Here is Chapter III of Alexander Pushkin’s “The Queen of Spades”. As before, I’ve made some comments on the story at the end of the column.

—JLW

THE QUEEN OF SPADES

by Alexander Pushkin

III

Vous m’ecrivez, mon ange, des lettres de quatre
pages plus vite que je ne puis les lire.1
A Correspondence.

Lizaveta Ivanovna had scarcely taken off her hat and cloak, when the Countess sent for her, and again ordered her to get the carriage ready. The vehicle drew up before the door, and they prepared to take their seats. Just at the moment when two footmen were assisting the old lady to enter the carriage, Lizaveta saw her Engineer standing close beside the wheel; he grasped her hand; alarm caused her to lose her presence of mind, and the young man disappeared — but not before he had left a letter between her fingers. She concealed it in her glove, and during the whole of the drive she neither saw nor heard anything. It was the custom of the Countess, when out for an airing in her carriage, to be constantly asking such questions as “Who was that person that met us just now? What is the name of this bridge? What is written on that sign-board?” On this occasion, however, Lizaveta returned such vague and absurd answers, that the Countess became angry with her.

“What is the matter with you, my dear?” she exclaimed. “Have you taken leave of your senses, or what is it? Do you not hear me or understand what I say? Heaven be thanked, I am still in my right mind and speak plainly enough!”

Lizaveta Ivanovna did not hear her. On returning home she ran to her room, and drew the letter out of her glove: it was not sealed. Lizaveta read it. The letter contained a declaration of love; it was tender, respectful, and copied word for word from a German novel. But Lizaveta did not know anything of the German language, and she was quite delighted.

For all that, the letter caused her to feel exceedingly uneasy. For the first time in her life she was entering into secret and confidential relations with a young man. His boldness alarmed her. She reproached herself for her imprudent behavior, and knew not what to do. Should she cease to sit at the window, and, by assuming an appearance of indifference towards him, put a check upon the young officer’s desire for further acquaintance with her? Should she send his letter back to him, or should she answer him in a cold and decided manner? There was nobody to whom she could turn in her perplexity, for she had neither female friend nor adviser. At length she resolved to reply to him.

She sat down at her little writing table, took pen and paper, and began to think. Several times she began her letter and then tore it up; the way she had expressed herself seemed to her either too inviting or too cold and decisive. At last she succeeded in writing a few lines with which she felt satisfied.

“I am convinced,” she wrote, “that your intentions are honorable, and that you do not wish to offend me by any imprudent behavior, but our acquaintance must not begin in such a manner. I return you your letter, and I hope that I shall never have any cause to complain of this undeserved slight.”

The next day, as soon as Hermann made his appearance, Lizaveta rose from her embroidery, went into the drawing-room, opened the ventilator, and threw the letter into the street, trusting that the young officer would have the perception to pick it up.

Hermann hastened forward, picked it up, and then repaired to a confectioner’s shop. Breaking the seal of the envelope, he found inside it his own letter and Lizaveta’s reply. He had expected this, and he returned home, his mind deeply occupied with his intrigue.

Three days afterwards a bright-eyed young girl from a milliner’s establishment brought Lizaveta a letter. Lizaveta opened it with great uneasiness, fearing that it was a demand for money, when, suddenly, she recognized Hermann’s handwriting.

“You have made a mistake, my dear,” said she. “This letter is not for me.”

“Oh, yes, it is for you,” replied the girl, smiling very knowingly. “Have the goodness to read it.”

Lizaveta glanced at the letter. Hermann requested an interview.

“It cannot be,” she cried, alarmed at the audacious request and the manner in which it was made. “This letter is certainly not for me,” and she tore it into fragments.

“If the letter was not for you, why have you torn it up?” said the girl. “I should have given it back to the person who sent it.”

“Be good enough, my dear,” said Lizaveta, disconcerted by this remark, “not to bring me any more letters for the future, and tell the person who sent you that he ought to be ashamed.”

