"to risk the necessary in the hope of winning the superfluous,"
yet he would sit for nights together at the card table and follow
with feverish anxiety the different turns of the game.

The story of the three cards had produced a powerful impression
upon his imagination, and all night long he could think of nothing
else. "If," he thought to himself the following evening, as he
walked along the streets of St. Petersburg, "if the old Countess
would not reveal her secret to me! If she would only tell me the
names of the three winning cards. Why should I not try my fortune?
I must get introduced to her and win her favor--become her
lover. . . . But all that will take time, and she is eighty-seven
years old. She might be dead in a week, in a couple of days even.
But the story itself? Can it really be true? No! Economy,
temperance, and industry; those are my three winning cards; by
means of them I shall be able to double my capital--increase it
sevenfold, and procure for myself ease and independence."

Musing in this manner, he walked on until he found himself in one
of the principal streets of St. Petersburg, in front of a house of
antiquated architecture. The street was blocked with equipages;
carriages one after the other drew up in front of the brilliantly
illuminated doorway. At one moment there stepped out onto the
pavement the well-shaped little foot of some young beauty, at
another the heavy boot of a cavalry officer, and then the silk
stockings and shoes of a member of the diplomatic world. Fur and
cloaks passed in rapid succession before the gigantic porter at the
entrance. Hermann stopped. "Whose house is this?" he asked of the
watchman at the corner.