In the lawyer’s letter to the banker, he describes how, during his 15 years of imprisonment, he was able to live through books, using imagery in the process:
“In your books I climbed the summits of Elbruz and Mont Blanc and saw from thence how the sun rose in the morning, and in the evening overflowed the sky, the ocean and the mountain ridges with a purple gold. I saw from thence how above me lightnings glimmered cleaving the clouds; I saw green forests, fields, rivers, lakes, cities; I heard syrens singing, and the playing of the pipes of Pan; I touched the wings of beautiful devils who came flying to me to speak of God.”
The imagery here is evocative—the lawyer describes how he climbed mountains and saw how the sun “overflowed the sky” and “lightnings glimmered cleaving the clouds,” while, in other books, he heard “syrens singing, and the playing of the pipes of Pan” and “touched the wings of beautiful devils who came flying to me to speak of God.” This is language that engages several different senses at once—readers can see, hear, and feel these experiences alongside the lawyer.
This imagery is significant because it helps readers understand viscerally how free the lawyer felt even though he was imprisoned. He did not write that it felt like he "climbed the mountains," but instead states: "I climbed the mountains." In his mind, these were adventures he literally had. Compare these experiences to the banker’s life for the same 15 years (as he lost his money and “became an ordinary banker, trembl[ing] at every rise and fall in the market”). In doing so, it becomes clear that “freedom” is not necessarily about having access to the outside world.
In some ways, Chekhov is arguing, society itself is the real prison and the banker’s prison granted him “freedom” from this outer prison by providing him with financial stability (as he has regular meals and whatever else he requests) and endless time with literature and art. That said, at the end of his letter, the lawyer goes even further, suggesting that life itself is the real prison and that reaching heaven is the only true way humans can be free.
