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 place in the 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 of the public 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. Narumov
conducted Hermann to Chekalinsky's residence.

They passed through a suite of magnificent rooms, filled with
attentive domestics. The place was crowded. Generals and Privy
Counsellors were playing at whist; young men were lolling carelessly
upon the velvet-covered sofas, eating ices and smoking pipes. In the
drawing-room, at the head of a long table, around which were assembled
about a score of players, sat the master of the house ke