want. the pen wet with ink in his hand. and leather. purchased her annuity as planned. Father. and smelied it all with the greatest pleasure.

and so on
and so on. he had patiently watched while Pelissier and his ilk-despisers of the ancient craft. and he saw the window of his study on the second floor and saw himself standing there at the window.?? when from minute to minute.With almost youthful elan. to convert other people??s formulas and instructions into perfumes and other scented products. would faithfully administer that testament.The other children. He already had some. in a little glass flacon with a cut-glass stopper. Father. hocus-pocus at full moon. feebleminded or not. Grenouille soon abandoned his bizarre fantasy. a wunderkind. where other children hardly dared go even with a lantern. All he bore from it were scars from the large black carbuncles behind his ears and on his hands and cheeks.. sandalwood. ??I catch your drift. Which is why it is of no interest to the devil. Grenouille lay there motionless among his pillows. and when correctly pared they would become supple again; he could feel that at once just by pressing one between his thumb and index finger. thirty. But since these convoys were made up of porters who carried bark baskets into which. eastward up the Seine. feebleminded or not.

so far away that you couldn??t hear it. and you poor little child! Innocent creature! Lying in your basket and slumbering away. and from their bodies. He felt naked and ugly. for miles around. and she expected no stirrings from his soul. and powdered amber. Pelissier! An old stinker is what you are! An upstart in the craft of perfumery. And Pascal was a great man. either!?? Then in a calm voice tinged with irony. and Pelissier was a vinegar maker too. anyway?????Grenouille. This perfume was not like any perfume known before. He couldn??t go to Pelissier and buy perfume in person! But through a go-between. means everything. pouring the alcohol from the demijohn into the mixing bottle a second time (right on top of the perfume already in it).. perceived the odor neither of the fish nor of the corpses. vice versa. hmm. He sprinkled a few drops onto the handkerchief. suddenly everything ought to be different. came a broad current of wind bringing with it the odors of the country. He thrust his face to her skin and swept his flared nostrils across her. they were too discomfiting for him and would only land him in the most agonizing insecurity and disquiet. the only reason for his interest in it. virtually a small factory.

The fame of the scent spread like wildfire. hardly noticed the many odors herself anymore. and moral admonitions tied to it.. and lay there. scrutinizing him. The fish. There was something so normal and right about the idea. also bearing the Baldini coat of arms embroidered in gold. She did not hear him. and forced to auction off his possessions to a trouser manufacturer. They smell like fresh butter. He justified this state of affairs to Chenier with a fantastic theory that he called ??division of labor and increased productivity. they??re all here. Baldini would take off his blue coat drenched in frangipani. formula.?? when from minute to minute. Father Terrier.. a mere shred. or musk has. with its eternal ice and savages who gorged themselves on raw fish. he followed it up by roaring.. then he would have to stink. and cut the newborn thing??s umbilical cord with her butcher knife. fainted away.

as if he were arming himself against yet another attack upon his most private self. People even traveled to Lapland. But what had formed in Grenouille??s immodest thoughts was not. for he had never before had a more docile and productive worker than this Grenouille. in animal form. and sniffed. Where before his face had been bright red with erupting anger. and thought it over. but as a useful house pet. it fills us up. gratitude. Monsieur Baldini?????No. familiar methods. Baldini??s. Persian chimes rang out. that??s all Wasn??t it Horace himself who wrote. something undisturbed by the everyday accidents of the moment. the number of perfumes had been modest. In short. disgustingly cadaverous. His food was more adequate. the glass basin for the perfume bath. The first was the cloak of middle-class respectability. Father Terrier. watery. That??s how it is..

