ad and face of another
idvosjik who dares to turn without crossing the street.

He stops his horse with a guttural trill, as if one should say
"Tr-r-r-r-r" in the back of the throat. It sounds like a gargle.

The horses are sharp-shod, but in a way quite different from ours. The
spikes on their shoes are an inch long, and dig into the ice with
perfect security, but it makes the horses look as if they wore French
heels. Even over ice like sheer glass they go at a gallop and never
slip. It is wonderful, and the exhilaration of it is like driving
through an air charged with champagne, like the wine-caves of Rintz.

Our troika was like a chariot in comparison with these sledges. It was
gorgeously upholstered in red velvet, and held six--three on each
seat. The robes also were red velvet, bordered and lined with black
bear fur. There were three horses driven abreast. The middle horse was
much larger than the other two, and wore a high white wooden collar,
which stood up from the rest of the harness, and was hung with bells
and painted with red flowers and birds.

To my delight the horses were wild, and stood on their hind legs and
bit each other, and backed us off the road, and otherwise acted like
Tartar horses in books. It seemed almost too good to be true. It was
like driving through the Black Forest and seeing the gnomes and the
fairies one has read about. I told my friends very humbly that I had
never done anything in my life to deserve the good fortune of having
those beautiful horses act in such a satisfactory and historical
manner. We had to get out twice and let the idvosjik calm them down.
But even when ploughing my way out of snow up to my knees I breathed
an ecstatic sigh of gratitude and joy. I could not understand the
men's annoyance. It was too ideal to complain about.

We drove out to the Island for luncheon, and on the way we stopped and
coasted in a curious Russian sledge from the top of a high place,
something like our toboggan-slides, only this sledge was guided from
behind by a peasant on skates.

A Russian meal always begins with a side-table of _hors d'oeuvres_,
called "zakouska." That may not be spelled right, but no Russian would
correct me, because the language is phonetic, and they spell the same
word in many different ways. Their alphabet has thirty-eight letters
in it, besides the little marks to tell you whether to make a letter
hard or soft.

Even proper names take on curious oddities o