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The Bet
medical professional), and “The Darling.” Chekhov wrote during
INTR
INTRODUCTION
ODUCTION the period of Russian Realism, a movement that centered
human psychology, philosophical thought, and dark takes on
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF ANTON CHEKHOV human nature. Other major works of Russian Realism include
Anton Chekhov was born to a large family in Taganrog, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and The Brothers
southern Russia. His parents were struggling grocers and, Karamazov, and Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Anna Karenina.
while his mother was kind, his father was often abusive. When
the family fled to Moscow in 1876 because the father faced
KEY FACTS
debtors’ prison, Anton stayed behind and finished his schooling.
In 1879, he moved to Moscow and completed his degree in • Full Title: The Bet
medicine. He proceeded to work as a doctor for most of his • When Published: January 14, 1889
literary career, writing short stories and plays in his free time to • Literary Period: Russian Realism
pay for tuition and to support his family, for whom he was now
• Genre: Short story
the sole breadwinner. At 28, he won the Pushkin Prize, marking
a major stepping stone in his career. In later years, he lived on a • Setting: Russia
farm where he treated local peasants and dedicated his • Climax: The banker sneaks into the lawyer’s room to kill him
dwindling energy towards tending to his farmland. Though a only to discover the letter he has written renouncing his
longtime bachelor, he finally married Olga Knipper in 1901. He right to his winnings.
contracted tuberculosis as a young man, and it eventually • Antagonist: The banker
claimed his life in 1904. At the time of his death, he had • Point of View: Third person limited
authored sixteen plays, a novel, five novellas, countless letters,
and over 200 short stories. He is cited as one of the most EXTRA CREDIT
respected short-story writers and history and is one of the
most frequently adapted authors of all time. Wasting Away. Chekhov lived with and was affected by
tuberculosis for twenty years. The question of whether a slow
or a long, painful, drawn-out death was crueler must have
HISTORICAL CONTEXT plagued him every day, as it does the characters in “The Bet.”
Chekhov was writing at a time of political turmoil in Russia. Tsar
Alexander II, who had ruled throughout Chekhov’s childhood, Adaptation. Many of Chekhov’s plays have been adapted into
had implemented reformist policies in education and films, including The Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry
government, the most important being his elimination of Orchard, and The Seagull
Seagull.
serfdom. Upon his assassination by revolutionaries in 1881,
however, the Tsar was replaced by his son Alexander III, who
attempted to undo most of his father’s progressive work. He PL
PLO
OT SUMMARY
strengthened the security police, brought back religious
censorship, enforced the teaching of the Russian languages in On a dark autumn night, the banker paces in his study and
schools, weakened the universities, and persecuted non- recalls a party he hosted fifteen years before. In a flashback, he
Russians within the Empire, especially Jews. Chekhov, as a and several of his guests, many of whom are journalists and
noted intellectual, would have been troubled by the new scholars, discuss whether capital punishment is more moral and
regime and its anti-modern nature. Though much of his early humane than life imprisonment. While many, including the
work was silly and parodic, it became much more serious in banker, assert that imprisonment is crueler because it kills by
nature as time went on, and “The Bet” is one of his densest degrees rather than instantaneously, a young lawyer argues
works. that life imprisonment is preferable because it is better to live
somehow than not at all.
RELATED LITERARY WORKS The banker challenges him to be imprisoned in a cell for five
Chekhov is considered one of the greatest short story writers years, and, not to be outdone, the lawyer insists he could do it
in history, as oft-mentioned as Ernest Hemingway, Flannery for fifteen. The wealthy banker stakes two million rubles in
O’Connor, Edgar Allan Poe, O. Henry, and Franz Kafka. Among exchange for the lawyer’s freedom. The banker goads then the
his most famous stories are “The Lady with the Dog,” “The Man lawyer over dinner, telling him to back out while he still can,
in a Case,” “Ward No. 6” (which drew on his experience as a because three or four years of the lawyer’s life (surely, the