But Hermann was not the man to be thus put off. Every day Lizaveta received from him a letter, sent now in this way, now in that. They were no longer translated from the German. Hermann wrote them under the inspiration of passion, and spoke in his own language, and they bore full testimony to the inflexibility of his desire, and the disordered condition of his uncontrollable imagination. Lizaveta no longer thought of sending them back to him; she became intoxicated with them, and began to reply to them, and little by little her answers became longer and more affectionate. At last she threw out of the window to him the following letter:

“This evening there is going to be a ball at the *** ambassador’s. The Countess will be there. We shall remain until two o’clock. You have now an opportunity of seeing me alone. As soon as the Countess is gone, the servants will very probably go out, and there will be nobody left but the Swiss, but he usually goes to sleep in his lodge. Come about half-past eleven. Walk straight upstairs. If you meet anybody in the anteroom, ask if the Countess is at home. You will be told ‘No,’ in which case there will be nothing left for you to do but to go away again. But it is most probable that you will meet nobody. The maidservants will all be together in one room. On leaving the anteroom, turn to the left, and walk straight on until you reach the Countess’s bedroom. In the bedroom, behind a screen, you will find two doors: the one on the right leads to a cabinet, which the Countess never enters; the one on the left leads to a corridor, at the end of which is a little winding staircase; this leads to my room.”

Hermann trembled like a tiger as he waited for the appointed time to arrive. At ten o’clock in the evening he was already in front of the Countess’s house. The weather was terrible; the wind blew with great violence, the sleety snow fell in large flakes, the lamps emitted a feeble light, the streets were deserted; from time to time a sledge drawn by a sorry-looking hack, passed by on the lookout for a belated passenger. Hermann was enveloped in a thick overcoat, and felt neither wind nor snow.

At last the Countess’s carriage drew up. Hermann saw two footmen carry out in their arms the bent form of the old lady, wrapped in sable fur, and immediately behind her, clad in a warm mantle, and with her head ornamented with a wreath of fresh flowers, followed Lizaveta. The door was closed. The carriage rolled heavily away through the yielding snow. The porter shut the street door, the windows became dark.

Hermann began walking up and down near the deserted house; at length he stopped under a lamp, and glanced at his watch: it was twenty minutes past eleven. He remained standing under the lamp, his eyes fixed upon the watch impatiently waiting for the remaining minutes to pass. At half-past eleven precisely Hermann ascended the steps of the house and made his way into the brightly- illuminated vestibule. The porter was not there. Hermann hastily ascended the staircase, opened the door of the anteroom, and saw a footman sitting asleep in an antique chair by the side of a lamp. With a light, firm step Hermann passed by him. The drawing-room and dining-room were in darkness, but a feeble reflection penetrated thither from the lamp in the anteroom.

Hermann reached the Countess’s bedroom. Before a shrine, which was full of old images, a golden lamp was burning. Faded stuffed chairs and divans with soft cushions stood in melancholy symmetry around the room, the walls of which were hung with china silk. On one side of the room hung two portraits painted in Paris by Madame Lebrun. One of these represented a stout, red-faced man of about forty years of age, in a bright green uniform, and with a star upon his breast; the other — a beautiful young woman, with an aquiline nose, forehead curls, and a rose in her powdered hair. In the corner stood porcelain shepherds and shepherdesses, dining-room clocks from the workshop of the celebrated Leroy, bandboxes, roulettes, fans, and the various playthings for the amusement of ladies that were in vogue at the end of the last century, when Montgolfier’s balloons and Mesmer’s magnetism were the rage. Hermann stepped behind the screen. At the back of it stood a little iron bedstead; on the right was the door which led to the cabinet; on the left, the other which led to the corridor. He opened the latter, and saw the little winding staircase which led to the room of the poor companion. But he retraced his steps and entered the dark cabinet.

