[2] Set in a Normandy seaside town, it recounts the meeting and parting of two men at odds with life, one an old hotel keeper who dreams of dashing deeds in pre-war China and the other a young advertising executive who imagines he is an incarnation of Hispanic masculinity.

Each has a dream world into which he retreats from reality: Albert relives and embellishes his exotic adventures in China, while Gabriel sees himself as an epitome of Spanish machismo, dancing flamenco and fighting bulls.

They visit a brothel Albert has not entered for fifteen years, though only to drink, start a fight in Esnault's bar, and cajole the shopkeeper Landru into setting off his stock of fireworks on the beach.

Albert tells Marie how in China lost monkeys creep into the towns during winter and, once there are enough of them, the people organise a train to take them all back to their native forests.

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote that while "nothing great or profound is offered in this whimsey", "this moodily masculine story has a strong strain of wistfulness that laces its robust humor and gives it more than merely comic quality.