e, and sheepskins; while the
window-seat accommodated a sbitentshik [4], cheek by jowl with a samovar
[5]--the latter so closely resembling the former in appearance that, but
for the fact of the samovar possessing a pitch-black lip, the samovar
and the sbitentshik might have been two of a pair.

During the traveller's inspection of his room his luggage was brought
into the apartment. First came a portmanteau of white leather whose
raggedness indicated that the receptacle had made several previous
journeys. The bearers of the same were the gentleman's coachman,
Selifan (a little man in a large overcoat), and the gentleman's
valet, Petrushka--the latter a fellow of about thirty, clad in a worn,
over-ample jacket which formerly had graced his master's shoulders, and
possessed of a nose and a pair of lips whose coarseness communicated to
his face rather a sullen expression. Behind the portmanteau came a
small dispatch-box of redwood, lined with birch bark, a boot-case,
and (wrapped in blue paper) a roast fowl; all of which having been
deposited, the coachman departed to look after his horses, and the valet
to establish himself in the little dark anteroom or kennel where already
he had stored a cloak, a bagful of livery, and his own peculiar smell.
Pressing the narrow bedstead back against the wall, he covered it with
the tiny remnant of mattress--a remnant as thin and flat (perhaps also
as greasy) as a pancake--which he had managed to beg of the landlord of
the establishment.

While the attendants had been thus setting things straight the gentleman
had repaired to the common parlour. The appearance of common parlours of
the kind is known to every one who travels. Always they have varnished
walls which, grown black in their upper portions with tobacco smoke,
are, in their lower, grown shiny with the friction of customers'
backs--more especially with that of the backs of such local tradesmen
as, on market-days, make it their regular practice to resort to
the local hostelry for a glass of tea. Also, parlours of this kind
invariably contain smutty ceilings, an equally smutty chandelier, a
number of pendent shades which jump and rattle whenever the waiter
scurries across the shabby oilcloth with a trayful of glasses (the
glasses looking like a flock of birds roosting by the seashore), and a
selection of oil paintings. In short, there are certain objects which
one sees in every inn. In the present case the only outstanding featu