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banker assumes, he will not stick it out any longer than that) is
more valuable than money that the banker can easily afford to CHARA
CHARACTERS
CTERS
lose. He also reminds the lawyer that voluntary imprisonment
The Bank
Banker
er – Young, wealthy, and fairly reckless at the
will be much harder psychologically than that which has been
beginning of the story, the banker insists that death is
enforced.
preferable to life imprisonment and is the one who initially
The following evening, the lawyer is imprisoned in a garden makes the titular bet with the lawyer. In his later years, his luck
wing of the banker’s house. He is forbidden to leave, to interact has faltered and his wealth dwindled, transforming him into a
with anyone or even hear human voices, or to receive letters or desperate man. Like the everyday people that the lawyer grows
newspapers. He is allowed to write letters, read books, play the to despise, the banker is ruled by his need to maintain his
piano, drink, and smoke. As the years go by, the lawyer wealth no matter the cost. He decides to kill the lawyer the
negotiates different stages of coping with what is essentially night before the bet is completed because he fears that the
solitary confinement. At first, he is terribly lonely and bored, lawyer will become rich and successful with his money while he
playing the piano, rejecting wine and tobacco, and reading only himself becomes a beggar. Upon finding the lawyer’s note and
novels “of a light character.” Then, in the second year of his discovering what he has been through physically and
imprisonment, he reads only classics. By the fifth year, he has psychologically, however, the banker is racked with guilt and
stopped playing music and refuses to read. He writes letters self-hatred for making the bet in the first place. Nevertheless,
but tears them up, often weeping, and often drinks and smokes. he ultimately decides to protect himself from possible
Next, he voraciously studies philosophy and languages, retribution on the part of the lawyer by hiding the letter in his
becoming an expert on several. Then he reads the New safe. A complex character, the banker reveals both undesirable
Testament, and, finally, in the last two years reads randomly, truths and redeemable realities of the human condition.
selecting everything from Shakespeare to the natural sciences.
The La
Lawy
wyerer – Just 25 years old when he attends the banker’s
The day before the lawyer is to be released, the banker is party at the beginning of the story, the lawyer initially asserts
desperate–his fortunes have completely reversed, and he is that life-imprisonment is far preferable to capital punishment.
now so deeply in debt that he cannot afford to pay the lawyer He proves as reckless as the banker in agreeing to the bet and
the two million rubles. The banker decides the only solution is foolish in lengthening his sentence for the sake of some
to kill the lawyer. He sneaks out to the garden, where it is misplaced pride. Unlike the banker, however, he is not
pouring rain, and deduces that the watchman is gone from his responsible for anyone’s safety but his own. He evolves as the
post because of the weather. He sneaks into the lawyer’s room years go by in his cell, eventually committing to reading as
and discovers the man asleep, completely emaciated and sickly much as he can and sharpening his mind. By the end of his
thanks to his imprisonment, aged far beyond his forty years, 15-year term he is a completely changed man—extremely
and seeming like a “half-dead thing.” learned yet completely dismissive of all earthly things, insisting
The banker reads the note the lawyer has written and left on that they are misleading mirages that blind human beings to the
the table, which is a long treatise that declares how he despises transience of life. He is resentful of others and sees himself as
“freedom, life, health and all that your books call the blessings above those who have “bartered heaven for earth”—that is, who
of the world.” He has learned a staggering amount from all that are living in sin. The banker notes that the lawyer is so
he has read, and feels he has traveled all over the world, seen emaciated by the end of his sentence that he is hard to look at,
beautiful things, been with beautiful women, learned about the prematurely aged, and appears ill. This outward appearance
wonders of nature, and become immensely clever. He finds all contrasts with the lawyer’s own belief that he has bettered
of that meaningless, however, because it is temporary, and is himself. He ultimately renounces the bet by escaping his cell
bewildered by those whom he believes “have bartered heaven just five hours before he would be awarded his winnings.
for earth.” As such, he renounces the two million rubles and The W
Watchman
atchman – The banker’s watchman is mostly absent
declares that he will leave five hours early so as to lose the bet. from the narrative, but he is there to make sure the lawyer
The banker begins to weep and kisses the sleeping lawyer on doesn’t escape. When the banker goes to sneak into the garden
the head, wracked with contempt for himself. The next morning, wing late at night before the bet is set to end, the watchman
the watchman informs him that the lawyer has escaped. The has presumably taken shelter from the bad weather and fallen
banker goes to the garden wing to confirm the departure. He asleep. Later, he runs to tell the banker that the lawyer climbed
takes the note “to avoid unnecessary rumors” and locks it in his through the window and escaped.
safe.

THEMES
In LitCharts literature guides, each theme gets its own color-

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coded icon. These icons make it easy to track where the themes for on Earth—pleasure, love, knowledge, wisdom, everything—is
occur most prominently throughout the work. If you don't have worthless, and that only heaven holds value. To show this belief,
a color printer, you can still use the icons to track themes in the lawyer renounces the two million dollars he is owed and
black and white. sneaks away hours before he is to be released.
What, then, to make of this ending? It seems that neither
THE MEANING OF LIFE character—nor their original ideas about the meaning of
Anton Chekhov’s “The Bet” sets up a seemingly life—have been entirely borne out. The banker’s belief in
simple bet about the nature and value of life. The worldly pleasures and experience has led him to misery (and
banker, who believes that the death penalty is more likely would have led him to murder, had he not discovered the
humane and moral than life imprisonment, argues that lawyer’s plan to renounce the money). The lawyer, meanwhile,
experiences, pleasures, and relationships are what make life abandons his belief in one’s ability to make life worthwhile
worth living. A life spent imprisoned, according to him, is thus through engagement with the knowledge, art, and wisdom of
essentially not a life at all: it is instead a slow, constant death. In humanity, and instead proclaims that only heaven has any
contrast, the young lawyer argues that “to live anyhow is better meaning. That “The Bet” ends on such a note leaves a new
than not at all”—that being alive, in and of itself, is better than to debate in the hands of the reader to ponder: a debate not
die. Implied in the young lawyer’s argument is the belief that if about what the meaning of life is, but whether life has meaning
one is physically alive, one can make life worth living regardless at all.
of its conditions. When the two men agree that if the lawyer
can endure imprisonment for fifteen years then the banker will GREED, CORRUPTION, AND IDEALISM
give him a large sum of money, it is these stakes that they However ambiguous “The Bet” may be regarding
believe the bet is about. Though the banker technically wins the the ultimate meaning of life, it is clear in its
bet, Chekhov ultimately leaves the answer to his initial rejection of material wealth. The lawyer is willing to
question—that is, whether life has inherent value—ambiguous. give up his freedom and remain in solitary confinement for two
As the terms of the bet play out, the lawyer initially appears to million rubles, while the wealthy banker throws his wealth
be “winning.” He reads literature, philosophy, history, theology, around haphazardly to manipulate the banker into a cruel bet
and the Gospels. Certainly the young lawyer struggles—at and later participates in financial recklessness that almost ruins
times he is described as lying all day on his bed or talking him, leaving him willing to do anything—including murder—to
angrily to himself—but there are also moments of genuine maintain his status. While the banker is more profoundly
elation, such as when he describes his “unearthly happiness” at affected by wealth than the lawyer (who ultimately renounces
having learned numerous languages and therefore getting even the money the banker owes him from the bet), Chekhov is
more access to the accumulated thought of “the geniuses of all suggesting that money and wealth are inherently corrupting
ages and of all lands.” What’s more, day by day, the lawyer lives influences.
out his fifteen years of imprisonment without ever trying to In the immediate aftermath of the bet, Chekhov states: “The
escape. banker, spoilt and frivolous, with millions beyond his reckoning,
Meanwhile, the banker, who all this time has been free, is was delighted at the bet.” The money leveraged clearly means
miserable. He spends recklessly on earthly pleasures and plays very little to the banker because he has so much to spare. The
the stock market poorly, and the luck of his early life has fizzled story suggests, then, that what seems like the banker’s attempt
by the time the fifteen-year mark approaches. His millions to assert a moral conviction is actually just a stance he takes for
having dwindled, the money he’ll owe if he loses the bet might his own enjoyment—and it is specifically his wealth that allows
ruin him. As such, he takes steps to murder the lawyer in order him such reckless frivolity. Fifteen years later, the banker seems
to invalidate the bet. Though the banker had initially appeared to acknowledge as much, calling the bet “the caprice of a
to value life over rubles—telling the lawyer not to give up his pampered man” and rejecting its ability to add genuine insight
best years for the promise of a later fortune—he changes his into the debate that spurred it: “What is the good of that man's
mind in the face of financial ruin. losing fifteen years of his life and my throwing away two
Despite his complete isolation, the lawyer comes to understand million?” he asks himself. “Can it prove that the death penalty is
the fleeting nature of pleasure that the banker has experienced better or worse than imprisonment for life? No, no. It was all
first-hand in the outside world. In the letter that he writes on nonsensical and meaningless.”
the final night of his imprisonment, the lawyer reveals all of the Even as excess wealth in the story engenders irresponsible and
experiences and wisdom that he has gained through his reading capricious behavior, the desire for more money breeds
during the prior fifteen years—and then declares all of it to be inarguable moral decay. The banker’s “desperate gambling on
“worthless, fleeting, illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage” in the the Stock Exchange” and “wild speculation” ultimately lead “to
face of death. He claims that everything that humankind lives the decline of his fortune,” transforming the “the proud,

