Chekhov and the story “Garov”

The story begins on an autumn evening: the old banker recalls a party fifteen years earlier at which the guests debated capital punishment and life imprisonment. A lawyer of about twenty-five says “to live is better than to die”; the banker disagrees, says the lawyer would not last even five years in a cell, the lawyer replies he could last fifteen, and the banker stakes two million. By the terms, the lawyer had to live in a separate building in the banker’s garden from 14 November 1870 to 14 November 1885, meeting no one and requesting only books, music and necessities in writing. Over the years he first reads light books, then classics, then studies philosophy, history and foreign languages, later religious books, and in the last years reads whatever comes to hand; at the end of the fifteen years the banker, whose finances have worsened, fears losing the bet. Thinking of getting rid of the lawyer, he secretly enters his room at three in the morning, finds him asleep and reads the letter beside him: in it the lawyer writes that he gives up the world’s riches and will leave five hours early in order not to take the two million. After the letter the banker despises himself and kisses the lawyer’s forehead; the next day the watchman reports that the lawyer has fled, and the banker locks the letter in a steel safe.