The man on the street
The man on the street (original title: L'Homme dans la rue ) is a story by Georges Simenon , in which Commissioner Maigret investigates a murder in the Bois de Boulogne and pursues a man across Paris. The work belonging to the series of Maigret novels and stories was written in Nieul-sur-Mer in 1939 and appeared in the volume of short stories Maigret et les petits cochons sans queue in 1947 . The German translation of the story first appeared in 1980 in a translation by Linde Birk in the volume Maigret stories, first episode in Diogenes.
action
Maigret is present early in the morning at a local meeting at the Porte de Bagatelles; his colleagues, disguised, observe what is going on among the curious onlookers who have gathered some distance away. From time to time he nods to his colleagues in the group. Maigret spends the morning waiting on the Quai des Orfèves. All calls from his employees turn out to be failures: one time it was a milkman, the other a hobby detective. Shortly after eleven o'clock the redeeming message comes. One of the observers noticed that he was being watched and tried to shake Inspector Janvier off. Maigret now takes up the chase. He follows the man day and night in pubs, hotels and cinemas. Maigret watches how the man spends his money. In the end, he can't afford anything at all and eats in poor kitchens. But he is unwilling to reveal a piece of his identity. After four days the man was exhausted and overtired; he has a cold and only twenty francs in his pocket. Finally Maigret's office identified the man: it is Stephan Strevszki, 44 years old, an architect from Warsaw, who has been in France for three years. The man buys a newspaper at a food stand and learns that his wife Dora has disappeared. He then went to Maigret across the street and said he would tell everything.
In Maigret's office on the Quai des Orfèvres , the man explains the background to Maigret and his colleagues; his wife Dora had betrayed him with the dead man, a Monsieur Borms; but she was not his only lover. Strevszki therefore believes that his wife killed her lover. Thereupon Dora is led inside; after two days of interrogation, she confesses the crime.
expenditure
It was first published under the title Le prisonnier de la rue in the newspaper Sept jours (15 and 22 December 1940). The story was published in book form in Maigret et les petits cochons sans queue (1947). It is contained in the Simenon work edition Tout Simenon (Volume 4). It is available in German translation in the anthology, All Maigret Stories ( ISBN 978-3-257-06682-1 ) published by Diogenes in 2009 .
Adaptations
- Maigret et l'Homme de la rue , episode 82 of the first season of the French television series Les enquêtes du commissaire Maigret (director: Jean Kerchbron ), with Jean Richard as Maigret, broadcast in 1988.