The Unjustifiable (?) Expository Aside

("Enemies," Session Two)

So, fun fact: Chekhov was (wait for it) twenty-seven when he wrote “Enemies.”  Yes: twenty-seven.  Many of his great masterpieces (among them “Gooseberries,” “Lady with Pet Dog,” and “The Darling” were written in the late 1890s, not long before his death in 1904, when he was around forty – so, about thirteen years after “Enemies.” 

That’s a pretty long time.