Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Read online

  The perfume was disgustingly good. That miserable Pélissier was unfortunately a virtuoso. A master, to heaven’s shame, even if he had never learned one thing a thousand times over! Baldini wished he had created it himself, this Amor and Psyche. There was nothing common about it. An absolute classic—full and harmonious. And for all that, fascinatingly new. It was fresh, but not frenetic. It was floral, without being unctuous. It possessed depth, a splendid, abiding, voluptuous, rich brown depth—and yet was not in the least excessive or bombastic.

  Baldini stood up almost in reverence and held the handkerchief under his nose once again. “Wonderful, wonderful …” he murmured, sniffing greedily. “It has a cheerful character, it’s charming, it’s like a melody, puts you in a good mood at once.… What nonsense, a good mood!” And he flung the handkerchief back onto his desk in anger, turned away, and walked to the farthest corner of the room, as if ashamed of his enthusiasm.

  Ridiculous! Letting himself be swept up in such eulogies—“like a melody, cheerful, wonderful, good mood.” How idiotic. Childishly idiotic. A moment’s impression. An old weakness. A matter of temperament. Most likely his Italian blood. Judge not as long as you’re smelling! That is rule number one, Baldini, you muttonhead! Smell when you’re smelling and judge after you have smelled! Amor and Psyche is not half bad as a perfume. A thoroughly successful product. A cleverly managed bit of concocting. If not to say conjuring. And you could expect nothing but conjuring from a man like Pélissier. Of course a fellow like Pélissier would not manufacture some hackneyed perfume. The scoundrel conjured with complete mastery of his art, confusing your sense of smell with its perfect harmony. In the classical arts of scent, the man was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In short, he was a monster with talent. And what was worse, a perverter of the true faith.

  But you, Baldini, are not going to be fooled. You were surprised for a moment by your first impression of this concoction. But do you know how it will smell an hour from now when its volatile ingredients have fled and the central structure emerges? Or how it will smell this evening when all that is still perceptible are the heavy, dark components that now lie in odorous twilight beneath a veil of flowers? Wait and see, Baldini!

  The second rule is: perfume lives in time; it has its youth, its maturity, and its old age. And only if it gives off a scent equally pleasant at all three different stages of its life, can it be called successful. How often have we not discovered that a mixture that smelled delightfully fresh when first tested, after a brief interval was more like rotten fruit, and finally reeked of nothing but the pure civet we had used too much of. Utmost caution with the civet! One drop too much brings catastrophe. An old source of error. Who knows—perhaps Pélissier got carried away with the civet. Perhaps by this evening all that’s left of his ambitious Amor and Psyche will be just a whiff of cat piss. We shall see.

  We shall smell it. Just as a sharp ax can split a log into tiny splinters, our nose will fragment every detail of this perfume. And then it will be only too apparent that this ostensibly magical scent was created by the most ordinary, familiar methods. We, Baldini, perfumer, shall catch Pélissier, the vinegar man, at his tricks. We shall rip the mask from his ugly face and show the innovator just what the old craft is capable of. We’ll scrupulously imitate his mixture, his fashionable perfume. It will be born anew in our hands, so perfectly copied that the humbug himself won’t be able to tell it from his own. No! That’s not enough! We shall improve on it! We’ll show up his mistakes and rinse them away, and then rub his nose in it. You’re a bungler, Pélissier! An old stinker is what you are! An upstart in the craft of perfumery, and nothing more.

  And now to work, Baldini! Sharpen your nose and smell without sentimentality! Dissect the scent by the rules of the art! You must have the formula by this evening!

  And he made a dive for his desk, grabbing paper, ink, and a fresh handkerchief, laid it all out properly, and began his analysis. The procedure was this: to dip the handkerchief in perfume, pass it rapidly under his nose, and extract from the fleeting cloud of scent one or another of its ingredients without being significantly distracted by the complex blending of its other parts; then, holding the handkerchief at the end of his outstretched arm, to jot down the name of the ingredient he had discovered, and repeat the process at once, letting the handkerchief flit by his nose, snatching at the next fragment of scent, and so on.…

  13

  He worked without pause for two hours—with increasingly hectic movements, increasingly slipshod scribblings of his pen on the paper, and increasingly large doses of perfume sprinkled onto his handkerchief and held to his nose.

