AND SO HE gladly let himself be instructed in the arts of making soap from lard, sewing gloves of chamois, mixing powders from wheat flour and almond bran and pulverized1 violet roots. Rolled scented2 candles made of charcoal4, saltpeter, and sandalwood chips. Pressed Oriental pastilles of myrrh, benzoin, and powdered amber5. Kneaded frankincense, shellac, vetiver, and cinnamon into balls of incense6. Sifted7 and spatulated poudre impermle out of crushed rose petals8, lavender flowers, cascarilla bark. Stirred face paints, whites and vein9 blues10, and molded greasy11 sticks of carmine12 for the lips. Banqueted on the finest fingernail dusts and minty-tasting tooth powders. Mixed liquids for curling periwigs and wart13 drops for corns, bleaches14 to remove freckles15 from the complexion16 and nightshade extract for the eyes, Spanish fly for the gentlemen and hygienic vinegars for the ladies.... Grenouille learned to produce all such eauxand powders, toilet and beauty preparations, plus teas and herbal blends, liqueurs, marinades, and such-in short, he learned, with no particular interest but without complaint and with success, everything that Baldini knew to teach him from his great store of traditional lore17.
He was an especially eager pupil, however, whenever Baldini instructed him in the production of tinctures, extracts, and essences. He was indefatigable18 when it came to crushing bitter almond seeds in the screw press or mashing19 musk20 pods or mincing21 dollops of gray, greasy ambergris with a chopping knife or grating violet roots and digesting the shavings in the finest alcohol. He learned how to use a separatory funnel22 that could draw off the purest oil of crushed lemon rinds from the milky23 dregs. He learned to dry herbs and flowers on grates placed in warm, shady spots and to preserve what was once rustling24 foliage25 in wax-sealed crocks and caskets. He learned the art of rinsing26 pomades and producing, filtering, concentrating, clarifying, and rectifying27 infusions28.
To be sure, Baldini’s laboratory was not a proper place for fabricating floral or herbal oils on a grand scale. It would have been hard to find sufficient quantities of fresh plants in Paris for that. But from time to time, when they could get cheap, fresh rosemary, sage29, mint, or anise seeds at the market, or a shipment of valerian roots, caraway seeds, nutmegs, or dried clove30 blossoms had come in, then the alchemist in Baldini would stir, and he would bring out the large alembic, a copper31 distilling32 vessel33, atop it a head for condensing liquids-a so-called moor’s head alembic, he proudly announced-which he had used forty years before for distilling lavender out on the open southern exposures of Liguria’s slopes and on the heights of the Luberon. And while Grenouille chopped up what was to be distilled34, Baldini hectically35 bustled36 about heating a brick-lined hearth37- because speed was the alpha and omega of this procedure-and placed on it a copper kettle, the bottom well covered with water. He threw in the minced38 plants, quickly closed off the double-walled moor’s head, and connected two hoses to allow water to pass in and out. This clever mechanism39 for cooling the water, he explained, was something he had added on later, since out in the field, of course, one had simply used bellowed40 air for cooling. And then he blew on the fire.
Slowly the kettle came to a boil. And after a while, the distillate started to flow out of the moor’s head’s third tap into a Florentine flask41 that Baldini had set below it-at first hesitantly, drop by drop, then in a threadlike stream. It looked rather unimpressive to begin with, like some thin, murky42 soup. Bit by bit, however-especially after the first flask had been replaced with a second and set aside to settle-the brew43 separated into two different liquids: below, the floral or herbal fluid; above, a thick floating layer of oil. If one carefully poured off the fluid-which had only the lightest aroma-through the lower spout44 of the Florentine flask, the pure oil was left behind-the essence, the heavily scented principle of the plant.
Grenouille was fascinated by the process. If ever anything in his life had kindled45 his enthusiasm- granted, not a visible enthusiasm but a hidden one, an excitement burning with a cold flame-then it was this procedure for using fire, water, steam, and a cunning apparatus46 to snatch the scented soul from matter. That scented soul, that ethereal oil, was in fact the best thing about matter, the only reason for his interest in it. The rest of the stupid stuff-the blossoms, leaves, rind, fruit, color, beauty, vitality47, and all those other useless qualities-were of no concern to him. They were mere48 husk and ballast, to be disposed of.
