Maigret and his scruples (radio play, 1959)

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Infobox microphone icon
Maigret and his scruples
(orig. Les scrupules de Maigret )
Radio play from Germany
original language French
Year of production 1959
genre Thriller
Duration 60 min
production Südwestfunk
Contributors
author Georges Simenon
Machining Gert Westphal
Director Gert Westphal
music Hans-Martin Majewski
speaker

Maigret and his scruples is a radio play based on the detective novel Maigret hat Skrupel (1958) by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon , which was realized in 1959 by Südwestfunk with Leonhard Steckel in the title role after a translation from 1959 by Hansjürgen Wille . The editing was done by Gert Westphal , who also directed. Two years later, on the basis of this arrangement, an almost identical radio play was produced by Bayerischer Rundfunk , directed by Heinz-Günter Stamm , with Paul Dahlke in the title role and a fundamentally different cast.

From the beginning Maigret had a remorse for this "upside down case" because he got to know the revealed motives before the actual act and at first he did not want to take them seriously due to absentmindedness. When he realizes the amalgamations behind it, however, it is too late to prevent the actual crime, which affects “the wrong person” in two respects.

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Quai des Orfèvres as seen from the Seine

The radio play will be played in Paris at the beginning of January . One late afternoon, Maigret's colleagues in the Quai des Orfèvres banish the boredom with card games. Commissioner Maigret, on the other hand, was able to speak to his wife's family doctor, Dr. Pardon, distracted, although he can calm him down with his diagnosis - a light diet due to circulatory disorders .

Then he receives an unexpected visit from a well-dressed man in his mid-40s with his first name Xavier (in the "Bavarian" version Xaver ). Because the inspector hardly listens at first and he has lost his official's registration slip, Maigret is missing his last name, which delays the subsequent investigation. Xavier introduces himself as the 1st salesperson in the toys department and an expert in the field of electric trains at the Louvre department store . The extremely nervous man, whose statements are accompanied by constant snapping of his fingers as if by Tourette's syndrome , reports his suspicion that his wife wanted to poison him with zinc phosphide and speculates that she wanted to do it out of a mental confusion. But he himself is demonstrably not mentally ill, as his visit to the neurologist Dr. Steiner confirmed. Nevertheless, he refrains from reporting. When Maigret has to leave the office briefly because of a book by a colleague from the United States, his visitor leaves.

The Grands Magasins du Louvre in Paris , workplace of Xavier Martons. Here a “stretched” illustration from 1877.

As a result, the police inspector got a remorse about his negligence and tried in vain to find out more by calling this neurologist. But the extremely reserved doctor, who invokes medical confidentiality , does not reveal more than the surname Marton .

To Maigret's surprise, the wife of his visitor, Gisèle Marton, appears shortly afterwards, an elegant, self-assured figure with crocodile leather shoes , matching handbag and fur coat , who in her controlled manner presents the exact opposite of her husband. The partner in the fashionable Harris corsetry shop on Rue Saint-Honoré near the Jardin des Tuileries had apparently followed her husband and admitted Maigret's suspicions on the head. She downplays the situation and presents the whole thing as part of a mental breakdown . This was triggered by the professional overload, the competitive pressure from an aspiring young salesman and the gradually manifesting paranoia or neurasthenia of her husband. She explains zinc phosphide as the plague of rats in the backyards of her shop . Since rats have now turned up in her residential area on Avenue de Châtillon, she has kept a bottle of it at home. She, too, refrains from taking any further steps, while Maigret is stuck in an additional dilemma . In which direction should he investigate since he actually has no case?

At least after the efforts of his superiors such as the chief of police and the attorney general, in addition to the accomplished inspector Janvier, he can also put the young colleague Lapointe on the "case", which brings out revealing new details. The Martons 'household also has Gisèles' younger sister, Jenny, a young widow whose husband, an American engineer, was killed in an industrial accident. In contrast to her reserved sister, this Jenny is an extremely attractive and open young lady who, according to Janvier, would immediately ignite any man and, due to her whole nature, arouse the protective instinct. Indeed, both Monsieur Marton and his young sister-in-law appear to be fond of each other. Madame Marton also has a relationship with her partner, Maurice Torrence, who, like her, once worked at the Grands Magasins du Louvre. In addition, both spouses who have been married for twelve years have taken out high, mutual life insurance .

In order to clarify the question of whether Monsieur Marton actually suffers from mental disorders, Maigret pulls out a clinical manual in the presence of his wife, but in view of the reality of his case he realizes that it could not help him at all. Enervated, he puts the book down.

