The narrator tells us that he's here to find out what's going on in the town. He's looking for the "bearer" of the plague, the guy who lives outside the town and carries the disease. The narrator explains that the plague is a disease that's caused by a "genetic twist of fate" , meaning that the person who carries it has a higher chance of dying from the disease than someone who doesn't carry it. In other words, if you're a carrier of the disease, you've got a better chance of getting sick than if you were a person who didn't get sick at all. So, the narrator explains, the plague isn't just a disease of the body - it's also a disease caused by your own genetic makeup, which makes you more susceptible to the disease . So basically, the man who carries the plague lives outside of the town because he has a special genetic code that makes him immune to the plague. So the narrator says that the guy is a "carrier" of "the plague" . Translation: the plague makes you sicker, so you have to be a carrier to get sick. The guy is the one who brings the plague to the town, so he'll be immune to it. So yeah, the dude is a carrier, but he also suffers from a genetic curse, which means that he can't die from the plague because he carries it. This is why the narrator has to stay in town, even though he'd rather die than be a burden to everyone around him. He tells the narrator to get out of there ASAP, because the town is full of people who are sicker than he is. He asks the narrator if there's anything he can do to help him, and the narrator points out that there are a lot of people to blame for all of this. He blames himself for being a "burden" on everyone, and he blames everyone else for