The Bet, by Anton Chekhov.
Narrated by Kenneth D'Silva.
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considered that form of punishment out of
date, immoral, and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 fiveand-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 million 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."
"Fifteen?
Done!" cried the banker.
"Gentlemen, I stake two
million!"
"Agreed!
You stake your millions and I stake my freedom!"
said the young man.
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 million 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."
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 million?
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 the two
million.
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.
The old banker remembered all this, and thought:
"To-morrow at twelve o'clock he will regain
his freedom.
By
our agreement I ought to pay him two million.
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 halfdead 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 ... "
The banker took the page from the table and
read as follows:
"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 stormclouds.
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 million 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.
