Small and ashen, the great Baldini sat on his stool, looking ridiculous with handkerchief in hand, pressing it to his nose like an old maid with the sniffles. By now he was totally speechless. He didnt even say incredible anymore, but nodding gently and staring at the contents of the mixing bottle, could only let out a monotone Hmm, hrnm, hmm hmm, hmm, hmm hmm, hmm, hmm. After a while, Gre-nouille approached, stepping up to the table soundlessly as a shadow.
Its not a good perfume, he said. Its been put together very bad, this perfume has.
Hmm, hmm, hmm, said Baldini, and Grenouille continued, If youll let me, maitre, Ill make it better. Give me a minute and Ill make a proper perfume out of it!
Hmm, hmm, hmm, said Baldini and nodded. Not in consent, but because he was in such a helplessly apathetic condition that he would have said hmm, hmm, hmm, and nodded to anything. And he went on nodding and murmuring hmm, hmm, hmm, and made no effort to interfere as Grenouille began to mix away a second time, pouring the alcohol from the demijohn into the mixing bottle a second time (right on top of the perfume already in it), tipping the contents of flacons a second time in apparently random order and quantity into the funnel. Only at the end of the procedure-Grenouille did not shake the bottle this time, but swirled it about gently like a brandy glass, perhaps in deference to Baldinis delicacy, perhaps because the contents seemed more precious to him this time-only then, as the liquid whirled about in the bottle, did Baldini awaken from his numbed state and stand up, the handkerchief still pressed to his nose, of course, as if he were arming himself against yet another attack upon his most private self.
Its all done, maitre, Grenouille said. Now its a really good scent.
Yes, yes, fine, fine, Baldini replied and waved him off with his free hand.
Dont you want to test it? Grenouille gurgled on. Dont you want to, maitre? Arent you going to test it?
Later. Im not in the mood to test it at the moment have other things on my mind. Go now! Come on!
And he picked up one of the candlesticks and passed through the door into the shop. Grenouille followed him. They entered the narrow hallway that led to the servants entrance. The old man shuffled up to the doorway, pulled back the bolt, and opened the door. He stepped aside to let the lad out.
Cant I come to work for you, maitre, cant I? Grenouille asked, standing on the threshold, hunched over again, the lurking look returning to his eye.
I dont know, said Baldini. I shall think about it. Go.
And then Grenouille had vanished, gone in a split second, swallowed up by the darkness. Baldini stood there and stared into the night. In his right hand he held the candlestick, in his left the handkerchief, like someone with a nosebleed, but in fact he was simply frightened. He quickly bolted the door. Then he took the protective handkerchief from his face, shoved it into his pocket, and walked back through the shop to his laboratory.
The scent was so heavenly fine that tears welled into Baldinis eyes. He did not have to test it, he simply stood at the table in front of the mixing bottle and breathed. The perfume was glorious. It was to Amor and Psyche as a symphony is to the scratching of a lonely violin. And it was more. Baldini closed his eyes and watched as the most sublime memories were awakened within him. He saw himself as a young man walking through the evening gardens of Naples; he saw himself lying in the arms of a woman with dark curly hair and saw the silhouette of a bouquet of roses on the windowsill as the night wind passed by; he heard the random song of birds and the distant music from a harbor tavern; he heard whisperings at his ear, he heard I-love-you and felt his hair ruffle with bliss, now! now at this very moment! He forced open his eyes and groaned with pleasure. This perfume was not like any perfume known before. It was not a scent that made things smell better, not some sachet, some toiletry. It was something completely new, capable of creating a whole world, a magical, rich world, and in an instant you forgot all the loathsomeness around you and felt so rich, so at ease, so free, so fine
The hairs that had ruffled up on Baldinis arm fell back again, and a befuddling peace took possession of his soul. He picked up the leather, the goat leather lying at the tables edge, and a knife, and trimmed away. Then he laid the pieces in the glass basin and poured the new perfume over them. He fixed a pane of glass over the basin, divided the rest of the perfume between two small bottles, applied labels to them, and wrote the words Nuit Napolitaine on them. Then he extinguished the candles and left.
Once upstairs, he said nothing to his wife while they ate. Above all, he said nothing about the solemn decision he had arrived at that afternoon. And his wife said nothing either, for she noticed that he was in good spirits, and that was enough for her. Nor did he walk over to Notre-Dame to thank God for his strength of character. Indeed, that night he forgot, for the first time ever, to say his evening prayers.
Sixteen
THE NEXT MORNING he went straight to Grimal. First he paid for his goat leather, paid in full, without a grumble or the least bit of haggling. And then he invited Grimal to the Tour dArgent for a bottle of white wine and negotiations concerning the purchase of Grenouille, his apprentice. It goes without saying that he did not reveal to him the whys and wherefores of this purchase. He told some story about how he had a large order for scented leather and to fill it he needed unskilled help. He required a lad of few needs, who would do simple tasks, cutting leather and so forth. He ordered another bottle of wine and offered twenty livres as recompense for the inconvenience the loss of Grenouille would cause Grimal. Twenty livres was an enormous sum. Grimal immediately took him up on it. They walked to the tannery, where, strangely enough, Grenouille was waiting with his bundle already packed. Baldini paid the twenty livres and took him along at once, well aware that he had just made the best deal of his life.
Grimal, who for his part was convinced that he had just made the best deal of his life, returned to the Tour dArgent, there drank two more bottles of wine, moved over to the Lion dOr on the other bank around noon, and got so rip-roaring drunk there that when he decided to go back to the Tour dArgent late that night, he got the rue Geoffroi LAnier confused with the rue des Nonaindieres, and instead of coming out directly onto the Pont-Marie as he had intended, he was brought by ill fortune to the Quai des Ormes, where he splashed lengthwise and face first into the water like a soft mattress. He was dead in an instant. The river, however, needed considerable time to drag him out from the shallows, past the barges moored there, into the stronger main current, and not until the early morning hours did Grimal the tanner-or, better, his soaked carcass-float briskly downriver toward the west.
As he passed the Pont-au-Change, soundlessly, without bumping against the bridge piers, sixty feet directly overhead Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was going to bed. A bunk had been set up for him in a back corner of Baldinis laboratory, and he was now about to take possession of it-while his former employer floated down the cold Seine, all four limbs extended. Grenouille rolled himself up into a little ball like a tick. As he fell off to sleep, he sank deeper and deeper into himself, leading the triumphant entry into his innermost fortress, where he dreamed of an odoriferous victory banquet, a gigantic orgy with clouds of incense and fogs of myrrh, held in his own honor.