Perfume: Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

Grenouille's world of the surrounding neighborhoods is a utopia of scent. He revels in the human and animal smells and can dissect the mixture of odors into individual scents, which gives him immense joy. He often stands and waits for an interesting scent to pass his nose, and then follows it to its source. When he is finished smelling the streets, he goes to the market of Les Halles, the bustle of which he can experience through scent even when it is empty. From the west comes the scent of the sea, which Grenouille finds immensely wonderful. He often thinks about sitting in the crow's nest of a ship, experiencing the smells one day, but (the narrator says) Grenouille will never see the ocean.

When Grenouille exhausts the smells of his neighboring quarters, he expands and begins exploring the other side of the river, where rich people live. This is where Grenouille first smells perfume. He is immediately able to dissect these perfumes as he'd done with other smells, but he finds most of them coarse and thinks he'd be able to do better if he had access to ingredients.

Grenouille doesn't differentiate between "good" or "bad" scents; he simply desires to possess all that he can. In his mind he creates and destroys new scents with the basics he's gathered, similarly to how a child plays with blocks.