of all the Russias!

VII

RUSSIA

Yesterday we had our first Russian experience in the shape of a troika
ride. Russians, as a rule, do not troika except at night. In fact,
from my experience, they reverse the established order of things and
turn night into day.

A troika is a superb affair. It makes the tiny sledges which take the
place of cabs, and are used for all ordinary purposes, look even more
like toys than usual. But the sledges are great fun, and so cheap that
it is an extravagance to walk. A course costs only twenty kopecks--ten
cents. The sledges are set so low that you can reach out and touch the
snow with your hand, and they are so small that the horse is in your
lap and the coachman in your pocket. He simply turns in his seat to
hook the fur robe to the back of your seat--only it has no back. If
you fall, you fall clear to the ground.

The horse is far, far above you in your humble position, and there is
so little room that two people can with difficulty stow themselves in
the narrow seat. If a brother and sister or a husband and wife drive
together, the man, in sheer self-defence, is obliged to put his arm
around the woman, no matter how distasteful it may be. Not that she
would ever be conscious of whether he did it or not, for the amount of
clothes one is obliged to wear in Russia destroys any sense of touch.

The idvosjik, or coachman, is so bulky from this same reason that you
cannot see over him. You are obliged to crane your neck to one side.
His head is covered with a Tartar cap. He wears his hair down to his
collar, and then chopped off in a straight line. His pelisse is of a
bluish gray, fits tightly to the waist, and comes to the feet. But the
skirt of it is gathered on back and front, giving him an irresistibly
comical pannier effect, like a Dolly Varden polonaise. The Russian
idvosjik guides his horse curiously. He coaxes it forward by calling
it all sorts of pet names--"doushka," darling, etc. Then he beats it
with a toy whip, which must feel like a fly on its woolly coat, for
all the little fat pony does is to kick up its heels and fly along
like the wind, missing the other sledges by a hair's-breadth. It is
ghostly to see the way they glide along without a sound, for the
sledges wear no bells.

One may drive with perfect safety at a breakneck pace, for they all
drive down on one side of the street and up on the other. Nor will an
idvosjik hesitate to use his whip about the he