I first read this online at Bibliomania, a terrific resource, which also has dozens more of Chekhov’s great short stories, though no translator is credited. They are most likely all Constance Garnett’s translations. Here we are in a freezing street in St Petersburg with a father and his small son. The father is ashamed and has been reduced to asking passers-by for some money to buy food. They are standing outside a restaurant that serves oysters. The boy doesn’t know what oysters are and imagines the strange creatures and what it would be like to eat them. He thinks they are like frogs. The desperate poverty in this story hits home with the force of an arrow through the heart. The restaurant owner takes pity on them and invites them in and they get oysters. Then the turn, the owner is amazed, “The child is eating the shell.” The boy wakes up in a hospital bed. His father is pacing back and forth in the room. The concision in this story would leave not one comma even for a Gordon Lish to remove. It is perfect in every way. It might be called flash fiction these days. Apart from the most famous stories, Chekhov wrote hundreds of short pieces like this, often in a humorous vein
First published in Russian in Budilnik #486, 1884. First published in English in The Kiss and Other Stories, Duckworth, 1908. Available to read online here
A Personal Anthology 