A summary of Osip Senkovsky’s "A Russian Card Game" Automatic translate

This collection of works by Russian writers was published circa 1994. It brings together texts from the 19th and 20th centuries devoted to risk and the philosophy of card games. Here, cards act as a living mechanism of fate, capable of breaking human destinies, revealing hidden vices, and dictating their merciless terms at the card table. The writers explore the dark side of gambling, where the thirst for profit coexists with the utter collapse of hope. Fictional worlds are closely intertwined with harsh reality, forcing the characters to make deadly bets.

Essays and stories

Arithmetic

The narrator proposes measuring human life by rigorous mathematical calculations. He methodically calculates the enormous sums of money and 725 years of lost time that Russians waste annually on card battles. The ironic author paints a picture of a monumental catastrophe. A card-playing Vesuvius erupts from old decks, burying St. Petersburg in a multi-meter layer of paper debris, like ancient Pompeii. Future archaeologists discover frozen officials and card sharps beneath the rubble.

Notes of the brownie

The soul of the dying Ivan Ivanovich slowly separates from his body, indifferently observing the despair of his young wife. After the funeral, the spirit meets the devil Bubantes. The demon demonstrates the ability to draw concentrated flames of passion from the air. For fun, Bubantes infuses magical fire into the bones of the dead and the cold hearts of his living neighbors. This artificial love drives people to infidelity and destroys families.

Classic stories about gambling

The Queen of Spades

Engineer Hermann is obsessed with the secret of the three true cards. He breaks into the house of an old countess and threatens her with a pistol, demanding she reveal the secret. The old woman dies of a broken heart. Later, her ghost appears to Hermann, revealing the winning combination: three, seven, ace. The engineer twice wins a huge jackpot. On the third evening, he confidently bets his entire fortune, but draws the queen of spades. The hero goes mad.

Grand slam

Four acquaintances have been gathering for years for a quiet game of vint. Nikolai Dmitrievich is obsessed with the dream of winning a grand slam, but the right suit stubbornly eludes him. One day, he gets the perfect hand. The joy proves too strong. Nikolai suffers a heart attack and falls dead. His partner, Yakov, weeps, realizing the full horror of the situation. The deceased will never know that the treasured ace was in the deck.

Twenty-five rubles

Dmitry Zaedin suffers constant setbacks in his life. He gets injured at work, takes a bribe, loses his job, and falls in love with a hairdresser’s doll. After inheriting money, he invests in a failed magazine and marries a disgraced woman. Dmitry decides to go with the flow. At a ball, he bets 25 rubles as a joke. Fortune suddenly bestows upon him a vast fortune. Unable to bear the shock, Zaedin dies.

Shtoss

The artist Lugin suffers from hypochondria and hears a mysterious voice dictating an address near the Kokushkin Bridge. He rents a mysterious, empty apartment. Every night, a ghostly old man in a striped robe comes to him. The old man offers, "Would you like me to mark you with a piece of shtoss?" The ethereal image of a beautiful woman appears next to the old man. The artist gambles away his fortune, hoping to win it back and win the ghostly beauty. The stakes are rising.

The Philosophy of Fortune and Fall

Marker’s Notes

The billiard room attendant, Petrushka, observes the moral decline of the young nobleman, Nekhlyudov. The inexperienced youth falls under the influence of the cynical card sharper, Fedotka. He begins gambling for large sums, loses the family fortune, and sinks to the bottom of society. Nekhlyudov recognizes his degradation but finds no strength to break out of the vicious cycle. The young man writes a bitter suicide note and shoots himself in the head right there in the billiard room.

Bored audience

The passengers on a riverboat are bored with idleness. Three experienced con artists organize a card game, luring the onlookers. A huge, simple-minded longshoreman, Mikhailo, succumbs to the herd’s passion and loses 15 rubles. Having lost the money, the giant falls to the deck and sobs, wailing, "Good heavens! Fifteen rubles!" The captain forces the con artists to return their stolen money. Mikhailo calms down and returns to work, completely unaware of his own moral weakness.

Student

Student Drzhevetsky observes the actions of three card swindlers on a Volga steamship. He coolly intervenes in their game and leaves the swindlers penniless. An experienced card sharper, Balunsky, admires the young man’s skill. The student admits he doesn’t use marked decks. His method relies on an iron will, a disdain for others, and an ability to read others’ vulnerabilities.

Fatal bets

Cossack shtos

Retired hussar Potap Obraztsov stirs up a dull provincial town. During an officers’ drinking bout, he brazenly robs the bank with a contrived trick. Potap uses the resulting scandal as a distraction. While the officers try to catch him in fraud, the hussar kidnaps the beautiful Nadya right from the ice rink, leaving her husband looking like a fool.

