Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer Read Free

once turned into a theological cross-examination, in which she could only be the loser.
    ‘That’s not what I meant to say,’ she answered evasively. ‘You priests will have to decide whether all this has anything to do with the devil or not, Father Terrier. That’s not for such as me to say. I only know one thing: this baby makes my flesh creep because it doesn’t smell the way children ought to smell.’
    ‘Aha,’ said Terrier with satisfaction, letting his arm swing away again. ‘You retract all that about the devil, do you? Good. But now be so kind as to tell me: what does a baby smell like when he smells the way you think he ought to smell? Well?’
    ‘He smells good,’ said the wet nurse.
    ‘What do you mean, “good”?’ Terrier bellowed at her. ‘Lots of things smell good. A bouquet of lavender smells good. Stewed meat smells good. The gardens of Arabia smell good. But what does a baby smell like, is what I want to know?’
    The wet nurse hesitated. She knew very well how babies smell, she knew precisely—after all she had fed, tended, cradled and kissed dozens of them… She could find them at night with her nose. Why, right at that moment she bore that baby smell clearly in her nose. But never until now had she described it in words.
    ‘Well?’ barked Terrier, clicking his fingernails impatiently.
    ‘Well it’s—’ the wet nurse began, ‘it’s not all that easy to say, because… because they don’t smell the same all over, although they smell good all over, Father, you know what I mean? Their feet for instance, they smell like a smooth warm stone—or no, more like curds… or like butter, like fresh butter, that’s it exactly. They smell like fresh butter. And their bodies smell like… like a pancake that’s been soaked in milk. And their heads, up on top, at the back of the head, where the hair makes a cowlick, there, see where I mean, Father, there where you’ve got nothing left…’ And she tapped the bald spot on the head of the monk who, struck speechless for a moment by this flood of detailed inanity, had obediently bent his head down. ‘There, right there, is where they smell best of all. It smells like caramel, it smells so sweet, so wonderful, Father, you have no idea! Once you’ve smelled them there, you love them whether they’re your own or somebody else’s. And that’s how little children have to smell—and no other way. And if they don’t smell like that, it they don’t have any smell at all up there, even less than cold air does, like that little bastard there, then… you can explain it however you like, Father, but I’—and she crossed her arms resolutely beneath her bosom and cast a look of disgust towards the basket at her feet as if it contained toads—‘I, Jeanne Bussie, will not take that thing back!’
    Father Terrier slowly raised his lowered head and ran his fingers across his bald head a few times as if hoping to put the hair in order, then passed his fingers beneath his nose as if by accident, and sniffed thoughtfully.
    ‘Like caramel…?’ he asked, attempting to find his stern tone again. ‘Caramel! What do you know about caramel? Have you ever eaten any?’
    ‘Not exactly,’ said the wet nurse. ‘But once I was in a grand mansion in the rue Saint-Honoré and watched how they made it out of melted sugar and cream. It smelled so good that I’ve never forgotten it.’
    ‘Yes, yes. All right,’ said Terrier and took his finger from his nose. ‘But please hold your tongue now! I find it quite exhausting to continue a conversation with you on such a level. I have determined that, for whatever reason, you refuse to nourish any longer the babe put under your care, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, and are returning him herewith to his temporary guardian, the cloister of Saint-Merri. I find that distressing, but I apparently cannot alter the fact. You are discharged.’
    With that he grabbed the basket, took one last whiff of that fleeting woolly,