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What happens in Pushkin's Queen of Spades and what do they play?



In short - Pushkin opened the genre of "e-sports fiction." Only until the advent of fiction and eSports. His one of the most famous works, The Queen of Spades, is a story about a megapopular game of cards with elements of philosophical questions. It’s one hundred percent getting into the then audience thanks to an incredibly simple entry threshold (31 pages of total text), very recognizable characters, an incredible pile of easter eggs, sarcasm and a relevant topic.

And the background is like that. While we and school groups traveled around Pskov in the fall, we taxied to the theater. He is unexpectedly cool in Pskov. They put just Pushkin. The problem is that the children did not understand the plot and discussed for another 15 minutes after the performance what it was and who won or lost. It seems, obviously, that Hermann had a ride somewhere, but where and how?

Therefore, we will now talk about the Easter eggs of The Queen of Spades, as Pushkin drove a punter into the teeth with his boot and a little about math. By the way, Aleksandr Sergeyevich was still a mess who didn’t quite fit in with the image given on literature at school. And since you are most likely at home now, I propose to touch the beautiful.


Let's start reading, and I will talk about what is happening. Here is one of the online versions . Below are the spoilers.

The first phrase after the epigraph:
“Once they played cards with the horse guard Narumov. The long winter night passed unnoticed; sat down to dinner at five in the morning. "

The work is modern. I mean, it was published in a journal where Pushkin wrote for substantial fees. From the point of view of the reader, everything happens right here and now, that is, literally, a couple of weeks ago. This means that they play modern Pushkin games, specifically here we are talking about the most popular one - the shtoss. In the trivial case, this is a game similar to tossing a coin, but a little more complicated. One player calls the card, the second opens two cards from the deck (discarding them left and right) until the hidden one appears. On whose side she fell - he takes his bet and the same amount of money from the opponent.

We played shtoss, as we see, all night long, and with interest. This is a sign that the game has not only 50/50, but also an essential metagame - something outside the atomic round.

The second important thing in this paragraph is the author’s point of view. Pushkin decided for a very long time how to show, on the one hand, the internal torment of the protagonist Hermann (which requires a third person, that is, an omniscient author), and on the other - how to turn all this into a la post of an eyewitness. The first drafts were from the first person, the final from the third. But pay attention, if you remove personal pronouns like “once [they] played” from sentences, the constructions will still remain as if Pushkin is an eyewitness. What he sought. In modern literature, this is an important technique when working from a third party - “reading the thoughts” of the characters, we can be included in their point of view.

Move on. Just a couple of suggestions below we are already immersed in the wilds of the game:
«– , . – , : , , , !
– ? ?.. .
– ! – , , – , , !»

For modern children in the theater, this whole composition sounds something like “On the gate instagram, a minuscule hurricane, in a bubble, in agra” is a legendary phrase from Eve Online: “a linear cruiser of the Hurricane class was found near the stargate, hostile to our corporation, which recently committed an act of aggression "(which prevents him from jumping into the gate), and he is covered with an anti-jumping field (which prevents him from going for a short jump without a gate)." That is, Pushkin “reported” from the scene in the reader’s language.

“Bet on Root” means repeating a bet on the same card as in the last round of the Stoss. It was assumed that this could help defeat the theory of probability, since it was possible to double the bet (fold the passwords) to win. It's like betting the ruble on red first, then two (so that winning the second round would completely cover the loss of the past), then four and so on is a frequent, but in practice not working, strategy of players who have learned the basics of the terver. Our minor hero Surin adheres to a very calm strategy to play with a mirandol, that is, always with single bets.

Read on:
«– : , ! – . – , .
– ? ? – .
– , – , – !
– , – , – ?»

In this place, the children are finally lost, because for some reason the grandmother does not pont. The linguistic norm has slightly shifted since the time of Peter the Great, so the children laugh. Then we’ll immediately talk about Paris and London, and, it seems, it’s clear that we are talking about Ponte.

In fact, we are talking about the fact that the old woman is not playing. She does not pont, that is, she never tries to play the role of a ponter. A ponter is one of the players who makes a map. There are two roles: a cash machine (it determines the maximum bet and deals cards) and a ponter (puts a jackpot against the bank). Later, from other games, a meme “take on show off” appeared, that is, bluffing with a high bet, which has come down to us in a slightly modified form.

