Hereupon twelve pretty young peasant girls entered from a side-door, each with a lute in her hand, their faces expressing more repressed fear than pleasurable expectation. Behind them slid Schinko, a long whip in one hand, the other leading a small, humpbacked dwarf on a chain, like a bear, with a bagpipe under his arm. He was hideously ugly, with a hump behind and before, his large bald head sunk between his high shoulders. His face was the caricature of a man's face, and so distorted with small-pox that it seemed as if the lineaments, being so grotesque, the fell disease had tried to wipe them out; here and there remained a tuft of beard and whisker; he had but one eye. He was revolting to look upon; but when his cheeks distended with the bagpipe he was a perfect monster. A worthier performer on the bleating goat-skin could scarcely be imagined. "That's classical music," said the master; "but what about the dancing?" "Wait a minute. That's the best." Going out once more, Schinko returned with the _ballerina assoluta_, gripping her by the nape of the neck that she might not bite his hand. She was a deformity in woman's shape--a humpbacked dwarf, with long arms reaching to the ground; her stump nose hardly visible; matted-hair growing down to her eyebrows; her mouth awry with great protruding teeth--add to this an evil, bestial stamp on all her features. Such was the creature who was to perform a ballet for the amusement of the lord of Grusino. She was clad in a dress of gold paper; therefore it did not matter if she tore it. She had been taught to dance as monkeys are, and knew she had to do it. "Blow away, Vuk! Dance, Polyka!" cried Daimona, clapping her hands; and as the bagpipe began its melody the dancer began her parody of a ballet-dancer, making such pirouettes that with her long arms, not her feet, she chased away the chorus, accompanying the bagpipe with their voices. "Hopsa! hopsa!" cried Schinko, every now and then, and touched up the calves of the dancer's legs with the point of his whip, if she did not spring high enough in the air, at which she made furious grimaces. Araktseieff and Daimona sank back in their chairs with laughter. The great statesman, the pattern of astute diplomacy, drummed his spurs on the table in his mirth; while Diabolka, without raising her eyes, ever continued spelling out her psalm, as though nothing were going on about her. At the close of this edifying performance the female monstrosity caught hold of the male by the collar of his coat, and twirled him and his instrument round in a waltz, Schinko cracking his whip the while, as though he were in a circus. "Well, these two will make a pretty couple, too, I declare!" laughed the master. "We will celebrate both weddings together." Upon which Daimona gave him such a sharp pinch on his arm that he cried out.