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fearless, self-confident millionaire” into “a banker of middling lawyer is denied. This, combined with the lawyer’s ultimate
rank, trembling at every rise and fall in his investments.” With renunciation of all worldly society even after his imprisonment
the lawyer poised to win the bet, the banker fears being pushed ends, raises the question as to whether anyone is ever actually
into the life of an envious beggar. The idea of no longer being free—or simply trapped in a prison of society’s making.
rich is so offensive to the banker that he decides the only Throughout his solitary confinement the lawyer plays music,
solution is to kill the lawyer. Any respect he earlier professed reads books on subjects across all realms of human knowledge,
for the sanctity of life has been subsumed by his greed. drinks wine, smokes cigarettes, and so on. The lawyer not only
The banker’s corruption also makes him see those around him endures his imprisonment, but at times he even seems to
as corrupt, too. For example, as the banker admits to his own thrive—much to the banker’s dismay, it becomes clear that the
lack of ideals in making the bet, he also assumes that the lawyer lawyer will win the bet. Imprisonment, the story seems to
similarly made the best out of “simple greed for money.” Of suggest, can’t snuff out a purposeful life, and perhaps that a life
course, the story never actually makes clear whether the that lacks purpose, such as the banker’s, is the actual prison.
lawyer made the bet out of true idealism or because, as the The final twist of the story changes this understanding
banker believes, he just wanted the two million. Regardless, the completely, however. After the banker decides he must win the
lawyer proves profoundly hostile toward money by the story’s bet and sneaks into the prison-house to kill the lawyer, he finds
end. In his final letter, revealed when the banker sneaks into his the lawyer’s final letter. In the letter, the lawyer renounces the
prison to murder him, the lawyer renounces the money as part terms of the bet and gives up his winnings, on the grounds that
of proclaiming the worthlessness of all worldly things. Wealth, he has come to realize during his imprisonment that everything
in his mind, is utterly incompatible with moral authority. he valued, and everything most people value—from money, to
After reading the letter, the banker’s reaction, in which he art, to wisdom, to love—is meaningless in the face of death, and
kisses the lawyer on the head, does not kill him, and then feels that only heaven holds any worth.
such contempt for himself that he can’t sleep, shows the power Put another way, while earlier in the story it seemed possible to
of such true ideals. That the lawyer’s letter has thrust the see the banker’s immoral life as a prison and the lawyer’s
banker’s corruption into such stark relief, suggests that, just as imprisoned life as free, what the lawyer here argues is that all
greed and wealth invariably corrupt, idealism and ascetism life is a prison: that anything worldly that people pursue,
heal. And yet the story doesn’t end there: the lawyer then whether immoral or noble, is a prison that blinds them to the
sneaks off and disappears, and the banker puts the letter into truth of what matters (that is, heaven). The banker responds by
his safe so that no one will ever see it. The story, then, shows feeling personal shame and sparing the lawyer’s life, but also by
both the power of true idealism and seems to suggest that such locking the lawyer’s letter away. This suggests that this prison,
idealism can’t actually find a way to exist in the real world, which holds all of humanity, is voluntary—any person could
dictated as it so often is by monetary concerns and an read the lawyer’s message and reject the prison of life, but
association of success with financial well-being. Those who feel instead nearly every person instead chooses to live an
true idealism, like the lawyer, feel the need to remove imprisoned life.
themselves from society. And those who experience idealism in
others may be briefly affected by it, but they soon hide that
away in the face of other more pragmatic, more corrupt
CHRISTIANITY
concerns. The initial debate between the banker and the
lawyer about the death penalty is explicitly
IMPRISONMENT AND FREEDOM grounded in Christian morality. In fact, everyone at
the banker’s party is presented as having the same general view
“The Bet” creates a situation in which a young of the death penalty: “They considered that form of
lawyer, as part of a bet, is voluntarily imprisoned in punishment out of date, immoral, and unsuitable for Christian
solitary confinement for fifteen years. The bet itself States.” Though the story doesn’t much mention religion again,
is spurred by a debate about the nature of imprisonment: the a closer look at the ending reveals that the “The Bet” has a
lawyer believes that life is still worth living even when one is deeper interaction with Christianity than might first appear.
completely isolated, while the bet’s other party, the banker, For one thing, when the banker sees the lawyer for the first
holds that imprisonment, and the resultant loss of contact with time in fifteen years, Chekhov describes the lawyer as
the world, robs life of any value or meaning. The lawyer’s Christlike in ways both general (“a man unlike ordinary people”)
survival of the subsequent fifteen years initially seems to and specific (“with long curls,” a “shaggy beard,” “his back long
suggest that he is right—that a life of strictly regulated isolation and narrow,” and so on). Second, the lawyer’s final letter reveals
is better than no life at all. Meanwhile, the banker flounders his ultimate rejection of all earthly things—not simply the
despite his freedom, losing both his fortune and moral compass money he is owed from the bet, but also love, art, knowledge,
during the fifteen years he engages with a world that the and wisdom, all of which, he says, are like dust in comparison to

