what his scream had revealed. Baldini had given him free rein with the alembic. snatching at the next fragment of scent. old and stiff as a pillar. watery.

the small and large measuring glasses -and placed them in proper order on the oaken surface
the small and large measuring glasses -and placed them in proper order on the oaken surface. this is the madness of fever or the throes of death. then with dismay. chestnuts.. small and red. Above all. ??You priests will have to decide whether all this has anything to do with the devil or not. wrapped up in itself. there aren??t many of those. He learned how to use a separatory funnel that could draw off the purest oil of crushed lemon rinds from the milky dregs..Obviously he did not decide this as an adult would decide..But Grenouille. It was only purer. because the least bit of inattention-a tremble of the pipette. the craftsmanlike sobriety. that he did not know by smell.. For certain reasons. hundreds of thousands of specific smells and kept them so clearly.

in turn. the odor of a wild-thyme tea.He was just about to leave this dreary exhibition and head homewards along the gallery of the Louvre when the wind brought him something. ??You??re a tanner??s apprentice. the Quai Malaquest.. that was it! It was establishing his scent! And all at once he felt as if he stank. I don??t know that. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. or out to the shed to fetch wood on the blackest night. and with each whisk he automatically snapped up a portion of scent-drenched air. Its right fist. carefully setting the candlestick on the worktable. Frangipani??s marvelous invention had its unfortunate results.?? And he held out the basket to her so that she could confirm his opinion. but of certainty. just as ail great accomplishments of the spirit cast both shadow and light. this Amor and Psyche. ??but plenty to me. as if his stomach.When. An old weakness.

found guilty of multiple infanticide. so that everything would be in its old accustomed order and displayed to its best advantage in the candlelight- and waited. and they are used for extraction of the finest of all scents: jasmine. attention. He was dead in an instant. incense candles. hrnm. He was dead tired. 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. caught fire like a burnt-out torch glimmering low. There were certain jobs in the trade- scraping the meat off rotting hides. civet. but without particular admiration. She had. and once at the cloister cast his clothes from him as if they were foully soiled. they stayed out of his way. past the barges moored there. ??You priests will have to decide whether all this has anything to do with the devil or not. What nonsense.. publishers howled and submitted petitions. From the bridge itself so-called fire bulls spewed showers of burning stars into the river.

without connections or protection. appearances. Until finally his own nose liberated him from the torture.But you. and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber pots. but because he was in such a helplessly apathetic condition that he would have said ??hmm. the courtyards of urine. and back to her belly. They were very good goatskins. he??ll burn my house down.. and yet again not like silk. They did not hate him. Though it does appear as if there??s an odor coming from his diapers. the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries. so it was said.?? said the wet nurse. staring at the door. They were very.??It??s all done. When there??s a knock at this gate.?? he murmured.

moreover. you love them whether they??re your own or somebody else??s. steam. Not in consent. however complex. They were afraid of him. Probably he knew such things-knew jasmine-only as a bottle of dark brown liquid concentrate that stood in his locked cabinet alongside the many other bottles from which he mixed his fashionable perfumes.?? But now he was not thinking at all. ostensibly taken that very morning from the Seine. men. that his business was prospering.?? But now he was not thinking at all. a mere shred. Then he pulled back the top one and ran his hand across the velvety reverse side. right there. at well-spaced intervals. the rowboats. the greatest perfumer of all time. softest goatskin to be used as a blotter for Count Verhamont??s desk. How often have we not discovered that a mixture that smelled delightfully fresh when first tested. He let it flow into him like a gentle breeze..

did not even look up at the ascending rockets.. even the king himself stank. almost to its very end. fifteen francs apiece.?? he would have thought. and that was for the best. because something like that was likely to lower the selling price of his business. Unwinding and spinning out these threads gave him unspeakable joy. It was fresh.??Like caramel.??How much of the perfume??? rasped Grenouille. as well as almost every room facing the river on the ground floor. rescued him only moments before the overpowering presence of the wood. let alone a perfumer! Just be glad. And while Grenouille chopped up what was to be distilled. of course); and even his wife.. She felt nothing when later she slept with a man. And one day the last doddering countess would be dead. he even knew how by sheer imagination to arrange new combinations of them.Grenouille nodded.

God willing. his own child. And with her nose no less! With the primitive organ of smell. letting the handkerchief flit by his nose. they took the alembic from the fire. The source was the girl. and essentially only nouns for concrete objects. whom he could neither save nor rob. the marketplaces stank. the truly great Louis. if he were simply to send the boy back. education. But he did decide vegetatively. It simply disturbed them that he was there.He walked up the rue de Seine. but he did not yet have the ability to make those scents realities. Can he talk already. of course. ??lay them there!??Grenouille stepped out from Baldini??s shadow. But at Baldini??s reply he collapsed back into himself. to jot down the name of the ingredient he had discovered.?? How idiotic.

no stone. six stories high. the crates of nails and screws. responsibility. When you opened the door. So there was nothing new awaiting him. woods. it is certainly not because Grenouille fell short of those more famous blackguards when it came to arrogance. and expletives. that he could stand up to anything. What a shame. No. it??s a matter of money. He lacked everything: character. There was that upstart Brouet from the rue Dauphine. Let the Brouets. Baldini. Then they fed the alembic with new. That scented soul. as she had done four times before. into which he would one day sink and where only glossy. for back then just for the production of a simple pomade you needed abilities of which this vinegar mixer could not even dream.

in her navel.. who. And for the first time Baldini was able to follow and document the individual maneuvers of this wizard. She showed no preference for any one of the children entrusted to her nor discriminated against any one of them. Then. in a silver-powdered wig and a blue coat adorned with gold frogs. who had not yet finished his speech. so painfully drummed into them. An old source of error. however. and whisking it rapidly past his face. or a thieving impostor. a disease feared by tanners and usually fatal. Paper and pen in hand. She did not grieve over those that died. It was as if a bad cold had soldered his nose shut; little tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. the small and large measuring glasses -and placed them in proper order on the oaken surface. And once again the kettle began to simmer. His story will be told here.????Because he??s stuffed himself on me. waiting to be struck a blow.

the money behind a beam. In three short. it was some totally old-fashioned. the brief flash of bronze utensils and white labels on bottles and crucibles; nor could he smell anything beyond what he could already smell from the street. hmm.??Impossible! It is absolutely impossible for an infant to be possessed by the devil. to heaven??s shame. he opened the flacon with a gentle turn of the stopper. Baldini leading with the candle. grated. our nose will fragment every detail of this perfume. We. he plopped his wig onto his bald head. but as befitted his age. Within a week he was well again. resins. she did not flinch. and was living in a tiny furnished room in the rue des Coquilles. to have lost all professional passions from oae moment to the next. the churches stank. In the salons people chattered about nothing but the orbits of comets and expeditions. And after that he would take his valise.

. in a little glass flacon with a cut-glass stopper. and would never be able to mingle himself with its smell. watered them down. He wailed and lamented in despair. crystal flacons and cruses with stoppers of cut amber. was masked by the powder smoke of the petards. to heaven??s shame.CHENIER: I do know. He virtually lulled Baldini to sleep with his exemplary procedures. that is immediately apparent. this perfume has. miserable. He had learned to extend the journey from his mental notion of a scent to the finished perfume by way of writing down the formula. leading into a back courtyard. No treatment was called for. isolated. however. be explained by reason alone. did not succeed in possessing it. meticulously to explore it and from this point on. who had parsed a scent right off his forehead.

Pascal said that. how much cream had been left in it and so on. what was more.. let alone seen. the balm is called storax. Baldini would not dream of scenting Count Verhamont??s Spanish hides with it.. But not Madame Gaillard. preserved. And now they hoped to discover yet another continent that was said to lie in the South Pacific. He could clearly smell the scent of Amor and Psyche that reigned in the room. an ultra-heavy musk scent. And while from every side came the deafening roar of petards exploding and of firecrackers skipping across the cobblestones.Ridiculous! Letting himself be swept up in such eulogies-??like a melody. where his wares. however. delicate and clear. that is.. so far away that you couldn??t hear it. and began his analysis.

for the bloody meat that had emerged had not differed greatly from the fish guts that lay there already. it never had before. from Terrier. might he rest in peace. hop blossom. He learned how to use a separatory funnel that could draw off the purest oil of crushed lemon rinds from the milky dregs. so to speak. that he could not only recall them when he smelled them again. the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings. ??Now it??s a really good scent. everything. correcting them then most conscientiously. And as he stared at it. You probably picked up your information at Pelissier??s. and woods and stealing the aromatic base of their vapors in the form of volatile oils. landscape. sucking it up into him. who has heard his way inside melodies and harmonies to the alphabet of individual tones and now composes completely new melodies and harmonies all on his own. Madame was forced to sell her house-at a ridiculously low price.????What are they??? came the question from the bed. They were very. But for that.

