Images of Herman and the Countess in the story “The Queen of Spades”

How does Herman expect to achieve happiness? Introduce himself to the countess, win her favor, perhaps become her lover.” The rules of calculation are frankly immoral - what is this willingness to become the lover of an eighty-seven-year-old woman for selfish purposes worth? In these reflections, it is not only the sincerity itself that is scary, but the calm, business-like tone in which these plans and these intentions are expressed...

The chance - he saw the “fresh face” of an unfamiliar girl in the window of the countess’s house - “decided his fate”, he took the path of adventure. An immoral plan instantly matured: to penetrate the countess’s house with the help of a “fresh face”, make a person unknown to him an accomplice in the crime and force the countess at any cost to reveal to him the secret of the three cards, begging her or threatening to kill her.

After the story with Lizaveta Ivanovna, the meeting with the Countess is the culmination of Herman’s scam game. Presentation before old woman in her bedroom after midnight, Herman carries out his previously planned plan - “to introduce himself to her, to gain her favor.” Seeing unknown man, the countess was not afraid - her “eyes perked up.” The young officer “introduces himself”: “I have no intention of harming you; I have come to beg you for one favor.” Let's pay attention to the Countess's reaction. Pushkin emphasizes one motive - the silence of the old woman. After German’s first phrase, Pushkin reports: “The old woman looked at him silently and did not seem to hear him. Herman imagined that she was deaf, and, leaning close to her ear, repeated the same thing to her. The old woman remained silent as before.”

Continuing to “wish for her favor,” Herman begins to beg to give him the secret of the three cards. To this speech, for the first and last time, Countess Tomskaya reacts vividly and rejects the tale of the three true cards: “It was a joke,” she finally said, “I swear to you!” it was a joke!"

This is the only testimony of a living witness to ancient events, who in Tomsky’s story appeared as a character in the legend. The Countess's confession destroys the legend. One can hardly doubt the veracity of her words. Besides" an old man swears the three-card version was a joke. It is impossible to believe that the countess is cunning, deceiving, dodging, not wanting to give away the secret. She had nothing to give away - there was no secret. The secret existed for Herman, for Tomsky and his friends. The countess's mind was formed in the skeptical 18th century; in the 1770s, Voltairianism was widespread in Russia, and the young countess who appeared in Paris, of course, was attuned to the spirit of the times. The losing countess paid off the gambling debt, and since the name of Saint-Germain was shrouded in mystery, then, apparently, this legendary version of three cards arose as a joke: the famous adventurer and mystic revealed the secret of three cards to Moscow Venus!

It is fundamentally important for Pushkin that the reader understands that there was no secret! The Countess herself swore that the whole conversation about three cards was a joke. This secret is a mirage, a “fairy tale”, an old “anecdote”. It is also significant that the prudent Herman believed in this secret. Belief in otherworldly forces is alien to him, but the gambler’s passion and adventurous nature prevailed - he succumbed to the temptation to instantly get rich. And this is the historically and socially conditioned traits of Herman’s character and beliefs. The pursuit of a ghostly secret, which should also open the path to happiness - capital - expresses the essential side of the image of Herman.

Herman once again changes tactics: it seems to him that he needs to beg the countess again and again, appeal to her past, remind her of the long past, of the years of passion and happiness: “your heart knew the feeling of love,” “I beg you with the feelings of your wife, mistress, mother, - to all that is sacred in life, - do not refuse me my request! “Tell me your secret.” “The old woman did not answer a word.”

In a monologue form, Pushkin conveyed the duel between representatives of two eras, two consciousnesses, two wills. The form of the monologue construction of the scene of the duel between Herman and the Countess is deeply meaningful. Its meaning is a demonstration of the murderousness of egoism, the passion of an adventurer. The nature of the monologue changes all the time - it escalates, hardens and finally turns into a crude threat, into a readiness to kill a person resisting his will. Herman shouts, “Old witch!.. So I’ll make you answer... With this word, he took a pistol out of his pocket.”

