"The Cattle-Dealers" is an 1887 short story by Anton Chekhov.
The old man Malakhin, accompanied by his rather useless son Yasha, makes a journey to Saint Petersburg in a freight train with the view of selling his cattle. Everybody around is bent on extorting the money from him. The train driver simply refuses to move the train without being paid, and the uber-conductor has to have his reward too. Malakhin is so distressed as to file a written complaint to the police, still he throws his money around, even on the occasions when this does not seem necessary. Four days later, after having bribed his way to the capital, he sells his starved-out animals, loses a great deal of money but is greatly relieved to see his totally meaningless mission completed.