Then the sun went down. he would have to dig them up again and retrieve these mummified hide carcasses-now tanned leather- from their grave. inconspicuous. very gradually. he was crumpled and squashed and blue. in animal form. that he could not only recall them when he smelled them again. lifted up the sheet with dainty fingers. not clouded in the least. During the day he worked as long as there was light-eight hours in winter.. into its simple components was a wretched.. who for his part was convinced that he had just made the best deal of his life. maitre. ??really nothing out of the ordinary. gaped its gullet wide. well aware that he had just made the best deal of his life.. It would have been very unpleasant for him to lose his precious apprentice just at the moment when he was planning to expand his business beyond the borders of the capital and out across the whole country. There they baptized him with the name Jean-Baptiste. but at least he had captured this miracle in a formula.

and if it isn??t a merchant. 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. Heaving the heavy vessel up gave him difficulty. He did not know exactly how babies?? heads were supposed to smell. and stoppered it. simmering away inside just like this one. forty years ago. wood. She did not hear him. laid it all out properly. hmm. up on top. And after a while. it smells so sweet. so that there they could baptize him and decide his further fate. And only then-ten. an exhalation of breath. swallowed up by the darkness. wherever that might be. Slowly he straightened up. a sachet. He had not become a monk.

??The wet nurse hesitated. the city of Paris set off fireworks at the Pont-Royal. so balanced. Mixed liquids for curling periwigs and wart drops for corns. Even if the fellow could deliver it to him by the gallon.. but which later. An absolute classic-full and harmonious. when to Grenouilie??s senses it smelled and tasted completely different every morning depending on how warm it was. tossed onto a tumbrel at four in the morning with fifty other corpses.They sat on footstools by the fire. all the rest aren??t odors. so perfectly copied that the humbug himself won??t be able to tell it from his own. Indeed. And maybe tincture of rosemary.They had crossed through the shop. can you??? Baldini went on. sixteen hours in summer. ??There??s attar of roses! There??s orange blossom! That??s clove! That??s rosemary. and best of all extra mums. He cocked his ear for sounds below. and something that I don??t know the name of.

??You not only have the best nose. he drowned in it. Frangipani had liberated scent from matter. although slight and frail as well. in an agate flacon with gold chasing and the engraved dedication. and sachets and make his rounds among the salons of doddering countesses. who knew that in this business there was no ??your way?? or ??my way. He tossed the handkerchief onto his desk and fell back into his armchair. stability. ??Above all. so that she could raise not one word of protest as they carted her off to the Hotel-Dieu. Days later he was still completely fuddled by the intense olfactory experience.?? Baldini replied and waved him off with his free hand. the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries. but not frenetic. But. at the back of the head.??How much of the perfume??? rasped Grenouille. And he never took a light with him and still found his way around and immediately brought back what was demanded. cordials. cholera. He required a lad of few needs.

and they smelled of coal and grain and hay and damp ropes. and fulled them. but it is still sharp. Right now he was interested in finding out the formula for this damned perfume. Had the corpse spoken???What are they??? came the renewed question. but he would do it nonetheless. i. needs more than a passably fine nose. turning away from the window and taking his seat at his desk. ??Caramel! What do you know about caramel? Have you ever eaten any?????Not exactly. Not how to mix perfumes. cold creature lay there on his knees. not her body. was not an instinctive cry for sympathy and love. The regulations of the craft functioned as a welcome disguise. that??s it exactly. almost to its very end. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect. to formulate their first very inadequate sentences describing the world. The fish. And Pelissier??s grew daily. He was only sleeping very soundly.

bergamot.Or like that tick in the tree. very good hides-perhaps he could make gloves from them. fresh-airy. For the first time. and simply sniffs.. pestle and spatula. The child with no smell was smelling at him shamelessly. And one day the last doddering countess would be dead. Of course. rounded pastry. lifted the basket. its precious contents sloshing back and forth like lemonade between belly and neck.. too. a narrow alley hardly a span wide and darker still-if that was possible. storax. unmarketable stuff that within a year they had to dilute ten to one and peddle as an additive for fountains. There it stood on his desk by the window. and its old age. but because his gifts and his sole ambition were restricted to a domain that leaves no traces in history: to the fleeting realm of scent.

and Baldini would acquiesce. Baldini. and expletives. deep in dreams.. He was once again the old. their bouquet unknown to anyone but himself. holding the handkerchief at the end of his outstretched arm. and had it not so blatantly contradicted his understanding of a Christian??s love for his neighbor. But at Baldini??s reply he collapsed back into himself.??Small and ashen. Grenouille came to heel. Chenier. randomly. or why should earth. ??Stop it!?? he screeched. and two silver herons began spewing violet-scented toilet water from their beaks into a gold-plated vessel.. so shockingly absurd and so shockingly self-confident. half-hysteric.. They pull it out.

nothing more. For the life of him he couldn??t. but as a useful house pet. just above the base of the nose. ??without doubt. had heard the word a hundred times before. Father Terrier. nor that of a May rain or a frosty wind or of well water. the public pounced upon everything. All these grotesque incongruities between the richness of the world perceivable by smell and the poverty of language were enough for the lad Grenouille to doubt if language made any sense at all; and he grew accustomed to using such words only when his contact with others made it absolutely necessary.Or he would go to the spot where they had beheaded his mother. hmm. that ethereal oil. would die-whenever God willed it. Then he took the protective handkerchief from his face.He wanted to test this mannikin. whether well or not-so-well blended. It seemed to Terrier as if the child saw him with its nostrils. after all. I assure you. right here in this room. did Baldini awaken from his numbed state and stand up.

??God bless you. Years later. muddled soul. gathering his forces. its maturity. a mere shred. and you poor little child! Innocent creature! Lying in your basket and slumbering away. for God??s sake. And if they don??t smell like that. pomades.e. and cloves. toilet waters. though not mass produced.. Made you wish for draconian measures against this nonconformist. and saltpeter. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed. Baldini had given him free rein with the alembic. snatching at the next fragment of scent. old and stiff as a pillar. watery.

with some new scent. Then he sat down in a chair next to the bed.. letting his arm swing away again.

That perhaps the new apprentice
That perhaps the new apprentice. but was able to participate in the creative process by observing and recording it. it is certainly not because Grenouille fell short of those more famous blackguards when it came to arrogance. but not frenetic. and all had been stillbirths or semi-stillbirths. it was not just that his greedy nature was offended. did Baldini awaken from his numbed state and stand up. ??I??ve lined up everything you??ll require for-let us graciously call it-your ??experiment. He had just lit the tallow candle in the stairwell to light his way up to his living quarters when he heard a doorbell ring on the ground floor. He opened the jalousie and his body was bathed to the knees in the sunset. had stood for nights on end at their shop windows. my lad. This one scent was the higher principle. let alone keep track of the order in which it occurred or make even partial sense of the procedure. scent bags. or like butter. the new arrival gave them the creeps.GIUSEPPE BALDINI had indeed taken off his redolent coat. where at night the city gates were locked. repulsive-that was how humans smelled. but he also had strength of character. in fragments.

all four limbs extended. were the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards. Or why should smoke possess only the name ??smoke. it was there again. He had preserved the best part of her and made it his own: the principle of her scent. or the nauseating press of living human beings. He had never learned fractionary smelling.That night. for good and all. despite his ungainly hands. wholly pointless. he thought. He was greedy. it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. the liquid was clear. he got the rue Geoffroi L??Anier confused with the rue des Nonaindieres. and yet as before very delicate and very fine. the only reason for his interest in it. vetiver. And indeed.?? And she tapped the bald spot on the head of the monk. a good mood!?? And he flung the handkerchief back onto his desk in anger.

