Short Stories by Chekhov
"Let us," the guard agrees. "We will smoke another cigarette and go on.
But there is no need to be in a hurry.... We shall be delayed at the
next station anyway!"
"Why should we?"
"Oh, well.... We are too much behind time.... If you are late at one
station you can't help being delayed at the other stations to let the
trains going the opposite way pass. Whether we set off now or in the
morning we shan't be number fourteen. We shall have to be number twenty-
three."
"And how do you make that out?"
"Well, there it is."
Malahin looks at the guard, reflects, and mutters mechanically as though
to himself:
"God be my judge, I have reckoned it and even jotted it down in a
notebook; we have wasted thirty-four hours standing still on the
journey. If you go on like this, either the cattle will die, or they
won't pay me two roubles for the meat when I do get there. It's not
traveling, but ruination."
The guard raises his eyebrows and sighs with an air that seems to say:
"All that is unhappily true!" The engine-driver sits silent, dreamily
looking at the cap. From their faces one can see that they have a secret
thought in common, which they do not utter, not because they want to
conceal it, but because such thoughts are much better expressed by signs
than by words. And the old man understands. He feels in his pocket,
takes out a ten-rouble note, and without preliminary words, without any
change in the tone of his voice or the expression of his face, but with
the confidence and directness with which probably only Russians give and
take bribes, he gives the guard the note. The latter takes it, folds it
in four, and without undue haste puts it in his pocket. After that all
three go out of the room, and waking the sleeping guard on the way, go
on to the platform.
"What weather!" grumbles the head guard, shrugging his shoulders. "You
can't see your hand before your face."
"Yes, it's vile weather."
From the window they can see the flaxen head of the telegraph clerk
appear beside the green lamp and the telegraphic apparatus; soon after
another head, bearded and wearing a red cap, appears beside it--no doubt
that of the station-master. The station-master bends down to the table,
reads something on a blue form, rapidly passing his cigarette along the
lines.... Malahin goes to his van.
The young man, his companion, is still half reclining and hardly audibly
strumming on the accordion. He is little more than a boy, with no trace
of a mustache; his full white face with its broad cheek-bones is
childishly dreamy; his eyes have a melancholy and tranquil look unlike
that of a grown-up person, but he is broad, strong, heavy and rough like
the old man; he does not stir nor shift his position, as though he is
not equal to moving his big body. It seems as though any movement he
made would tear his clothes and be so noisy as to frighten both him and
the cattle. From under his big fat fingers that clumsily pick out the
stops and keys of the accordion comes a steady flow of thin, tinkling
sounds which blend into a simple, monotonous little tune; he listens to
it, and is evidently much pleased with his performance.
A bell rings, but with such a muffled note that it seems to come from
far away. A hurried second bell soon follows, then a third and the
guard's whistle. A minute passes in profound silence; the van does not
move, it stands still, but vague sounds begin to come from beneath it,
like the crunch of snow under sledge-runners; the van begins to shake
and the sounds cease. Silence reigns again. But now comes the clank of
buffers, the violent shock makes the van start and, as it were, give a
lurch forward, and all the cattle fall against one another.
"May you be served the same in the world to come," grumbles the old man,
setting straight his cap, which had slipped on the back of his head from
the jolt. "He'll maim all my cattle like this!"
Yasha gets up without a word and, taking one of the fallen beasts by the
horns, helps it to get on to its legs.... The jolt is followed by a
stillness again. The sounds of crunching snow come from under the van
again, and it seems as though the train had moved back a little.
"There will be another jolt in a minute," says the old man. And the
convulsive quiver does, in fact, run along the train, there is a
crashing sound and the bullocks fall on one another again.
"It's a job!" says Yasha, listening. "The train must be heavy. It seems
it won't move."
"It was not heavy before, but now it has suddenly got heavy. No, my lad,
the guard has not gone shares with him, I expect. Go and take him
something, or he will be jolting us till morning."
Yasha takes a three-rouble note from the old man and jumps out of the
van. The dull thud of his heavy footsteps resounds outside the van and
gradually dies away. Stillness.... In the next van a bullock utters a
prolonged subdued "moo," as though it were singing.
Yasha comes back. A cold damp wind darts into the van.
"Shut the door, Yasha, and we will go to bed," says the old man. "Why
burn a candle for nothing?"
Yasha moves the heavy door; there is a sound of a whistle, the engine
and the train set off.
"It's cold," mutters the old man, stretching himself on the cape and
laying his head on a bundle. "It is very different at home! It's warm
and clean and soft, and there is room to say your prayers, but here we
are worse off than any pigs. It's four days and nights since I have
taken off my boots."
Yasha, staggering from the jolting of the train, opens the lantern and
snuffs out the wick with his wet fingers. The light flares up, hisses
like a frying pan and goes out.