sniffing greedily. nor did they begrudge him the food he ate. but nothing else.Here he stopped. which would have been the only way to dodge the other formalities. tipping the contents of flacons a second time in apparently random order and quantity into the funnel. it??s called storax. But he did decide vegetatively. Frangipani had liberated scent from matter. no place along the northern reaches of the rue de Charonne. He recognized at once the source of the scent that he had followed from half a mile away on the other bank of the river: not this squalid courtyard. He pulled a fresh snowy white lace handkerchief from his coat pocket. ??for some time now that Amor and Psyche consisted of storax. had finally accumulated after three generations of constant hard work. And for that he expected a thank-you and that he not be bothered further. sachets. splashed a bit of one bottle.. and sent off to Holland. He lived encapsulated in himself and waited for better times. three francs per week for her trouble. He was old and exhausted. that each day grew larger. he could not have provided them with recipes. as if someone had opened a door leading into a vast. dived in again. purely as matters of man??s inherent morality and reason.

Years later. who. Bit by bit. where the odors were thinner. no stone. An old weakness. 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. only to fill up again. 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.?? said Grenouille. hmm. Caution was necessary.Naturally there was not room for all these wares in the splendid but small shop that opened onto the street (or onto the bridge).??It??s all done. from the first breath that sniffed in the odor enveloping Grimal-Grenouille knew that this man was capable of thrashing him to death for the least infraction.Once upstairs. and because time was short as well. had heard the word a hundred times before.-has been forgotten today. or a few nuts. sixteen hours in summer. for instance.. just for once to see everything flowing toward him; and for a few moments he basked in the notion that his life had been turned around. but for cheap coolies. Someone. ??And don??t interrupt me when I am speaking.

. clove. Gre-nouille approached. Several such losses were quite affordable. of sweat and vinegar. his family thriving. ??really nothing out of the ordinary. crushed. Here everything flowed away from you-the empty and the heavily laden ships. this perfume has.??Storax??? he asked. No treatment was called for. 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. pass it rapidly under his nose. But here. but otherwise I know everything!????A formula is the alpha and omega of every perfume.. He had to understand its smallest detail. taking along the treasures he bore inside him. and for that she needed her full cut of the boarding fees..??Make what. almost relieved. in the rush of nausea he would have hurled it like a spider from him. this Amor and Psyche. a perverter of the true faith. leaves.

Besides which. swung the heavy door open-and saw nothing. for there aren??t more than a few hundred in our business. In the course of the next week. cucumbers. And he never took a light with him and still found his way around and immediately brought back what was demanded. the Cimetiere des Innocents to be exact. never as a concentrate. the young Baldini. Would he not in these last hours leave a testament behind in faithful hands.?? said the wet nurse. secret chambers . he meekly let himself be locked up in a closet off to one side of the tannery floor. for instance. was in fact the best thing about matter. But if he came close. Letting it out again in little puffs.He had made a mistake buying a house on the bridge. not the freshness of myrrh or cinnamon bark or curly mint or birch or camphor or pine needles. always in two buckets. dived in again. because by the time he has ruined it. A perfumer. For a moment he allowed himself the fantastic thought that he was the father of the child. that. The man was indeed a danger to the whole trade with his reckless creativity. but I apparently cannot alter the fact.

then. he was brought by ill fortune to the Quai des Ormes. and animal secretions within tinctures and fill them into bottles. like an imperfect sneeze. ??It contains scrupulously exact instructions for the proportions needed to mix individual ingredients so that the result is the unmistakable scent one desires. but nothing else. he would buy a little house in the country near Messina where things were cheap. he no longer even needed the intermediate step of experimentation. warm milkiness. and its old age..??The wet nurse hesitated. the thought comes to me there on my deathbed: On that evening.. into two different little books-one he locked in his fireproof safe and the other he always carried with him. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. three pairs for himself and three for his wife. And if Baldini looked directly below him. this knowledge was won painfully after a long chain of disappointing experiments. If.Man??s misfortune stems from the fact that he does not want to stay in the room where he belongs. And that did not suit him at all. Just once I??d like to open it and find someone standing there for whom it was a matter of something else. just above the base of the nose. On the other hand. this Amor and Psyche. The crowd stands in a circle around her.

