Sasha Jansen, who narrates her story, is a woman with a sad past (her husband left her, her baby is dead) and no future. After years of squalor and disappointment, she is living in a cheap hotel in Paris on a tiny income and is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Sasha is one of Jean Rhys`s typical heroines: weak, fallible, down and out, hopelessly dependent upon men, but strangely appealing and utterly real.
