The Bet

The Bet (La apuesta) es un cuento de 1889 del escritor ruso Antón Chekhov, sobre un banquero y un joven abogado que hacen una apuesta sobre si la pena de muerte es mejor o peor que la cadena perpetua.

The Bet fue incluida en el volúmen 4 de Chekhov's Collected Works, publicado en 1899–1901 por Adolf Marks. "Mientras leía los originales se me ocurrió que el final era malo, que era demasiado frío y cruel", explicando sobre su omisión en 1903.

En vocabulario roan

Al final un poco sobre Antón Chekhov

 

El banquero recordó la fiesta que diera quince años antes donde se discutiera la cuestión de la pena de muerte. Algunos opinaron que la pena de muerte era inhumana, no digna de un estado cristiano, y que se la debería reemplazar por la prisión de por vida. El banquero era de la opinión que la pena de muerte mataba instantáneamente mientras que la prisión perpetua mataba de a poco.

Un abogado opinó que era mejor la prisión de por vida ya que se la conservaba, aunque significara perder la vida de a poco.

En un arrebato de entusiasmo el banquero le apostó que no duraría en la cárcel ni cinco años. El abogado aceptó.

Se estipuló que el abogado debía permanecer en un ala del jardín del banquero, sin hablar, por quince años. Sin poder traspasar el umbral ni hablar con nadie…

Anton Chekhov, 1889

 

It was a dark autumn night. The old banker was pacing from corner to corner of his study, recalling to his mind the party he gave in the autumn fifteen years before. There were many clever people at the party and much interesting conversation. They talked among other things of capital punishment. The guests, among them not a few scholars and journalists, for the most part disapproved of capital punishment. They found it obsolete as a means of punishment, unfitted to a Christian State and immoral. Some of them thought that capital punishment should be replaced universally by life-imprisonment.

"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?"

"They're both equally immoral," remarked one of the guests, "because their purpose is the same, to take away life. The State is not God. It has no right to take away that which it cannot give back, if it should so desire."

Among the company was a lawyer, a young man of about twenty-five. On being asked his opinion, he said:

"Capital punishment and life-imprisonment are equally immoral; but if I were offered the choice between them, I would certainly choose the second. It's better to live somehow than not to live at all."

There ensued a lively discussion. The banker who was then younger and more nervous suddenly lost his temper, banged his fist on the table, and turning to the young lawyer, cried out:

"It's a lie. I bet you two millions you wouldn't stick in a cell even for five years."

"If you mean it seriously," replied the lawyer, "then I bet I'll stay not five but fifteen."

"Fifteen! Done!" cried the banker. "Gentlemen, I stake two millions."

"Agreed. You stake two millions, I my freedom," said the lawyer.

So this wild, ridiculous bet came to pass. The banker, who at that time had too many millions to count, spoiled and capricious, was beside himself with rapture. During supper he said to the lawyer jokingly:

"Come to your senses, young roan, before it's too late. Two millions are nothing to me, but you stand to lose three or four of the best years of your life. I say three or four, because you'll never stick it out any longer. Don't forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary is much heavier than enforced imprisonment. The idea that you have the right to free yourself at any moment will poison the whole of your life in the cell. I pity you."

And now the banker, pacing from corner to corner, recalled all this and asked himself:

"Why did I make this bet? What's the good? The lawyer loses fifteen years of his life and I throw away two millions. Will it convince people that capital punishment is worse or better than imprisonment for life? No, no! All stuff and rubbish. On my part, it was the caprice of a well-fed man; on the lawyer's pure greed of gold."

He recollected further what happened after the evening party. It was decided that the lawyer must undergo his imprisonment under the strictest observation, in a garden wing of the banker's house. It was agreed that during the period he would be deprived of the right to cross the threshold, to see living people, to hear human voices, and to receive letters and newspapers. He was permitted to have a musical instrument, to read books, to write letters, to drink wine and smoke tobacco. By the agreement he could communicate, but only in silence, with the outside world through a little window specially constructed for this purpose. Everything necessary, books, music, wine, he could receive in any quantity by sending a note through the window. The agreement provided for all the minutest details, which made the confinement strictly solitary, and it obliged the lawyer to remain exactly fifteen years from twelve o'clock of November 14th, 1870, to twelve o'clock of November 14th, 1885. The least attempt on his part to violate the conditions, to escape if only for two minutes before the time freed the banker from… (The bet, by Antón Chekhov)

Vocabulario

Roan: (chiefly of horses) of the color sorrel, chestnut, or bay, sprinkled with gray or white.

…she noticed that one of the roans was swollen about the middle and stood with its head hanging.

Para saber

Antón Pavlovich Chekhov (Анто́н Па́влович Че́хов, 1860 – 1904) fue un escritor ruso, considerado entre los más grandes autores de cuentos de la historia. Tolstoi fue admirador de los cuentos de Chekhov: Children, The Chorus Girl, A Play, Home, Misery, The Runaway, In Court, Vanka, Ladies, A Malefactor, The Boys, Darkness, Sleepy, The Helpmate, y The Darling.

Muerte

Para 1904 Chekhov estaba terminalmente enfermo con tuberculosis. Mikhail Chekhov recordó que todos quienes lo veían secretamente sabían que el final no estaba lejos, pero mientras más pasaba el tiempo, él menos se daba cuenta. Un 3 de junio viajaron con Olga a un spa en Badenweiler, Alemania, desde donde Chekhov escribió jovialmente a su hermana sobre la comida y el paisaje, asegurando que estaba mejor.

En 1908 Olga escribió esto sobre los últimos momentos de su marido:

 

Anton se sentó inusualmente recto y dijo alto y claro en alemán, idioma que no hablaba, “Estoy muriendo”. El doctor lo calmó, le dio una inyección de alcanfor y ordenó champagne. Anton tomó la copa llena, la examinó y me sonrió, comentando “Hace mucho que no bebo champagne”. Lo bebió y se acomodó suavemente sobre su lado izquierdo. Había dejado de respirar y…

 

El cuerpo de Chekhov fue transportado a Moscú en un vagón de tren refrigerado, que llevaba ostras; un detalle que ofendió a Gorky. Algunos de los miles que siguieron el funeral marcharon con la procesión del general Keller por error.

Artículos relacionados

El viejo banquero caminaba en su estudio, recordando la fiesta que había dado en el otoño… La apuesta

This poor creature, whom I loved the more warmly the more ragged and dirty his smart summer overcoat became, had come to Moscow to look for a job as copying-clerk… Oysters

… creció como la única voz literaria desde la parte más humilde de la sociedad y apoyó las transformaciones sociales… Máximo Gorki

 

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