The time passed slowly. All was still. The clock in the drawing- room struck twelve, the strokes echoed through the room one after the other, and everything was quiet again. Hermann stood leaning against the cold stove. He was calm, his heart beat regularly, like that of a man resolved upon a dangerous but inevitable undertaking. One o’clock in the morning struck; then two, and he heard the distant noise of carriage-wheels. An involuntary agitation took possession of him. The carriage drew near and stopped. He heard the sound of the carriage steps being let down. All was bustle within the house. The servants were running hither and thither, there was a confusion of voices, and the rooms were lit up. Three antiquated chambermaids entered the bedroom, and they were shortly afterwards followed by the Countess, who, more dead than alive, sank into a Voltaire armchair. Hermann peeped through a chink. Lizaveta Ivanovna passed close by him, and he heard her hurried steps as she hastened up the little spiral staircase. For a moment his heart was assailed by something like a pricking of conscience, but the emotion was only transitory, and his heart became petrified as before.

The Countess began to undress before her looking-glass. Her rose-bedecked cap was taken off, and then her powdered wig was removed from off her white and closely cut hair. Hairpins fell in showers around her. Her yellow satin dress, brocaded with silver, fell down at her swollen feet.

Hermann was a witness of the repugnant mysteries of her toilette; at last the Countess was in her night-cap and dressing-gown, and in this costume, more suitable to her age, she appeared less hideous and deformed.

Like all old people, in general, the Countess suffered from sleeplessness. Having undressed, she seated herself at the window in a Voltaire armchair, and dismissed her maids. The candles were taken away, and once more the room was left with only one lamp burning in it. The Countess sat there looking quite yellow, mumbling with her flaccid lips and swaying to and fro. Her dull eyes expressed complete vacancy of mind, and, looking at her, one would have thought that the rocking of her body was not a voluntary action of her own, but was produced by the action of some concealed galvanic mechanism.

Suddenly the death-like face assumed an inexplicable expression. The lips ceased to tremble, the eyes became animated: before the Countess stood an unknown man.

“Do not be alarmed, for Heaven’s sake, do not be alarmed!” said he in a low but distinct voice. “I have no intention of doing you any harm; I have only come to ask a favor of you.”

The old woman looked at him in silence, as if she had not heard what he had said. Hermann thought that she was deaf, and, bending down towards her ear, he repeated what he had said. The aged Countess remained silent as before.

“You can ensure the happiness of my life,” continued Hermann, “and it will cost you nothing. I know that you can name three cards in order — ”

Hermann stopped. The Countess appeared now to understand what he wanted; she seemed as if seeking for words to reply.

“It was a joke,” she replied at last. “I assure you it was only a joke.”

“There is no joking about the matter,” replied Hermann, angrily. “Remember Chaplitsky, whom you helped to win.”

The Countess became visibly uneasy. Her features expressed strong emotion, but they quickly resumed their former immobility.

“Can you not name me these three winning cards?” continued Hermann.

The Countess remained silent; Hermann continued:

“For whom are you preserving your secret? For your grandsons? They are rich enough without it, they do not know the worth of money. Your cards would be of no use to a spendthrift. He who cannot preserve his paternal inheritance will die in want, even though he had a demon at his service. I am not a man of that sort. I know the value of money. Your three cards will not be thrown away upon me. Come!”

He paused and tremblingly awaited her reply. The Countess remained silent. Hermann fell upon his knees.

“If your heart has ever known the feeling of love,” said be, “if you remember its rapture, if you have ever smiled at the cry of your new-born child, if any human feeling has ever entered into your breast, I entreat you by the feelings of a wife, a lover, a mother, by all that is most sacred in life, not to reject my prayer. Reveal to me your secret. Of what use is it to you? May be it is connected with some terrible sin, with the loss of eternal salvation, with some bargain with the devil. Reflect, you are old, you have not long to live — I am ready to take your sins upon my soul. Only reveal to me your secret. Remember that the happiness of a man is in your hands, that not only I, but my children and my grandchildren, will bless your memory and reverence you as a saint.”

The old Countess answered not a word.

Hermann rose to his feet.

“You old hag!” he exclaimed, grinding his teeth, “then I will make you answer!” With these words he drew a pistol from his pocket. At the sight of the pistol, the Countess for the second time exhibited strong emotions. She shook her head, and raised her hands as if to protect herself from the shot. Then she fell backwards, and remained motionless.

