Dear Chekhov,

I just finished reading Act III of your play The Cherry Orchard and I, if I may, want to bother you with some doubts. Repeatedly your characters ask questions between each other and the one being questioned fails to answer and instead talks about something completely different.

And then Lyubov argues with Trofimov about his freakiness and superiority, or inferiority, to love.

But Dunyasha trembles and gets anxious and nervous, over nothing, and feels glad that she was compared to a flower by a post-office clerk. And Yasha yawns in jealousy.
Mr. Chekhov I sense each character lives in a world of their own, and care only of the things that directly relate to them. “EPIHODOV. I have a misfortune every day, and if I may venture to express myself, I merely smile at it, I even laugh.” (pg. 103) Charlotta is a ventriloquist, and Varya a nun wannabe.
And you a realist.

What was your purpose in creating a character like Firs? An old man who mutters all the time without any filtration his thoughts and emotions. Well why not? His mutterings reveal the memory of a guy who witnesses a transformation of his country: “In old days we used to have generals, barons and admirals dancing at our balls, and now we send for the post-office clerk and the station master and even they’re not overanxious to come.” (pg. 101) and, rightly, feels mortified. Everyone else feels mortified for their economic situation, relationship status, mortgage, identity, and billiards.

May I ask you why Lopahin, an ordinary merchant happens to be the one that buys the orchard? Surprisingly? I guess I should have seen his protagonist role since he begins the play. I didn’t. That’s realism right?

The unexpected.

You probably had a Cherry Orchard as a garden when you were little at your grandparents’ house, and some random guy bought it, and you had to tell you grandma “And joy, quiet, deep joy, will sink into your soul like the sun at evening! And you will smile, (grandma)! Come, darling, let us go!” (pg. 106)

You didn’t that coming, did you?

Thank you for your response,

Reader.