The New Villa

The New Villa by Anton Chekhov

Two miles from the village of Obrutchanovo, an engineer named Kutcherov builds a railway bridge while his wife, Elena Ivanovna, taken with the riverbank view, persuades him to buy sixty acres of land nearby and build a two-storey house with a tower, terrace, garden, and fountain, soon nicknamed the New Villa by the villagers. When two strikingly white horses from the New Villa are brought to the village blacksmith Rodion Petrov, they draw an admiring crowd, though the sour old widower Kozov mocks them and dismisses the newcomers as "landowners, too-oo." Rodion's coachman informant describes the wealthy owners: Elena Ivanovna, once a poor Moscow governess, is kind and eager to help the poor. Elena Ivanovna and her small daughter visit the village in a pony carriage, giving money to Rodion's wife Stepanida and her many children. Soon after, the Lytchkovs (father and son) and Rodion's son Volodka round up the engineer's stray horses, a pony, and a bull-calf that wandered into their meadows, extracting a five-rouble fine before returning the animals unfed. The men celebrate the payment with a drunken carousal, worrying their wives and Rodion, who fears the gentleman's anger. The engineer confronts the peasants in the forest, listing grievances—trampled crops, cut oaks, a dug-up road—and appeals to them as good neighbors, invoking his wife's warmhearted nature. Rodion is moved and resolves to pay whatever is owed, while Volodka remains sullenly indifferent, insisting they never wanted a bridge. Elena Ivanovna later sits with Rodion and Stepanida, confiding her poor health, headaches, and the family tension caused by her husband's parents disapproving of their marriage since she is not of noble birth. She speaks earnestly of wanting to belong, to be useful, and begs the villagers to live in peace with them, promising a school and mended roads. But when Lytchkov the father skeptically recalls a rich peasant's broken promise of a school, and Volodka flatly refuses the idea, Elena Ivanovna is wounded and walks away in tears. Rodion follows, pleading with her to have patience, comparing the villagers to unweeded ground that needs slow cultivation, while her frightened daughter begs to return to Moscow. The engineer grows increasingly irritable over petty thefts—cart wheels, bridles, pincers—and accuses the peasants of ingratitude when village girls pick all the mushrooms meant for his family, threatening that he and his wife will look down on them. Rodion, deeply moved by what he takes as a promise of future kindness, prays for the family's health. On the village's church festival day, the drunken Lytchkovs, father and son, brawl in the New Villa's yard in front of the horrified engineer's family. The next morning Elena Ivanovna leaves for Moscow with her children, and rumor spreads that the engineer is selling the house. Time passes: the bridge becomes an unremarkable fixture, trains now run regularly, Kozov dies, Rodion's household grows even larger, Volodka grows a red beard, and all remain poor. The New Villa is sold to a minor government clerk who visits for holidays and ignores the peasants' greetings. One spring evening, returning from sawing wood near the station, Rodion, the Lytchkovs, and Volodka pass the now-empty New Villa and recall the white horses, ponies, fireworks, and Elena Ivanovna's kindness, wondering why they parted as enemies over trivial damage and grievances instead of living in harmony as they now do with the indifferent new owner. None can answer why, and Volodka only mutters again that they lived without a bridge and never wanted one. They walk on in silence.

By Anton Chekhov · First published 1900 · Genre: Literary Fiction, Social Commentary, Realism · 5 chapters · 6,882 words

First lines

Two miles from the village of Obrutchanovo a huge bridge was being built. From the village, which stood up high on the steep riverbank, its trellis-like skeleton could be seen, and in foggy weather and on still winter days, when its delicate iron girders and all the scaffolding around was covered with hoar frost, it presented a picturesque and even fantastic spectacle. Kutcherov, the engineer who was building the bridge, a stout, broad-shouldered, bearded man in a soft crumpled cap drove through the village in his racing droshky or his open carriage. Now and then on holidays navvies working on the bridge would come to the village; they begged for alms, laughed at the women, and sometimes carried off something. But that was rare; as a rule the days passed quietly and peacefully as though no bridge-building were going on, and only in the evening, when camp fires gleamed near the bridge, the wind faintly wafted the songs of the navvies. And by day there was sometimes the mournful clang of metal, don-don-don.

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Russian Literature · Short Story · Satire · Social Commentary · Marriage · Class Struggle · Identity Crisis · Psychological Insight · Character Study · Comedy of Manners · Irony · Critique of Bourgeoisie

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