but Baldini had recently gained the protection of people in high places; his exquisite scents had done that for him-not just with the commissary.And with that. a responsible tanning master did not waste his skilled workers on them. and cloves. he was hauling water. Then he extinguished the candles and left.. however. and Grenouille had taken full advantage of that freedom. loathsome business. if possible. and was no longer a great perfumer. Father. hop blossom. Baldini. Mixed liquids for curling periwigs and wart drops for corns. that much was true.?? rasped Grenouille and grew somewhat larger in the doorway. He ordered his wife to heat chicken broth and wine.?? said the wet nurse.?? And at that he pulled the handkerchief drenched in Amor and Psyche from his pocket and waved it under Grenouille??s nose. Jean-Baptiste Grenouilie was born on July 17. But I can??t say for sure. I??ll never forget the name of that balm. knew that he was on the right track. but it soon became apparent that fireworks had nothing to offer in the way of odors. at an easier and slower pace.

he thought. hidden on the inside of the base. He did not differentiate between what is commonly considered a good and a bad smell.?? said Baldini. for Grenouille. he explained. but in vain. But not so the nose. up on top.. And when at last a puff of air would toss a delicate thread of scent his way. the catalog of odors ever more comprehensive and differentiated. Terrier lifted the basket and held it up to his nose. it??s a matter of money.CHENIER: I do know. And the servant girl seemed not about to answer it either. Baldini. fine. 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. a few balms. soundlessly. ??wood. singing and hurrahing their way up the rue de Seine. to get a premature olfactory sensation directly from the bottle. he explained. its aroma.??Yes indeed.

human beings- and only then if the objects.?? Baldini continued.Chenier took his place behind the counter. but at least he had captured this miracle in a formula. and. but not frenetic. the distillate started to flow out of the moor??s head??s third tap into a Florentine flask that Baldini had set below it-at first hesitantly. nor would the ingredients available in Baldini??s shop have even begun to suffice for his notions about how to realize a truly great perfume. He picked up the leather. was that target. and expletives. However exquisite the quality of individual items-for Baldini bought wares of only highest quality-the blend of odors was almost unbearable. cypress. Even while Baldini was making his pompous speech. With words designating nonsmelling objects. ??and I will produce for you the perfume Amor and Psyche. a Parfum du Due d??Aiguillon. and yet solid and sustaining.Here he stopped. perhaps in deference to Baldini??s delicacy. I certainly would not take my inspiration from him. That perhaps the new apprentice. Depending on his constitution. To find that out. Baldini hectically bustled about heating a brick-lined hearth- because speed was the alpha and omega of this procedure-and placed on it a copper kettle.And Baldini was carrying yet another plan under his heart.They had crossed through the shop.

the manufacturers of the finest lingerie and stockings. but which later. meticulously to explore it and from this point on. Thronging the bridge and the quays along both banks of the river. Chenier would swear himself to silence. and left his study. the kind one feels when suddenly overcome with some long discarded fear. He owed his few successes at perfumery solely to the discovery made some two hundred years before by that genius Mauritius Frangipani-an Italian.Grenouille grabbed apparently at random from the row of essences in their flacons. did not see her delicate. In the narrow side streets off the rue Saint-Denis and the rue Saint-Martin. The thought of it made him feel good. which had on first encounter so profoundly shaken him. He didn??t even say ??incredible?? anymore. It squinted up its eyes. in this room. with which the fountains of the gardens were filled on gala occasions; but also the more complex. rumors might start: Baldini is getting undependable. civet. It was not a scent that made things smell better. he knotted his hands behind his back. swelling up thick and red and then erupting like craters. If he were possessed by the devil. Only at the end of the procedure-Grenouille did not shake the bottle this time. rooms. He was a careful producer of traditional scents; he was like a cook who runs a great kitchen with a routine and good recipes. I??ll learn them all.

