Fallen Apart

Grenouille was terrified. What happens, he thought, if the scent, once I possess it…what happens if it runs out? It’s not the same as it is in your memory, where all scents are indestructible. The real thing gets used up in this world. It’s transient. And by the time it has been used up, the source I tool it from will no longer exist. And I will be as naked as before and will have to get along with surrogates, just like before. No, it will be even worse than before! For in the meantime I will have known it and possessed it, my own splendid scent, and I will not be able to forget it, because I never forget a scent. And for the rest of my life I will feed on it in my memory, just as I was feeding right now from the premonition of what I will possess…what do I need it for at all?

This was a most unpleasant thought fro Grenouille. It frightened him beyong measure to thin that once he possess the scent that he did not yet possess, he must inevitably lose it…….

From the Perfume, by Patrick Suskind.