There was once a card game at the residence of Horse Guardsman Narumov. A long winter night had slipped by unnoticed, and it was past four o’clock when they sat down to dine. The winners thoroughly enjoyed their dinner; the others sat there at empty places, unable to concentrate on anything. But champagne was served, the conversation struck up again, and everybody was involved.
“How’d you get on, Surin?” asked the host.
“Lost. I always do. To be honest, I’m just not lucky. I don’t take any risks, I never raise the stakes, I don’t let anything put me off, and I still end up losing!”
“And you’ve never been tempted? Never done any doubling up?… Your willpower amazes me.”
“Well, what about Hermann?” said one of the guests, gesturing towards a young Engineers officer. “Never picked up a card since the day he was born, never doubled a stake, and he sits here till five in the morning just watching us gamble.”
“I’m very interested in gambling,” said Hermann, “but I’m in no situation to sacrifice what is essential in the hope of winning something superfluous.”
“Hermann’s from Germany. He calculates the odds. Nothing more to it than that,” put in Tomsky. “If there’s one person I
don’t understand, it’s my grandmother, Countess Anna Fedotovna.”
“Why? What d’you mean?” cried the company.
“What I can’t work out,” Tomsky went on, “is why my grandmother never has a bet.”
“What’s so funny about that?” said Narumov. “An old woman of eighty who doesn’t gamble?”
“So, you’ve never heard anything about her?”
“No! Honestly, I haven’t. Nothing at all!”
“Oh, well, listen to this. You ought to know that, fifty-odd years ago, my grandmother used to go to Paris, where she was considered the latest thing. People flocked after her to get a glimpse of the ‘Venus from Moscow’. Richelieu pursued her, and Grandmother swears he nearly shot himself because of her hard heart. At that time the ladies liked to play faro. One day at court she lost to the Duke of Orléans on credit—it was a large sum of money. Back home, as she peeled off her beauty spots and unfastened her crinoline, Grandmother declared her loss to my grandfather and ordered him to pay it off. My late grandfather, I seem to recall, was like a butler to my grandmother. He dreaded her like fire, but when he heard about this terrible loss of hers he lost his temper, brought out the accounts, pointing out that they had spent half a million in half a year, that living near Paris wasn’t the same as living on their own estates near Moscow or Saratov, and refused point-blank to pay. Grandmother slapped
his face and went off to bed alone as a sign of her displeasure. The next morning she sent for her husband, hoping that marital punishment would have had its effect on him, but she found him intransigent. For the first time in her life she was reduced to persuasion and argument with him; her idea was to bring him to heel by deigning to point out that there are different kinds of debt, and that there is a difference between a prince and a coach-builder. No use! Grandfather was in revolt. Nothing more to be said. Grandmother had no idea what to do.
“She numbered among her acquaintances one quite remarkable man. You will have heard the name of Count Saint-Germain, about whom such wonderful stories are told. You will know that he had claimed to be the Wandering Jew, the discoverer of the elixir of life, and the philosopher’s stone, and so on. He was ridiculed as a charlatan, but Casanova in his memoirs refers to him as a spy. Putting that aside, Saint-Germain, for all his air of mystery, had a handsome look about him and a charismatic personality. To this day Grandmother loves him to distraction, and she gets angry when disrespectful things are said about him. Grandmother knew that he had access to big money. Deciding to throw herself on his mercy, she wrote him a note asking him to come round and see her without delay. The old eccentric lost no time in getting there, and found her prostrate with grief. She described her husband’s barbarity in the darkest terms, and ended by placing all her hopes on his friendship and generosity.
“Saint-Germain gave it some thought. ‘I can oblige you with that sum of money,’ he said, ‘but I know you will never rest until you have been able to pay me back, and I wouldn’t wish to cause you any more trouble. There is another solution: you can win it all back.’
“‘But, my dear Count,’ Grandmother replied, ‘I’m telling you—we have no money at all.’
“‘Money is not required,’ replied Saint-Germain. ‘Please let me finish.’
“At this point he told her a secret that any of us would pay a good deal to learn…”
The young gamblers redoubled their interest. Tomsky lit his pipe, pulled on it, and spoke further.
“That same evening Grandmother turned up at the
jeu de la reine in Versailles. The Duke of Orléans was dealing. Grandmother muttered a word of apology for not bringing the money to pay off her debt, concocting a little story by way of excuse, and she began to bet against him. She chose three cards, and played them one after the other; all three won at the first turn of the cards, doubling up in series, and Grandmother had recouped her entire debt.”
“Fluke!” said one of the guests.
“Fairy story!” cried Hermann.
“Could have been marked cards,” was the response from a third guest, eager to join in.
“I think not,” observed Tomsky with some gravity.
“What?” said Narumov. “You have a grandmother who can play three winning cards in sequence, and in all this time you haven’t got hold of her magic formula?”
“Not much chance of that!” replied Tomsky. “She had four sons, one of them being my father. They were all desperate gamblers, and she never told her secret to any one of them, even though it could have done them a lot of good, and me, too, for that matter. But my uncle, Count Ivan Ilyich, told me something which he swore was true. That man Chaplitsky—he’s dead now, squandered millions and died in poverty—in his youth once lost about three hundred thousand—to Zorich, if memory serves. He was in despair. Grandmother always came down hard on young people’s stupid indiscretions, but for some reason she took pity on Chaplitsky. She told him the three cards, provided that he played them in the right sequence and gave his word never to gamble again. Chaplitsky turned up to face his victorious opponent; they sat down to play. Chaplitsky staked fifty thousand on the first card—a straight win—and by doubling and redoubling he recouped all his losses, with a bit left over…
“Anyway, it’s bedtime. A quarter to six.”
Yes, indeed, it was getting light. The young men downed their drinks and went their separate ways.
Copyright © 2021 by Alexander Pushkin. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
