Pascale Haldi is a university professor who teaches toxicology after having served as a plague doctor for multiple years. Her retirement came early when her weight reached three hundred and fifty pounds, a result of exposure to the plague. The weight will stick with her for life, but she makes an effort to keep herself healthy regardless. Before her understudies, she is a kindhearted and thorough teacher, but that image falls apart in private, where she grows irritable and needy.