[Comprehensive film and television] The formula of perfume

【Jean Grenouille】

When I noticed her, I figured she might have been squatting on the trading bridge for half a month, or longer.If she hadn't taken the initiative to call me, I might have ignored her all the time.

Because I have never liked to observe with my eyes, and she is only a child about ten years old. Although she has the smell of sour food and dirty soil that street children often have, the child itself is bland and tasteless.

That's probably why I ignored her.

Because I am more used to feel everything with my nose than my eyes, it can tell me more things.

I like to close my eyes, raise my head slightly and blow my nostrils to capture every bit of smell in the chaotic city of Paris. Just like women collect jewelry and men collect money, I collect smells.

If the smell is described as an endless thin thread, then the breeze will blow the thread of the smell to me, as long as there is a trace, I can hold it tightly, inhale it continuously, suck it in, and then keep it in my heart forever in mind.

My mind is a vast museum of smells, containing millions of scents, which I can randomly combine in my imagination into strange and wonderful smells.

And my nominal master, the perfumer Baldini, did not believe that the human nose can be so sensitive until I put the famous Paris perfume "Amor and Psyche" intact. Deploy it.

I don't remember his expression at that moment, but he smelled of amazement and envy, and I'll keep it close.

I don't need a recipe, I don't need test tubes and measuring cups, I don't need a dropper, I can pour any spice into the alcohol seemingly at will.But only I know how precisely I control their doses, my nose works better than any test tube or measuring cup.

Baldini made a lot of money from me, made a name for himself, and rejuvenated and revived the aging guy.

But he will never let others know my ability.

But I don't care at all.

I just want to learn more and more ways to preserve the smell from him, such as how to use a separating funnel, to separate the pure oil squeezed from the lemon shell from the cloudy slurry powder, such as separating pomade and making, filtering , concentration, purification and rectification liniment.There are too many collections in the scent museum in my mind, I want to preserve them one by one with perfume, and I can combine them into any wonderful smell at will.

Imagine how wonderful it would be if I really succeeded, a kingdom of smells that belonged to me!

"You will not succeed."

I was hurrying across the banks of the Seine with a sack in my arms when this immature child’s voice sounded. The voice came from the Bridge of Exchange. think.

Is she talking to me?

It's so weird that someone would take the initiative to talk to me.

No matter whether I walked through the most crowded vegetable market on Fell Street or the quiet courtyard of Notre Dame, no one would notice me. Basically, as long as I didn't make a sound, I could be regarded as an invisible person.

I don't know why, but it's the way it is, it's been like this since I was a kid, and people who have nothing to do with me don't pay attention to me except those who hate me and those who use me.Whether it is disgust or love or enthusiasm, these emotions will not belong to me.

So I was surprised when this sound was clearly directed at me.In the early morning, Paris is almost still asleep, and there are no shops on this trading bridge, let alone few people, so she could only be talking to me.

Had something of hers been in my sack, and that was why she had noticed me?

No, it can't be, these are the wastes picked up in the garbage dump on the banks of the Seine, and they are all unwanted things.

For the first time in my life, I was curious about something other than smell.Before I looked up to look at her, I took a sniff with my nose - I'm used to doing this, each person's different smell can give me a sense of who this person is and how to talk to him/her.

But she has no smell.

I smelled burning lilac leaves and sour grease stains on her clothes, and the dirt on her bare feet, and...

But there is no smell of her own.

So I looked up.

That was the first time I met Adele.

She looked ten years old or older, waifs were stunted and looked smaller than average.But she was still a child, with short black hair in a mess and fleas making nests in it, and her face had black marks that made it impossible to tell what she looked like.

But she has a pair of deep and beautiful emerald green eyes, and she is looking at me quietly with these eyes at this moment, as if seeing through everything I want to do.

The first time we met, I didn't like her, maybe because she had no smell, or maybe because of her penetrating eyes, which made me feel threatened.

"Hey, sir, you won't succeed if you do this." Seeing that I didn't respond, she seemed a little anxious, took another two steps forward, and repeated it.

I'm sure I don't know her.

"Are you... are you listening to me?" She opened her big green eyes, which were crystal clear. When she stared at me, I was thinking that its color is really beautiful, but unfortunately there is no scent that I like.

I don't know why she came to me, but I decided to ignore her.

I figured she might be a madman, because only a madman would talk to me with such seriousness.So I hurried past her with my sack, Baldir's perfume shop was on the Bridge of Exchanges, and I wanted to hurry up with my experiment while there was no work for me.

"Mr. Grenoye, you really won't succeed." She said again, very firmly, as if there was still a little... pity?I'm not sure, she doesn't smell, which makes it impossible for me to determine what she's thinking.

By this time I had reached the bridge, but I didn't know what impulse it was, so I turned to look at her.

"The principle of distillation is to separate the aromatic oils from flowers and plants. But what is in your sack? I saw it before, broken glass, rusty chains, and a dead cat? They don't have aromatic oils, so you can Even after 100 years of distillation, it is impossible to separate any odor." When I looked at her, she spoke a long paragraph, which made me feel dizzy. I didn't quite understand the principle of what she said, but I understood what she meant.

"No?" I gripped the mouth of the sack tightly, confused by her words: "Then tell me, what method can I do?"

After I finished I couldn't believe it myself, I've never talked to anyone about preserving smells, and now I'm here talking to a waif I've never met about how to preserve the smell of dead cats, rust and glass .

