In the end of the story, "The Bet<span>," the </span>lawyer<span> despairs of life, and he reneges on the wager with banker. In their </span>bet<span> about which is crueler, live-long imprisonment or capital punishment, the banker and the </span>lawyer<span> wager their futures. The young </span>lawyer <span>argues that life on any terms is better than death.</span>
In the short story "The Bet", by Anton Chekhov, at the beginning of his imprisonment, the lawyer declines both wine and tobacco. Wine, he wrote, excites the desires and desires are the worst enemies of a prisoner. And, because nothing could be more dreary than drinking a glass of good wine and seeing no one. And tobacco because it could spoil the air of his room.