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heaven. The lawyer thus emerges from fifteen years of are “light,” selected to pass the time. He later asks for more
imprisonment with a radical religious message that is, in fact, substantial literature, which ultimately frustrates him to the
not that different from radical interpretations of Christ’s point that he stops reading entirely. When he eventually
message about the relative merits of this world and the next. returns to reading, he focuses on philosophy, history,
Of course, that is not the end of the story’s exploration of languages, and, finally, the Bible. Although he becomes learned
Christianity. Although the banker has decided to kill the lawyer over his fifteen years in captivity, he never acquires actual lived
to avoid losing the bet, he is moved by the lawyer’s message experience, and in a way, he remains just as naïve and innocent
and he feels contempt for himself. He’s not moved enough to of the ways of the world as he was in the beginning of the story,
truly respect the lawyer’s teachings, however: when the lawyer still willing to speak authoritatively about things of which he
sneaks away in the night and disappears, the banker locks the has no experience (which is what got him into the bet in the first
lawyer letter explaining his newfound wisdom in the safe to place). In a way, then, he has learned nothing. He claims to be
avoid “unnecessary talk.” The wicked banker, in other words “cleverer than [them] all” by the end, and he surely has acquired
fails to spread the lawyer’s message, while the lawyer himself, wisdom, but the books represent a naïve understanding of the
now a radical prophet, also disappears, taking his gospel with world that is devoid of wisdom gained through experience.
him.
It's important to note that, though the lawyer reflects a certain QUO
QUOTES
TES
religious asceticism (that is, the abstention from pleasure in the
pursuit of spirituality), he also proves pessimistic and self- Note: all page numbers for the quotes below refer to the Green
serving. The lawyer is plagued by hatred and derision towards Bird edition of The Bet and Other Stories published in 2017.
regular people who engage with earthly life. He claims that
earthly things, even natural beauty and hard-earned wisdom, Part 1 Quotes
are all irrelevant, silly, and false because of their ephemeral
nature. For all of his reading and moralizing, he fails to embody “I myself have experienced neither capital punishment nor
the kindness and love that Christ preached. His dismissal of “all life imprisonment, but if one may judge a priori, then in my
worldly blessings and wisdom,” as well as his physically decrepit opinion capital punishment is more moral and more humane
nature, indicate a perversion of religious enlightenment. than imprisonment. Execution kills instantly, life-imprisonment
kills by degrees. Who is the more humane executioner, one who
The story, then, seems to suggest that the original debate about
kills you in a few seconds or one who draws the life out of you
Christian morals among the well-off intellectuals at the party
incessantly, for years?"
was a kind of sham, a conversation among people who haven’t
truly devoted themselves to the morals they purport to respect
above all others. This is made even clearer by their belief in the Related Characters: The Banker (speaker), The Lawyer
merits of intellectualism and their enjoyment of their status
and money (all of which the lawyer renounces when he Related Themes:
becomes a Christ figure). And with the lawyer’s disappearance
into the night, and the disappearance of his message into the Page Number: 4
banker’s safe, the story suggests that it will always be this way: Explanation and Analysis
that the radical messages of religion, and Christianity in
particular, will never truly come to hold sway in the world, but In this quote, the banker is explaining his stance in the
rather will always end up obscured and co-opted by society. debate over whether capital punishment or life
imprisonment is more humane. The banker believes that to
live in prison is to die slowly, and it is difficult or impossible
SYMBOLS to live a meaningful life without freedom. There is some
morality in a quick and painless death, he asserts, which (for
Symbols appear in teal text throughout the Summary and him) makes capital punishment less cruel than life
Analysis sections of this LitChart. imprisonment. Notably, he also thinks that the State has the
right to take away life, which the lawyer does not.

