Free The Prisoner's Dilemma by Sean Stuart O'Connor

his agreement with his wife’s views. His earlier reluctance and stammered embarrassment seemed to have evaporated.
    â€˜Please say you will accept him, Sophie. Or at least say that you will consider his proposal.’
    â€˜I can’t believe you are asking this of me,’ said Sophie, frantically. ‘How can you?’
    Her father spoke quietly and firmly.
    â€˜Sophie, with Zweig we can rise again. Without him we fall. He leaves in three days on a journey that he says will make him a greater fortune than all his others. When he returns in a few weeks, he will be one of the richest men in Königsberg. Please let me take your answer back to him. Please let it be your agreement.’
    Sophie was silent as she struggled to take in what she was hearing. Then, from nowhere, she was struck by a thought.
    â€˜But if your ship was lost in these awful storms, why is he taking the same risk in the same weather? What if this voyageshould see this ship founder as well?’
    Kant returned in an instant to his business-like self.
    â€˜I asked him that myself and together we have reached an agreement. The journey should take no more than two months. We added more days to account for a setback. But, if the captain does not return within a hundred days then the debt will be cancelled.’
    â€˜A hundred days!’ Sophie repeated. ‘Then we must pray that he fails. And count the days.’
    Her father looked down at his desk again, his negotiating position appearing to stall before his eyes.
    â€˜I fear there is another condition, my dearest. I am so sorry. He is insisting that you go with him on the voyage. He says that he would not want you to marry him without seeing him as he is. He wishes you to get to know him better. I’m sorry. He was unmovable on this point.’
    Anger rose in Sophie again.
    â€˜So, I am to be sent off into this awful winter weather, which has already claimed one ship and with it our livelihood. To be with that loathsome man?’
    She looked at her parents’ exhausted, yearning expressions and could take no more. She fled from the room and ran, weeping, up the long staircase to her room. There she stayed, refusing all food or company, despite the protestations and pleading of her mother that came from beyond the locked door. But two days later she softened, exhausted, thinking of her poor little brother and his strange unworldliness, and of her mother’s terrible anguish. She unlocked the door and sat back down on her bed. Frau Kant turned the handle and came into the room, tense and red eyed.
    â€˜There is no way out,’ said Sophie flatly, her gaze fixed on the wall. ‘I shall have to go. Oh, Mama. What can I do but go? Who would ever care for you or Immanuel if we were to lose everything? How can I ever have anything but contempt for Zweigafter this but …’ and she looked away with such fear on her face that her mother instinctively gasped ‘…if, …if I survive, I shall be able to say I now know him, know everything about him, and still feel nothing but disgust.’
    Her voice rose as her spirit returned.
    â€˜Let him want to marry me then! If he dare. And who knows, he may be so rich by the time he comes back that he’ll have lost interest in having a viper like me at his throat. Come, Mama, we must find clothes for a sea voyage.’

Chapter 5
    Later that night Zweig stood at the stern of his ship and watched as the cargo was loaded. There were few people about the quay other than a scattering of dockside idlers and some of these muttered to each other as they observed the air of secrecy that seemed to be surrounding the operation. A couple of them, huddled together, speculated in hushed tones about what kind of commercial rabbit the captain would be pulling from his hat this time. The crew worked steadily on and orders were given yet again that time was of the essence.
    Suddenly from out of the gloom came a low