Kignard, a wonderful stylist and virtuoso wordsmith, takes the reader on a journey through Ancient Greece and Rome, medieval Japan and 17th-century France. Gradually, through the whimsical mosaic of texts, characters and events, the main theme is highlighted - the theme of personal freedom and the right to control one’s own life and death. The author supports his thoughts with ancient myths, legends, historical facts and fragments of biographies. Pascal Quignard is one of the most significant writers of modern France, laureate of the Goncourt Prize. The genre of his works, which are an amazing synthesis of the novel, poetry and philosophical essay, is difficult to define; they do not fit into the framework of the usual classification. But almost all of these books are devoted to literature, music or painting of various eras, from antiquity to the present day, and Kignard, a subtle connoisseur of culture, feels free in any of these periods. The novels “The Salon in Württemberg”, “The Staircases of Chambord” and “All the Mornings of the World” brought him wide fame. (back side) And yet, no matter how diverse (historically, geographically, linguistically) the world created by Kignard is, the main thing in it is something else . This world is coming together piece by piece, just as the past is made up of scraps, fragments of memories - this is the process of resurrection, restoration of what seemed to have sunk into oblivion.