Queen of Spades: Corey's Thoughts:

"The Queen of Spades" is the story of a German named Hermann's obsessive, manipulative quest to obtain a countess's infallible succession of cards in faro.Alexander Pushkin's short story "The Queen of Spades" contains several passages, all of which involve a countess's secret succession of three cards that cannot be beaten in the game of faro, which are very difficult to believe. However, this is not to say that the story itself is unrealistic, as even the characters themselves remain highly skeptical when Tomsky recounts his grandmother's tale, dismissing the countess's three wins as "'Mere chance'"(Pushkin 3) and suggesting that perhaps the cards were marked in order to give her an unfair advantage. As further proof of his story's truth, Tomsky details the countess's encounter with a man named Chaplitsky, who happens to be the only man who has ever acquired the countess's secret, but is either too far removed from the characters of the story or else is already dead and cannot confirm these rumors. With that being the case, only the countess has the ability to speak to the truth of her grandson's story.When Hermann confronts the countess in an attempt to gain her secret, the countess laughingly denies everything, saying that it was "only a joke" (Pushkin 14). Hermann refuses to believe her, though, and later thinks that he has been visited by her ghost and finally obtained the identity of the three cards. Unfortunately, this is rendered impossible to believe not only due to the fact that it has been recounted by a figment of Hermann's imagination, but also because it is not a sufficient explanation of how one can always win. Just as important as which cards to bet on is the time at which one bets.