Question

Refer to Explorations in Literature for a complete version of this story.

Answer 1

From the beginning to the end of "The bet" the lawyer A. comes to believe that material wealth and possessions are a curse rather than a blessing.

He has become a wise man through fifteen years of studying, but he even despise this, as well as other terrenal possessions, as he states in this excerpt: "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."