The Bet
Revisiting a short story by Anton Chekov
As a young student, I spent most of my time reading what I liked and going on random side quests that led nowhere. Exasperated by my lack of willingness to be a well-directed pupil and hoping to put an end to my shenanigans, my father asked me to read The Bet by Anton Chekov. "You are just like the young lawyer in the story," he told me.
My father had not asked me to read anything besides textbooks, so I took this task seriously. In the year leading up to this monumental event, He had made the habit of buying classics and stacking them in his office shelf. It now held a curious mix of Russian literature, Ayn Rand, and the Eastern philosophy of JK Krishnamurthi. I never saw him read anything other than Dan Brown and John Grisham, so I imagine the classics collection was built for this father-son moment. In the four-by-four shelf in his office I found a pristine copy of a short story collection by Chekov, and sure enough somewhere down in the contents was The Bet.
While I flipped the pages, I realized that this is what a classic Campbellian call to adventure looks like. It was Gandalf asking Frodo to carry the ring into Mordor. The Terminator telling John Connor that he is the future leader of civilization.
The Bet begins at a party, which threw me off a bit because my family notoriously avoided doing anything that mirthful. The guests at the party are furiously debating the death penalty. A group of them argue that the death penalty should be replaced by imprisonment for life. A banker, who will form one side of the wager, argues that the death penalty is more humane than imprisonment for life. "Capital punishment kills a man at once, but lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly," he says. Among the guests is a young lawyer who responds that both punishments are immoral, but if he had to choose, he would choose life imprisonment because "To live anyhow is better than not at all."
Hearing this, the banker, who's rich from his recent crypto investments, gets excited and challenges the young lawyer to a wager, "I'll bet you two million you wouldn't stay in solitary confinement for five years."
The young lawyer, a tad bit too earnest says that he would take the bet and stay for fifteen years instead of five. "Done", says the banker.
So, the bet begins. The young lawyer is locked up under strict supervision in a lodge in the banker's garden. He is allowed to have a musical instrument and books, and allowed to write letters, drink wine, and smoke. The only relation he could have with the outer world is by a little window.
The story then takes a predictable turn, even for 13-year-old me. The lawyer spends his years learning a new instrument and reading books. In year five, he does nothing but drink wine, eat, and mutter angry words. He learns six languages. Meanwhile, the bankers' crypto investments are not doing well. The banker has to sell his Lamborghini. He regrets the bet. From years 10-15, the lawyer reads nothing other than the gospel and religious texts. The banker is now nearly broke and does not have the money to keep up his side of the wager. On the last night before the young lawyer is able to walk free and win the bet, the banker decides to kill him.
Inside the lodge, the banker finds the poor lawyer asleep, and just as he is about to commit murder, he finds a note on the table, which goes as follows:
"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 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 ..."
On the next day, the watchman reports that he saw the man in the lodge climb out the window, walk to the gate and disappear. The first time I read the story, I've to say, I felt rather proud. I comprehended that the young lawyer gave up the 2 million because he had grown wiser and given up earthly possessions. "If only I was like the young lawyer," I thought to myself, and wondered why my father did not get it - why did he see the young lawyer as a delinquent?
I read the story again after several years and now I understand that, for my father, who was born into a poor family, walking away from money is the most ungracious response a man can have after having gone through adversity. As far as he was concerned, money is the only thing that makes any adversity worthwhile. You went to school because there was a good job and money at the end of it all. My father could not quite comprehend that he was able to provide enough for his family and owing to that, his son could learn for pleasure.
