In this passage, the elderly—and slightly insane—Firs complains that Liberation ruined everything. Though serfs were freed from their masters on that fateful day, Firs—unable or unwilling to strike out on his own and live independently of a master—chose to stay on with his. When Lopakhin sarcastically agrees with Firs, remarking that things were “fine” back when masters brutally flogged their serfs (essentially land-bound slaves), Firs takes up the same position unironically. Firs, the oldest character in the play and in many ways the individual who longs most for the past, has been unable to adapt to the changes that have…