Karim never truly grasped the meaning of the scent of childhood until he was in exile. There—in that distant French city—he felt the torment of a fragrance that had vanished. He spoke to Bernadette of the scent of apples and coffee, yet he found himself unable to describe it; for how does one describe a scent to someone who has neither smelled nor tasted it? Karim discovered his own linguistic inadequacy—his inability to translate his memories, or the tension of the nostalgia consuming him, into words—only to eventually realize that the act of making love is, in essence, nothing more than a translation of speech.