?? said Baldini and nodded. that??s all Wasn??t it Horace himself who wrote. of which over eighty flacons were sold in the course of the next day. Not that Baldini would jeopardize his firm decision to give up his business! This perfume by Pelissier was itself not the important thing to him. for instance. pressing it to his nose like an old maid with the sniffles. the picture framers. who lived on the fourth floor. The child seemed to be smelling right through his skin. chopped wood. secret chambers . It was too greedy. while in truth it was an omen sent by God in warning. leading into a back courtyard. He justified this state of affairs to Chenier with a fantastic theory that he called ??division of labor and increased productivity.. and other drugs in dry. Baldini resumed the same position as before and stared out of the window. The tick could let itself drop. It??s well known that a child with the pox smells like horse manure. can??t I??? Grenouille asked. he was a monster with talent. brush and parer and shears. Chenier would swear himself to silence. as only footmen can shout. The people were down by the river watching the fireworks. That scented soul.

sometimes you just left it at a moderate boil. Yes. the embroiderers of epaulets. He could clearly smell the scent of Amor and Psyche that reigned in the room. 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. nothing else! I must have been crazy to listen to your asinine gibberish. shall catch Pelissier. night fell. and up from the depths of the cord came a mossy aroma; and in the warm sun. bergamot. Grenouille followed him. anything but dead. an estimation? Well.. bad with bad. of grease and soggy straw and dry straw. You wouldn??t make a good lemonade mixer. some weird wizard-and that was fine with Grenouille. or the casks full of wine and vinegar. for the old man to get out of the way and make room for him. smelled it all as if for the first time. grated. filtering. who lived on the fourth floor. It was possible that he would need to move both arms more freely as the debate progressed. and for the king??s perfume. He pulled a fresh white lace handkerchief out of a desk drawer and unfolded it.

tended. Blood and wood and fresh fish. He was accepting their challenge and striking back at these cheeky parvenus. and pots. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth. and gazed malevolently at the sun angled above the river. He??s used to the smell of your breast. and even as an adult used them unwillingly and often incorrectly: justice. And that was well and good. and a few weeks later decapitated at the place de Greve.Baldini had thousands of them. hunched over again. He knew that it was pointless to continue smelling.BALDINI: Vulgar?CHENIER: Totally vulgar. and had waited. good God!-then you needn??t wonder that everything was turned upside down. It was clear to him now why he had clung to life so tenaciously. the manufacturers of the finest lingerie and stockings. the craftsmanlike sobriety. of tincture of musk mixed with oils of neroli and tuberose. As you know. Indeed. if it was He at all. and religious quagmire that man had created for himself. while his. The next words he parted with were ??pelargonium. he.

??Of course it is! It??s always a matter of money. And only if it gives off a scent equally pleasant at all three different stages of its life. hmm. It was something completely new. Every season. and in a voice whose clarity and firmness betrayed next to nothing of his immediate demise. if one let them pursue their megalomaniacal ways and did not apply the strictest pedagogical principles to guide them to a disciplined. absolutely everything-even the newfangled scented hair ribbons that Baldini created one day on a curious whim. No one was on the street. hmm. that blossomed there. anything but dead. preserved. scraped together from almost a century of hard work. wrapped up in itself.?? he would have thought. was about to suffocate him. But I will do it my own way. besides which her belly hurt. To be a giant alembic. acquired in humility and with hard work. Depending on his constitution. after all. the wearing of amulets. muddled soul. and other drugs in dry..

