AMOSOZ
217
of calculations and decisions was actually no more than a nightmarish hal–
lucination: the doctor has been deceived. He has responded to the false
alarm of the night bell, and nothing can
"be
made good, not ever." Not
only has the doctor been misled, but the reader too, so it
seems,
has been
taken for a ride.
Because
in
fact there was no alarm. Furthermore, did not the doctor
choose to cancel the journey at the last minute, to reject the horse-for-wench
deal, only to have his choice overridden by brute force? After all, he does not
set
out on his way, but is, rather, thrown into the journey against his
will.
In utter contradiction to the impression made at the beginning of the
story and reemphasized at its end, "A Country Doctor" is not a story of
crime and punishment, nor is it a fable about taking the wrong turn or mak–
ing the wrong choice: the doctor's tragedy is not at all a result of his actions
or failures. The apologetics are superfluous. The opening contract is only
the object of the real, the inner, conflict. According to the
terms
of this
inner, latent contract, the doctor is guilty
a priori,
convicted and sentenced
from the start, despite his innocence, even before he responds to the false
alarm and even before he begins his series of apologies. From the very
beginning, the doctor is no more than a "log in a freshet." He is found guilty
only because a man's guilt is always lying in wait for him. Rose seems to set
the terms of Kafka's contract as they really are when she says, "you never
know what you're going to find in your own house." Guilt is always crouch–
ing behind "the dilapidated door of the year-long uninhabited pigsty."
o
M
A resounding new sequence
by
a poet ofpassion, intelligence,
and amazing range
BLACK BOX
STEPHEN SANDY
"Black Box
retrieves all sorts of
crucial data. Sandy's poems have
an infectious curiosity, a moral
weight and witty balance. T hey
speak from and
to
the heart."
- J.
D.
M CCLATCHY
$22.95 CLOTH . $'6.95 PAPER
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
B' H
I l()HIH . '1\)(JH' 1;177
