Near the end of "The Bet" by Anton Chekhov, the lawyer writes a letter to the banker. In it he says that he will leave his cell five minutes before their agreed upon time is up and therefore forfeit the two million dollars the banker has agreed to give him if he stays for a full fifteen years. The lawyer says that money is meaningless, and he no longer wants it. He has learned a lot from the books he has read during the time he has spent incarcerated, and he knows he is smarter than everyone now. He goes on to write that he has come to hate books and everything about humanity. He chastises the banker for his pride and reminds him that death will take him and everyone else, so all that pride, beauty and every other human trait are useless. He says that what he once desired he now despises. The lawyer sees the folly of human beings, and he wants nothing to do with them anymore.
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