  He could hardly smell anything now, the volatile substances he was inhaling had long since drugged him; he could no longer recognize what he thought had been established beyond doubt at the start of his analysis. He knew that it was pointless to continue smelling. He would never ascertain the ingredients of this newfangled perfume, certainly not today, nor tomorrow either, when his nose would have recovered, God willing. He had never learned fractionary smelling. Dissecting scents, fragmenting a unity, whether well or not-so-well blended, into its simple components was a wretched, loathsome business. It did not interest him. He did not want to continue.

  But his hand automatically kept on making the dainty motion, practiced a thousand times over, of dunking the handkerchief, shaking it out, and whisking it rapidly past his face, and with each whisk he automatically snapped up a portion of scent-drenched air, only to let it out again with the proper exhalations and pauses. Until finally his own nose liberated him from the torture, swelling in allergic reaction till it was stopped up as tight as if plugged with wax. He could not smell a thing now, could hardly breathe. It was as if a bad cold had soldered his nose shut; little tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. Thank God in heaven! Now he could quit in good conscience. He had done his duty, to the best of his abilities, according to all the rules of the art, and was, as so often before, defeated. Ultra posse nemo obligatur. Closing time. Tomorrow morning he would send off to Pélissier’s for a large bottle of Amor and Psyche and use it to scent the Spanish hide for Count Verhamont, as per order. And after that he would take his valise, full of old-fashioned soaps, scent bags, pomades, and sachets and make his rounds among the salons of doddering countesses. And one day the last doddering countess would be dead, and with her his last customer. By then he would himself be doddering and would have to sell his business, to Pélissier or another one of these upstart merchants—perhaps he would get a few thousand livres for it. And he would pack one or two bags and go off to Italy with his old wife, if she was not dead herself by then. And if he survived the trip, he would buy a little house in the country near Messina where things were cheap. And there in bitterest poverty he, Giuseppe Baldini, once the greatest perfumer of Paris, would die—whenever God willed it. And that was well and good.

  He stoppered the flacon, laid down his pen, and wiped the drenched handkerchief across his forehead one last time. He could sense the cooling effect of the evaporating alcohol, but nothing else. Then the sun went down.

  Baldini stood up. He opened the jalousie and his body was bathed to the knees in the sunset, caught fire like a burnt-out torch glimmering low. He saw the deep red rim of the sun behind the Louvre and the softer fire across the slate roofs of the city. On the river shining like gold below him, the ships had disappeared. And a wind must have come up, for gusts were serrating the surface, and it glittered now here, now there, moving ever closer, as if a giant hand were scattering millions of louis d’or over the water. For a moment it seemed the direction of the river had changed: it was flowing toward Baldini, a shimmering flood of pure gold.

  Baldini’s eyes were moist and sad. He stood there motionless for a long time gazing at the splendid scene. Then, suddenly, he flung both window casements wide and pitched the flacon with Pélissier’s perfume away in a high arc. He saw it splash and rend the glittering carpet of water for an instant.

  Fres
h air streamed into the room. Baldini gulped for breath and noticed that the swelling in his nose was subsiding. Then he closed the window. At almost the same moment, night fell, very suddenly. The view of a glistening golden city and river turned into a rigid, ashen gray silhouette. Inside the room, all at once it was dark. Baldini resumed the same position as before and stared out of the window. “I shall not send anyone to Pélissier’s in the morning,” he said, grasping the back of his armchair with both hands. “I shall not do it. And I shall not make my tour of the salons either. Instead, I shall go to the notary tomorrow morning and sell my house and my business. That is what I shall do. E basta!”

