Perfume by Patrick Suskind « Nothing More Wonderful

He knows every person, animal, shop, and street in Paris by their unique scent. This peculiar gift drives Father Terrier, the monk under whose guardianship Grenouille was placed as an infant, to turn him over to Madame Gaillard who ... Madame Gaillard treats the children under her care with cool indifference, her only goal in life to save up enough money to buy an annuity so she might grow old and die in private rather than in the cramped Hotel-Deu as her husband did. ...