There is a great deal of exposition in the beginning of "The Bet." It is mostly told through a flashback representing the banker's memories. At the end of this introduction, and before the actual term of imprisonment begins, the precise terms and conditions of the bet are spelled out in a single paragraph, so that the reader will understand exactly what the bet involves.
It was decided that the young man should spend the years of his captivity under the strictest supervision in one of the lodges in the banker's garden. It was agreed that for fifteen years he should not be free to cross the threshold of the lodge, to see human beings, to hear the human voice, or to receive letters and newspapers. He was allowed to have a musical instrument and books, and was allowed to write letters, to drink wine, and to smoke. By the terms of the agreement, the only relations he could have with the outer world were by a little window made purposely for that object. He might have anything he wanted - books, music, wine, and so on - in any quantity he desired by writing an order, but could only receive them through the window. The agreement provided for every detail and every trifle that would make his imprisonment strictly solitary, and bound the young man to stay there exactly fifteen years, beginning from twelve o'clock of November 14, 1870, and ending at twelve o'clock of November 14, 1885. The slightest attempt on his part to break the conditions, if only two minutes before the end, released the banker from the obligation to pay him the two million.
The author Anton Chekhov does not state whether this agreement was in writing, but it seems likely that is was a verbal agreement. The banker was not obliged to put two million rubles in a trust fund. It was apparently a "gentleman's agreement," but Anton Chekhov takes pains to insure that the bet was mutually binding. Most importantly, the bet was made in front of many important witnesses. A verbal agreement should be binding if, as the author states,
There had been many clever men there....among whom were many journalists and intellectual men...
The banker would be disgraced if he refused to pay the two million rubles after the lawyer stayed in solitary confinement for fifteen years. The "journalists" would spread the story all over Russia--and perhaps even into Europe. Chekhov specifies that the banker has so much money that two million rubles is a trifle to him. At the same time, the author specifies that the prisoner is a lawyer. He would know how to collect the money if he won the bet. It would not have to be called a bet in court; it would be called a "verbal contract," and it would be corroborated, if necessary, by a host of distinguished witnesses.
In case Chekhov overlooked anything included in the bet, he states that: The agreement provided for every detail and every trifle that would make his imprisonment strictly solitary... The lawyer is not like a typical prisoner in a state-run institution. He is to have all the comforts of a guest in one of the wealthy banker's guest lodges. His food will probably be the same as the banker eats himself. He will have comfortable furniture, plenty of books to read, a piano, and wine and tobacco if he desires. The only thing he cannot have is human contact. He can't receive letters, and he is not allowed to read newspapers, possibly because this might be regarded as a form of human contact. He doesn't even have any contact with the banker.
This seems like a fantastic and improbable bet. But Chekhov manages to make it seems believable by the time the lawyer's imprisonment gets underway. One of the ways Chekhov achieves verisimilitude is by having the banker himself acknowledge that it is a "wild and senseless bet." Another way is by spelling out all the details of the bet, as he does in the long explanatory paragraph quoted above. It is the fantastic nature of this bet that makes the story so intriguing. The reader not only wonders if the lawyer will be able to stand fifteen years of solitary confinement, but can't help wondering whether he or she would be able to do so even in comfortable surroundings with the best food and plenty of the world's best books to read.
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