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Grenouille garnered his first individual odor in the Hôpital de la Charité He ed to pilfer sheets that were supposed to be burned because the journeyman sackmaker who had lain wrapped in them for two months had just died of consumption The cloth was so drenched in the exudations of the sacke paste and could be directly subjected to lavage The result was eerie: right under Grenouille’s nose, the sack frohtly distorted by the peculiar methods of reproduction and the countless nizable in space as an olfactory personage A small man of about thirty, blond, with a bulbous nose, short lienitalia, choleric temperament, and a stale , this sackth of tiht Grenouille let the scent-specter flutter about his cabin while he sniffed at hiain, happy and deeply satisfied with the sense of power that he had won over the aura of another hu He poured it out the next day

He tried onethese winter days He discovered a deaf-h the town and paid her one franc to wear several different sets of rags sainst her naked skin It turned out that lamb suet, pork lard, and beef tallow, rendered many times over, combined in a ratio of two to five to three—with the addition of a s human odor

Grenouille let it go at that He refrained fro hi would have e He knew he noas master of the techniques needed to rob a human of his or her scent, and he kneas unnecessary to prove this fact anew

Indeed, human odor was of no importance to hih with surrogates What he coveted was the odor of certain hus: that is, those rare humans who inspire love These were his victims

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In January theArnulfi married her first journeyantier et parfuuild ht a new mattress for her bed, which she now shared officially with Druot, and took her gay finery fro remained as it was She retained the fine old name of Arnulfi and retained her fortune for herself, as well as the ement of the finances and the keys to the cellar; Druot fulfilled his sexual duties daily and refreshed hih he was now the one and only journeyman, Grenouille took care of most of the work at hand in return for the saal board, and cramped quarters

The year began with a yellow flood of cassias, then hyacinths, violet petals, and narcotic narcissus One Sunday in March—it was about a year now since his arrival in Grasse—Grenouille set out to see how things stood in the garden behind the wall at the other end of town He was ready for the scent this time, knew more or less exactly what awaited hiht a whiff of it, at the Porte Neuve, no more than halfway to the spot beside the wall, his heart beat le with pleasure: she was still there, the incomparably beautiful flower, she had survived the winter unble, driving forth the er, just as he had expected, without losing any of its delicacy What a year before had been sprinkled and dappled about was now blended into a faint, smooth stream of scent that shimmered with a thousand colors and yet bound each color to it and did not break And this strea that grew ever fuller Another year, just one ush over, and he could come to cap it and imprison the wild flow of its scent

He walked along the wall to the spot behind which he knew the garden was located Although the girl was apparently not in the garden but in the house, in her room behind closed s, her scent floated down to hientle breeze Grenouille stood quite still He was not intoxicated or dizzy as he had been the first time he had smelled it He was filled with the happiness of a lover who has heard or seen his darling fro her home within the year It was really true—Grenouille, the solitary tick, the abomination, Grenouille the Monster, who had never felt love and would never be able to inspire it, stood there beside the city wall of Grasse on that day in March and loved and was profoundly happy in his love

True, he did not love another huirl who lived in the house beyond the wall He loved her scent—that alone, nothing else, and only inas it home within the year, he swore it by his very life And after this strange oath, or betrothal, this proiven to hiht of heart and returned to town through the Porte du Cours

That night, as he lay in his cabin, he conjured up the memory of the scent—he could not resist the temptation—and immersed himself in it, caressed it, and let it caress him, so near to it, as fabulously close as if he possessed it already in reality, his scent, his own scent; and he ly, deliciously long ti to accompany him in his sleep But at the very instant when he closed his eyes, in the le breath it takes to fall asleep, it deserted hione, and in its place the roooat stall

Grenouille was terrified What happens, he thought, if the scent, once I possess it … what happens if it runs out? It’s not the same as it is in your ets used up in this world It’s transient And by the tier exist And I will be as naked as before and will have to get along with surrogates, just like before No, it will be even worse than before! For in the meantime I will have known it and possessed it, et it, because I never forget a scent And for the rest ofright now from the premonition of what I will possess… What do I need it for at all?

This was a htened him beyond measure to think that once he did possess the scent that he did not yet possess, hecould he keep it? A few days? A feeeks? Perhaps a whole ly with it? And then? He saw hi the flacon with alcohol so that the last little bit would not be lost, and then he saw, smelled, how his beloved scent would vanish in the air, irrevocably, forever It would be like a long slow death, a kind of suffocation in reverse, an agonizing gradual self-evaporation into the wretched world

He felt chilled He was overcome with a desire to abandon his plans, to walk out into the night and disappear He would wander across the snow-coveredto rest, hundreds of ne, and there creep into his old cave and fall asleep and die But he did not do it He sat there and did not yield to his desire, although it was strong He did not yield, because that desire was an old one of his, to run away and hide in a cave He knew about that already What he did not yet knohat it was like to possess a huirl behind the wall And even knowing that to possess that scent he ain, the very possession and the loss seemed to him more desirable than a prosaic renunciation of both For he had renounced things all his life But never once had he possessed and lost

Gradually the doubts receded and

with them the chill He sensed how the warmth of his blood revitalized hiain took possession of him Even er originated from simple lust, but equally from a well-considered decision Grenouille the tick, presented the choice between drying up inside hi hi full well that this drop would be his last He lay back on his makeshift bed, cozy in his straw, cozy under his blanket, and thought himself very heroic