The story then shifts to the Crimea, where widowed landowner Nikolai Mikhailovich Layevsky welcomes back his son Pavel from a five-year-long stint in the army. To his horror the reunion is far from private as Pavel has brought with him Vitkevich. A terminally impolite eccentric who gives off a perpetual air of sullen insouciance, Vitkevich is not only a favourite of the Russian royal family, but also an object of adoration by his fellow officers. Nikolai however fails to see why his son should be so besotted with the stranger, not knowing Vitkevich to be the sort of fellow who would ensconce himself in a brothel for the sole purpose of drinking champagne. Vitkevich catches Nikolai enjoying an intimate moment with Masha, the estate's head cook who is something of a surrogate mother to Pavel, which results in Vitkevich revealing that he is soon to embark on a mission of the utmost importance, namely a visit to Kabul. Vitkevich then proceeds to sermonise on Russia's manifest destiny and the empire's need for territorial expansion, a concept Masha voices scepticism over.