From time to time, when the distillate had grown watery49 and clear, they took the alembic from the fire, opened it, and shook out the cooked muck. It looked as flabby and pale as soggy straw, like the bleached50 bones of little birds, like vegetables that had been boiled too long, insipid51 and stringy, pulpy52, hardly still recognizable for what it was, disgustingly cadaverous, and almost totally robbed of its own odor. They threw it out the window into the river. Then they fed the alembic with new, fresh plants, poured in more water, and set it back on the hearth. And once again the kettle began to simmer, and again the lifeblood of the plants dripped into the Florentine flask. This often went on all night long. Baldini watched the hearth, Grenouille kept an eye on the flasks53; there was nothing else to do while waiting for the next batch54.
They sat on footstools by the fire, under the spell of the rotund flacon-both spellbound, if for very different reasons. Baldini enjoyed the blaze of the fire and the flickering55 red of the flames and the copper, he loved the crackling of the burning wood, the gurgle of the alembic, for it was like the old days. You could lose yourself in it! He fetched a bottle of wine from the shop, for the heat made him thirsty, and drinking wine was like the old days too. And then he began to tell stories, from the old days, endless stories. About the War of the Spanish Succession, when his own participation56 against the Austrians had had a decisive influence on the outcome; about the Camisards, together with whom he had haunted the Cevennes; about the daughter of a Huguenot in the Esterel, who, intoxicated57 by the scent3 of lavender, had complied with his wishes; about a forest fire that he had damn near started and which would then have probably set the entire Provence ablaze58, as sure as there was a heaven and hell, for a biting mistral had been blowing; and over and over he told about distilling out in the open fields, at night, by moonlight, accompanied by wine and the screech59 of cicadas, and about a lavender oil that he had created, one so refined and powerful that you could have weighed it out in silver; about his apprentice60 years in Genoa, about his journeyman years in the city of Grasse, where there were as many perfumers as shoemakers, some of them so rich they lived like princes, in magnificent houses with shaded gardens and terraces and wainscoted dining rooms where they feasted with porcelain61 and golden cutlery, and so on....
Such were the stories Baldini told while he drank his wine and his cheeks grew ruddy from the wine and the blazing fire and from his own enthusiastic story-telling. Grenouille, however, who sat back more in the shadows, did not listen to him at all. He did not care about old tales, he was interested in one thing only: this new process. He stared uninterruptedly at the tube at the top of the alembic out of which the distillate ran in a thin stream. And as he stared at it, he imagined that he himself was such an alembic, simmering away inside just like this one, out of which there likewise gushed62 a distillate, but a better, a newer, an unfamiliar63 distillate of those exquisite64 plants that he tended within him, that blossomed there, their bouquet65 unknown to anyone but himself, and that with their unique scent he could turn the world into a fragrant66 Garden of Eden, where life would be relatively67 bearable for him, olfactorily speaking. To be a giant alembic, flooding the whole world with a distillate of his own making, that was the daydream68 to which Grenouille gave himself up.
But while Baldini, inflamed69 by the wine, continued to tell ever more extravagant70 tales of the old days and got more and more tangled71 up in his uninhibited enthusiasms, Grenouille soon abandoned his bizarre fantasy. For the moment he banished72 from his thoughts the notion of a giant alembic, and instead he pondered how he might make use of his newly gained knowledge for more immediate73 goals.
1 pulverized | |
adj.[医]雾化的,粉末状的v.将…弄碎( pulverize的过去式和过去分词 );将…弄成粉末或尘埃;摧毁;粉碎 | |
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2 scented | |
adj.有香味的;洒香水的;有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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3 scent | |
n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉 | |
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4 charcoal | |
n.炭,木炭,生物炭 | |
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5 amber | |
n.琥珀;琥珀色;adj.琥珀制的 | |
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6 incense | |
v.激怒;n.香,焚香时的烟,香气 | |
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7 sifted | |
v.筛( sift的过去式和过去分词 );筛滤;细查;详审 | |
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8 petals | |
n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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9 vein | |
n.血管,静脉;叶脉,纹理;情绪;vt.使成脉络 | |
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10 blues | |
n.抑郁,沮丧;布鲁斯音乐 | |
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11 greasy | |
adj. 多脂的,油脂的 | |
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12 carmine | |
n.深红色,洋红色 | |
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13 wart | |
n.疣,肉赘;瑕疵 | |
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14 bleaches | |
使(颜色)变淡,变白,漂白( bleach的第三人称单数 ) | |
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15 freckles | |
n.雀斑,斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
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16 complexion | |
n.肤色;情况,局面;气质,性格 | |
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17 lore | |