Revenge

Alexander Sivachev loses 35,000 rubles to Prince Nazarov at a shooting tournament. Left penniless, he hits rock bottom. The card sharper Chertayev picks him up and teaches him the art of card cheating. At a high-stakes game, Sivachev wins a huge jackpot but refuses to share with his mentor. Insulted, Chertayev publicly exposes the cheater. Disgraced, Sivachev returns to the hotel and shoots himself.

A genius player

Joachim Gneiss dedicates his life to finding the perfect mathematical system for poker. He discovers a way to stack a deck so as to guarantee the best cards. At the Santa Lucia Club, he is caught switching cards. A veteran player named Boots challenges Gneiss to the death. The system suddenly malfunctions, Gneiss loses the game, and dies instantly of a heart attack.

The Fantasy Worlds of Alexander Green

An episode during the capture of the fort

Captain Jäger receives a letter from his beloved Elsa about their breakup. In desperation, the officer voluntarily seeks death during the assault on the enemy’s Fort Cyclops. The bullets mysteriously miss him. After the battle, the general gives the captain a new message from Elsa, asking for forgiveness for his mistake. Having regained his will to live, Jäger goes on another attack and is immediately killed.

Gnor’s Life

Ennioc abandons her rival, Gnor, on the deserted island of Ash to seize the beautiful Carmen. Eight years later, the rescued Gnor finds his enemy at an inn. The men draw lots on cards, deciding a matter of life and death. Ennioc draws the fateful two of spades and shoots herself in the temple. Gnor is reunited with Carmen, conquering time and betrayal.

Club Arab

Having lost his entire fortune, Jung becomes a miserable hanger-on at the "Society of Aged Martyrs." A mysterious dark-skinned woman offers him a mystical deck of cards. The stakes in this game are time. Losing transports a player to the future, while winning returns him to the past. Jung dreams of winning back 10 years to save his deceased fiancée, Olga. He loses the game and, horrified, finds himself in a hospital bed.

Gray car

Ebenezer Sidney suffers from a phobia: he believes cars are living machines bent on destroying humanity. After winning $500,000 from the mulatto Griño, Sidney refuses to accept the car from his ruined rival. Soon, the gray car begins pursuing him. Sidney’s beloved, Corrida El Basso, turns out to be a mechanical wax doll. She shoots the inventor, defending the world of machines.

Biographies of Great People

The unrecognized genius Favorsky is drinking in a tavern with the timber merchant Chugunov. The drunk Favorsky praises great thinkers, while Chugunov defends the simple pleasures of the flesh. The argument devolves into a card game. The hero wagers books containing biographies of his idols. Having won the library, Chugunov tosses the volumes into a fresh grave in the cemetery.

Official and secular customs

Screw

Chief Peresolin catches his subordinates engaged in a strange activity in the duty room. The officials have pasted photographs of their colleagues onto playing cards and are playing vint. The suits represent various government departments, and the ranks range from state councilors to petty clerks. Intrigued, Peresolin takes off his coat and joins the nightly game.

In the barn

A janitor, a coachman, and a herring seller are playing cards indifferently inside a carriage house. In the neighboring manor house, a young nobleman commits suicide. A little boy, Alyoshka, listens in horror to the adults’ tales of restless souls. The adults return to their cards, ignoring the frightened child’s tears.

The story of one unfortunate day

High school student Volodya Ratomsky spends the day with the bohemian family of his friend Aragvin. The young man passionately declares his love for his friend’s sister, Serafima. Soon, Volodya accidentally overhears Serafima’s conversation with her cynical lover, Kvyatkovsky. Upon learning of Serafima’s deceit, Volodya breaks down in tears in the park. Kvyatkovsky consoles the boy and takes him to play billiards.

Children’s

The action unfolds in a semi-underground attic club. The cold-blooded Captain Krug methodically ruins the weak-willed Semyon Semyonovich. Having lost all his money, Semyon Semyonovich bets his own wife, Pavla Petrovna. The captain cheats on the hand and takes the winnings. The crushed husband signs an IOU, handing over his spouse to the cruel winner.

The Tale of the Collegiate Councilor

Ivan Bogdanovich, a tidy official, sits down to play Boston on the eve of Easter. The excitement of the cards captivates the guests. The men don’t hear the cannon shots or the ringing of bells. The holiday arrives, people exchange Easter greetings, and the officials continue to toss cards onto the green felt. An evil spirit deprives them of their willpower, forcing them to play until they are completely exhausted.