'Among the Wreckage of His Ship'

In the 1980s, Ecco Press incrementally published the Constance Garnett translations of Chekhov’s stories in thirteen uniform paperback volumes, plus his Notebooks and The Unknown Chekhov, and I bought them as they appeared. The pages are browning and some spines are close to splitting, but frequently I pull a volume off the shelf at random and read a story or two. On Sunday I grabbed Vol. 9, The Schoolmistress and Other Stories, originally published in 1921, and read “The Bet” (1888).

The story is plot-driven and not what we think of as characteristically Chekhovian. It might have been written by O. Henry. A nameless banker throws a party and the conversation turns to the death penalty. A nameless young lawyer says if offered the choice of a death sentence or life in prison, he would choose the latter. The banker bets him $2 million rubles he couldn’t remain in solitary confinement for fifteen years and the lawyer accepts the wager. For all those years he lives confined to a lodge in the banker’s garden. He can only communicate via notes passed through a small window, but otherwise must remain incommunicado. The most interesting part of the story is Chekhov’s streamlined and lightly satirical account of changes in the lawyer’s requests and behavior. The first year is characterized by “loneliness and depression.” He plays the piano all day, but it remained silent throughout the second year. And so on:

“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.”

The lawyer teaches himself six languages. By the tenth year, he sits all day at his table reading only 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.” In his final two years, the lawyer began reading indiscriminately: “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.”

I won’t reveal the ending but as I read Chekhov’s story I was reminded of an episode of The Twilight Zone, a show I followed devotedly as a kid and still watch occasionally. I’m not alone in seeing resemblances between "The Silence," originally broadcast on April 28, 1961, and “The Bet.”(Go here, here and here for more on the similarities.) It’s a good episode, without fantasy elements and with a chilling denouement. Archie Taylor, who corresponds to the banker in Chekhov’s story, is played by Franchot Tone, and Liam Sullivan is in the lawyer role. In both versions, one ends up sympathizing with the man who accepts the bet and chooses to sacrifice his life.