The Queen of Spades (story)
The Queen of Spades (Russian: «Пиковая дама», romanized: Pikovaya dama) is an 1834 novella with supernatural elements by Alexander Pushkin, about human avarice.
Written in autumn 1833 in Boldino,[1] it was first published in the literary magazine Biblioteka dlya chteniya in March 1834.
Many years ago, in France, she lost a fortune at faro, and then won it back with the secret of the three winning cards, which she learned from the notorious Count of St. Germain.
Hermann takes his entire savings to Chekalinsky's salon, where wealthy men gamble at faro for high stakes.
In a short conclusion, Pushkin writes that Lizavyeta marries the son of the Countess' former steward, a state official who makes a good salary.
He is installed in Room 17 at the Obukhov hospital; he answers no questions, but merely mutters with unusual rapidity: "Three, seven, ace!
The countess was inspired by Princess Natalya Petrovna Golitsyna, who served as lady-in-waiting for five Russian emperors and was 92 at the time Pushkin wrote "The Queen of Spades".
[10] Critics who favour a rational explanation, such as Nathan Rosen and Viktor Vonogradov, claim that Hermann may have simply seen a likeness between the Countess who gave him the secret and the Queen card, leading him to make a mistake.
[11][12] This explanation focuses on Pushkin’s quote in the story that “Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than two bodies can occupy one and the same place in the physical world.” Here, Hermann cannot separate the actual cards from the Countess who reveals them to him, leading him to accidentally choose the queen instead of an ace.
[13] One reading of The Queen of Spades holds that the story reveals the Russian stereotype of the German, one who is a cold and calculating person bent on accumulating wealth.
[16] Beyond this greed in the form of his gambling obsession, Hermann’s avarice manifests itself in his dealings with Lizavyeta and the Countess.
From the moment when he first sets eye on her, Hermann manipulates Lizaveta and her “injured innocence” to gain access to the Countess and the gambling secrets she holds; however, Hermann’s “depravity becomes fully manifest in the climactic bedroom scene” when he trespasses into the Countess’ room and causes her death.
[17] Pushkin uses metapoetic moments throughout the story to question the reliability of the narrator and to discern the genre of the work.
[13] One of the most notable adaptations of The Queen of Spades was a film produced by Anatole de Grunwald completed in 1949.
This film is recognized for its fidelity to the original story with few differences such as the depiction of the backstory about how the Countess acquired the secret of the three winning cards.