Judging by the police dossier, Pushkin was a well-known ATM, that is, he almost always initiated the game himself, provoking and provoking players to put him against him. But the fictional countess Anna Fedotovna never conducted such provocations.

Then a very interesting speech about her:
“At that time, the ladies were playing pharaoh.”
A chapter later we see a description:
“The countess did not have the slightest claim to beauty, long withered, but retained all the habits of her youth, strictly followed the fashion of the seventies and dressed as long, as diligently as she did sixty years ago.”

That is, Pushkin fully introduced it much later. But it was here that he laid the first line of the image (which allows the reader to fall into the fundamental error of attribution, building a whole image from one line at once). The important name of the game is Pharaoh. This is the forerunner of the Stoss. It is as if modern Dota players would have been told that someone’s grandmother cut herself into the first Warcraft or vomited everyone in the network Quake.

We continue reading:
« , u jeu de la Reine. ; , , . , : , .
– ! – .
– ! – .
– , ? – .
– , – .»

Win sonic - the first two cards from the deck were called “forehead” and “sonic”, that is, we are talking about an instant victory from the first deal. But more important is the mention of "powder cards." The rules of the game in shtoss changed not only in the game plane, but also in the plane of protection against cheaters. Because even a simple cheating technique, which slightly shifted the probability to the side of the ATM, sharply increased its profit by the end of 7-hour gaming gatherings. Powder cards are a specially made deck where part of the drawings was applied with a powder that withstood mixing but did not withstand friction against the tablecloth. Then on the cards there were no numerical designations of the cards, that is, if you put two symbols on the top three with the powder at the top and bottom, you can get friction on the ace table. But more often they did this with other cards. ActuallyThe vulnerability was fixed in the next release by just small numbers in the corners of each card.

But when the heroes hear about an extraordinary win, they suspect not mysticism, but a completely banal cheating.

Stoss overgrown with whole rituals. In particular (it will be important for the plot later), it was necessary to open new decks every time in a decent society. Moreover, two things: one took a cash machine, the second took a ponter. Ponter took a hidden card from his deck and covered it with a bet (money). The cash dispenser was mixing a new deck and giving out from it. After that, the decks were destroyed (most likely, they were used for games without bets or transferred somewhere to worse gambling houses). This made fake dozens and hundreds of decks very unprofitable. At low rates, the strategy paid off.

On the other hand, I don’t know how the decks were then packed, but now they are packaged in ascending order value. That is, the cash machine gained an advantage in the possibility of not enough random mixing.

Read on:
“- Paul! The countess shouted from behind the screens, “send me some new novel, but please, not from the present.”
- How is it, grand'maman?
- That is, such a novel, wherever the hero presses neither father nor mother and where there are no recessed bodies. I am terribly afraid of the drowned! ”

This seems to be a two-step joke, and she is well beaten in the theater. The first part is abstract and understandable (a new novel, but not from the current ones), and in the second, Alexander Sergeyevich scoffs at contemporary literature. In the sense that under these three criteria, little, in principle, falls from the then modern. It’s like a good movie now, but without the “bwong” in the trailer, without an exploding helicopter and jokes in the middle of a fight.

Then a very interesting block:
«[] , , , , ; , , . , . , , , , . . ; ; . , ; , , , .»

This is probably the most modern site of satire. Belinsky wrote about this work that it was more like a joke, not a story, but at the same time it was the height of mastery. Interestingly, his middle phrase was taken out of context and is often used in quotes without praise. Full here:
The Queen of Spades is not a story, but a workshop story. The old countess, her pupil, their relationship and the strong, but demonic-egoistic character of Herman is wonderfully outlined in her. Actually, this is not a story, but a joke: for the story, the content of The Queen of Spades is too exclusive and accidental. But the story - we repeat - is the height of mastery.

Most likely, this meant achieving a huge effect due to a very compressed presentation of information. Each word is not accidental and immediately reveals a huge chain of meanings. That is why there is much more detail in the translation of Prosper Merimet into French - he was engaged not only and not so much in translation as in localization of the cultural context. In the fragment above, we immediately observe three very recognizable and precisely insightful descriptions of the audience: old women, servants and Lizaveta (insights are a sudden understanding of the situation in zoopsychology and psychology, and a “clear hit” in the context of psycholinguistics, when the reader suddenly feels close to situations).

