(no subject)
Statement of Intent
Patrick Süskind’s novel, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Perfume), follows the life of the misanthropic Grenouille as he both uses and is used simultaneously by the other characters he meets. Following Grenouille’s contact with them, these characters all die ironic deaths except for Antoine Richis, whose fate remains mysterious. Richis, under the influence of Grenouille’s perfume, brings him home to adopt him, but Grenouille sneaks away after dark and that is the last Süskind writes of Richis. Nothing is revealed of what happens to him upon discovering Grenouille’s disappearance or thereafter.
I propose an additional scene depicting the ultimate fate of Antoine Richis, completing the pattern of Grenouille’s negative effect on the people he meets. Of the six other characters subjected to Grenouille’s influence, five suffer harsh and ironic deaths; his mother, for example, is executed for abandoning her children - she would not have been convicted had the infant Grenouille not started to squall and thus been found. The sixth character, Madame Gaillard, suffers the absence of death, the harshest affliction possible for her. Grenouille, who then was long gone, cannot be held directly responsible for Madame’s fate; yet there is no reason for Süskind to depict her end - nor the ends of the others Grenouille encounters - other than to present the strange coincidence that this should happen wherever Grenouille goes, making the reader question whether he is really innocent regarding these tragedies after all. It is odd that Richis, having the most interesting relationship with Grenouille, should not fall victim to this deadly irony as well. My aim is to devise a scenario for Richis’ death that will match the others’ in situational irony and bleakness.
The deaths of Grenouille’s “victims” are generally catalyzed in part through their own actions of greed or ambition. Sometimes the result is immediate, as with the Marquis de la Taillade-Espinasse, who decides to promote his scientific theory by remaining three weeks in a blizzard and emerging as a younger man. For others, it is a prolonged effect. In Baldini’s case, it could be argued that it is his failure to thank God for Grenouille - the savior of his business - as he keeps intending that results in the destruction of his home, for the bridge collapses “with no apparent reason” and “fortunately” only Baldini and his wife are killed. (Süskind 116) Richis’ primary goal is to “found a dynasty and put his own posterity on a track leading directly to the highest social and political influence” (Süskind 207), and thus it would be fitting to Süskind’s theme if his attempts to attain this goal are what ultimately cause his death. Richis is bourgeoisie, thus considered below nobility despite being wealthier than many nobles. He uses his money to bribe financially-strained nobles to consider marrying his daughter Laure, thus promoting his own social status. Should anything happen to Laure and the promise of money vanish, these nobles might be significantly aggravated.
Perfume is a satire on various types and mindsets of people living in the eighteenth century, and so Süskind’s tone is darkly humorous. Deaths are described in an condescending, almost callous manner that prevents the readers from taking them seriously; the collapse of the bridge that ends Baldini’s life is described as a “minor catastrophe…which, with appropriate delays, resulted in a royal decree requiring that little by little all the buildings on the bridges of Paris be torn down” (Süskind 116). Süskind establishes that Baldini’s death is “minor” and distracts the reader with the insinuation that the government is less than efficient. Süskind also uses long, drawn-out sentences and an apathetic tone to describe shocking events. Key actions are worked nonchalantly into longer phrases so that the reader is caught completely unprepared. Seemingly superfluous details, such as the list of people attending, are included in a scene to detract from the importance of the focal execution. My scene will emulate Süskind’s apathetic and dryly humorous tone, emphasizing the irony of Richis’ death through abruptness and casual description.
The deaths of those Grenouille meets serve as a recurring focus for the novel. In a way, these characters are representatives of his personality, so perhaps the irony of their fate is foreshadowing of the ironic manner in which Grenouille commits suicide at the novel’s conclusion: by using so much of his intoxicating perfume that the vagabonds around him tear him apart in their effort to get closer. My additional scene will give me the opportunity to experiment with the manner in which situational irony is expressed, and complete the cycle of Grenouille’s ostensible influence in others’ fates.
Additional Scene, or "Closing the Circle"
About the time that Grenouille was making his way through the remnants of the night’s excitement, Antoine Richis had just awoken and was stalking about the house, happily giving orders for tailors to be summoned, horses groomed, pastries made, all for the pleasure of his new son, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. Out of the direct influence of Grenouille’s infatuating essence of Laure, his mind still imbued with but no longer clouded by love, Richis was better able to think and immediately began planning for the exceptional futures of himself and his son. He recognized that Grenouille was not young; or, at least, he was of an age to be married and even, with a bit of instruction, take over the estate; but though he had not the youth of body, he retained the innocence of mind, which Richis dearly felt. Loath though he was to part with his beloved son - just as he had with Laure - Richis nevertheless began writing immediately, reestablishing acquaintances with noblemen whose daughters were of marriageable age and who had debts beyond any hope of repayment. Richis could establish a line here in Grasse and, given Grenouille’s acquiescent nature, raise the grandchildren to his own satisfaction. Or, with Grenouille managing the business, he could pursue his previous goal of seeking a wife in court and siring a line there. Either way, he decided, the prospects were pleasing.
At seven he rose and went to wake his son. When he reached the bedroom door he knew, without even opening it, that Grenouille was gone, for the last traces of the perfume had vanished. A cold chill settled over his heart, and he flung open the door and confirmed his fears, feeling as though he had lost Laure a second time. Foul play was involved, surely! Grenouille had been kidnapped, abducted, to be held for ransom, nay, murdered, to befall the same fate as his sister! Richis flew from the room, summoning servants, footmen, butlers left and right, sending out search parties to Grenoble, to Cabris, to as far out as La Napoule, as though some cruel irony would lead him to lose both daughter and son in the same town. The police were alerted, but the account they were given was of a man who could never be recognized, for it consisted of ‘beautiful’ and ‘affectionate’ but contained no concrete description at all. When by noon the search parties had turned up no results, Richis resolved to track Grenouille and his captors down himself, for his mind held no doubt that Grenouille had been forced to depart against his will.
