This collection includes two works by Leo Perutz, very different in style and content. “Leap into the Unknown” is a satirical novel-parable about a young man desperately hiding from those around him the fact that his hands are handcuffed. He needs money, goes through all the circles of hell to get it, but again and again he runs into the wall of inability to take what he has received into his hands. Is this reality or a subtle metaphor?.. “The Hairdresser Turlupin”, in turn, is an ironic and witty work about the French “little man” of the era of the all-powerful Cardinal Richelieu, who, due to some completely incredible events, for some time found himself at the helm of history and warned of a national catastrophe.