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Tuesday, 26 September 1876 (14 September) — Difficult Horses and Russian Coaching
# Mardi, 26 septembre 1876 (14 septembre) - Difficult Horses and Russian Coaching
The horse I have been spoiling with lumps of sugar, as you know, having had two rides without a saddle, now refuses to be harnessed at all. From lively he has become ungovernable — he gallops, he leaps; a true cheval soumis,1 as they call the trace-horse in Russia that is harnessed to the side and which bounds and caracoles with its head bent outward. I mean to bring him to reason, and today I went for a drive of fifty metres in the tilbury, with my blasted father holding the reins whenever I could no longer manage. I now see that the Russian coachman's posture is not affectation, but a necessity for controlling frantic beasts. My hands are swollen from it — but it flatters my vanity.
Le cheval que j'ai monté avec ces sucres que vous savez, après deux sorties sans selle, ne veut plus être attelé. De vif, il est devenu fou, il galope, il saute; un vrai *cheval soumis* c'est-à-dire celui des chevaux qu'en Russie on attelle de côté et qui bondit, caracole, la tête penchée en dehors. Je veux le ramener à la raison et aujourd'hui je suis allée faire une promenade de 50 mètres en tilbury, avec mon fichu-père, qui tenait les rênes quand je n'en pouvais plus. A présent je vois que la pose du cocher russe n'est point affectée, mais nécessaire afin de maintenir les bêtes furieuses. J'en ai les mains enflées, mais ça flatte ma vanité.
Notes
The cheval soumis (literally "trace-horse") is the side-horse in a Russian troika, which runs in a controlled sideways canter with its head turned outward while the centre horse trots straight. ↩