Poverty
In the story "Poverty" by Mikhail Zoshchenko, the narrator talks about the time in Russia when the most trending word was “electrification”. On the insistence of his landlady, the author too added electricity to his house which was earlier lit only by kerosene lamps. And that’s when he observed what poverty were they all living in. Earlier, Kerosene lamps lit only small sections but electric bulbs lit the entire area and they saw how disgusting and dirty every inch was. The landlady too realized the poverty she was living in when she saw what dirt surrounded her. The author one day spent a huge amount and cleaned his house but for no good as landlady was too depressed to see her flat dirty that she cut the electricity off. The author’s money got wasted.
The Galosh
In this story, the author lost one of his galoshes on the tram, when he noticed that his galosh was gone, he pulled out the other galosh and wrapped it in a paper. He went to the tram driver next day and told him about lost galosh. The driver said that tram has a bureau for lost items. He went to the bureau and asked for his galosh. They had over thousand lost galoshes and when the author gave them a detailed description of his lost galosh, they came out within a moment. When he asked for it, they said that he needs to get a certificate from house management committee. He went to the committee and asked for a certificate. They asked him to write a statement and issued the certificate which he showed at the bureau and got his galosh back. He was in an awe how synchronized the bureau was but meanwhile, he lost his first galosh that was wrapped in a newspaper and he can’t remember where he lost it. He regrets not losing it on the tram as he could have got it back from bureau then.
