A short novel set in a fictional German spa town, where a Russian family and their hangers-on wait anxiously for news of a wealthy relative's inheritance. The narrator, a young tutor named Alexei, is in love with the general's stepdaughter and is soon drawn to the roulette tables. The story portrays the thrill and ruin of gambling, and the restless passions of those around him. Dostoevsky wrote it quickly under financial pressure, drawing on his own experience of the habit.