In this story by Mikhail Bulgakov, a young Russian doctor receives a plea to visit a gravely ill classmate practicing in a nearby country town. Before he has a chance to leave, the friend is brought to his hospital suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. As he dies, the friend bequeaths him a notebook from which we learn of his problem (morphine addiction), how he strove and failed to overcome it, and how it gradually destroyed his life and the hopes of a nurse who loved him. Themes include isolation and loneliness, addiction, self-delusion, deception and manipulation, despair, suicide.
The story is heavily autobiographical. Bulgakov was a doctor before taking up writing and, after working in various capacities during World War I, was assigned to an isolated rural clinic. He is known to have suffered a morphine addiction during the war years, which some say may have continued for the rest of his life. The story’s credibility is further enhanced by the fact that it was first published in the in the Soviet medical journal Meditsinsky rabotnik (Medical Worker), presumably as a case study/warning to young doctors.