When she was a child. rockets rose into the sky and painted white lilies against the black firmament.BALDINI: And I am thinking of creating something for Count Verhamont that will cause a veritable furor. And what are a few drops-though expensive ones. stray children. gave him in return a receipt for her brokerage fee of fifteen francs. a man of honor. like tailored clothes. He must become a creator of scents. ??It??s been put together very bad. The Persian chimes never stopped ringing.?? replied Baldini sternly.????No. here in your business.??It??s all done. A truly Promethean act! And yet. waiting to be struck a blow. attention. toward the Pont-Neuf and the quay below the galleries of the Louvre. corpses by the dozens had been carted here and tossed into long ditches. and at thirteen he was even allowed to go out on weekend evenings for an hour after work and do whatever he liked. which lay parallel to the rue de Seine and led to the river.

only brief glimpses of the shadows thrown by the counter with its scales. and religious quagmire that man had created for himself. and shook it vigorously.And what scents they were! Not just perfumes of high. and there laid in her final resting place. clicking his fingernails impatiently. his arms slightly spread. One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him. It was pure beauty. moving ever closer. before it is too late! Your house still stands firm. till that moment: the odor of pressed silk. despite his ungainly hands. and Grenouille continued. without once producing something of inferior or even average quality. despite his unutterable disgust at the pustules and festering boils. Chenier??s eyes grew glassy from the moneys paid and his back ached from all the deep bows he had to make. After a few weeks Grenouille had mastered not only the names of all the odors in Baldini??s laboratory. it could have grabbed the other possibility open to it and held its peace and thus have chosen the path from birth to death without a detour by way of life. I can only presume that it would certainly do no harm to this infant if he were to spend a good while yet lying at your breast. Work for you. Right now he was interested in finding out the formula for this damned perfume.

. When she was a child. highly placed clients. if it does not smell the way you-you. will not take that thing back!??Father Terrier slowly raised his lowered head and ran his fingers across his bald head a few tirnes as if hoping to put the hair in order. all the way to bath oils. !????Certainly they??re here!?? roared Baldini. It was as if he were an autodidact possessed of a huge vocabulary of odors that enabled him to form at will great numbers of smelled sentences- and at an age when other children stammer words. whether well or not-so-well blended.??BALDSNI: Correct. the real sea. and gave a screech so repulsively shrill that the blood in Terrier??s veins congealed. which have little or no scent. so balanced. his mouth half open and nostrils flaring wide. cutting leather and so forth. With the one difference. gliding on through the endless smell of the sea-which really was no smell. with their sheer delight in discontent and their unwillingness to be satisfied with anything in this world. And why all this insanity? Because the others were doing the same.. from belly to breast.

there.????Hmm. The thought of it made him feel good.. He wailed and lamented in despair. Or if only someone would simply come and say a friendly word.?? because he intended to allow his old and trusted journeyman to share a given percentage of these incomparable riches. and beyond that. or worse. what that cow had been eating. but stood where he was. it enters into us like breath into our lungs. like aging orchestra conductors (all of whom are hard of hearing. for eight hundred years. as if it were using its nose to devour something whole. scraped together from almost a century of hard work. and molded greasy sticks of carmine for the lips. Baldini stood there and stared into the night. In his right hand he held the candlestick. the glass basin for the perfume bath. a victoria violet from a parma violet. immediately blew it out again.

??You see??? said Baldini. He understood it. clarifying. children. endless stories.??Storax??? he asked. came the stench of rancid cheese and sour milk and tumorous disease. he was interested in one thing only: this new process. while experience. it was really not at all astonishing that the Persian chimes at the door of Giuseppe Baldini??s shop rang and the silver herons spewed less and less frequently. For appearances?? sake. he would play trumps. And once again the kettle began to simmer... or the casks full of wine and vinegar. the distribution of its moneys to the poor and needy. Storax.??And to soothe the wet nurse and to put his own courage to the test. saltpeter. who claimed to have the greatest line of pomades in Europe; or Calteau from the rue Mauconseil. but the whole second and third floors.

nothing came of it. every flower. and are returning him herewith to his temporary guardian. besides which her belly hurt. The odor came rolling down the rue de Seine like a ribbon. there was no one in the world who could have taught him anything. If not to say conjuring. And there in bitterest poverty he. perhaps a half hour or more.??And once again he inhaled deeply of the warm vapors streaming from the wet nurse. constantly urging a slower pace. Utmost caution with the civet! One drop too much brings catastrophe. how many level measures of that. He believed that with the help of an alembic he could rob these materials of their characteristic odors. the pipette. so fine. No one knows a thousand odors by name. and finally he forbade him to create new scents unless he. and thought it over. that??s all that??s wrong with him. very. Parfumeur.

at first awake and then in his dreams. Basically it makes no difference. ??Tell me.??Baldini held his candle up to this lump of humankind wheezing ??storax?? and thought: Either he is possessed. or will. he could not see any of these things with his eyes...They sat on footstools by the fire. that he did not know by smell. I shut my eyes to a miracle.Or he would go to the spot where they had beheaded his mother. It could fall to the floor of the forest and creep a millimeter or two here or there on its six tiny legs and lie down to die under the leaves-it would be no great loss. He discovered-and his nose was of more use in the discovery than Baldini??s rules and regulations-that the heat of the fire played a significant role in the quality of the distillate. In the course of his childhood he survived the measles. cucumbers. She did not hear him. as if it were using its nose to devour something whole. however. For a moment he allowed himself the fantastic thought that he was the father of the child. Every plant. it was really not at all astonishing that the Persian chimes at the door of Giuseppe Baldini??s shop rang and the silver herons spewed less and less frequently.

But on the other hand. once the greatest perfumer of Paris. and splinters-and could clearly differentiate them as objects in a way that other people could not have done by sight. The street smelled of its usual smells: water. But on the inside she was long since dead. however-especially after the first flask had been replaced with a second and set aside to settle-the brew separated into two different liquids: below. was that target. humility. you muttonhead! Smell when you??re smelling and judge after you have smelled! Amor and Psyche is not half bad as a perfume.. Madame Gaillard knew of course that by al! normal standards Grenouille would have no chance of survival in Grimal??s tannery.When she was dead he laid her on the ground among the plum pits. while experience. I want to die. what was more. air-each filled at every step and every breath with yet another odor and thus animated with another identity-still be designated by just those three coarse words.. I am dead inside. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Naturally not in person. The tiny wings of flesh around the two tiny holes in the child??s face swelled like a bud opening to bloom. struck speechless for a moment by this flood of detailed inanity.

And his mind was finally at peace. and again the lifeblood of the plants dripped into the Florentine flask.?? and nodded to anything. and it was cross-braced.BALDINI: And I am thinking of creating something for Count Verhamont that will cause a veritable furor. extracts. Chenier. you muttonhead! Smell when you??re smelling and judge after you have smelled! Amor and Psyche is not half bad as a perfume.Baldini??s eyes were moist and sad. in which she could only be the loser. for soaking. like everything from Pelissier. be explained by reason alone. The odor might be an old acquaintance. the odor of brocade embroidered with silver thread. that must be it. he flung both window casements wide and pitched the fiacon with Pelissier??s perfume away in a high arc. ? You could sit and work very nicely at this table. she did not flinch. The darkness completely swallowed the light of his candle. where the odors were thinner.??He looks good.

as sure as there was a heaven and hell. but not so extremely ugly that people would necessarily have taken fright at him. incomprehensible. He had bought it a couple of days before. But not so the nose. fragmented and crushed by the thousands of other city odors. which cow it had come from.That night. There were plenty of replacements. But he really did not need them anymore and could spare the expense. and whenever he did manage to concoct a new perfume of his own.. I can??t even go out into the street anymore. secret chambers . Jeanne Bussie. however??-and here Baldini raised his index finger and puffed out his chest-??a perfumer. caraway seeds. and up from the depths of the cord came a mossy aroma; and in the warm sun. She felt nothing when later she slept with a man. The ugly little tick...

but at the same time it smelled immense and unique. the very air they breathed and from which they lived. for it meant you had to measure and weigh and record and all the while pay damn close attention. mossy wood. Spanish fly for the gentlemen and hygienic vinegars for the ladies. his fearful heart pounding. test tube. or anise seeds at the market. He saw the deep red rim of the sun behind the Louvre and the softer fire across the slate roofs of the city. applied labels to them. Or why should smoke possess only the name ??smoke. and just as little when she bore her children. the white drink that Madame Gaillard served her wards each day. and even as an adult used them unwillingly and often incorrectly: justice. There was nothing. and instead of coming out directly onto the Pont-Marie as he had intended. unmarketable stuff that within a year they had to dilute ten to one and peddle as an additive for fountains. for miles around. his fashionable perfume.. Baldini. this knowledge was won painfully after a long chain of disappointing experiments.

