The
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Russian writer Anton Chekhov is considered by many to be the master of
the modern short story. A physician, during medical school this prolific author
supported himself and his mother by penning a remarkable number of short
stories. He also gained renown as a playwright and novelist.
THE BANKER
by Anton Chekhov (January 29,
1860—July 14, 1904)
1.
It was a dark
autumn night. The old banker was walking up and down his study and remembering
how, fifteen years before, he had given a party one autumn evening. There had been
many clever men there, and there had been interesting conversations. Among
other things they had talked of capital punishment. The majority of the guests,
among whom were many journalists and intellectual men,
disapproved of the death penalty. They considered that form of punishment out
of date, immoral, and unsuitable for
"Both are equally immoral," observed one of
the guests, "for they both have the same object - to take away life. The
State is not God. It has not the right to take away what it cannot restore when
it wants to."
Among the guests was a young lawyer, a young man of
five-and-twenty. When he was asked his opinion, he said:
"The death sentence and the life sentence are
equally immoral, but if I had to choose between the death penalty and
imprisonment for life, I would certainly choose the second. To live anyhow is
better than not at all."
A lively discussion arose. The banker, who was younger
and more nervous in those days, was suddenly carried away by excitement; he
struck the table with his fist and shouted at the young man:
"It's not true! I'll bet you two million you
wouldn't stay in solitary confinement for five years."
"If you mean that in earnest," said the
young man, "I'll take the bet, but I would stay not five but fifteen
years."
"Fifteen? Done!" cried the banker. "Gentlemen, I stake two
million!"
"Agreed! You stake your
millions and I stake my freedom!" said the young man.
And this wild, senseless bet was carried out! The banker, spoilt and frivolous,
with millions beyond his reckoning, was delighted at the bet. At supper he made
fun of the young man, and said:
"Think better of it, young man, while there is still
time. To me two million is a trifle, but you are losing three or four of the
best years of your life. I say three or four, because you won't stay longer.
Don't forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary confinement is a great
deal harder to bear than compulsory. The thought that you have the right to
step out in liberty at any moment will poison your whole existence in prison. I
am sorry for you."
And now the banker, walking to and fro, remembered all
this, and asked himself: "What was the object of that bet? What is the
good of that man's losing fifteen years of his life and my throwing away two
million? Can it prove that the death penalty is better or worse than
imprisonment for life? No, no. It was all nonsensical and meaningless. On my part
it was the caprice of a pampered man, and on his part
simple greed for money ..."
Then he remembered what followed that evening. It was
decided that the young man should spend the years of his captivity under the
strictest supervision in one of the lodges in the banker's garden. It was
agreed that for fifteen years he should not be free to cross the threshold of
the lodge, to see human beings, to hear the human voice, or to receive letters
and newspapers. He was allowed to have a musical instrument and books, and was
allowed to write letters, to drink wine, and to smoke. By the terms of the
agreement, the only relations he could have with the outer world were by a
little window made purposely for that object. He might have anything he wanted
- books, music, wine, and so on - in any quantity he desired by writing an
order, but could only receive them through the window. The agreement provided
for every detail and every trifle that would make his imprisonment strictly
solitary, and bound the young man to stay there exactly fifteen years,
beginning from
3.
For the first year of his confinement, as far as one could judge from his brief
notes, the prisoner suffered severely from loneliness and depression. The
sounds of the piano could be heard continually day and night from his lodge. He
refused wine and tobacco. Wine, he wrote, excites the desires, and desires are
the worst foes of the prisoner; and besides, nothing could be more dreary than drinking good wine and seeing no one. And
tobacco spoilt the air of his room. 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.
In the second year the piano was silent in the lodge,
and the prisoner asked only for the classics. In the fifth year music was
audible again, and the prisoner asked for wine. Those who watched him through
the window said that all that year he spent doing nothing but eating and
drinking and lying on his bed, frequently yawning and angrily talking to
himself. He did not read books. 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. More than once he could be heard crying.
In the second half of the sixth year the prisoner
began zealously studying languages, philosophy, and history. He threw himself
eagerly into these studies - so much so that the banker had enough to do to get
him the books he ordered. In the course of four years some six hundred volumes
were procured at his request. It was during this period that the banker
received the following letter from his prisoner:
"My dear Jailer, I write you these lines in six
languages. Show them to people who know the languages. Let them read them. If
they find not one mistake I implore you to fire a shot in the garden. That shot
will show me that my efforts have not been thrown away. The geniuses of all
ages and of all lands speak different languages, but the same flame burns in
them all. Oh, if you only knew what unearthly happiness my soul feels now from
being able to understand them!" The prisoner's desire was fulfilled. The
banker ordered two shots to be fired in the garden.
4.
Then after the tenth year, the prisoner sat immovably at the table and read
nothing but the Gospel. It seemed strange to the banker that a man who in four
years had mastered six hundred learned volumes should waste nearly a year over
one thin book easy of comprehension. Theology and histories of religion
followed the Gospels.
In the last two years of his confinement the prisoner
read an immense quantity of books quite indiscriminately. At one time he was
busy with the natural sciences, then he would ask for
Byron or Shakespeare. There were notes in which he demanded at the same time
books on chemistry, and a manual of medicine, and a novel, and some treatise on
philosophy or theology. His reading suggested a man swimming in the sea among
the wreckage of his ship, and trying to save his life by greedily clutching
first at one spar and then at another.
