In a world which is indeed our world, the one we know, a world without devils, sylphides, or vampires, there occurs an event which cannot be explained by the laws of this same familiar world. The person who experiences the event must opt for one of two possible solutions: Either he is the victim of an illusion of the senses, of a product of the imagination-and the laws of the world then remain what they are, or else the event has indeed taken place, it is an integral part of reality…but then this reality is controlled by laws unknown to us. Either the devil is an illusion, an imaginary being, or he really exists, just like the other alive beings: with this condition that he is rarely met. The fantastic occupies the duration of this uncertainty; as soon as we choose one or the other answer, we leave the fantastic to enter a nearby genre, the strange or the marvellous. The fantastic, it is the hesitation experienced by a being who knows only the laws of nature, confronting an apparently supernatural event.
TODOROV