In which the prince, seeking entrance to a certain lady’s abode, finds himself entangled with a dishevelled general whose overheated reminiscences and personal misfortunes reveal a world both weary and tangled in debts of the heart and purse. Amidst the melancholy visits to forgotten friends and the candid reflections of a young companion, the evening unfolds into a tapestry of fractured loyalties and tentative hopes amid the squalor of Moscow’s less visible corners.