Elena Baitmanru.pinterest.comThe artist who has given us these splendid drawings is named Elena Baytman (aka Artefruit). These illustrations are perhaps among the most interesting in the collection. Ivan Bezdomny and Annushka with Aloisy Mogarych are simply second to none. No one in the world will ever manage to depict them better.
“Fagott snapped his fingers, cried dashingly: “Three, four!”—and caught a deck of cards out of the air.“
“A red‑haired girl who had appeared God knows from where in an evening black gown—fine in every respect, if only her neck were not spoiled by a fanciful scar...“
“And the apparition, passing through the opening in the trellis, entered the veranda unhindered. Then all saw that it was no apparition at all, but Ivan Nikolayevich Bezdomny—the very famous poet. He was barefoot, in a torn whitish sweatshirt, to which on the chest a little paper icon with the effaced image of a well‑known saint was fastened by a safety pin, and in striped white long johns. In his hand Ivan Nikolayevich carried a lighted nuptial candle.“
“Gliding to the third floor, Margarita looked into the end window, veiled by a light dark curtain. A weak lamp was burning under the ceiling in the room. In a little bed with mesh sides sat a boy of about four, listening in fright. There was no adult in the room. Evidently everyone had run out of the apartment. “They’re breaking the glass,” the boy said, and called: “Mama!”
“Slowing her course, Margarita was overtaken by Natasha. She, completely naked, with hair flying disheveled in the air, was flying astride a fat hog, which clutched a briefcase in its front trotters while with its hind ones it thrashed the air furiously. A pince‑nez, now flashing in the moon, now going dark, having slipped from its nose, flew beside the hog on a cord, and the hat kept riding down over the hog’s eyes.“
“Where the devil are you tearing off to in just your drawers?” screeched Annushka, clutching the back of her head. A man in nothing but his underwear, with a suitcase in his hands and a cap on, eyes shut, answered Annushka in a wild sleepy voice: “The column! Vitriol! The whitewash alone cost plenty,” and, bursting into tears, he barked: “Out!”—here he rushed not farther down the stairs but back—up, to where the glass shattered by the economist’s foot was in the window, and through that window he flew out into the yard feet first.
“I challenge you to a duel!” the cat roared, flying over the heads on the swaying chandelier, and there again in his paws was a Browning, while he had tucked the primus among the branches of the chandelier. Aiming, the cat, swinging like a pendulum over the heads of those present, opened fire on them.
