New Road by Ivan Bunin. Short summary

5 seconds

The author rides the new railroad. Centuries-old forests along its path have been destroyed. Villagers try to earn money by ferrying passengers. The forest encircles the rails, but the locomotive stubbornly moves forward.

1 minute

The author’s acquaintances dissuade him from traveling on the new railroad, fearing derailment. But the locomotive moves, and St. Petersburg remains somewhere in the distance. The carriage is asleep. The writer feels the light of the station lantern through his slumber — it’s the station. The locomotive hums, the train picks up speed again and lulls the passengers.

In the morning he transfers to another train, which goes on a new road. The author wanders through the carriages and observes the life of a Russian provincial train: everywhere is empty, except third class, littered with sacks and half coats of sleeping people. The main line winds through forests, obliterating centuries-old thickets in its path. Pines and birches flash through the windows, snow flies.

As dusk falls, an incomprehensible longing arises in the heart. What brings the new road to a distant land? Poor villages are lost among the forests, whose inhabitants come out to the trains in the hope of a passenger. Impassable forests encircle the road and seem to be unwilling to let it go any farther. But the steam locomotive persists: whitish smoke floats and flames illuminate the sullen pines.