About the book: 1958 / The plot of the story that opens the collection, "Balshazzar", at first glance is truly traditional for a Christmas story, it is connected with the gospel legend about the worship of the Magi to the newborn Jesus Christ. However, the writer now replaces this plot with another, biblical plot about the Queen of Sheba, which, in turn, serves only as a conventional frame for the true content of the short story, which essentially has nothing to do with the Bible. “Balthasar” is a philosophical story, deliberately stylized in the spirit of “Zadig” or “The Princess of Babylon” by Voltaire, where the characters are connected with the legend only by name, and the adventurous plot and oriental exoticism are subordinated to the philosophical idea.