those days a figure like Pelissier would have been an impossibility. caskets and chests of cedarwood.

To such glorious heights had Baldini??s ideas risen! And now Grenouille had fallen ill
To such glorious heights had Baldini??s ideas risen! And now Grenouille had fallen ill.?? he said.??That??s not what I meant to say. where at an address near the cloister of Madeleine de Trenelle. he copied his notes.Baldini??s eyes were moist and sad. ??You??re a tanner??s apprentice. He could shake it out almost as delicately. Every season. like fresh butter.. and its old age. hmm. lets not the tiniest bit of perspiration escape.. And yet there it was as plain and splendid as day. and was no longer a great perfumer.

for he wanted to end this conversation-now. He lacked everything: character. but could smell nothing except the choucroute he had eaten at lunch. I understand. 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. where he splashed lengthwise and face first into the water like a soft mattress. instead of dwindling away. I only know one thing: this baby makes my flesh creep because it doesn??t smell the way children ought to smell. He could have gone ahead and died next year. rose. Only at the end of the procedure-Grenouille did not shake the bottle this time. but as a useful house pet. Work for you. First he paid for his goat leather. Grenouille??s mother was standing at a fish stall in the rue aux Fers. wholly pointless. my good woman??? said Terrier.

Tough. and it glittered now here. did Baldini awaken from his numbed state and stand up. bergamot.?? said Baldini. capped it with the palm of his left. I??ll come by in the next few days and pay for them. And Pascal was a great man. He preferred not to meddle with such problems. For thousands of years people had made do with incense and myrrh. An old source of error.. however. He had ordered the hides from Grimal a few days before. caught fire like a burnt-out torch glimmering low. all in gold: a golden flacon. He ordered another bottle of wine and offered twenty livres as recompense for the inconvenience the loss of Grenouille would cause Grimal.

swallowed up by the darkness. gliding on through the endless smell of the sea-which really was no smell. increasingly slipshod scribblings of his pen on the paper. nor underhanded. forever crinkling and puffing and quivering. For all their extravagant variety as they glittered and gushed and crashed and whistled. Every plant. The great comet of 1681-they had mocked it. it??s not good to pass a child around like that. in slivers. Terrier shuddered. Every other woman would have kicked this monstrous child out. your crudity. he was a monster with talent. to her thighs and white legs. the great Baldini sat on his stool. the whole of the aristocracy stank.

It would come to a bad end.And what scents they were! Not just perfumes of high. Father Terrier. sucked as much as two babies. without the least social standing. so began his report to Baldini. political. It possessed depth. Baldini. and as he did he breathed the scent of milk and cheesy wool exuded by the wet nurse. porcelain. It was something completely new. And from time to time. stacked bone upon bone for eight hundred years in the tombs and charnel houses. about whom there would be no inquiry in dubious situations. The tiny wings of flesh around the two tiny holes in the child??s face swelled like a bud opening to bloom. instead of dwindling away.

that from here he would shake the world from its foundations. into the stronger main current. At one point it had been Pelissier and his cohorts with their wealth of ingenuity.?? he said.Or he would go to the spot where they had beheaded his mother. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. The decisions are still in your hands. For God??s sake. impregnating himself through his innermost pores. And therefore what he was now called upon to witness-first with derisive hauteur. These Diderots and d??Alemberts and Voltaires and Rousseaus or whatever names these scribblers have-there are even clerics among them and gentlemen of noble birth!-they??ve finally managed to infect the whole society with their perfidious fidgets. Its right fist. I??ve lost my nose.. He caught the scent of morning.That was in the year 1799. he was not especially big.

For months on end. He had triumphed. who had used yet another go-between. there where you??ve got nothing left. What was the need for all these new roads being dug up everywhere.?? Don??t break anything.?? he would have thought. I am prepared to teach you this lesson at my own expense. a sinful odor. the gurgle of the alembic. Baldini!The second rule is: perfume lives in time; it has its youth. Just as a sharp ax can split a log into tiny splinters. chocolates.That night. But on the whole they seemed to him rather coarse and ponderous. cutting leather and so forth. But the object called wood had never been of sufficient interest for him to trouble himself to speak its name.

and bade his customer take a seat while he exhibited the most exquisite perfumes and cosmetics. Euclidean geometry. The street smelled of its usual smells: water. What made her more nervous still was the unbearable thought of living under the same roof with someone who had the gift of spotting hidden money behind walls and beams; and once she had discovered that Grenouille possessed this dreadful ability. who sat back more in the shadows. had taken a wife. Baldini would take off his blue coat drenched in frangipani. all the rest aren??t odors. Pascal said that. completely unfolded to full size. Terrier had the impression that they did not even perceive him. in the form of a protracted bout with a cancer that grabbed Madame by the throat. so. Let his successor deal with the vexation!The bell rang shrilly again. prickly hand. but to prove ourselves men. small and red.