He departed from Grasse with only two attendants, choosing speed over comfort. They reached the crossroads near Saint-Vallier, and Richis, assured of the cruel mind of his enemy, turned towards La Napoule. Traveling the direct road, they reached the town in a matter of hours, and Richis proceeded directly to the inn. Grenouille was not there, nor was anyone who might be concealing his whereabouts; there hadn’t been anyone like that for several weeks, said the innkeeper. Flustered, Richis exited and began the return to Grasse, feeling less confident by the hour.
Halfway along the road he was met by a messenger, who claimed to have come on behalf of Baron de Bouyon - whose son Laure was to have married - and had been directed along this route after checking at the mansion in Grasse. His message: the Baron sent his regards, but was most displeased at Richis’ carelessness in dealing with the recent events that subsequently lost him his daughter; for the result was that his son was now condemned for such a disastrous engagement and the Baron ostracized for his bad judgment in fraternizing with bourgeoisie. Richis, enraged at such a pompous display at a time when it was most ill-appreciated, demanded whether the Baron knew that it was far from an unfortunate situation, for he had regained Laure in his new son Grenouille; whereupon the messenger replied yes, produced a pistol, and shot Richis three times, each with very bad aim and the final shot rupturing his lung only by luck. Richis, for his part, was so surprised that he managed to survive for several hours afterwards, simply on the strength of denial alone. The messenger promptly fled, leaving Richis in the care of his attendants, who, after a heated debate about how to deal with the situation, tied Richis onto his horse and returned him to Grasse, where he died before they even got him into the house. As he had no surviving relations, the estate and holdings were divided amongst his primary staff, with generous amalgamations by the government. Within a few years, the name Richis was all but entirely forgotten.
Works Cited
Süskind, Patrick. Perfume. Trans. John E. Woods. London: Penguin Books, 1987.
Appendix
“And then, unexpectedly, the infant under the gutting table begins to squall. They have a look, and beneath a swarm of flies and amid the offal and fish heads they discover a newborn child. They pull it out. As prescribed by law, they give it to a wet nurse and arrest the mother. And since she confesses, openly admitting that she would definitely have let the thing perish, just as she had with those other four by the way, she is tried, found guilty of multiple infanticide, and a few weeks later decapitated at the place de Greve.” (6)
“And only then - ten, twenty years too late - did death arrive, in the form of a protracted bout of cancer that grabbed Madame by the throat, robbing her first of an appetite and then of her voice, so that she could raise not one word of protest as they carted her off to the Hotel-Dieu. There they put her in a ward populated with hundreds of the mortally ill, the same ward in which her husband had died, laid her in a bed shared with total strangers, pressing body upon body with five other women, and for three long weeks let her die in public view. She was then sewn into a sack, tossed on to a tumbrel at four in the morning with fifty other corpses, to the faint tinkle of a bell driven to the newly founded cemetery of Clamart, a mile beyond the city gates, and there laid in her final resting place, a mass grave beneath a thick layer of quicklime.” (31-32)
“Grimal…got so rip-roaring drunk that when he decided to go back to the Tour d’Argent late that night, he got the rue Geoffroi L’Anier confused with the rue des Nonaindieres, and instead of coming out directly on to the Pont-Marie as he had intended, he was brought by ill fortune to the Quai des Ormes, where he splashed lengthwise and face-first into the water like a soft mattress. He was dead in an instant.” (91)
“For that night a minor catastrophe occurred, which, with appropriate delays, resulted in a royal decree requiring that little by little all the buildings on all the bridges of Paris be torn down. For with no apparent reason, the west side of the Pont au Change, between the third and fourth piers, collapsed. Two buildings were hurled into the river, so completely and suddenly that none of their occupants could be rescued. Fortunately, it was a matter of only two persons, to wit: Guiseppe Baldini and his wife, Teresa.” (116)
“Though on the threshold of senescence, [the Marquis de la Taillade-Espinasse] wanted to be borne to the summit at nine thousand feet and left there in the sheerest, finest vital air for three whole weeks, whereupon, he announced, he would descend from the mountain precisely on Christmas Eve as a strapping lad of twenty. … His followers waited in vain that Christmas Eve for the return of the Marquis de la Taillade-Espinasse. He returned neither as an old man nor a young one. Nor when early summer came the next year and the most audacious of them went in search of him, scaling the still snowbound summit of the Pic du Canigou, did they find any trace of him: no clothes, no body parts, no bones.” (167-8)
“On the basis of incontrovertible evidence, [the police lieutenant] arrested Dominique Druot, maitre parfumeur in the rue de la Louve, since, after all, it was in his cabin that the clothes and hair of all the victims had been found. The judges were not deceived by the lies he told at first. After fourteen hours of torture, he confessed everything and even begged to be executed as soon as possible - which wish was granted and the execution set for the following day. They strung him up by the grey light of dawn, without any fuss, without scaffold or grandstand, with only the hangman, a magistrate of the court, a doctor and a priest in attendance. Once death had occurred, had been verified and duly recorded, the body was promptly buried.” (256)