Evgeni Aleksandrovich Arbenin, a man of not the first youth, a player by nature and by profession, having become rich on the cards, decides to change his fate: to enter into an “alliance with virtue”, marry and heal the master. Conceived - done.

Life, however, makes a significant amendment to this most beautiful plan. Having seized herself not only by direct calculation, but rather by “mature thought”, Eugene, unexpectedly for himself, falls in love, and in earnest, with his young wife. And this, with his gloom and his temperament - like lava, "seething" - does not promise spiritual comfort. It seems to have "subsided", moored to the family marina, and feels like a "broken shuttle" thrown again into the open, stormy sea.

His wife, no doubt, is an angel, but she is a child, and soul, and for years, and childishly adores everything that glitters, and most of all "and the splendor, and the noise, and the talk of balls." And today: holidays, Petersburg is having fun, dancing, somewhere is entertaining Nastasya Pavlovna Arbenina (at home - Nina). She promised to be before midnight, now it is already two o’clock ... Finally is. Sneaking on tiptoe and kissing, like a good uncle, on the forehead. Arbenin makes her a scene, but the dear ones scold - they just amuse!

In addition, Evgeni Aleksandrovich himself is not without sin now: he broke the vow - “no more sitting down on cards”. Sat down! And he won big. True, the pretext is plausible: it is necessary to rescue the loser Prince Zvezdich from the misfortune!

With Zvezdich, he goes from the gambling house to the masquerade house - to Engelhardt. To scatter. It’s impossible to dissipate: in an idle crowd Arbenin is a stranger to everyone, but Zvezdich, a young and very handsome guardsman, in his element and, of course, dreams of an amorous adventure. A dream comes true. The mysterious masked lady, intriguing, confesses to him involuntary passion. The prince asks for a symbolic meeting some symbolic “object”. The mask, without risking giving its ring, gives the handsome man a bracelet lost by someone: gold, with enamel, premium (look for, they say, wind in the field!). The prince shows a masquerade "trophy" to Arbenin. He somewhere saw a similar one, but where, he doesn’t remember. Yes, and not Zvezdich to him, someone Unknown, having uttered insolence, had just predicted Eugene misfortune, and not at all, namely on this festive winter night! ..

You must admit that after such a stormy day, Mr. Arbenin has reason to be nervous, waiting for his belated wife! But then the thunderstorm, without turning into a storm, sped away. Well, from the fact that Nina loves differently than he does - unconsciously, playing with feelings, because she loves the same! Touched, in a fit of tenderness, Eugene kisses his wife's fingers and involuntarily draws attention to her bracelet: a few hours ago Zvezdich boasted of the same gold and enamel! And here you go! There is no bracelet on the right wrist, and they are paired, and Nina, following the fashion, wears them on both hands! No, it cannot be! “Where, Nina, is your second bracelet?” “Lost.” Lost? Naturally, they don’t find the loss, by order of Arbenin, by the whole house, but in the process of searching it turns out: Nina did not stay until two in the morning at the home ball in a respectable family, but at a public masquerade at Engelhardt, where a decent woman, alone, without companions ride shameful. Struck by a strange, inexplicable (is it really just a childish curiosity?) Act of his wife, Arbenin begins to suspect that Nina has an affair with the prince. Suspicion, however, is not yet certain. The angel-Nina cannot prefer him, a mature husband, an empty cute boy! Much more (so far) the Prince is indignant at Arbenin - whether this "cupid" would have been up to amorous pranks if he, Arbenin, had not generously played his card loss! Tired to the half death of a showdown, the spouses of Arbenina, in the very worst of moods, disperse in their rooms.

The next day, Nina goes to a jewelry store; she naively hopes that her husband will exchange anger with mercy if she manages to pick up exactly the same in return for the lost trinket. Having bought nothing (bracelets - piece work), Madame Arbenina calls in on a social friend of the young widow Baroness Stral and, having met Zvezdich in the living room, tells him innocently about her troubles. Having decided that the mysterious masked lady and Nina Arbenina are the same person, and the “fairy tale” about the allegedly lost bracelet is a hint, Zvezdich instantly transforms from a bored bonvivan into a fiery lover. Having cooled his ardor with “Epiphany cold,” Nina hastily retires, and the annoyed prince lays out “the whole history” of the Baroness. The widow is horrified, because it was she, who was not recognized under a masquerade mask, who found and presented Ninin with a bracelet!