The Countess remained silent - she died from overexertion, from fright. Behind her silence one can discern the spiritual strength, arrogance, and contempt of the aristocrat for the vile actions of the plebeian. At the very first attack of the night stranger who burst into her bedroom, she responded with recognition - she told the truth, with an oath she dispelled the children of the legend. They didn’t believe her, and she fell silent.

Herman came to the countess to find out the secret - therefore, a dialogical form of the meeting was assumed. Dialogue connects two people, even opponents. The Countess, having told the truth, fell silent. The dialogue turned into a monologue. The monologue of this scene clearly reveals Herman’s selfish isolation. With all the laconicism of the narrative, Pushkin finds economical but expressive means of psychological disclosure of Herman’s spiritual world. Already in the scenes considered, we discover the moral deafness of the engineering officer, his murderous concentration on himself, which does not allow the opportunity to listen to the opinion of another person.

Queen of Spades

(Tale, 1833; published 1834)

Hermann- a young officer (“engineer”), the central character of a socio-philosophical story, each of the heroes of which is associated with a specific theme (Tomsky - with the theme of undeserved happiness; Lizaveta Ivanovna - with the theme of social humility; the old countess - with the theme of fate) and is endowed with one its defining and unchanging feature. G. - first of all, prudent, reasonable; this is emphasized by his German origin, his last name (the reader does not know his name), and even his military specialty as an engineer.

G. first appears on the pages of the story in an episode with the horse guard Narumov, but, sitting until 5 in the morning in the company of players, he never plays - “I am not able to sacrifice what is necessary in the hope of acquiring what is superfluous.” Ambition, strong passions, and fiery imagination are suppressed in him by the strength of his will. After listening to Tomsky’s story about three cards, the secret of which was revealed to his grandmother Countess Anna Fedotovna by the legendary spirit seer Saint Germain 60 years ago, he exclaims: not “Chance,” but “Fairy Tale!” - because it eliminates the possibility of irrational success.

Next, the reader sees G. standing in front of the windows of the poor pupil of the old countess, Lisa; his appearance is romantic: a beaver collar covers his face, his black eyes sparkle, a quick blush flashes on his pale cheeks. However, G. is not the gallant character of the old French novel that the countess is reading, not the fatal hero of the Gothic novel (which the countess condemns), not the protagonist of the boring and peaceful Russian novel (brought to her by Tomsky), not even the “literary relative” of Erast from Karamzin’s story "Poor Lisa." (The connection with this story is indicated not only by the name of the poor pupil, but also by the “foreign” vowel of the surname of her “seducer”.) G. is rather the hero of a German bourgeois novel, from which he borrows word and word his first letter to Liza; This is the hero of a novel of convenience. He needs Lisa only as an obedient instrument for the implementation of a well-thought-out plan - to master the secret of the three cards.

There is no contradiction here with Narumov’s scene; a man of the bourgeois era, G. did not change, did not recognize the omnipotence of fate and the triumph of chance (on which any gambling game is based - especially Pharaoh, which the Countess played 60 years ago). Simply, after listening to the continuation of the story (about the deceased Chaplitsky, to whom Anna Fedotovna revealed the secret), G. was convinced of the effectiveness of the secret. This is logical; one-time success may be random; the repetition of an accident indicates the possibility of turning it into a pattern; and the pattern can be “calculated,” rationalized, and used. Until now, his three trump cards were calculation, moderation and accuracy; from now on, mystery and adventurism were paradoxically combined with the same calculation, with the same bourgeois thirst for money.

And here G. miscalculates in a terrible way. Two days later he set out to master the law of chance, to subordinate the mystery to his own purposes, when the mystery itself immediately took possession of him. This dependence, the “subjugation” of the hero’s actions and thoughts (which he himself hardly notices) begins to manifest itself immediately - and in everything.

