Tales of Belkin by Alexander Pushkin

Author:Alexander Pushkin [Pushkin, Alexander]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Art of the Novella
ISBN: 978-1-61219-081-5
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2011-06-14T05:00:00+00:00

† “Our clients” [German]

THE STATIONMASTER

“Collegiate administrator,

Postal dictator”.

—KING VYAZEMSKY

Who has never cursed stationmasters? Who has never argued with them? Who, in a moment of anger, has not demanded from them the fatal ledger, in order to record his useless complaint against their pretensions, rudeness, and carelessness? Who does not consider them outcasts from humanity, no better than the old Moscow law clerks, or the robbers of Muromets? We, however, are going to be fair, by trying to look at circumstances from their point of view, and thereby perhaps come to judge them a little more leniently. What is this “stationmaster?” A martyr of the 14th rank, essentially, protected from beatings by his title only, and not always even then (I appeal to my reader’s conscience on this point). What are the duties of this dictator, as Vyazemsky called him? Do they not truly amount to a prison sentence? Day and night, not a minute’s rest. The traveler takes out all the grief accumulated over the course of his tedious journey on the stationmaster. The weather is impossible, the road terrible, the driver stubborn, the horses won’t go—it’s the stationmaster’s fault. Entering his poor quarters, the traveler looks on him as an enemy; things are good if the host can rid himself of his undesired guest quickly; but if there are no horses available? Good lord! What curses, what threats fall on his head! Come rain or sleet he must run around outdoors; in the storm, in the frosts of Epiphany-day he goes out onto his porch, just to grab a minute’s rest from the cries and shoves of his irritated guests. Here comes a general; the trembling stationmaster gives him the last two troikas, including the courier’s. The general leaves without thanking him. Five minutes later—the bell! The courier throws an order for fresh horses on his desk! If we try to comprehend all of this, our hearts will be flooded with sincere sympathy, rather than indignation. A few words more: over the course of twenty years I have traveled all over Russia, in all directions; I know almost all the postal routes; I am acquainted with more than one generation of drivers; it is rare that I do not recognize a stationmaster’s face, I’ve missed only a few of them; in the near future, I hope to publish an interesting collection of my travel observations; in the meantime, I will only say that, as a group, stationmasters prove the accepted opinion to be most false. The much-maligned stationmasters are for the most part worldly men, obliging by nature, inclined to affability, modest when it comes to the expectation of honors, and not particularly money-grubbing. From their conversation (to which, by the way, most travelers pay no attention) one can garner many interesting and instructive things. As for myself, well, I must confess that I prefer their talk to the blather of an official of the 6th rank traveling on administrative business.

It is no doubt easy to guess that I have a friend among the stationmasters’ ranks.

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