Summary

The narrator begins by describing to her mysterious addressee, “Jeffers,” an incident many years ago when she met “the devil” on a train out of Paris (1). In her account, this one-off encounter set into motion a series of negative events over the following years, presaging a period of her life in which everything went wrong and she lived in a state of fear. The devilish man had followed her around the train, laughing and cursing incoherently, and petting a girl who sat on his lap. At the time, the narrator decided not to confront him because she was only a passing traveler, and it was not her responsibility. After the dark years that ensued, she met a man called Tony and started a new life with him on a marsh.

In further explanation of her story, the narrator takes another step back to...