The Bet ( 3 )

During the first year of imprisonment, the lawyer, as far as it was possible to judge from his short notes, suffered terribly from loneliness and boredom. From his wing day and night came the sound of the piano. He rejected wine and tobacco. “Wine,” he wrote, “excites desires, and desires are the chief foes of a prisoner; besides, nothing is more boring than to drink good wine alone,” and tobacco spoiled the air in his room. During the first year the lawyer was sent books of a light character; novels with a complicated love interest, stories of crime and fantasy, comedies, and so on.
　　In the second year, the piano was heard no longer and the lawyer asked only for classics. In the fifth year, music was heard again, and the prisoner asked for wine. Those who watched him said that during the whole of that year he was only eating, drinking, and lying on his bed. He yawned often and talked angrily to himself. Books he did not read. Sometimes at nights he would sit down to write. He would write for a long time and tear it all up in the morning. More than once he was heard to weep.
In the second half of the sixth year, the prisoner began zealously to study languages, philosophy, and history. He fell on these subjects so hungrily that the banker hardly had time to get books enough for him. In the space of four years about six hundred volumes were bought at his request. It was while that passion lasted that the banker received the following letter from the prisoner: My dear jailer, I am writing these lines in six languages. Show them to experts. Let them read them. If they do not find one single mistake, I beg you to give orders to have a gun fired off in the garden. By the noise I shall know that my efforts have not been in vain. The geniuses of all ages and countries speak in different languages; but in them all burns the same flame. Oh, if you knew my heavenly happiness now that I can understand them!” The prisoner’s desire was fulfilled. Two shots were fired in the garden by the banker’s order.
　　Later on, after the tenth year, the lawyer sat immovable before his table and read only the New Testament. The banker found it strange that a man who in four years had mastered six hundred erudite volumes, should have spent nearly a year in reading one book, easy to understand and by no means thick. The New Testament was then replaced by the history of religions and theology.
　　During the last two years of his confinement the prisoner read an extraordinary amount, quite haphazard. Now he would apply himself to the natural sciences, then he would read Byron or Shakespeare. Notes used to come from him in which he asked to sent at the same time a book on chemistry, a-textbook of medicine, a novel, and some treatise on philosophy. He read as though he were swimming in the sea among broken pieces of wreckage, and in his desire to save his life was eagerly grasping one piece after another.
　　The banker recalled all this, and thought:
　“Tomorrow 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 forever---.”
　　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 every one 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 damp, penetrating wind howled in 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 garden wing, 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 fulfill my intention,” thought the old man, “the suspicion will fall on the watchman first of all.”
In the darkness he groped for the steps 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. Some one’s bed with no bed-clothes in it stood there, and an iron stove loomed 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 dimly. The prisoner himself sat by the table. Only his back, the hair on his head were visible. Open books were strewn about on the table, the two chairs, and on the carpet near the table.
　　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 made 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 inside 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 long curly hair like a woman’s, and a shaggy beard. The color 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 gray, 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’s 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.
　　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 to me wonderful tales, which made my head drunken. In your books I climbed the summits of Elbruz and Mount Blanc and saw from there how the sun rose in the morning, and in the evening, suffused the sky, the ocean and the mountain ridges with a purple gold .I saw from there how above me lightnings glimmered, cleaving the clouds; I saw green forests, fields, rivers, lakes, cities; I heard sirens 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 known that I am clever than you all.
　　“And I despise your books, despise all worldly blessings and wisdom. Everything is void, frail, visionary and delusive as 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 falsehood for truth and ugliness for beauty. You would marvel if suddenly apple and orange trees should bear frogs and lizards instead of fruit, and if roses should begin to breathe the odor 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 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 a long time from sleeping---
　　The next morning the poor watchman came running to him and told him that they had seen the man who lived in the wing climb through the window into the garden. He had gone to the gate and disappeared. The banker instantly went with his servants to the wing and established the escape of his prisoner, To avoid unnecessary rumors he took the paper with the renunciation from the table and, on his return, locked it in his safe.

The Bet ( 2 )

