ABSTRACT
. . .Which of these portraits do we like best? Is it that of Leonid Gayef, a sieve of sentiment, who will pour out his soul to an old cupboard and almost frighten you with his obsession of billiards? Have we not all some trac indifferently mastered? Or do we prefer Trophimof, that pathetic student who dislikes solemnity and takes himself with immense seriousness? Or Lopakhin, the successful man, who won't, we feel, really make money out of the villas he is to build on the site of the cherry orchard? Or Pishtchik, the fat, jovial sponger, who has had two strokes, takes other people's pills, is as strong as a horse, and deems himself descended from Caligula's ennobled steed? Or Ephikhodof, that marvellous grotesque? Or Yasha, that child of the steppes with the mentality of a Parisian gigolo? Or Firs, who is your ‘old retainer’ with a difference? Madame Ranevsky, that indolent reed, leads the women easily though Barbara is a great pool of melancholy, and Anya is vaguely foredoomed to unhappiness. Even Charlotte the governess, whiling away her antiquated virginity with card-tricks and ventriloquism, is a terrifying figure. Yet how real they are! Mad, indeed, should we be to deny that but the for grace of God. . . .
