In which the narrator returns to Roulettenberg to find his patrons ensconced in grand fashion, their fortunes and relationships entangled with a mysterious air and mingled hopes of impending inheritance. Amidst lively, sometimes tense social intercourse and his own restless reflections on duty and desire, he is charged by Polina Alexandrovna to stake a sum at the roulette table, setting the stage for an intricate entanglement of fate and human frailty.