Main Street (Barnes & Noble Classics Ser - Sinclair Lewis [108]
“Sick? Trot outdoors couple minutes. Adolph will stay under now.”
She was fumbling at a door-knob which whirled in insulting circles; she was on the stoop, gasping, forcing air into her chest, her head clearing. As she returned she caught the scene as a whole: the cavernous kitchen, two milk-cans a leaden patch by the wall, hams dangling from a beam, bars of light at the stove door, and in the center, illuminated by a small glass lamp held by a frightened stout woman, Dr. Kennicott bending over a body which was humped under a sheet—the surgeon, his bare arms daubed with blood, his hands, in pale-yellow rubber gloves, loosening the tourniquet, his face without emotion save when he threw up his head and clucked at the farmwife, “Hold that light steady just a second more—noch blos em wenig.” cg
“He speaks a vulgar, common, incorrect German of life and death and birth and the soil. I read the French and German of sentimental lovers and Christmas garlands. And I thought that it was I who had the culture!” she worshiped as she returned to her place.
After a time he snapped, “That’s enough. Don’t give him any more ether.” He was concentrated on tying an artery. His gruffness seemed heroic to her.
As he shaped the flap of flesh she murmured, “Oh, you are wonderful!”
He was surprised. “Why, this is a cinch. Now if it had been like last week—Get me some more water. Now last week I had a case with an ooze in the peritoneal cavity, and by golly if it wasn’t a stomach ulcer that I hadn’t suspected and—There. Say, I certainly am sleepy. Let’s turn in here. Too late to drive home. And tastes to me like a storm coming.”
IX
They slept on a feather bed with their fur coats over them; in the morning they broke ice in the pitcher—the vast flowered and gilt pitcher.
Kennicott’s storm had not come. When they set out it was hazy and growing warmer. After a mile she saw that he was studying a dark cloud in the north. He urged the horses to the run. But she forgot his unusual haste in wonder at the tragic landscape. The pale snow, the prickles of old stubble, and the clumps of ragged brush faded into a gray obscurity. Under the hillocks were cold shadows. The willows about a farmhouse were agitated by the rising wind, and the patches of bare wood where the bark had peeled away were white as the flesh of a leper. The snowy slews were of a harsh flatness. The whole land was cruel, and a climbing cloud of slate-edged blackness dominated the sky.
“Guess we’re about in for a blizzard,” speculated Kennicott. “We can make Ben McGonegal’s, anyway.”
“Blizzard? Really? Why—But still we used to think they were fun when I was a girl. Daddy had to stay home from court, and we’d stand at the window and watch the snow.”
“Not much fun on the prairie. Get lost. Freeze to death. Take no chances.” He chirruped at the horses. They were flying now, the carriage rocking on the hard ruts.
The whole air suddenly crystallized into large damp flakes. The horses and the buffalo robe were covered with snow; her face was wet; the thin butt of the whip held a white ridge. The air became colder. The snowflakes were harder; they shot in level lines, clawing at her face.
She could not see a hundred feet ahead.
Kennicott was stern. He bent forward, the reins firm in his coon-skin gauntlets. She was certain that he would get through. He always got through things.
Save for his presence, the world and all normal living disappeared. They were lost in the boiling snow. He leaned close to bawl, “Letting the horses have their heads. They’ll get us home.”
With a terrifying bump they were off the road, slanting with two wheels in the ditch, but instantly they were jerked back as the horses fled on. She gasped. She tried to, and did not, feel brave as she pulled the woolen robe up about her chin.
They were passing something like a dark wall on the right. “I know that barn!” he yelped. He pulled at the reins. Peeping from the covers she saw his teeth pinch his lower lip, saw him scowl as he slackened and sawed and jerked sharply again at the racing horses.