In the provinces, to live in another person's house is an avowal of poverty.

Every family of position at Plassans has a house of its own, landed property being very cheap there.

Pierre kept the purse-strings well tied; he would not hear of any embellishments.

The old furniture, faded, worn, damaged though it was, had to suffice, without even being repaired.

Felicite, however, who keenly felt the necessity for this parsimony, exerted herself to give fresh polish to all the wreckage; she herself knocked nails into some of the furniture which was more dilapidated than the rest, and darned the frayed velvet of the arm-chairs.
The dining-room, which, like the kitchen, was at the back of the house, was nearly bare; a table and a dozen chairs were lost in the gloom of this large apartment, whose window faced the grey wall of a neighbouring building.