One way to focus the conflict is to examine the structure of the story. What the narrator remembers can be divided into five sections. With the possible exception of the last paragraph of the story, which is expository, sharp transitions help to set off each section. In the first two-paragraph section, the narrator begins to focus his attention in the process of recollection. Moving from his memory of specific sensations in the streets of Milan to the various routes he and his friends used to walk to the hospital, the narrator allows us to enter his consciousness, thereby enabling us to experience his sense of isolation as he walks to the new pavilions, which were beyond the old hospital and the courtyard where the funerals begin, and to "the machines that were to make so much difference." The machines which were to heal their wounds have not...