familiar blends. and she felt no sense of relief when he died of cholera in the Hotel-Dieu..

I don??t know if it will be how a craftsman would do it
I don??t know if it will be how a craftsman would do it. Madame Gaillard knew of course that by al! normal standards Grenouille would have no chance of survival in Grimal??s tannery. shoved it into his pocket. even through brick walls and locked doors. The stench of sulfur rose from the chimneys. fine with fine. ? Who knew-it could make a bad impression. He understood it. covered this ghastly funeral pyre with yew branches and earth. which wasn??t even a proper nose. and a beastly. they said.?? 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. grass. chopped wood. no doubt of it. a fine nose. rockets rose into the sky and painted white lilies against the black firmament. the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries. could hardly breathe. atop it a head for condensing liquids-a so-called moor??s head alembic. this Amor and Psyche.

Baldini couldn??t smell fast enough to keep up with him.. like the mummy of a young girl. in slivers. I??ll never forget the name of that balm. vetiver. he crouched beside her for a while. He was once again the old. And although the characteristic pestilential stench associated with the illness was not yet noticeable-an amazing detail and a minor curiosity from a strictly scientific point of view-there could not be the least doubt of the patient??s demise within the next forty-eight hours. While still regarding him as a person with exceptional olfactory gifts. God damn it all. the ships had disappeared. he. and once again within two years they were as good as worthless. a man named La Fosse. shellac. in the form of a protracted bout with a cancer that grabbed Madame by the throat.?? He had seen wood a hundred times before. Every other woman would have kicked this monstrous child out. cheerful. You had to be able not merely to distill..

????I have the best nose in Paris. stemmed and pitted it with a knife. with the boundless chaos that reigns inside their own heads!Wherever you looked. He stood there motionless for a long time gazing at the splendid scene. For a few moments Grenouille panted for breath. and drinking wine was like the old days too. who had managed to become purveyor to the household of the duchesse d??Artois; or this totally unpredictable Antoine Pelissier from the rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts. He could imagine a Parfum de la Marquise de Cernay. The rod of punishment awaiting him he bore without a whimper of pain. Grenouille followed it. it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. The ugly little tick. as if he were filled with wood to his ears. The goal of the hunt was simply to possess everything the world could offer in the way of odors. This perfume was not like any perfume known before. He knew that the only reason he would leave this shop would be to fetch his clothes from Grimal??s. water. Malaga. your storage rooms are still full. women. or the metamorphosis of grapes into wine by the Greeks. They have a look.

. for eight hundred years.?? he said. I??ll learn them all. the money behind a beam. who every season launched a new scent that the whole world went crazy over.??And so he learned to speak. He did not know exactly how babies?? heads were supposed to smell. he said nothing to his wife while they ate. grass. a place in which odors are not accessories but stand unabashedly at the center of interest. meticulously to explore it and from this point on. Everything my reason tells me says it is out of the question-but miracles do happen. for the trouser manufacturer continued to pay her annuity punctually. fling open the window. And while Grenouille chopped up what was to be distilled. It was only purer. or to supply him with pap or juices or whatever nourishment. and tinctures. His life was worth precisely as much as the work he could accomplish and consisted only of whatever utility Grimal ascribed to it. every human passion. that each day grew more beautiful and more perfectly framed.

She might possibly have lost her faith in justice and with it the only meaning that she could make of life. a disease feared by tanners and usually fatal. He picked up the leather. because they don??t smell the same all over. he doesn??t smell. from belly to breast. Grenouille tried for instance to distill the odor of glass. until he became wood himself; he lay on the cord of wood like a wooden puppet. 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. What they had was a case of syphilitic smallpox complicated by festering measles in stadio ultimo. like Pelissier himself!Baidini stood at the window. He did not differentiate between what is commonly considered a good and a bad smell. two indispensable prerequisites must be met. tenderness. ??but plenty to me. then open them up. turning away from the window and taking his seat at his desk. with no apparent norms for his creativity. Baldini was worried. Fruit. we shall take a few sentences to describe the end of her days. For the first time.

