Supposing Hermann turning the last of three fated cards had won the game. Supposing he had fallen in love with the innocent Lizaveta during their secret rendezvous. Supposing Alexander Pushkin had written a happy-ending for his work titled “Pikovaja dama”, or “The Queen of Spade”, published in Russia in 1834.Despite being a short story, it is divided into chapters, six chapters. Epigraphs, sometimes in French, anticipate their content, introduce the characters and unfold an articulate plot. In a winter night in St. Petersburg, a group of army officers is lingering over a late dinner with champagne and talks, after long hours spent playing cards. The story of the Countess Anna Fedotovna, one of the men’s grandmothers, slipped into the conversation awakening their interest. Once a stunning beauty with a strong character and a condescending husband, she lost a fortune playing faro, a card game, when she lived in Paris sixty years before. An adventurer rescued the noble dame disclosing three secret cards that played consecutively would win back her money. This is what happened and during her entire life, she never confessed the secret, but once. At early dawn, the sceptic group of men breaks up, but for one of them these casual words have changed his life.
Hermann has German origins, a solid position as officer in the engineers and a small inheritance he firmly protected from his innate love for gambling. He appears quiet and composed when, night after night, he assists endless card games without touching any cards. The story of the old noble dame captures his mind, revealing the possibility to increase his small treasure in a simple and safety way. He succumbs to this idea, sifting through improbable solutions to get hold of the secret. A pair of young black eyes, glanced at the window of the Countess Fedotovna’s palace, shows him the way.
The eyes are those of Lizaveta Ivanova, the Countess Fedotovna’s pretty ward. Sad eyes indeed: she lives among carriage rides and sumptuous balls according to the capricious and despotic desires of the Countess. Lizaveta knows that just marriage can save her. A few days later, while she is embroidering sitting at the window, she casually glimpses the eyes of a young soldier looking at her from the corner of the street. The passionate but respectful letters she receives from the man, Hermann of course, quickly conquer her heart. Her first, distant answers give way, in less then three weeks, to a nocturnal meeting after a ball at the embassy. She sends him a letter with detailed instructions to guide the man up to her bedroom. Here, she waits for him in her evening dress with flowers in her hair, surprised by her own courage and audacity but a little anxious.
The eyes are those of Lizaveta Ivanova, the Countess Fedotovna’s pretty ward. Sad eyes indeed: she lives among carriage rides and sumptuous balls according to the capricious and despotic desires of the Countess. Lizaveta knows that just marriage can save her. A few days later, while she is embroidering sitting at the window, she casually glimpses the eyes of a young soldier looking at her from the corner of the street. The passionate but respectful letters she receives from the man, Hermann of course, quickly conquer her heart. Her first, distant answers give way, in less then three weeks, to a nocturnal meeting after a ball at the embassy. She sends him a letter with detailed instructions to guide the man up to her bedroom. Here, she waits for him in her evening dress with flowers in her hair, surprised by her own courage and audacity but a little anxious.
The night where love should have triumphed became a dramatic failure. The sudden death of the Countess, frightened by the threatening pistol of Herman, puts an end to Hermann’s hopes and Lizaveta’s love. He discloses his real intentions and the young girl realizes the frailty of her illusions.
Three days later, Hermann falls in a troubled sleep after the turmoil of the funeral. The ghost of the Countess appears, unknown forces obliged her to reveal the three cards: three, seven and ace. Excited Hermann played the fated cards, one a night, in front of an astonished public. But, the third night, the last card he turns is the queen of spade. He loses everything.
He could never win. We know that behind this irreproachable man, there is an ambitious and cold mind. Greed unleashes all his withheld passions and devours his mind. His obsession to attain wealth is shaded with gloomy words, with evil and ominous signs without remorse or regret.
He could never marry the sweet Lizaveta. He sent her words of love copied from a book and deceived the young girl to reach the old Countess and her secret. She easily falls in his trap. Love is the magic words that could save her but, lonely and inexperienced, she shaped this love according to romantic novels and dreams.
Three days later, Hermann falls in a troubled sleep after the turmoil of the funeral. The ghost of the Countess appears, unknown forces obliged her to reveal the three cards: three, seven and ace. Excited Hermann played the fated cards, one a night, in front of an astonished public. But, the third night, the last card he turns is the queen of spade. He loses everything.
He could never win. We know that behind this irreproachable man, there is an ambitious and cold mind. Greed unleashes all his withheld passions and devours his mind. His obsession to attain wealth is shaded with gloomy words, with evil and ominous signs without remorse or regret.
He could never marry the sweet Lizaveta. He sent her words of love copied from a book and deceived the young girl to reach the old Countess and her secret. She easily falls in his trap. Love is the magic words that could save her but, lonely and inexperienced, she shaped this love according to romantic novels and dreams.
I read the story again and again. Pushkin describes a reality he knew very well with few words and great skill. Time and place are enriched with details to sketch the Russian aristocracy with its rites and secrets. It created a realistic scenario where romance is just something in the air and supernatural creeps along the story to burst at the end. He interpreted popular themes that fascinated and scared, opposing good to evil, old to new, transforming the trivial desire for money in an amusing, intriguing and ironic story. Poems are considered his best works. He approached prose during his last years, when he dedicated times and energies to explore the story of his country. He believed that good prose needs a different style: essential, with short, simple sentences, no flourishing adjectives, no lingering on emotions, only facts and actions. Pikovaja dama was a great success and a source of inspiration for future artists.
Pushkin could have finished here, with the mocking image of the dead Countess winking at Hermann from the card on the table, the queen of spade. Instead, he wrote the conclusion.
Last summer, after visiting Pushink’s house in St Petersburg, it seemed that he was died just from a few weeks and not in 1837. Turning around a corner, halting in a wide square, looking the water of a canal, or glancing beyond the door of a smoky café there were traces of his life. They were not the wild, crazy days of a young boy who discovered love, pleasures and fame. They were the last days of a man around his forties, married to one of the most beautiful girl of the country, father of four children, with uncertain finance and the fame of classic poet, where classic meant just old. He was suffocating. The malicious, envious and gossip court poisoned everyday of his life. The severe censure, managed directly by the tsar, spied every thought and judged every sentence paralyzing any action or work. In the museum, tourists’ heads turned in sync towards a door, the bed, the imposing library while a voice in the headphones recalled the snow, the duel, the hurried steps and the mortal wound.
He wrote the conclusion: Herman becomes insane and Lizaveta marries another man. In life, everything can happen. For a man who had had love and glory but fought for hope, madness was freedom. A happy-ending.
He wrote the conclusion: Herman becomes insane and Lizaveta marries another man. In life, everything can happen. For a man who had had love and glory but fought for hope, madness was freedom. A happy-ending.
Further reading:
La Dama di Picche e altri racconti - Aleksandr Puskin Adelphi Edizioni S.p.A. Milano 1998 (this is italian edition I read).
Photos:
Travelinagarden: St. Petersburg 2009.
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