Summary :
The story Misery is written by Anton Chekhov, a very famous Russian story writer. This story is also known popularly as The Grief. Some people also call it 'To Whom Shall I Tell My Grief'. It is all about people's insensitivity of towards others pain and anguish.
The greatest distress (pain) for any old person is the death of his/ her young son. The same grief fell upon the luck of poor Iona, the central character of this story.
Iona was an old, weak cab driver. His young son Barin had passed away from the world, leaving him all alone . The death of his son had left his heart torn into pieces.
It is a common psychology that every human being wants to share his/ her grief with others. This sharing lightens the grief and relieves one's heart up to some extent.
But as Iona was all alone in the world, he had not been able to share his grief with others. He had not been able tell anybody that his only son Barin was no more in the world , he had passed away. There was nobody who would listen to his griefs. So the death of his son always occupied his thought.
One snowy twilight, he was waiting for passenger sitting in his cab. He was sitting motionlessly like a stone, thinking about his son. Suddenly an officer came to Iona , and asked if he would go to the Vibrog Way. Iona was ready. He pulled the reins of his horse and the officer sat in the cab. They moved.
The company of the man abated (made less) Iona's grief up to some extent. He wanted to talk to the man and to tell his grief to him. Iona opened the topic. But his passenger didn't prove to be a sympathetic listener. he didn't take any interest in what Iona told him. He was rather interested to his destination as soon as possible. Finally they reached to the Viborg way. The officer stepped down and Iona was left alone with his grief. Again he sat motionlessly waiting for another fare (passenger).
After about two hours three young men came to him. They wanted to go the Police Bridge. Their behaviour was very uncivilized. At first they quarreled among themselves on the topic who two would sit and who would stand in the cab. After it was decided, they started to talk about wine and girls.
Their behaviour towards Iona was also very rude. They abused and cut jokes with him.
Their company reduced Iona's pain up to some extent. He wanted to talk with them about his son's death. He opened the topic, but the boys roughly silenced him. They had no interest in the old man. They scolded him for slow driving. After some time they reached to the Police Bridge, and the boys left his cab.
Now Iona was again left alone with grief. At last, he returned to the stable (a building used for keeping horses). There all the other cab drivers were sleeping peacefully. At first, he felt jealous of them because all of them were sleeping, and sleep was not coming to him because of his troubled mind and heart.
Then a young cab driver half awoke from sleep and needed some water to drink. Iona provided him water and tried to talk to him. But before Iona could finish his first sentence, the young cab driver was fast asleep again.
At last, the grief became unbearable for him. He needed somebody to whom he could tell about the sad event of his son's death. But in this big world no body had time or interest in him or in his grief.
Finally, when he could not tolerate his grief, he went to his horse and opened his heart to it. He told every detail to the horse. The horse munched (chew grass audibly) and breathed over its master's hand, as if it listened to its master's story patiently, and sympathized with him.
In this way, in end we find that the horse proved to be better than a human being with whom Iona shared his grief and lightened his heart.