The Queen of Spades recap

Hermann, an ambitious young officer who normally refuses to gamble, hears that his friend's elderly grandmother once used a secret sequence of three cards to erase a huge loss. He courts the Countess's companion, Lizaveta Ivanovna, only to gain entry to the house. When he confronts the Countess with a pistol, she dies of fright without answering. Her ghost later names three, seven, and ace, on the conditions that he use only one card each night and marry Lizaveta. Hermann ignores the spirit of those terms but wins enormous sums on the three and seven. On the third night he believes he has chosen the ace; the card is instead the queen of spades, which seems to bear the dead woman's mocking face. He loses everything and goes mad. Lizaveta later makes a good marriage, while Hermann remains in an institution repeating the fatal sequence.

At an all-night card party hosted by the officer Narumov, Hermann watches the play but again declines to join it. He explains that he will not risk what he has in pursuit of what he lacks. Tomsky then tells the company about his grandmother, Countess Anna Fedotovna. As a young woman in Paris, she lost heavily at cards and could not persuade her husband to pay. Count Saint-Germain privately gave her a secret, and she won back the money by playing three particular cards in succession. She later passed the method to one desperate young man but has refused to tell her own descendants. Hermann, fascinated by the possibility of wealth without ordinary gambling risk, begins thinking about the Countess and her secret.

Hermann becomes consumed by Tomsky's story and finds the Countess's house. There he notices Lizaveta Ivanovna, the old woman's young companion, at a window. Lizaveta lives in humiliating dependence, blamed for the Countess's discomforts and allowed little life of her own. Hermann repeatedly stations himself outside, exchanging looks with her and eventually sending a declaration of love. Although alarmed, she answers. His language grows increasingly passionate, while his actual object remains the Countess's card secret. Lizaveta finally gives him detailed instructions for entering the house while she and the Countess attend a ball, expecting him to come to her room.

Using Lizaveta's directions, Hermann enters the Countess's house but hides in the old woman's room instead of going to Lizaveta. When the Countess returns from the ball, he emerges and begs for the three-card secret, first politely and then with mounting desperation. She says the old Paris story was a joke. Hermann draws an unloaded pistol to frighten her, and the Countess dies in her chair. He then goes to Lizaveta and admits that he used her access to reach the Countess. Lizaveta understands that his courtship was a means to his financial obsession. Despite her horror, she helps him leave by a concealed staircase.

Hermann attends the Countess's funeral and thinks her dead face mocks him; he collapses after approaching the coffin. Later, after drinking, he wakes at night and sees the Countess's ghost. She says she has come against her will and gives him the sequence three, seven, and ace. He must play no more than one card in a day and never gamble again afterward; she also says she forgives him on condition that he marry Lizaveta. The apparition vanishes. From then on, the three cards dominate Hermann's imagination, displacing every ordinary thought and appearing to him in the shapes and patterns of daily life.

Hermann gains entry to Chekalinsky's high-stakes game. On the first night he wagers forty-seven thousand rubles on the three and wins. The next night he stakes the resulting ninety-four thousand on the seven and again wins, astonishing the assembled gamblers. On the third night he intends to complete the sequence with the ace and puts his accumulated fortune at risk. Chekalinsky's card is an ace, but Hermann's is the queen of spades: in his fixation, he has selected the wrong card. He imagines the queen winking with the Countess's face. Ruined and mentally broken, Hermann is confined to a hospital, where he continuously repeats the sequence. Lizaveta later marries well and supports a dependent of her own, while Tomsky also marries and advances in rank.

Hermann stakes forty-seven thousand rubles on what he believes is the ace, the final card in the Countess's sequence. Chekalinsky deals an ace to himself, but Hermann has actually placed his money on the queen of spades. The card seems to wink at him with the Countess's expression, and the loss breaks his reason. He is confined to a psychiatric hospital, where he no longer responds to questions and endlessly repeats the three cards along with a phrase about the queen. Lizaveta Ivanovna escapes the Countess's household by marrying a kind, prosperous young man and takes a poor relation into her own home. Tomsky advances in his military career and marries Princess Polina. The promised secret has therefore enriched neither Hermann nor anyone around him; his attempt to turn it into certain wealth ends in ruin.