Perfume. The story of a murderer

FATHER TERRIER was an educated man. He had not merely studied theology, but had read the philosophers as well, and had dabbled with botany and alchemy on the side. He had a rather high opinion of his own critical faculties. To be sure, he would never go so far as some-who questioned the miracles, the oracles, the very truth of Holy Scripture-even though the biblical texts could not, strictly speaking, be explained by reason alone, indeed often directly contradicted it. He preferred not to meddle with such problems, they were too discomfiting for him and would only land him in the most agonizing insecurity and disquiet, whereas to make use of one’s reason one truly needed both security and quiet. What he most vigorously did combat, however, were the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards, the wearing of amulets, the evil eye, exorcisms, hocus-pocus at full moon, and all the other acts they performed-it was really quite depressing to see how such heathenish customs had still not been uprooted a good thousand years after the firm establishment of the Christian religion! And most instances of so-called satanic possession or pacts with the devil proved on closer inspection to be superstitious mummery. Of course, to deny the existence of Satan himself, to doubt his power-Terrier could not go so far as that; ecclesiastical bodies other than one small, ordinary monk were assigned the task of deciding about such matters touching the very foundations of theology. But on the other hand, it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit, the devil himself could not possibly have a hand in it. The very fact that she thought she had spotted him was certain proof that there was nothing devilish to be found, for the devil would certainly never be stupid enough to let himself be unmasked by the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie. And with her nose no less! With the primitive organ of smell, the basest of the senses! As if hell smelled of sulfur and paradise of incense and myrrh! The worst sort of superstition, straight out of the darkest days of paganism, when people still lived like beasts, possessing no keenness of the eye, incapable of distinguishing colors, but presuming to be able to smell blood, to scent the difference between friend and foe, to be smelled out by cannibal giants and werewolves and the Furies, all the while offering their ghastly gods stinking, smoking burnt sacrifices. How repulsive! “The fool sees with his nose” rather than his eyes, they say, and apparently the light of God-given reason would have to shine yet another thousand years before the last remnants of such primitive beliefs were banished.

“Ah yes, and you poor little child! Innocent creature! Lying in your basket and slumbering away, with no notion of the ugly suspicions raised against you. That impudent woman dared to claim you don’t smell the way human children are supposed to smell. Well, what do we have to say to that? Pooh-peedooh!”

And he rocked the basket gently on his knees, stroking the infant’s head with his finger and repeating “poohpeedooh” from time to time, an expression he thought had a gentle, soothing effect on small children. “You’re supposed to smell like caramel, what nonsense, poohpeedooh!”

After a while he pulled his finger back, held it under his nose and sniffed, but could smell nothing except the choucroute he had eaten at lunch.

He hesitated a moment, looked around him to make sure no one was watching, lifted the basket, lowered his fat nose into it. Expecting to inhale an odor, he sniffed all around the infant’s head, so close to it that the thin reddish baby hair tickled his nostrils. He did not know exactly how babies’ heads were supposed to smell. Certainly not like caramel, that much was clear, since caramel was melted sugar, and how could a baby that until now had drunk only milk smell like melted sugar? It might smell like milk, like wet nurse’s milk. But it didn’t smell like milk. It might smell like hair, like skin and hair and maybe a little bit of baby sweat. And Terrier sniffed with the intention of smelling skin, hair, and a little baby sweat. But he smelled nothing. For the life of him he couldn’t. Apparently an infant has no odor, he thought, that must be it. An infant, assuming it is kept clean, simply doesn’t smell, any more than it speaks, or walks, or writes. Such things come only with age. Strictly speaking, human beings first emit an odor when they reach puberty. That’s how it is, that’s all Wasn’t it Horace himself who wrote, “The youth is gamy as a buck, the maiden’s fragrance blossoms as does the white narcissus…”?-and the Romans knew all about that! The odor of humans is always a fleshly odor-that is, a sinful odor. How could an infant, which does not yet know sin even in its dreams, have an odor? How could it smell? Poohpee-dooh-not a chance of it!