There ensued a lively discussion. The banker who was then younger and more nervous suddenly lost his temper, banged his fist on the table, and turning to the young lawyer, cried out:
　　“It’s a lie. I bet you two millions you wouldn’t stick in a cell even for five years.”
　　“If you mean it seriously,” replied the lawyer, “Then I beg I’ll stay not five but fifteen,”
　　“Fifteen! Done! cried the banker. “Gentlemen, I stake two millions.”
　　 “Agreed. You stake two millions, I my freedom,” said the lawyer.
So this wild ridiculous bet came to pass. The banker, who at that time had too many millions to count, spoiled and capricious, was beside himself with rapture. During supper he said to the lawyer jokingly:
　　“Come to your senses, young man, before it’s too late, Two millions are nothing to me, but you stand to lose three or four of the best years of your life. I say three or four, because you’ll never stick it out any longer. Don’t forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary is much heavier than enforced imprisonment. The idea that you have the right to free yourself at any moment will poison the whole of your life in the cell. I pity you.”
And now the banker, pacing from corner to corner, recalled all this and asked himself:
　　“Why did I make this bet? What’s the good? The lawyer loses fifteen years of his life and I throw away two millions. Will it convince people that capital punishment is worse or better than imprisonment for life? No, no! all stuff and rubbish. On my part, it was the caprice for a well-fed man; on the lawyer’s, pure greed of gold.”
　　He recollected further what happened after the evening party. It was decided that the lawyer must undergo his imprisonment under the strictest observation, in a garden wing of the banker’s house. It was agreed that during the period he would be deprived of the right to cross the threshold, to see living people, to hear human voices, and to receive letters and newspapers. He was permitted to have a musical instrument to read books, to write letters, to drink wine and smoke tobacco. By the agreement he could communicate, but only in silence, with the outside world through a little window specially constructed for this purpose. Everything necessary, books, music, wine, he could receive in any quantity by sending a note through the window. 　　The agreement provided for all the minutest details, which made the confinement strictly solitary, and it obliged the lawyer to remain exactly fifteen years from twelve o’clock of November 14, 1870, to twelve o’clock of November 14, 1885. The last attempt on his part to violate the conditions to escape if only for two minutes before the time, freed the banker from the obligation to pay him the two millions.

The Bet ( 1 )

學生時代最怕讀原文書了，遇到英文課或是原文教材，第一件事一定是去找翻譯本。可是拿到了翻譯本卻又如何，依舊是有看沒有懂，比原文還艱澀。離開學校後我就不再看翻譯本了，讀英文我就捧著字典一字一字、一句一句、一段一段艱苦的的往前推進，久而久之竟然發現不同的語言蘊藏著不同的感觸，於是就蠻喜歡在英文的世界裡摸索了。常常把大學英文選放在身邊，有空時就拿起來啃一啃，每次在讀這些文章時除了被文章的內涵感動外，還覺得蠻充實的。
　　The Bet 是我非常喜歡的一篇短文，它讓我嘗試著去體會孤寂的心情；想像一下書中自有顏如玉、書中自有黃金屋的境界；思考宇宙生命的哲理，萬物皆空，真正存在的只是我們有意識的瞬間。而記憶把這些瞬間連結起來我們才有美好的回憶與燦爛的未來可以期待，人生也才變的有意義。我也曾設想自己是書中人，假如有人願意給我200萬，不，那太少了，改成2000萬，但我必需孤獨的過15年，我願不願意？假如是現在的我，我願意，因為為了生活我工作了大半生，多麼希望有悠閒的時間可以盡情的讀讀書，去追逐那年輕時沒有勇敢去追求的夢想。要是換成年輕的我，我就不會同意的，因為那個代價實在太大了，把人生最精華的歲月壓在那一間小房間內與世隔絕，出來後白髮蒼蒼瘦骨嶙峋與社會脫節，縱然有萬貫家財也只能說窮的只剩下錢了。茲將該文抄錄於後。
　　It was a dark autumn night. The old banker was pacing from corner to corner of his study, recalling to his mind the party he gave in the autumn fifteen years before. There were many clever people at the party and much interesting conversation. They talked among other things of capital punishment. The guests, among them not a few scholars and journalists, for the most part disapproved of capital punishment. They found it obsolete as a means of punishment, unfitted to a Christian State, and immoral. Some of them thought that capital punishment should be replaced by life-imprisonment.
　“I don’t agree with you,” said the host. “I myself have experienced neither capital punishment nor life-imprisonment, but if one may judge a priori, then in my opinion capital punishment is more moral and more humane than imprisonment. 　　　　　Execution kills instantly; life-imprisonment kills by degrees. Who is the more humane executioner, one who kills you in a few seconds or one who draws the life out of you incessantly, for yeas?”
“They’re both equally immoral,” remarked one of the guests, ”because their purpose is the same, to take away life. The State is not God. It has no right to take away that which it cannot give back, if it should so desire.”
Among the company was a lawyer, a young man of about twenty-five. On being asked his opinion, he said:
“Capital punishment and life-imprisonment are equally immoral; but if I were offered the choice between them, I would certainly choose the second. It’s better to live somehow than not to live at all.”