Upon returning from Narumov, he has a dream about a game in which gold and banknotes seem to be demonized; then, already in reality, an unknown force leads him to the house of the old countess. G.'s life and consciousness are instantly and completely subordinated to a mysterious game of numbers, the meaning of which the reader does not understand for the time being. Thinking about how to take possession of the secret, G. is ready to become the lover of the eighty-year-old countess - for she will die in a week (i.e. in 7 days) or in 2 days (i.e. on the 3rd); winnings can triple, seventeen his capital; after 2 days (i.e., again on the 3rd), he appears under Lisa’s windows for the first time; after 7 days she smiles at him for the first time - and so on. Even G.’s surname now sounds like a strange, German echo French name Saint Germain, from whom the Countess received the secret of the three cards.

But, barely hinting at the mysterious circumstances to which his hero becomes a slave, the author again focuses the reader’s attention on G.’s rationality, prudence, and planning; he thinks through everything - right down to Lizaveta Ivanovna’s reaction to his love letters. Having obtained her consent to a date (and therefore received a detailed plan of the house and advice on how to get into it), G. sneaks into the countess’s office, waits for her return from the ball - and, scaring her half to death, tries to find out the desired secret. The arguments he gives in his favor are extremely varied; from the proposal to “make my life happy” to discussions about the benefits of frugality; from the readiness to take the Countess’s sin upon one’s soul, even if it is connected “with the destruction of eternal bliss, with a devilish pact” to the promise to honor Anna Fedotovna “like a shrine” from generation to generation. (This is a paraphrase of the liturgical prayer book “The Lord your God will reign forever in Zion, to all generations.”) G. agrees to everything, because he does not believe in anything: neither in the “destruction of eternal bliss”, nor in shrines; these are only incantatory formulas, “sacred-legal” conditions of a possible contract. Even “something similar to remorse” that resonated in his heart when he heard the steps of Lisa, whom he had deceived, is no longer able to awaken in him; he became petrified, like a dead statue.

Realizing that the countess is dead, G. sneaks into Lizaveta Ivanovna’s room - not in order to repent to her, but in order to dot all the i’s; to untie the knot of a love plot that is no longer needed, “... all this was not love! Money—that’s what his soul yearned for!” A stern soul,” Pushkin clarifies. Why, then, twice during one chapter (IV) does the author lead the reader to compare the cold G. with Napoleon, who for people of the first half of the 19th century. embodied the idea of ​​romantic fearlessness in playing with fate? First, Lisa recalls a conversation with Tomsky (G. has a “truly romantic face” - “the profile of Napoleon, and the soul of Mephistopheles”), then follows a description of G., sitting on the window with his arms folded and surprisingly reminiscent of a portrait of Napoleon...

First of all, Pushkin (like Gogol later) depicts a new, bourgeois, crumbling world. Although all the passions, symbolized by cards in the story, remained the same, evil lost its “heroic” appearance and changed its scale. Napoleon thirsted for glory - and boldly went to fight with the entire Universe; a modern “Napoleon”, G. craves money - and wants to shortchange his fate in accounting. The “former” Mephistopheles threw the whole world at Faust’s feet; The “current” Me-fisto is only capable of intimidating the old countess to death with an unloaded pistol (and the modern Faust from Pushkin’s ♦ Scenes from Faust”, 1826, with which “ Queen of Spades", bored to death). From here it’s a stone’s throw to the “Napoleonism” of Rodion Raskolnikov, united with the image of G. by ties of literary kinship (“Crime and Punishment” by F. M. Dostoevsky); For the sake of an idea, Raskolnikov will sacrifice the old money-lender (the same personification of fate as the old countess) and her innocent sister Lizaveta Ivanovna (the name of the poor pupil). However, the opposite is also true: evil shredded, but remained the same evil; G.’s “Napoleonic” pose, the pose of the ruler of fate, who has suffered defeat, but has not come to terms with it - crossed arms - indicates a proud contempt for the world, which is emphasized by the “parallel” with Lisa, sitting opposite and humbly folding her hands in a cross.

However, the voice of conscience will speak again in G. - three days after the fateful night, during the funeral service for the unwittingly killed old woman. He will decide to ask her for forgiveness - but even here he will act for reasons of moral gain, and not for strictly moral reasons. The deceased may have a harmful influence on his life - and it is better to mentally repent to her in order to get rid of this influence.