The Queen of Spades is successful also because Pushkin worked with the reader’s thoughts, and did not try to draw conclusions for him in the text (length did not allow) - and even now we get the right attitude to Lisa in this block. Although usually disclosing a character requires at least “saving the cat,” that is, a meaningful act. That's why he is so cool, among other things.

Now let's look at an example of impeccable irony, which is very important for character disclosure. Pushkin, one after the other, seems to be laying out insights from the audience (it takes a lot of time to collect so many observations, and usually such things are stretched into whole chapters, and then a couple of sentences):
“Lizaveta Ivanovna did not listen to her. Returning home, she ran to her room, took out a letter from behind her glove: it was not sealed. Lizaveta Ivanovna read it. The letter contained a declaration of love: it was gentle, respectful and word for word taken from a German novel. But Lizaveta Ivanovna in German did not know how and was very pleased with him. "

The scene at the ball. What impresses me wildly, there is really nothing superfluous in the work. Princess Pauline is mentioned exactly twice, the first time as a third-personage character here. She is generally a passing hero, but how beautifully a whole secondary story unfolds on the basis of this in the epilogue!
« ! , , , ***, , , , , : .»

During the dance they have a dialogue. There is Liza’s reaction: “Lizaveta Ivanovna didn’t answer anything, but her arms and legs were ice-cold ...” - and for some reason this reaction is read by the partner. The reason is very simple: if now we rely more on visual signs, then it was perfectly normal to dance - and transmit a lot of information inside the dance. In particular, through touch. Especially when this is one of the few socially acceptable ways to touch someone of the opposite sex. The closest analogue is that in many countries with a developed tradition of bargaining, participants in the transaction hold hands in a kind of handshake while they are being traded. So they read not only words, but also each other's non-verbal. Naturally, at the ball, the partner felt that Lizaveta was important, and continued to unfold the thought.

We jump over an important plot twist to the next scene:

“The morning was coming. Lizaveta Ivanovna extinguished the dying candle: pale light lit up her room. She wiped away her tear-stained eyes and raised them to Hermann: he sat on the window, folded his arms and frowning menacingly. In this position, he surprisingly resembled a portrait of Napoleon. This resemblance struck even Lizaveta Ivanovna. ”

Pushkin wanted to say ... In general, hell knows what he wanted to say, but modern readers read it to him as "Hermann = Napoleon's reincarnation" or in a similar way. And this is a political story that still generates a layer of comments. That is, discussions in the light. In the meantime, it is important that suddenly at this moment the hero becomes much more negative than we could expect from him before.

The next chapter, another group of Easter eggs begins (more precisely, a subtle irony for contemporaries familiar with the details of a serious game):

« , , , . , , , . . , . .»

Let us leave aside the youth and pay attention to two things: the mention of bills and the fact that Chekalinsky was an experienced player in the shtoss. That is, a person who has proven that a skill in a game decides. The skill does not solve the coin toss, but here we have a character who proves that the outcomes of the Stoss can be controlled. I will return to this, for now, let's talk about bills. Chekalinsky is an unambiguously positive character (UPD: in the comments there is an opinion that nifiga, and he was mutilating with these bills, but so far there is no exact scheme and here are the schemes up to and including modernAshwood) He bet money (this is very honest and it's nice to hear the players), but he accepted bills of exchange as a jackpot. We then traded with Europe, and we adopted a system of bills, which were used for offsetting between traders. The main regulation concerned bills of exchange, that is, those that could be forwarded to someone (I owe you 300 rubles, Vasya owes me 500, here's a bill from Vasya for 500, give me two hundred). But with us they were used as promissory notes, that is, in a simple form. The simple form was poorly regulated, and you could never see money on a bill in principle. Why is this still important: Pushkin often and played a lot of debt. Actually, at the time of the shootout with Dantes, he was in a very deep overdraft. Very straightforward. Therefore, from some point they ceased to believe him,and had to play on tangible property - on the same pistols, for example. But then our sun of Russian poetry discovered the opportunity to bet on manuscripts. And he began to play still unpublished works, because they promised a fee. Here are a few excerpts from the goodmaterial , which contains a whole history of Pushkin's card debts:
“I can’t believe that you forgot me, dear Vsevolozhsky, do you remember Pushkin who spent so many fun hours with you ... Do you remember that I half-sold you, half-played the manuscript of my poems? For you know: an unlucky game will give birth to enthusiasm. I repented, but late - now I decided to correct my mistakes, starting with my poems. Vsevolozhsk dear, the king does not give me freedom! Sell ​​me back my manuscript for the same price of 1000 (I know that you won’t argue with me, but I don’t want to take it for free!) ”

