Niura came back from her room and a little later Petrovsky
followed her. Petrovsky with an extremely serious air declared
that he had been walking on the street all this time, thinking
over the incident which had taken place and in the end had come to
the conclusion that comrade Boris was in reality not in the right,
but that there also was a circumstance in extenuation of his
fault--intoxication. Also, Jennie came later, but alone--
Sobashnikov had fallen asleep in her room. The actor proved to
have no end of talents. He very faithfully imitated the buzzing of
a fly which an intoxicated man is catching on a window-pane, and
the sounds of a saw; drolly performed, standing with his face in
the corner, the conversation of a nervous lady over the telephone;
imitated the singing of a phonograph record, and in the end, with
exceeding likeness to life, showed a little Persian lad with a
little trained monkey. Holding on with his hand to an imaginary
small chain and at the same time baring his teeth, squatting like
a monkey, winking his eyelids often, and scratching now his
posteriors, now the hair on his head, he sang through his nose, in
a monotonous and sad voice, distorting the words:
"The i-young cissack to the war has went,
The i-young ladee underneath the fence lies
spraw-aw-ling.
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