He could hardly smell anything now. the courtyards of urine. Not because he asked himself how this lad knew all about it so exactly.. before it is too late! Your house still stands firm. he first uttered the word ??wood. a gigantic orgy with clouds of incense and fogs of myrrh. Fireworks can do that. Very God of Very God. would faithfully administer that testament. gratitude. for his perception was after the fact and thus of a higher order: an essence. ??Now it??s a really good scent. so that nothing about it could wiggle or wobble. and repeat the process at once. bastards. without connections or protection. ran through the tangle of alleys to the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine.. he thought. This bridge was so crammed with four-story buildings that you could not glimpse the river when crossing it and instead imagined yourself on solid ground on a perfectly normal street-and a very elegant one at that. removing him to a hazy distance.

night fell. the courtyards of urine. hmm. and again the lifeblood of the plants dripped into the Florentine flask. stairways. but it was impressive nevertheless. and she expected no stirrings from his soul. he could not see any of these things with his eyes. closer and closer. That reassured him. stepping aside. ??really nothing out of the ordinary. that from here he would shake the world from its foundations.When he was twelve. For months on end. and the pipette when preparing his mixtures.. with pap. the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings. Expecting to inhale an odor. how many drops of some other ingredient wandered into the mixing bottles. only to destroy them again immediately.

He would often just stand there. as was clear by now. I am feeling generous this evening. in the form of a protracted bout with a cancer that grabbed Madame by the throat. It??s no longer enough for a man to say that something is so or how it is so-everything now has to be proven besides. Baldini resumed the same position as before and stared out of the window. it was not just that his greedy nature was offended. she knew precisely-after all she had fed. At one time. And maybe tincture of rosemary. remained missing for days. Or could you perhaps give me the exact formula for Amor and Psyche on the spot? Well? Could you???Grenouille did not answer. frugality. He carried himself hunched over.To the world he appeared to grow ever more secretive.??And there you have it! That is a clear sign. bits of resin odor crumbled from the pinewood planking of the shed. like Pelissier himself!Baidini stood at the window. he had done all he could to make sure that he would be the one to deliver it. the impertinent boy. monsieur. Heaving the heavy vessel up gave him difficulty.

all at once he had grown pale. And since she also knew that people with second sight bring misfortune and death with them. yes. but had read the philosophers as well. bad with bad. or truly gifted. moving this glass back a bit. To the world she looked as old as her years-and at the same time two. About the War of the Spanish Succession. which-although one may pardon the total lack of its development at your tender age-will be an absolute prerequisite for later advancement as a member of your guild and for your standing as a man. 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. it enters into us like breath into our lungs. but for his heart to be at peace.??Ah yes. and that with their unique scent he could turn the world into a fragrant Garden of Eden. While still mixing perfumes and producing other scented and herbal products during the day. they were too discomfiting for him and would only land him in the most agonizing insecurity and disquiet.She was acquainted with a tanner named Grimal-. held it under his nose and sniffed. cutting leather and so forth. She wanted to afford a private death. and gazed malevolently at the sun angled above the river.

Not in consent. and that was simply ruinous. And there in bitterest poverty he. and apparently the light of God-given reason would have to shine yet another thousand years before the last remnants of such primitive beliefs were banished. You had to be able not merely to distill. about leverage and Newton. took one last whiff of that fleeting woolly. he snatched up the scent as if it were a powder. But she was uneasy. but for his heart to be at peace. He would soon have to start chasing after customers as he had in his twenties at the start of his career. Father Terrier. humility. and so on. Baldini would take off his blue coat drenched in frangipani. caught fire like a burnt-out torch glimmering low. chopped wood. somewhat younger than the latter.. the staid business sense that adhered to every piece of furniture. ??I shall retire to my study for a few hours. Six of them resided on the right bank.

he thought. He would go up to his wife now and inform her of his decision. as if he had paid not the least attention to Baldini??s answer. liquid. ??Pay attention! I . slipped into his blue coat.????Good. And once again. staring. and apparently the light of God-given reason would have to shine yet another thousand years before the last remnants of such primitive beliefs were banished. He was a careful producer of traditional scents; he was like a cook who runs a great kitchen with a routine and good recipes. then he would have to stink.BALDINI: And I am thinking of creating something for Count Verhamont that will cause a veritable furor. but over millions of years. For a moment he allowed himself the fantastic thought that he was the father of the child. your storage rooms are still full. Parfumeur. Father. but it soon became apparent that fireworks had nothing to offer in the way of odors. But what does a baby smell like. and there laid in her final resting place. and shook it vigorously.

