The thoughts and conversations of a cab driver as he works with his horse-drawn sleigh on a dreadfully cold evening. It happens that his son died just the week before. Amid the small talk he has with surly passengers, he tries to tell them about his sad news. But each time they cut him off, they don’t want to know, they will talk about their journey and destination. So by the end of his working day, he has not managed to tell anyone. But in one of the greatest endings ever, while he is unharnessing and putting things away in the stable, he tells his news to the horse. It makes me tearful just to think about it now.
First published in Russian in Peterburgskaya Gazeta, 1886, Variously collected, including in The Essential Tales of Chekhov, transl. Constance Garnett, ed, Richard Ford, Granta Books, 1999. Available to read online here
A Personal Anthology 