The Queen of Spades and Other Stories

Cover and Illustrations by ©2014 Anna and Elena Balbusso Twins "The Queen of Spades and Other Stories" by Alexander Pushkin Introduced by Rachel Polonsky
Illustrated by Anna and Elena Balbusso, Folio Society 2014 Pushkin wrote the story in autumn 1833. In the story a Russian officer of German ancestry named Hermann learns that a fellow officer’s grandmother, an old countess, possesses the secret of winning at faro, a high-stakes card game. Hermann begins a liaison with Lizaveta, the countess’s impoverished young ward, to gain access to the old woman, but when the countess refuses to reveal the secret, he threatens her with a pistol and she dies of fright. The night of her funeral, he dreams that the countess has told him the winning cards—three, seven, and ace. Hermann then places bets on the three and seven and wins. After betting everything on the ace, which wins, Hermann is horror-stricken to see that he is holding not the ace but the queen of spades, who seems to smile up at him as did the countess from her casket.