have been
greatly surprised to see Maigret, his hands in his pockets, pipe between his teeth,
walking down Boulevard Montparnasse with a grumpy expression on his face, stopping
outside a cinema with its foyer plastered with brightly coloured posters, and then
finally going up to the ticket office, and holding out some cash.
âA balcony seat, please,â he
asked.
He then followed the young girl in a black
silk dress with a Peter Pan collar who went ahead of him, shining the narrow beam of her
electric torch on the steps.
âExcuse me ⦠excuse me ⦠excuse
me.â
He made his way along a row of seats, aware
that he was annoying everyone and treading on toes as he passed.
He had no idea what film was being shown.
Loud voices apparently coming from nowhere filled the auditorium,
while on screen a shipâs captain was throwing a girl
down on the bunk in his cabin.
âSo you came here to spy on
me!â
âHave mercy, Captain Brown! If not on
me, then at least on â¦â
âExcuse me,â said a timid little
voice on the inspectorâs right, and his neighbour pulled away the skirt of her
coat, on which Maigret was sitting.
7.
Maigret was warm. Nice and warm, as he used
to say when he was a child, and if the lights in the auditorium had suddenly come on,
revealing him wrapped up in his overcoat, hands in his pockets, his body leaning
slightly backwards and his eyes half-closed, he would have looked the very essence of
bliss.
In fact it was a little trick that he used
on himself when he had been thinking of the same subject for too long and he felt his
mind about to start running on empty. In summer he would have gone to sit on the terrace
of a café in the sun, where he would have let himself muse quietly over a beer.
When they had put in central heating at Quai
des Orfèvres, and the inspector had asked and been granted permission to keep his old
coal-burning stove, the younger inspectors had shrugged their shoulders. In fact it was
for the sake of the same trick. When he was stuck, when he had been poring over a
problem for so long that it seemed to be empty of all substance, no more than an web of
incoherent, cold thoughts, Maigret added more fuel to the stove, warmed himself up
sometimes facing it, sometimes with his back to it, poked the burning coals, allowed it
to draw, and little by little he relaxed with a sense of well-being. His eyelids
tingled, and everything round him
seemed
blurred, an impression to which the smoke of his eternal pipe contributed.
In this state of physical lethargy, his mind
seized upon connections that sometimes seemed absurd, following paths along which pure
reason would not have led him.
Madame Maigret had never understood. When
she touched his arm at the end of an evening spent like this in the cinema, she always
sighed, âYouâve been asleep again, Maigret ⦠I wonder why you pay twelve
francs for a cinema seat when you have such a good bed at home.â
The auditorium was dark, full of the warmth
of humanity, alive with the hundreds of people sitting there side by side, but all the
same knowing nothing of each other. The long triangle of pale light from the projection
room passed above their heads, attracting tobacco smoke.
If anyone had asked Maigret what the film
was, he couldnât have said. It didnât matter. He watched the images without
seeing any connection between them. Then his glance moved lower, having noticed a slight
movement close to him.
Though he was a powerful man who for nearly
thirty years had been dealing, so to speak, with passion taken to the utmost, in other
words to crime, Maigret was personally chaste, and he coughed, shocked by the behaviour
of the woman next to him and her companion, although all he could actually see of the
latter was a white hand. Just now, however, when he inadvertently sat on
greatly surprised to see Maigret, his hands in his pockets, pipe between his teeth,
walking down Boulevard Montparnasse with a grumpy expression on his face, stopping
outside a cinema with its foyer plastered with brightly coloured posters, and then
finally going up to the ticket office, and holding out some cash.
âA balcony seat, please,â he
asked.
He then followed the young girl in a black
silk dress with a Peter Pan collar who went ahead of him, shining the narrow beam of her
electric torch on the steps.
âExcuse me ⦠excuse me ⦠excuse
me.â
He made his way along a row of seats, aware
that he was annoying everyone and treading on toes as he passed.
He had no idea what film was being shown.
Loud voices apparently coming from nowhere filled the auditorium,
while on screen a shipâs captain was throwing a girl
down on the bunk in his cabin.
âSo you came here to spy on
me!â
âHave mercy, Captain Brown! If not on
me, then at least on â¦â
âExcuse me,â said a timid little
voice on the inspectorâs right, and his neighbour pulled away the skirt of her
coat, on which Maigret was sitting.
7.
Maigret was warm. Nice and warm, as he used
to say when he was a child, and if the lights in the auditorium had suddenly come on,
revealing him wrapped up in his overcoat, hands in his pockets, his body leaning
slightly backwards and his eyes half-closed, he would have looked the very essence of
bliss.
In fact it was a little trick that he used
on himself when he had been thinking of the same subject for too long and he felt his
mind about to start running on empty. In summer he would have gone to sit on the terrace
of a café in the sun, where he would have let himself muse quietly over a beer.
When they had put in central heating at Quai
des Orfèvres, and the inspector had asked and been granted permission to keep his old
coal-burning stove, the younger inspectors had shrugged their shoulders. In fact it was
for the sake of the same trick. When he was stuck, when he had been poring over a
problem for so long that it seemed to be empty of all substance, no more than an web of
incoherent, cold thoughts, Maigret added more fuel to the stove, warmed himself up
sometimes facing it, sometimes with his back to it, poked the burning coals, allowed it
to draw, and little by little he relaxed with a sense of well-being. His eyelids
tingled, and everything round him
seemed
blurred, an impression to which the smoke of his eternal pipe contributed.
In this state of physical lethargy, his mind
seized upon connections that sometimes seemed absurd, following paths along which pure
reason would not have led him.
Madame Maigret had never understood. When
she touched his arm at the end of an evening spent like this in the cinema, she always
sighed, âYouâve been asleep again, Maigret ⦠I wonder why you pay twelve
francs for a cinema seat when you have such a good bed at home.â
The auditorium was dark, full of the warmth
of humanity, alive with the hundreds of people sitting there side by side, but all the
same knowing nothing of each other. The long triangle of pale light from the projection
room passed above their heads, attracting tobacco smoke.
If anyone had asked Maigret what the film
was, he couldnât have said. It didnât matter. He watched the images without
seeing any connection between them. Then his glance moved lower, having noticed a slight
movement close to him.
Though he was a powerful man who for nearly
thirty years had been dealing, so to speak, with passion taken to the utmost, in other
words to crime, Maigret was personally chaste, and he coughed, shocked by the behaviour
of the woman next to him and her companion, although all he could actually see of the
latter was a white hand. Just now, however, when he inadvertently sat on
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