ABSTRACT
At most plays we more or less feel that the playwright has been over this ground before, and has scattered bits of paper which he wants us to notice, and has scattered them thickest where he was most afraid we might go wrong. Chekhov does not scatter any bits of paper. He has the purposeless gait of a man who is out for a ramble, who has never taken this particular walk before, who does not much care where he brings up, who lets us come along on the understanding that we are not to make a fuss if he loses his way. The pace is hardly any faster at one moment than at another. Not until the walk is over do we realize that our meandering guide has in a surprisingly short time made us intimately acquainted with a particular corner of the country. After all, we admit, he seems to have known what he was about.
