The Cattle-dealers Page #6

"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.

								

Yasha take up their quarters in a dirty, cheap hotel in the outskirts of
the town, in the square in which the cattle-market is held. Their
lodgings are filthy and their food is disgusting, unlike what they ever
have at home; they sleep to the harsh strains of a wretched steam hurdy-
gurdy which plays day and night in the restaurant under their lodging.

The old man spends his time from morning till night going about looking
for purchasers, and Yasha sits for days in the hotel room, or goes out
into the street to look at the town. He sees the filthy square heaped up
with dung, the signboards of restaurants, the turreted walls of a
monastery in the fog. Sometimes he runs across the street and looks into
the grocer's shop, admires the jars of cakes of different colors, yawns,
and lazily saunters back to his room. The city does not interest him.

At last the bullocks are sold to a dealer. Malahin hires drovers. The
cattle are divided into herds, ten in each, and driven to the other end
of the town. The bullocks, exhausted, go with drooping heads through the
noisy streets, and look indifferently at what they see for the first and
last time in their lives. The tattered drovers walk after them, their
heads drooping too. They are bored.... Now and then some drover starts
out of his brooding, remembers that there are cattle in front of him
intrusted to his charge, and to show that he is doing his duty brings a
stick down full swing on a bullock's back. The bullock staggers with the
pain, runs forward a dozen paces, and looks about him as though he were
ashamed at being beaten before people.

After selling the bullocks and buying for his family presents such as
they could perfectly well have bought at home, Malahin and Yasha get
ready for their journey back. Three hours before the train goes the old
man, who has already had a drop too much with the purchaser and so is
fussy, goes down with Yasha to the restaurant and sits down to drink
tea. Like all provincials, he cannot eat and drink alone: he must have
company as fussy and as fond of sedate conversation as himself.

"Call the host!" he says to the waiter; "tell him I should like to
entertain him."

The hotel-keeper, a well-fed man, absolutely indifferent to his lodgers,
comes and sits down to the table.

"Well, we have sold our stock," Malahin says, laughing. "I have swapped
my goat for a hawk. Why, when we set off the price of meat was three
roubles ninety kopecks, but when we arrived it had dropped to three
roubles twenty-five. They tell us we are too late, we should have been
here three days earlier, for now there is not the same demand for meat,
St. Philip's fast has come.... Eh? It's a nice how-do-you-do! It meant a
loss of fourteen roubles on each bullock. Yes. But only think what it
costs to bring the stock! Fifteen roubles carriage, and you must put
down six roubles for each bullock, tips, bribes, drinks, and one thing
and another...."

The hotel-keeper listens out of politeness and reluctantly drinks tea.
Malahin sighs and groans, gesticulates, jests about his ill-luck, but
everything shows that the loss he has sustained does not trouble him
much. He doesn't mind whether he has lost or gained as long as he has
listeners, has something to make a fuss about, and is not late for his
train.

An hour later Malahin and Yasha, laden with bags and boxes, go
downstairs from the hotel room to the front door to get into a sledge
and drive to the station. They are seen off by the hotel-keeper, the
waiter, and various women. The old man is touched. He thrusts ten-kopeck
pieces in all directions, and says in a sing-song voice:

"Good by, good health to you! God grant that all may be well with you.
Please God if we are alive and well we shall come again in Lent. Good-
by. Thank you. God bless you!"

Getting into the sledge, the old man spends a long time crossing himself
in the direction in which the monastery walls make a patch of darkness
in the fog. Yasha sits beside him on the very edge of the seat with his
legs hanging over the side. His face as before shows no sign of emotion
and expresses neither boredom nor desire. He is not glad that he is
going home, nor sorry that he has not had time to see the sights of the
city.

"Drive on!"

The cabman whips up the horse and, turning round, begins swearing at the
heavy and cumbersome luggage.

* On many railway lines, in order to avoid accidents, it is against the
regulations to carry hay on the trains, and so live stock are without
fodder on the journey.--Author's Note.

**The train destined especially for the transport of troops is called
the troop train; when there are no troops it takes goods, and goes more
rapidly than ordinary goods train. --Author's Note.
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