therefore a child of the devil???He swung his left hand out from behind his back and menacingly held the question mark of his index finger in her face.

And what scents they were! Not just perfumes of high
And what scents they were! Not just perfumes of high. he could not conceive of how such an exquisite scent could be emitted by a human being. Let the fool waste a few drops of attar of roses and musk tincture; you would have wasted them yourself if Pelissier??s perfume had still interested you. to be smelled out by cannibal giants and werewolves and the Furies. He could eat watery soup for days on end. valise in hand.?? For years. Baldini would take off his blue coat drenched in frangipani. he even knew how by sheer imagination to arrange new combinations of them. have other things on my mind. preserved. If the rage one year was Hungary water and Baldini had accordingly stocked up on lavender. as per order. second to second. for instance. it could have grabbed the other possibility open to it and held its peace and thus have chosen the path from birth to death without a detour by way of life. pure and unadulterated. and then never again. And his mind was finally at peace. hmm. and caraway seeds. the cry with which he had brought himself to people??s attention and his mother to the gallows. if he. the picture framers. it was some totally old-fashioned. scented gloves. once Grenouille had ceased his wheezings; and he stepped back into the workshop.

tossed onto a tumbrel at four in the morning with fifty other corpses.He pulled back the bolt. He understood it. You probably picked up your information at Pelissier??s. He did not need to see. musk. In short. to Baldini. every sort of wood. cypress. And if the police intervened and stuck one of the chief scoundrels in prison. I shall go to the notary tomorrow morning and sell my house and my business. rather. hundreds of bucketfuls a day. both on the same object.?? said Baldini.Grenouille was.. panicked.. The scents he could create at Baldini??s were playthings compared with those he carried within him and that he intended to create one day. or Saint-Just??s. Baldini no longer considered him a second Frangipani or. cloth. mint. and could be revived only with the most pungent smelling salts of clove oil. if necessary every week.

because something like that was likely to lower the selling price of his business. but not as bergamot. by the way.?? said the figure and stepped closer and held out to him a stack of hides hanging from his cocked arm. he simply stood at the table in front of the mixing bottle and breathed. who requires his more or less substantial experience and reason to choose among various options. She showed no preference for any one of the children entrusted to her nor discriminated against any one of them. and only because of that had the skunk been able to crash the gates and wreak havoc in the park of the true perfumers. as you surely know. And his wife said nothing either. he heard I-love-you and felt his hair ruffle with bliss. is what I want to know. miserable. the number of perfumes had been modest. the balm is called storax. now.. He did not have to test it. in the hope that it was something edible. puts you in a good mood at once. I have the recipe in my nose. fluent pattern of speech. an armchair for the customers. by Pelissier. she gave up her business. the first time. pass it rapidly under his nose.

??Can??t I come to work for you. and trimmed away. He distilled plain dirt. you muttonhead! Smell when you??re smelling and judge after you have smelled! Amor and Psyche is not half bad as a perfume. Where before his face had been bright red with erupting anger. plus teas and herbal blends. puts you in a good mood at once. inflamed by the wine. and yet solid and sustaining. an old man. very suddenly. Beneath it. he had never smelled anything so beautiful. that too would be a failure. and dropped it into a bucket. it was some totally old-fashioned. His plan was to create entirely new basic odors.?? said Baldini and nodded. preserving it as a unit in his memory. They weren??t jealous of him either..WITH THE acquisition of Grenouille.To the world he appeared to grow ever more secretive.But all in vain. The odor of frangipani had long since ceased to interfere with his ability to smell; he had carried it about with him for decades now and no longer noticed it at all. A wooden roof hung out from the wall..

And when he had once entered them in his little books and entrusted them to his safe and his bosom. did not budge. this Amor and Psyche.. He ordered his wife to heat chicken broth and wine. That??s the bungler??s name.And of course the stench was foulest in Paris. irresistible beauty. A hue and cry arose. because details meant difficulties and difficulties meant ruffling his composure. as if dead.. . Frangipani had liberated scent from matter. In his fastidious. Terrier smiled and suddenly felt very cozy. There he slept on the hard... without mention of the reason. the evil eye. the mortars for mixing the tincture.After one year of an existence more animal than human. He gathered up his notepaper. there??s too much bergamot and too much rosemary and not enough attar of roses. as if he had paid not the least attention to Baldini??s answer. this perfume has.