BOOKS Like the lawyer, the banker speaks a priori, which is Latin for
“without lived experience.” This establishes a kind of
The books that the lawyer reads symbolize his ignorance towards the reality of imprisonment that
mental state and philosophical outlook, as his everyone at the party shares even as they express opinions
reading choices track his evolving views on the nature and on the topic. This will contrast with a later scene after
value of human life. When he initially agrees to the bet, the
lawyer is young and callow, and as such the first books he reads

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fifteen years have passed, when both the banker and the On the eve of the lawyer’s release, the banker grows
lawyer have acquired different kinds of wisdom. distraught and reflects on the foolishness of the bet. He
realizes now that he never stood to gain anything in the first
place, and will likely lose a substantial amount of money. The
lawyer, meanwhile, has lost fifteen years of his life,
"Capital punishment and life-imprisonment are equally
immoral; but if I were offered the choice between them, I something that can never be repaid. Here the banker admits
would certainly choose the second. It's better to live somehow to himself that, for his part, the bet was never about his
moral conviction, but rather something he did for his own
than not to live at all."
enjoyment. That his fortune allowed him such frivolity
underscores the corrupting nature of wealth. Though the
Related Characters: The Lawyer (speaker), The Banker banker asserts that the lawyer, like himself, was initially
fueled by greed, this is never confirmed by the story. The
Related Themes: lawyer may, in fact, have undertaken the bet out of a
genuine desire to prove his belief in the inherent value of
Page Number: 4
life. Regardless, it appears here that the banker’s own
Explanation and Analysis corruption pushes him to view everyone around him as
corrupt as well.
In this moment the lawyer offers his perspective on the
debate over the morality of capital punishment. Unlike the
banker, who believes the death penalty to be a form of
mercy, the lawyer believes that it would be immoral for the During the last two years of his confinement the prisoner
State to take away life in any form. The lawyer judges that read an extraordinary amount, quite haphazard. Now he
life imprisonment would be preferable to capital would apply himself to the natural sciences, then he would read
punishment simply because it is not death; for him, the value Byron or Shakespeare … He read as though he were swimming
of life is simple—that one has it. This moment, then, cuts to in the sea among broken pieces of wreckage, and in his desire
the deeper issue at the heart of the debate: it is not simply to save his life was eagerly grasping one piece after another.
about the morality of imprisonment, but whether life has
any inherent meaning at all. The lawyer’s stance, of course, Related Characters: The Lawyer
soon puts him in a dangerous position when he attempts to
make a wager with the banker, because he has declared that Related Themes:
as long as one is alive, any kind of hypothetical suffering
short of death is acceptable. Though the banker’s age is not Related Symbols:
specified, the lawyer is said to be only twenty-five years old
and is frequently referred to as “young.” His naïveté and Page Number: 7
inexperience contribute to his foolhardy bet.
Explanation and Analysis
Before the bet, the lawyer had professed the belief that life
"Why did I make this bet? What's the good? The lawyer is worth living no matter the circumstances, and he quickly
loses fifteen years of his life and I throw away two million. resolved to educate himself while he is imprisoned—that is,
Will it convince people that capital punishment is worse or to use his time wisely. His last two years’ worth of books,
better than imprisonment for life? No, no! all stuff and rubbish. however, reveal a drastic shift in these beliefs. He has
On my part, it was the caprice of a well-fed man; on the lawyer's obtained a great deal of knowledge over the past thirteen
pure greed of gold." years, yet the desperation evident in this passage shows him
to be at his wits’ end. His indiscriminate choice of books
suggests the lawyer’s struggle to maintain any sense of
Related Characters: The Banker (speaker), The Lawyer purpose that would make his life worth living. He appears to
be “eagerly grasping” for meaning, and failing to find what
Related Themes:
he is looking for.
Page Number: 5

Explanation and Analysis

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Part 2 Quotes
the lawyer after fifteen years, when he sneaks into his cell to
“He will take away my last farthing, marry, enjoy life, kill him. The lawyer has changed immensely from a callow
gamble on the Exchange, and I will look on like an envious twenty-five-year-old to a prematurely aged, extremely
beggar and hear the same words from him every day: 'I'm sickly-looking person. The use of “skeleton,” “it,” and phrases
obliged to you for the happiness of my life. Let me help you.' No, like “unlike an ordinary human being” create distance from
it's too much! The only escape from bankruptcy and the lawyer’s humanity. This suggests that isolation is
disgrace—is that the man should die." unnatural, and that human beings require society to
function.
Related Characters: The Banker (speaker), The Lawyer The description of the lawyer here also evokes religious
imagery, as his long curly hair and shaggy beard recall
Related Themes: images of Jesus. This suggests the lawyer is a Christ-like
figure, and indeed the banker will soon uncover the lawyer’s
Page Number: 8 gospel in the form of his final letter.
Explanation and Analysis
On the eve of the lawyer’s release, the banker, who has lost
his fortune in the intervening years, begins to fear what will “To-morrow at twelve o'clock midnight, I shall obtain my
become of him should he have to adhere to the terms of the freedom and the right to mix with people. But… [o]n my
bet and pay the lawyer the two million rubles he is owed. own clear conscience and before God who sees me I declare to
The banker cannot envision a meaningful life in poverty—for you that I despise freedom, life, health, and all that your books
him, the value of life is wealth. So repulsed is the banker at call the blessings of the world.”
the notion of being poor that he resolves to murder the
lawyer to preserve his own financial status. Chekhov is Related Characters: The Lawyer (speaker)
again suggesting the corrosive nature of excessive wealth
and greed. This moment also suggests that, though Related Themes:
ostensibly freer than the imprisoned lawyer, the
banker—and much of society—is actually in a prison of his Related Symbols:
own making, completely beholden to earthly financial
concerns. This moment, then, serves as an indictment of a Page Number: 9
materialistic, corrupt society on the whole.
Explanation and Analysis
This quote is from the lawyer’s letter that the banker reads.
“Before the table sat a man, unlike an ordinary human One might think that someone who has been imprisoned for
being. It was a skeleton, with tight-drawn skin, with long so long would eagerly anticipate their freedom and rejoice
curly hair like a woman's, and a shaggy beard. The color of his at its approach, but the lawyer speaks in a bitter tone about
face was yellow, of an earthy shade; the cheeks were sunken, his release. His rejection of “freedom, life, health” further
the back long and narrow, and the hand upon which he leaned reveals a perversion of typical values and suggests that the
his hairy head was so lean and skinny that it was painful to look lawyer has become a parody of the enlightened scholar.
upon. His hair was already silvering with grey, and no one who Despite his extensive knowledge gained from books, he
glanced at the senile emaciation of the face would have cannot appreciate the things that make human life
believed that he was only forty years old.” enjoyable. Nothing in life is meaningful to him anymore,
which is an enormous reversal of his stance in the beginning
of the story (that life is valuable no matter the
Related Characters: The Lawyer, The Banker circumstances).
Related Themes:

