B. J. Harrison Reads The Bet

While hosting a party, a banker makes a bet with one of his guests, who is a lawyer. The topic of the bet is capital punishment and whether it is worse or better than a life sentence. The banker sees the capital punishment as more humane than life imprisonment, whilst the young lawyer completely disagrees. The bet is as follows: if the lawyer spends fifteen years in complete isolation, the banker will give him two million rubles. As the years pass, the banker realizes that he will go bankrupt if he loses the bet. That is why he decides to kill the lawyer, but the note he finds shocks him.

Was did they make such a bet? Is it worth it to spending fifteen years in isolation for two million rubles? Which of the two men is right? Will the banker really kill the lawyer, or will he change his mind? How is this bet going to end?

You can find all the answers in Anton Chekhov’s short story "The Bet", first published in 1889.