What is the significance of Dr. Borisych's home in the story, Three Years?

Dr. Sergei Borisych’s home is significant because it reveals a lot about his personality and social standing: “[Laptev] was now sitting in the drawing room, and this room made a strange impression, with its poor bourgeois furnishings, its bad paintings… and it was obvious that only such a man as the doctor could feel at home there…” (353). Clearly, the doctor is of inferior rank to Laptev, who recognizes the cheapness of his home décor. The doctor’s poor taste is in keeping with his ostentatious character.