There is clearly a marked difference between the lawyer at
the beginning of the story and the person who leaves the secluded hut moments before the
bet is due to end. Note how impulsive the lawyer is at the
beginning:
"If you mean that in earnest," said the young
man, "I'll take the bet, but I would stay not five, but fifteen
years."
He, of his own
volition, is so proud and impulsive that he automatically triples the conditions of the
bet for himself, so sure he is that he can fulfil what he has just proudly
boasted.
However, the note that he leaves the banker at the
end of the tale reveals a very different character. Having read and thought deeply about
so many issues, he now realises how everything to do with mankind is "worthless,
fleeting, illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage":
You may be proud, wise, and fine, but death will
wipe you off the face of the earth as though you were no more than mice burrowing under
the floor, and your posterity, your history, your immortal geniuses will burn or freeze
together with the earthly
globe.
Having started off as
a figure defined by pride and arrogance, now the lawyer has eschewed these
characteristics and realised the true humble position of man and how man could be wiped
out at any second. The lawyer realises that life does have meaning, but misplaced values
have effectively blinded people to that meaning. As a symbol of his new understanding,
he deliberately breaks the terms of the bet to show how unimportant money is to
him.
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