Prose - Nikolai Dronin. In union.

                                             Nikolay Dronin

                           In the union

  On an ordinary autumn morning, when you have to go to work or to
classes for school, then, coming exhausted and tired, do things,
then, resting, sit, doing nothing, and finally lie down
sleep to meet the same tomorrow, Semyon Petrovich
I realized when I woke up that he had overslept for work. It would seem that this
not so scary, but today was not an ordinary day, but the day of issue
salaries. Semyon Petrovich realized that everything was lost irrevocably, and
so he fell into depression: his hands were incredible
they shook their heads, their eyes rolled back, and cloudy water dripped from them.
tears on a rug that hasn't been cleaned for a long time.
  He was brought out of this state by the sound of loud footsteps along the corridor. B
his sister Fekla Petrovna entered the room, accompanied by
house manager Gabriel Tikhonovich. Her facial expression was distorted
frightened, the house manager’s face, on the contrary, shone like a copper basin.
  - What's happened? - Semyon Petrovich asked in fear.
  - No, no, don’t worry, I won’t do anything bad.
“I will,” the house manager’s face became calm and inspired Semyon
Petrovich the same confidence as the faces of the saints to his sister and the appearance
brooms and shovels for the janitor Lyuba.
  The house manager examined the room, divided into two unequal parts
a shabby fabric curtain, and asked:
  - Whatwhose property?
  Thekla looked at him ingratiatingly and said:
  - I have a bed with a bedside table and a chest of drawers, Semyon Petrovich has two
Viennese chairs,” then, pulling back the curtain, she continued, “at Lyuba’s
table, cot, chair and shovel with broom.
  “Inventory doesn’t count,” the building manager interjected.
  - Why, exactly, are you interested in our furniture? -
Semyon Petrovich asked threateningly.
  - No reason! - it was clear from the face of the house manager that he was lying, but
his muzzle glowed with a strange radiance of stupidly insidious thoughts. -
Well, I'm off.
  When the door closed behind him, Thekla began to rant
about the endless rise in prices in stores, and Semyon Petrovich
stared blankly out the window, watching the janitor Lyuba
Instead of working, he sits on a bench and chats with some woman. On
the aunt’s indifferent face did not express any emotions, so
Semyon Petrovich moved away from the window.
  With his hands folded behind his back and trying to distract himself from the plaintive
his sister's conversations, he headed to the kitchen. On the way he was pierced
the thought of work and the inevitable punishment for absenteeism.
  “And why do I have the most difficult job,” he lamented, fiddling with
in your hands is a bag of vegetables brought by Fyokla, - you won’t oversleep,
be late, or it’s the janitor’s job: sit and chat with anyone,
and all matters."  It is unknown where these thoughts would have taken him, not
fly into the kitchen Lyuba.
  - Do you know what happened? They move into our roomnew
tenant!
  - What? Where? For what?!
  - The house manager says that we live like bourgeois, very freely, and
We can move in one or two more new residents.
  - Where will they put his furniture?
  - Why bet? Your chair and my table are all his furniture.
Although they say he is rich and has his own car.
  The roar of cars could be heard below.  Semyon Petrovich with Lyuba
looked out into the street.   Down there, accompanied by four
police cars, a sobering-up station car was driving into the yard.
  - Gorgeous escort!  And what a car! - janitor with
froze in admiration at the open window.  Semyon Petrovich
he looked reproachfully, first at the janitor, then down.
  A few minutes later the doorbell rang. Thekla opened it and
Semyon Petrovich's worst hopes came true: surrounded by four
two policemen and the building manager burst into the apartment
a moronic doctor, supporting a drunken old man.
  - And here is your new tenant, the chairman of the Union of Amateurs: -
lovers of what, the policeman did not specify, everyone understood that way.
  - We must hope that the entire Union will not gather in our
room,” Semyon Petrovich whispered to Fekla.
  - No need! - raised up in the arms of the doctors accompanying him,
the old man beamed with his terrible, bruised and scratched face
physiognomy.
  Fekla froze, motionless and prayerfully looking at the policemen andhouse manager, Semyon Petrovich examined his until that moment quiet
half the room, Lyuba glanced sideways at the closet where her
janitor's equipment.
  The policemen and doctors brought the old man in and laid him on Fyokla’s bed.
  Life flowed in one of the rooms of communal apartment 40
further along the new channel.