On Christmas Eve 1826, Alexander Sergeevich wrote to Prince Vyazemsky:
“In Pskov, instead of writing the 7th chapter of Onegin, I lost in the fourth state. Amazingly! ”

From the report of the Moscow gendarme general A. Volkov to the chief of the gendarmes, Count A. Benckendorff of March 5, 1827:
“About poet Pushkin, how much brevity of time I was allowed to do reconnaissance, he was well received in all houses and, it seems, is not so much engaged in poetry as a card game, and exchanged Muse for Mucha, which is now of all fashion in great fashion.”

But let's get back to The Queen of Spades:
« , , . , ; ; ; , . . , .
. . , , , , , . . .»

Here is another very interesting episode - a long talya and pauses for operations between game cycles. The joke about the extra corner is that, since Chekalinsky was banking, there were punters against him. Rates are indicated by bending the corners of the cards from their decks, each new corner - an increase of approximately binary order (the scheme 1-2-4-6 was also used). When the players saw that luck was turning towards them, they bent the extra corner on the quiet. This is a fraud, but Chekalinsky instead of smashing his boot in the face ( "In the second half of 1822, Pushkin happened again. For cards, quarreling with someone from Chisinau youth, he took off his boot and hit him in the face." - P. Bartenev ) - Chekalinsky was courteous and gallant.

By the way, Pushkin repeatedly threatened with duels because of quarrels in games:
1820 year. Pushkin challenged Fedor Orlov and Alexey Alekseev to a duel.
Reason: Orlov and Alekseev made a remark to Pushkin for the fact that he tried to play billiards in a drunken state and disturbed others.
Bottom line: the duel is canceled.

1822 year. Pushkin was summoned to a duel by Colonel Semyon Starov.
Reason: they did not divide the restaurant orchestra at the casino, where both indulged in gambling.
Bottom line: they shot, but both missed.

1822 year. Pushkin was summoned to a duel by the ensign of the General Staff Alexander Zubov.
Reason: Pushkin convicted Zubov of cheating while playing cards.
Bottom line: Zubov shot Pushkin (past), and Pushkin himself refused the shot.

True, there were women repulsed by someone from Pushkin and just holivars:
1822 year. Pushkin challenges Severin Pototsky to a duel.
Reason: discussion at the dinner table on serfdom.
Bottom line: the duel is canceled.

Again, the terver seems to suggest that it is strange that with 30 duels Alexander Sergeevich was able to write Onegin. In fact, it was a similar game with bets: the challenge, as you can see, did not necessarily mean the duel itself (the opponents could think a day, sleep and apologize), and the beginning of the collision did not necessarily mean injury or death: you could miss, shoot sweet cherry bones and so on . Here is a list of duels with the results (sorry for LJ, but those who have reached the point are highlighted in red). As you can see, Dantes managed to deprive us of the bestselling book Onegin Returns only the second time.

In "Queen of Spades", the players in the fragment mentioned for some reason folded passwords in a long tally (round). This means that right in the course of the game they could observe a change in probabilities. In a simple shtoss, this is impossible - there the card will either drop out or not. So they played a richer version of features. In a developed shtoss, when opening two ladies on a distribution cycle in certain games, the ATM won - that is, he always had an advantage in probability in this version of the game.

This gave rise to the cheating technique “balamut”, that is, laying out the deck like this before distribution:



A fragment of a letter from Pushkin to Vyazemsky on November 5, 1830:
“You say: the thin one has come to us. Here! Don’t you see that they are throwing us a pure balamut; and we still pont! Not a single card to the left, but we still climb. ”

Actually, on the stage of the theater after the performance, you can see that Chekalinsky played with a balamute:



In fact, of course, the new deck was laid out like that, and the actors did not mix thoroughly, they just made several parallel shifts. To avoid balamut, by the way, the ponter cut a deck of a cash machine with his card. Therefore, in the jargon of the players, “cut off” has become synonymous with “play the shtoss”. But cheating discipline did not stand still, and as a result, dozens of different techniques were invented. As a result, card manufacturers won, because over the course of the evening you could calmly bleed a hundred decks.

