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All at once great contentment came over him Not a drunken one, as in the days when he had celebrated his lonely orgies in the bowels of the mountain, but a very cold and sober contentment, as befits awareness of one’s oer He nohat he was capable of Thanks to his own genius, with a s and at one stroke had matched it so well that even a child had been deceived He no that he could do much more He knew that he could improve on this scent He would be able to create a scent that was not el’s scent, so indescribably good and vital that whoever smelled it would be enchanted and with his whole heart would have to love him, Grenouille, the bearer of that scent

Yes, that hat he wanted—they would love him as they stood under the spell of his scent, not just accept him as one of them, but love him to the point of insanity, of self-abandonht, scream, weep for bliss, they would sink to their knees just as if under God’s cold incense, merely to be able to sod of scent, just as he had been in his fantasies, but this time in the real world and over real people And he knew that all this ithin his power For people could close their eyes to greatness, to horrors, to beauty, and their ears towords But they could not escape scent For scent was a brother of breath Together with breath it entered huainst it, not if they wanted to live And scent entered into their very core, went directly to their hearts, and decided for good and all between affection and conteust and lust, love and hate He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men

Grenouille sat at his ease on his bench in the cathedral of Saint-Pierre and smiled His mood was not euphoric as he fors of the eye, no lunatic grimace passed over his face He was not out of his mind, which was so clear and buoyant that he asked himself why he wanted to do it at all And he said to hihly evil And he smiled as he said it and was content He looked quite innocent, like any happy person

He sat there for a while, with an air of devout tranquillity, and took deep breaths, inhaling the incense-laden air And yet another cheerful grin crossed his face How miserable this God smelled! How ridiculously bad the scent that this God let spill fro up out of those thuribles A bad substitute, adulterated with linden and cinnamon dust and saltpeter God stank God was a poor little stinker He had been swindled, this God had, or was Himself a swindler, no different from Grenouille—only a considerably worse one!

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The marquis de La Taillade-Espinasse was thrilled with his new perfu, he said, even for the discoverer of the fluidueneral condition of an individual such a trivial and ephe either earth-bound or earth-rein Grenouille, who but a few hours before had lain pale and near swooning, now appeared as fresh and rosy as any healthy e could Why—even with all the qualifications appropriate to a ht al very like a personality In any case, he, Taillade-Espinasse, would discuss the case in the chapter on vital dietetics in his soon-to-be-published treatise on the theory of the fluidum letale But first he wished to anoint his own body with this new perfume

Grenouille handed him both flacons of conventional floral scent, and the ratified by the effect He confessed that after years of being oppressed by the leaden scent of violets, a mere dab of this s; and if he was not , likewise the buzzing in his ears All in all he felt buoyant, revitalized, and several years younger He approached Grenouille, e that this was in no way a form of social address, but rather a purely spiritual one in conspectu universalitatis fluidi letalis, before which—and before which alone!—all ed hieaging hi soon to found an international lodge that stood above all social rank and the goal of which would be utterly to vanquish the fluidum letale and replace it in the shortest possible time with purest fluidum vitale—and even now he promised to win Grenouille over as the first proselyte Then he had him write the formula for the floral perfume on a slip of paper, pocketed it, and presented Grenouille with fifty louis d’or

Precisely one week after the first lecture, the ain presented his ward in the great hall of the university The crush was monstrous All Montpellier had come, not just scientific Montpellier, but also and in particular social Montpellier, a the fabled caveh Taillade’s enemies, primarily the champions of the Friends of the University Botanical Gardens and riculture, had mobilized all their supporters, the exhibition was a scintillating success In order to remind his audience of Grenouille’s condition of only the week before, Taillade-Espinasse first circulated drawings depicting the caveliness and depravity He then had them lead in the new Grenouille dressed in a handsoed, powdered, and coiffed; and merely by the way he walked, so erect and with dainty steps and an elegant swing of the hips, by the way he cli deeply and nodding with a smile now to one side now to the other, he silenced every skeptic and critic Even the friends of the university’s botanical garden were eious, the apparent o had cowered a drudge, a brutalized beast, there now stood a truly civilized, properly proportioned huh the hall, and as Taillade-Espinasse coain set forth his all too familiar theory about earth’s fluidum letale, explained how and hat mechanical and dieteticit with fluidum vitale Finally he demanded of all those present, friend and foe alike, that in the face of such overwhel evidence they abandon their opposition to this new doctrine and ainst the evil fluidum and open themselves to the beneficial fluidum vitale At this he spread his arms wide, cast his eyes heavenwards—and many learned men did likewise, and women wept

Grenouille stood at the dais but did not listen He watched with great satisfaction the effect of a totally different fluid, a much realer one: his own As was appropriate for the size of the great hall, he had doused himself with perfume, and no sooner had he clian to radiate powerfully from him He saw—literally saith his own eyes!—how it captured the spectators sitting closest, was transmitted to those farther back, and finally reached the last rows and the gallery And whomever it captured—and Grenouille’s heart leapt for joy within hied Under the sway of the odor, but without their being aware of it, people’s facial expressions, their airs, their eawked at hiazed at hi back in their seats with furrowed critical brows and mouths markedly turned down at the corners now leaned forward more relaxed and with a look of childlike ease on their faces And as his odor reached thehtened, and hypersensitive souls who had borne the sight of his former self with horror and beheld his present state with duenoed traces of amity, indeed of sympathy

At lecture’s end the entir

e asse “Long live the fluidu live Taillade-Espinasse! Hurrah for the fluidal theory! Doith orthodox medicine!”—such were the cries of the learned folk of Montpellier, the most important university town in the south of France, and the reatest hour of his life

Grenouille, however, having cli the crowd, knew that these ovations were in reality h not one of those cheering in the hall suspected anything of the sort

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He stayed on in Montpellier for several weeks He had achieved a certain fame and was invited to salons where he was asked about his life in the cave and about how the marquis had cured him He had to tell the tale of the robbers over and over, how they had dragged him off, and how the basket was let down, and about the ladder And every time he added more lovely eained so—admittedly only a very limited one, since he had never in all his life handled speech well—and, as even

In essence, he could tell people whatever he wanted Once they had gained confidence in hiained confidence in hi his artificial odor—they believed everything And in tiained a certain self-assurance in social situations such as he had never known before This was apparent even in his body It was as if he had grown His humpback seemed to disappear He walked almost coer hunched over, but remained erect and returned the look directed at him Granted, in this short time he did not become a man-of-the-world, no dandy-about-town, no peerless social lion But his cringing, clu that was taken for natural ht, inborn shyness that entlemen and many ladies—sophisticated circles in those days had a weakness for everything natural and for a certain unpolished charm

When March cas and was off, secretly, so early in the ates had only just been opened He earing an inconspicuous brown coat that he had bought secondhand at a market the day before and a shabby hat that covered half his face No one recognized hione without his perfume that day And when around noon the marquis had inquiries made, the watchmen swore by all that’s holy that they had seen all kinds of people leaving the city, but not the caveman, whom they knew and would most certainly have noticed The marquis then had word spread that with his permission Grenouille had left Montpellier to look after family matters in Paris Privately he was dreadfully annoyed, for he had intended to take Grenouille on a tour through the whole kingdo adherents for his fluidal theory