Perfume. The story of a murderer

When the marquis de La Taillade-Espinasse received word that in Pierrefort an individual had been found who had dwelt in a cave for seven years-that is, completely encapsulated by the corrupting element of the earth-he was beside himself with delight and immediately had Grenouille brought to his laboratory, where he subjected him to a thorough examination. He found his theories confirmed most graphically: the fluidum letale had already so assaulted Grenouille that his twenty-five-year-old body clearly showed the marks of senile deterioration. All that had prevented his death, Taillade-Espinasse declared, was that during his imprisonment Grenouille had been given earth-removed plants, presumably bread and fruits, for nourishment. And now his former healthy condition could be restored only by the wholesale expulsion of the fluidum, using a vital ventilation machine, devised by Taillade-Espinasse himself. He had such an apparatus standing in his manor in Montpellier, and if Grenouille was willing to make himself available as the object of a scientific demonstration, he was willing not only to free him from hopeless contamination by earth gas, but he would also provide him with a handsome sum of money…

Two hours later they were sitting in the carriage. Although the roads were in miserable condition, they traveled the sixty-four miles to Montpellier in just under two days, for despite his advanced age, the marquis would not be denied his right personally to whip both driver and horses and to lend a hand whenever, as frequently happened, an axle or spring broke-so excited was he by his find, so eager to present it to an educated audience as soon as possible. Grenouille, however, was not allowed to leave the carriage even once. He was forced to sit there all wrapped up in his rags and a blanket drenched with earth and clay. During the trip he was given raw vegetable roots to eat. The marquis hoped these procedures would preserve the contamination by earth’s fluidum in its ideal state for a while yet.

Upon their arrival in Montpellier, he had Grenouille taken at once to the cellar of his mansion, and sent out invitations to all the members of the medical faculty, the botanical association, the agricultural school, the chemophysical club, the Freemason lodge, and the other assorted learned societies, of which the city had no fewer than a dozen. And several days later-exactly one week after he had left his mountain solitude-Grenouille found himself on a dais in the great hall of the University of Montpellier and was presented as the scientific sensation of the year to a crowd of several hundred people.

In his lecture, Taillade-Espinasse described him as living proof for the validity of his theory of earth’s fluidum letale. While he stripped Grenouille of his rags piece by piece, he explained the devastating effect that the corruptive gas had perpetrated on Gre-nouille’s body: one could see the pustules and scars caused by the corrosive gas; there on his breast a giant, shiny-red gas cancer; a general disintegration of the skin; and even clear evidence of fluidal deformation of the bone structure, the visible indications being a clubfoot and a hunchback. The internal organs as well had been damaged by the gas-pancreas, liver, lungs, gallbladder, and intestinal tract-as the analysis of a stool sample (accessible to the public in a basin at the feet of the exhibit) had proved beyond doubt. In summary, it could be said that the paralysis of the vital energies caused by a seven-year contamination with fluidum letale Taillade had progressed so far that the exhibit-whose external appearance, by the way, already displayed significant molelike traits -could be described as a creature more disposed toward death than life. Nevertheless, the lecturer pledged that within eight days, using ventilation therapy in combination with a vital diet, he would restore this doomed creature to the point where the signs of a complete recovery would be self-evident to everyone, and he invited those present to return in one week to satisfy themselves of the success of this prognosis, which, of course, would then have to be seen as valid proof that his theory concerning earth’s fluidum was likewise correct.