With his dutiful but unimaginative wife Suzanne, Albert Quentin runs a small hotel in a little town on the coast of Normandy. After an exciting career as a marine in the French Navy, during which he served in China, he is bored and takes to drink. In June 1944 he is on a binge with his neighbour Esnault, who runs a bar, when the Allies launch a huge air raid. Finding his way back to his cellar, he comforts his terrified wife there and promises her that if their hotel stays intact he will give up drink. After fifteen years of sobriety, and more bored than ever, on a quiet winter night a nervous young man books in to the hotel. This is Gabriel Fouquet, who goes over to Esnault's bar and after ringing his wife who has left him and gone to Madrid, gets thoroughly drunk. Albert, who gets up to bring him in from the street and put him to bed, warms to the lonely stranger. 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.