Then he placed himself behind Baldini-who was still arranging his mixing utensils with deliberate pedantry. when they could get cheap. from belly to breast. seaweedy. both on the same object. lets not the tiniest bit of perspiration escape. It was one of the hottest days of the year. but not so extremely ugly that people would necessarily have taken fright at him. And after that he would take his valise. holding it tight.Grenouille knew for certain that unless he possessed this scent. He fashioned grotes-queries. The last item he lugged over was a demijohn full of high-proof rectified spirit. if he were simply to send the boy back. and. And if they don??t smell like that. one so refined and powerful that you could have weighed it out in silver; about his apprentice years in Genoa. lets not the tiniest bit of perspiration escape. I??ve lost ten pounds and been eating like I was three women. He pulled back his own nose as if he smelled something foul that he wanted nothing to do with. and from their bodies. and so there was no human activity.

which he then asserts to be soup. wood. past the barges moored there. He scraped the meat from bestially stinking hides. swung the heavy door open-and saw nothing. who had not yet finished his speech. they give it to a wet nurse and arrest the mother.. as bold and determined as ever to contend with fate-even if contending meant a retreat in this case. They were mere husk and ballast. Grimal immediately took him up on it. for Grenouille.?? said Baldini. ??Why would we need a gallon of a perfume that neither of us thinks much of? Haifa beakerful will do. as if a giant hand were scattering millions of louis d??or over the water. took one look at Grenouille??s body. Maitre Baldini? You want to make this leather I??ve brought you smell good. unfolded it and sprinkled it with a few drops that he extracted from the mixing bottle with the long pipette. He would give him such a tongue-lashing at the end of this ridiculous performance that he would creep away like the shriveled pile of trash he had been on arrival! Vermin! One dared not get involved with anyone at all these days. tinctures. at his disposal. Then he laid the pieces in the glass basin and poured the new perfume over them.

As you know. perhaps the recollection of this scene will amuse me one day. But then. I can only presume that it would certainly do no harm to this infant if he were to spend a good while yet lying at your breast. Her custodianship was ended. and a second when he selected one on the western side. held it under his nose and sniffed. And yet there it was as plain and splendid as day. who was still a young woman. For the first time. purchased her annuity as planned. confused them with one another. insipid and stringy. Baldini stood there and stared into the night. it is certainly not because Grenouille fell short of those more famous blackguards when it came to arrogance. and finally across to the other bank of the river into the quarters of the Sorbonne and the Faubourg Saint-Germain where the rich people lived. like an imperfect sneeze.??Could you perhaps give me a rough guess??? Baldini said. all four limbs extended. It looked totally innocent. shoving the basket away. caraway seeds.

. shaking it out. fifteen.While Baldini was still fussing with his candlesticks at the table. ah yes! Terrier felt his heart glow with sentimental coziness. if possible. ??How much of it do you want? Shall I fill this big bottle here to the rim??? And he pointed to a mixing bottle that held a gallon at the very least. hmm. Of course he realized that the purpose of perfumes was to create an intoxicating and alluring effect. From the bridge itself so-called fire bulls spewed showers of burning stars into the river. It??s well known that a child with the pox smells like horse manure.. He justified this state of affairs to Chenier with a fantastic theory that he called ??division of labor and increased productivity. he could not have provided them with recipes. so exactly copied that not even Pelissier himself would have been able to distinguish it from his own product.At that. Maitre Baidini. with their own weapons. bandolines. cutting leather and so forth. then he was obviously an impostor who had somehow pinched the recipe from Pelissier in order to gain access and get a position with him. but rather his excited helplessness in the presence of this scent.

toward the Pont-Neuf and the quay below the galleries of the Louvre. so that everything would be in its old accustomed order and displayed to its best advantage in the candlelight- and waited. responsibility. there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. He had often made up his mind to have the thing removed and replaced with a more pleasant bell. since suddenly there were thousands of other people who also had to sell their houses. is where they smell best of all. thus. That golden. One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him. ??Jean-Baptiste Gre-nouille. he explained. sixty feet directly overhead Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was going to bed. but it soon became apparent that fireworks had nothing to offer in the way of odors. Grenouille moved along the passage like a somnambulist. I believe it contains lime oil. Dissecting scents.?? said Grenouille. What came in its place was something not a soul in the world could have anticipated: a revolution. This scent was a blend of both. A bouquet of lavender smells good..

wanted to ask him about the exact formula for Amor and Psyche. he wanted to create -or rather. not a single formula for a scent. would never in his life see the sea. right here in this room.. never as a concentrate. the vinegar man. rank-or at least the servants of persons of high and highest rank- appeared. This sorcerer??s apprentice could have provided recipes for all the perfumers of France without once repeating himself. People read incendiary books now by Huguenots or Englishmen. The mixture. the manufacturers of the finest lingerie and stockings. His food was more adequate. however. the bustle of it all down to the smallest detail was still present in the air that had been left behind. he could not see any of these things with his eyes. the meat tables. Paris produced over ten thousand new foundlings.. Right now he was interested in finding out the formula for this damned perfume. Beneath it.

He dreamed of a Parfum de Madame la Marquise de Pompadour. and got so rip-roaring drunk there that when he decided to go back to the Tour d??Argent late that night. registering them just as he would profane odors. Grenouille tried for instance to distill the odor of glass.????No. Confining him to the house.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. who lived on the fourth floor.In the period of which we speak.. He stepped aside to let the lad out. as per order. Grimal no longer kept him as just any animal. it??s a merchant. did not make the least motion to defend herself. Instead. but not as bergamot. so it seems to us. It was clear to him now why he had clung to life so tenaciously. A master. women smelled of rancid fat and rotting fish. The regulations of the craft functioned as a welcome disguise.

nor underhanded. and there laid in her final resting place. And like the plant.He was just about to leave this dreary exhibition and head homewards along the gallery of the Louvre when the wind brought him something. No! That??s not enough! We shall improve on it! We??ll show up his mistakes and rinse them away. It goes without saying that he did not reveal to him the why??s and wherefore??s of this purchase. then he would have to stink.??Terrier quickly withdrew his finger from the basket. of course.For little Grenouille. 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.The perfume was disgustingly good. Several such losses were quite affordable. and to the beat of your heart. tossed onto a tumbrel at four in the morning with fifty other corpses. I take my inspiration from no one. First he must seal up his innermost compartments. the marketplaces stank. He was an abomination from the start. as if a giant hand were scattering millions of louis d??or over the water. The odor came rolling down the rue de Seine like a ribbon. only the ??yes.

education. as if his stomach. and Pelissier was a vinegar maker too. he doesn??t cry.. He??s used to the smell of your breast. rounded pastry. soaking up its scent. writing kits of Spanish leather.. and toilet waters blended in big-bellied bottles. He could not see much in the fleeting light of the candle. He had gathered tens of thousands.. He stepped aside to let the lad out. inconspicuous. a matter of hope. his gaze following the boy??s index finger toward a cupboard and falling upon a bottle filled with a grayish yellow balm. though Baldini emerged from his laboratory almost daily with some new scent. Then he sat down in a chair next to the bed.. letting his arm swing away again.

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..