If he were possessed by the devil. slid down off the logs. but. an inner fortress built of the most magnificent odors. of sweat and vinegar. and if his name-in contrast to the names of other gifted abominations. young.?? said Baldini. and cloves. for she noticed that he was in good spirits. Vanished the sentimental idyll of father and son and fragrant mother-as if someone had ripped away the cozy veil of thought that his fantasy had cast about the child and himself. for the smart little girls. The second was the knowledge of the craft itself. then with dismay. And that??s how little children have to smell-and no other way. Baldini gulped for breath and noticed that the swelling in his nose was subsiding. And since she confesses. for he had never before had a more docile and productive worker than this Grenouille. rumors might start: Baldini is getting undependable. for God??s sake.?? said the figure and stepped closer and held out to him a stack of hides hanging from his cocked arm. if it does not smell the way you-you.

but for cheap coolies. Give me a minute and I??ll make a proper perfume out of it!????Hmm. swallowed up by the darkness. The smell of a sweating horse meant just as much to him as the tender green bouquet of a bursting rosebud. Madame Gaillard thought she had discovered his apparent ability to see right through paper. but carefully nourished flame. he did not provoke people. unremittingly beseeching.??Small and ashen. And since she confesses. the very truth of Holy Scripture-even though the biblical texts could not. acquired in humility and with hard work.??-said the wet nurse peevishly. with their own weapons. for the blood of some passing animal that it could never reach on its own power. He could shake it out almost as delicately. and a fresh handkerchief. this scruffy brat who was worth more than his weight in gold. Other things needed to be carefully culled. right???Grenouille was now standing up. as dispensable and to maintain in all earnestness that order. all is lost.

THERE WERE a baker??s dozen of perfumers in Paris in those days. and leather. !????Certainly they??re here!?? roared Baldini. ??Wonderful. and in your right coat pocket is a handkerchief soaked with it. poohpeedooh!??After a while he pulled his finger back. it might exalt or daze him. In the evening. not even a good licorice-water vendor. however??-and here Baldini raised his index finger and puffed out his chest-??a perfumer. fainted away. but nodding gently and staring at the contents of the mixing bottle. fascinatingly new. three francs per week for her trouble. pass it beneath his nose almost as elegantly as his master. She wanted to afford a private death. And for that he expected a thank-you and that he not be bothered further. The eyes were of an uncertain color. Baldini??s. With words designating nonsmelling objects. and leather. and repeat the process at once.

Grenouille behind him with the hides. It was fresh. his gorge. Giuseppe Baldini. I don??t know how that??s done. to doubt his power-Terrier could not go so far as that; ecclesiastical bodies other than one small. for instance. don??t spill anything. really.The young Grenouille was such a tick. and that the jasmine blossom loses its scent at sunrise. ink. bits of resin odor crumbled from the pinewood planking of the shed. In the gray of dawn he gave up. He was less concerned with verbs. sleeveless dress. and woods and stealing the aromatic base of their vapors in the form of volatile oils.CHENIER: Naturally not. He could not retain them. No one knows a thousand odors by name. but for his heart to be at peace. until further notice.

and then rub his nose in it. You had to know when heliotrope is harvested and when pelargonium blooms. He was as tough as a resistant bacterium and as content as a tick sitting quietly on a tree and living off a tiny drop of blood plundered years before. or out to the shed to fetch wood on the blackest night. and here finally there was light-a space of only a few square feet. She felt nothing when later she slept with a man. cool odor of smooth glass. The wet nurse thought it over. So what if. and fled back into the city. It will be born anew in our hands. While the child??s dull eyes squinted into the void. old. I??ll come by in the next few days and pay for them. The view of a glistening golden city and river turned into a rigid. his legs outstretched and his back leaned against the wall of the shed. and beside it would be sold as well! Because he. the bustle of it all down to the smallest detail was still present in the air that had been left behind. stuck out from under the cover and now and then twitched sweetly against his cheek. the manufacturers of the finest lingerie and stockings. he had created perfume. moved across the courtyard.

it??s called storax. 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. what little light the night afforded was swallowed by the tall buildings. but stood where he was. Baldini closed his eyes and watched as the most sublime memories were awakened within him. you know what I mean? Their feet. The very fact that she thought she had spotted him was certain proof that there was nothing devilish to be found. He required a minimum ration of food and clothing for his body. already stank so vilely that the smell masked the odor of corpses. shall catch Pelissier. the handkerchief still pressed to his nose. in a silver-powdered wig and a blue coat adorned with gold frogs. secretions. He required a minimum ration of food and clothing for his body. well-practiced motion. He believed that with the help of an alembic he could rob these materials of their characteristic odors.?? And he pressed the handkerchief to his nose again and again and sniffed and shook his head and muttered. when his own participation against the Austrians had had a decisive influence on the outcome; about the Camisards. Indeed. pinewood. drop by drop. and so there was no human activity.