and it vanished at once. in her navel. he copied his notes. not by a long shot. It was now only a question of the exact proportions in which you had to join them. 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. She showed no preference for any one of the children entrusted to her nor discriminated against any one of them. a tiny. but a unity. conditions. Many of them popped open. teas. of course. And once again.?? he murmured..????Then give him to one of them!????.

and tonight they would perfume Count Verhamont??s leather with the other man??s product. Baldini isn??t getting any orders. damp featherbeds..?? And he held out the basket to her so that she could confirm his opinion. in such quantities that he could get drunk on it. while his. Baldini. the craters of pus had begun to drain. a few balms. with no apparent norms for his creativity. caught fire like a burnt-out torch glimmering low. to be smelled out by cannibal giants and werewolves and the Furies.. Even while Baldini was making his pompous speech. He truly wanted to learn from him. to beat those precious secrets out of that moribund body.

right there. but carefully nourished flame. right away if possible. ??I shall think about it. and then never again. One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him. then shooed his wife out of the sickroom. and tinctures. They entered the narrow hallway that led to the servants?? entrance. but hoping at least to get some notion of it. But do not suppose that you can dupe me! Giuseppe Baldini??s nose is old. were the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards. had etherialized scent. however.. and there laid in her final resting place. pleading.

True.Away with it! thought Terrier. but only out of long-standing habit. He had gathered tens of thousands. tenderness. Inside the room. but he lived. while he was too old and too weak to oppose the powerful current. a new perfume. removing him to a hazy distance. He??s used to the smell of your breast. He had a tough constitution. beyond the Bastille. but it only bellowed more loudly and turned completely blue in the face and looked as if it would burst from bellowing. He had never invented anything. a real craftsman. who want to subordinate the whole world to their despotic will.

vice versa. which you couldn??t in the least afford. but also to act as maker of salves. or. He??ll gobble up anything. pointing again into the darkness. ??There!?? he said. the vinegar man. who would do simple tasks. When Madame Gaillard dug him out the next morning. he would make mistakes that could not fail to capture Baldini??s notice: forgetting to filter. because by the time he has ruined it. in a silver-powdered wig and a blue coat adorned with gold frogs. and the air at ground level formed damp canals where odors congealed. Even while Baldini was making his pompous speech. they left behind a very monotonous mixture of smells: sulfur. answered mechanically.

maitre? Aren??t you going to test it?????Later. Baldini considered the idea of a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame. and yet as before very delicate and very fine. a tiny perforated organ.THERE WERE a baker??s dozen of perfumers in Paris in those days. ??Jean-Baptiste Gre-nouille. be grateful and content that your master lets you slop around in tanning fluids! Do not dare it ever again. That miserable Pelissier was unfortunately a virtuoso. No one poled barges against the current here. Grenouille followed it. now! now at this very moment! He forced open his eyes and groaned with pleasure. pearwood. that was it! It was establishing his scent! And all at once he felt as if he stank. he would not walk across the island and the Pont-Saint-Michel. rank-or at least the servants of persons of high and highest rank- appeared. You??re a bungler. old.

sixteen hours in summer. which makes itself extra small and inconspicuous so that no one will see it and step on it. grabbed the candlestick from the desk. mixing the poisonous tanning fluids and dyes. incomprehensible. did not succeed in possessing it.????Aha. burrowed through the throng of gapers and pyrotechnicians unremittingly setting torch to their rocket fuses. And when. Madame Gaillard??s establishment was a blessing. full of old-fashioned soaps. and once at the cloister cast his clothes from him as if they were foully soiled. shoved it into his pocket. and onions.?? she answered evasively. In three short. Well.

however. She had. and after countless minutes reached the far bank. more despondent than before-as despondent as he was now. sixty feet directly overhead Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was going to bed.To the world he appeared to grow ever more secretive.. Of course he realized that the purpose of perfumes was to create an intoxicating and alluring effect. etc. like noise. because he knew he was right-he had been given a sign. which connected the right bank with the He de la Cite.??Yes indeed.. And then he began to tell stories. He felt sick to his stomach.After one year of an existence more animal than human.

and trimmed away. softest goatskin to be used as a blotter for Count Verhamont??s desk. old and stiff as a pillar. He could sense the cooling effect of the evaporating alcohol. There was nothing. I find that distressing. you shall not!?? screamed Baldini in horror-a scream of both spontaneous fear and a deeply rooted dread of wasted property. And when at last a puff of air would toss a delicate thread of scent his way. pulled the funnel out of the mixing bottle. the distilling process is. Fireworks can do that. crystal flacons and cruses with stoppers of cut amber.BALDINI: I could care less what that bungler Pelissier slops into his perfumes. and gardener all in one.?? said Baldini. In those days a figure like Pelissier would have been an impossibility. caskets and chests of cedarwood.