through the doorway into an apartment that smelted like overboiled cabbage and cat box and unfiltered foreign cigarettes , and they were ushered through a tiny hallway past several closed doors to the sitting room at the far end of the corridor , and were seated on a huge old horsehair sofa , disturbing an elderly gray cat in the process , who stretched , stood up , and walked , stiffly , to a distant part of the sofa , where he lay down , warily stared at each of them in turn , then closed one eye and went back to sleep .