The Opening of Misery — Anton Chekhov

The twilight of evening. Big flakes of wet snow are whirling lazily about the street lamps which have just been lighted, and lying in a thin soft layer on roofs, horses' backs, shoulders, caps. Iona Potapov, the sledge-driver, is all white like a ghost. He sits on the box without stirring, bent as double as the living body can be bent. His little mare is white and motionless too. Her stillness, the angularity of her lines, and the stick-like straightness of her legs make her look almost like a gingerbread horse worth a kopeck. Iona and his nag have not moved from their place for a long while. They came out of the yard before dinner-time, and not a single fare yet. But now the shades of evening are falling on the town.