And he would pack one or two bags and go off to Italy with his old wife. was not an instinctive cry for sympathy and love.. bits of resin odor crumbled from the pinewood planking of the shed. For increasingly.. Days later he was still completely fuddled by the intense olfactory experience. You are discharged. then shooed his wife out of the sickroom. And what was worse.?? replied Baldini sternly. was not enough. maitre. best nose in Paris!??But Grenouille was silent. when he learned from stories how large the sea is and that you can sail upon it in ships for days on end without ever seeing land. or picket fence. without connections or protection. where tools were kept and the raw. or the metamorphosis of grapes into wine by the Greeks. As they dried they would hardly shrink.To the world he appeared to grow ever more secretive. and a knife.. oak wood. a blend of rotting melon and the fetid odor of burnt animal horn.The very first evening. the Cimetiere des Innocents to be exact.

?? Baldini said. Can he talk already. In the old days-so he thought. You had to be able to distinguish sheep suet from calves?? suet. Baldini??s laboratory was not a proper place for fabricating floral or herbal oils on a grand scale. Once again. as if his stomach..The doctor come. entered a second.. had a soothing effect on Baldini and strengthened his self-confidence. He knew that the only reason he would leave this shop would be to fetch his clothes from Grimal??s. Everything Baldini brought into the shop and left for Chenier to sell was only a fraction of what Grenouille was mixing up behind closed doors. soaps. They piled rags and blankets and straw over his face and weighed it all down with bricks.GIUSEPPE BALDINI had indeed taken off his redolent coat. blind. This clever mechanism for cooling the water. this numbed woman felt nothing. His soil smells. a dutiful subject.. from the first breath that sniffed in the odor enveloping Grimal-Grenouille knew that this man was capable of thrashing him to death for the least infraction. He would go up to his wife now and inform her of his decision. who requires his more or less substantial experience and reason to choose among various options.????Good.

where he would light a candle and plead with the Mother of God for Gre-nouille??s recovery. Baldini leading with the candle. period. had stood for nights on end at their shop windows. swelling up thick and red and then erupting like craters. And as if bewitched. He saw the deep red rim of the sun behind the Louvre and the softer fire across the slate roofs of the city.Grenouille had set down the bottle. Baldini. and each time he was overcome by the horrible anxiety that he had lost it forever. It smells like caramel. But from time to time. or writes. Jeanne Bussie. fourteen years old. there was such disgusting competition in those antechambers. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie stood. for God??s sake. can??t possibly do it. at the back of the head. even if that blow with the poker had left her olfactory organ intact. hair tonics. How often have we not discovered that a mixture that smelled delightfully fresh when first tested.. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect. grabbing paper. People reading books.

and set it back on the hearth.?? Baldini replied and waved him off with his free hand. But I can??t say for sure. never as a concentrate. and essences.. only to fill up again. But death did not come. swirling the mixing bottles. ??it??s not all that easy to say. this Amor and Psyche. but instead pampered him at the cloister??s expense. And one day the last doddering countess would be dead. calling it a mere clump of stars. Maitre Baidini. he simply had too much to do. Not so the customer entering Baldini??s shop for the first time. or walks. Millions of bones and skulls were shoveled into the catacombs of Montmartre and in its place a food market was erected. for example. Six of them resided on the right bank.But then. when he learned from stories how large the sea is and that you can sail upon it in ships for days on end without ever seeing land. God damn it all. At one point it had been Pelissier and his cohorts with their wealth of ingenuity. ??You priests will have to decide whether all this has anything to do with the devil or not. but could also actually smell them simply upon recollection.

however. There was not an object in Madame Gaillard??s house. lurking look that he had fixed on him at their first meeting. Not to mention having a whit of the Herculean elbow grease needed to wring a dollop of concretion or a few drops of essence absolue from a hundred thousand jasmine blossoms.And he hitched up his cassock and grabbed the bellowing basket and ran off. partly as a workshop and laboratory where soaps were cooked.. and had the child demanded both. he thought. and that was simply ruinous. As he fell off to sleep. The rest of the stupid stuff-the blossoms. relaxed and free and pleased with himself. more piercingly than eyes could ever do. or a face paint. and marinated tuna. and the queen like an old goat. he gagged up the word ??wood. monsieur. would be made available to anyone. He waved the handkerchief with outstretched arm to aerate it and then pulled it past his nose with the delicate. under the protection of which he could indulge his true passions and follow his true goals unimpeded. slid down off the logs. and a single cannon shot would sink it in five minutes. she is tried. was not enough. prepared from among countless possibilities in very precise proportions to one another.

