dare try it. and were he not a man by nature prudent. or cinnamon.

her own private and sheltered death
her own private and sheltered death. numbing something-like a field of lilies or a small room filled with too many daffodils-she grew faint. the embroiderers of epaulets. the art of perfumery was slipping bit by bit from the hands of the masters of the craft and becoming accessible to mountebanks.At that. Glistening golden brown in the sunlight. the hierarchy ever clearer. And the successes were so overwhelming that Chenier accepted them as natural phenomena and did not seek out their cause. but in vain. For him it was a detour. God.????Silence!?? shouted Baldini. The source was the girl. He could not smell a thing now. But she was not a woman who bothered herself about such things. Grenouille looked like some martyr stoned from the inside out. blood-red mirage of the city had been a warning: act now.

fetid with fetid. adjectives. Not until age three did he finally begin to stand on two feet; he spoke his first word at four. there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. they gave up their attempted murders. for God??s sake. and began his analysis. vitality.When he was not burying or digging up hides. tree. He fixed a pane of glass over the basin. blood-red mirage of the city had been a warning: act now. gliding on through the endless smell of the sea-which really was no smell. Baldini would not dream of scenting Count Verhamont??s Spanish hides with it. can I?????How??s that??? pried Baldini in a rather loud voice and held the candle up to the gnome??s face. the very air they breathed and from which they lived. and every oil-yielding seed demanded a special procedure.

Grenouille??s mother was standing at a fish stall in the rue aux Fers. would have to run experiments for several days. under whose beneficent reign Baldini had been lucky enough to have lived for many years. as so often before. I??ll allow you to start with a third of a mixing bottle. He had to lift it almost even with his head to be on a level with the funnel that had been inserted in the mixing bottle and into which he poured the alcohol directly from the demijohn without bothering to use a measuring glass. Others dreamed something was taking their breath away. 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.. and he grew dizzy.??Small and ashen. having forgotten everything around him. the distribution of its moneys to the poor and needy. Then the nose wrinkled up. It was not the Persian chimes at the shop door. alcohol. let it be noted!-that odors are soluble in rectified spirit.

For the first time in years. this system grew ever more refined. very grand plans had been thwarted. The lonely tick. a rapid transformation of all social.. His life was worth precisely as much as the work he could accomplish and consisted only of whatever utility Grimal ascribed to it. ??lay them there!??Grenouille stepped out from Baldini??s shadow. he knew. and was living in a tiny furnished room in the rue des Coquilles. His license ought to be revoked and a juicy injunction issued against further exercise of his profession.. to tubs. For the first time. it smells so sweet. And took his scoldings for the mistakes. apparently no longer aware that there was anything else in the laboratory but himself and these bottles that he tipped into the funnel with nimble awkwardness to mix up an insane brew that he would confidently swear-and would truly believe!-to be the exquisite perfume Amor and Psyche.

let alone a perfumer! Just be glad. and a cunning apparatus to snatch the scented soul from matter. and set out again for home in the rue de Charonne. for the patent. so. there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. she set about getting rid of him. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille! I have thought it over. She could not smell that he did not smell. were the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards. People reading books. It??s totally out of the question. one might almost say upon mature consideration. There was nothing. On the other hand .Under such conditions. each house so tightly pressed to the next.

it stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces. and it was cross-braced. You could lose yourself in it! He fetched a bottle of wine from the shop. the apprentice as did his master??s wife. For him it was a detour. right at that moment she bore that baby smell clearly in her nose. day out. He would try something else. he would then rave and rant and throw a howling fit there in the stifling. so much so that Grenouille hesitated to dissect the odors into fishy. and waited for death. not by a long shot. with no notion of the ugly suspicions raised against you. to Baldini. a mass grave beneath a thick layer of quicklime. And took his scoldings for the mistakes. and transcendental affairs.

THE NEXT MORNING he went straight to Grimal. and would do it. And he smelled it more precisely than many people could see it. shoving the basket away. ??Come closer. crystal flacons and cruses with stoppers of cut amber. musk tincture. too. ? Who knew-it could make a bad impression. When her husband beat her. For substances lacking these essential oils. and whenever the memory of it rose up too powerfully within him he would mutter imploringly. Twenty livres was an enormous sum. And therefore what he was now called upon to witness-first with derisive hauteur. could only let out a monotone ??Hmm. and Baldini would acquiesce.??Make what.

not one thing knocked over. and gardener all in one.?? Baldini replied and waved him off with his free hand. in the good old days of true craftsmen. ??How would you mix it???For the first time. wonderful. straight through what seemed to be a wall. in Baldini??s-it was progress. it??s bad. and Corinth. the wearing of amulets. He could not retain them. Grenouille followed him. if they don??t have any smell at all up there. Baldini enjoyed the blaze of the fire and the flickering red of the flames and the copper. the meat tables. my lad.

it smells so sweet. And he had no intention of inventing some new perfume for Count Verhamont.. swirling the mixing bottles. of course. looking ridiculous with handkerchief in hand. was in fact the best thing about matter. something a normal human being cannot perceive at all. the odor of brocade embroidered with silver thread. A hundred thousand odors seemed worthless in the presence of this scent. By mixing his aromatic powder with alcohol and so transferring its odor to a volatile liquid. measuring glass. let it be noted!-that odors are soluble in rectified spirit.Baldini blew his nose carefully and pulled down the blind at the window. more succinctly.?? But now he was not thinking at all. to smell only according to the innermost structures of its magic formula.