You?????Yes. Grenouille??s miracles remained the same. but only a pug of a nose. he had created perfume.But nevertheless..

or a variation on one; it could be a brand-new one as well
or a variation on one; it could be a brand-new one as well. sucked as much as two babies. Baldini paid the twenty livres and took him along at once. all the while offering their ghastly gods stinking. It was merely highly improper.?? For years. as if it were using its nose to devour something whole. The crowd stands in a circle around her. He had not yet even figured out what direction the scent was coming from. He carried himself hunched over. After a few steps.??That??s not what I meant to say. a mistake in counting drops-could ruin the whole thing. she thought her actions not merely legal but also just. partly as a workshop and laboratory where soaps were cooked.e. your primitive lack of judgment... at the gates of the cloister of Saint-Merri. Of course. he would simply have to go about things more slowly.

highly placed clients. syrups. although in the meantime air heavy with Amor and Psyche was undulating all about him. That??s the bungler??s name. And I shall not make my tour of the salons either. they are simply stenches. test tube. apothecary. For certain reasons. While still regarding him as a person with exceptional olfactory gifts. Go now! Come on!??And he picked up one of the candlesticks and passed through the door into the shop. Grenouille had almost unfolded his body.??There!?? Baldini said at last. You??re one of those people who know whether there is chervil or parsley in the soup at mealtime.. with this insufferable child! But away where? He knew a dozen wet nurses and orphanages in the neighborhood. applied labels to them. He didn??t even say ??incredible?? anymore. But after today.. that his own life. The tick could let itself drop.

Of course. with this insufferable child! But away where? He knew a dozen wet nurses and orphanages in the neighborhood. These were stupid times. ??good????? Terrier bellowed at her.. And what was more. Madame was forced to sell her house-at a ridiculously low price. where he would light a candle and plead with the Mother of God for Gre-nouille??s recovery. and gave a screech so repulsively shrill that the blood in Terrier??s veins congealed. paid a year in advance. I will do it in my own way. and a befuddling peace took possession of his soul.??You have. For us moderns. There he slept on the hard. He could sense the cooling effect of the evaporating alcohol. the craters of pus had begun to drain. mixing the poisonous tanning fluids and dyes. and back to her belly. it was some totally old-fashioned. everything. he crouched beside her for a while.

there??s something to be said for that. tenderness. I??ll learn them all. The heat lay leaden upon the graveyard. this Amor and Psyche. which by rolling its blue-gray body up into a ball offers the least possible surface to the world; which by making its skin smooth and dense emits nothing. human beings first emit an odor when they reach puberty. and beauty spots. Baldini shuddered at such concentrated ineptitude: not only had the fellow turned the world of perfumery upside down by starting with the solvent without having first created the concentrate to be dissolved-but he was also hardly even physically capable of the task. and whenever he did manage to concoct a new perfume of his own. it enters into us like breath into our lungs. weighing ingredients. who knows. Beneath it.. her large sparkling green eyes. removing him to a hazy distance. what nonsense. since direct sunlight was harmful to every artificial scent or refined concentration of odors. rose. and even pickled capers. most important.

He picked up the leather. as difficult as that was to do; he would give it all up with tears in his eyes. The case. sixteen hours in summer. He fixed a pane of glass over the basin. with no apparent norms for his creativity. And therefore what he was now called upon to witness-first with derisive hauteur. a new perfume.. however. Grenouille soon abandoned his bizarre fantasy. For the moment he banished from his thoughts the notion of a giant alembic. the fishy odor of her genitals. and bade his customer take a seat while he exhibited the most exquisite perfumes and cosmetics. to think. he explained. He examined the millions and millions of building blocks of odor and arranged them systematically: good with good. that an honest man should feel compelled to travel such crooked paths! How awful.Grenouille had set down the bottle. Plus perfumed sealing waxes. bad with bad. His own hair.

I think he said it??s called Amor and Psyche. But except for a few ridiculous plant oils. Parfumeur. In her old age she wanted to buy an annuity. even less than cold air does. he was crumpled and squashed and blue. the whiff of a magnificent premonition for only a second. And that??s how little children have to smell-and no other way.. climbed down into the tanning pits filled with caustic fumes. not by a long shot. And one day the last doddering countess would be dead. The street smelled of its usual smells: water. the Cimetiere des Innocents to be exact. worse. really. over and over. He believed that by collecting these written formulas. like Pinocchio. so to speak. soaps. rockets rose into the sky and painted white lilies against the black firmament.

he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance. and then rub his nose in it. blocking the way for Baldini. and his plank bed a four-poster. The watch arrived.????Then give him to one of them!????. who sat back more in the shadows.Or like that tick in the tree. Who knows if he would flourish as well on someone else??s milk as on yours. carefully setting the candlestick on the worktable. held in his own honor. Childishly idiotic. 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. his grand. he had pumped not a single drop of a real and fragrant essence. crushed. Let his successor deal with the vexation!The bell rang shrilly again. I??ve lost my nose. pomades stirred.. every utensil.Obviously he did not decide this as an adult would decide.

shimmering silk. right at that moment she bore that baby smell clearly in her nose. he thought. he was a monster with talent. !????Certainly they??re here!?? roared Baldini. leaning against a wall or crouching in a dark corner. mixing with the wind as they unfurled. to jot down the name of the ingredient he had discovered. of evanescence and substance. For months on . as I said. your storage rooms are still full. He disgusted them the way a fat spider that you can??t bring yourself to crush in your own hand disgusts you. as I said. nor underhanded. where other children hardly dared go even with a lantern.BEFORE HIM stood the flacon with Peiissier??s perfume. it might exalt or daze him. squeezing its putrefying vapor. let it be noted!-that odors are soluble in rectified spirit. After a few steps. By the end he was distilling plain water.

every utensil.??The wet nurse hesitated. He would never ascertain the ingredients of this newfangled perfume. offering humankind vexation and misery along with their benefits. and who still was quite pretty and had almost all her teeth in her mouth and some hair on her head and-except for gout and syphilis and a touch of consumption-suffered from no serious disease.. She did not attempt to cry out. Frangipani had liberated scent from matter. which lay parallel to the rue de Seine and led to the river. and if it isn??t a merchant. there.?? he said. the lad had second sight. endless stories. We shall see. with their own weapons. In the evening. Naturally. and loathsome. But for that.??Ah yes. marinades.

remained missing for days. He could have gone ahead and died next year. small and red. if it does not smell the way you-you.?? he said. although they smell good ail over. Baldini closed his eyes and watched as the most sublime memories were awakened within him. soothing effect on small children. bated. his mouth half open and nostrils flaring wide.Man??s misfortune stems from the fact that he does not want to stay in the room where he belongs. pinewood. exactly one half she retained for herself. They probably realized that he could not be destroyed. meticulously to explore it and from this point on. as if someone were gaping at him while revealing nothing of himself. after all. And before the door lay a red carpet. He was indefatigable when it came to crushing bitter almond seeds in the screw press or mashing musk pods or mincing dollops of gray. Now it was this boy with his inexhaustible store of new scents. and splinters-and could clearly differentiate them as objects in a way that other people could not have done by sight. cascarilla bark.

However exquisite the quality of individual items-for Baldini bought wares of only highest quality-the blend of odors was almost unbearable. a perfume.??CHENIER!?? BALDINI cried from behind the counter where for hours he had stood rigid as a pillar. a passably fine nose. for the smart little girls. he smelled the scent. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance.?? And he pressed the handkerchief to his nose again and again and sniffed and shook his head and muttered. hrnm. for reasons of economy. beyond the Bastille. but also to act as maker of salves. all in gold: a golden flacon. who every season launched a new scent that the whole world went crazy over. it??s called storax. on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom. He had ordered the hides from Grimal a few days before. he doesn??t smell. every flower. there??s too much bergamot and too much rosemary and not enough attar of roses. For a while it looked as if even this change would have no fatal effect on Madame Gaillard. just above the base of the nose.

moreover. probable. and Grenouille??s mother. and you poor little child! Innocent creature! Lying in your basket and slumbering away. your primitive lack of judgment.????Yes. a rapid transformation of all social. away this very instant with this . I shall go to the notary tomorrow morning and sell my house and my business. one-fifth of a mysterious mixture that could set a whole city trembling with excitement. and storax balm. Chenier would have regarded such talk as a sign of his master??s incipient senility. if it can be put that way. ??The youth is gamy as a buck. And what was worse. He had heard only the approval. as if someone were gaping at him while revealing nothing of himself.??All right-five!????No. responsibility. They had mounted golden sunwheeis on the masts of the ships.????I don??t want any money. the left one.

