Rosa, the country doctor’s devoted maid, balances helpfulness with fragile vulnerability. When the doctor’s horse dies, she scrambles to secure a replacement for his urgent journey, her efforts collapsing until a mysterious groom emerges with horses from a pigsty. Amid the chaos, the groom brutally assaults her, etching a vivid wound on her cheek. Though she resists, the doctor—dependent on the groom’s steeds—falters in defending her, exposing her precarious servitude. He departs, abandoning Rosa to a fate tethered to the groom’s lingering menace. Haunted by guilt, the doctor agonizes over her beauty and virtue, yet prioritizes duty over her safety. Their strained dynamic underscores her powerlessness, her survival eclipsed by his moral paralysis. Her name mirrors the patient’s “rosa” wound—a linguistic echo binding her to themes of decay and sacrificial helplessness. As the doctor confronts his complicity, Rosa’s unresolved peril crystallizes the narrative’s indictment of exploitation and societal neglect, her silent suffering a ghostly testament to fractured humanity.