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.
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