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A Country Doctor

Story Name: A Rich Leech (English: “A Country Doctor”; German: “Ein Landarzt”)

Author: Franz Kafka

English Translator: Ian Courtenay Johnston

English Translation: Wikisource

English Translation Licence: The copyright holder of this work allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the source is acknowledged.

Anglish Translation Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0

Story

I was in a bind. An earnest wayfare was ayenst me. An earnestly sick man was biding for me in a thorp ten miles far. A swingeing snowstorm filled the room between him and me. I had a wain — a light one, with great wheels, wholly fitting for our rich roads. Bewoven in wildware mid the cod of tools in my hand, I was already standing in the worth ready for the wayfare; but the horse was missing — the horse. My own horse had quole yesternight, owing to overwork in this icy winter. My handmaid was at that right time hurrying about the thorp to see if she could borrow a horse, but it was hopeless — I knew that — and I stood there worthless, more and more beset mid snow, becoming all the time more steadfast. The girl showed up at the foreyate, alone. She was swinging the bloakern. Needless to say, who is now going to lend her her1 horse for such a wayfare? I walked once ayen thwarst the worth. I couldn’t see what to do. Woored and gramed, I spurned my foot ayenst the cracked door of the swine sty which had not been noted for years. The door opened and pounded loudly to and fro on its hinges. A warmth and smell as if from horses came out. A dim stall bloakern on a rope wawed inside. A man shrunk down in the stall below showed his open hewn-eyed anlet. “Shall I hitch2 up?” he asked, crawling out on all fours. I didn’t know what to say and bent down to see what was still in the stall. The handmaid stood beside me. “One doesn’t know the kinds of things one has put away in one’s own house,” she said, and we both laughed. “Hey Brother, hey Sister,” the horse-hew remed out, and two horses, mighty deer with strong sides, shoved her way one behind the other, shanks nigh the bodies, lowering her well-shaped heads like camels, and yetting through the door room, which hy thoroughly filled, only through the strong wamble of her behinds. But right away hy stood up straight, long shanked, with thick steaming bodies. “Help him,” I said, and the girl towardly hurried to hand the wain harness to the horse-hew. But as soon as she was beside him, the horse-hew puts his arms around her and potes his anlet against hers. She screams out and runs over to me. On the girl’s cheek were red marks from two rows of teeth. “Thou deer,” I reme out in wrath, “dost thou want the whip?” But I at once umbethink that he is a fremmedling, that I don’t know where he comes from, and that he’s helping me out of his own free will, when everyone else is choosing not to. As if he knows what I was thinking, he is not grilled at my threat, but twists back to me once more, still busy mid the horses. Then he says, “Climb in,” and, in sooth, everything is ready. I nim heed that I have never before fared mid such a stunning team of horses, and I climb in happily. “But I’ll nim the reins. Thou dost not know the way,” I say. “By all means,” he says; “I’m not going with thee. I’m biding mid Rosa.” “No,” screams Rosa and runs into the house, mid a dead-on forewarning of the mustbeness3 of her wird. I hear the door rackent reeseing as she sets it ready. I hear the lock swey. I see how furthermore she runs down the row4 and through the rooms putting out all the lights for the sake of making herself unmightly to find. “You’re coming with me,” I say to the horse-hew, "or I’ll give up the wayfare, however earnest it is. It’s not my inhide to give you the girl as the loave of the fare.” “Yiddy-up,” he says and claps5 his hands. The wain is torn away, like a bit of wood in a farth. I still hear how the door of my house is breaking down and splitting asunder under the horse-hew’s onslaught6, and then my eyes and ears are filled with a roaring swey which overwhelms all my feelings at once. But only for an eyeblink. Then I am already there, as if the barton of my sickwere opens up at once afore my worth yate. The horses stand whistly. The snowfall has stopped, moonlight all around. The sick were’s folks hurled out of the house, his sister behind hem. Hy almost heave me out of the wain. I yet nothing from her addled talking. In the sick room one can hardly breathe the lift. The forsaken cooking stove is smoking. I want to pote open the eyedoor, but first I’ll look at the sick were. Thin, without rith, not cold, not warm, with empty eyes, without a shirt, the young man under the crammed bedspread heaves himself up, hangs about my throat, and whispers in my ear, “Leech, let me dead.” I look about. No one has heard. The alders stand stilly, leaning forward, and bide for my thoughts.

  1. Due to the merging of "her" and "their" into "her", this sentence may seem ambiguous. Explicitly, it is "who is now going to lend [the handmaid] their horse for such a wayfare?" ↩

  2. Of unknown origin. ↩

  3. A newly coined word meaning "inevitability". It comes from "must-be", a New English word meaning "The inevitable; that which is fated to happen." according to the OED, along with the dead suffix -ness that is attached to adjectives to form nouns denoting a state or condition. Thus, "mustbeness" means "the state or condition of being inevitable". ↩

  4. Revived obsolete sense meaning "corridor". ↩

  5. Either from Old English or Old Norse, but at least half the senses are probably influenced from Old Norse. However, no other Anglish alternative exists, so this will have to do. ↩

  6. Formed within English with fully Anglish words, but it was modelled on Dutch aanslag. ↩