And here is the author, who consistently changes the literary registration of his hero (in the first chapter he is a potential character in an adventure novel; in the second, he is the hero of a fantasy story in the spirit of E.-T.-A. Hoffmann; in the third, he is the protagonist of a social-everyday story, the plot of which gradually returns to its adventurous origins), again sharply “switches” the tone of the narrative. Rhetorical clichés from the funeral sermon of the young bishop (“the angel of death found her<...>vigilant in good thoughts and in anticipation of the midnight bridegroom") are themselves superimposed on the events of the terrible night. In G., this “angel of death” and “midnight bridegroom”, parodic features suddenly appear; his image continues to shrink and decline; he seems to melt before the reader’s eyes. And even the “revenge” of the dead old woman, which makes the hero faint, can make the reader smile: she “looked at him mockingly, squinting with one eye.”
A historical anecdote about three cards, a detailed description of everyday life, fantasy - everything gets confused, covered with a veil of irony and ambiguity, so that neither the hero nor the reader can make out: is the dead old woman, shuffling with slippers, all in white, really G. that same night? Or is this a consequence of nervous paroxysm and drunk wine? What are the three cards she named - “three, seven, ace” - the otherworldly secret of numbers to which G. is subject from the moment he decided to take possession of the secret of the cards, or a simple progression that G. deduced for himself a long time ago ( “I will triple, seventeen the capital..,” that is, I will become an ace)? And what explains the dead countess’s promise to forgive her involuntary killer if he marries a poor pupil, about whom she had nothing to do with during her life? Is it because the old woman was forced to “become kinder” by an unknown force that sent her to G., or because in his sick consciousness all the same echoes of conscience are heard that once woke up in him at the sound of Lisa’s steps? There are no and cannot be answers to these questions; without noticing it, G. found himself in an “intermediate” space, where the laws of reason no longer apply, and the power of the irrational principle is not yet omnipotent; he is on the road to madness.

The idea of ​​three cards finally takes possession of him; he compares a slender girl to a three-piece of gold; When asked about the time, he answers “5 minutes to seven.” A pot-bellied man seems to him like an ace, and the ace appears as a spider in a dream - this image of dubious eternity in the form of a spider weaving its web will also be picked up by Dostoevsky in “Crime and Punishment” (Svidrigailov). G., who so valued independence, even if it was material, and for its sake entered into a game with fate, completely loses his independence. He is ready to completely repeat the “Parisian” episode of the life of the old countess and go to Paris to play. But then the famous player Chekalinsky comes from “irrational” Moscow and starts a real “irregular” game in the “regular” capital. The very case that G. intended to exclude from his natural, planned life saves him from “trouble” and decides his fate.

In the scenes of the “duel” with Chekalinsky (whose surname rhymes assonantly with Chaplitsky’s surname), the reader is presented with the old G. - cold and all the more calculating, the less predictable the game of pharaoh. (The player puts a card, the punter, who holds the bank, throws the deck right and left; the card may or may not coincide with the one the player chose at the beginning of the game; it is obviously impossible to predict winning or losing; any maneuvers of the player that do not depend on his mind and will are excluded.) G. does not seem to notice that in the image of Chekalinsky, on whose plump, fresh face an eternal icy smile plays, fate itself confronts him; G. is calm, because he is confident that he has mastered the law of chance. And, oddly enough, he is right: the old woman did not deceive; all three cards win night after night. It’s just that G. himself accidentally screwed up, i.e. instead of the ace he put the queen of spades. The pattern of mystery is fully confirmed, but the omnipotence of chance is also confirmed. G.’s tripled, moderated capital (94 thousand) goes to the “ace” - Chekalinsky; G. gets the queen of spades, who, of course, immediately repeats the “gesture” of the dead old woman - she “squinted and grinned.”

