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Hermann, a poor, ambitious young officer of German descent in St Petersburg, watches others gamble every night but never plays himself. Then he hears that an…
Hermann, a poor, ambitious young officer of German descent in St Petersburg, watches others gamble every night but never plays himself. Then he hears that an old countess knows a secret of three cards that will always win, a secret she learned in Paris sixty years before. Determined to get it, he courts her young ward, Lizaveta, to gain entry to the house at night, and confronts the old woman with a pistol, with consequences that follow him all the way to the card table.
Context and significance
Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837), Russia's greatest poet, published this short story in 1834, and Tchaikovsky later turned it into an opera. Dostoevsky called it a masterpiece of fantastic fiction. This translation is by H. Twitchell. Read also Dostoevsky's The Gambler, and see Pushkin's life.
About the author
Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837) is Russia's national poet. His great-grandfather, Abram Gannibal, was an African boy taken to Russia who became a favourite of Peter the Great and a general. Pushkin was educated at the imperial lyceum at Tsarskoye Selo and was exiled to the south of Russia for poems against tyranny.
His novel in verse Eugene Onegin, his drama Boris Godunov, his poem The Bronze Horseman and his short stories created modern Russian literature. He died at thirty-seven after a duel with a French officer who had pursued his wife. The library holds his works in Russian, English and Arabic.