THE HOUSE CALL

The House Call is a story from Germany that basically concentrates upon the mysterious arrival of the spirit of a young girl to make a call to the doctor for the treatment of her mother who was suffering from pneumonia for several days. Dr. Emil Braun, the protagonist of this story, is identified as the famous surgeon in his locality. The day after the Christmas of 1903, he was sitting alone in his dining room at about 9:30 p.m. He was quite tired even unable to take his evening meal due to hard surgery. He was preparing a report about his surgical works and putting his head down on the table and dozing. He suddenly woke up when he heard the doorbell. He heard a child talking about her sick mother with his wife Mrs. Braun. After sometime, he came to know that he had a patient to see. In fact it was a young girl who had come to call the doctor for her mother. He went to the door and in the semidarkness saw a little girl of perhaps six or seven who was wearing a cotton dress and shabby (moth-eaten) shoes. Over her head, she had a ragged shawl which she was holding together at the neck. The doctor felt sympathy for the child and her sick mother and became ready to go with her.

It was raining lightly outside as the doctor walked down the steps to the street but the girl was already almost a block up the street, waiting for him. She walked too fast, however the doctor tried to catch her up on the way so that he could ask some questions related to her mother and about herself. The doctor was old enough to walk on the speed as the girl was making a rush towards her home. The girl stopped only for a moment at each corner to make sure he saw where she was going. The girl led the doctor through the poorest part of Berlin, the section of the city around the hospital where Dr. Braun was head of surgeon. Finally they reached an old tenement house where the girl’s mother was living. The doctor climbed up stairs up to the fifth floor. As the doctor entered the room, he heard the door close softly behind him.  

The doctor checked her up and found that she was suffering from pneumonia. The doctor recognized her as a person who at one time worked as the maintenance staff at the hospital. He provided her some medicine that comforted her. The doctor knew that Elda had gone to stay at her brother’s house in the village. When the doctor talked about the girl, daughter of the woman, Elda said that her daughter, Adelheid had died of the flu in September just three days after her seventh birthday. Dr. Braun was very surprised because the very child had been to his house to make a house call. The woman further showed some of Heide's belongings to revive her memory in her old and least furnished apartment. He saw the same ragged shawl on a hook and a pair of shabby (torn) shoes on the floor. As he looked closely, he found them wet. Elda said that she had been thinking about him earlier that night hoping and praying for him. As she was talking with Dr. Braun, she felt asleep. Then, touching her feverish head once more, he took his black bag, stepped out into the dark hallway, and closed the door.