“What with? A shirt? We c’n tie it up but it ain’t gonna last long. It’ll come aparts. I don’t wanna go lookin’ for trouble, yur ’onor.”
“Wait, wait, just a minute…” The doctor tried to think. “Damned pyramid … Listen, what if … I’ve got elastic bandages. They’re strong. We’ll bandage it up good and tight and be off.”
“Bandage?” Crouper was perplexed. “A bandage’s weaker than a shirt, it’ll pull off right straightaway.”
“Elastic bandages are strong,” the doctor declared gravely as he stood up.
He said this with such conviction that Crouper fell silent and shuddered. He suddenly had the shivers.
The doctor strode over to his travel bags, unfastened one of them, opened it, quickly found a package of stretch bandages, and grabbed it. He noticed a vial and various ampoules in his travel bag, and exclaimed joyfully:
“I’ve got an idea! An idea!” He took one of the vials and hurried over to the runner.
Crouper kneeled next to him and scraped the snow aside with his mittens. He felt another pyramid.
“How ’bout that, another one,” he said, showing it to the doctor.
“To hell with it!” The doctor kicked the pyramid and it flew off.
He slapped Crouper on the back:
“Kozma, you and I will fix everything! If you had instant glue, would you glue the runner together?”
“Sure I would.”
“Well, then, we’re going to spread this ointment on here, it’s very thick and sticky, and then we’ll wrap the runner with a bandage. In this cold the ointment will harden and pull your runner together. You’ll be able to drive to Dolgoye and home five times with a runner like this.”
Crouper looked mistrustfully at the vial. The label read: VISHNEVSKY OINTMENT + PROTOGEN 17W.
The doctor uncorked the top and handed it to Crouper:
“It hasn’t had time to harden yet … Dip your finger in and spread it on the runner.”
Crouper pulled off his mittens and took the vial carefully with his big hands, but immediately gave it back to the doctor:
“Wait … Then we gotta put somefin under…”
He swiftly pulled an axe out from beneath the seat, walked into the forest, chose a young birch tree, and began to hack away.
The doctor set the vial down on the sled, stuck the bandage roll in his pocket, took out his cigarette case, and lit up.
“It’s coming down hard…,” he thought, squinting at the whirling snowflakes. “Thank God it’s not all that cold, it’s not cold at all, really…”
Hearing the sound of the axe, the horses began to snort under the tarp; the lively red roan whinnied delicately. A few other horses answered him.
Crouper had felled the birch, chopped off a log, and sharpened it against the birch stump before the doctor had finished his papirosa.
“There ye go…”
Having completed his task, he returned to the sled, breathing hard, and deftly thrust the birch wedge under the middle of the right runner. The tip lifted slightly. Crouper brushed away the snow under it:
“Now we’ll rub it on.”
The doctor gave him the vial and proceeded to unwrap the bandage packaging. Crouper lay down on his side next to the runner and rubbed the ointment along the crack in the wood.
“Just figures,” he muttered. “I run straight into tree stumps a coupla times, and nothin’ happens, but now, one bump and it might as well been a cleaver … Bloody damnation.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll bandage it up and we’ll make it there,” the doctor consoled Crouper while he watched him work.
The moment Crouper had finished, the doctor pushed him aside impatiently: “Come on, out of the way…”
Crouper rolled away from the runner. The doctor, grunting, sat down on the snow and then heaved himself over on his side, adjusted his position, and began to skillfully wrap the bandage.
“Now then, Kozma, you press the crack together and hold it!” he managed to gasp.
Crouper grabbed the tip and pressed the sides together.
“Excellent … excellent…” the doctor muttered as he continued to wrap the runner.
“Gotta tie the ends up top, else it’ll get cut off on the bottom,” Crouper advised.
“Don’t teach the teacher…,” the doctor wheezed.
He wrapped the runner tight and even, tied the ends up top, and expertly tucked them under the bandage.
“That’s the ticket!” Crouper smiled.
“What did you expect?” roared the doctor victoriously. He sat up, panting, and banged his fist on the side of the sled. “Let’s go!”
Inside, the horses neighed and snorted.
Crouper knocked the wedge out from under the runner, tossed the axe on the footboard, took off his hat, wiped his sweaty brow, and looked at the snow-dusted sled as though he were seeing it for the first time:
“Still, maybe we oughta go back, eh, yur ’onor, sir?”
“N-n-n-no!” The doctor stood up and brushed the snow off his coat, shaking his head in an insulted, threatening gesture. “Don’t even dare think about it. The lives of honest workers are in danger! This is an affair of state, man. You and I don’t have the right to turn back. It wouldn’t be Russian. And it wouldn’t be Christian.”
“’Course not.” Crouper plopped his hat on. “Christ be with us. Cain’t do without ’im.”
“That’s right, brother. Let’s go!” The doctor clapped him on the shoulder.
Crouper laughed, sighed, and gestured with his hand: “At yur service!”
Crouper threw back the snow-covered bear rug and sat down. Having fastened his own traveling bag in back, the doctor sat down next to Crouper, and wrapped himself in the rug with an expression of satisfaction and the feeling of an important job successfully accomplished.
“How’re ye doin’ in there?” Crouper looked under the tarpaulin.
In reply came friendly neighs from the horses, who had been standing in place all this time.
“Thank the Lord. Heigh-yup!”
The horses’ hooves scrabbled against the drive belt, then the sled trembled and moved. Crouper straightened it out, and steered it in the right direction. Glancing at the road, both riders noticed immediately that during the time they’d been working on the runner, snow had covered all trace of the sleighs that had traveled the path earlier; the road that lay ahead of them was white and untouched.
“Whoa, just look at all the snow—a herd of elephants couldn’t pack it down.” Crouper clicked his tongue and tugged on the reins. “Quick, let’s go now, faster.”
The horses, who’d been bored under their tarp, didn’t need any encouragement: they ran energetically on the frozen drive belt, their little shoed hooves tapping noisily. The sled started briskly across the fresh snow.
“If’n we cross the ravine, up ’bove past it, the road is good all the ways to the mill!” Crouper shouted, frowning in the snowy wind.
“We’ll make it!” the doctor encouraged him, hiding his face under his collar and fur cap, leaving only his nose, which had turned slightly blue, out in the open.
The wind blew large snowflakes about and swirled them into snowdrifts. The forest was sparse on either side, with clear indications of felled timber.
The doctor saw an old dry oak that had apparently been split by lightning many years before, and for some reason he remembered the time. He took out his pocket watch and checked it: “Past five already. How we’ve dawdled … Well, no matter … There’s no traveling fast in this kind of snow, but if we can keep at this crawl, we should make it in a couple of hours. How did we manage to run into that strange pyramid? What is it for? Must be some sort of table decoration—it’s clearly not a tool or machine. The transport must have been overloaded, carrying lots like it; one fell out and ended up under the sled…”
He remembered the crystal rhinoceros in Nadine’s house, the rhinoceros that stood on the shelf with her sheet music, the music she picked up with her small fingers, placed on the piano, and played, turning the pages with a brisk, abrupt movement, the kind of movement that instantly conveyed her impulsive nature, unreliable as ice in March. That sparkling rhinoceros with its sharp, crystal horn and dainty tail, curled like a pig’s, always looked at Platon Ilich with a hint of mockery, as though teasing him: remember, you’re not the only one who’s walking on thin ice.