The acolyte's testimony

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The testimony of the altar boy (original title Le Témoignage de l'enfant de chœur ) is a story by Georges Simenon , in which Commissioner Maigret uncovered a murder case during a secondment to the province, in which the only witness is a young boy. The work belonging to the series of Maigret novels and stories was written on April 28, 1946 in Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson in Québec (Canada) and was published in 1947 in the volume of short stories Maigret et l'Inspecteur Malchanceux by Presses de la Cité .

The story was first published in German in 1965 by Kiepenheuer and Witsch in the translation by Hansjürgen Wille and Barbara Klau in the volume Maigret and Inspector Lognon , and in 1980 by Diogenes in a new translation by Gisela Stadelmann in the volume Maigret stories, first episode . A revision of the translation by Wille / Klau appeared in 2019 under the title Maigret and the altar boy’s statement in Kampa Verlag .

action

The 12-year-old Justin is an acolyte in the hospital chapel, where he is supposed to attend the first service at six in the morning. One morning the boy appears in the sacristy so disturbed that he is first taken to one side and finally - after his story that he saw a corpse on the street - the police are called. But the body and possible traces from the crime scene have disappeared. The officers do not want to believe the boy's story, especially since there are contradicting witness statements. That is the moment when Maigret joins the investigation. He accompanies Justin on the way to the hospital chapel the next morning so that he can imagine exactly what happened. He first interviewed a retired judge in the neighborhood of the crime scene; he is certain that he has not seen the boy this once, as he usually does every morning. Maigret still believes the boy, and when he finally has to stay in bed with a fever and abstinence from pipes, personally prescribed by Madame Maigret, he goes back to the boy's path in his mind. When Justin is brought to Inspector Maigret's bed the next day, Maigret can elicit the admission that he ran in the same direction as the perpetrator. As it now turns out, he had intercepted him shortly before the hospital and blackmailed the boy's silence about the crime. The perpetrator can soon be found in the neighborhood.

expenditure

After the first publication in 1947, the story was in the Simenon work editions Werkuvres complètes (Lausanne, Editions Rencontre, 1967-1973) in Volume XII, in Tout Simenon (Paris, Presses de la Cité, 1988-1993) in Volume 2 and in Tout Simenon (Paris, Omnibus, 2002–2004) included in volume 2. In English it appeared under various titles (partly as schoolwork), 1951 under Exclusive Witness (in the USA), 1963 under According to the Altar Boy (in Great Britain), also under Crime in the Rue Sainte-Catherine and The Evidence of the Altar Boy . The story was published in Italian in 1966 under La testimonianza del chierichetto .

  • Georges Simenon: Le Témoignage de l'enfant de chœur in: Maigret et l'inspecteur Malgracieux . Presses de la Cité, Paris 1947 (first edition).
  • Georges Simenon: The acolyte's testimony in: Maigret and Inspector Lognon . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1965.
  • Georges Simenon: The acolyte's statement in: Maigret stories. Episode 1 . Translation: Gisela Stadelmann. Diogenes, Zurich 1980.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and the acolyte's testimony . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau and Bärbel Brands. Kampa, Zurich 2019, ISBN 978-3-311-13090-1
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and the acolyte's testimony . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau and Bärbel Brands. Reading by Walter Kreye . The Audio Verlag, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-7424-1022-1 .

Adaptations

  • Brelan d'as , French feature film by Henri Verneuil (1952), with Michel Simon (Maigret)
  • Il cadavere scomparso , (1968) episode 2, season 3 of the Italian television series Le inchieste del commissario Maigret (director: Mario Landi ), with Gino Cervi (Maigret).
  • Maigret et le Témoignage de l'enfant de chœur (1988), episode 78 of the French television series Les Enquêtes du commissaire Maigret (director: Michel Subiela ), with Jean Richard (Maigret).
  • Maigret et l'Enfant de chœur (1997), episode 25 of the French television series Maigret (director: Pierre Granier-Deferre ), with Bruno Cremer (Maigret).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Maigret and the altar server's statement in the catalog of the German National Library
  2. ^ Simenon's correspondence (Lakeville, September 12, 1952) and counter letter (September 8, 1952) with Rene PL Ledesert, editor at George Harrap and Co.