The Bet and Other Stories

• About the Author
• About the Translator

A Literary Classic by ANTON CHEKHOV.

The Bet and Other Stories by RUSSIAN author ANTON CHEKHOV is a collection of short stories first published in 1899 in RUSSIA.

The title story of this collection, "The Bet," tells of a banker and a lawyer who, while debating the merits of capital punishment or life imprisonment, enter into a strange contractual arrangement. The banker will pay $2 million if the lawyer can endure 15 years of imprisonment, and the banker is the jailer.

"I don't agree with you," said the host. "I myself have experienced neither capital punishment nor life-imprisonment, but if one may judge a priori, then in my opinion capital punishment is more moral and more humane than imprisonment. Execution kills instantly, life-imprisonment kills by degrees. Who is the more humane executioner, one who kills you in a few seconds or one who draws the life out of you incessantly, for years?"

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), a Russian playwright and short story writer, is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. He was a key figure of early modernism in the theatre and also wrote hundreds of short stories, while working in his profession as a medical doctor.

• Translation by Constance C. Garnett, 1901
• Short stories