HENRY: : After he heard about the stocks crash. After he knew he had lost his entire fortune, he leapt from the window of his office. : Thirty stories down I was told. : GUEST: : This depression may kill us all. : By the way, how did you manage to survive? : HENRY: : Well, you see, my money was tied up not so much in the stock market, which was a paper tiger, but in tangible things like : shipyards, coal mines, factories or oil fields. Even in a depressed economy things like fuel and heavy consumer goods are : still necessary, so people like me in those industries have survived the depression. The Depression has tended to hurt : smaller, private investors, who were buying up stock "on margin", and banks who also invested people's money in those : sort of inflated stocks. And when the banks failed, people couldn't get their money out of their accounts and people who : owed a lot of credit to the bank, like farmers, whose money is often tied up in land and livestock, get burned. This is a tad : simplified, but it is mostly how I did it. : NARRATOR: : 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 Henry 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 Henry received : the following letter from his prisoner: : NATHANIEL: : My dear Jailer, I write you these lines in six languages. Show them to people who know the languages. Let them read. 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! : NARRATOR: : The prisoner’s desire was fulfilled. Henry ordered two shots to be fired in the Garden. : Dialog play between the HENRY and another character about the tragic death of his daughter Rosaline. : NARRATOR: : Then, after the tenth year, the prisoner sat immovable at the table and read nothing but the Gospel. It seemed strange to : Henry 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. : Dialog play between the HENRY and another character over the events of the past years. : NARRATOR: : 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 times books on chemistry, and a manual of medicine, and a novel, and some treatise on philosophy : or theology. His reading suggested a man swimming 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. : INT. HERY’S LIVING ROOM – NIGHT : He sits in a large chair, another man sits across from him on a couch. : HENRY: : Tomorrow at twelve o’clock he will regain his freedom. By our agreement I ought to pay him two hundred thousand : dollars. If I do pay him, it is all over with me: I shall be utterly ruined. : Fifteen years before, my millions had been beyond my own reckoning; now I am afraid to ask myself which is greater, my : debts or my assets. Despite gambling on the Stock Exchange, wild speculation, and the excitability which I could not get : over even in advancing years, had by degrees led to the decline of my fortune, and the proud, self-confident millionaire has : become a banker of middling rank, trembling at every rise and fall in his investments. : Cursed bet. : Why couldn’t he 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 debted to you for : the happiness of my life, let me help you!” : GUEST: : You could always kill him. Blame on the watchman. : HENRY: : You’re right. : The one means of being saved from bankruptcy and disgrace is the death of that man. : : INT. HENRY’S STUDY – 3 O’clock : Henry slips quietly into his study, retrieves a small key from a small safe and Exits. He puts on his overcoat and slips out : the door. : EXT. LODGE GROUNDS : Rain is falling. A damp, howling wind was racing about the garden. : He retrieves his key from his overcoat and slips into the lodge. : INT. LODGE : HENRY: : (Ominously) : Poor creature! He is asleep and most likely dreaming of the millions. And I have only to take this half-dead man, throw : him on the bed, stifle him a little with the pillow, and the most conscientious expert would find no sign of violent death. But : let us first read what he has written here… : NATHANIEL: : (Aged) : Tomorrow 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 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 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 boars in the forests, have loved women… : Beauties as ethereal as clouds, created by the magic of your poets and geniuses, have visited me at night, and have : whispered in my ears wonderful tales that have set my brain in a whirl. In your books I have climbed to the peaks of Elburz : and Mont Blanc, and from there I have seen the sun rise and have watched it at evening flood the sky, the ocean, and the : mountaintops with gold and crimson. I have watched form there the lightning flash over my head and cleaving the storm : clouds. I have seen green forests, fields, rivers, lakes, and towns. I have heard the singing of the sirens, and the strains of : the shepherds pipes; 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, burned towns, preached new religions, : conquered whole kingdoms… : Your books have given me wisdom. All that the unresting thought of man has created in the ages is compressed into a : small compass in my brain. I know that I am wiser than all of you. : And I despise your books, I despise wisdom and the blessings of this world. It is all worthless, fleeting, 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 mice burrowing under the floor, and your posterity, your history, your immortal geniuses 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 on 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 millions of which I once dreamed as of : paradise and which I now despise. To deprive myself of the right to the money I shall go out from here five minutes before : the time fixed, and so breaking the contract. : The after reading this the baker laid the note back on the table, and quietly left the lodge. : INT. HENRY’S STUDY : Three watchmen ran into the study out of breath. : WATCHMAN #2 : (disbelieving) : He’s gone. We saw him climb out the window into the garden, go to the gate, and disappear. He gave up the money : HENRY: : (smiling) : I know. : INT. HENRY’S STUDY : Henry sits alone at a small desk : NARRATOR: : Some odd twenty years later: : HENRY: : What was the object of that bet? What is the good of that man’s losing fifteen years of his life and my throwing away two : hundred thousand dollars? Can it prove the death penalty is better or worse than imprisonment for life? No, no. It was all : nonsensical and meaningless. On my part it was the caprice of a pampered man, and on his part simple greed for money… : : the end.

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