Jitterbug Perfume

Part 3 begins with Pan, who is attending the reburial service of the philosopher Rene Descartes in Paris in 1666. The Greek god has been rendered invisible by years of neglect in this new age of reason. Resentfully, he steals a wig from a funeral-goer’s head.

We resume Alobar’s and Kudra’s story. They live for seven years in the caves of the Bandaloop, learning the secrets of immortality from the “vibrations” within the caves. Kudra is impatient to experience life, however, and convinces Alobar to set off with her. For many years they run a successful spice business in Constantinople, until their supernatural youthfulness gets them run out of the city. Alobar notes, “We are now aware that a display of undue longevity created problems in a community conditioned to age and die” (139). They see the city burn behind them as they leave (possibly in the historically documented Sack of Constantinople in 1204).

In Greece, the couple visits Pan and the nymphs. They dally together in coital bliss (though a mesmerized Alobar mildly protests Kudra’s coupling with Pan). Pan is amazed by Kudra’s scents, which only temporarily mask his signature muskiness. “’Tis true, thou [humans] do have magic of thine own, the gods have always known that, known it even better than thee,” Pan says (146).