"Yes, my lad," Malahin goes on, as he feels Yasha lie down beside him
and the young man's huge back huddle against his own, "it's cold. There
is a draught from every crack. If your mother or your sister were to
sleep here for one night they would be dead by morning. There it is, my
lad, you wouldn't study and go to the high school like your brothers, so
you must take the cattle with your father. It's your own fault, you have
only yourself to blame.... Your brothers are asleep in their beds now,
they are snug under the bedclothes, but you, the careless and lazy one,
are in the same box as the cattle.... Yes.... "
The old man's words are inaudible in the noise of the train, but for a
long time he goes on muttering, sighing and clearing his throat.... The
cold air in the railway van grows thicker and more stifling. The pungent
odor of fresh dung and smoldering candle makes it so repulsive and acrid
that it irritates Yasha's throat and chest as he falls asleep. He coughs
and sneezes, while the old man, being accustomed to it, breathes with
his whole chest as though nothing were amiss, and merely clears his
throat.
To judge from the swaying of the van and the rattle of the wheels the
train is moving rapidly and unevenly. The engine breathes heavily,
snorting out of time with the pulsation of the train, and altogether
there is a medley of sounds. The bullocks huddle together uneasily and
knock their horns against the walls.
When the old man wakes up, the deep blue sky of early morning is peeping
in at the cracks and at the little uncovered window. He feels unbearably
cold, especially in the back and the feet. The train is standing still;
Yasha, sleepy and morose, is busy with the cattle.
The old man wakes up out of humor. Frowning and gloomy, he clears his
throat angrily and looks from under his brows at Yasha who, supporting a
bullock with his powerful shoulder and slightly lifting it, is trying to
disentangle its leg.
"I told you last night that the cords were too long," mutters the old
man; "but no, 'It's not too long, Daddy.' There's no making you do
anything, you will have everything your own way.... Blockhead!"
He angrily moves the door open and the light rushes into the van. A
passenger train is standing exactly opposite the door, and behind it a
red building with a roofed-in platform--a big station with a refreshment
bar. The roofs and bridges of the trains, the earth, the sleepers, all
are covered with a thin coating of fluffy, freshly fallen snow. In the
spaces between the carriages of the passenger train the passengers can
be seen moving to and fro, and a red-haired, red-faced gendarme walking
up and down; a waiter in a frock-coat and a snow-white shirt-front,
looking cold and sleepy, and probably very much dissatisfied with his
fate, is running along the platform carrying a glass of tea and two
rusks on a tray.
The old man gets up and begins saying his prayers towards the east.
Yasha, having finished with the bullock and put down the spade in the
corner, stands beside him and says his prayers also. He merely moves his
lips and crosses himself; the father prays in a loud whisper and
pronounces the end of each prayer aloud and distinctly.
"... And the life of the world to come. Amen," the old man says aloud,
draws in a breath, and at once whispers another prayer, rapping out
clearly and firmly at the end: "... and lay calves upon Thy altar!"
After saying his prayers, Yasha hurriedly crosses himself and says:
"Five kopecks, please."
And on being given the five-kopeck piece, he takes a red copper teapot
and runs to the station for boiling water. Taking long jumps over the
rails and sleepers, leaving huge tracks in the feathery snow, and
pouring away yesterday's tea out of the teapot he runs to the
refreshment room and jingles his five-kopeck piece against his teapot.
From the van the bar-keeper can be seen pushing away the big teapot and
refusing to give half of his samovar for five kopecks, but Yasha turns
the tap himself and, spreading wide his elbows so as not to be
interfered with fills his teapot with boiling water.
"Damned blackguard!" the bar-keeper shouts after him as he runs back to
the railway van.
The scowling face of Malahin grows a little brighter over the tea.
"We know how to eat and drink, but we don't remember our work. Yesterday
we could do nothing all day but eat and drink, and I'll be bound we
forgot to put down what we spent. What a memory! Lord have mercy on us!"
The old man recalls aloud the expenditure of the day before, and writes
down in a tattered notebook where and how much he had given to guards,
engine-drivers, oilers....
Meanwhile the passenger train has long ago gone off, and an engine runs
backwards and forwards on the empty line, apparently without any
definite object, but simply enjoying its freedom. The sun has risen and
is playing on the snow; bright drops are falling from the station roof
and the tops of the vans.
Having finished his tea, the old man lazily saunters from the van to the
station. Here in the middle of the first-class waiting-room he sees the
familiar figure of the guard standing beside the station-master, a young
man with a handsome beard and in a magnificent rough woollen overcoat.
The young man, probably new to his position, stands in the same place,
gracefully shifting from one foot to the other like a good racehorse,
looks from side to side, salutes everyone that passes by, smiles and
screws up his eyes.... He is red-cheeked, sturdy, and good-humored; his
face is full of eagerness, and is as fresh as though he had just fallen
from the sky with the feathery snow. Seeing Malahin, the guard sighs
guiltily and throws up his hands.
"We can't go number fourteen," he says. "We are very much behind time.
Another train has gone with that number."
The station-master rapidly looks through some forms, then turns his
beaming blue eyes upon Malahin, and, his face radiant with smiles and
freshness, showers questions on him:
"You are Mr. Malahin? You have the cattle? Eight vanloads? What is to be