“The Queen of Spades” was apparently created in the second Boldin autumn, in parallel with “The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish” and the “St. Petersburg story” “The Bronze Horseman”. Naturally, the image of G. comes into contact with their central characters. Like the old countess, he wants to put fate at his service - and in the end he also suffers a crushing defeat. Like poor Eugene, he rebels against the “natural” order social life- and also goes crazy. (That is, he is deprived of Reason - that “tool” with the help of which he was going to master the Law of Fate.) From the Conclusion to the story, the reader learns that the failed conqueror other world, the bourgeois Napoleon, who has shrunk Mephistopheles, sits in room 17 (ace + seven) of the Obukhov hospital and very quickly mutters: “Three, seven, ace! Three, seven, queen!

Hermann is the hero of A.S. Pushkin’s story “The Queen of Spades” (1833). G. is a military engineer, the son of a Russified German, who did not receive much capital from his parent, and therefore was forced to live on one salary, not allowing himself the slightest whim. A player at heart, he never sits down at a card table. However, G.’s “strong passions and fiery imagination” are ignited by the story of his friend Tomsky about three cards that once allowed his grandmother, Countess Anna Fedotovna, to pay off a large gambling debt. From now on, the Countess's house attracts G. like a magnet. He wants to fall into the favor of the countess, to become her lover, he is ready to do anything just to master the secret of the three cards, which will bring him wealth. “Calculation, moderation and hard work” on which he built his former life are losing their former attractiveness for G.

A meeting with Lizaveta Ivanovna, a poor pupil of the old countess, decides his fate. Using the girl’s love as the key to the countess’s house, G. enters her bedroom and conjures the old woman with “the feelings of a wife, mistress, mother” to reveal to him the secret of the three cards. The frightened countess dies without saying anything. True, three days later, on the day of the funeral, the ghost of the countess appears to G. in a dream and names the cards: three, seven, ace. From now on, three cards completely occupy G.’s imagination. For three days in a row he comes to the house of Hussar Chekalinsky and places one card at a time, as the countess ordered. The first two days bring him winnings; on the third day, instead of an ace, the queen of spades falls on the table, in G.’s imagination, endowed with a fatal resemblance to the countess. Lost, G. goes crazy and ends his days in the Obukhov hospital.
Such is the character of G. - a man who, being “unable to sacrifice what is necessary in the hope of acquiring what is superfluous,” succumbed to destructive passion and, in the pursuit of wealth, lost his mind.
E.G. Khaichenko Pushkin G. served as the prototype for the hero of P.I. Tchaikovsky’s opera “The Queen of Spades” (1890); libretto by P.I. Tchaikovsky, written in 1887-1889. originally for composer N.S. Kpenovsky.
The hero of the opera is called Herman - this is a first name, not a surname, like Pushkin. The librettist changed the time of action, which was attributed to the 18th century of the Catherine era. His Herman, who had “strong passions and a fiery imagination,” was rewarded with the gift of love. The intrigue around the three cards has lost its primary significance. The sober and prudent ambitious man with the profile of Napoleon was replaced by a lonely and restless hero, overwhelmed by the elements of love passion and gambling. The hero of the opera is endowed with melancholy and a nervous imagination, subject to ecstatic impulses. The opera retained the name of Pushkin's story. This is explained by the peculiarities of the fatalist composer’s worldview: the theme of rock, embodied in the musical image of the Countess, highlights the idea of ​​life as a game in the hands of an omnipotent fate (the famous aria “What is our life? A game!”). This level of conflict dictates a different outcome compared to the original source - the death of Herman. But the theme of love that concludes the opera sounds like the triumph of true passion over false one.

In the theatrical history of Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, there are examples of a “return” to Pushkin’s original. Thus, V.E. Meyerhold, in a production in 1933, tried to “Pushkinize” the opera. For this purpose, V. Stenich wrote a new libretto, in which Pushkin’s plot was restored.

One of the most legendary houses, inseparable from literary characters, is the house of the Queen of Spades, or the house of Princess Golitsyna on Malaya Morskaya, 10. When we say “Queen of Spades,” we immediately remember the secret three cards: three, seven and ace; German's despair after the loss, number 17 of the Obukhov hospital, where German, who had gone crazy, ended his life.

