IN JANUARY THE widow Arnulfi married her first journeyman, Dominique Druot, who was thus promoted to mattre gantier et parfumeur. There was a great banquet for the guild1 masters and a more modest one for the journeymen; Madame bought a new mattress2 for her bed, which she now shared officially with Druot, and took her gay finery from the armoire. Otherwise, everything remained as it was. She retained the fine old name of Arnulfi and retained her fortune for herself, as well as the management of the finances and the keys to the cellar; Druot fulfilled his sexual duties daily and refreshed himself afterwards with wine; and although he was now the one and only journeyman, Grenouille took care of most of the work at hand in return for the same small salary, frugal3 board, and cramped4 quarters.
The year began with a yellow flood of cassias, then hyacinths, violet petals5, and narcotic6 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 scent7 this time, knew more or less exactly what awaited him ... and nevertheless, as he caught a whiff of it, at the Porte Neuve, no more than halfway8 to the spot beside the wall, his heart beat more loudly and he felt the blood in his veins9 tingle10 with pleasure: she was still there, the incomparably beautiful flower, she had survived the winter unblemished, her sap was running, she was growing, expanding, driving forth11 the most exquisite12 ranks of buds! Her scent had grown stronger, just as he had expected, without losing any of its delicacy13. What a year before had been sprinkled and dappled about was now blended into a faint, smooth stream of scent that shimmered14 with a thousand colors and yet bound each color to it and did not break. And this stream, Grenouille recognized blissfully, was fed by a spring that grew ever fuller. Another year, just one more year, just twelve more months, and that spring would gush15 over, and he could come to cap it and imprison16 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 apparently17 not in the garden but in the house, in her room behind closed windows, her scent floated down to him like a steady, gentle breeze. Grenouille stood quite still. He was not intoxicated18 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 from afar and knows that he will bring her home within the year. It was really true-Grenouille, the solitary19 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 human being, certainly not the girl who lived in the house beyond the wall. He loved her scent-that alone, nothing else, and only inasmuch as it would one day be his alone. He would bring it home within the year, he swore it by his very life. And after this strange oath, or betrothal20, this promise of loyalty21 given to himself and to his future scent, he left the place light of heart and returned to town through the Porte du Cours.
That night, as he lay in his cabin, he conjured22 up the memory of the scent-he could not resist the temptation-and immersed himself in it, caressed23 it, and let it caress24 him, so near to it, as fabulously25 close as if he possessed26 it already in reality, his scent, his own scent; and he made love to it and to himself through it for an intoxicatingly, deliciously long time. He wanted this self-loved feeling to accompany him in his sleep. But at the very instant when he closed his eyes, in the moment of the single breath it takes to fall asleep, it deserted27 him, was suddenly gone, and in its place the room was filled with the cold, acrid28 smell of goat 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 memory, where all scents29 are indestructible. The real thing gets used up in this world. It’s transient. And by the time it has been used up, the source I took it from will no longer 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, my own splendid scent, and I will not be able to forget it, because I never forget a scent. And for the rest of my life I will feed on it in my memory, just as I was feeding right now from the premonition of what I will possess.... What do I need it for at all?
This was a most unpleasant thought for Grenouille. It frightened him beyond measure to think that once he did possess the scent that he did not yet possess, he must inevitably30 lose it. How long could he keep it? A few days? A few weeks? Perhaps a whole month, if he perfumed himself very sparingly with it? And then? He saw himself shaking the last drops from the bottle, rinsing31 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 suffocation32 in reverse, an agonizing33 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-covered mountains, not pausing to rest, hundreds of miles into the Auvergne, 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 know was what it was like to possess a human scent as splendid as the scent of the girl behind the wall. And even knowing that to possess that scent he must pay the terrible price of losing it again, the very possession and the loss seemed to him more desirable than a prosaic34 renunciation of both. For he had renounced35 things all his life. But never once had he possessed and lost.
Gradually the doubts receded36 and with them the chill. He sensed how the warmth of his blood revitalized him and how the will to do what he had intended to do again took possession of him. Even more powerfully than before in fact, for that will no longer originated from simple lust37, but equally from a well-considered decision. Grenouille the tick, presented the choice between drying up inside himself or letting himself drop, had decided38 for the latter, knowing full well that this drop would be his last. He lay back on his makeshift bed, cozy39 in his straw, cozy under his blanket, and thought himself very heroic.
