: A girl is brought to the hospital at death. Despite the inexperience and low chances of success, the young doctor still decides to operate it. The girl miraculously survives and, having gained strength, comes to thank him.

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

A twenty-three-year-old doctor who recently graduated from the university was sent to work in the village of Muryevo. The doctor overcame the forty miles separating the county town from the Muryev Hospital in a day, shaking in a cart under the fine autumn rain.

In a fit of cowardice, I cursed in a whisper of medicine and my statement, submitted five years ago to the university rector.

Doctors were met by a man in a frayed little coat and boots - the local watchman. Appointing the watchman's wife as a cook, the young man met with staff - a paramedic and two midwives. He was surprised to find “the richest instruments” in the hospital. The appointment of many instruments to the doctor was unknown - he not only did not hold them in his hands, but even never saw them. Forty people were freely accommodated in the spacious ward of the hospital, and the pharmacy was full of medicine.

All this was taken out and prescribed by the previous doctor of the hospital Leopold Leopoldovich.Having had dinner and sitting in his office, the doctor discovered another achievement of the legendary Leopold: a cupboard full of books on medicine in Russian and German.

Even during the distribution, the young man asked for a second doctor, but he was appointed the main and only one, hoping that he would become comfortable. Now the doctor felt insecure. He was afraid that he could not cope if a patient appeared who needed surgery. The doctor was also afraid of other serious diseases, especially childbirth with the wrong position of the fetus. Having tormented himself with fears for about two hours, he began to calm down and settle down, because troubles, like purulent appendicitis or hernia, may not reach the deaf hospital.

At this time, a man ran into the office “without a hat, in an open fur coat, with a fallen beard, with crazy eyes” and began to beg on his knees to beg the doctor to save his only daughter. The girl got into the pulp - a machine that flax is wrinkled. The doctor realized that he was missing.

A beautiful girl with a long light braid had her legs fragmented. The doctor did not know what to do with her, and therefore desperately wanted her to die not at his hands. Despite this, he started the operation.

Now for the first time in my life I have to do amputation on a dying person. And this man will die under the knife.

The doctor saw amputation once in his life, while still at university, and now “common sense, spurred by the extraordinary situation” worked for him. He cut, sawed and sewed, wondering that the girl was still alive. The doctor amputated the girl one leg, did not touch the second, fearing that she would not reach the room.

After the operation, one of the midwives said the new doctor "was like Leopold." It was the highest praise. The embarrassed doctor hid that he had never done any operations. All night he was waiting for a report about the death of the patient.

Two and a half months later, the girl came to the doctor. She did not have a leg, but she remained alive, and her father was happy. The doctor gave the girl a Moscow address where she could order a prosthesis, and she gave him the “long snowy white towel with an artless red embroidered rooster,” which she had embroidered in the hospital. For many years, this towel adorned the doctor’s bedroom in Muryev, until it was dilapidated and disappeared, "how memories fade and disappear."