The scenery with the humpbacked bridge over the Winter Canal is resurrected in my memory... but these are already impressions of Tchaikovsky’s opera of the same name “The Queen of Spades”. By the way, the house where P.I. died. Tchaikovsky, is located opposite the house of Princess Golitsyna. These are the strange connections that happen in history...

A maid of honor and a lady of state at the court of five Russian emperors, the cavalry princess Natalya Petrovna Golitsyna personified the continuity and inviolability of royal power. Both a cadet and an important general came to her as an important superior. Before the girl was brought into the world, she was shown to Natalya Petrovna Golitsyna. Members of the royal family sometimes appeared at the princess's house on Malaya Morskaya. Natalya Petrovna’s son, Moscow Governor-General Prince Dmitry Golitsyn, stood at attention before the formidable mother, as if before a sovereign.

Golitsyna inherited her stern disposition from her grandfather Ushakov, the head of the secret detective office under Anna Ioannovna, a famous executioner. The princess's father was a prominent diplomat, Count Pyotr Grigorievich Chernyshev.

Even in her youth, Natalya Petrovna Golitsyna was not particularly beautiful. In her old age she became quite unattractive. Behind her back they called her “the mustachioed princess.” In the literature we do not find evidence of A. Pushkin’s personal acquaintance with Golitsyna, but who in St. Petersburg did not know the princess and her house on Malaya Morskaya?

Of course, the appearance of a literary hero most often reflects the character traits and biographies of not one, but several real people. A book character, as a rule, is a collective image. Pushkin’s close friend Pavel Voinovich Nashchokin noted that in the image of the old countess from the story “The Queen of Spades,” the features of another high-society lady, maid of honor and distant relative of Pushkin’s wife Natalya Kirillovna Zagryazhskaya were embodied. By the time the story was written, she was already 87 years old, like the old countess. Pushkin loved to talk for a long time with Natalya Kirillovna, learning many interesting details from the era of Catherine I and Paul I.

But let's return to Malaya Morskaya, 10. Under Golitsina, the house was less elegant than it is now. There was no balcony above the entrance; the pattern of windows in the center of the facade was different. But basically, both the external and internal appearance of the house has been preserved quite well. On the pediment of the house you can see the remains of a molded coat of arms. Upon entering the house, we immediately find ourselves in a spacious lobby. The main staircase leads, as before, to the fireplace on the landing, above which there is a high semi-circular mirror and in it a small round clock. Half-erased Roman numerals on the dial. Below is the inscription: “Leroy Paris”. It is curious that Hermann, when he walked through the house of the Queen of Spades, came across a table clock made by the “glorious Leroy”.

Liza’s note served as Herman’s guide: “Go straight to the stairs... From the hallway, go left, go straight all the way to the Countess’s bedroom. In the bedroom behind the screens you will see two small doors: on the right to the office, where the countess never enters, on the left to the corridor, and then a narrow twisted staircase: it leads to my room.”

Following the indicated route, even today, upon entering the house of Princess Golitsyna, we will see a grand marble staircase, with a fireplace and an ancient Leroy clock on the landing. On the second floor, just above the lobby, there is a reception hall, where today one of the city clinics is located. Previously, this hall was connected to other enfilades that ran along Malaya Morskaya. From the reception hall one could follow Herman to the preserved corner room. Today, due to the redevelopment of the internal chambers of Golitsyna’s house, it is impossible to go through this way. Today you can enter the princess’s former bedchamber through a narrow corridor, passing a spiral staircase. Two windows of the bedchamber overlook Gorokhovaya, three – on Malaya Morskaya Street. A white marble fireplace near the outer wall has been preserved. Alcove, deep and wide, on interior wall rooms, suggests the location of the princess's bed. On either side of the alcove are two small doors. The one to the right leads to a small room that previously served as the countess’s office.

The door to the left of the alcove connects the princess's bedroom with a narrow corridor, through which today you can get to the countess's bedroom.

The amazing similarity of the interiors, down to the smallest details, with those described by A.S. Pushkin! There is no doubt that A.S. Pushkin visited Golitsyna’s house. How the poet could have been familiar with the peculiarities of the location and furnishing of the countess’s bedroom, where only servants or close relatives could be admitted, one can only guess...