Grenouille would not have been Grenouille, however, if he had long been content with a fatalist’s heroic feelings. His will to survive and conquer was too tough, his nature too cunning, his spirit too crafty40 for that. Fine-he had decided to possess the scent of the girl behind the wall. And if he lost it again after a few weeks and died of the loss, that was fine too. But better yet would be not to die and still possess the scent, or at least to delay its loss as long as humanly possible. One simply had to preserve it better. One must subdue41 its evanescence without robbing it of its character-a problem of the perfumer’s art.
There are scents that linger for decades. A cupboard rubbed with musk42, a piece of leather drenched43 with cinnamon oil, a glob of ambergris, a cedar44 chest- they all possess virtually eternal olfactory45 life. While other things-lime oil, bergamot, jonquil and tuberose extracts, and many floral scents-evaporate within a few hours if they are exposed to the air in a pure, unbound form. The perfumer counteracts46 this fatal circumstance by binding47 scents that are too volatile48, by putting them in chains, so to speak, taming their urge for freedom-though his art consists of leaving enough slack in the chains for the odor seemingly to preserve its freedom, even when it is tied so deftly49 that it cannot flee. Grenouille had once succeeded in performing this feat50 perfectly51 with some tuberose oil, whose ephemeral scent he had chained with tiny quantities of civet, vanilla52, labdanum, and cypress-only then did it truly come into its own. Why should not something similar be possible with the scent of this girl? Why should he have to use, to waste, this most precious and fragile of all scents in pure form? How crude! How extraordinarily53 unsophisticated! Did one leave diamonds uncut? Did one wear gold in nuggets around one’s neck? Was he, Grenouille, a primitive54 pillager55 of scents like Druot or these other maceraters, distillers, and blossom crushers? Or was he not, rather, the greatest perfumer in the world?
He banged his fist against his brow-to think he had not realized this before. But of course this unique scent could not be used in a raw state. He must set it like the most precious gemstone. He must design a diadem56 of scent, and at its sublime57 acme58, intertwined with the other scents and yet ruling over them, his scent would gleam. He would make a perfume using all the precepts59 of the art, and the scent of the girl behind the wall would be the very soul of it.
As the adjuvants, as bass60, tenor61, and soprano, as zenith and as fixative, musk and civet, attar of roses or neroli were inappropriate-that was certain. For such a perfume, for a human perfume, he had need of other ingredients.
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1
guild
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| n.行会，同业公会，协会 | |
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mattress
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| n.床垫，床褥 | |
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frugal
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| adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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narcotic
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| n.麻醉药，镇静剂；adj.麻醉的，催眠的 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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tingle
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| vi.感到刺痛，感到激动；n.刺痛，激动 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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shimmered
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gush
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| v.喷，涌；滔滔不绝(说话)；n.喷，涌流；迸发 | |
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imprison
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| vt.监禁，关押，限制，束缚 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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betrothal
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| n. 婚约, 订婚 | |
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loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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conjured
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| 用魔术变出( conjure的过去式和过去分词 )； 祈求，恳求； 变戏法； （变魔术般地） 使…出现 | |
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caressed
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| 爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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fabulously
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| 难以置信地，惊人地 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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acrid
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| adj.辛辣的，尖刻的，刻薄的 | |
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scents
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| n.香水( scent的名词复数 )；气味；（动物的）臭迹；（尤指狗的）嗅觉 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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31
rinsing
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| 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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32
suffocation
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| n.窒息 | |
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agonizing
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| adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
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prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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renounced
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| v.声明放弃( renounce的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布放弃；宣布与…决裂；宣布摒弃 | |
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receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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cozy
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| adj.亲如手足的，密切的，暖和舒服的 | |
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crafty
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| adj.狡猾的，诡诈的 | |
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subdue
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| vt.制服，使顺从，征服；抑制，克制 | |
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musk
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| n.麝香, 能发出麝香的各种各样的植物，香猫 | |
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43
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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44
cedar
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| n.雪松，香柏(木) | |
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olfactory
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| adj.嗅觉的 | |
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counteracts
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| 对抗，抵消( counteract的第三人称单数 ) | |
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47
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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48
volatile
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| adj.反复无常的，挥发性的，稍纵即逝的，脾气火爆的；n.挥发性物质 | |
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deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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50
feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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51
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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52
vanilla
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| n.香子兰，香草 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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pillager
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| n.掠夺者 | |
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diadem
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| n.王冠，冕 | |
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57
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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acme
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| n.顶点，极点 | |
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precepts
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| n.规诫，戒律，箴言( precept的名词复数 ) | |
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60
bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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