the bet by anton chekov
IT WAS a dark autumn night. The old banker was
walking up and down his study and remembering how, fifteen years before, he had
given a party one autumn evening. There had been many clever men there, and
there had been interesting conversations. Among other things they had talked of
capital punishment. The majority of the guests, among whom were many
journalists and intellectual men, disapproved of the death penalty. They
considered that form of punishment out of date, immoral, and unsuitable for
Christian States. In the opinion of some of them the death penalty ought to be
replaced everywhere by imprisonment for life.
"I don't agree with you," said their host the
banker. "I have not tried either the 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. Capital punishment kills a man at once, but
lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly. Which executioner is the more humane,
he who kills you in a few minutes or he who drags the life out of you in the
course of many years?"
"Both are equally immoral," observed one of the
guests, "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."
Among the guests was a young lawyer, a young man of
five-and-twenty. When he was asked his opinion, he said:
"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 second. To live anyhow is better than not at
all."
A lively discussion arose. The banker, who was
younger and more nervous in those days, was suddenly carried away by
excitement; he struck the table with his fist and shouted at the young man:
"It's not true! I'll bet you two millions you wouldn't
stay in solitary confinement for five years."
"If you mean that in earnest," said the young
man, "I'll take the bet, but I would stay not five but fifteen
years."
And this wild, senseless bet was carried out! The
banker, spoilt and frivolous, with millions beyond his reckoning, was delighted
at the bet. At supper he made fun of the young man, and said:
"Think better of it, young man, while there is still
time. To me two millions are 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."
And now the banker, walking to and fro, remembered all
this, and asked himself: "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
millions? Can it prove that 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. . . ."
Then he remembered what followed that evening. It was
decided that the young man should spend the years of his captivity under the
strictest supervision in one of the lodges in the banker's garden. It was
agreed that for fifteen years he should not be free to cross the threshold of
the lodge, to see human beings, to hear the human voice, or to receive letters
and newspapers. He was allowed to have a musical instrument and books, and was
allowed to write letters, to drink wine, and to smoke. By the terms of the
agreement, the only relations he could have with the outer world were by a
little window made purposely for that object. He might have anything he wanted
-- books, music, wine, and so on -- in any quantity he desired by writing an
order, but could only receive them through the window. The agreement provided for
every detail and every trifle that would make his imprisonment strictly
solitary, and bound the young man to stay there _exactly_ fifteen years,
beginning from twelve o'clock of November 14, 1870, and ending at twelve
o'clock of November 14, 1885. The slightest attempt on his part to break the
conditions, if only two minutes before the end, released the banker from the
obligation to pay him two millions.
For the first year of his confinement, as far as one
could judge from his brief notes, the prisoner 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 spoilt the air of his room. In the first year the books he sent for
were principally of a light character; novels with a complicated love plot,
sensational and fantastic stories, and so on.
In the second year the piano was silent in the lodge,
and the prisoner asked only for the classics. In the fifth year music was
audible again, and the prisoner asked for wine. Those who watched him through
the window said that all that year he spent doing nothing but eating and
drinking and lying on his bed, frequently yawning and angrily talking 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.
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 the banker 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 the banker
received the following letter from his prisoner:
"My dear Jailer, I write you these lines in six
languages. Show them to people who know the languages. Let them read them. 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!" The prisoner's desire was fulfilled. The
banker ordered two shots to be fired in the garden.
Then after the tenth year, the prisoner sat immovably
at the table and read nothing but the Gospel. It seemed strange to the banker
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.
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 time 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.
"To-morrow at twelve o'clock he will regain his freedom. By
our agreement I ought to pay him two millions. If I do pay him, it is all over
with me: I shall be utterly ruined."
Fifteen years before, his millions had been beyond his
reckoning; now he was afraid to ask himself which were greater, his debts or
his assets. Desperate gambling on the Stock Exchange, wild speculation and the
excitability whic h he could not get over even in advancing years, had by
degrees led to the decline of his fortune and the proud, fearless,
self-confident millionaire had become a banker of middling rank, trembling at
every rise and fall in his investments. "Cursed bet!" muttered the
old man, clutching his head in despair "Why didn't the man 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 indebted to you for the
happiness of my life, let me help you!' No, it is too much! The one means of
being saved from bankruptcy and disgrace is the death of that man!"
It struck three o'clock, the banker listened;
everyone was asleep in the house and nothing could be heard outside but the
rustling of the chilled trees. Trying to make no noise, he took from a
fireproof safe the key of the door which had not been opened for fifteen years,
put on his overcoat, and went out of the house.
