Perfume : The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

Author:Patrick Süskind [Süskind, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Novels
Publisher: http://c3jemx2ube5v5zpg.onion
Published: 1986-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-seven

RETURNING home was pleasant! The double role of avenger and creator of worlds was not a little taxing, and then to be celebrated afterwards for hours on end by one's own offspring was not the perfect way to relax either. Weary of the duties of divine creator and official host, Grenouille the Great longed for some small domestic bliss.

His heart was a purple castle. It lay in a rock-strewn desert, concealed by dunes, surrounded by a marshy oasis, and set behind stone walls. It could be reached only from the air. It had a thousand private rooms and a thousand underground chambers and a thousand elegant salons, among them one with a purple sofa when Grenouille–no longer Grenouille the Great, but only the quite private Grenouille, or simply dear little Jean-Baptiste–would recover from the labours of the day.

The castle's private rooms, however, were shelved from floor to ceiling, and on those shelves were all the odours that Grenouille had collected in the course of his life, several million of them. And in the castle's cellars the best scents of his life were stored in casks.

When properly aged, they were drawn off into bottles that lay in miles of damp, cool corridors and were arranged by vintage and estate. There were so many that they could not all be drunk in a single lifetime.

Once dear little Jean-Baptiste had finally returned chez soi, lying on his simple, cosy sofa in his purple salon–his boots finally pulled off, so to speak–he clapped his hands and called his servants, who were invisible, intangible, inaudible, and above all inodorous, and thus totally imaginary servants, and ordered them to go to the private rooms and get this or that volume from the great library of odours and to the cellars to fetch something for him to drink. The imaginary servants hurried off, and Grenouille's stomach cramped in tormented expectation. He suddenly felt like a drunkard who is afraid that the shot of brandy he has ordered at the bar will, for some reason or other, be denied him. What if the cellar or the library were suddenly empty, if the wine in the casks had gone sour? Why were they keeping him waiting? Why did they not come? He needed the stuff now, he needed it desperately, he was addicted, he would die on the spot if he did not get it.

Calm yourself, Jean-Baptiste! Calm yourself, my friend! They're coming, they're coming, they're bringing what you crave. The servants are winging their way here with it. They are carrying the book of odours on an invisible tray, and in their white–gloved, invisible hands they are carrying those precious bottles, they set them down, ever so carefully, they bow, and they disappear.

And then, left alone, at last–once again!–left alone, Jean-Baptiste reaches for the odours he craves, opens the first bottle, pours a glass full to the rim, puts it to his lips, and drinks. Drinks the glass of cool scent down in one draught, and it is luscious.

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