Young doctor, arriving to work in a village, undertakes complex operations he has never performed before in order to save his patients: amputates a girl’s leg, cuts open a small child’s trachea, and “turns on the knife” the fetus during childbirth. The doctor is mostly lucky, but the tension is anything but trivial. In his first stories, based on personal experience, Bulgakov writes in a naturalistic manner, with an abundance of physiological details.
The hero of the “Notes” feels his loneliness keenly: he is cut off from both civilization and from the most important events of big history. Yet each day he selflessly fights for life—both for his patients and for his own.
Contents:
Towel with a rooster
Baptism by turning
Steel throat
Blizzard
Egyptian darkness
The missing eye
Star rash
I killed