Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

[last lines]
Narrator: Within no time, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille had disappeared from the face of the earth. When they had finished, they felt a virginal glow of happiness. For the first time in their lives, they believed they had done something purely out of love.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Narrator: In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. Naturally, the stench was foulest in Paris, for Paris was the largest city in Europe. And nowhere in Paris was that stench more profoundly repugnant than in the city's fish-market. It was here then, on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom, that

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born on the 17th of July, 1738. It was his mother's fifth birth: she delivered them all here under her fish-stand, and all had been stillbirths or semi-stillbirths. And by evening the whole mess had been shoveled away with the fish-guts into the river. It would be much the same today, but then... Jean-Baptiste chose differently.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Narrator: When Jean-Baptiste did finally learn to speak he soon found that everyday language proved inadequate for all the olfactory experiences accumulating within himself.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: I can make Amour and Psyche for you. Now.
Giuseppe Baldini: And you think I'd just let you sop around in my laboratory? With essential oils that are worth are fortune?
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: Yes.
Giuseppe Baldini: Pay attention! What's your name, anyway?

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: Jean-Baptiste Grenouille.
Giuseppe Baldini: Well, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, you will have the opportunity now to prove yourself. And your grandiose failure will also be a lesson in humility.
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: How much do you want me to make?
Giuseppe Baldini: How much of what?


Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: How much Amour and Psyche do you want me to make? Shall I fill this flask?
[He picks up a large jar]
Giuseppe Baldini: No, you shall not! You may fill this one.
[He hands Grenouille a small bottle]
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: Yes, Master.