"The Bet" and Lenten Sacrifices

   Anton Chekov wrote about a wealthy banker and a young lawyer who engaged in conversation about which punishment was worse, death or solitary confinement. After spirited debate, in which the young lawyer maintained that a death penalty was worse because a period of confinement would come to an end and the prisoner could  then enjoy his life, the two struck a bargain. The banker would pay 2 of his multitude of millions if the lawyer would seal himself into his  locked cabin for 15 years, the only opening a window which  a watchman observed. And so the deal began. The lawyer went through various phases over the years, listening, and then not listening to music, reading and then not reading, but eventually reading and absorbing all the literature and philosophy of all the writers of all the works. 

  But time does pass, and circumstances do change. The wealthy banker has fallen on hard times, and cannot come up with the 2 million he bartered. He, in possession of the rusty old key, plans to go to the cabin and kill the lawyer.. When he enters he finds the lawyer, now only 40 years old, to be a virtual skeleton, slumped over a table and writing, but pretty much oblivious to his presence. He reads what the once-young but now riddled almost into a petrified figure, has written. The lawyer writes that he has read and absorbed almost every work ever written, and has all that knowledge compressed into his skull. He despises everyone and everything, that people have in essence bartered heaven for earth, with all that they worked so hard for destined to end with death. He no longer wants to understand. So he writes that on the eve of what would be the culmination of the 15 year bet, he would break the bargain and leave the cabin. And so he did, by breaking through the small window. 

   The 40 days of Lenten fasting is much shorter than 15 years, but a parallel can be drawn, especially if solitude prevails. Right now, I have 3 types of candy in open serving dishes in the house. I have not eaten a single piece of candy since the day before Lent. I can look at it, think about it, in all its beauty and innate flavor, and know that others are enjoying it and aspiring to acquiring more. But I know the joy is just temporal and is destined to end. So on the last day of Lent, I plan to devour all the false promise of life and then, in self-loathing and with regret for the human race, make my sad exit through the living room window. (Assuming I can still squeeze through.)