In it lived Prince Simon Mikhaílovich Vorontsóv, Commander of the Kurín Regiment, an Imperial Aide-de-Camp and son of the Commander-in-Chief. Vorontsóv’s wife, Márya Vasílevna, a famous Petersburg beauty, was with him and they lived in this little Caucasian fort more luxuriously than anyone had ever lived there before. To Vorontsóv, and even more to his wife, it seemed that they were not only living a very modest life, but one full of privations, while to the inhabitants of the place their luxury was surprising and extraordinary.
Just now, at midnight, the host and hostess sat playing cards with their visitors, at a card-table lit by four candles, in the spacious drawing-room with its carpeted floor and rich curtains drawn across the windows. Vorontsóv, who had a long face and wore the insignia and gold cords of an aide-de-camp, was partnered by a shaggy young man of gloomy appearance, a graduate of Petersburg University whom Princess Vorontsóv had lately had sent to the Caucasus to be tutor to her little son (born of her first marriage). Against them played two officers: one a broad, red-faced man, Poltorátsky, a company commander who had exchanged out of the Guards; and the other the regimental adjutant, who sat very straight on his chair with a cold expression on his handsome face.
Princess Márya Vasílevna, a large-built, large-eyed, black-browed beauty, sat beside Poltorátsky – her crinoline touching his legs – and looked over his cards. In her words, her looks, her smile, her perfume, and in every movement of her body, there was something that reduced Poltorátsky to obliviousness of everything except the consciousness of her nearness, and he made blunder after blunder, trying his partner’s temper more and more.
‘No … that’s too bad! You’ve wasted an ace again,’ said the regimental adjutant, flushing all over as Poltorátsky threw out an ace.
Poltorátsky turned his kindly, wide-set black eyes towards the dissatisfied adjutant uncomprehendingly, as though just aroused from sleep.
‘Do forgive him!’ said Márya Vasílevna, smiling. ‘There, you see! Didn’t I tell you so?’ she went on, turning to Poltorátsky.
‘But that’s not at all what you said,’ replied Poltorátsky, smiling.
‘Wasn’t it?’ she queried, with an answering smile, which excited and delighted Poltorátsky to such a degree that he blushed crimson and seizing the cards began to shuffle.
‘It isn’t your turn to deal,’ said the adjutant sternly, and with his white ringed hand he began to deal himself, as though he wished to get rid of the cards as quickly as possible.
The prince’s valet entered the drawing-room and announced that the officer on duty wanted to speak to him.
‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ said the prince, speaking Russian with an English accent. ‘Will you take my place, Márya?’
‘Do you all agree?’ asked the princess, rising quickly and lightly to her full height, rustling her silks, and smiling the radiant smile of a happy woman.
‘I always agree to everything,’ replied the adjutant, very pleased that the princess – who could not play at all – was now going to play against him.
Poltorátsky only spread out his hands and smiled.
The rubber was nearly finished when the prince returned to the drawing-room, animated and obviously very pleased.
‘Do you know what I propose?’
‘What?’
‘That we have some champagne.’
‘I am always ready for that,’ said Poltorátsky.
‘Why not? We shall be delighted!’ said the adjutant.
‘Bring some, Vasíli!’ said the prince.
‘What did they want you for?’ asked Márya Vasílevna.
‘It was the officer on duty and another man.’
‘Who? What about?’ asked Márya Vasílevna quickly.
‘I mustn’t say,’ said Vorontsóv, shrugging his shoulders.
‘You mustn’t say!’ repeated Márya Vasílevna. ‘We’ll see about that.’
When the champagne was brought each of the visitors drank a glass, and having finished the game and settled the scores they began to take their leave.
‘Is it your company that’s ordered to the forest to-morrow?’ the prince asked Poltorátsky as they said good-bye.
‘Yes, mine … why?’
‘Then we shall meet to-morrow,’ said the prince, smiling slightly.
‘Very pleased,’ replied Poltorátsky, not quite understanding what Vorontsóv was saying to him and preoccupied only by the thought that he would in a minute be pressing Márya Vasílevna’s hand.
Márya Vasílevna, according to her wont, not only pressed his hand firmly but shook it vigorously, and again reminding him of his mistake in playing diamonds, she gave him what he took to be a delightful, affectionate, and meaning smile.
Poltorátsky went home in an ecstatic condition only to be understood by people like himself who, having grown up and been educated in society, meet a woman belonging to their own circle after months of isolated military life, and moreover a woman like Princess Vorontsóv.
