The Grandmother's First Taste of Victory — The Gambler

The hotel landlord gives the grandmother a ducal suite and registers her as a princess she never was, dazzled by retinue and tone. She inspects every room with comic suspicion, swaps linens for her own, and summons the narrator now that he no longer serves the General. Learning he was dismissed because the Baron took offense at his German, she calls the General a blockhead for failing to defend him and demands to see roulette at once. The whole party trails her into the Casino: Polina and Blanche flanking the chair, De Griers plotting, Astley whispering predictions. She watches thieves ejected, studies the wheel, ignores probability, and orders stakes on zero until the ball obeys. Wins multiply into thousands; she presses maximum bets on red and leaves triumphant with twelve thousand florins. The narrator, himself a gambler, feels his hands shake as her luck infects him. The chapter shows how spectacle, status, and beginner's luck can turn a spa salon into a fever that even skeptics catch.