河北雙雄公孫瓚與袁紹

從初平3年（西元192）曹操擁有了30萬的青州兵後，到建安3年（西元198）消滅呂布，曹操在這6 年間的東征西討，總算擁有了黃河以南秦嶺、淮河以北的大片土地，再加上有皇帝在他手中，已是群雄中最有實力的一方霸主。益州的劉璋、荊州的劉表、南陽的張繡、淮南的袁術等在他眼裡都是不費吹灰之力就可清除的障礙，江東的小霸王孫堅離他太遠暫時還不是需要處理的問題，唯一對他有威脅的只剩下在黃河以北的袁紹了。
　　河北有雙雄公孫瓚與袁紹，公孫瓚出身名門望族與劉備同時在盧植門下讀書，與劉備有同窗之誼，因此在劉備剛出道的時候對劉備是照顧有加。他本人則是頑悍樂殺，在討伐邊族（鮮卑、烏桓）以及黃巾時立有戰功，因此在幽州佔有一席之地。喜歡騎白馬，他的白馬騎兵令塞外民族聞風喪膽。和袁紹在爭冀州時吃了暗虧，從弟公孫越又被袁紹所殺，兩家仇恨越結越深，有他在北方牽制袁紹，讓袁紹一直無法渡河南下和曹操一爭長短。
　　公孫瓚與朝廷派來的幽州牧也劉虞不和。初平4年（西元193）劉虞看他桀驁不馴難以指揮，於是先發制人派兵圍剿他，但劉虞的軍隊不比公孫瓚的軍隊那麼久經沙場驍勇善戰，最後劉虞戰敗被俘，公孫瓚栽贓他與袁紹連絡欲稱尊號奪幼主之位，將他處死。公孫瓚滅了劉虞後專心經營幽州，但他的處境不是很安穩，北邊的鮮卑、烏桓不時騷擾他，南邊袁紹的勢力也日漸龐大有兩面受敵的危險。袁紹雖然也有類似情形，他的南方是一個比公孫瓚更為強大的曹操，還好他有個天塹黃河將曹操隔絕，好讓他全心全力面對公孫瓚。
　　建安3年（西元198）袁紹連絡北方的鮮卑共同夾擊公孫瓚，公孫瓚退守易京（河北雄縣西北）築城屯田廣結糧谷，打算死守孤城度過災年。這個策略是不錯，不過他的決心不夠，又派人向黑山軍張燕求救，結果事機不密反被袁紹利用了，假裝救兵來到騙他出兵迎戰，就這樣失去了大半兵力，袁紹又掘地為道攻入城內，公孫瓚自知大勢已去，殘忍的將家小全部縊死，再引火自焚結束了一生的征戰。公孫瓚恃才自傲不體恤百姓，記仇忘恩睚眦必報，既無良謀輔臣又不懂禮義，只是個武夫失敗是必然的。
　　建安4年（西元199）北方只剩下曹操和袁紹，兩雄爭鬥已是無法避免了，三國演義裡的第一場驚心動魄的大戰─官渡之戰即將拉開序幕。

煮酒論英雄

建安三年（西元198）冬曹操消滅呂布後，劉備隨曹操回許都，算是被監管。這期間劉備也怕被曹操所害，於是韜光養晦，種菜賞花裝成胸無大志的樣子。許田打圍看到曹操對天子的無禮，總算看清了曹操的真面目。國舅懂承帶來了獻帝親手血書的衣帶詔，更讓劉備決心反曹。
　　一日，曹操邀劉備飲酒賞梅，當許褚、張遼領兵進來時，劉備以為衣帶詔的事東窗事發嚇出了一身冷汗。席間兩人談起了當今的英雄，在曹操的眼裡所謂的英雄是「胸懷大志，腹有良謀，有包藏宇宙之機，吞吐天地之志者」。至於當下的各路諸侯在曹操的心中袁術是冢中枯骨、袁紹色厲膽薄，好謀無斷，幹大事而惜身，見小利而忘命、劉表虛名無實、孫策是藉父之名、劉璋是守戶之犬、其他如張繡、張魯、韓遂是碌碌小人不足掛齒。說遍了各路英雄卻都不是英雄，到底誰才是真正的英雄？曹操對著劉備說：「今天下英雄，惟使君與操耳。」劉備聽後嚇的連筷子都掉在地上。
　　曹操之所以會這般的看輕各路諸侯，憑的是自恃猛將如雲、謀臣如雨。但這些猛將謀臣在別人的眼裡又是什麼樣的角色？曹操陣營中有個名士叫禰衡，因得不到曹操的禮遇，把曹操身邊的人批評的一無是處。他說：荀彧可使弔喪問疾、荀攸可使看墳守墓、程昱可使關門閉戶、郭嘉可使白詞念賦、張遼可使擊鼓鳴金、許褚可使牧牛放馬、樂進可使取狀讀詔、李典可使傳書送檄、呂虔可使磨刀鑄劍、滿寵可使飲酒食槽、于禁可使負版築牆、徐晃可使屠豬殺狗、夏侯惇稱為完體將軍、曹子孝呼為要錢太守、其餘皆是衣架、飯囊、酒桶、肉袋耳。他把曹操批的更是體無完膚，他說曹操不識賢愚是眼濁；不讀詩書是口濁：不納忠言是耳濁：不通古今是身濁：不容諸侯是腹濁；常懷竄逆是心濁。
　　曹操對他恨之入骨，但因禰衡是名士，怕像上次殺了邊讓導致張邈之叛兗州失守，於是派他去招安劉璋。劉璋也受不了他，請他去江夏見黃祖，黃祖和彌衡共飲皆醉，黃祖問他許都有那些人物？他說：「大兒孔文舉，小兒楊祖德。除此二人別無人物。」黃祖又問他那我像什麼？他說：「如似廟中之神，雖受祭祀，恨無靈驗。」黃祖大怒把彌衡給殺了。