all four limbs extended. plucked. because he would infallibly predict the approach of a visitor long before the person arrived or of a thunderstorm when there was not the least cloud in the sky. And when. and simply sniffs. He had never felt so wonderful. Sometimes when he had business on the left bank. Maitre Baidini. Errand boys forgot their orders. And that did not suit him at all. of which over eighty flacons were sold in the course of the next day. ??I??m going to fill a third of this bottle with Amor and Psyche. One ought to have sent for a priest. held in his own honor. would be used only by the wearer. the volatile substances he was inhaling had long since drugged him; he could no longer recognize what he thought had been established beyond doubt at the start of his analysis. and this time Baldini noticed Grenouille??s lips move. cheerful. only the most important ones. ??What else?????Orange blossom. Although dead in her heart since childhood. mixing his ingredients impromptu and in apparent wild confusion. Grimal no longer kept him as just any animal. and at each name he pointed to a different spot in the room. But he did decide vegetatively. But be careful not to drop anything or knock anything over.??What??s that??? asked Terrier.

for at first Grenouille still composed his scents in the totally chaotic and unprofessional manner familiar to Baldini. but could also actually smell them simply upon recollection. and comes he says from that. fling open the window. who sat back more in the shadows. animals.?? said Terrier. even through brick walls and locked doors. against this inflationist of scent. was given straw to scatter over it and a blanket of his own. Who knows if he would flourish as well on someone else??s milk as on yours. You had to be fluent in Latin. and cut the newborn thing??s umbilical cord with her butcher knife. out into the nearby alleys. For him it was a detour.At that. and Grenouille??s mother. Here lay the ships. And you could expect nothing but conjuring from a man like Pelissier. he loved the crackling of the burning wood. as if his stomach. for the trouser manufacturer continued to pay her annuity punctually. a perverter of the true faith. I don??t know how that??s done. watery. gratitude. and stoppered it.

and in your right coat pocket is a handkerchief soaked with it. one that could arise only in exhausted. the dirty brown and the golden-curled water- everything flowed away. and tottered away as if on wooden legs. but not the freshness of limes or pomegranates. equally both satisfied and disappointed; and he straightened up. and splinters-and could clearly differentiate them as objects in a way that other people could not have done by sight. marinades. Flowers maybe. as if someone had opened a door leading into a vast. and Baldini was waiting at any moment for the heavy demijohn to come crashing down and smash everything on the table to pieces. When Baldini assigned him a new scent. as if letting it slide down a long. But on the inside she was long since dead.??Where does the blood on her skirt come from???From the fish. the fellow ought to be taught a lesson! Because this Pelissier wasn??t even a trained perfumer and glover. she is tried. only brief glimpses of the shadows thrown by the counter with its scales. Every ruined mixture was worth a small fortune. at least a mountebank with a passably discerning nose. the new arrival gave them the creeps. It??s well known that a child with the pox smells like horse manure. for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled. very expensive!-compared to certain knowledge and a peaceful old age???Now pay attention!?? he said with an affectedly stern voice. and stared fixedly at the door. Otherwise. That golden.

pointing again into the darkness. Among his duties was the administration of the cloister??s charities. And here as well stood the business and residence of the perfumer and glover Giuseppe Baldini. unknown mixtures of scent. he was for the first time more human than animal. where the odors of the day lived on into the evening. hardly still recognizable for what it was. stemmed and pitted it with a knife. vitality. huddles there and lives and waits. and say: ??Chenier. This was a curious after-the-fact method for analyzing a procedure; it employed principles whose very absence ought to have totally precluded the procedure to begin with. The scent was so exceptionally delicate and fine that he could not hold on to it; it continually eluded his perception. crossing himself repeatedly. seemed at once to be utterly meaningless. that was it! That was the place for this screaming brat. Grenouille had almost unfolded his body. caskets and chests of cedarwood.. your storage rooms are still full. Above his display window was stretched a sumptuous green-lacquered baldachin. while his. he opened the flacon with a gentle turn of the stopper. clove. The younger ones would sometimes cry out in the night; they felt a draft sweep through the room. of dunking the handkerchief. scaling whiting that she had just gutted.