When Marton visits Maigret again on the Quai des Orfèvres and Maigret confronts him with his thoughts, he does not deny his feelings towards his sister-in-law, who is so different from his wife, who is like most of the women he has met: cold, rule - and money addict and career obsessed. In addition, he does not admit his intention to shoot Gisèle with a hidden revolver if he notices in time that she is administering the rat poison to him. Gisèle, on the other hand, coldly replies to the inspector that she knows how to defend herself.

The Swiss actor Paul Bösiger spoke the leading role of Xavier Marton in Maigret and his scruples in 1959

The next morning Maigret received a call very early: Xavier Marton was found dead in his apartment, poisoned. His wife also struggled with symptoms of poisoning during the night, but only had to vomit violently. While she found her husband lying on the floor in the living room, his hand still on the gun but unable to raise him against her, Gisèle simply retired to the bedroom to let him die there. As Jenny remained in her room in a panic and with obvious feelings of guilt in spite of the noise in question until the police arrived, Maigret comes to the decision to arrest Jenny for the attempted murder of her sister Gisèle and the killing of her brother-in-law:

Jenny had wanted to kill Gisèle with a fatal dose of zinc phosphide in her evening tea to free Xaver from his bondage. However, he had wanted to kill his wife himself by pouring a light dose intended for himself into her cup. Since both spouses would already compulsively swap the cups shortly before drinking, he would now have the slightly poisoned cup, could clearly show the symptoms of poisoning during the night and thus shoot his wife in supposed self-defense , whereby the previous visits to Maigret would have served her purpose. However, the intervention of his sister-in-law had killed him, while his wife is now emerging from the matter free of guilt.

Maigret still has certain scruples because the only person, i.e. Gisèle, whom he would have thought capable of a cold-blooded murder in this matter, remains unpunished and successfully, while he has to arrest the naive sister for the mistaken murder of her lover. But despite all the dissatisfaction, he declares the case closed under the law.

Other issues

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The novel was created from December 9 to 16, 1957 in Echandens , the work was pre-published from May 23 to June 17, 1958 in 22 issues of the daily Le Figaro , before the book was finally published in June of that year by Presses de la Cité appeared. The first German translation by Hansjürgen Wille and Barbara Klau was published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch in 1959 . In 1986 the Diogenes Verlag published a new translation by Ingrid Altrichter in the anthology Christmas with Maigret .

  • Georges Simenon: Les Scrupules de Maigret . Presses de la Cité, Paris 1958 (first edition).
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret has scruples . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1959.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret has scruples . Translation: Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau. Heyne, Munich 1966.
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret has scruples . In: Christmas with Maigret . Translation: Ingrid Altrichter. Diogenes, Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-257-01729-4 .
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret has scruples . All Maigret novels in 75 volumes, volume 52. Translation: Ingrid Altrichter. Diogenes, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-257-23852-5 .

background

Camille Pissarro : Street on Rue Saint-Honoré, 1897

Both German-language radio play adaptations from 1959 and 1961, which were recorded by different radio stations and speakers, were based on Willes' translation and Gert Westphal's adaptation . The latter version featured Dahlke, Rolf Boysen and Wolfgang Büttner more prominently and is still the only one available on phonograms, as Audio Verlag published it in a special edition in 2005 together with four other Maigret radio plays.

review

In connection with the radio play adaptations, the underlying calm of the cases described was praised: “The delightful thing about Simenon's works is the calm they radiate. Simenon has never written action crime novels. The narrative style resembles a slowly flowing river. Here the people involved have enough time to develop clearly before the eyes of the reader. "

“You could find this case banal and at the same time deliberately curious: the man who is afraid of his wife, the woman who accuses her husband the next day, that's the fun part. And the alienation of the couple, since the woman has had the success that the man denies, would be the banal element. The only difference is that Simenon is still playing with the reader by placing extremely suggestive figures in front of his nose, which one believes he understands, until the abysses appear. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographie de Georges Simenon 1946 à 1967 on Toutesimenon.com, the website of Omnibus Verlag.
  2. ↑ Les Scrupules de Maigret on the page of Yves Martina.
  3. ↑ Oliver Hahn: Bibliography of German-language editions . In: Georges-Simenon-Gesellschaft (Ed.): Simenon-Jahrbuch 2003 . Wehrhahn, Laatzen 2004, ISBN 3-86525-101-3 , p. 59.
  4. ↑ http://www.meinebuecher.net/2011/05/georges-simenon-maigret-die-besten-falle/
  5. ^ Tilman Spreckelsen: Maigret-Marathon 52: Maigret has scruples . On FAZ.net April 24, 2009. Retrieved September 28, 2012.