The Queen of Spades

One winter night in St Petersburg, a group of young officers sat up late over cards at the house of Narumov. Among them was Hermann, a young engineer of German descent — a man who watched the play with intense interest, night after night, but never touched a card. "The game fascinates me," he would say, "but I am not in a position to sacrifice the necessary in the hope of winning the superfluous." He lived on his pay, allowed himself not the slightest luxury, and his three ruling principles were calculation, moderation and industry.

That night, Tomsky told the company a curious story about his grandmother, the old Countess Anna Fedotovna. Sixty years ago in Paris, she had been a celebrated beauty — and had lost an enormous sum at cards, on her word of honour, to the Duke of Orléans. Her husband refused to pay. In despair, she turned to a remarkable friend — the Count Saint-Germain, a man about whom so many marvellous stories were told. He gave her no money. Instead, he confided to her a secret: three cards which, played one after the other in three consecutive games, could not lose. She played them that same evening — three, seven, ace, or so the family whispered — won everything back, and from that day to this had never revealed the secret to anyone. She had told it, the story went, to only one man in her life, and he had died soon after.

"A fairy tale," said Hermann. "Chance! A joke!" said the others, and the party broke up at dawn. But the anecdote had entered Hermann's mind, and it would not leave. That evening he found himself wandering the streets of Petersburg — and stopping, without quite knowing how, in front of an old mansion. "Whose house is this?" he asked a watchman. "The Countess Anna Fedotovna's," the man replied. Hermann stood staring at the lighted windows. The secret was inside that house. He dreamed all night of cards, green tables, and heaps of banknotes; and by morning the prudent engineer had begun, quietly, to plan.

In the Countess's household lived Lizaveta Ivanovna, her young ward — an orphan with a bitter position: dressed like a lady, treated like a servant, scolded for every draught and every delay, and quite invisible to the fashionable world. From his post in the street, Hermann began to watch the house — and Lizaveta noticed the young officer who appeared, day after day, gazing up at her window. Then came the letters: tender, respectful, and increasingly passionate. Lizaveta, lonely and unnoticed all her life, resisted, wavered — and finally answered. In her reply she explained how a visitor might enter the house unseen while the household was away at a ball: the small back staircase, the study, the two doors.

On the appointed night, Hermann slipped into the house. But he did not take the staircase to Lizaveta's room. Instead, he hid himself in the Countess's study and waited, hour after hour, until the old lady returned from the ball and her maids had left her. Then he stepped out before her. "Do not be alarmed," he said. "I have come only to beg a favour of you: the secret of the three cards." The Countess stared at him in silence. "It was a joke," she said at last. "I swear to you it was a joke." "It is no joke," Hermann pressed on, growing desperate. He pleaded; he reasoned; he promised to guard the secret; at last, losing all control of himself, he demanded it — and drew from his pocket an unloaded pistol, only to frighten her. At the sight of it the old woman raised her hands before her face — and sank back in her chair. The shock had been too much for her heart. The Countess was dead, and her secret, if there had ever been one, had died with her.

Hermann went up at last to Lizaveta's room — and told her everything. She listened in horror. The letters, the devotion, the romance: all of it had been a means to reach the old lady and her three cards. "You are a monster," she whispered, through tears. Hermann said nothing. He felt no remorse where she looked for it; what tormented him was not the deceived girl but the lost secret — the irrecoverable loss of the thing that was to have made his fortune. Before dawn, Lizaveta showed him the hidden staircase, and he walked out of the silent house.

Three days later, Hermann attended the Countess's funeral — telling himself it was prudent to ask her forgiveness, so that her memory would not trouble him. As he bent over the coffin, it seemed to him that the dead woman glanced at him mockingly, with one eye half-closed. He turned pale and stumbled. That night, unable to sleep, he heard footsteps — and a figure in white entered his room. "I have come to you against my will," the apparition said, "but I am ordered to grant your request. The three, the seven and the ace will win for you, played one after the other, on three conditions: that you stake on only one card each day, that you never play again as long as you live — and that you marry my ward, Lizaveta Ivanovna." And the figure was gone. Hermann wrote it all down. Three. Seven. Ace. The words drove out every other thought. Seeing a young girl, he would say to himself: how slender — like the three of hearts. Every stout man reminded him of the ace. The three cards bloomed in his dreams in every possible shape.

A famous banker, Chekalinsky, had come to Petersburg — a man who had dealt cards all his life and made millions. Hermann appeared at his table one evening, a total stranger to the company, and asked to play. He staked forty-seven thousand roubles — his whole inheritance, the capital he had never once touched — on a single card: the three. The company stared; Chekalinsky smiled and dealt. The three won. Hermann took his winnings and left. The next evening he returned: the entire sum — ninety-four thousand — on the seven. The seven won. The room fell silent when he appeared on the third evening. Everyone left their own games to watch. He placed all of it — nearly two hundred thousand — on one final card, and the deal began.

"The ace wins," said Hermann, and turned his card. "Your queen loses," said Chekalinsky gently. Hermann stared. In his hand, where the ace should have been, stood the queen of spades. He could not believe his eyes — how had he drawn the wrong card? And at that moment it seemed to him that the queen of spades narrowed her eyes and smiled at him — a face suddenly, impossibly, like the old Countess's. "The old woman!" he cried out in terror. Everything he had was gone. Hermann never recovered. He sits now in Room 17 of the Obukhov hospital, answering no questions, murmuring the same words over and over, unusually fast: "Three, seven, ace! Three, seven, queen!" And Lizaveta Ivanovna — the story notes calmly — has since married a pleasant young man with a good position in the civil service.