The old banker remembered all this, and thought:
"To-morrow at
Fifteen years before, his millions had been beyond his
reckoning; now he was afraid to ask himself which were greater, his debts or
his assets. Desperate gambling on the Stock Exchange, wild speculation and the
excitability which he could not get over even in advancing years, had by
degrees led to the decline of his fortune and the proud, fearless,
self-confident millionaire had become a banker of middling rank, trembling at
every rise and fall in his investments. "Cursed bet!" muttered the
old man, clutching his head in despair "Why didn't the man die? He is only
forty now. He will take my last penny from me, he will marry, will enjoy life,
will gamble on the Exchange; while I shall look at him with envy like a beggar,
and hear from him every day the same sentence: 'I am indebted to you for the
happiness of my life, let me help you!' No, it is too much! The one means of
being saved from bankruptcy and disgrace is the death of that man!"
It struck
5.
It was dark and cold in the garden. Rain was falling. A damp cutting wind was
racing about the garden, howling and giving the trees no rest. The banker strained
his eyes, but could see neither the earth nor the white statues, nor the lodge,
nor the trees. Going to the spot where the lodge stood, he twice called the
watchman. No answer followed. Evidently the watchman had sought shelter from
the weather, and was now asleep somewhere either in the kitchen or in the
greenhouse.
"If I had the pluck to carry out my
intention," thought the old man, "Suspicion would fall first upon the
watchman."
He felt in the darkness for the steps and the door,
and went into the entry of the lodge. Then he groped his way into a little
passage and lighted a match. There was not a soul there. There was a bedstead
with no bedding on it, and in the corner there was a dark cast-iron stove. The
seals on the door leading to the prisoner's rooms were intact.
When the match went out the old man, trembling with emotion, peeped through the little window. A candle was
burning dimly in the prisoner's room. He was sitting at the table. Nothing
could be seen but his back, the hair on his head, and his hands. Open books
were lying on the table, on the two easy-chairs, and on the carpet near the
table.
Five minutes passed and the prisoner did not once
stir. Fifteen years' imprisonment had taught him to sit still. The banker
tapped at the window with his finger, and the prisoner made no movement
whatever in response. Then the banker cautiously broke the seals off the door
and put the key in the keyhole. The rusty lock gave a grating sound and the
door creaked. The banker expected to hear at once footsteps and a cry of
astonishment, but three minutes passed and it was as quiet as ever in the room.
He made up his mind to go in.
At the table a man unlike
ordinary people was sitting motionless. He was a skeleton with the skin drawn
tight over his bones, with long curls like a woman's and a shaggy beard. His
face was yellow with an earthy tint in it, his cheeks were hollow, his back
long and narrow, and the hand on which his shaggy head was propped was so thin
and delicate that it was dreadful to look at it. His hair was already streaked
with silver, and seeing his emaciated, aged-looking face, no one would have
believed that he was only forty. He was asleep ... In front of his bowed head
there lay on the table a sheet of paper on which there was something written in
fine handwriting.
6.
"Poor creature!" thought the banker, "he is asleep and most
likely dreaming of the millions. And I have only to take this half-dead man,
throw him on the bed, stifle him a little with the pillow, and the most
conscientious expert would find no sign of a violent death. But let us first
read what he has written here ... "
The banker took the page from the table and read as
follows:
"To-morrow at twelve o'clock I regain my freedom
and the right to associate with other men, but before I leave this room and see
the sunshine, I think it necessary to say a few words to you. With a clear
conscience I tell you, as before God, who beholds me, that I despise freedom
and life and health, and all that in your books is
called the good things of the world.
"For fifteen years I have been intently studying
earthly life. It is true I have not seen the earth nor men, but in your books I
have drunk fragrant wine, I have sung songs, I have hunted stags and wild boars
in the forests, have loved women ... Beauties as ethereal as clouds, created by
the magic of your poets and geniuses, have visited me at night, and have
whispered in my ears wonderful tales that have set my brain in a whirl. In your
books I have climbed to the peaks of Elburz and
"Your books have given me wisdom. All that the unresting thought of man has created in the ages is
compressed into a small compass in my brain. I know that I am wiser than all of
you.
7.
"And I despise your books, I despise wisdom and
the blessings of this world. It is all worthless, fleeting, illusory, and
deceptive, like a mirage. You may be proud, wise, and fine, but death will wipe
you off the face of the earth as though you were no more than mice burrowing
under the floor, and your posterity, your history, your immortal geniuses will
burn or freeze together with the earthly globe.
"You have lost your reason and taken the wrong
path. You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for beauty. You would
marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly
grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell
like a sweating horse; so I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I
don't want to understand you.
"To prove to you in action how I despise all that
you live by, I renounce the two million of which I once dreamed as of paradise
and which now I despise. To deprive myself of the right to the money I shall go
out from here five hours before the time fixed, and so break the compact
..."
When the banker had read this he laid the page on the
table, kissed the strange man on the head, and went out of the lodge, weeping.
At no other time, even when he had lost heavily on the Stock Exchange, had he
felt so great a contempt for himself. When he got home he lay on his bed, but
his tears and emotion kept him for hours from sleeping.
Next morning the watchmen ran in with pale faces, and
told him they had seen the man who lived in the lodge climb out of the window
into the garden, go to the gate, and disappear. The banker went at once with
the servants to the lodge and made sure of the flight of his prisoner. To avoid
arousing unnecessary talk, he took from the table the writing in which the
millions were renounced, and when he got home locked it up in the fireproof
safe.
The
Chickasaw
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