216
PARTISAN REVIEW
And why did you not prevent him from breaking down the door
and assaulting Rose?
I
tried.
I
ordered
him
to go with me, and, if not,
"I
won't go, urgent
as my Journey is."
So why did you not cancel the journey?
Because the groom started the horses so sharply that the gIg
"whirled off like a log in a freshet."
But why did you put yourself into the hands of such a groom?
Because a seriously ill patient was waiting for me, and I did not
have a horse.
And it's roundabout again. (Actually, the same format repeats itself
later, in the episode of the misdiagnosis. The doctor first failed to notice
the boy's injury, then failed to help him, paradoxically, there was no way
he could. There was no malpractice or misconduct on the doctor's part. He
is a good man who can do no good.)
What then is the "opening contract" the reader is asked to accept with
the beginning of this story?
Initially, the reader is expected to trust the doctor-narrator, to feel
sympathy for this decent fellow who responds to a seriously ill patient's call
for help on a snowy, stormy night and who is delayed by a mere techni–
cality; the reader must also acknowledge the sense of moral and professional
obligation that binds doctors to do their utmost, even to endanger them–
selves if necessary, in order to provide medical assistance to seriously ill
patients. The exigencies the doctor-narrator presents at the beginning of his
"testimony" help to engage the reader in the necessity to focus on the main
point (that is, saving the patient) and not to waste energy on anything else.
A horse that died last night of cold and fatigue belongs to another story;
there is no time for that right now, and anyway it won't help the horse. The
groom and the pair of splendid horses suddenly born from an abandoned
pigsty-well, they certainly arouse amazement, but one doesn't ask too
many questions in a time of crisis. The reader is invited to identify with
the sense of urgency that drives the doctor to decide to use those horses
without asking questions.
Even the stranger's first abuse of the girl does not justify a postpone–
ment, and the reader is expected to be satisfied with the doctor's rebuke.
In short: until the horses break into a gallop, the reader has no reason
to criticize the doctor's considerations. But when the situation spins out of
the narrator's control, the reader is invited to ask himself whether the sit–
uation was ever under control in the first place. Were the doctor's decisions
really decisions? What has been presented as an eminently reasonable chain
