The Queen of Spades

Hermann, an officer in the engineers, watches his comrades play night after night without ever staking a single card. He learns that an old countess is said to hold the secret of three winning cards, obtained long ago in Paris, and resolves to wrest it from her. To get close to her, he pretends to love Lizaveta, a poor young girl whom the countess has taken in and who keeps her company, and one night he slips into the house. The story explores greed, cold calculation and the share of chance that no calculation can reduce. Pushkin holds the balance between character study and fantastic tale, never saying which one prevails.