Beauties of the Night

Young Claude, teacher by day, is a struggling composer by night. Alas, everyone around him seems to prefer noise to music. But in his dreams, he lives in other eras where he is appreciated, lionized, and the conquerer of delicious women (idealized forms of women he’s seen in waking life). The dreams are suitably dreamlike, yet have a kind of reality, for he revisits them after waking. The conflict between waking and dream worlds leads to amusing, strange, even fantastic situations. Which world will prevail? —Rod Crawford