From the hall… the door led to Nikolay Nekrasov’s study, … covered with striped wallpaper in gray and greenish colors. At the door on the left was a bureau… in the partition between the windows was a desk.

Nekrasov wrote prose, sitting at a desk and even lying on the sofa, but when he composed poetry, he walked around the room most of the time, and recited it aloud; when he finished the whole poem, he wrote it down on the first scrap of paper that came to hand.

Nekrasov’s study was always a mess: books, manuscripts, magazines, newspapers, proofreading sheets were strewn on the windows. And his desk was a kind of chaos. But Nekrasov always found what he needed in this chaos, and was desperate when Pyotr tidied up his desk. He would summon Pyotr and, in a heated voice, say to him: ‘You have touched my papers on my desk again. Where has my bill from the printing-office gone? — I only wiped off the dust, — replied Pyotr, blinking his eyes. — Don’t you dare wipe off the dust! — How so? — I’ve been looking for an hour for the accounts after your cleaning, ’ grumbled Nekrasov, continuing to rummage through the papers on the table. — Well, let there be dust! — Pyotr muttered resentfully as he left. Nekrasov had a large desk, but he had to write using a small space, because this desk was piled with books, articles, proofreading sheets.