Content Warning: This section of the guide describes gambling addiction as well as bigoted stereotypes and generalizations based on nationality.

Alexey Ivanovich, the novel’s narrator and protagonist, returns to the German gambling resort town of Roulettenburg, where he has been working as a tutor for a Russian family, after a two-week absence. On returning, he goes to the expensive hotel where this family, and the wider group to which he is attached, is staying. There Alexey has a meeting with “the general,” the 55-year-old head of the family and group. The general asks Alexey to change some money for him and warns him not to gamble. Later that evening, Alexey embarrasses the general when he starts an argument with a Frenchman, Marquis des Grieux, who is part of their party. Alexey insinuates that French soldiers killed children when invading Russia in 1812. After dinner, Alexey talks with Polina Alexandrovna, the general’s stepdaughter, whom Alexey loves. They discuss the general’s sick aunt in Moscow, referred to as “Grandmother,” who the general hopes will die so that he can inherit her fortune. Polina and Alexey debate the relative merits of des Grieux and an Englishman linked to their group, Mr.