A collection of linked short stories drawn from Bulgakov's own experience as a young doctor sent to a remote rural hospital in Russia shortly after the Revolution. The narrator is newly qualified, inexperienced and anxious, and must face emergencies, primitive conditions, winter isolation and the suspicion of local peasants with little help. The stories mix dark humour, medical detail and quiet compassion, showing a young man learning responsibility and courage. They are among the most readable of his early works and offer a vivid picture of provincial life in that period.