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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?
This statement from the banker on capital punishment not only precipitates the bet but introduces some of the thematic underpinnings of the story. The banker here makes the bold statement that captivity amounts to a slow death. That is, there is no way to craft a meaningful life without freedom. The story tests this assertion through both the bet itself and the banker’s own spiritual decline as he finds himself imprisoned by debt.
He read as though he were swimming in the sea among the broken pieces of wreckage, and in his desire to save his life was eagerly grasping one piece after another.
This quotation describes the lawyer’s behavior throughout the last years of his captivity, foreshadowing his abdication of the bet. Here we catch a glimpse of the turmoil in the lawyer’s mind as his reading begins to turn to existential questions. The phrasing implies that the lawyer is miserable in his lonely captivity, and the vehemence with which he ultimately turns from society may stem in part from the desperation with which he tries to piece together all the theology, philosophy, and medicine he reads.
Fifteen years before he had too many millions to count, but now he was afraid to ask himself which he had more of, money or debts.
While the lawyer has been physically imprisoned over the course of the fifteen years, the banker has created a prison for himself in the form of debt. In addition to the debts he already owes, he believes he will soon be indebted to the lawyer because the lawyer seems bound to win the bet. It is this indebtedness, almost more than poverty, that appears to bring the banker close to murder because of the relationship an indebted person has toward the person they owe. The banker resolves to murder the lawyer after imagining himself forever indebted to the lawyer’s charity.
That I may show you in deed my contempt for that by which you live, I waive the two millions of which I once dreamed as of paradise, and which I now despise.
In his letter to the banker, the lawyer asserts his new enlightenment and renunciation of material pleasures. Although the story allows for multiple interpretations of many aspects, it is clear that the two million rubles are at the root of all the story’s sorrow. The lawyer sacrifices his freedom on behalf of these two million rubles. The banker nearly murders him for these two million rubles. These two million rubles have encouraged both men into prisons, one physical and one spiritual.
