Back to: CBSE Class 12th English Summary
Table of Contents
A Gentle Doctor
Dr. Sadao Hoki lived on the Japanese coast, where he had spent his entire childhood. Sadao’s father was concerned about his education. His father had sent him to America to learn medical science.
He went to America at twenty-two and returned at the age of thirty. His father saw him as a famous scientist. Sadao was being kept in Japan as an old general was having a medical condition that he would examine.
Something in the Mist
Sadao watched the mists carefully and then went to his wife Hana and his two children. Sadao met Hana in America, and she was also Japanese. They had met at a professor’s house in America.
Suddenly, they saw a black shadow creeping from the mists. They both were terrified, and it was a man who fell and lay on his face. He was a white man, severely wounded. After examining him, Sadao realized that this white man had a gun injury. Sadao covered the wound with moss.
Sadao and Hana were in a dilemma to either hand the man over to the authorities or let him die in the sea. After a brief discussion, they decided to take him home. They took him to Sadao’s father’s room. The man was motionless, and Sadao wanted to operate upon him to save his life.
Patient Comes First
They told their servants about the white man, and they all were scared. They refuted Sadao’s plan to heal the white man. Yumi, the servant, was very reluctant to wash the white man. There was a look of resistance on her face, but she had to do this task.
After Yumi left the room, Hana washed the white man’s face with a warm soaked towel. Soon, Sadao showed up, and Hana found out that he had decided to operate upon that white man. Sadao worked while Hana helped him silently.
While doing so, they ruined their mat with bloodstains. Hana gave anaesthetic to the white man. Sadao, in a delicate way, removed the bullet from that man’s body. The bullet had nearly damaged his kidney, but since Sadao had removed it, he was now in a safe zone.
The Servant Revolt
Sadao gave the white man a vial of medicine from his kit, and his pulse grew more robust. The white man was terrified after known where he was. When he talked to Hana for the first time, he was surprised to see that she spoke English. Sadao did not like the man but still took care of him.
The white man became better, but Sadao did not talk to him in a friendly way. Sadao and Hana realized that their servants did not like that they had a white man in their workplace. The servants talked to each other about how their master had forgotten the Japanese values. The white man’s name was Tom.
The Healing Patient
For the next few days, Tom was healing day by day. Sadao decided to write a letter to the chief of police. The next day, all the servants left together. Hana asked Sadao if what they were doing was right, but he did not answer.
One day, a man in uniform visited their house, and Hana was terrified as she thought that the servants had told the general about their crime, but later she came to know that it was a summon for Sadao as the old general was in pain.
Spare or Kill: The Difficult Decision!
Sadao told everything to the old general, and he said Sadao to kill the white man quietly. He offered his assassins to kill the white man. They both agreed. Sadao went home thinking about his plan. As Sadao went to see the white man, he saw that Tom was preparing to go to the garden.
They both talked in a rather friendly way. Tom told Sadao that if all the Japanese were like him, there would be no war. Hana asked him what to do with Tom, but Sadao asked for two or three more days to decide.
Sadao felt that the assassins would kill Tom. He waited for two days, and nothing happened, but on the third day, he was confident that the killers would finally kill Tom. But, nothing happened.
Tom woke up and asked for a razor blade to shave his beard on the third day. Sadao told Tom about an island that he could possibly go to hide from the Japanese military. Sadao made all the arrangements for his escape.
A boat, a lot of food, extra clothing, and a flashlight. Sadao told him about signals from the flashlight, once if he was alright and two if he had no food, but he must do it when the sun touched the horizon.
As Tom left, the servants returned. Sadao told the general about the prisoner’s escape, and he admitted that he forgot his promise of killing the white man. Tom was gone, and Sadao wondered why he could not kill him.