From that moment, he forgot everything.  It seemed to him, however, that they undressed him, put him to bed, and that he was nauseated.

When he awoke, it was broad daylight, and he lay stretched with his feet against a cupboard, in a strange bed.

An old woman with a broom in her hand was glaring angrily at him.  At last, she said: 

“Clear out, you blackguard!  Clear out!  What right has anyone to get drunk like this?”

He sat up in bed, feeling very ill at ease.  He asked: 

“Where am I?”

“Where are you, you dirty scamp?  You are drunk.  Take your rotten carcass out of here as quick as you can—­and lose no time about it!”

He wanted to get up.  He found that he was in no condition to do so.  His clothes had disappeared.  He blurted out: 

“Madame, I——­Then he remembered.  What was he to do?  He asked: 

“Did Monsieur Romantin come back?”

The doorkeeper shouted: 

“Will you take your dirty carcass out of this, so that he at any rate may not catch you here?”

M. Saval said, in a state of confusion: 

“I haven’t got my clothes; they have been taken away from me.”

He had to wait, to explain his situation, give notice to his friends, and borrow some money to buy clothes.  He did not leave Paris till evening.  And when people talk about music to him in his beautiful drawing-room in Vernon, he declares with an air of authority that painting is a very inferior art.