The paper considers the transformation and functioning of the plot about Pygmalion and Galatea in the story written by A. V. Chayanov. The story is a multidimensional play with myths (of Aphrodite, Medusa, Isis), and with the literary traditions represented by G. Casanova, J. W. Goethe, L. Tieck, E. T. A. Hoffmann, H. Heine, A. Blok, etc. The structural levels of the text are subject to the principle of mirror doubling. The well-known idea of O. Freidenberg that “the idea of a doll is parallel with the idea of a deity-actor-corpse” is manifested in A. V.