L’espoir trompeur de « juste une orange »

“Apenas uma laranja” is one of the narratives that mak eup Retalhos da Vida de um Médico, the central work of 20th century Portuguese doctor and writer FernandoNamora. In this narrative, the main character is a doctor who finds himself powerless in the face of an appeal from the population of a very poor region to take care of a typhus epidemic. Faced with a desolate scenario dominated by typhoid plague, the doctor (and narrator)realizes that he must give hope where he sees none.