Perfume. The story of a murderer

A priest entered the cell to hear his confession, but came out again after fifteen minutes with nothing accomplished. When he had mentioned the name of God, the condemned man had looked at him with total incomprehension, as if he had heard the name for the first time, had then stretched out on his plank bed and sunk at once into a deep sleep. To have said another word would have been pointless.

During the next two days, many people came to see the famous murderer at close range. The guards let them peek through the shutter in the door and demanded six sol per peek. An etcher, who wanted to prepare a sketch, had to pay two francs. His subject, however, was rather a disappointment. The prisoner, bound at his wrists and ankles, lay on his plank bed the whole time and slept. His face was turned to the wall, and he responded to neither knocks nor shouts. Visitors were strictly banned from the cell, and despite some tempting offers, the guards did not dare disregard this prohibition. It was feared the prisoner might be murdered ahead of time by a relative of one of his victims. For the same reason no one was allowed to offer him food. It might have been poisoned. During the whole period of imprisonment, Grenouille’s food came from the servants’ kitchen in the bishop’s palace and had first to be tasted by the prison warden. The last two days, however, he ate nothing at all. He lay on his bed and slept. Occasionally his chains rattled, and if the guard hurried over to the shutter, he could watch Grenouille take a drink from his canteen, then throw himself back on his plank bed, and go back to sleep. It seemed as if the man was so tired of life that he did not want to experience his last hours awake.

Meanwhile the parade grounds were readied for the execution. Carpenters built a scaffold, nine feet by nine feet square and six feet high, with a railing and a sturdy set of stairs-Grasse had never had one as fine as this. Plus a wooden grandstand for local notables and a fence to separate them from the common people, who were to be kept at some distance. In the buildings to the left and right of the Porte du Cours and in the guardhouse itself, places at the windows had long since been rented out at exorbitant rates. The executioner’s assistants had even leased the rooms of the patients in the Charit6, which was located off to one side, and resold them to curious spectators at a handsome profit. The lemonade vendors stocked up with pitcherfuls of licorice water, the etcher printed up several hundred copies of the sketch he had made of the murderer in prison-touched up a bit from his own imagination-itinerant peddlers streamed into town by the dozens, the bakers baked souvenir cookies.

The executioner, Monsieur Papon, who had not had an offender to smash for years now, had a heavy, squared iron rod forged for him and went off to the slaughterhouse to practice blows on carcasses. He was permitted only tweive hits, and he had to strike true, crushing all twelve joints without damaging the vital body parts, like the chest or head-a difficult business that demanded a fine touch and good timing.

The citizens readied themselves for the event as if for a high holiday. That there would be no work that day went without saying. The women ironed their holiday dresses, the men dusted off their frock coats and had their boots polished to a high gloss. Whoever held military rank or occupied public office, whoever was a guild master, an attomey-at-law, a notary, a head of a fraternal order, or held any other position of importance, donned his uniform or official garb, along with his medals, sashes, chains, and periwig powdered to a chalky white. Pious folk intended to assemble immediately afterwards for religious services, the disciples of Satan planned a hearty Luci-ferian mass of thanksgiving, the educated aristocracy were going to gather for magnetic seances at the manors of the Cabris, Villeneuves, and Fontmichels. The roasting and baking had begun in the kitchens, the wine had been fetched from the cellars, the floral displays from the market, and the organist and choir were practicing in the cathedral.