Saving her reputation, she leaves Zvezditch in error, and he, hoping to confuse Nina and thereby achieve his goal, sends her a bold letter to her home address: they say, I’ll rather die than give up on you, having previously notified half of the secular about its contents Petersburg. As a result of multi-stage intrigue, the scandalous message falls into Arbenin’s hands. Now Eugene is not only convinced that he is cruelly deceived. Now he sees in the incident also a prophetic sign: they say, not to someone who has experienced “all the sweets of vice and evil” - to dream of peace and carelessness! Well, which one, player, husband? And the more virtuous father of the family! However, to revenge the insidious “seducer” as “the genius of villainy” and vice would do, that is, to strangle Zvezdich like a kitten, asleep, Arbenin cannot: “union with virtue, albeit brief, apparently, still something changed in his very being.

Meanwhile, Baroness Stral, frightened for the life of the prince, whom, in spite of everything, he loves, for which - without knowing, "perhaps because of boredom, from annoyance, from jealousy", he decides to reveal the truth to Arbenin and thereby prevent the inevitable in her view, a duel. Arbenin, scrolling through his head options for revenge, does not listen to it, or rather, listening, does not hear. Mrs. Stral is desperate, although she worries in vain: the fight is not included in Eugene's plans; he wants to take away from the lucky and the spoiled child of fate not life - why does he need the life of “areal red tape”, but something more: honor and respect of society. The cunning enterprise succeeds completely. Having dragged the spineless prince into a card battle, he finds fault with trifles, publicly accuses him of fraud: “You are a cheater and a scoundrel”, gives a slap in the face.

So, Zvezditch is punished. The queue for Nina. But Nina is not an immoral and godless prince; Nina is Nina, and Arbenin, superstitious, like all players, hesitates, expecting to say what fate tells him, her old and faithful slave. Fate "behaves" extremely insidiously: unraveling the intrigue, it immediately confuses it! Ms. Strahl, after an unsuccessful attempt to make herself honest with her friend’s husband and realizing that at any turn of events, her secular career is hopelessly ruined, decides to retire to her village estate, and before leaving she explains to Zvezdich “the solution to this charade.”

The prince, already transferred, at his own request, to the Caucasus, is detained in St. Petersburg in order to return the ill-fated trinket to its real owner, and most importantly, to warn Nina, who is attractive to him: beware that your husband is a villain! Without coming up with any other way to talk with Mrs. Arbenina in private, he very carelessly approaches her at the next high-society ball. The prince does not dare to call a spade a spade, and Nina resolutely does not understand his hints. Is her Eugene the villain? Is the husband going to take revenge on her? What nonsense? She does not even know what decision Arbenin is observing this scene from afar (“I will find her execution ... She will die, I cannot live with her”).

Excited by dancing, having long forgotten about the funny officer, Nina asked her husband to bring her ice cream. Eugene obediently weaves into the pantry and before serving his ice cream platter to his wife, he sprinkles poison there. The poison is fast-acting, faithful, that night, in terrible torment, Nina dies.

Friends and acquaintances come to say goodbye to the body of the deceased. Having left the visitors of grief to the servants, Arbenin wanders in gloomy solitude through an empty house. In one of the farthest rooms, Zvezdich and that same unknown gentleman who, a few days ago, at the masquerade at Engelhardt, had predicted Arbenin's "misfortune" found him. This is his long-time acquaintance, whom Yevgeny Aleksandrovich once beat and allowed, as they say, around the world. Having learned, through his bitter experience, what this man is capable of, the Unknown, confident that Madame Arbenina did not die by her own death, declares openly, at Zvezdich: "You killed your wife." Arbenin - in horror, for a while the shock takes his speechlessness. Taking advantage of the pause that has arisen, Zvezdich, in detail, sets out the true history of the fateful bracelet and, as evidence, gives Eugene the written testimony of the baroness. Arbenin is going crazy. But before you plunge forever into the saving gloom of madness, this “proud” mind manages to throw an accusation against God himself: “I told you that you were cruel!”

Unknown triumphs: he is fully avenged. But Zvezdich is inconsolable: a duel in the current state of Arbenin is impossible, and, therefore, he is young, full of strength and hope, handsome, forever deprived of peace and honor.