Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

As Grenouille mixes the perfume, Baldini watches in horror as he goes about the process all wrong to a trained eye, mixing the solution in backward order and failing to use even a single one of the tools that Baldini had laid out for him. Finally, Baldini can take it no more, screaming out in horror and impatience at Grenouille’s uncouth behavior, but as the words leave his mouth he realizes that the room is filled with the scent of Amor and Psyche. Speechless, Baldini realizes that Grenouille recreated the perfume of his rival even as Grenouille downplays the original perfume’s quality, saying “It’s been put together very bad, this perfume has” (88).

To prove his point, Grenouille determines to improve the scent. He mixes the perfume a second time with new additives and gives it to the perfumer. Baldini is beside himself and asks Grenouille to leave before smelling it, promising to think over Grenouille’s proposition of employment. Once Grenouille leaves, Baldini opens up the perfume bottle again to smell the new perfume, and he is overwhelmed to the point of being transported in his imagination to his fondest memories of the past. Baldini realizes that he has never experienced a scent this powerful and beautiful: “It was something completely new, capable of creating a whole world, a magical, rich world” (90). He takes the perfume, infuses the Count’s wares with it, and proceeds straight to bed.

The very next morning, Baldini meets with Grimal to pay him for Grenouille’s services. Grimal is so delighted to be paid a hefty sum for the boy that he proceeds to drink himself into such a stupor that he drowns in the river. Meanwhile, Grenouille sets up his new bed in Baldini’s house as his new apprentice. Now in the service of Baldini, Grenouille launches the business to new heights, becoming nationally renowned. Eventually, Baldini convinces Grenouille to begin using proper tools and measurements so that he can copy down the recipes for himself, just in case anything were ever to happen to Grenouille. Grenouille realizes that this actually benefits him because he learns the trade to an extent that he could be independently seen as reputable. All the while, Grenouille bides his time, lulling Baldini into a false sense of security and knowing that the perfumes he is creating are really more like second-rate items. He describes them as “playthings compared with those he carried within him and that he intended to create one day” (97). Grenouille knows that he is destined for greater things.

As Grenouille bides his time, he learns everything there is to know about the perfume business and the craft of extracting scents, perfecting the production of “tinctures, extracts, and essences” (98). The process of using a distillation vessel to extract essential oils is Grenouille’s favorite, and he soon becomes an expert. Once again, he operates more on feel and intuition, allowing his nose to guide him, rather than on any particular logical process that could be written down. Grenouille also begins to experiment with various materials to see what can be used in the distillation process and what materials fail to be productive. When he realizes that there are certain things that simply cannot be distilled, he falls gravely ill.

Convinced that his apprentice is going to die, Baldini calls for the best doctor money can buy. It is discovered that Grenouille has come down with a case of smallpox, and he is expected to die imminently. The doctor is quite surprised, however, that Grenouille lacks the tell-tale sign of the disease: its odor. Baldini attempts to get Grenouille to tell him his secrets before he dies but doesn’t manage to extract a single word from him. When Grenouille’s last moment seems to come, he asks Baldini if there are other ways of extracting scents besides distillation. Surprised and confused, Baldini feels he cannot deny a dying man his last wish and proceeds to tell him that there are three other ways of doing so and that they are done most excellently in the small town of Grasse. Content with this knowledge, Grenouille falls asleep, but to the surprise of all, he does not die and is cured before a week goes by.

Grenouille recovers and proceeds to help Baldini become the most renowned perfumer in Europe and one of the richest men in all of Paris. At the end of three years, however, Baldini grants Grenouille his papers to become a journeyman on three conditions: he can never sell any perfume he created with Baldini, he must leave Paris, and he can never tell anyone about his work with Baldini. Grenouille is delighted, agrees without question, and leaves Paris the next morning.

Baldini watches Grenouille leave and finally admits to himself that he never really liked Grenouille: “not a day had passed in all those years when he had not been haunted by the notion that in some way or other, he would have to pay for having got involved with this man” (113). Assuring himself that he still has the little diary of all the perfume formulas he recorded over the last three years, he thinks to make a pilgrimage to Notre Dame in thanks for his many successes but is waylaid thanks to rumors of war between England and France. Instead, Baldini goes home and meets his death that very night due to the bridge collapsing under his house.