  The expression on his face was that of a cheeky young boy, and he suddenly felt very happy. He was once again the old, the young Baldini, as bold and determined as ever to contend with fate—even if contending meant a retreat in this case. And what if it did! There was nothing else to do. These were stupid times, and they left him no choice. God gives good times and bad times, but He does not wish us to bemoan and bewail the bad times, but to prove ourselves men. And He had given His sign. That golden, blood-red mirage of the city had been a warning: act now, Baldini, before it is too late! Your house still stands firm, your storage rooms are still full, you will still be able to get a good price for your slumping business. The decisions are still in your hands. To grow old living modestly in Messina had not been his goal in life, true—but it was more honorable and pleasing to God than to perish in splendor in Paris. Let the Brouets, Calteaus, and Pélissiers have their triumph. Giuseppe Baldini was clearing out. But he did it unbent and of his own free will!

  He was quite proud of himself now. And his mind was finally at peace. For the first time in years, there was an easing in his back of the subordinate’s cramp that had tensed his neck and given an increasingly obsequious hunch to his shoulders. And he stood up straight without strain, relaxed and free and pleased with himself. His breath passed lightly through his nose. He could clearly smell the scent of Amor and Psyche that reigned in the room, but he did not let it affect him anymore. Baldini had changed his life and felt wonderful. He would go up to his wife now and inform her of his decision, and then he would make a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame and light a candle thanking God for His gracious prompting and for having endowed him, Giuseppe Baldini, with such unbelievable strength of character.

  With almost youthful élan, he plopped his wig onto his bald head, slipped into his blue coat, grabbed the candlestick from the desk, and left his study. He had just lit the tallow candle in the stairwell to light his way up to his living quarters when he heard a doorbell ring on the ground floor. It was not the Persian chimes at the shop door, but the shrill ring of the servants’ entrance, a repulsive sound that had always annoyed him. He had often made up his mind to have the thing removed and replaced with a more pleasant bell, but then the cost would always seem excessive. The thought suddenly occurred to him—and he giggled as it did—that it made no difference now, he would be selling the obtrusive doorbell along with the house. Let his successor deal with the vexation!

  The bell rang shrilly again. He cocked his ear for sounds below. Apparently Chénier had already left the shop. And the servant girl seemed not about to answer it either. So Baldini went downstairs to open the door himself.

  He pulled back the bolt, swung the heavy door open—and saw nothing. The darkness completely swallowed the light of his candle. Then, very gradually, he began to make out a figure, a child or a half-grown boy carrying something over his arm.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m from Maître Grimal, I’m delivering the goatskins,” said the figure and stepped closer and held out to him a stack of hides hanging from his cocked arm. By the light of his candle, Baldini could now see the boy’s face and his nervous, searching eyes. He carried himself hunched over. He looked as if he were hiding behind his own outstretched arm, waiting to be struck a blow. It was Grenouille.

  14

  The goatskins for the Spanish leather! Baldini remembered now. He had ordered the hides from Grimal a few days before, the finest, softest goatskin to be used as a blotter for Count Verhamont’s desk, fifteen francs apiece. But he really did not need them anymore and could spare the expense. On the other hand, if he were simply to send the boy back …? Who knew—it could make a bad impression, people might begin to talk, rumors might start: Baldini is getting undependable, Baldini isn’t getting any orders, Baldini can’t pay his bills … and that would not be good; no, no, because something like that was likely to lower the selling price of his business. It would be better to accept these useless goatskins. No one needed to know ahead of time that Giuseppe Baldini had changed his life.

  “Come in!”

  He let the boy inside, and they walked across to the shop, Baldini leading with the candle, Grenouille behind him with the hides. It was the first time Grenouille had ever been in a perfumery, a place in which odors are not accessories but stand unabashedly at the center of interest. Naturally he knew every single perfumery and apothecary in the city, had stood for nights on end at their shop windows, his nose pressed to the cracks of their doors. He knew every single odor handled here and had often merged them in his innermost thoughts to create the most splendid perfumes. So there was nothing new awaiting him. And yet, just as a musically gifted child burns to see an orchestra up close or to climb into the church choir where the organ keyboard lies hidden, Grenouille burned to see a perfumery from the inside; and when he had heard that leather was to be delivered to Baldini, he had done all he could to make sure that he would be the one to deliver it.