n.传说;学问,经验,知识 | |
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18 indefatigable | |
adj.不知疲倦的,不屈不挠的 | |
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19 mashing | |
捣碎 | |
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20 musk | |
n.麝香, 能发出麝香的各种各样的植物,香猫 | |
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21 mincing | |
adj.矫饰的;v.切碎;切碎 | |
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22 funnel | |
n.漏斗;烟囱;v.汇集 | |
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23 milky | |
adj.牛奶的,多奶的;乳白色的 | |
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24 rustling | |
n. 瑟瑟声,沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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25 foliage | |
n.叶子,树叶,簇叶 | |
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26 rinsing | |
n.清水,残渣v.漂洗( rinse的现在分词 );冲洗;用清水漂洗掉(肥皂泡等);(用清水)冲掉 | |
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27 rectifying | |
改正,矫正( rectify的现在分词 ); 精馏; 蒸流; 整流 | |
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28 infusions | |
n.沏或泡成的浸液(如茶等)( infusion的名词复数 );注入,注入物 | |
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29 sage | |
n.圣人,哲人;adj.贤明的,明智的 | |
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30 clove | |
n.丁香味 | |
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31 copper | |
n.铜;铜币;铜器;adj.铜(制)的;(紫)铜色的 | |
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32 distilling | |
n.蒸馏(作用)v.蒸馏( distil的过去式和过去分词 )( distilled的过去分词 );从…提取精华 | |
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33 vessel | |
n.船舶;容器,器皿;管,导管,血管 | |
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34 distilled | |
adj.由蒸馏得来的v.蒸馏( distil的过去式和过去分词 );从…提取精华 | |
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35 hectically | |
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36 bustled | |
闹哄哄地忙乱,奔忙( bustle的过去式和过去分词 ); 催促 | |
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37 hearth | |
n.壁炉炉床,壁炉地面 | |
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38 minced | |
v.切碎( mince的过去式和过去分词 );剁碎;绞碎;用绞肉机绞(食物,尤指肉) | |
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39 mechanism | |
n.机械装置;机构,结构 | |
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40 bellowed | |
v.发出吼叫声,咆哮(尤指因痛苦)( bellow的过去式和过去分词 );(愤怒地)说出(某事),大叫 | |
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41 flask | |
n.瓶,火药筒,砂箱 | |
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42 murky | |
adj.黑暗的,朦胧的;adv.阴暗地,混浊地;n.阴暗;昏暗 | |
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43 brew | |
v.酿造,调制 | |
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44 spout | |
v.喷出,涌出;滔滔不绝地讲;n.喷管;水柱 | |
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45 kindled | |
(使某物)燃烧,着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 ); 激起(感情等); 发亮,放光 | |
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46 apparatus | |
n.装置,器械;器具,设备 | |
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47 vitality | |
n.活力,生命力,效力 | |
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48 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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49 watery | |
adj.有水的,水汪汪的;湿的,湿润的 | |
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50 bleached | |
漂白的,晒白的,颜色变浅的 | |
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51 insipid | |
adj.无味的,枯燥乏味的,单调的 | |
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52 pulpy | |
果肉状的,多汁的,柔软的; 烂糊; 稀烂 | |
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53 flasks | |
n.瓶,长颈瓶, 烧瓶( flask的名词复数 ) | |
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54 batch | |
n.一批(组,群);一批生产量 | |
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55 flickering | |
adj.闪烁的,摇曳的,一闪一闪的 | |
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56 participation | |
n.参与,参加,分享 | |
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57 intoxicated | |
喝醉的,极其兴奋的 | |
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58 ablaze | |
adj.着火的,燃烧的;闪耀的,灯火辉煌的 | |
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59 screech | |
n./v.尖叫;(发出)刺耳的声音 | |
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60 apprentice | |
n.学徒,徒弟 | |
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61 porcelain | |
n.瓷;adj.瓷的,瓷制的 | |
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62 gushed | |
v.喷,涌( gush的过去式和过去分词 );滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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63 unfamiliar | |
adj.陌生的,不熟悉的 | |
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64 exquisite | |
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的 | |
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65 bouquet | |
n.花束,酒香 | |
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66 fragrant | |
adj.芬香的,馥郁的,愉快的 | |
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67 relatively | |
adv.比较...地,相对地 | |
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68 daydream | |
v.做白日梦,幻想 | |
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69 inflamed | |
adj.发炎的,红肿的v.(使)变红,发怒,过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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70 extravagant | |
adj.奢侈的;过分的;(言行等)放肆的 | |
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71 tangled | |
adj. 纠缠的,紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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72 banished | |
v.放逐,驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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73 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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