The Queen of Spades

Alexander Sergeyevich has "speaking" epigraphs to his works. A significant hint for us, readers, almost 200 years later: "The Queen of Spades means secret malevolence" - this is about the blind, terrible fate with which Hermann, with the profile of Napoleon and the soul of Mephistopheles, so craved wealth that he dared to climb into the countess's bedroom and with a pistol shook the old woman for her soul. This soul-vision gave Hermann a combination of card luck, but with a condition that the unfortunate madman immediately forgot.