AMOSOZ
go, urgent as my journey is. I'm not thinking of paying for it by hand–
ing the girl over to you." "Gee up!" he said; clapped his hands; the gig
whirled off like a log in a freshet; I could just hear the door of my
house splitting and bursting as the groom charged at it and then I was
deafened and blinded by a storming rush that steadily buffeted all my
senses.
213
The story's title introduces us to the first-person narrator even before
he says a single word: a country doctor. He then presents all the initial data
in a matter-of-fact tone, almost like a police report; as though he was tes–
tifying before a jury, as though he must defend himself against criminal
charges.
His condition: great perplexity. His problem: an urgent journey, a
seriously ill patient, a village ten miles off, a blizzard, no horse and no
hope of getting one. The measures he took: 1. Sent a servant to borrow a
horse, despite the slim chance of success. 2. Stood in the yard, in the snow,
ready and wai ting for the journey, so that if the servant were to borrow a
horse after all, not a minute would be lost. 3. Walked around the yard
again. 4. Even kicked the door of the abandoned pigsty, in case he might
find something there. 5. When the horses and the groom appeared, wast–
ed no time in questioning the significance of their wondrous appearance.
6. Did not remain silent at the groom's attack on the girl, scolded him but
did not tarry-getting to the seriously
ill
patient was still his highes t pri–
ori ty. 7. Changed his priori ties, when he realized that the groom was
about to abuse Rose, and decided not to abandon her. 8. But when the
groom made the horses dash forward, lost control over them and they gal–
loped ahead dragging the wagon "like a log in a freshet."
The defense case appears solid and untainted. No grand jury could
convict the doctor for his conduct at any stage of the events. Nevertheless,
at the story's beginning and through to its end, the central questions
remain unanswered. Moreover, they are never even asked.
Of what, exactly, is the doctor being accused? What allegation, what
charge does he struggle so desperately to refute? Where do the accusations
come from? Who convicts him? Who condemns him, in the end, to be
"Naked, exposed to the frost of this most unhappy of ages, with an earth–
ly vehicle, unearthly horses , old man that I am, I wander astray." And for
what sin?
About one third of the story deals with the doctor's attempts to
defend himself against an accusation that is never made, against a prose–
cutor who never once appears in this story. In addition to the logical and
solid apology in the beginning of the story, another "defense plea"