It was dark and cold in the garden. Rain was falling.
A damp cutting wind was racing about the garden, howling and giving the trees
no rest. The banker strained his eyes, but could see neither the earth nor the
white statues, nor the lodge, nor the trees. Going to the spot where the lodge
stood, he twice called the watchman. No answer followed. Evidently the watchman
had sought shelter from the weather, and was now asleep somewhere either in the
kitchen or in the greenhouse.
"If I had the pluck to carry out my intention,"
thought the old man, "Suspicion would fall first upon the watchman."
He felt in the darkness for the steps and the door,
and went into the entry of the lodge. Then he groped his way into a little
passage and lighted a match. There was not a soul there. There was a bedstead
with no bedding on it, and in the corner there was a dark cast-iron stove. The
seals on the door leading to the prisoner's rooms were intact.
When the match went out the old man, trembling with
emotion, peeped through the little window. A candle was burning dimly in the
prisoner's room. He was sitting at the table. Nothing could be seen but his
back, the hair on his head, and his hands. Open books were lying on the table,
on the two easy-chairs, and on the carpet near the table.
Five minutes passed and the prisoner did not once stir.
Fifteen years' imprisonment had taught him to sit still. The banker tapped at
the window with his finger, and the prisoner made no movement whatever in
response. Then the banker cautiously broke the seals off the door and put the
key in the keyhole. The rusty lock gave a grating sound and the door creaked.
The banker expected to hear at once footsteps and a cry of astonishment, but
three minutes passed and it was as quiet as ever in the room. He made up his
mind to go in.
At the table a man unlike ordinary people was sitting
motionless. He was a skeleton with the skin drawn tight over his bones, with
long curls like a woman's and a shaggy beard. His face was yellow with an
earthy tint in it, his cheeks were hollow, his back long and narrow, and the
hand on which his shaggy head was propped was so thin and delicate that it was
dreadful to look at it. His hair was already streaked with silver, and seeing
his emaciated, aged-looking face, no one would have believed that he was only
forty. He was asleep. . . . In front of his bowed head there lay on the table a
sheet of paper on which there was something written in fine handwriting.
"Poor creature!" thought the banker, "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 a violent death. But let us
first read what he has written here. . . ."
"To-morrow 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 mountain-tops with gold and crimson. I have watched from there the
lightning flashing over my head and cleaving the storm-clouds. I have seen
green forests, fields, rivers, lakes, 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 now I despise. To deprive myself of the right to the money I shall go out
from here five hours before the time fixed, and so break the compact. . .
."
When the banker had read this he laid the page on the
table, kissed the strange man on the head, and went out of the lodge, weeping.
At no other time, even when he had lost heavily on the Stock Exchange, had he
felt so great a contempt for himself. When he got home he lay on his bed, but
his tears and emotion kept him for hours from sleeping.
Next morning the watchmen ran in with pale faces, and
told him they had seen the man who lived in the lodge climb out of the window
into the garden, go to the gate, and disappear. The banker went at once with
the servants to the lodge and made sure of the flight of his prisoner. To avoid
arousing unnecessary talk, he took from the table the writing in which the
millions were renounced, and when he got home locked it up in the fireproof
safe.
The Bet is an 1889 short
story by Anton Chekhov about a banker and a young lawyer who
make a bet with each other about whether thedeath penalty is better or worse than life in prison.
The story has a twist ending.
“The Bet” is the story of a bet
that stakes a banker's two million rubles against fifteen years of a young
lawyer's life. As the story opens, the banker is recalling the occasion of the
bet fifteen years before. Guests at a party that he was hosting that day fell
into a discussion of capital punishment; the banker argued that capital
punishment is more humane than life imprisonment, while the young lawyer
disagreed, insisting that he would choose life in prison rather than death the
bet was on and the lawyer cast himself into isolation for fifteen years.
The list of things the Lawyer did
while imprisoned each year: Year 1: Read entertaining books, played the piano
Years 2–4: Read the classics; no piano Year 5: Read no books, drank wine, ate,
listened to music, cried, and often wrote but tore everything up by morning. Years
6–9: Read 600 volumes, studied language, philosophy, history Years 10–13: Read
the Gospel, theology, histories of religion Years 14–15: Reads a variety of
things: Shakespeare, Byron, books on chemistry, medicine, natural sciences,
philosophy, theology; also, a novel
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