: 1917 year. Returning from a call, a young rural doctor gets lost in a field during a blizzard, almost freezes, escapes from wolves. As soon as he died, he realizes that he will risk his life more than once for the sake of the patient.

The narration is on behalf of a young doctor, whose name is not mentioned in the story. The action takes place in 1917.

After the incident with a girl who fell under a flax puller, the young doctor became famous. Now he received more than a hundred patients a day, and at night he was taken away for a difficult birth. The doctor was fatally tired, he dreamed of surgery and blood, but still there was one thought in him - how to save the patient.

There was a battle. Every day, it began in the morning under the pale light of snow, and ended with the yellow flashing of a fiery lightning lamp.

More than once he wrote to the management that the N-th district relies on another doctor. He was politely answered that there was no doctor yet, and he continued to pull the strap.

Once the doctor received 111 people, but the next day only two patients arrived - a blizzard began. The doctor decided to take advantage of this and wash himself, but as soon as he got into the trough and soaped, they came for him.

Doctors asked for help even more inexperienced colleague from a neighboring site. The trouble happened with a girl, the daughter of a local agronomist, who was going to marry an office clerk.The whole district discussed their stormy romance, the clerk sought the beauty’s consent for a long time, and, having achieved it, he made a new suit, and drove the bride in a sleigh to ride. The horse harnessed to the sleigh started moving too sharply, and the girl hit her forehead against the jamb of the gate so that she flew out of the sleigh.

The doctor could not go. Two hours later, he was already in the house of the agronomist, but could not help anything - the girl died before his eyes. Having injected morphine into the distraught groom, the doctor set off. The blizzard intensified, the doctors asked not to go, but he had three typhoid patients in the hospital whom he could not leave.

On the way, the doctor fell asleep. Waking up from the cold, he found that he and the driver were lost in the blizzard, and the tired horses stood up. The doctor made the sad driver go ahead, taking the horses under the bridle, and he himself ruled the sleigh. Fifteen minutes later they went out onto the road.

The horses went brisker, but suddenly there was a howl - a pair of wolves chased the sled. The horses were carried, and the doctor took out the browning, which he always carried with him, and began to shoot.

I heard wild, shrill snoring of horses, squeezed browning, <...> and in mortal fear I thought that a huge sinewy body would suddenly appear on my chest. Already mentally saw his torn intestines ...

Suddenly, the wolves fell behind, and in the distance a lantern appeared at the entrance to the hospital, which seemed to the doctor more beautiful than any palace.

Going to bed, the doctor thought that he would never go anywhere again at night, and even during a blizzard. The clock was ticking, she was singing a blizzard outside the window, and the doctor heard: “You’ll go ... en, you’ll go ...”.