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Giuseppe Baldini: Now pay attention to what I tell you. Just like a musical chord, a perfume chord contains four essences, or notes, carefully selected for their harmonic affinity. Each perfume contains three chords: the head, the heart and the base, necessitating 12 notes in all. The head chord contains the first impression, lasting a few minutes before giving way to the heart chord, the theme of the perfume, lasting several hours. Finally, the base chord, the trail of the perfume lasting several days.
Giuseppe Baldini: Mind you, the Egyptians believed that one can only create a truly original perfume by adding an extra note, one final essence that will ring out and dominate the others. Legend had it that an amphora was once found in a pharaoh's tomb, and when it was opened, a perfume was released, after all those thousands of years, a perfume of such subtle beauty, and yet such power, that for one single moment every person on earth believed they were in paradise. 12 essences could be identified, but the 13th, the vital one, could never be determined.
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Narrator: For the first time in his life, Grenouille realized that he had no smell of his own. He realized that all his life he had been a nobody to everyone. What he now felt was the fear of his own oblivion. It was as though he did not exist.
Fermí Reixach
Extended Reading
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer quotes
