Chapter Six
After lunch, when Pluck had shared, loudly, his criticisms of a waiter’s service with the other guests, Herr Voot was called and accusations were made all round, several plates were broken, a baroness was insulted and her husband’s trousers shredded; after all of that, I say, Pluck set off skiing.
“I wouldn’t go out if I were you, monsieur,” Poor Larry warned.
“And by what perversion of the natural order of things would you end up as me, might I ask, you tiny dumb child?!” demanded Pluck.
“I just wanted to warn you, monsieur, that a storm has begun—”
“And a very good thing, too, as a mountain bare of snow would make for an awfully difficult time skiing!” He stormed out, muttering obscenities under his breath. Outside, he passed, not twenty steps from the hotel, Signora Bergamaschi, before her easel, painting her companion, who was in, despite the bitter weather, a state of undress, leaning elegantly into the wind as the elements whorled about her. Pluck saluted them and continued up the slope, skis under his arm and smile on his face.
Thirty minutes later, he was hurtling down the slope for dear life, banshee-wailing into the roaring void, an unending wall of white bearing down on him from behind. “I’m going to die! I’m going to die!” he screamed, to no one. His wits were suddenly clear, and his powerful mental instrument focussed solely on the subject of his mortality; he had never, except for the odd flashes sparked by the sight of a sagging breast, truly considered the possibility of his own death. There was always so much to do, so many offensive individuals everywhere he turned who needed a good verbal horsewhipping, that the notion it might someday all come crashing to a halt seemed preposterous. But now, with the entirety of the earth and the sky warring against him, that terrifyingly pure whiteness closing in from all quarters, his mind turned to consider any penultimate regrets he might ponder, apologies to issue, reformations of himself to make. And it dawned on him with incontestable clarity: None of it was his fault. None of it. He was the victim; he had always been the victim; and all the pea-brained, ignoble pigs of the world had done their utmost to make his life a wretched, unenjoyable thing. He cursed them. If he were to have but one breath left, he would use it to curse them; to curse them all.
The storm overtook him; he sank, willingly, beneath the onslaught.
The end.
No; my mistake. Rather, an indeterminate stretch of time passed, during which his consciousness was suspended, and his body was thrashed with the ferocity of an infinity of arctic fists.
I wish I could tell you, Reader, that he awoke into paradise. What a stupendous divergence from the plot that would make! But instead, he awoke to a snow-swept field about thirty feet from the hotel. His skis had splintered into matchsticks trailing behind him, and much of his shoes had frayed away, but he appeared to be in one piece. He realised that it could have been worse, and tried to spring up in gratitude, only to find that he was already standing, sort of, leaning against a bank of snow. He tried, then, to spring forward in gratitude, excited at the prospect of sharing the anecdote of his good fortune with his fellow guests, who must at that very moment be huddling round the telegraph in anxiety over his well-being, but he found that he was frozen in a block of ice, everywhere, all of his body, save his right foot.
“Grrgch, grrgch!” he swore, insofar as he could utter sound through his frozen-shut teeth. He looked toward the hotel, willing his friends to rush out and rescue him. When that didn’t happen, he appealed to the heavens to help him, seeing as they had had the mercy to spare him in the first place. When no response was forthcoming from that quarter either, he began to pivot, and sway, and hop on his one foot, with an awkwardness which I have every confidence the reader is capable of picturing, in the general direction of the hotel. “Grrgch! Grrgch!” he repeated, not that it made any difference, and teetered, almost falling forward, then backward, then forward again, then breathed in relief as he righted once more. He sought to pivot on his toes so that his heel might swing a little towards his goal, then plant his heel and swing his toes, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on, taking care not to shift his weight too impetuously, lest he tumble into the snow. When he was feeling ambitious, he would hop a little, and when he was frightened, he would simply crawl forward worm-like with his toes, pulling his heel behind. Then he would stand, for a moment, wishing he were dead, then start up once more. “Grrgch,” he mused at one point, which translates as, “By Jove, I dare say I’m getting the hang of this.” Then he slipped on a patch of ice and crashed backwards, smashing the ice from his body. He stood up, dusted off the snow, and saw that the hotel’s door was an inch in front of him. He opened it and went in.