Antonio (Tony) Falcone

Antonio (Tony) Falcone (fahl-KOHN), a thirty-three-year-old man who is arrested and tried for poisoning his wife, Gisèle. As three officials question him, he reveals the relevant facts of his life. He is proud to have established his own business selling and repairing agricultural equipment. A devoted family man, he appreciates his wife’s homemaking, takes his daughter to church on Sundays, visits his aged father regularly, and vacations with his family at the seaside. Tony also takes advantage of sexual opportunities. To him and the women involved, these encounters are isolated incidents that entail no obligations. He maintains this attitude during his passionate affair with Andrée Despierre. She, however, is determined to marry Tony, even though he wants to end their relationship. Andrée murders her husband and Tony’s wife, and both she and Tony are sent to prison for life.

Andrée Formier Despierre

Andrée Formier Despierre (ahn-DRAY fohr-MYAY day-PYEHR), the daughter of a local hero, Dr. Formier. She lives with her mother in the chateau in Saint Justin. They are proud provincial bourgeoises who have fallen on hard times; it is obvious that she marries Nicholas Despierre for money. Andrée is a tall, attractive woman, with dark hair that contrasts with her white, translucent complexion. Revealing her sexual aggressiveness, she initiates an affair with Tony Falcone. During their eight meetings at...

In itself, calling Andree and Tony lovers begs one of the major questions raised by The Blue Room. Tony finds Andree sexually exciting, but he does not love her; she is obsessed by him. Georges Simenon carefully and unobtrusively puts in the details which help the reader to comprehend Andree: the poverty; the gangling adolescent who watches the handsome boy choose other partners; the prudent marriage to the rich, sickly Nicholas; the possessive mother-in-law and her festering resentment. All the pieces are there. The reader, like Simenon’s most famous creation, Inspector Maigret, can understand the growth of a personality capable of these crimes.

Tony is a picture of incomprehension. The interrogations clarify events for him as well as for the reader. He is largely incapable of analysis and his self-awareness is neither intellectual nor verbal. “Were there really people whose lives were devoted to self-examination, to gazing at themselves in a mirror, as it were?” he asks himself. What Tony actually says, therefore, is not as meaningful as what is left unsaid. “The words were without substance.” Andree, who hears what he says at the hotel, but only interprets it according to what she wants to hear, acts upon his words and destroys everything he values. “You know very well you said yourself....” she argues.

Tony’s wife, Gisele, is a silent, pathetic figure, afraid to complain of her husband’s philandering, terrified...