“Come, an end to this childish nonsense!” said Hermann, taking hold of her hand. “I ask you for the last time: will you tell me the names of your three cards? Or will you not?”

The Countess made no reply. Hermann perceived that she was dead.

A common device used by Pushkin and other 19th century writers to improve verisimilitude is the use of censoring names of distinguished persons, a practice that was used in early newspapers to avoid prosecutions for libel. This suggests that he is deliberately avoiding embroiling any notable family in scandal, either out of discretion or out of legal caution. The purpose of this fictive discretion is simply to give the story the appearance of truth, to demonstrate that these are sensitive matters and to expose the actual names might have unpleasant consequences.

We are never told the old Countess’s nor Lizaveta’s surnames, although we do know the surname of the Countess’s grandson, Tomsky — and since Tomsky says that his father was one of her four sons and her husband was his grandfather, it stands to reason that the Countess’s name must be Tomskaya (the feminine form of “Tomsky”). But this does not dilute the effectiveness of the trick — in fact, it’s exactly the sort of slip that someone relating the story is likely to make by not guarding his speech closely enough, the sort of flaw that indicates authenticity, like a scar in fine leather.

Along the same lines, in this chapter there is a party at the home of a foreign ambassador. Pushkin has also censored the nationality of this dignitary as if to preclude an international incident, although we will later learn that an Englishman barely acquainted with the Countess attends her funeral for some reason — who else can he be but a diplomat, a man whose duties flatly require being seen at certain funerals? These details have no direct bearing whatsoever on the substance of the tale, but they are still clever bits of craft, serving to remind the reader that the story is being represented as factual.

But it is in the straightforward story-telling that Pushkin really shines. He reports the deadly encounter between Hermann and the Countess verbatim, an impossibility if the story clung strictly to ascertainable facts, since there can’t have been any witnesses — the Countess is dead, and by the end of the story, Hermann will be in no condition to describe what happened between them. Nevertheless, this climactic chapter is the strongest part of the story short of the dénouement.

We’ve been led to dislike the Countess as a querulous and selfish domestic despot, but before Hermann’s onslaught, we see her for what she really is — a lonely old lady, whose only recourse for receiving attention is to demand it. When she says that St. Germain’s secret was only a joke, the reader realizes immediately that she’s telling the truth, that the whole mysterious story was just another ploy for attention. She becomes immediately pathetic. Her death is even poignant.

Of course, Hermann doesn’t believe her. He can’t, because it would require him to face the responsibility for his heinous acts. The only thing that can justify him now is learning the secret of the cards.

Finally, another note on names in a different key: in early fiction, names were assigned according to qualities of the character they represented. This practice was pretty much out of fashion by the late 18th century, but you still had some examples now and again, e.g., Tom Jones’s stepfather Mr. Allworthy, and every character in every play ever written by Sheridan. Tastes were much less blatant in the 19th century. Pushkin was much too sophisticated to play such a game, especially since he obviously intended “The Queen of Spades” to be realistic, but he was not above a little wordplay.

“Hermann” and “Germain” are two versions of the same word, meaning “closely akin” — the Spanish word for “brother” is “hermano”, and we use the word “germane” to indicate relevance. The self-styled Count of St. Germain was one of the most notorious confidence men in the 18th century, a man who pretended to be hundreds of years old and claimed to be a master sorcerer, in short, a complete scoundrel. His magic, with which he mostly separated fashionable women from their fortunes, was all illusion. This is the man to whom in a metaphorical sense, Hermann is closely akin — but Hermann’s trickery is in his manipulation of Lizaveta, his magic tricks the illusion of love.

“Lizaveta” is Russian for “Elizabeth”, which means “my God is my oath”. Lizaveta’s name tells you up front that she should be the last person on earth to violate a trust, but through his illusory love, Hermann has found the way.

Tomorrow I’ll present Chapters IV and V.

1. You write to me, my angel, a letter of four pages faster than I can read them. [↩]