Based on a detailed analysis of Gogol and Borges texts, the author develops the problem of the authors and characters attitude. Analyzes various options of building fiction with «free» character. Literary text in this case is to clarifies the relationship of the consciousness of the hero to the life of the hero. Gogol and Borges share the same poetic principles: the existence of characters in a meaningful, well-known text. The metaphor discovers this textual existence, precisely, discovers for the heroes that they are preceded by the text. The game of immediate and textual being and existence, conscious of its spontaneity, is the subject of the study.