  And here he stood in Baldini’s shop, on the one spot in Paris with the greatest number of professional scents assembled in one small space. He could not see much in the fleeting light of the candle, only brief glimpses of the shadows thrown by the counter with its scales, the two herons above the vessel, an armchair for the customers, the dark cupboards along the walls, the brief flash of bronze utensils and white labels on bottles and crucibles; nor could he smell anything beyond what he could already smell from the street. But he at once felt the seriousness that reigned in these rooms, you might almost call it a holy seriousness, if the word “holy” had held any meaning whatever for Grenouille; for he could feel the cold seriousness, the craftsmanlike sobriety, the staid business sense that adhered to every piece of furniture, every utensil, to tubs, bottles, and pots. And as he walked behind Baldini, in Baldini’s shadow—for Baldini did not take the trouble to light his way—he was overcome by the idea that he belonged here and nowhere else, that he would stay here, that from here he would shake the world from its foundations.

  The idea was, of course, one of perfectly grotesque immodesty. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that could justify a stray tanner’s helper of dubious origin, without connections or protection, without the least social standing, to hope that he would get so much as a toehold in the most renowned perfume shop in Paris—all the less so, since we know that the decision had been made to dissolve the business. But what had formed in Grenouille’s immodest thoughts was not, after all, a matter of hope, but of certainty. He knew that the only reason he would leave this shop would be to fetch his clothes from Grimal’s, and then never again. The tick had scented blood. It had been dormant for years, encapsulated, and had waited. Now it let itself drop, for better or for worse, entirely without hope. And that was why he was so certain.

  They had crossed through the shop. Baldini opened the back room that faced the river and served partly as a storeroom, partly as a workshop and laboratory where soaps were cooked, pomades stirred, and toilet waters blended in big-bellied bottles. “There!” he said, pointing to a large table in front of the window, “lay them there!”

  Grenouille stepped out from Baldini’s shadow, laid the leather on the table, but quickly jumped back again, placing himself between Baldini and the door. Baldini stood there for a while. He held the candle to one side to prevent the wax from dripping on the table and stroked
the smooth surface of the skins with the back of his fingers. Then he pulled back the top one and ran his hand across the velvety reverse side, rough and yet soft at the same time. They were very good goatskins. Just made for Spanish leather. As they dried they would hardly shrink, and when correctly pared they would become supple again; he could feel that at once just by pressing one between his thumb and index finger. They could be impregnated with scent for five to ten years. They were very, very good hides—perhaps he could make gloves from them, three pairs for himself and three for his wife, for the trip to Messina.

  He pulled back his hand. He was touched by the way this worktable looked: everything lay ready, the glass basin for the perfume bath, the glass plate for drying, the mortars for mixing the tincture, pestle and spatula, brush and parer and shears. It was as if these things were only sleeping because it was dark and would come to life in the morning. Should he perhaps take the table with him to Messina? And a few of the tools, only the most important ones …? You could sit and work very nicely at this table. The boards were oak, and legs as well, and it was cross-braced, so that nothing about it could wiggle or wobble, acids couldn’t mar it, or oils or slips of a knife—but it would cost a fortune to take it with him to Messina! Even by ship! And therefore it would be sold, the table would be sold tomorrow, and everything that lay on it, under it, and beside it would be sold as well! Because he, Baldini, might have a sentimental heart, but he also had strength of character, and so he would follow through on his decision, as difficult as that was to do; he would give it all up with tears in his eyes, but he would do it nonetheless, because he knew he was right—he had been given a sign.

  He turned to go. There at the door stood this little deformed person he had almost forgotten about. “They’re fine,” Baldini said. “Tell your master that the skins are fine. I’ll come by in the next few days and pay for them.”