Moscow railway junction. The Moscow–Kazan railway went on strike. The Moscow–Brest line was to join it. The decision to strike had been taken, but the railway committee could not agree on the day to call it. Everyone on the railway knew about the strike, and it needed only an external pretext for it to start spontaneously.
It was a cold, gray morning at the beginning of October. The wages on the line were to be paid that day. For a long time no information came from the accounting department. Then a boy arrived at the office with a schedule, a record of payments, and an armload of workers’ pay books collected in order to impose penalties. The payments began. Down the endless strip of unbuilt space that separated the station, the workshops, the engine depots, the warehouses, and the tracks from the wooden office buildings, stretched a line of conductors, switchmen, metalworkers and their assistants, scrubwomen from the car park, waiting to receive their wages.
It smelled of early city winter, trampled maple leaves, melting snow, engine fumes, and warm rye bread, which was baked in the basement of the station buffet and had just been taken out of the oven. Trains arrived and departed. They were made up and dismantled with a waving of furled and unfurled flags. The watchmen’s little horns, the pocket whistles of the couplers, and the bass-voiced hooting of locomotives played out all sorts of tunes. Pillars of smoke rose into the sky in endless ladders. The heated-up locomotives stood ready to go, scorching the cold winter clouds with boiling clouds of steam.
Up and down the tracks paced the head of the section, the railway expert Fuflygin, and the foreman of the station area, Pavel Ferapontovich Antipov. Antipov had been pestering the repair service with complaints about the materials supplied to him for replacing the tracks. The steel was not tensile enough. The rails did not hold up under tests for bending and breaking, and, according to Antipov’s conjectures, were sure to crack in freezing weather. The management treated Pavel Ferapontovich’s complaints with indifference. Somebody involved was lining his pockets.
Fuflygin was wearing an expensive fur coat, unbuttoned, trimmed with railway piping, and under it a new civilian suit made of cheviot. He stepped carefully along the embankment, admiring the general line of his lapels, the straight crease of his trousers, and the noble shape of his shoes.
Antipov’s words went in one ear and out the other. Fuflygin was thinking his own thoughts, kept taking his watch out and looking at it, and was hurrying somewhere.
“Right, right, old boy,” he interrupted Antipov impatiently, “but that’s only on the main lines somewhere or on a through passage with a lot of traffic. But, mind you, what have you got here? Sidings and dead ends, burdock and nettles, at most the sorting of empty freight cars and the shunting maneuvers of ‘pufferbillies.’ And he’s still displeased! You’re out of your mind! Not just these rails; here you could even lay wooden ones.”
Fuflygin looked at his watch, snapped the lid shut, and began gazing into the distance, where the highway came close to the railway. A carriage appeared at the bend of the road. This was Fuflygin’s own rig. Madame his wife had come for him. The driver stopped the horses almost on the tracks, holding them back all the time and whoa-ing at them in a high, womanish voice, like a nanny at whimpering children—the horses were afraid of trains. In the corner of the carriage, carelessly reclining on the cushions, sat a beautiful lady.
“Well, brother, some other time,” said the head of the section, and he waved his hand as if to say “Enough of your rails. There are more important matters.”
The spouses went rolling off.
6
Three or four hours later, closer to dusk, two figures, who had not been on the surface earlier, emerged as if from under the ground in the field to one side of the tracks and,
It was a cold, gray morning at the beginning of October. The wages on the line were to be paid that day. For a long time no information came from the accounting department. Then a boy arrived at the office with a schedule, a record of payments, and an armload of workers’ pay books collected in order to impose penalties. The payments began. Down the endless strip of unbuilt space that separated the station, the workshops, the engine depots, the warehouses, and the tracks from the wooden office buildings, stretched a line of conductors, switchmen, metalworkers and their assistants, scrubwomen from the car park, waiting to receive their wages.
It smelled of early city winter, trampled maple leaves, melting snow, engine fumes, and warm rye bread, which was baked in the basement of the station buffet and had just been taken out of the oven. Trains arrived and departed. They were made up and dismantled with a waving of furled and unfurled flags. The watchmen’s little horns, the pocket whistles of the couplers, and the bass-voiced hooting of locomotives played out all sorts of tunes. Pillars of smoke rose into the sky in endless ladders. The heated-up locomotives stood ready to go, scorching the cold winter clouds with boiling clouds of steam.
Up and down the tracks paced the head of the section, the railway expert Fuflygin, and the foreman of the station area, Pavel Ferapontovich Antipov. Antipov had been pestering the repair service with complaints about the materials supplied to him for replacing the tracks. The steel was not tensile enough. The rails did not hold up under tests for bending and breaking, and, according to Antipov’s conjectures, were sure to crack in freezing weather. The management treated Pavel Ferapontovich’s complaints with indifference. Somebody involved was lining his pockets.
Fuflygin was wearing an expensive fur coat, unbuttoned, trimmed with railway piping, and under it a new civilian suit made of cheviot. He stepped carefully along the embankment, admiring the general line of his lapels, the straight crease of his trousers, and the noble shape of his shoes.
Antipov’s words went in one ear and out the other. Fuflygin was thinking his own thoughts, kept taking his watch out and looking at it, and was hurrying somewhere.
“Right, right, old boy,” he interrupted Antipov impatiently, “but that’s only on the main lines somewhere or on a through passage with a lot of traffic. But, mind you, what have you got here? Sidings and dead ends, burdock and nettles, at most the sorting of empty freight cars and the shunting maneuvers of ‘pufferbillies.’ And he’s still displeased! You’re out of your mind! Not just these rails; here you could even lay wooden ones.”
Fuflygin looked at his watch, snapped the lid shut, and began gazing into the distance, where the highway came close to the railway. A carriage appeared at the bend of the road. This was Fuflygin’s own rig. Madame his wife had come for him. The driver stopped the horses almost on the tracks, holding them back all the time and whoa-ing at them in a high, womanish voice, like a nanny at whimpering children—the horses were afraid of trains. In the corner of the carriage, carelessly reclining on the cushions, sat a beautiful lady.
“Well, brother, some other time,” said the head of the section, and he waved his hand as if to say “Enough of your rails. There are more important matters.”
The spouses went rolling off.
6
Three or four hours later, closer to dusk, two figures, who had not been on the surface earlier, emerged as if from under the ground in the field to one side of the tracks and,
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