“I have come to you against my wish,” she said in a firm voice, “but I have been ordered to grant your request.  Three, seven, ace, will win for you if played in succession, but only on these conditions:  that you do not play more than one card in twenty-four-hours, and that you never play again during the rest of your life.  I forgive you my death, on condition that you marry my companion, Lizaveta Ivanovna.”

With these words she turned round very quietly, walked with a shuffling gait towards the door, and disappeared.  Hermann heard the street door open and shut, and again he saw someone look in at him through the window.

For a long time Hermann could not recover himself.  He then rose up and entered the next room.  His orderly was lying asleep upon the floor, and he had much difficulty in waking him.  The orderly was drunk as usual, and no information could be obtained from him.  The street door was locked.  Hermann returned to his room, lit his candle, and wrote down all the details of his vision.

VI

Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than two bodies can occupy one and the same physical world.  “Three, seven, ace” soon drove out of Hermann’s mind the thought of the dead Countess.  “Three, seven, ace” were perpetually running through his head, and continually being repeated by his lips.  If he saw a young girl, he would say:  “How slender she is; quite like the three of hearts.”  If anybody asked “What is the time?” he would reply:  “Five minutes to seven.”  Every stout man that he saw reminded him of the ace.  “Three, seven, ace” haunted him in his sleep, and assumed all possible shapes.  The threes bloomed before him in the forms of magnificent flowers, the sevens were represented by Gothic portals, and the aces became transformed into gigantic spiders.  One thought alone occupied his whole mind—­to make a profitable use of the secret which he had purchased so dearly.  He thought of applying for a furlough so as to travel abroad.  He wanted to go to Paris and tempt fortune in some gambling houses that abounded there.  Chance spared him all this trouble.

There was in Moscow a society of rich gamesters, presided over by the celebrated Chekalinsky, who had passed all his life at the card table, and had amassed millions, accepting bills of exchange for his winnings, and paying his losses in ready money.  His long experience secured for him the confidence of his companions, and his open house, his famous cook, and his agreeable and fascinating manners, gained for him the respect of the public.  He came to St. Petersburg.  The young men of the capital flocked to his rooms, forgetting balls for cards, and preferring the emotions of faro to the seductions of flirting.  Naroumoff conducted Hermann to Chekalinsky’s residence.