But back to the terver. Equalizing mechanics were needed. Therefore, it was possible to play a half-cushion: when with an equal face value of cards the ATM won, he took for himself only half-time. It was possible to change roles round by round. This meant that an experienced player, being a cash machine, had to strive to raise rates, and in the role of a punter to lower.

It was possible to play in thirds: by coincidence of suit (full jackpot), color (two-thirds of the jackpot) or only face value (one-third of the jackpot). There were also “bait” - special achievements for winning Sonic or other complex game events. Accordingly, this generated sets of controlled situations. Therefore, long evenings were spent on the Stoss combinations. Most often, they were played in several games combining an advantage for both a cash machine and a ponter + equally balanced rounds. They put two or more cards, there could be many punters. Here is a table of calculating the odds of an ATM for the boss in one of the versions.

That is, the players wanted and could develop the skill of calculation (intuitively or mathematically) and manage the game as a whole, taking into account the long games. Bets and their results were recorded in chalk, and with the word “atande” a cash machine or a punter, the game was stopped for settlements.
“- Comes! “Said Hermann, writing in chalk the jackpot over his potato.”


And one ruble of the Russian Empire in our game today is equal to 90 modern rubles!

Money was also at stake literally:
“- I only wanted to report to you,” he said, “that, having been awarded the power of attorney of my comrades, I can’t throw it except for pure money.” For my part, I am sure that your word is enough, but for the order of the game and the accounts, I ask you to put money on the card.
Hermann took a bank ticket out of his pocket and handed it to Chekalinsky, who, having glanced at it briefly, put it on Hermann's card. ”

Well, the most stressful moment:
« . . , , . ; . . , , . , , . . . , . . .
, . , .
– ! – .
– , – .
Hermann winced: in fact, instead of an ace, he had a queen of spades. He did not believe his eyes, not understanding how he could turn around. ”

What happened When opening the deck, Hermann wanted to pull out the ace, but he pulled out the Queen of Spades. All the time he was thinking about the ace. The ace fell to the left, and not to the right, and the pitchfork came to Hermann. Actually, the end.



Now a couple more words. The important thing is that through the whole "Queen of Spades" there is a motive of three cards - three, seven and ace. In explicit form:
“Hermann went crazy. He sits in the Obukhov hospital in the 17th number, does not answer any questions and mutters unusually soon: “Three, seven, ace! Three, seven, lady! .. "

And implicit:
“Calculation, moderation and hard work: these are my three faithful cards, that’s what will triple, increase my capital and give me peace and independence!”

As a result, after the publication of the story, the people went crazy and began to put just the top three, seven and ace in games.

Now a couple of Easter eggs - on top of an incredible saturation of meanings, an interesting topic for readers and wildly characteristic characters, Pushkin laid another layer of gaming associations. Here is the location of the old woman’s office and Lizaveta’s bedroom - when Hermann had a choice where to turn, he went right. “The card has fallen to the right” - as you already know, Khan Ponter. Or here in the church scene, an uncharacteristic fir tree on the floor: "He bowed to the ground and lay for several minutes on a cold floor covered with a fir tree." This is because it was necessary to show the hero on a green surface - the cloth of the playing table was also green. In general, on the 31st page of the plot inside is buried just a sea of ​​interesting.

All. I think that if in a literature lesson a teacher, instead of “what the author wanted to say” and “tell the plot,” would tell something similar about the contexts of history, the training would be much more effective. And immediately on a pair of items. But I would have to admit that Pushkin was far from being such an ideal comrade as we would like to believe. Therefore, you have not heard this story. After all, the sun of Russian poetry could not shoot sweet cherries in a duel after refusing to pay a win, living on credit for whole years and losing the heads of Onegin left and right. By the way, if it’s interesting, we’ll get to Onegin too, where Alexander Sergeyevich incredibly annealed.

After the success of The Queen of Spades, many other authors took up the genre of reviews of specific games. Given the recognition of some characters (the old woman was Golitsina), the game piece has become a subspecies of political satire.

Well, I can only recommend the Pskov Pushkin Theater with their excellent production of The Queen of Spades. After quarantine, of course. Well, send read the basic rules on the Wiki.

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