On a table stood a ragged chair, with, beside it, a clock minus a pendulum and covered all over with cobwebs.
Against a wall leant a cupboard, full of old silver, glassware, and china.

On a writing table, inlaid with mother-of-pearl which, in places, had broken away and left behind it a number of yellow grooves (stuffed with putty), lay a pile of finely written manuscript, an overturned marble press (turning green), an ancient book in a leather cover with red edges, a lemon dried and shrunken to the dimensions of a hazelnut, the broken arm of a chair, a tumbler containing the dregs of some liquid and three flies (the whole covered over with a sheet of notepaper), a pile of rags, two ink-encrusted pens, and a yellow toothpick with which the master of the house had picked his teeth (apparently) at least before the coming of the French to Moscow.

As for the walls, they were hung with a medley of pictures.

Among the latter was a long engraving of a battle scene, wherein soldiers in three-cornered hats were brandishing huge drums and slender lances.

It lacked a glass, and was set in a frame ornamented with bronze fretwork and bronze corner rings.