Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/20

6 picturesque. The coachman is dressed in a long dark blue padded coat, especially thick in winter; his vast proportions completely fill up the whole box-seat and sometimes even overlap it. The fatter he looks, the smarter he is. He wears a very full skirt and, with his face framed by his long hair, his top hat cut short, his waist-belt of many colours, his fashion of driving with both his arms stretched out at full length in front of him, and instead of using a whip—which is non-existent—occasionally calling out in guttural tones, he forms a truly picturesque object to the visitors from foreign lands.

There is yet another type of coachman, seen more seldom, however, who is dressed as a Russian postilion and who in summer wears long silk sleeves of varied brilliant hues issuing from his dark coat. The top of his round toque is edged with short up-standing peacock feathers. The big, black, sure-footed, nervous horses, with their long tails and manes, do not resemble ours in any way. The reins and the red or blue tassels brighten up the harness, and how enjoyable it is to go for a drive in a sleigh at full tilt, zigzagging about over the pure white snow as slippery as glass, specially so in a troïka, to the tinkling sound of its many bells. But, in a droschki, with its narrow borderless seat, the only alternative is to seize one's companion's waist; it may have its charm also!

My Aunt de Nicolay—Tante Sonine, as I always called her—née Baroness de Meyendorff, had frequented all the most brilliant Courts of