The article compares two novels: The Conquest of Plassans by Emile Zola and The Petty Demon by Fyodor Sologub. The parallels (in the problem range, systems of images, poetics of the plot, in the psychological picture of the characters’ images) give us grounds to consider the novel by Zola to be one of the sources of plot collisions and poetics for The Petty Demon.
