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For a ht he had never in all his life seen anything so beautiful as this girl—although he only caught her froht Heso beautiful But since he knew the smell of humans, knew it a thousandfold, men, women, children, he could not conceive of how such an exquisite scent could be e special, or it was ghastly Children smelled insipid, men urinous, all sour sweat and cheese, wo fish Totally uninteresting, repulsive—that was how humans smelled… And so it happened that for the first time in his life, Grenouille did not trust his nose and had to call on his eyes for assistance if he was to believe what he s at all Actually he required only a moment to convince himself optically—then to abandon himself all the more ruthlessly to olfactory perception And now he s, smelled the sweat of her arenitals, and sreatest pleasure Her sweat smelled as fresh as the sea breeze, the tallow of her hair as sweet as nut oil, her genitals were as fragrant as the bouquet of water lilies, her skin as apricot blossoms … and the harmony of all these coical, that every perfume that Grenouille had smelled until now, every edifice of odors that he had so playfully created within hiless A hundred thousand odors seemed worthless in the presence of this scent This one scent was the higher principle, the pattern by which the others must be ordered It was pure beauty

Grenouille knew for certain that unless he possessed this scent, his life would have noHe had to understand its smallest detail, to follow it to its last delicate tendril; the h He wanted to press, to emboss this apotheosis of scent on his black, muddled soul, meticulously to explore it and fro to the inneric formula

He slowly approached the girl, closer and closer, stepped under the overhanging roof, and halted one step behind her She did not hear him

She had red hair and wore a gray, sleeveless dress Her arms were very white and her hands yelloith the juice of the halved plums Grenouille stood bent over her and sucked in the undiluted fragrance of her as it rose from her nape, her hair, froentle breeze He had never felt so wonderful But the girl felt the air turn cool

She did not see Grenouille But she was uneasy, sensed a strange chill, the kind one feels when suddenly overco discarded fear She felt as if a cold draft had risen up behind her, as if so into a vast, cold cellar And she laid the paring knife aside, pulled her arms to her chest, and turned around

She was so frozen with terror at the sight of him that he had plenty of time to put his hands to her throat She did not attee, did not make the least motion to defend herself He, in turn, did not look at her, did not see her delicate, freckled face, her red lips, her large sparkling green eyes, keeping his eyes closed tight as he strangled her, for he had only one concern—not to lose the least trace of her scent

When she was dead he laid her on the ground a the plum pits, tore off her dress, and the strearance He thrust his face to her skin and swept his flared nostrils across her, from belly to breast, to neck, over her face and hair, and back to her belly, down to her genitals, to her thighs and white legs He sments of her scent under her chin, in her navel, and in the wrinkles inside her elbow

And after he had smelled the last faded scent of her, he crouched beside her for a while, collecting himself, for he was brimful with her He did not want to spill a drop of her scent First he must seal up his innermost compartments Then he stood up and blew out the candle

Meanwhile people were starting ho their way up the rue de Seine Grenouille smelled his way down the dark alley and out onto the rue des Petits Augustins, which lay parallel to the rue de Seine and led to the river A little while later, the dead girl was discovered A hue and cry arose Torches were lit The watch arrived Grenouille had long since gained the other bank

That night, his closet seemed to him a palace, and his plank bed a four-poster Never before in his life had he knohat happiness was He knew at most some very rare states of nu with happiness and could not sleep for pure bliss It was as if he had been born a second time; no, not a second time, the first time, for until now he had merely existed like an animal with a most nebulous self-awareness But after today, he felt as if he finally kneho he really was: nothing less than a genius And that the her destiny: nothing less than to revolutionize the odoriferous world And that he alone in all the world possessed the means to carry it off: namely, his exquisite nose, his phenomenal meirl in the rue des Marais Contained within it was thethat could reat: delicacy, power, stability, variety, and terrifying, irresistible beauty He had found the coifted aboht the way down into the chaotic vortex of their souls, Grenouille never again departed from what he believed was the direction fate had pointed hi to life so tenaciously, so savagely He e one But, rather, the greatest perfumer of all time

And during that saht, at first awake and then in his dreams, he inspected the vast rubble of hisblocks of odor and arranged theood, bad with bad, fine with fine, coarse with coarse, fetid with fetid, ambrosial with arew everof odors ever more comprehensive and differentiated, the hierarchy ever clearer And soon he could begin to erect the first carefully planned structures of odor: houses, walls, stairways, towers, cellars, roonificent odors, that each day grew larger, that each day grew more beautiful and more perfectly framed

A murder had been the start of this splendor—if he was at all aware of the fact, it was a er recall how the girl from the rue des Marais had looked, not her face, not her body He had preserved the best part of her and made it his own: the principle of her scent

9

There were a baker’s dozen of perfuht bank, six on the left, and one exactly in the e, which connected the right bank with the Ile de la Cité This bridge was so craliined yourself on solid ground on a perfectly norant one at that Indeed, the Pont-au-Change was considered one of the finest business addresses in the city The olds-erie and stockings, the picture fra boots, the eold buttons, and the bankers And here as well stood the business and residence of the perfulover Giuseppe Baldini Above his display as stretched a su Baldini’s coat of arrew a bouquet of golden flowers And before the door lay a red carpet, also bearing the Baldini coat of arold When you ope

ned the door, Persian chi violet-scented toilet water froold-plated vessel, which in turn was shaped like the flacon in the Baldini coat of arms

Behind the counter of light boxwood, however, stood Baldini hi and a blue coat adorned with gold frogs A cloud of the frangipani hich he sprayed hi him to a hazy distance So immobile was he, he looked like part of his own inventory Only if the chi and the herons spewed—both of which occurred rather seldo up into a sure that scurried out from behind the counter with nuipani could hardly keep up with him, and bade his customer take a seat while he exhibited the most exquisite perfumes and cosmetics

Baldini had thousands of theed from essences absolues—floral oils, tinctures, extracts, secretions, bals in dry, liquid, or waxy forh diverse pomades, pastes, powders, soaps, creams, sachets, bandolines, brilliantines, mustache waxes, wart removers, and beauty spots, all the way to bath oils, lotions, senuine perfumes But Baldini was not content with these products of classic beauty care It was his a that had a scent or in some fashion contributed to the production of scent And so in addition to incense pastilles, incense candles, and cords, there were also sundry spices, from anise seeds to zapota seeds, syrups, cordials, and fruit brandies, wines froa, and Corinth, honeys, coffees, teas, candied and dried fruits, figs, bonbons, chocolates, chestnuts, and even pickled capers, cucu waxes, stationery, lover’s ink scented with attar of roses, writing kits of Spanish leather, penholders of white sandalwood, caskets and chests of cedarwood, potpourris and bowls for flower petals, brass incense holders, crystal flacons and cruses with stoppers of cut a cushions filled with mace, and musk-sprinkled wallpaper that could fill a room with scent for more than a century

Naturally there was not room for all these wares in the splendid but se), and so for lack of a cellar, storage rooms occupied not just the attic, but the whole second and third floors, as well as alround floor The result was that an indescribable chaos of odors reigned in the House of Baldini However exquisite the quality of individual itehest quality—the blend of odors was almost unbearable, as if eacha different melody at fortissimo Baldini and his assistants were the orchestra conductors (all of who, of course); and even his wife, who lived on the fourth floor, bitterly defending it against further encroache area, hardly noticed theBaldini’s shop for the first tion his constitution, it ht exalt or daze him, but in any case caused such a confusion of senses that he often no longer knehat he had coentlerew queasy And many ladies took a spell, half-hysteric, half-claustrophobic, fainted away, and could be revived only with thesalts of clove oil, ammonia, and camphor