The narrator claims to be a former lawyer, well known in Paris, who took on pro bono defense cases and engaged in other charitable works—ultimately not out of genuine moral conviction but out of egotism…
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The Listener
The listener, whom the reader learns about only through comments of the unreliable, sometimes deceitful narrator, is a middle-aged lawyer from Paris whom the narrator identifies as an “open-minded[]” and “cultured bourgeois.” While on…
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The Bartender
The bartender works at Mexico City, a bar in the red-light district of Amsterdam. As the bartender speaks only Dutch, the narrator—who seems to speak both Dutch and French—ends up ordering drinks for…
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The Woman in Black
The woman in black is a figure that the narrator claims he encountered late one night on a bridge in Paris. Shortly after the narrator walks past her, he hears her attempt suicide by jumping…
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Du Guesclin
Du Guesclin is a young French man who, though very religious, fights in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) against Spanish dictator Francisco Franco’s conservative-Catholic fascist Nationalists. He meets the narrator in a Nazi prison camp…
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