Natalya Skvortsovawww.deviantart.comHere are a few illustrations by the artist Natalya Skvortsova (also known as Ensa), about whom, alas, I have not been able to find any information. If you have any information about her, please don't hesitate to share it.
The villain in a dirty cap—the cook at the dining hall of the Central Council of the National Economy's 'Normal Nutrition for Employees'—splashed me with boiling water and scalded my left side. What a reptile, and a proletarian at that.
The dog remained in the archway and, suffering from his disfigured side, pressed himself against the cold wall, gasped for breath, and firmly decided that he would go nowhere from here and would die right here.
The gentleman confidently crossed the street in a pillar of blizzard and moved into the archway. What could he be buying in a wretched little shop—was the Okhotny Ryad not enough for him? What's this?! Sau-sage. Sir, if you had seen what this sausage is made of, you wouldn't have come near the shop. Give it to me.
And into the third apartment, they moved in housing-comrades, four of them.
The dog made his first visit to that main department of paradise, where until now entry had been strictly forbidden for him—specifically, to the kingdom of the cook Darya Petrovna. The entire apartment wasn't worth two spans of Darya's kingdom.
On the narrow operating table, spread out, lay the dog Sharik, and his head was helplessly beating against the white oilcloth pillow.
“Can I have some more vodka?” he asked.
“Will that not be too much for you?” inquired Bormental. “You've been overdoing it with vodka lately.”
In the distance, glass cracked dully. An unclean force dashed along the wallpaper in the corridor, heading for the examination room, where something crashed and instantly flew back. “A cat,” Bormental realized.
The dog saw terrible things. A man with importance, his hands in slippery gloves, immersed them in a vessel, pulled out brains—a persistent, insistent man, always striving for something, cutting, examining, squinting, and singing: “To the sacred shores of the Nile...”