Six months before the creation of “The Queen of Spades” A.S. Pushkin, a block from the old countess’s house, rented an apartment in the Zhadimirovsky house, on the corner of Bolshaya Morskaya and Gorokhovaya streets. Bolshaya and Malaya Morskoy streets were located in the center of aristocratic St. Petersburg. Of course, the poet more than once passed by the princess’s house and that police box that stood on the corner of Malaya Morskaya and Gorokhovaya. This is how Princess A.S. describes the house. Pushkin:

“...he found himself in one of the main streets of St. Petersburg, in front of a house of ancient architecture. The street was lined with carriages, one carriage after another heated up to the illuminated entrance. The slender leg of a young beauty, or a rattling jackboot, or a striped stocking and a diplomatic shoe were constantly stretched out of the carriages. Fur coats and cloaks flashed past the stately doorman. Hermann stopped.

- Whose is this house? – he asked the corner guard.
“Countesses ***,” answered the guard.

The story with three cards is taken from life. Golitsyna’s grandson Sergei Grigorievich Golitsyn, who had the nickname Firs in high society, was a friend of Pushkin. Firs was no stranger to poetry and music, and tried his hand at writing in these areas. But Firs's greatest passion was cards. One day, after a big loss, he came to ask his rich grandmother for money. The stingy Natalya Petrovna, instead of money, gave her grandson advice to bet on three cards and thus win back. It is unknown which cards were named by Golitsyna. But one thing is certain: Firs, having bet on the named cards, not only won back, but also increased his jackpot!

This story, an anecdote, as similar ones were called in the 19th century, became known to A. Pushkin and was used by him in his story “The Queen of Spades.”

For Pushkin scholars, the fact of N.P.’s acquaintance is highly doubtful. Golitsyna with the famous adventurer Saint Germain, from whom she could learn the secret of the three cards...

Why exactly these cards? Troika. Seven. Ace?

The troika is associated in our minds with Herman’s three commandments. All his life he bet on three true cards: calculation, moderation, hard work.

If you trace Herman's bets during the game, you can easily find the three and seven hidden in them. They are laid down by the very rules of the bank game (shtos, pharaoh).

At A.S. Pushkin in the epigraph of the story we read:

"And on rainy days
They were going
Often;
They bent - God forgive them! -
From fifty
One hundred..."

The rules of the game in the bank were beneficial to the banker and pushed his opponent, the punter, if he lost, to double the bet (“from fifty to a hundred.”) Sometimes it reached a sixteen-fold increase in the initial bet. It was called the “password game.”

Herman's initial bid was 47 thousand rubles. The first win brings him another 47 thousand. On the second day of the game, Herman already bets 94 thousand. A win on a seven gives him another 94 thousand. The last, third bet is ahead. She promises Herman a doubling of the 188 thousand rubles delivered, i.e. 376 thousand!

In all these calculations three and seven are found. As a result of the second win, Herman received triple the initial capital, and after the third he had to increase it seven times relative to the initial bet. In the margins of the story “The Queen of Spades” the author made all these calculations. They were of fundamental importance for Pushkin.

On the third evening of the game, when Herman discovers the Queen of Spades instead of Ace, he is struck by the latter’s extraordinary resemblance to the old Countess. “At that moment it seemed to him that the Queen of Spades squinted and grinned,” we read from A.S. Pushkin.

Hermann realizes that his lady has been killed. He traded Lisa for cards. He had no intention of fulfilling the condition set by the old woman: to marry her poor pupil. Herman put everything on the line. And he didn’t become an Ace.

Three and seven are favorite numbers in Russian folk tales. And in Pushkin’s works, based on Russian folklore, we remember the three maidens under the window, the seven heroes in “The Tale of the Dead Princess,” and the immortal 33 heroes in “The Tale of Tsar Saltan.”

In the story by A.S. Pushkin’s “The Queen of Spades” intricately intertwined the poet’s fantasy and reality. The poet knew the world of Moscow and St. Petersburg gamblers very well, which helped him to reflect it so realistically and vividly in his story.