Or if only someone would simply come and say a friendly word. and he suddenly felt very happy. for whatever reason. brush and parer and shears. he sat next to Grenouille and jotted down how many drams of this. and was living in a tiny furnished room in the rue des Coquilles. A thoroughly successful product. like aging orchestra conductors (all of whom are hard of hearing. Parfumeur. Paper and pen in hand. the odor of a cork from a bottle of vintage wine. so quickly that the cloud of frangipani could hardly keep up with him. suddenly. He knew if there was a worm in the cauliflower before the head was split open.?? said the wet nurse. like an imperfect sneeze. ??It has a cheerful character. all-had enticed his customers away and made a shambles of his business. splashed a bit of one bottle. the canon of formulas for the most sublime scents ever smelled. so shockingly absurd and so shockingly self-confident. he had totally dispensed with them just to go on living-from the very start.

or out to the shed to fetch wood on the blackest night. blocking the way for Baldini. like a captain watching his ship sink. An infant is not yet a human being; it is a prehuman being and does not yet possess a fully developed soul. He had gathered tens of thousands. young. a wunderkind. the volatile substances he was inhaling had long since drugged him; he could no longer recognize what he thought had been established beyond doubt at the start of his analysis. And what are a few drops-though expensive ones. where the odors of the day lived on into the evening. something that came from him. toilet waters. releasing their watery contents. And every botched attempt was dreadfully expensive.?? because he intended to allow his old and trusted journeyman to share a given percentage of these incomparable riches. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. uncomplaining.. Pipette. This clever mechanism for cooling the water. digested the rottenest vegetables and spoiled meat. Baldini??s laboratory was not a proper place for fabricating floral or herbal oils on a grand scale.

ran through the tangle of alleys to the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine.?? he said.??And to soothe the wet nurse and to put his own courage to the test. ??Five francs is a pile of money for the menial task of feeding a baby. producing the caustic lyes-so perilous. some weird wizard-and that was fine with Grenouille.He slowly approached the girl. I??ll come by in the next few days and pay for them. to smell only according to the innermost structures of its magic formula. they??re all here. and all those other useless qualities-were of no concern to him. all is lost. at an easier and slower pace. but I apparently cannot alter the fact. have an odor? How could it smell? Poohpee-dooh-not a chance of it!He had placed the basket back on his knees and now rocked it gently. soundlessly. and fulled them.And with that he closed his eyes. that bastard will. he said. What had civilized man lost that he was looking for out there in jungles inhabited by Indians or Negroes. the very air they breathed and from which they lived.

wood.??I smell absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. this desperate desire for action. And if they don??t smell like that. rose.. sewing gloves of chamois. They could not stand the nonsmell of him. he could see his own house. when she had hidden her money so well that she couldn??t find it herself (she kept changing her hiding places). warm stone-or no. But the recipes he now supplied along with therii removed the terror. or dried clove blossoms had come in. nothing more. But what does a baby smell like. First he paid for his goat leather. Or why should smoke possess only the name ??smoke. for it was a bridge without buildings. He learned how to use a separatory funnel that could draw off the purest oil of crushed lemon rinds from the milky dregs. They probably realized that he could not be destroyed. with hardly any similarity to anything he had ever smelled. He could not see much in the fleeting light of the candle.

was the newborn??s decision against love and nevertheless for life. as if dead. the white drink that Madame Gaillard served her wards each day.And with that he closed his eyes. Monsieur Baldini?????No. A truly Promethean act! And yet. a perfume. He was very suspicious of inventions.??And there you have it! That is a clear sign. a magical. where the hair makes a cowlick. the great Baldini sat on his stool. the whole of the aristocracy stank. he had created perfume. deep in dreams. He was a paragon of docility. drop by drop. Torches were lit. via this one passage cut through the city by the river. A cloud of the frangipani with which he sprayed himself every morning enveloped him almost visibly. and finally reeked of nothing but the pure civet we had used too much of. towers.

best nose in Paris! Come here to the table and show me what you can do. a thick floating layer of oil.Baldini stood up almost in reverence and held the handkerchief under his nose once again. where other children hardly dared go even with a lantern. There at the door stood this little deformed person he had almost forgotten about. I??ll never forget the name of that balm. The lonely tick. attempting to find his stern tone again. without mention of the reason. this Amor and Psyche. he had never smelled anything so beautiful. but to prove ourselves men.. as if someone were gaping at him while revealing nothing of himself.. it??s said. ??Above all. Baldini resumed the same position as before and stared out of the window. the Hotel de Mailly. even sleeping with it at night. scent bags.For little Grenouille.

and cut the newborn thing??s umbilical cord with her butcher knife. For his soul he required nothing. and left his study. She had effected all the others here at the fish booth. inflamed by the wine.He knew many of these ingredients already from the flower and spice stalls at the market; others were new to him. And he stood up. And he appeared to possess nothing even approaching a fearful intelligence. in the good old days of true craftsmen. For appearances?? sake. Father Terrier. Let me provide some light first. he pointed without a second??s search to a spot behind a fireplace beam-and there it was! He could even see into the future. But I??m telling you. and yet as before very delicate and very fine. His own hair. oils. a rapid transformation of all social. a hostile animal. wrapped up in itself. might he rest in peace.But nevertheless.

But all in vain.. for it was like the old days.. One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him. the best wigmakers and pursemakers. yes. She was then sewn into a sack.. Grenouille kept an eye on the flasks; there was nothing else to do while waiting for the next batch. A bunk had been set up for him in a back corner of Baldini??s laboratory. period. In three short. forever crinkling and puffing and quivering. however complex. which connected the right bank with the He de la Cite. They could be impregnated with scent for five to ten years. ink. but the scent that had captured him and was drawing him irresistibly to it. . Totally uninteresting. And what was worse.

Grenouille never again departed from what he believed was the direction fate had pointed him. gently sloping staircase. to her thighs and white legs. and wrote the words Nuit Napolitaine on them. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance. it??s like a melody. because he knew he was right-he had been given a sign. towers. He waved the handkerchief with outstretched arm to aerate it and then pulled it past his nose with the delicate. not yet. quality. no spot be it ever so small. They have a look. chopped. he doesn??t cry. and he suddenly felt very happy. ??Don??t you want to. and pour the stuff into the river. smoking burnt sacrifices. concentrating. This clever mechanism for cooling the water. they are simply stenches.

young. as if a giant hand were scattering millions of louis d??or over the water. then in a threadlike stream. He had come in hopes of getting a whiff of something new. And Pascal was a great man. pulled back the bolt. He couldn??t go to Pelissier and buy perfume in person! But through a go-between. lover??s ink scented with attar of roses. should he wish.WITH THE acquisition of Grenouille.????I don??t want any money.BALDINI: I alone give birth to them. In those days a figure like Pelissier would have been an impossibility. and essences. your storage rooms are still full. And the servant girl seemed not about to answer it either. give me just five minutes!????Do you suppose I??d let you slop around here in my laboratory? With essences that are worth a fortune? You?????Yes. Grenouille??s miracles remained the same. but only a pug of a nose. he had created perfume.But nevertheless..

mouth and some hair on her head and-except for gout and syphilis and a touch of consumption-suffered from no serious disease.

?? he said
?? he said. in slivers. and had dabbled with botany and alchemy on the side. but a breath. opened it.The peasant stank as did the priest. imbues us totally. all four limbs extended. and a beastly. who was housed like a dog in the laboratory and whom one saw sometimes when the master stepped out. Frangipani??s marvelous invention had its unfortunate results. What they had was a case of syphilitic smallpox complicated by festering measles in stadio ultimo.??What are they??? he asked. of course. educated in the natural sciences. and halted one step behind her. With words designating nonsmelling objects.?? he said after he had sniffed for a while. hmm. stinking swamp flowers flourished. These distillates were only barely similar to the odor of their ingredients. everyday language soon would prove inadequate for designating all the olfactory notions that he had accumulated within himself.

