Free The Diary of a Nose by Jean-Claude Ellena Page B

it. There were test blotters waiting to be smelled on a side table in the hallway. The room itself was huge with a large bay window looking out on to the garden. On his desk there were no bottles, no test blotters, nothing to disturb the neutral smell of the room, just a few sheets of paper and some pencils.
    He introduced me to his dog, a chow he was very proud of, and explained that every time he shampooed the dog, he rinsed it down in a vinegary solution to get rid of all the odors. To be honest, I thought it still smelled quite strongly – but it was not my dog. I made no comment, not wanting to risk being cornered into an argument about my clothes and their reek of washing powder.
    He talked about simplicity, about ‘form’ in the Platonic sense of the word, and about
qualia
, a philosophical concept he was the first to apply to perfume. His aim was to capture the olfactory image of each raw material in order to set up a sort of Pantone of smells, establishing what he hoped would be a definitive chart. We then spent a while trying to find the exact words to define the smell of phenyl ethyl alcohol, a synthesized compound that smells of wilted roses and sake. But the thing I remember most clearly is the performance he put on as he escorted me back to the door. He started singing opera arias, explaining that he had always dreamed of becoming a baritone.
    We met several times. Then, after reading an article of his published in a specialist review, I wrote him a long letter describing him as ‘dogmatic,’ which, to my mind, was not a criticism, but he did take umbrage. He replied rather frostily, wondering who had rattled my cage. He indicated that I would no longer be invited to his house and that there would be no more conversations. I am very happy to say that three years later a mutual friend dispelled the misunderstanding and arranged for us to meet again. Edmond invited me to Cabris. We resumed our discussions, and he confided in me that he was having problems communicating with, and being taken seriously by, the young marketing directors of the companies for which he worked. To him perfume was an art. The only response he hoped for was approval from those who had commissioned him. How could he pay attention to the rumblings of ‘market pressures’?
    I inherited something from him (and inheritances that are chosen are the most generous): the notion of form, and a will to strive for simplicity, achieved by composing short formulae using a restricted collection. Where he was rigorous, I prefer moderation, which does not preclude exacting expectations. On the other hand, I managed to break away from a classic type of harmony expressed in the proportions of the raw materials, because I was convinced that the interplay of smells was more important. Like him, I think we need to talk and write about our craft, about which the general public knows so little. Perfume is at the heart of our lives.
    Heritage
    I cannot evoke the memory of Edmond Roudnitska without mentioning heritage. My father was a perfumer, but we spoke little of his work at home: it was his territory, and that was the rule; the make-up of my olfactory memory, therefore, derives in large part from unwittingly copying his habit of smelling any food or drink before tasting it. There was not one piece of fruit, one dish, salad, vinaigrette, slice of bread, glass of wine or even of water that escaped this olfactory moment of truth. My mother loathed this behavior and thought it contravened the good manners she was trying to instill in us. But when as many smells pass under our noses as images before our eyes, I like to remember the importance he gave to the role played by our noses.
    In the late 1950s my mother wore
Madame Rochas
. Judging this perfume today, I would say it is a lovely, slightly quaint construction of florals and amber; but the image that has stayed with me is that it smelled ‘too much’ of perfume. This created a distance and elicited