Perfume - the story of a murderer

“The Name of the Rose, the last literary sensation from Europe, crept up on America by stealth. PERFUME... arrives with fanfare... PERFUME GIVES OFF A RARE, SINFULLY ADDICTIVE CHILL OF PURE EVIL. SUSKIND HAS SEDUCTIVE POWER AS A STORYTELLER.” -Connoisseur “PERFUME IS ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING DISCOVERIES IN YEARS ... A SUPREMELY ACCOMPLISHED WORK OF ART, MARVELOUSLY GRAFTED AND ENJOYABLE, AND RICHIN HISTORICAL DETAIL, WITH AN ABUNDANCE OF LIFE ... AN ASTONISHING PERFORMANCE, A MASTERWORK OF ARTISTIC CONCEPTION AND EXECUTION... CONSTANTLY FASCINATING... WITH HIS VERY FIRST NOVEL, PATRICK SUSKIND HAS ASSURED HIMSELF A PLACE BESIDE THE MOST IMPORTANT... WRITERS OF OUR TIME.” -San Francisco Chronicle “MESMERIZING FROM FIRST PAGE TO LAST ... a highly sophisticated horror tale... The lastsection of PERFUME takes on the frantic dimensions of a superior mystery story... SUPERB STORY-TELLING ALL THE WAY... THE CLIMAX IS A SAVAGE SHOCKER.” -Cleveland Plain Dealer “A BESTSELLER THAT ALSO EXISTS AS A STRANGE AND INGENIOUS WORK OF LITERATURE... PERFUME has many dimensions. It is a meditation upon irrationality and the Age of Reason; upon obsession and illusion; upon solipsism and art. Thesensuous, supple prose moves with a pantherish grace...” -Boston Globe “AN EXCELLENT AND MOST EXTRAORDINARY FIRST NOVEL...” -Chicago Tribune “AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER ... A FASCINATING AND HORRIFYING TALE... BRILLIANT.” -Library Journal “AN INGENIOUS STORY... ABOUT A MOST EXOTIC MONSTER... SUSPENSE BUILDS UP STEADILY, PARTICULARLY AT THE END.” -Los Angeles Times “UNUSUAL AND COMPELLING... PERFUMEoffers a riot for the senses... PERFUME READS CHILLINGLY LIKE A WELL-DOCUMENTED, VERIFIABLE CASE HISTORY OF LUNACY AND MASS HYSTERIA.” -Publishers Weekly “AN ORIGINAL, GRUESOME, COMPELLING NOVEL...” -Christian Science Monitor “The story spins along like an ancient tale out of the Arabian Nights with both suspense and horror growing steadily ... A tour de force of the imagination, a spell-weavingexperience...” -People “Like the best scents, PERFUME’s effects will linger long after it has been stoppered...” -Time

“MR. SUSKIND’S INGENUITY PACKS PERFUME WITH FRESH POWER. GRENOUILLE GROWS INTO AS COMPELLING A HEARTLESS FIEND -MADDENED BY AN UNCARING WORLD-AS YOU COULD ASK FOR.” -The Wall Street Journal

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THE STORY OF A MURDERER

Perfume

Translated from the German by John E. Woods Originally published in German as DasParfum

PART IOne IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and

abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. His story will be told here. His name was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, and if his name-in contrast to the names of other gifted abominations, de Sade’s, for instance, or Saint-Just’s, Fbuche’s, Bonaparte’s, etc.has beenforgotten today, it is certainly not because Grenouille fell short of those more famous blackguards when it came to arrogance, misanthropy, immorality, or, more succinctly, to wickedness, but because his gifts and his sole ambition were restricted to a domain that leaves no traces in history: to the fleeting realm of scent. In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barelyconceivable to us modern men and women. The streets stank of manure, the courtyards of urine, the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlors stank of stale dust, the bedrooms of greasy sheets, damp featherbeds, and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber pots. The stench of sulfur rose from the chimneys, the stench of caustic...