More irritation

Being the first story of the second round of proper Maigret stories, with his having been retired at the end of the first round, with the intervening period, the intervening numbers in the collected works, being occupied by shorter stories, including some Maigret.

This one having been read, perhaps for the third time, over the past few days. Perfectly satisfactory story - but with one irritating feature. Simenon - through Maigret - makes much of how unpleasant a person one of the main characters is. A man of middle years, who fifteen years previously, while still a provincial lawyer, had got into trouble over a minor. Disbarred and a couple of years in prison. Winds up in Paris where he reconnects with the now married minor in question and, in due course, becomes the general manager of her small string of brothels, while retaining his taste for young, not so say under age, girls. And pictures of same.

Unpleasant he may be, but Simenon, who on his own account was a big user of brothels through both his first two marriages, certainly before and possibly after, must, over the years, have come across, taken refreshment with, plenty of sleazy and more or less unpleasant people, some more or less criminal. People who were more or less inevitable given the semi-legal status of the business. So who was he to throw stones?

PS: the poster above was for the film of the story made in 1944, possibly in collaboration with a German film maker, certainly with the acquiescence of the German authorities. The sort of thing which eventually resulted in Simenon legging it across the Atlantic.

Reference 1: Cécile est morte - Simenon - 1940. Volume X of the collected works. The present story, the first of the second round.

Reference 2: Maigret - Simenon - 1933. Volume V of the collected works. The last story of the first round, in which the newly retired Maigret returns in an unofficial capacity to sort out a case involving his incompetent nephew.

Reference 3: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/01/dr-z-part-4.html. In which there is a passing mention of Simenon's collaboration.