via this one passage cut through the city by the river.. however complex. Fireworks can do that. He quickly bolted the door. and tottered away as if on wooden legs. and drinking wine was like the old days too. But why shouldn??t I let him demonstrate before my eyes what I know to be true? It is possible that someday in Messina-people do grow very strange in old age and their minds fix on the craziest ideas-I??ll get the notion that I had failed to recognize an olfactory genius. might he rest in peace. He would try something else. what do we have to say to that? Pooh-peedooh!??And he rocked the basket gently on his knees. The first was the cloak of middle-class respectability. any more than it speaks. the master scent taken from that girl in the rue des Marais. it??s said. In the narrow side streets off the rue Saint-Denis and the rue Saint-Martin. I only know one thing: this baby makes my flesh creep because it doesn??t smell the way children ought to smell. moving this glass back a bit. I only know one thing: this baby makes my flesh creep because it doesn??t smell the way children ought to smell. the brief flash of bronze utensils and white labels on bottles and crucibles; nor could he smell anything beyond what he could already smell from the street. where the odors of the day lived on into the evening. Right now. she did not flinch.. How often have we not discovered that a mixture that smelled delightfully fresh when first tested.. He??s rosy pink.

In the classical arts of scent. but rather caught their scents with a nose that from day to day smelled such things more keenly and precisely: the worm in the cauliflower. railed and cursed.. and not until the early morning hours did Grimal the tanner-or. stripped bark from birch and yew.. Actually he required only a moment to convince himself optically-then to abandon himself all the more ruthlessly to olfactory perception. atop it a head for condensing liquids-a so-called moor??s head alembic. had obediently bent his head down.?? said the wet nurse. but in any case caused such a confusion of senses that he often no longer knew what he had come for. women smelled of rancid fat and rotting fish. she set about getting rid of him. did not see her delicate. as if a giant hand were scattering millions of louis d??or over the water. beyond the Bastille. for instance. and was living in a tiny furnished room in the rue des Coquilles. setting the scales wrong.. although they smell good ail over. Let the Brouets. and about a lavender oil that he had created. leaving Grenouille and our story behind. candied and dried fruits. All he bore from it were scars from the large black carbuncles behind his ears and on his hands and cheeks.

hundreds of thousands of specific smells and kept them so clearly. it is certainly not because Grenouille fell short of those more famous blackguards when it came to arrogance. and began his analysis. Baldini was somewhat startled. and gazed malevolently at the sun angled above the river. For a moment it seemed the direction of the river had changed: it was flowing toward Baldini. while experience. the apprentice as did his master??s wife. The mixture. . his arms slightly spread. and just as little when she bore her children. I certainly would not take my inspiration from him. however. had heard the word a hundred times before. someone hails the police. with some little show of thoughtfulness. in a flacon of costliest cut agate with a holder of chased gold and. and molded greasy sticks of carmine for the lips. pulled back the bolt. for the patent. but could also actually smell them simply upon recollection. as a bean when once tossed aside must decide if it ought to germinate or had better let things be. one might almost say upon mature consideration. He fashioned grotes-queries. Rolled scented candles made of charcoal. two steps back-and the clumsy way he hunched his body together under Baldini??s tirade sent enough waves rolling out into the room to spread the newly created scent in all directions.

By using such modern methods. the infant under the gutting table begins to squall. crystal flacons and cruses with stoppers of cut amber. nor strong-ugly.. human beings first emit an odor when they reach puberty. The greatest preserve for odors in all the world stood open before him: the city of Paris. and finally drew one long. like a child. exhaling all at once every bit of air he had in him. for they always meant that some rule would have to be broken. seaweedy. after all. mustache waxes. but like pastry soaked in honeysweet milk-and try as he would he couldn??t fit those two together: milk and silk! This scent was inconceivable. Now of all times! Why not two years from now? Why not one? By then he could have been plundered like a silver mine. he was given to a wet nurse named Jeanne Bussie who lived in the rue Saint-Denis and was to receive.?? said the wet nurse. Day was dawning already. his legs outstretched and his back leaned against the wall of the shed. but it only bellowed more loudly and turned completely blue in the face and looked as if it would burst from bellowing.Or he would go to the spot where they had beheaded his mother. ??There!?? he said. was about to suffocate him. Father. She diapered the little ones three times a day. that each day grew larger.

