The bet by anton chekhov full story. The Bet Summary 2022-11-17

The bet by anton chekhov full story Rating: 8,3/10 396 reviews

The Bet is a short story written by Anton Chekhov in 1889. The story centers around a bet made between two men, a young lawyer and an older banker. The bet is based on the idea of whether or not solitary confinement is worse than death. The banker, who is convinced that life is worth living, offers to spend fifteen years in solitary confinement if the lawyer will pay him two million rubles. The lawyer, who believes that life is not worth living, agrees to the bet and the banker is imprisoned in a small, windowless room for fifteen years.

As the years pass, the lawyer begins to regret his decision and becomes increasingly worried about the well-being of the banker. He tries to visit the banker and offer him his freedom, but the banker refuses to leave his prison, stating that he has come to enjoy the solitude and the opportunity to think and reflect.

Finally, after fifteen years, the banker is released from his prison and the lawyer pays him the two million rubles. The banker, who has aged significantly during his time in solitary confinement, returns to his former life and begins to enjoy the luxuries that he had previously taken for granted.

The Bet serves as a commentary on the value of life and the importance of solitude in one's personal growth. It also explores the idea of regret and the consequences of our actions. The story ultimately suggests that life is indeed worth living, even in the face of challenges and hardships.

The Bet, and other stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

the bet by anton chekhov full story

In the last two years of his confinement the prisoner read an immense quantity of books quite indiscriminately. When I read serious articles, I have exactly the same indefinable fear. Not half an hour passes before I begin to feel an invincible weakness in my legs and shoulders. And this wild, senseless bet was carried out! It's pleasant to spend the time with her. If there is no perceptible improvement in little things, it will be useless to look for it in the bigger things. If they find not one mistake I implore you to fire a shot in the garden.

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The Bet

the bet by anton chekhov full story

And is it a family! 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. I have watched from there the lightning flashing over my head and cleaving the storm-clouds. After dinner I go up to my study and light my little pipe, the only one during the whole day, the sole survivor of my old habit of smoking from morning to night. He was allowed to have a musical instrument and books, and was allowed to write letters, to drink wine, and to smoke. In my present state of mind five minutes are enough for him to bore me as though I had seen and listened to him for a whole eternity. The family was forced to move to Moscow following his father's bankruptcy.

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Short Story Analysis: The Bet by Anton Chekhov

the bet by anton chekhov full story

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. By our agreement I ought to pay him two millions. But now I am king no more. The next letters were just as splendid, but stops already began to appear and the grammatical mistakes to vanish. Usually, when I am left alone with myself or when I am in the company of people I love, I never think of my merits; and if I begin to think about them they seem as trivial as though I had become a scholar only yesterday. Every evening he brings along some half-dozen stories of the university life and generally begins with them when he sits down at the table. But he stands there, looking at the window, pulling at his little beard and thinking.

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Short Stories: The Bet by Anton Chekhov

the bet by anton chekhov full story

If she had a different father, it would do, but everyone knows he is a famous professor, a privy councillor. A note written by the lawyer reveals that he has chosen to abandon the bet, having learned that material goods are fleeting and that divine salvation is worth more than money. What's the good of your money to me? If virtue and purity are not free from evil feeling, there's precious little difference between them and vice. He is very hilarious, a thing which never happens to him in the winter. . There had been many clever men there, and there had been interesting conversations. No more chance of getting tipsy on a single glass of wine, no more Agasha, no more bream with kasha, no more the old uproar to welcome our little contretemps at dinner, when the cat fought the dog under the table, or Katy's head-band fell down her cheek into her soup.

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The Bet and Other Stories : Anton Chekhov : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

the bet by anton chekhov full story

. Now my name walks in Kharkov undisturbed. . In a minute steps sound downstairs again. All delivered papers are samples meant to be used only for research purposes.

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The Bet (short story)

the bet by anton chekhov full story

Not a single famous scholar lived or died during the last twenty-five or thirty years but he was intimately acquainted with him. 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. . After a minute she takes me with her for a drive. His second full-length novel, The Shooting Party, was translated into English in 1926.

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The Bet Full Text

the bet by anton chekhov full story

Since it would be useless to fight against my present mood, and I have no power to do it, I made up my mind that the last days of my life shall be irreproachable, on the formal side. At such moments there is no hatred or malice in his eyes but a great deal of acuteness and that peculiar fox-cunning which you can catch only in very observant people. Two millions are nothing to me, but you stand to lose three or four of the best years of your life. In 1879 Chekhov entered the Moscow University Medical School. As a politician Jókai was also mocked for his ideological optimism. In the study he carefully takes off my coat and at the same time manages to tell me some university news.

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The Bet by Anton Chekhov: Theme & Analysis

the bet by anton chekhov full story

They were staring about madly to stop themselves from going to sleep. He sneaks out to the garden, where it is pouring rain, and deduces that the watchman is gone from his post because of the weather. They had a strong masculine scent. Her face is pale and her eyes red with weeping. He belongs to an old aristocratic family, a prosperous and gifted house which has played a notable rôle in the history of our literature and education.

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The Bet Full Text and Analysis

the bet by anton chekhov full story

In this she was like me. Why do I look at this cheap tin washstand and listen to the wretched clock jarring in the passage? Of her face, only her nostrils laugh. They are all cold and slippery with sweat. Evidently the watchman had sought shelter from the weather, and was now asleep somewhere either in the kitchen or in the greenhouse. I never once had the luck to meet, not a hero or a man of talent, but an ordinarily interesting person. A banker puts up two million rubles to prove his point.

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The Bet by Anton Chekhov

the bet by anton chekhov full story

I loved you as a father and as my only friend. The thought that you have the right to step out in liberty at any moment will poison your whole existence in prison. The part of my brain which governs the ability to write refused office. But, heaven be my judge, I have not the courage to act up to my conscience. They've vulgarised it enough already, thank you.

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