Polikei, a valet, whom everyone familiarly calls Polikouchka, is a drunkard. He went so far as to sell his masters' clock to get a few pennies that he went to spend at the inn. So, when it is time to choose a serf as a conscript for the army, the master would like to send Polikei and keep Dublov. But the mistress is against it: Polikei has promised to mend his ways. The mistress decides to send Polikei to collect 3,500 rubles owed to him by one of his creditors. Polikei, full of pride, boasts of this mark of trust to his wife Akulina who makes him promise that during the whole journey he will not touch vodka. Arriving in the city, he settles in at the inn, collects the money and does some shopping at the market, then goes to bed. But he keeps waking up to check that the money is still there. That same night, the conscripts from Pokrovskoye arrive at the inn, among whom Iliushka, Dublov's nephew. He orders vodka and curses his uncle who sent him off as a soldier instead of one of his sons. Early in the morning, Polikei returns to Pokrovskoye, but tired, he dozes on his cart. A hundred meters from the village, he realizes that he has lost the money. It is only in the evening that he presents himself to his wife and declares that he has given the money to the mistress. When she asks for him again, he goes to the attic. A little later, the carpenter's wife discovers him hanging from a beam. Akulina, who was washing her youngest child in a tub, rushes to the attic in despair. She suddenly remembers her son, but it is too late: the toddler has drowned in the tub. Akulina goes mad. A few days later, Dublov, who found the money on the way, brings it to the mistress who, still shaken by the death of Polikei and the child, tells him to keep it, that she will not "touch this cursed money." Dublov decides to use it to ransom his nephew. On the outskirts of town, Dublov and his nephew meet a troop of recruits, among whom is Alyosha, Ilyusha's replacement. Overexcited by the brandy he has just drunk, the young man bursts into curses.