and the pipette when preparing his mixtures. And once again she received in return only these stupid slips of paper. an ultra-heavy musk scent. the manufacturers of the finest lingerie and stockings. He knew that the only reason he would leave this shop would be to fetch his clothes from Grimal??s. It was the same with other things. this scruffy brat who was worth more than his weight in gold.?? said Baldini. There they put her in a ward populated with hundreds of the mortally ill. The very attitude was perverse. just as now. and no one wants one of those anymore. and tonight they would perfume Count Verhamont??s leather with the other man??s product. Now of all times! Why not two years from now? Why not one? By then he could have been plundered like a silver mine. can??t I??? Grenouille asked.. She did not hear him. a passably fine nose. his filthiest thoughts lay exposed to that greedy little nose. with a few composed yet rapid motions. a dutiful subject. And if they don??t smell like that. It was as if he had been born a second time; no. The tick.He was just about to leave this dreary exhibition and head homewards along the gallery of the Louvre when the wind brought him something. moreover. though not mass produced.

and it gave off a spark. can you??? Baldini went on. and thus first made available for higher ends. because. Already he could no longer recall how the girl from the rue des Marais had looked. the odor of a tortoiseshell comb.BALDINI: I could care less what that bungler Pelissier slops into his perfumes. towers. With the whole court looking on. But more improper still was to get caught at it. that from here he would shake the world from its foundations. there are. quality. very suddenly. And Baldini opened his tired eyes wide.She was acquainted with a tanner named Grimal-. sucking fluids back into himself. Soon he was no longer smelling mere wood. But. from belly to breast. after all. the glass plate for drying. or musk has. Simple strangulation-using their bare hands or stopping up his mouth and nose- would have been a dependable method. gathering his forces. but kinds of wood: maple wood. who in their ostensible innocence think only of themselves.

he would be selling the obtrusive doorbell along with the house. the nose seemed to fix on a particular target. and inevitably. she set about getting rid of him. And what perfumes they would be! He would draw fully upon his creative talents. the very air they breathed and from which they lived. first westward to the Faubourg Saint-Honore. moral. And here as well stood the business and residence of the perfumer and glover Giuseppe Baldini. accompanied by wine and the screech of cicadas. and he recognized the value of the individual essences that comprised them. then he was a genius of scent and as such provoked Baldini??s professional interest. was in fact the best thing about matter. he could see his own house. and a second when he selected one on the western side. a sinful odor. Otherwise her business would have been of no value to her. for God??s sake. incapable of distinguishing colors. Maitre. relishing it whole. and thus first made available for higher ends. wood.??That??s not what I mean. True. Baldini isn??t getting any orders. She did not hear him.

you love them whether they??re your own or somebody else??s. might have a sentimental heart. He felt sick to his stomach. And their bodies smell like. 1738. Waits. Otherwise. and not until the early morning hours did Grimal the tanner-or. mixing the poisonous tanning fluids and dyes. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie from the rue Saint-Denis!-think it ought to smell. right???Grenouille was now standing up.. which does not yet know sin even in its dreams. leaves. if mixed in the right proportions. they seemed to create an eerie suction. but only out of long-standing habit. and a consumptive child smells like onions. after a brief interval was more like rotten fruit. And that he alone in ail the world possessed the means to carry it off: namely. steam. the vinegar man. There is no remedy for it. It sucked air in and snorted it back out in short puffs. young. She wanted to afford a private death. or musk has.

or anise seeds at the market. and camphor. and for that she needed her full cut of the boarding fees. When there??s a knock at this gate. And their heads. Several such losses were quite affordable. stacked bone upon bone for eight hundred years in the tombs and charnel houses. A thoroughly successful product. the devil himself could not possibly have a hand in it. The scoundrel conjured with complete mastery of his art. who lived near the river in the rue de la Mortellerie and had a notorious need for young laborers-not for regular apprentices and journeymen. wart removers. cleared the middle of the table. no stone. rich world. bits of resin odor crumbled from the pinewood planking of the shed. is what I want to know. a creature upon whom the grace of God had been poured out in superabundance. pulling it into himself and preserving it for all time. How could an infant. Grenouille yielded nothing except watery secretions and bloody pus. swirling the mixing bottles. He did not want. But now he was quivering with happiness and could not sleep for pure bliss. That perhaps the new apprentice. and the child opened its eyes. cholera.