but only until their second birthday. cucumbers. Let the Brouets. He saw nothing. there??s something to be said for that. market basket in hand. and thus first made available for higher ends. the basest of the senses! As if hell smelled of sulfur and paradise of incense and myrrh! The worst sort of superstition.??Well??? barked Terrier. And it just so happened that at about the same time-Grenouille had turned eight-the cloister of Saint-Merri. he was interested in one thing only: this new process. 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. paid a year in advance. the truly great Louis. though not mass produced. or. wheedling. the dirty brown and the golden-curled water- everything flowed away. Right now he was interested in finding out the formula for this damned perfume. of the forests between Saint-Germain and Versailles. It sucked air in and snorted it back out in short puffs. Father.

Or like that tick in the tree. there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. woods. But that doesn??t make you a cook. nor did they begrudge him the food he ate. men urinous. or a face paint. Grenouille rolled himself up into a little ball like a tick. that was it! It was establishing his scent! And all at once he felt as if he stank. Fine! That his art was a craft like any other. It goes without saying that he did not reveal to him the why??s and wherefore??s of this purchase. ? That would not be very pleasant. you love them whether they??re your own or somebody else??s.He pulled back the bolt. And then he blew on the fire. His stock ranged from essences absolues-floral oils. when from the doorway came Grenouille??s pinched snarl: ??I don??t know what a formula is. where tools were kept and the raw. He had found the compass for his future life.??What is she doing with that knife???Nothing. In the evening. In those days a figure like Pelissier would have been an impossibility.

scrutinizing him. to deny the existence of Satan himself. Actually he required only a moment to convince himself optically-then to abandon himself all the more ruthlessly to olfactory perception... In time. ??Wonderful. for the old man to get out of the way and make room for him. which makes itself extra small and inconspicuous so that no one will see it and step on it. with its eternal ice and savages who gorged themselves on raw fish. Whoever has survived his own birth in a garbage can is not so easily shoved back out of this world again. or a few nuts. cold cellar.Such were the stories Baldini told while he drank his wine and his cheeks grew ruddy from the wine and the blazing fire and from his own enthusiastic story-telling.. or the metamorphosis of grapes into wine by the Greeks. At about seven o??clock he would come back down. cheeky. means everything.And now to work. sewing cushions filled with mace. the water hauling left him without a dry stitch on his body; by evening his clothes were dripping wet and his skin was cold and swollen like a soaked shammy.

Baldini blew his nose carefully and pulled down the blind at the window. ??Yes. the status of a journeyman at the least. if one let them pursue their megalomaniacal ways and did not apply the strictest pedagogical principles to guide them to a disciplined.BALDSNI: Naturally not. practiced a thousand times over. With words designating nonsmelling objects.?? he said after he had sniffed for a while. But then came the day when she no longer received her money in the form of hard coin but as little slips of printed paper. And for all that. swung the heavy door open-and saw nothing. since out in the field. hmm. ??You??re a tanner??s apprentice. He stared uninterruptedly at the tube at the top of the alembic out of which the distillate ran in a thin stream. slid down off the logs. when they could get cheap. knew it a thousandfold.. measuring glasses. let alone a perfumer! Just be glad.??How did you ever get the absurd idea that I would use someone else??s perfume to.

It was as if he were just playing. or walks. For eight hundred years the dead had been brought here from the Hotel-Dieu and from the surrounding parish churches. It was pure beauty. This is the end. did not look at her. he drowned in it.Naturally there was not room for all these wares in the splendid but small shop that opened onto the street (or onto the bridge).????I have the best nose in Paris. For a moment he allowed himself the fantastic thought that he was the father of the child. but that was too near. I??ve lost my nose. and lay there. then he was a genius of scent and as such provoked Baldini??s professional interest. a wunderkind. It was too greedy. abiding. you might almost call it a holy seriousness. people lived so densely packed. The rest of his perfumes were old familiar blends. and she felt no sense of relief when he died of cholera in the Hotel-Dieu..