In 1988, Svetozar Aleksandrovich Ostrov created a series of etchings for the book “Masquerade” by Mikhail Lermontov. His illustrations for the play can be described as refined, expressive and dramatic.

“Arbenin and the Player” is the name of one of Ostrov’s works. The three-quarter view of the full-length figure of Yevgeny Arbenin occupies the center of the composition. The character’s gaze is full of rage, his mouth ajar, and his hands are stretched along the body and touch the green cloth of the table.

This work shows cards thrown in the air. In the depth of the room, behind Arbenin’s right shoulder is the bewildered Kazarin wearing pince-nez, standing in full length with his right arm bent at the elbow and pressed to his chest. This is the second subscene of the fourth scene in the second act.

Mikhail Lermontov described this scene as follows:

Card games largely influenced the style, worldview, behavior, and way of life of people in the Lermontov era. The motif of a card game not only as a form of leisure, but also as a way to challenge fate, change personal and social status, satisfy vanity, and influence someone else’s fate is one of the main ones in Mikhail Lermontov’s works.

Faro is a gambling card game with an unlimited number of participants, which are divided into players and a banker. The name of this game is generic for one of the most numerous categories of gambling card games. It is considered one of the riskiest card games and was perhaps the most popular one among the Russian nobility of the 19th century.

This game was also known as Pharaoh or shtoss. The latter even served as the name for Lermontov’s unfinished work. The game was mentioned in several literary works, such as “The Queen of Spades” by Alexander Pushkin, “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy, and “Gambler’s Luck” by Ernst Theodor Hoffmann.