Natalya Petrovna Golitsyna lived a surprisingly long life by the standards of today. She died at the age of 98 and was buried in the family tomb of the Golitsyn princes in the Donskoy Monastery. The house of the Queen of Spades on Malaya Morskaya was donated by Nicholas I for eternal and hereditary possession to the Minister of War Chernyshev. At the same time, in the middle of the 19th century, it was partially rebuilt, the coat of arms of the Chernyshev princes appeared on the pediment and a balcony with an openwork lattice on the facade facing Malaya Morskaya Street. During the reconstruction, the old countess's bedchamber and the rooms adjacent to it remained in their original form.

This allows, of course, to create a museum corner in this part of the house, if the current tenants, the city clinic, would so desire. Currently, the interior of the bedchamber houses a staff room.

Another memorable address of the story “The Queen of Spades” is the Obukhov Hospital. This is where Hermann finds himself in issue 17.

The old Obukhov hospital near the Obukhov Bridge on the embankment of the Fontanka River was publicly accessible. She was sometimes called a commoner. Opened in 1780, the hospital was originally housed in several wooden buildings and had a capacity of 60 beds. A little later, a large building designed by D. Quarenghi was built on the same site.

The building of the Obukhov Hospital, decorated with a powerful white-columned portico, is still used as a medical facility and serves as a decoration of the Fontanka River embankment.

By the way, another literary character, Lefty, the hero of the story by N.S., also ended his life in the same hospital. Leskova.

A young military engineer, German Hermann, leads a modest life and amasses a fortune; he does not even pick up cards and limits himself only to watching the game.

...Being firmly convinced of the need to strengthen his independence, Hermann did not even touch interest, lived on his salary alone, and did not allow himself the slightest whim. However, he was secretive and ambitious, and his comrades rarely had the opportunity to laugh at his excessive frugality...

His friend Tomsky tells a story about how his grandmother, the countess, while in Paris, lost a large sum at cards. She tried to borrow from the Count of Saint-Germain, but instead of money, he revealed to her the secret of three winning cards. The Countess, thanks to the secret, completely won back.

This idea took possession of the poor German.

Hermann, having seduced her pupil, Lisa, enters the countess’s bedroom, trying to find out the cherished secret with pleas and threats. Seeing Hermann armed with a pistol (which, as it turned out later, turned out to be unloaded), the Countess dies of a heart attack.

At the funeral, Hermann imagines that the late countess opens her eyes and glances at him. In the evening, her ghost appears to Hermann and says that three cards (“three, seven, ace”) will bring him a win, but he should not bet more than one card per day. The second condition is that he must marry Lisa.

Hermann subsequently did not fulfill the last condition. Three cards become an obsession for Hermann:

...Seeing a young girl, he said: “How slim she is!.. A real three of hearts.” They asked him what time it was, he answered: “It’s five minutes to seven.” - Every pot-bellied man reminded him of an ace. Three, seven, ace - haunted him in a dream, taking on all possible forms: the three bloomed in front of him in the form of a lush grandiflora, the seven seemed like a Gothic gate, the ace like a huge spider. All his thoughts merged into one - to take advantage of the secret that cost him dearly...

The famous millionaire gambler Chekalinsky comes to St. Petersburg. Hermann bets his entire capital (47 thousand rubles) on three, wins and doubles it. The next day he bets all his money (94 thousand rubles) on seven, wins and again doubles his capital. On the third day, Hermann bets money (188 thousand rubles) on the ace. An ace comes up. Hermann thinks he has won, but Chekalinsky says that Hermann's lady lost. In some incredible way, Hermann turned around and bet money instead of an ace on a queen.

Hermann sees on the map a grinning and winking Queen of Spades, who reminds him of the Countess. The ruined Hermann ends up in a mental hospital, where he does not react to anything and constantly “mutters unusually quickly: “Three, seven, ace!” Three, seven, queen!..”

So Hermann is a man who, being “unable to sacrifice what is necessary in the hope of acquiring what is superfluous”, succumbed to destructive passion and, in the pursuit of wealth, lost his mind.