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travellers are: each passenger waits silently between the lines on the ground indicating where the carriages will be. The train arrives. We settle into the seats that we reserved in France. A vague waft of
Chanel No. 5
hangs in the carriage, and I turn round to find out who is wearing it. There are only men in the carriage. Could the air conditioning be perfumed? The ticket inspector checks our tickets. He turns to us, greets us with a tilt of the head, then leaves. He comes back at every stop and greets us every time. The woman selling drinks pushes her trolley between the seats, dressed like a schoolgirl, white blouse and black skirt. She has put on a purple and yellow apron tied at the back with a pretty bow. When she reaches the automatic door, she turns round andshe too leans her torso forward, with her back straight, her eyes focused on the tops of the seats.
    Whether it is on arrival or departure, in hotels or inns, in cafés or shops, to the Japanese salutations are a day-to-day mark of courtesy. Courtesy is not a virtue – these small acts of courtesy, which can appear artificial and even false, almost make me want to smile – but it is a quality, a ritual that facilitates life in society, and one that I appreciate.

    Kanazawa, Monday 15 March 2010
    Natural
    After spending a few days in Kyoto, the city with two thousand palaces and gardens, the place people cherish in their memory when they are in love with Japan, we take the train to Kanazawa, known for its garden, which symbolized ideal beauty in the days of the Song dynasty. Whether they are rock or moss gardens, or gardens simply to stroll in, Japanese gardens seem artificial to our Western eyes. Of course, to our Japanese guide there could be no more natural gardens. I remark on the layout of the garden, the choice of stones, the use of water, the refined way the trees are pruned, the contrived arrangement of branches right down to thinned-out pine needles, bough by bough, on the symbolic beauty, whose composition makes full use of the surrounding landscape – but when I comment on all this she maintains her pretty smile and good humor, and tells me that it is all natural. What is natural is therefore cultural.

    Tokyo, Friday 19 March 2010
    Bill Evans
    Talking about jazz in Japan might seem incongruous. It is not at all. Jazz is part of Japanese culture. There is a Blue Note in Tokyo.
    Apart from Starbucks outlets, which favor rock, most cafés and meeting places greet you with the sound of jazz, with a preference for the jazz of the seventies and eighties and often groups of three or four instrumentalists. Restaurants, on the other hand, prefer classical music, Debussy and Mozart. And, although Mozart may feel out of place to me in a country that eschews extravagance, Debussy or Ravel are perfectly in keeping with it. A people that listens to jazz is a people that favors human exchange.
    A jazz lover myself, I walk into the famous Yamano Music shop in the Ginza district hoping to unearth a recording I have not heard of Bill Evans, whom I think is one of the greatest pianists of the genre. I find a rare DVD. Back at the hotel, I slip the disc into the Sony player and listen and watch as the trio play: Bill Evans, Marc Johnson and Joe La Barbera. There is in Bill Evans’ playing a sensitivity, a precision, a presence and a clarity that make me love humanity. His ‘sound colors’ are reminiscent of Gabriel Fauré’s and Claude Debussy’s.
    I would like to transpose those ‘sound colors’ into ‘olfactory colors.’

    Cabris, Monday 22 March 2010
    Works in progress
    I am back in my workshop this morning, and at my table, where a number of projects are in progress. There are three colognes based on different themes waiting for me there. One, the mint cologne that I have already mentioned, I have put aside for now. The second is a cologne based on elemi – the citrus-smelling resin from an exotic tree. The third is based on mandarins and I have christened