The bet
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The following is the short story The Bet by Anton Chekhov presented by Listen to genius dot com Narrated by Chris Ryan 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. 15 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, unfit ID to a Christian ST and immoral. Some of them thought that capital punishment should be replaced universally by life imprisonment. I don't agree with you, said the host. I myself have experienced neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment. But if 1 may judge a Priore, I then in my opinion, capital punishment is Maur 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 years? 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 25. 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 is better to live somehow, then not to live at all. 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 million's you wouldn't stick in a cell, even for five years if you mean it seriously, replied the lawyer, Then I bet I'll stay. Not five but 15 15. Don cried The banker gentlemen, I stake to millions, agreed. You stake two million's 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 Rome, before it's too late to 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 will 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 15 years of his life and I throw away two million's. 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 of a well fed man on the lawyers, 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 especially 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 my nudist details, which made the confinement strictly solitary, and it obliged the lawyer to remain exactly 15 years from 12 o'clock of November 14th 18 70 to 12 o'clock of November 14th 18 85 the least 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 million's 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 spoils the air in his room. During the first year, the lawyer was sent books of a light character novels with the 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 50 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 600 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 Bankers Order later on, after the 10th year, the lawyer said, immovable before his table and read only the New Testament. The banker found it strange that a man who in four years had mastered 600 area tight 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 be sent at the same time. Ah, book on chemistry, a textbook of medicine, a novel and some treatise on philosophy or theology. 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 12 o'clock, he receives his freedom. Under the agreement, I shall have to pay him two million's. If I pay, it's all over with me. I am ruined forever. 15 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 curse it bet, murmured the old man, clutching his head in despair. Why didn't the man die? He's only 40 years old. He will take away my last farthing, Mary. Enjoy life, gamble on the exchange, and I will look on liken, 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 15 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. Is there someone's bed with no bed. Clothes on 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 and his hands were visible. Open books were strewn about on the table. The two chairs and on the carpet near the table five minutes past, and the prisoner never once stirred 15 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 tour the seals from the door and put the key into the lock. The rusty lock gave a horse grown and the door creaked. The banker expected instantly to hear a cry of surprise and the sound of steps three minutes past, and it was as quiet inside as it had been before. He made up his mind to enter before the table set a man unlike an ordinary human being. It was a skeleton with tight, drawn skin with long, curly hair like a woman's on a shaggy beard. The color of his face was yellow oven, 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 silvery ing with gray, and no one who glanced at the senile Emaciation of the face would have believed that he was only 40 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. Tomorrow, at 12 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 15 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 L. Bruce and Mont Blanc and saw from there how the sun rose in the morning and in the evening suffused the sky, the ocean and lie mountain ridges with a purple gold. I saw from there how above me lightning's 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 abyss. Is worked miracles, burn cities to the ground, preached new religions, conquered whole countries. Your books gave me wisdom. All that a kn wearying human thought created in the centuries is compressed to a little lump in my skull. I know that I am cleverer than you all, and I despise your books, despise all worldly blessings and wisdom. Everything is void. Frail visionary and elusive has 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 indeed my contempt for that by which you live. I waive the two million's 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 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, climbed through the window into the garden. He had gone to the gate and disappeared. The banker instantly went with his servants to the wing on 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. This is Chris Ryan for listen to genius dot com. Thank you for listening. This audio program is copyrighted by Redwood Audiobooks. 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