The Gambler (Dostoevsky)/Chapter 5

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Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Gambler. Chapter 5

Polina’s Dangerous Test of Obedience

1866

Summary of a Chapter
from the Collection “The Gambler”

The original takes about 17 minutes to read

Microsummary

Polina revealed the General’s ruin and her own debt, then tested Alexei’s obsessive devotion by ordering him to provoke a baroness in public, confident that he could not refuse her reckless command.

Chapter Summary

After leaving the gaming table in a deeply thoughtful mood, Polina ordered Alexei to accompany her on a walk through the park with the children. Irritated by her behavior, he abruptly asked why the Marquis de Griers had recently stopped speaking and walking with her. Polina unexpectedly called De Griers a brute.

Polina explained that the General had mortgaged all his property to De Griers. If the General’s wealthy mother did not die soon, the Frenchman would take permanent possession of everything held as security. Alexei concluded that Blanche would then abandon her plan to marry the General, who might respond desperately because of his infatuation with her.

Alexei condemned Blanche for agreeing to marry solely for money and denounced the family’s repeated telegrams asking whether the General’s mother had died. Polina agreed that the situation was horrible but questioned Alexei’s cheerful manner after he had lost the money she entrusted to him at roulette.

Alexei reminded her that he had warned her he could not win for someone else. He remained convinced that he would succeed as soon as he gambled with his own remaining 120 gulden and offered to give her whatever she needed. Polina reacted contemptuously but admitted that she had borrowed money, had to repay it, and saw gambling as her only available resource.

Both confessed to an irrational certainty that they were destined to win. Alexei suggested that Polina trusted roulette because her need was desperate, like a drowning person mistaking a straw for a tree trunk. She reminded him that he had repeatedly expressed the same confidence, while he insisted that winning was now his own last resource.

When Alexei asked whether Polina’s debt was owed to De Griers, she refused to explain. He called himself her slave and claimed that humiliation could not offend him. Polina told him that dignity remained possible even during a quarrel, but he launched into a long argument about Russians, French manners, and his inability to behave properly.

Alexei declared that his obsession with Polina had erased his interest in the world. He said he loved her without understanding why and admitted that he did not even believe her face, heart, or mind necessarily admirable. When she accused him of trying to buy her respect, he denied it and described his love as a degrading, painful form of enslavement.

His confession became threatening. He said that he sometimes wanted to strike, disfigure, strangle, or kill her, although he would then kill himself. He also recalled telling her on the Shlangenberg that he would leap into the abyss at her command. Polina dismissed such a death as useless, while Alexei insisted that she enjoyed exercising cruel power over him.

Polina then asked whether he would kill any person she selected. After demanding an explanation of her relationship with De Griers and the General’s financial crisis, Alexei finally promised to obey. Polina answered that she could command the murder or renounce him, knowing that he would be unable to accept dismissal. Her claim of absolute authority shocked him despite his submission.

Polina suddenly replaced the imagined murder with a humiliating practical test. Pointing out Baroness Burmergelm and her tall Prussian husband near the Casino, she ordered Alexei to approach the Baroness, remove his hat, and say something in French so that the Baron would beat him with his stick. Alexei warned that the insult could harm the General and Polina, but she mocked him as a coward. Unable to resist her challenge, he silently approached the Baroness in an excited frenzy.

Characters

Alexei Ivanovich — narrator, young Russian man employed as the General’s tutor, an aspiring gambler whose obsessive love for Polina makes him volatile, self-abasing, threatening, and dangerously obedient.

Polina Alexandrovna — young Russian woman, the General’s stepdaughter and Alexei’s beloved, indebted and secretive, with a cold, commanding manner that she uses to test his professed devotion.

Marquis de Griers — adult French aristocrat and creditor who holds the General’s mortgaged property, has become estranged from Polina, and exerts an unexplained influence over her.

The General — older Russian man, Polina’s stepfather and Alexei’s employer, financially ruined, indebted to De Griers, and desperately infatuated with Blanche.

Mademoiselle Blanche — young French woman courted by the General, calculating and socially ambitious, whose willingness to marry him depends on his expected inheritance.

Quotes

I have a curious, senseless idea that I am bound to win at the gaming-tables. Why I think so I cannot tell, but I do think so, and with some assurance.

I have no hope now, and am a mere cipher in your eyes; wherefore, I tell you outright that wherever I go I see only you—all the rest is a matter of indifference.

Why should you think that I am going to let you off? I shall bid you do it, or else renounce me. Could you ever do the latter? No, you know that you couldn’t.

This summary is based on the translation by C. J. Hogarth, first published in Poor Folk; The Gambler (London: J. M. Dent & Sons; New York: E. P. Dutton, 1915). Illustrations were created using AI.