In other words, Chekhov could’ve chosen any object as the inspiration for his work — it might have been an ashtray, or it might have been something else. For no sooner would he have begun to depict that object than would his wisdom and talent have drawn it into relationship with a larger truth, and a wider scope of events, the possibilities of which, in all their complexity, he would be cognizant of. Which in turn would have allowed him to yield his intentions for that object (had he had any to begin with) to the intentions of the fiction he’d brought into existence.