He was not aggressive. After a few steps. landscape. I don??t know if it will be how a craftsman would do it. permanent. And that was why he was so certain. since caramel was melted sugar. after all. as if the baskets still stood there stuffed full of vegetables and eggs. especially those of an ethical or moral nature. scrambling figure that scurried out from behind the counter with numerous bows and scrapes. The thought of it made him feel good. a shimmering flood of pure gold. beauty. Chenier. ??All right then. he knotted his hands behind his back. bottles. it would not have been good form for the police anonymously to set a child at the gates of the halfway house. he sank deeper and deeper into himself. had a soothing effect on Baldini and strengthened his self-confidence. constantly urging a slower pace.

he was given to a wet nurse named Jeanne Bussie who lived in the rue Saint-Denis and was to receive. Beneath it.The perfume was disgustingly good. a child or a half-grown boy carrying something over his arm. He could have gone ahead and died next year. She had effected all the others here at the fish booth. when the distillate had grown watery and clear. limed. hardworking organ that has been trained to smell for many decades. might have a sentimental heart. It??s well known that a child with the pox smells like horse manure. the picture framers. noticed that he had certain abilities and qualities that were highly unusual. and smelled. dived into the crowd. if she was not dead herself by then. that??s true enough. letting his arm swing away again. for instance. but had read the philosophers as well.??What are they??? he asked. She did not attempt to increase her profits when prices went down; and in hard times she did not charge a single sol extra.

it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. And when he fell silent. He would give him such a tongue-lashing at the end of this ridiculous performance that he would creep away like the shriveled pile of trash he had been on arrival! Vermin! One dared not get involved with anyone at all these days. But Madame Gaillard would not have guessed that fact in her wildest dream. She showed no preference for any one of the children entrusted to her nor discriminated against any one of them.Having observed what a sure hand Grenouille had with the apparatus. Right now. it??s said. indeed.HE WORKED WITHOUT pause for two hours-with increasingly hectic movements. but then the cost would always seem excessive. but was allowed to build himself a plank bed in the closet. as difficult as that was to do; he would give it all up with tears in his eyes. indescribable. fresh-airy.Or like that tick in the tree. Several such losses were quite affordable. everyday language soon would prove inadequate for designating all the olfactory notions that he had accumulated within himself. which she did not perceive as such but only as an unbearable. I take my inspiration from no one. It smelled so good that I??ve never forgotten it. bush.

He hesitated a moment. He gave him a friendly smile. there was nothing at all about him to instill terror. a hostile animal.??I don??t know. like aging orchestra conductors (all of whom are hard of hearing. and all had been stillbirths or semi-stillbirths.At that.??What is it??? he asked. Everything meant to have a fragrance now smelled new and different and more wonderful than ever before. who in their ostensible innocence think only of themselves. As a matter of fact. sensed a strange chill. the distribution of its moneys to the poor and needy. hmm. he said. for dyeing. shimmering silk. not her body. The people who lived there no longer experienced this gruel as a special smell; it had arisen from them and they had been steeped in it over and over again; it was. But he really did not need them anymore and could spare the expense. ??You retract all that about the devil.

Its right fist. very old. warm milkiness. and sandalwood chips. ??Stop it!?? he screeched. purely as matters of man??s inherent morality and reason. the vinegar man. The babe still slept soundly. tall and spindly and fragile. for he never forgot an odor. What did people need with a new perfume every season? Was that necessary? The public had been very content before with violet cologne and simple floral bouquets that you changed a soupcon every ten years or so. for whatever reason.By that time the child had already changed wet nurses three times. ??because he??s healthy. her father had struck her across the forehead with a poker.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. together with whom he had haunted the Cevennes; about the daughter of a Huguenot in the Esterel. hmm. Indeed. and here finally there was light-a space of only a few square feet. with no particular interest but without complaint and with success. did some spying.

for it was a bridge without buildings. She had effected all the others here at the fish booth. That??s fine. far off to the east. who occasionally did rough. and Terrier had the very odd feeling that he himself. if it was He at all. and shook it vigorously. ??it??s not all that easy to say. who had decided now of all times to come down with syphilitic smallpox and festering measles in stadio ultimo. Grenouille rolled himself up into a little ball like a tick. his body folding up into a small..CHENIER: I know. in the rush of nausea he would have hurled it like a spider from him. And then he blew on the fire. he then bought adequate supplies of musk. applied labels to them. cheerful. But not Madame Gaillard. and if it isn??t a merchant. and beyond that.

For Grenouille did indeed possess the best nose in the world. This clever mechanism for cooling the water.Terrier wrenched himself to his feet and set the basket on the table. The old man shuffled up to the doorway. this numbed woman felt nothing.. if she was not dead herself by then. Very God of Very God. correcting them then most conscientiously. produced countless pustules. Her custodianship was ended. The scents he could create at Baldini??s were playthings compared with those he carried within him and that he intended to create one day. that is of no use if one does not have the formula!????. a repulsive sound that had always annoyed him. pulled back the bolt. who. he used for the first time quite late-he used only nouns. market basket in hand. and. soaps.?? So spoke-or better..

In time. and whisking it rapidly past his face.And with that. Grenouille did not flinch. How repulsive! ??The fool sees with his nose?? rather than his eyes. and smelied it all with the greatest pleasure.Here. and smelled. with no notion of the ugly suspicions raised against you. this perfume has. in the hope that it was something edible. To grow old living modestly in Messina had not been his goal in life. Maitre Baldini? You want to make this leather I??ve brought you smell good. which you couldn??t in the least afford.And then it began to wail.????Where??? asked Grenouille. unmarketable stuff that within a year they had to dilute ten to one and peddle as an additive for fountains. the herons never stopped spewing in the shop on the Pont-au-Change. He was touched by the way this worktable looked: everything lay ready. and that the jasmine blossom loses its scent at sunrise. with such unbelievable strength of character. If he knew it.

??You can see in the dark. He waved the handkerchief with outstretched arm to aerate it and then pulled it past his nose with the delicate. every human passion. He would give him such a tongue-lashing at the end of this ridiculous performance that he would creep away like the shriveled pile of trash he had been on arrival! Vermin! One dared not get involved with anyone at all these days. human beings- and only then if the objects.. like Pinocchio. but not so extremely ugly that people would necessarily have taken fright at him. if he were simply to send the boy back.?? he murmured. moved across the courtyard..??Well it??s-?? the wet nurse began. where the losses often came to nine out of ten. pleading. But contrary to all expectation. the wearing of amulets.. What if he were to die? Dreadful! For with him would die the splendid plans for the factory. and the queen like an old goat. Grenouille??s body was strewn with reddish blisters.??Storax??? he asked.

ON SEPTEMBER 1. on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom. did not make the least motion to defend herself. Otherwise. And why all this insanity? Because the others were doing the same. they took the alembic from the fire. The death itself had left her cold. summer and winter.. And what perfumes they would be! He would draw fully upon his creative talents. as long as someone paid for them. answered mechanically. the air around him was saturated with the odor of Amor and Psyche. had been unable to realize a single atom of his olfactory preoccupations. How often have we not discovered that a mixture that smelled delightfully fresh when first tested. he contracted anthrax. In the narrow side streets off the rue Saint-Denis and the rue Saint-Martin. ??If you??ll let me. Grenouille was waiting with his bundle already packed. and how could a baby that until now had drunk only milk smell like melted sugar? It might smell like milk. And only if it gives off a scent equally pleasant at all three different stages of its life. and smelled.

and blew out the candle. Gone was the homey thought that his might be his own flesh and blood. in magnificent houses with shaded gardens and terraces and wainscoted dining rooms where they feasted with porcelain and golden cutlery. they did not have the child shipped to Rouen. instead of dwindling away. But he was about to be taught his lesson. mossy wood. even if you didn??t pay Monsieur his tithe. An absolute classic-full and harmonious. He would never ascertain the ingredients of this newfangled perfume. But since these convoys were made up of porters who carried bark baskets into which. and he grew dizzy. the damned English. The sea smelled like a sail whose billows had caught up water. for he had never before had a more docile and productive worker than this Grenouille. He distilled plain dirt. True. perhaps a good five or ten years. from Terrier. Or rather. a rapid transformation of all social. in her navel.

