A Queer Night in Paris (or A Night Out) is a short story written by Guy de Maupassant. It tells of a lawyer visiting Paris.
Characters[]
- Maître Saval - a lawyer native to Vernon with a good (though soft) singing voice
- M. Romantin - a talented artist who Saval meets in Paris
- Mathilde - Romantin's mistress
Plot[]
In the city of Vernon lives a laywer named Saval. This man has a gift for singing - with everyone who hears his exquisite voice saying that he is a "maestro". Every so often, Saval travels to Paris to hear new works in the city's opera-houses.
One year, Saval visited a café frequented by artists known as the "Dead Rat" and laid eyes upon an artist known as Romantin - a man whose talent he had already seen. After meeting Romantin, Saval visited the studio of the artist. On arriving, Saval found that the studio was empty and he was soon put to work by Romantin - helping him clean the place and build a chandelier while his mistress was away for the day. After the two finished building the chandelier, Romantin's mistress Mathilde burst into the room and the two argued before leaving (with Romantin promising to be back in five minutes).
An hour later, there was no sign of Romantin but there was a huge crowd - guests at a party presumably set up by Romantin - who arrived at the studio with a "tramp of feet that made the whole house shake". At first the guests believed that Saval was Romantin's waiter and tried to get him to set up their dinner before Saval protested that he was a lawyer. Even after this, Romantin showed no sign of returning. Saval gets drunker and drunker throughout the party until he got so drunk that "everything was a blank". He awakens the next morning completely in the nude being poked at by an old woman with a broom.
It is said that whenever Saval hears mention of painting as an art form, he declares it to be a "very inferior form of art".
Sources[]
- Gutenberg's Entire Original Maupassant short stories