_Alexander Poushkin (born 1799, died 1837) was the greatest genius among the Russian poets. Though born of a noble family, thick lips and crisp, curly hair showed his descent from an Abyssinian negro slave ancestor on his mother’s side. As a poet his work has been compared with that of Byron, of which he was frankly a close student. Chronologically he comes first in the list of Russian prose writers, a list that includes Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoievski, and Tolstoi. “The Queen of Spades” is one of the best and most characteristic of his short stories._ [Illustration] THE QUEEN OF SPADES BY ALEXANDER POUSHKIN Translated by H. Twitehell. Copyright, 1901, by The Current Literature Publishing Company. At the house of Naroumov, a cavalry officer, the long winter night had been passed in gambling. At five in the morning breakfast was served to the weary players. The winners ate with relish; the losers, on the contrary, pushed back their plates and sat brooding gloomily. Under the influence of the good wine, however, the conversation became general. “Well, Sourine?” said the host inquiringly. “Oh, I lost as usual. My luck is abominable. No matter how cool I keep, I never win.” “How is it, Herman, that you never touch a card?” remarked one of the men, addressing a young officer of the Engineering Corps. “Here you are with the rest of us at five o’clock in the morning, and you have neither played nor bet all night.” “Play interests me greatly,” replied the person addressed, “but I hardly care to sacrifice the necessaries of life for uncertain superfluities.” “Herman is a German, therefore economical; that explains it,” said Tomsky. “But the person I can’t quite understand is my grandmother, the Countess Anna Fedorovna.” “Why?” inquired a chorus of voices. “I can’t understand why my grandmother never gambles.” “I don’t see anything very striking in the fact that a woman of eighty refuses to gamble,” objected Naroumov. “Have you never heard her story?” “No.”