The Cattle-dealers Page #5

"The Cattle-dealers" is a short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov that explores the lives of a group of cattle merchants in rural Russia. The narrative delves into the mundane yet revealing interactions among the characters, highlighting themes of greed, social dynamics, and the moral dilemmas faced in business dealings. Chekhov's keen observation of human behavior and his use of irony illuminate the complexities of rural life, making the story a poignant reflection on the economic and emotional connections that bind people in their daily existence.

								


Having sent off the telegram, he goes back to the station-master's room.
There he finds, sitting on a sofa covered with gray cloth, a benevolent-
looking gentleman in spectacles and a cap of raccoon fur; he is wearing
a peculiar overcoat very much like a lady's, edged with fur, with frogs
and slashed sleeves. Another gentleman, dried-up and sinewy, wearing the
uniform of a railway inspector, stands facing him.

"Just think of it," says the inspector, addressing the gentleman in the
queer overcoat. "I'll tell you an incident that really is A1! The Z.
railway line in the coolest possible way stole three hundred trucks from
the N. line. It's a fact, sir! I swear it! They carried them off,
repainted them, put their letters on them, and that's all about it. The
N. line sends its agents everywhere, they hunt and hunt. And then--can
you imagine it?--the Company happen to come upon a broken-down carriage
of the Z. line. They repair it at their depot, and all at once, bless my
soul! see their own mark on the wheels What do you say to that? Eh? If I
did it they would send me to Siberia, but the railway companies simply
snap their fingers at it!"

It is pleasant to Malahin to talk to educated, cultured people. He
strokes his beard and joins in the conversation with dignity.

"Take this case, gentlemen, for instance," he says. "I am transporting
cattle to X. Eight vanloads. Very good.... Now let us say they charge me
for each vanload as a weight of ten tons; eight bullocks don't weigh ten
tons, but much less, yet they don't take any notice of that...."

At that instant Yasha walks into the room looking for his father. He
listens and is about to sit down on a chair, but probably thinking of
his weight goes and sits on the window-sill.

"They don't take any notice of that," Malahin goes on, "and charge me
and my son the third-class fare, too, forty-two roubles, for going in
the van with the bullocks. This is my son Yakov. I have two more at
home, but they have gone in for study. Well and apart from that it is my
opinion that the railways have ruined the cattle trade. In old days when
they drove them in herds it was better."

The old man's talk is lengthy and drawn out. After every sentence he
looks at Yasha as though he would say: "See how I am talking to clever
people."

"Upon my word!" the inspector interrupts him. "No one is indignant, no
one criticizes. And why? It is very simple. An abomination strikes the
eye and arouses indignation only when it is exceptional, when the
established order is broken by it. Here, where, saving your presence, it
constitutes the long-established program and forms and enters into the
basis of the order itself, where every sleeper on the line bears the
trace of it and stinks of it, one too easily grows accustomed to it!
Yes, sir!"

The second bell rings, the gentlemen in the queer overcoat gets up. The
inspector takes him by the arm and, still talking with heat, goes off
with him to the platform. After the third bell the station-master runs
into his room, and sits down at his table.

"Listen, with what number am I to go?" asks Malahin.

The station-master looks at a form and says indignantly:

"Are you Malahin, eight vanloads? You must pay a rouble a van and six
roubles and twenty kopecks for stamps. You have no stamps. Total,
fourteen roubles, twenty kopecks."

Receiving the money, he writes something down, dries it with sand, and,
hurriedly snatching up a bundle of forms, goes quickly out of the room.

At ten o'clock in the evening Malahin gets an answer from the traffic
manager: "Give precedence."

Reading the telegram through, the old man winks significantly and, very
well pleased with himself, puts it in his pocket.

"Here," he says to Yasha, "look and learn."

At midnight his train goes on. The night is dark and cold like the
previous one; the waits at the stations are long. Yasha sits on the cape
and imperturbably strums on the accordion, while the old man is still
more eager to exert himself. At one of the stations he is overtaken by a
desire to lodge a complaint. At his request a gendarme sits down and
writes:

"November 10, 188-.--I, non-commissioned officer of the Z. section of the
N. police department of railways, Ilya Tchered, in accordance with
article II of the statute of May 19, 1871, have drawn up this protocol
at the station of X. as herewith follows.... "

"What am I to write next?" asks the gendarme.

Malahin lays out before him forms, postal and telegraph receipts,
accounts.... He does not know himself definitely what he wants of the
gendarme; he wants to describe in the protocol not any separate episode
but his whole journey, with all his losses and conversations with
station-masters--to describe it lengthily and vindictively.

"At the station of Z.," he says, "write that the station-master
unlinked my vans from the troop train because he did not like my
countenance."

And he wants the gendarme to be sure to mention his countenance. The
latter listens wearily, and goes on writing without hearing him to the
end. He ends his protocol thus:

"The above deposition I, non-commissioned officer Tchered, have written
down in this protocol with a view to present it to the head of the Z.
section, and have handed a copy thereof to Gavril Malahin."

The old man takes the copy, adds it to the papers with which his side
pocket is stuffed, and, much pleased, goes back to his van.

In the morning Malahin wakes up again in a bad humor, but his wrath
vents itself not on Yasha but the cattle.

"The cattle are done for!" he grumbles. "They are done for! They are at
the last gasp! God be my judge! they will all die. Tfoo!"

The bullocks, who have had nothing to drink for many days, tortured by
thirst, are licking the hoar frost on the walls, and when Malachin goes
up to them they begin licking his cold fur jacket. From their clear,
tearful eyes it can be seen that they are exhausted by thirst and the
jolting of the train, that they are hungry and miserable.

"It's a nice job taking you by rail, you wretched brutes!" mutters
Malahin. "I could wish you were dead to get it over! It makes me sick to
look at you!"

At midday the train stops at a big station where, according to the
regulations, there was drinking water provided for cattle.

Water is given to the cattle, but the bullocks will not drink it: the
water is too cold....

Two more days and nights pass, and at last in the distance in the murky
fog the city comes into sight. The journey is over. The train comes to a
standstill before reaching the town, near a goods' station. The
bullocks, released from the van, stagger and stumble as though they were
walking on slippery ice.

Having got through the unloading and veterinary inspection, Malahin and
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