I listened to this novella (on LibriVox) over several days while hiking. As I was coming down the mountain, I could not refrain from shouting, "Stop, leave, stop," etc. in reaction to the narrator's account of his crazed behavior while on a winning streak at the roulette table. A youthful tutor in the employ of a once wealthy Russian general staying at a (fictional) German spa, Alexei Ivanovich wins, loses, wins, loses; one moment he's rich; the next he's a beggar. I can well believe that the novella is semi-autobiographical--in the sense that Dostoevsky was himself for a time addicted to gambling. A master psychologist, Dostoevsky recreates the mania of the compulsive gambler in such a realistic way that the reader feels compelled to shout “Stop” in the hope of preventing Alexei from destroying himself.