The Parfumeur’s proboscis preceded him like a ship’s prow, nostrils flared to invite the perfumes of the world. She’d giggle sometimes, imagining them as sails, capturing the scented wind. He’d inhale slowly, eyes closed, his expression rapturous or offended, then utter a word: “jonquil,” “sandalwood,” “rhubarb,” “rat.” The right word, always. Her nose—not too short for queenliness, a trifle long for elegance, perhaps (sneering voices muttered that one needed a certain length of nose in order to look down it)—would dip briefly in deference to his brilliance. It deferred to nothing else.

Powdered and pampered, it reveled in the cloud-like sweetness of macarons, the rich musk of velvet; wrinkled delightedly at the tickle of champagne. It hovered, enchanted, over the milky scent of a baby’s skin; luxuriated in amber and almond, wafting warm from the bath. If the indiscreet pomade on a Duke’s coiffure made it sneeze, it sought the comfort of lace-edged linen, sprinkled with lavender.

On this day, though, on this day, it recoiled, a trapped animal, from the onion-reek of taunting mouths. And from something else—salty, rusty, terrible—splattered on the unforgiving oak. Even the roses, breathed in secret from the smuggled flask, could never have disguised a perfume like this: a perfume that barely paused at the nose before it flew to set the heart thudding, the brain reeling.

The Parfumeur, weeping alone in the cell, knew the word for it: heady.

Publisher’s Note:

For more about the queen’s loyal courtier Jean-Louis Fargeon, see A Scented Palace: The Secret History of Marie Antoinette’s Perfumer, and/or this review in the perfume blog now smell this.

Donna Shanley

lives and writes in Vancouver (BC), where she can see mountains and, sometimes, a half-inch of ocean. Her flash and microfictions have appeared or are forthcoming in Vestal Review, Ellipsis Zine, Flash Frontier, Milk Candy Review, and The Ekphrastic Review.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ After-Words, microfiction in Milk Candy Review (13 July 2023); see also the related interview Two Questions for Donna Shanley in Milk Candy Review (17 July 2023).