Page Number: 9

Explanation and Analysis

This moment describes the first time that the banker sees

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"Everything is void, frail, visionary and delusive as a
mirage. Though you be proud and wise and beautiful, yet Immediately after finishing the lawyer’s letter, the banker is
will death wipe you from the face of the earth … You are mad, overcome with emotion and breaks into tears, feeling
and gone the wrong way. You take falsehood for truth and tremendous contempt for himself. The lawyer’s letter has
ugliness for beauty... So do I marvel at you, who have bartered perhaps caused the banker to acknowledge his own
heaven for earth. I do not want to understand you.” corruption, suggesting that while greed breeds moral decay,
a certain rejection of materialism can be redemptive. Of
course, the banker may also simply be relieved that he will
Related Characters: The Lawyer (speaker), The Banker
no longer have to pay the two million rubles. Indeed, the
fleeting nature of his supposed moral redemption will soon
Related Themes:
be evidenced by the fact that he locks the letter away from
Page Number: 10 the rest of the world.

Explanation and Analysis

This is another excerpt from the lawyer’s letter, in which he “The banker instantly went with his servants to the wing
declares all earthly pleasures and knowledge illusory, and and established the escape of his prisoner. To avoid
therefore, meaningless. This reflects the story’s broader unnecessary rumors he took the paper with the renunciation
rejection of materialism and its notion that society itself is a from the table and, on his return, locked it in his safe.”
prison, but also calls into question the lawyer’s moral
authority. In his hatred for everyone and everything
Related Characters: The Lawyer, The Banker
(particularly virtues like freedom and health), the lawyer
represents a perversion of the religious ascetic who
Related Themes:
sacrifices certain normal aspects of human life for the sake
of enlightenment. His obsession with death and hatred of Page Number: 11
other people further separates him from figures like Christ,
who believe they are sacrificing themselves for the good of Explanation and Analysis
others. Though the lawyer talks about heaven and often In the final moments of the story, the banker locks the
speaks in Christian terms, he ultimately proves a parody of a lawyer’s letter away in his safe. The letter is in essence the
good Christian in his hatefulness and contempt for other lawyer’s gospel, and the banker’s hiding of it thus suggests
people. that the banker’s moral redemption was fleeting, quickly
subsumed by more pressing material concerns. This again
echoes the idea of society itself as a prison, preventing
“When he had read, the banker put the sheet on the table, people from embracing spiritual enlightenment. The
kissed the head of the strange man, and began to weep … lawyer’s idealism cannot coexist within such a corrupt
Never at any other time, not even after his terrible losses on world, and as such he removes himself from it entirely. If
the Exchange, had he felt such contempt for himself as now. one views the letter as akin to radical message of
Coming home, he lay down on his bed, but agitation and tears Christianity, then the banker’s actions also reflect the
kept him a long time from sleeping…” shallowness of his and his intellectual companions’
assertion of Christian values in the beginning of the story.
He refuses to share this new gospel with the rest of the
Related Characters: The Lawyer, The Banker
world, suggesting that such radical religious teachings will
always be co-opted and obscured by society. Finally,
Related Themes:
Chekhov creates a sense of irony through the fact that the
Page Number: 11 lawyer’s letter—an assertion of the meaninglessness of this
earthly life—is itself effectively rendered meaningless by
Explanation and Analysis the banker’s earthly concerns.

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SUMMARY AND ANAL

ANALYSIS
YSIS
The color-coded icons under each analysis entry make it easy to track where the themes occur most prominently throughout the
work. Each icon corresponds to one of the themes explained in the Themes section of this LitChart.

PART 1
On a dark autumn night, the banker paces in his study and The question of life imprisonment vs. capital punishment is really a
recalls a party he hosted fifteen years before. In a flashback, he question of morality and mercy, and one that further depends on
and several of his guests, many of whom are journalists and one’s interpretation of the inherent value of life. Chekhov’s mention
scholars, discuss whether capital punishment is more humane of a Christian state adds a religious element to the story and
than life imprisonment. Most guests disapprove of capital foreshadows the lawyer’s ultimate, near-Christlike renunciation of
punishment, claiming it is obsolete and immoral under a earthly goods and pleasures.
Christian state and should be replaced by life imprisonment.

