The Girl with a Squint
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Marie qui louche (1952, English: The Girl with a Squint) is a 'roman dur' by Georges Simenon.
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Summary
Two young Rochefort women, Marie and Sylvie, have in common the desire to escape their poverty. Hired as maids for the season in a small hotel-restaurant in Fourras, "Les Ondines", they make plans to go to Paris. The summer will not end without Sylvie's behavior having caused the suicide of Louis, a mentally retarded young man working at the same boarding house, nor without her giving in to her boss, the mean Mr. Clément, disapproved of in every way by her companion Marie, whom a physical unattractiveness makes both humble and reserved.
The arrival of a Parisian, Mr. Luze, who has come to look for his wife and children, boarders at the "Ondines", gives Sylvie the opportunity to realize her project, although she is asked to return to her home where her father, suffering from a heart disease, is languishing: but Sylvie, selfish and cynical, "does nothing for anyone". Her father will die without her caring.
In Paris, at the Hôtel des Vosges that Mr. Luze has indicated to Sylvie, the two companions share the same room. Marie goes to work at the "Caves de Bourgogne", a modest restaurant run by Mr. and Mrs. Laboine, while Sylvie, employed by Mr. Luze, becomes his mistress, until Mrs. Luze put things in order.
The affair finished, Sylvie goes from place to place and from one appointment to another. The life in common of the two young women accommodates an "each for herself", which does not prevent Sylvie from taking, one day, the lover of Marie. Marie, from then on, leaves her, without a word.
Twenty-three years will pass before, one day in May 1945, during the Victory Day parade on the Champs-Élysées, Sylvie sees Marie in the middle of the crowd. But it is another chance that, five years later, will put them in the presence of each other. They agree to meet again. Marie is then the housekeeper of the old Mr. Laboine, now a widower and in poor health. Sylvie, on the other hand, has succeeded in leading a life of luxury and idleness, maintained by the rich Omer Besson, who has only one fault: he is old, hemiplegic, and on the verge of death at the time when the two former friends meet again. Sensing that Besson's will could be modified in extremis to the benefit of his family, Sylvie decides to have Marie watch over him under the guise of a nurse who does not leave him. Marie agrees to play this role. The day after Besson's death, she announces to her friend that she was able to steal and burn a paper that the sister-in-law would have made the dying man sign. Sylvie will thus come into possession of an inheritance that her alcoholism will prevent her from enjoying. With, beside her, a Marie who shares her room again in a common existence where, at night, the two women spy their breath, "as if they were afraid of losing each other".
Particular aspects of the novel
A story in two parts separated by the space of a quarter of a century: the chronological gap will not be filled, as it is two slices of life taken from one and the other end of two destinies. Destinies of two women at the same time united and opposed in the agreement as in the disagreement. It is often through the dialogue, with brief lines, of the two characters that the facts that determine the course of the novel are presented.
Work description
Space and time frame
Space
Fourras, beach near La Rochelle. Paris.
Time
The characters
Main character
Marie Gladel, known as " Marie qui louche ". Good for everything. Single. 18 years old (in 1922).
Other characters
Sylvie Danel, childhood friend of Marie. 17 years old (in 1922).
See also
