Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/91

Rh About an hour after my return to the post-station, Khainúief, in a peculiar clumsy gig called a sidéika, drove into the courtyard. He was transfigured and glorified almost beyond recognition. He had on a long, loose, ultramarine-blue silk gown with circular watered figures in it, girt about the waist with a scarlet sash and a light-blue silken scarf, and falling thence to his heels over coarse cow-hide boots. A dishpan-shaped hat of bright red felt was secured to his large round head by means of a colored string tied under his chin, and from this red hat dangled two long narrow streamers of sky-blue silk ribbon. He had taken six or eight more drinks, and was evidently in the best of spirits. The judicial gravity of his demeanor had given place to a grotesque middle-age friskiness, and he looked like an intoxicated Tatár prize-fighter masquerading in the gala dress of some color-loving peasant girl. I had never seen such an extraordinary chief of police in my life, and could not help wondering what sort of a reception would be given by his Serene Highness the Grand Lama to such an interpreter.

In a few moments the ragged young Buriát wlhom Khainúief had engaged to take us to the lamasery made his appearance with three shaggy Buriát horses and a rickety old pavóska not half big enough to hold us. I asked Khainúief if we should carry provisions with us, and he replied that we need not; that we should be fed at the lamasery "But," he added, with a grin and a leer of assumed cunning, "if you have any insanity drops don't fail to take them along; insanity drops are always useful."

When we had put into the paróska our blankets, sheepskin overcoats, the bread-bag, and my largest liquor-flask, Frost and I took seats at the rear end of the vehicle with our legs stretched out on the bottom, and Khainúief, who weighed at least two hundred pounds, sat on our feet. Not one of us was comfortable; but Frost and I had ceased to expect comfort in an East-Siberian vehicle, while Khainúief