It was evident that no one looked after anything here.

The stove was not heated, food was not cooked; they had not even a samovar as Shatov told me.

The captain had come to the town with his sister utterly destitute, and had, as Liputin said, at first actually gone from house to house begging.

But having unexpectedly received some money, he had taken to drinking at once, and had become so besotted that he was incapable of looking after things.
Mlle.

Lebyadkin, whom I was so anxious to see, was sitting quietly at a deal kitchen table on a bench in the corner of the inner room, not making a sound.