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Grenouille had meanwhile freed himself from the doorframe. Even while Baldini was making his pompous speech, the stiffness and cu
While Baldini was still fussing with his candlesticks at the table, Grenouille had already slipped off into the darkness of the laboratory with its cupboards full of precious essences, oils, and tinctures, and following his sure-scenting nose, grabbed each of the necessary bottles from the shelves. There were nine altogether: essence of orange blossom, lime oil, attars of rose and clove, extracts of jasmine, bergamot, and rosemary, musk tincture, and storax balm, all quickly plucked down and set at the ready on the edge of the table. The last item he lugged over was a demijohn full of high-proof rectified spirit. Then he placed himself behind Baldini-who was still arranging his mixing utensils with deliberate pedantry, moving this glass back a bit, that one over more to one side, so that everything would be in its old accustomed order and displayed to its best advantage in the candlelight— and waited, quivering with impatience, for the old man to get out of the way and make room for him.
“There!” Baldini said at last, stepping aside. “I’ve lined up everything you’ll require for-let us graciously call it-your ‘experiment.’ Don’t break anything, don’t spill anything. Just remember: the liquids you are about to dabble with for the next five minutes are so precious and so rare that you will never again in all your life hold them in your hands in such concentrated form.”
“How much of it shall I make for you, maitre?” Grenouille asked.
“Make what…?” said Baldini, who had not yet finished his speech.
“How much of the perfume?” rasped Grenouille. “How much of it do you want? Shall I fill this big bottle here to the rim?” And he pointed to a mixing bottle that held a gallon at the very least.
“No, you shall not!” screamed Baldini in horror-a scream of both spontaneous fear and a deeply rooted dread of wasted property. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed, he followed it up by roaring, “And don’t interrupt me when I am speaking, either!” Then in a calm voice tinged with irony, he continued, “Why would we need a gallon of a perfume that neither of us thinks much of? Haifa beakerful will do, really. But since such small quantities are difficult to measure, I’ll allow you to start with a third of a mixing bottle.”
“Good,” said Grenouille. “I’m going to fill a third of this bottle with Amor and Psyche. But, Maitre Baidini, I will do it in my own way. I don’t know if it will be how a craftsman would do it. I don’t know how that’s done. But I will do it my own way.”
“As you please,” said Baidini, who knew that in this business there was no “your way” or “my way,” but one and only one way, which consisted of knowing the formula and, using the appropriate calculations for the quantity one desired, creating a precisely measured concentrate of the various essences, which then had to be volatilized into a true perfume by mixing it in a precise ratio with alcohol-usually varying between one-to-ten and one-to-twenty. There was no other way, that he knew. And therefore what he was now called upon to witness-first with derisive hauteur, then with dismay, and finally with helpless astonishment-seemed to him nothing less than a miracle. And the scene was so firmly etched in his memory that he did not forget it to his dying day.
Fifteen
THE LITTLE MAN named Grenouille first uncorked the demijohn of alcohol. Heaving the heavy vessel up gave him difficulty. He had to lift it almost even with his head to be on a level with the fu
Grenouille grabbed apparently at random from the row of essences in their flacons, pulled out the glass stoppers, held the contents under his nose for an instant, splashed a bit of one bottle, dribbled a drop or two of another, poured a dash of a third into the fu