When the lawyer in "The Bet" by Anton Chekhov is close to his release date, he writes a letter to the banker, telling him that he will forfeit the two million dollars by leaving his cell five minutes early. Through his fifteen years of imprisonment, the lawyer has learned much about the world and he is completely disillusioned about humanity. He finds that he now despises money, "...the two millions of which I once dreamed...
When the lawyer in "The Bet" by Anton Chekhov is close to his release date, he writes a letter to the banker, telling him that he will forfeit the two million dollars by leaving his cell five minutes early. Through his fifteen years of imprisonment, the lawyer has learned much about the world and he is completely disillusioned about humanity. He finds that he now despises money, "...the two millions of which I once dreamed of as paradise." (Chekhov 10)
The lawyer had once thought that fifteen years of his life were worth giving up to have all of that money, but now he wants nothing to do with it or with anything the world of humans has to offer him. He sees it all as a mirage of sorts.
"'Everything is void, frail, visionary and delusive as a mirage. Though you be proud and wise and beautiful, yet will death wipe you from the face of the earth like the mice underground and your posterity, your history, and the immortality of your men of genius will be as frozen slag burnt down together with the terrestrial globe.'" (Chekhov 10)
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