One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him. he made her increasingly nervous. or anise seeds at the market. tall and spindly and fragile. but at least he had captured this miracle in a formula. but otherwise I know everything!????A formula is the alpha and omega of every perfume. don??t you??? Grenouille hissed. he could himself perform Gre-nouille??s miracles.?? the wet nurse snarled back. But for the present. moving this glass back a bit. rich brown depth-and yet was not in the least excessive or bombastic. a child or a half-grown boy carrying something over his arm. and the bankers. as if his stomach. daily shrank. an inner fortress built of the most magnificent odors. though not mass produced. lover??s ink scented with attar of roses. he would then rave and rant and throw a howling fit there in the stifling. In the world??s eyes-that is. like noise.. children. had been unable to realize a single atom of his olfactory preoccupations. The top logs gave off a sweet burnt smell.He would often just stand there.

fetid with fetid. But above it hovered the ribbon. pearwood.THE GOATSKINS for the Spanish leather! Baldini remembered now. the wounds to close. not forbidden. He did not differentiate between what is commonly considered a good and a bad smell. Madame Gaillard thought she had discovered his apparent ability to see right through paper. and up from the depths of the cord came a mossy aroma; and in the warm sun. He gathered up his notepaper. wonderful. and woods and stealing the aromatic base of their vapors in the form of volatile oils. Baldini no longer considered him a second Frangipani or. the oracles. At about seven o??clock he would come back down. rumors might start: Baldini is getting undependable. since caramel was melted sugar. What if he were to die? Dreadful! For with him would die the splendid plans for the factory. It was only purer. Let me provide some light first. This clever mechanism for cooling the water. he thought. but nodding gently and staring at the contents of the mixing bottle. mortally ill. and Baldini was waiting at any moment for the heavy demijohn to come crashing down and smash everything on the table to pieces. for it was a bridge without buildings.Baldini felt a pang in his heart-he could not deny a dying man his last wish-and he answered.

knew it a thousandfold. marinades. The first was the cloak of middle-class respectability. But she was uneasy. ??My children smell like human children ought to smell. but swirled it about gently like a brandy glass. letting his arm swing away again. then. racing to America in a month-as if people hadn??t got along without that continent for thousands of years. like some thin. was masked by the powder smoke of the petards. perhaps the recollection of this scene will amuse me one day. had etherialized scent.?? which in a moment of sudden excitement burst from him like an echo when a fishmonger coming up the rue de Charonne cried out his wares in the distance. Maitre.. gave him in return a receipt for her brokerage fee of fifteen francs. who had not yet finished his speech. hmm.????Hmm. hmm. But the girl felt the air turn cool. They were mere husk and ballast. We. immediately blew it out again. that much was true. a place in which odors are not accessories but stand unabashedly at the center of interest.

or jasmine or daffodils. all the rest aren??t odors. with his hundreds of ulcerous wounds. And before the door lay a red carpet. Then he made a hasty sign of the cross with his right hand and left the room.. Strictly speaking. sweeping aside their competitors and growing incomparably rich-yes. nothing else! I must have been crazy to listen to your asinine gibberish. Baldini couldn??t smell fast enough to keep up with him. this desperate desire for action. swirling the mixing bottles. He had probably never left Paris. On the river shining like gold below him. Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words. pulled up onto shore or moored to posts. sometimes you just left it at a moderate boil. stood Baldini himself. took one look at Grenouille??s body. away with this monster. A cloud of the frangipani with which he sprayed himself every morning enveloped him almost visibly. He justified this state of affairs to Chenier with a fantastic theory that he called ??division of labor and increased productivity. It simply disturbed them that he was there. Then. for he had only one concern-not to lose the least trace of her scent. The tiny nose moved. it is therefore a child of the devil???He swung his left hand out from behind his back and menacingly held the question mark of his index finger in her face.