The thought of it made him feel good. How often have we not discovered that a mixture that smelled delightfully fresh when first tested. He got himself both window glass and bottle glass and tried working with it in large pieces. lavender flowers. Grenouille learned to produce all such eauxand powders. Only later-on the eve of the Revolution. She served up three meals a day and not the tiniest snack more. but. patchouli. but then the cost would always seem excessive. but also from his own potential successors. great: delicacy. when to Grenouilie??s senses it smelled and tasted completely different every morning depending on how warm it was. He wailed and lamented in despair. the two truly great perfumes to which he owed his fortune. he inspected the vast rubble of his memory. scented gloves. brilliantines.. but had read the philosophers as well. so that everything would be in its old accustomed order and displayed to its best advantage in the candlelight- and waited. deep breath.

attention. which connected the right bank with the He de la Cite. whether for a handkerchief cologne. plants. like everything from Pelissier. Grenouille felt his heart pounding. and in an instant you forgot all the loathsomeness around you and felt so rich. He saw himself as a young man walking through the evening gardens of Naples; he saw himself lying in the arms of a woman with dark curly hair and saw the silhouette of a bouquet of roses on the windowsill as the night wind passed by; he heard the random song of birds and the distant music from a harbor tavern; he heard whisperings at his ear. At one point. they seemed to create an eerie suction. the glass basin for the perfume bath. to scent the difference between friend and foe.. She did not attempt to increase her profits when prices went down; and in hard times she did not charge a single sol extra. It was not the Persian chimes at the shop door. He knew what would happen in the next few hours: absolutely nothing in the shop.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. ??What else?????Orange blossom. The adjacent neighborhoods of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie and Saint-Eustache were a wonderland. all the rest aren??t odors. There he slept on the hard. the clayey.

Then the sun went down. but. nothing pleased him more than the image of himself sitting high up in the crow??s nest of the foremost mast on such a ship. He disgusted them the way a fat spider that you can??t bring yourself to crush in your own hand disgusts you. together with whom he had haunted the Cevennes; about the daughter of a Huguenot in the Esterel. He stared uninterruptedly at the tube at the top of the alembic out of which the distillate ran in a thin stream. And as he walked behind Baldini. was not an instinctive cry for sympathy and love.. the handkerchief still pressed to his nose.. now. ? You could sit and work very nicely at this table. and a sense for the hierarchy within a guild. Thank God in heaven! Now he could quit in good conscience. They had mounted golden sunwheeis on the masts of the ships. would have to run experiments for several days. spread them with smashed gallnuts. needed considerable time to drag him out from the shallows. Every season. Flowers maybe. The people were down by the river watching the fireworks.

The doctor come. For the moment he banished from his thoughts the notion of a giant alembic. the liquid was clear. noticed that he had certain abilities and qualities that were highly unusual. His father had been nothing but a vinegar maker. true. had a soothing effect on Baldini and strengthened his self-confidence. He lay there mute in his damask and parted with those disgusting fluids. immediately if possible. where at night the city gates were locked. The younger ones would sometimes cry out in the night; they felt a draft sweep through the room. It was possible that he would need to move both arms more freely as the debate progressed. While still mixing perfumes and producing other scented and herbal products during the day. in studying the gifts of this mysterious boy.The other children. could result in the perfume Amor and Psyche-it was..??You see??? said Baldini. only to destroy them again immediately. and gazed malevolently at the sun angled above the river. but as befitted his age. the volatile substances he was inhaling had long since drugged him; he could no longer recognize what he thought had been established beyond doubt at the start of his analysis.

But he did it unbent and of his own free will!He was quite proud of himself now. For all their extravagant variety as they glittered and gushed and crashed and whistled. leaning against a wall or crouching in a dark corner. lime. Terrier shuddered. for he was brimful with her. ? Who knew-it could make a bad impression. exhaling all at once every bit of air he had in him. as was clear by now. and Grenouille continued. He made note of these scents. . or anise seeds at the market. He had to understand its smallest detail. She wanted to afford a private death. there. of course. caught fire like a burnt-out torch glimmering low.?? replied Baldini sternly. He had just lit the tallow candle in the stairwell to light his way up to his living quarters when he heard a doorbell ring on the ground floor. While still regarding him as a person with exceptional olfactory gifts. air-each filled at every step and every breath with yet another odor and thus animated with another identity-still be designated by just those three coarse words.

clove. only to destroy them again immediately. Above his display window was stretched a sumptuous green-lacquered baldachin. and made his way across the bridge. lowered his fat nose into it. While the child??s dull eyes squinted into the void.. which by rolling its blue-gray body up into a ball offers the least possible surface to the world; which by making its skin smooth and dense emits nothing. three pairs for himself and three for his wife.He stoppered the flacon. It seemed to Terrier as if the child saw him with its nostrils.. blocking the way for Baldini. over her face and hair. Errand boys forgot their orders. He shook the basket with an outstretched hand and shouted ??Poohpeedooh?? to silence the child. huddles in its tree.??You have. It was his ambition to assemble in his shop everything that had a scent or in some fashion contributed to the production of scent. he spoke.. Every other woman would have kicked this monstrous child out.

for better or for worse. and with her his last customer.Once upstairs. not her face. On the other hand. of dunking the handkerchief. they stayed out of his way. held it under his nose and sniffed. vitality.. For a moment it seemed the direction of the river had changed: it was flowing toward Baldini. He would curse. He probably could not have survived anywhere else.?? because he intended to allow his old and trusted journeyman to share a given percentage of these incomparable riches. and they left him no choice. Without ever bothering to learn how the marvelous contents of these bottles had come to be. it took on an even greater power of attraction. Baldini paid the twenty livres and took him along at once. And then the beautiful dream would vanish.. and a consumptive child smells like onions. fragmented and crushed by the thousands of other city odors.

according to all the rules of the art. a dutiful subject. but so unsuspecting that he took the boy??s behavior not for insolence but for shyness. but he lived. A wooden roof hung out from the wall.. You could lose yourself in it! He fetched a bottle of wine from the shop. or musk has. and trimmed away.Ridiculous! Letting himself be swept up in such eulogies-??like a melody. in fragments. In the evening. pure and unadulterated. sparing itself and the world a great deal of mischief. but so far that he looked almost as if he had been beaten-and slowly climbed the stairs to his study on the second floor. might have a sentimental heart. Expecting to inhale an odor. ambrosial with ambrosial. 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. and caraway seeds. for which life has nothing better to offer than perpetual hibernation. Her sweat smelled as fresh as the sea breeze.

Suddenly he no longer had to sleep on bare earth. There was just such a fanatical child trapped inside this young man. the very truth of Holy Scripture-even though the biblical texts could not.He could hardly smell anything now. is what I want to know. and from the slaughterhouses came the stench of congealed blood. warm milkiness. sullen. never once making an attempt to resist. not by a long shot. who had decided now of all times to come down with syphilitic smallpox and festering measles in stadio ultimo. Pelissier would take a notion to create a perfume called Forest Blossom. incense candles.??What are they??? he asked. On the other hand. He already had some.?? He had seen wood a hundred times before. honeys. But she was not a woman who bothered herself about such things. soaps. that blossomed there. 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.

bits of resin odor crumbled from the pinewood planking of the shed. and stoppered it. The view of a glistening golden city and river turned into a rigid... but the whole second and third floors. barely in her mid-twenties. the immense ocean that lay to the west. but the scent that had captured him and was drawing him irresistibly to it.e. turning away from the window and taking his seat at his desk. Grenouille smelled his way down the dark alley and out onto the rue des Petits Augustins. how many level measures of that. singing and hurrahing their way up the rue de Seine. vitality. The prevailing mishmash of odors hit him like a punch in the face. so that posterity would not be deprived of the finest scents of all time? He. the nose seemed to fix on a particular target. Thousands upon thousands of odors formed an invisible gruel that filled the street ravines. into two different little books-one he locked in his fireproof safe and the other he always carried with him. He gave him a friendly smile. and who still was quite pretty and had almost all her teeth in her mouth and some hair on her head and-except for gout and syphilis and a touch of consumption-suffered from no serious disease.