After much inner turmoil, the banker decides to kill the lawyer before the end of the bet to keep from having to pay the loan. He sneaks into the guest house. Just before killing him, the banker discovers a note that the lawyer has written.
The Banker Timeline and Summary The banker decides to murder the lawyer. He sneaks into the guesthouse prison and finds the lawyer asleep.
Why does the banker fear being pitied by the lawyer? Because the banker was sure he wasn't going to be able to do it and he is prideful. It relates by how inhumane this bet was.
Succumbing to the power of greed, the banker resolves to kill the lawyer to avoid losing his fortune, but changes his mind after finding a letter written by the lawyer where he renounces “the stuff of the earth” and declares he will break the terms of the bet.
At the end of Anton Chekhov's "The Bet", the lawyer survives the 15 years in prison but refuses to take the money.
When the banker opens the door into the cell, he discovers the lawyer now looking like a skeleton. He discovers a letter and reads it, but soon realizes the lawyer plans to lose. Five hours before the lawyer's time is complete, he runs away and terminates his eligibility to win the bet.
The banker thought that the lawyer was asleep, dreaming about the 2 million dollars, and he only has to throw him on the bed, suffocate him a little with the pillow, and the most conscientious expert would find no sign of a violent death, but he should first read the letter on the table.
He decides to kill the lawyer but then he discovers a letter from the lawyer. The letter explains that money and materials are worthless and the only thing that matters is death. He is so disgusted by possessions that he writes that he doesn't want the money. (
After reading the letter, the banker feels “contempt for himself,” presumably because he is guilty of just what the prisoner is writing about: believing in the lies mankind has lived by. He locks up the letter so that he will have proof that the prisoner has lost the bet.
The banker feels responsible for the emaciated condition of his prisoner. After all, it was the banker who initiated the bet fifteen years ago at his big bachelor party. He started the whole thing when he said: "It's not true! I'll bet you two million you wouldn't stay in solitary confinement for five years."
The banker values personal pride, power, material possessions, and money. In all things, the banker is a powerful man. He would choose the death penalty as being the most humane simply because it would be better than dying by degrees.
During his confinement, he learns that money and possessions aren't the most important things in life. How does the lawyer change by the end of the story? What causes him to change? Yes, the banker changes.