The banker disagrees, suggesting that capital punishment is in The banker presents an opposing argument that suggests a certain
its way more moral than life imprisonment because it kills morality to the death penalty. The lawyer, meanwhile, insists on
instantaneously instead of by degrees, which is more humane. death as the ultimate punishment. The answer to the debate again
An unnamed guest remarks that they are both equally immoral, rests on whether one believes that life is inherently valuable, or if
because the State does not have the right to take away that meaning is gleaned only through engagement with the world—and,
which it cannot give back. A young lawyer then speaks up, as such, meaningless within the confines of life imprisonment.
agreeing that both punishments are equally immoral but adding
that he would prefer life imprisonment because “it’s better to
live somehow than not to live at all.”

The banker loses his temper, bangs his fist on the table, and Both the banker and the lawyer prove themselves haughty and
makes a bet with the lawyer for two million rubles that he inexperienced, so eager to prove their own points that they raise the
couldn’t stay in a cell for five years. The lawyer, equally roused, stakes of the bet to the point of absurdity. This lends the story a
raises the stakes to fifteen years. The bet is solidified in front of fable-like quality (Chekhov in fact originally titled it “Fairytale”).
numerous witnesses.

The banker further goads the lawyer over dinner, telling him to The banker values years of life over money at this point in the story;
back out before it is too late. He points out that the lawyer of course, as an already wealthy man, he does not yet understand
would be losing “three or four of the best years of [his] life,” the allure of money for someone in poverty. The lawyer, meanwhile,
though no more because he would surely not be able to stay agrees to give up years of life with the promise of later fortune. Both
any longer than that. He also reminds the lawyer that voluntary instances suggest the corrupting nature of money.
rather than enforced imprisonment is much harder
psychologically.

Back in the present, the banker bemoans his decision to make The banker’s lament suggests how far his fortunes have fallen in the
this bet, because nothing has been gained: the lawyer has lost intervening years. It also reflects the story’s own ambiguity as to
fifteen years of his life, it looks like the banker will lose two whether life is inherently meaningful.
million rubles, and no one will have gained any knowledge as to
whether capital punishment or life imprisonment is preferable.

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Fifteen years previously, the lawyer is put under strict The terms laid out for the lawyer during his imprisonment dictate
observation in a garden wing of the banker’s house. He is how he will live for the next fifteen years, limiting his access to the
forbidden to leave, to interact with anyone or hear human parts of life that, for most people, make living worthwhile. Such
voices, or to receive letters or newspapers. He is allowed to restrictive rules set the stage for the story’s meditation on whether
write letters, read books, play the piano, drink wine, and smoke life has meaning without earthly pleasures or human interaction.
tobacco. He can also send notes through a little window, asking
for things like books or wines. Any attempt to escape means the
banker will not have to pay the two million rubles.

At first, the lawyer struggles to adjust to the loneliness and The dismissive description of the lawyer’s initial reading list as being
boredom of his captivity. He plays piano all day and night, reads “of a light character” suggests that such books are a waste of time, in
books “of a light character” to pass the time, and rejects wine contrast with the lawyer’s later pursuit of wisdom and knowledge.
and tobacco, fearing the former would excite desires he cannot The lawyer’s renunciation of pleasurable things like wine,
fulfill while the latter would spoil the air in his room. meanwhile, suggests the danger of temptation, or desiring what one
does not have—ironically, exactly what the lawyer has done in his
pursuit of future riches.

In the second year, the lawyer stops playing piano and starts The lawyer remains miserable and unfulfilled, weeping and resorting
reading classic books. By the fifth year, he is playing music to the alcohol he previously denied himself—underscoring the toll
again and asking for wine. That year, he often simply lays imprisonment is taking on his psyche and calling into question his
around. He does not read, and though he writes occasionally he initial assertion of the inherent value of life.
tears it up and often weeps.

In the sixth year, the lawyer begins to zealously study The lawyer finds moments of happiness as he devotes himself to
languages, philosophy, and history, reading more books than acquiring knowledge about the from which world he has been
can easily be brought to him. He writes a letter to the banker in separated. The learning of languages in particular suggests a desire
six languages and expresses joy at being able to understand the to engage with the world beyond his cell, yet he has no one to speak
geniuses of the world. In the letter, he also asks the banker to with.
fire a gun in the garden if there are no mistakes found in his
translations, which the banker does.

In the tenth year, the lawyer reads only the New Testament. In The suggestion that the lawyer is “at sea” and attempting to save his
the next two years, he reads haphazardly and randomly, own life indicates that he is at his wits’ end, having been isolated for
focusing on anything from the natural sciences to Byron and so long. He searches for meaning in religion, though his subsequent
Shakespeare. He reads almost desperately, as though “he were focus on seemingly random works suggest an inability to find what
swimming in the sea among broken pieces of wreckage, and in he is looking for.
his desire to save his life was eagerly grasping one piece after
another.”

PART 2
It is fifteen years later and the eve of the lawyer’s release. The Though free, the banker has also suffered in the intervening years.
banker is distraught because he cannot afford to pay the two His reckless spending and pursuit of earthly pleasures has brought
million rubles. At the time he made the bet, he was exceedingly about his ruin, underscoring the corrupting nature of greed.
wealthy, but in the intervening years, gambling on the stock
exchange, risky speculation, and recklessness destroyed his
business.

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The old banker fears that the lawyer will, having won the bet, The banker’s vision of the lawyer as successful, wealthy, and wed,
become wealthy, marry, and enjoy life the same way he had while he himself is a beggar, reveals how deeply he connects wealth
years ago, while the banker himself becomes a beggar. The with personal success. Though the banker previously proclaimed life
banker concludes that the only solution is to kill the lawyer. more valuable than rubles—telling the lawyer not to give up his
prime for a later fortune—he changes his mind in the face of
financial ruin.