"This... I don't know..." She frowned, her eyes seemed to lose focus suddenly, and she murmured in frustration, "There are many things... I don't remember much, many things..."

I pursed my lips.

No matter what she says, I'm going to try it myself.

"Uh...that...Mr. Grenouille," I heard her calling me at the top of her voice when I left, her childish voice was sharp and urgent, "If it doesn't work, can you come and see me, I, I have something to say Want to tell you! I live under this trading pier."

eccentric.

I left without looking back.It was our first meeting and she knew me and I didn't even care what her name was.

【Adele】

I'm Adele, but I could also be someone called Xia or something—this might be my last life.But I can't remember very clearly, many memories are very vague, planes, trains, computers and so on, it feels like a bizarre dream, it makes me feel that I am different from other homeless children.

But it doesn't really make any difference.

The same sleeps on bridge piers or cemeteries, the same snatches food from garbage dumps or the mouths of wild dogs, and the same keeps chasing at the feet of a noble woman to ask for alms.

But very strangely, the memory of "I am Adele" has always been very clear. I remember that I only saw my father a few times before and after birth. The house was very luxurious, maybe it was the residence of the nobles, but my mother was An unidentified handmaid from the East, so I am an unrecognized illegitimate daughter.

I don't know why my mother took me away. She carried me all the way into exile, and lived only by washing clothes and doing needlework. A scarlet fever took her life, but I survived.

Because I have not been baptized or registered, the orphanage accepts me and cannot get subsidies. They don’t want it, so I have to be a beggar.

I heard that children start to remember things after the age of three, but I have memories from birth, which makes me feel that I should be extraordinary.

Maybe my mother from the East was a witch, that's also possible.

Noticed Grenouille, it was just an accident.

I was really hungry that day, the high fever had just subsided, and the cold and fever caused by the cold did not kill me, but lying under the pier for several days without looking for food, my stomach could no longer bear it.Early that morning, I happened to find the back door of a perfume shop in Exchange Bridge ajar, and I slipped in.

I walk lightly and move little, so no one notices me.After stealing two pieces of toast and a chicken leg on the table, I was content to leave, but I heard the sound of bottles and cans colliding in the basement downstairs, which was crisp and loud.

It's just getting dark, is someone making perfume?

I was rarely aroused curiosity.

I walked down the stairs very carefully, and saw a teenager busy in the perfume studio in the basement. The cabinets were strewn with bottles and jars. , clove, moxiang, jasmine..."

This boy is very thin, dressed not much better than me, and his back is always arched habitually.At this moment he was struggling to lift the large and heavy glass bottle of alcohol, and it was strange that he poured alcohol directly from the pot-bellied glass bottle into the funnel without using a measuring cup.

Then the most amazing thing happened.He fiddled with a cabinet full of essence bottles without choice, pulled out the stopper of the glass bottle, took it under his nose and smelled it for a second, then poured some from the bottle into a pot-bellied bottle, and then Drop some in another bottle in the same way.

It's like cooking soup, but you don't know how to cook at all. You just throw it around and make it into a big pot.

I know that you need tubes, test tubes, measuring cups, spoons, stir sticks, etc. to make perfume, don't ask me why, I just know.But the hunched boy in front of him didn't need these delicate procedures at all, he was like a mischievous kid who broke into the perfume making room.

But I'm fascinated by it.

He made me feel that making perfume is an art, and every spice is like a note, but he combined them with his talent, and the final movement was amazingly beautiful and elegant.

At this time, I suddenly remembered that when street children occasionally gathered together to talk about their experiences, a child talked about Baldini, who suddenly became famous in Paris, and once mocked the perfumer's allergic nose and poor sense of smell, And the leather-worker he suddenly decides to take in.

Is that guy this boy?

When he finally shook the bottle and was about to finish the production, I didn't stay to watch it anymore, and I couldn't smell anything anyway, because the heat destroyed two-thirds of my sense of smell.

But it is amazing, the whole day, the process of this young man making perfume keeps appearing in my mind.I seem to have suddenly realized at this time that this boy is a genius, a genius of smell.

He is Jean Grenouille.

It took me a whole week of observation before I knew the boy's name, because he was so unobtrusive that almost no one would call him or talk to him—except for his money-lovers master Baldini.

I suspect that Baldini has no talent at all, that Grenouille made all his acclaimed perfumes, and yet he makes Grenouille sleep in a basement, wear ragged clothes, and eat hard bread.

So I began to wonder, Grenouille has such a unique talent, why didn't he rebel against Baldini, why didn't he make a lot of money by himself?

When I became more and more curious about him, I suddenly had a bold idea: I want to ask him to make a special perfume for me, a perfume that I can smell clearly, so that in the long days and nights of wandering, There is always a sweet smell that cheers me up, and does not make me despair because of my half-lost sense of smell.

For me to have this romantic thought, maybe I really shouldn't be a waif.

Waking up this morning on an unobtrusive pier, I found Grenouille collecting dead cats, rusted chains, and broken glass into sacks in order to trap their scents. Become a perfume too?

It's impossible, it's against chemistry!

What chemistry, what strange thing is this, how do I know it again?

This time, though, I didn't ignore the strange concept that popped up because I wanted to take the opportunity to talk to him, I wanted to get to know him.

But he seems to be wary of people and doesn't like me very much.

It's okay, don't worry.Looking at his back hurriedly walking away with the sack, I thought expectantly that he would definitely fail.

So I can talk to him again.