Franz Kafka's "The Country Doctor"
Commentary by behnam
Kafka's story "The Country Doctor" is one of his most enigmatic, because it is one of his most symbolic, and his symbols defy easy explanation.
The story opens with a kindly physician standing outside his home in "great perplexity"; his horse has died, and he has been summoned to see a critically-ill patient some ten miles away. The doctor's maid has gone to try to borrow a horse, but he is sure she will be unsuccessful. The story is introduced in a series of tight, clipped sentence fragments, as if related in a state of great anxiety, but so far the events themselves make perfect sense. Suddenly, however, it transforms itself into nightmare. The doctor kicks the door of an old abandoned pigsty, and two horses and a lecherous groom squeeze out of the tiny door as if the pigsty itself were giving birth to them. The doctor is soon borne away into the night, pulled by the huge horses, helplessly watching the groom trying to......
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