It is three o’clock in the morning and everyone is asleep. The The banker’s plan to let the watchman take the blame for his crime
wind howls and it is pouring rain. The banker sneaks out to the further reflects how deeply corrupt he has grown over the past
garden and calls for the watchman, but he gets no answer. He fifteen years. The world outside the lawyer’s cell is thus suggested to
suspects the watchman has taken shelter from the bad weather be full of temptation and greed. Freedom, Chekhov suggests, is no
and fallen asleep. The banker thinks to himself that the guarantee of a more moral—or perhaps meaningful—life.
watchman will be the first one suspected of the crime, if he can
bring himself to do it.

The banker enters the hall and sees that the watchman is Imprisonment has resulted in the lawyer’s extreme physical
indeed missing. He taps on the lawyer’s window but the deterioration, revealing the toll such isolation takes on human
prisoner does not stir. He cautiously opens the door. The beings and suggesting the inhumanity of such a punishment. This
lawyer is revealed to be skeleton-like, with “tight-drawn skin,” a deterioration is linked both to his physical isolation and the
yellow color, and sunken cheeks. His is aged far beyond his overabundance of knowledge that made him almost “know too
forty years and so emaciated that the banker finds him painful much.”
to look at. There is a sheet of paper beside him. The banker
thinks to himself how easy it would be to kill this “half-dead
thing,” but he decides to read the paper first.

The lawyer has written that he will receive his freedom the next Whatever wisdom the lawyer has gained seems to have done him
day, and with it the “right to mix with people.” But before he no favors. Instead, he emerges from his imprisonment a bitter,
leaves, he wants to say a few words to the banker. First of all, hateful man with no appreciation of those “blessings of the world”
he hates freedom, life, health, and all the blessings of the world that make life worth living. This suggests a reversal of his previous
that he discovered in the books he read. The lawyer continues argument of the inherent value of life. He further equates his “study
that he has studied “earthly life” for fifteen years, and despite of earthly life” with actual lived experience, insisting that his
never seeing any of it in person, he feels he has truly immersion onto the fantastical worlds of literature is as valid as
experienced everything he’s read about—that he drank the anything the banker has actually lived through.
wine, sang the songs, hunted the animals, loved the beautiful
women, and traveled the world. He has even done things that
are impossible or unimaginable, like cast himself into abysses,
worked miracles, burned cities to the ground, and conquered
countries.

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All the wisdom from the books, writes the lawyer, is condensed The lawyer declares all of the knowledge and pseudo-experience he
into a little lump in his skull. He has become cleverer than has gained to be worthless, fleeting, and illusory in the face of death.
almost everyone, but he despises wisdom, blessings, and books His assertion of the transitory nature of earthly pleasures is
because they are hollow and a mirage. Death will claim illustrated by the banker’s current state of ruin, suggesting that the
everything that is wise, proud, and beautiful, he writes. The lawyer’s wisdom, however dismal, is not entirely incorrect, and that
lawyer asserts that everyone is mad and misguided. They take he has come to understand much of the world even when isolated
falsehood for truth and ugliness for beauty, and they do not from it. Both men, on either side of the prison cell, end up in a far
understand what is truly beautiful and holy. They have traded darker place than where they started, adding to the story’s sense of
the promise of heaven for a full but illusory life on earth, which ambiguity as to the inherent meaning of life.
he cannot and does not want to understand.

The lawyer has come to hold people who appreciate earthly Though the lawyer’s disdain for earthly things is supposed to
things in contempt, and as such he waives the two million connote a connection to heaven, he despises everything in a way
rubles because this money, like everything else, is shallow and that a true religious ascetic—one who rejects earthly pleasures in
transient. He maintains the terms of the bet, though, by the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment—likely would not. He
announcing that he will leave his cell five hours early so that the maintains the conventions and morality of the banker’s society,
lawyer is legally absolved from paying him. There the letter however, by not reneging on the bet or cheating.
ends.

The banker has begun to cry. He puts the letter down and The banker’s reasons for crying are never made precisely clear,
kisses the lawyer on the head before leaving. He is full of though he likely feels guilty for his own corruption and his wicked
contempt for himself, and he has trouble falling asleep because scheme. The lawyer’s letter has perhaps caused him to acknowledge
he is so agitated that he cannot stop crying. has far he has fallen, in a moral sense, over the past years. While he
may be touched by the lawyer’s spiritual change, it is just as likely
that he decides not to kill the lawyer because he believes that the
lawyer will indeed renounce the money, and as such there is no
point to his murder.

The next morning, the watchman comes running to the banker Whatever guilt the banker felt has softened enough by the next
and says that the lawyer climbed through the window into the morning that he is willing to hide the lawyer’s letter, which is a sort
garden and escaped. The banker goes to the garden wing and of religious gospel. Whatever wisdom the lawyer acquired will
establishes that he has indeed escaped. He takes the paper remain locked away—ironically making his grand assertion about
with the renunciation, just to “avoid unnecessary rumors,” and the meaninglessness of life itself meaningless.
locks it in his safe.

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To cite any of the quotes from The Bet covered in the Quotes
HOW T
TO
O CITE section of this LitChart:
To cite this LitChart: MLA
MLA Chekhov, Anton. The Bet. Green Bird. 2017.
Feinman-Riordan, Grace. "The Bet." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 8 Aug CHICA
CHICAGO
GO MANU
MANUAL
AL
2018. Web. 21 Apr 2020.
Chekhov, Anton. The Bet. Hartford, CT: Green Bird. 2017.
CHICA
CHICAGO
GO MANU
MANUAL
AL
Feinman-Riordan, Grace. "The Bet." LitCharts LLC, August 8, 2018.
Retrieved April 21, 2020. https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-bet.

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