About the book: 1958 / The short story Mister Pijoneau takes us back to The Crime of Sylvester Bonard. Here is the same skepticism in the assessment of historical science, which, judging by the novel, accumulates facts, but does not explain anything in life; the same lovingly ironic attitude towards the humanist scientist who has fenced himself off from modernity with his books. Egyptologist Pizhono is the brother of the eccentric academician Bonar. From the very first lines, the author ridicules his scientific works, such as “Notes on the handle of an Egyptian mirror located in the Louvre,” and with cheerful irony shows that all the dead weight of the old scientist’s wisdom is only good for coming up with a fancy dress for a high-society young lady. Just as Sylvester Bonard sacrificed his library for the happiness of young Jeanne Alexandre, and the scientist Bogus (“The Book of My Friend”) gave his life’s work for the herbarium to his niece, so Pigenot calls on all his erudition to compose a funny fairy tale for Annie Morgan. In all three cases, dead science gives in to living life. The motif of hypnosis and suggestion also sounds ironic in the novella; when Mr. Pigenot admits: “An irresistible force drew me to Miss Morgan,” the reader begins to suspect that perhaps it is not so much the “amazing experimenter” Dr. Daoud and the mystical Egyptian cat Poro that are to blame for this, but the charms of youth and beauty that stronger than any hypnosis.