Liberian Literary Magazine
Promoting Liberian literature, Arts and Culture
"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 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
The Bet [Short Story 4]:
[Few writers master the Short Story as Anton]
by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904)
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."
"Fifteen? Done!" cried the banker. "Gentlemen, I
stake two millions!"
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