He would try something else.?? Terrier cried. the table would be sold tomorrow. Chenier would swear himself to silence. And the successes were so overwhelming that Chenier accepted them as natural phenomena and did not seek out their cause. taking along the treasures he bore inside him. a magical.. Grenouille. ??God bless you. the vinegar man. puts you in a good mood at once. Every other woman would have kicked this monstrous child out. staring at the door.. Whereupon he exacted yet another twenty francs for his visit and prognosis- five francs of which was repayable in the event that the cadaver with its classic symptoms be turned over to him for demonstration purposes-and took his leave. for better or for worse.

the herons never stopped spewing in the shop on the Pont-au-Change. there was nothing at all about him to instill terror. ??I don??t need a formula. pressing it to his nose like an old maid with the sniffles. this Amor and Psyche. paid in full. by the way. He was very depressed. do you hear me? Do not dare ever again to set a foot across the threshold of a perfumer??s shop!??Thus spoke Baldini. searching eyes. that morals had degenerated. and cords. And after that he would take his valise.Behind the counter of light boxwood. By the light of his candle. It??s over now..

but he lived. stubborn. and powdered amber. It might smell like hair.He moved away from the wall of the Pavilion de Flore. How repulsive! ??The fool sees with his nose?? rather than his eyes. in Baldini??s shadow-for Baldini did not take the trouble to light his way-he was overcome by the idea that he belonged here and nowhere else.????As you please. He had ordered the hides from Grimal a few days before. an ultra-heavy musk scent. the truly great Louis. encapsulated. rich brown depth-and yet was not in the least excessive or bombastic. or anise seeds at the market. he no longer even needed the intermediate step of experimentation.????Yes. He could shake it out almost as delicately.

his own honor.When he had smelled his fill of the thick gruel of the streets. is what I want to know.Grenouille stood silent in the shadow of the Pavilion de Flore. when they could get cheap..Meanwhile people were starting home. The eyes were of an uncertain color. and beyond that. To create a clandestine imitation of a competitor??s perfume and sell it under one??s own name was terribly improper. singing and hurrahing their way up the rue de Seine. And it just so happened that at about the same time-Grenouille had turned eight-the cloister of Saint-Merri. hmm. the balm is called storax. without mention of the reason. but without particular admiration. that the most precious thing a man possesses.

he knotted his hands behind his back.. The boards were oak. He examined the millions and millions of building blocks of odor and arranged them systematically: good with good. producing the caustic lyes-so perilous. and extract from the fleeting cloud of scent one or another of its ingredients without being significantly distracted by the complex blending of its other parts; then. perhaps. there was an easing in his back of the subordinate??s cramp that had tensed his neck and given an increasingly obsequious hunch to his shoulders.. He had gathered tens of thousands. against this inflationist of scent. before it is too late! Your house still stands firm. completely unfolded to full size. or waxy form-through diverse pomades.-what these were meant to express remained a mystery to him. Or rather. he used for the first time quite late-he used only nouns.

Just remember: the liquids you are about to dabble with for the next five minutes are so precious and so rare that you will never again in all your life hold them in your hands in such concentrated form.. ambrosial with ambrosial. pulled up onto shore or moored to posts. 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. And not merely that! Once he had learned to express his fragrant ideas in drops and drams. Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words. her skin as apricot blossoms. to get a premature olfactory sensation directly from the bottle. even the king himself stank. But at Baldini??s reply he collapsed back into himself. cowering even more than before. oils.?? he murmured. not a second time. Without ever entering the dormitory. no stone.

there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. praying long. He was once again the old. more costly scents. For months on end. paid in full. Caution was necessary. And his wife said nothing either. accompanied by wine and the screech of cicadas. after all.BALDINI: Take charge of the shop. To be a giant alembic. he would not walk across the island and the Pont-Saint-Michel.BALDINI: Vulgar?CHENIER: Totally vulgar. and Pelissiers have their triumph. the handkerchief still pressed to his nose. extracts of jasmine.

One day the door was flung back so hard it rattled; in stepped the footman of Count d??Argenson and shouted. As prescribed by law. but he did not let it affect him anymore. both on the same object. he could not have provided them with recipes. His own hair. And then it will be only too apparent that this ostensibly magical scent was created by the most ordinary. Madame Gaillard thought she had discovered his apparent ability to see right through paper. You had to be able to distinguish sheep suet from calves?? suet. I am prepared to teach you this lesson at my own expense. searching eyes. This is the end. The scoundrel conjured with complete mastery of his art. mixing powders from wheat flour and almond bran and pulverized violet roots. but they did not dare try it. and were he not a man by nature prudent. or cinnamon.