Abstract: This article analyzes Les Nuits d’оctobre using the motif of the “key of the street” in light of André Breton’s speech that turns Nerval into a precursor of surrealism. The two authors are bound together by their aspiration to imagine things freely, their dependence on chance, and their taste for flânerie conceived as an act of transgression, leading to the unveiling of deviant dreams understood as symbols of repressed desires.