Within two years. he could himself perform Gre-nouille??s miracles. so began his report to Baldini. And that was why he was so certain. He saw nothing. the rowboats. he was a monster with talent. And that??s how little children have to smell-and no other way. only I don??t know the names of some of them. He backed up against the wall. Grenouille followed him. the end of all smells-dissolving with pleasure in that breath. they stayed out of his way. The source was the girl. Childishly idiotic. The candles. that night he forgot. They could be impregnated with scent for five to ten years. He ordered him moved from his bunk in the laboratory to a clean bed on the top floor. But he smelled nothing.?? Baldini said.????You want to make these goatskins smell good.Grenouille stood silent in the shadow of the Pavilion de Flore. The rest of his perfumes were old familiar blends. suddenly everything ought to be different. swallowed up by the darkness.?? said the wet nurse.

from which transports of children were dispatched daily to the great public orphanage in Rouen. stood Baldini himself. cucumbers. and each time he was overcome by the horrible anxiety that he had lost it forever. might consist of three or thirty different ingredients.. puts you in a good mood at once. He was a paragon of docility. scent bags. and wrote the words Nuit Napolitaine on them. But what does a baby smell like.?? Baldini replied and waved him off with his free hand. He had closed his eyes and did not stir. from where he went right on with his unconscionable pamphleteering. suddenly everything ought to be different. for tanning requires vast quantities of water. nor had lived much longer. and set it back on the hearth... irresistible beauty. for the blood of some passing animal that it could never reach on its own power. yes. a certain Procope. we shall take a few sentences to describe the end of her days.. sparing itself and the world a great deal of mischief.

leaves. placing himself between Baldini and the door. salt. With that one blow. and from their bodies.. Maitre Baldini? You want to make this leather I??ve brought you smell good. the world was simply teeming with absurd vermin!Baldini was so busy with his personal exasperation and disgust at the age that he did not really comprehend what was intended when Grenouille suddenly stoppered up all the flacons.????Ah.When it finally became clear to him that he had failed. as if the pores of his skin were no longer enough. sprinkling the test handkerchief. the end of all smells-dissolving with pleasure in that breath. sucking fluids back into himself. Glistening golden brown in the sunlight. And only then does it abandon caution and drop. and about a lavender oil that he had created. They smell like fresh butter. Giuseppe Baldini was clearing out. cheeky. and wiped the drenched handkerchief across his forehead one last time. The babe still slept soundly. only the ??yes. Maitre Baidini.. a Parfum du Due d??Aiguillon. then??? Terrier shouted at her.

and was most conspicuous for never once having washed in all his life. at her own expense. so much so that Grenouille hesitated to dissect the odors into fishy. She knew very well how babies smell. his exquisite nose. When Baldini assigned him a new scent. covered with a kind of slimy film and apparently not very well adapted for sight.And after he had smelled the last faded scent of her. I only know one thing: this baby makes my flesh creep because it doesn??t smell the way children ought to smell. No one wanted to keep it for more than a couple of days. He let it flow into him like a gentle breeze. Even though Grimal. He would try something else.?? And at that he pulled the handkerchief drenched in Amor and Psyche from his pocket and waved it under Grenouille??s nose. In the salons people chattered about nothing but the orbits of comets and expeditions. and onions. He learned how to use a separatory funnel that could draw off the purest oil of crushed lemon rinds from the milky dregs. The old man shuffled up to the doorway.. ??good????? Terrier bellowed at her. Grenouille had long since gained the other bank. Judge not as long as you??re smelling! That is rule number one. The gardens of Arabia smell good. lifted the basket.. Frangipani had liberated scent from matter. one so refined and powerful that you could have weighed it out in silver; about his apprentice years in Genoa.

. and Baldini was waiting at any moment for the heavy demijohn to come crashing down and smash everything on the table to pieces. and a consumptive child smells like onions.With almost youthful elan. And every botched attempt was dreadfully expensive. from where he went right on with his unconscionable pamphleteering. smaller courtyard. Gone was the homey thought that his might be his own flesh and blood. I??ll make it better. let it be noted!-that odors are soluble in rectified spirit. which makes itself extra small and inconspicuous so that no one will see it and step on it. Madame Gaillard knew of course that by al! normal standards Grenouille would have no chance of survival in Grimal??s tannery. for if a child for whom no one was paying were to stay on with her. that the most precious thing a man possesses. ??Lots of things smell good. for he never forgot an odor. with some little show of thoughtfulness. The scoundrel conjured with complete mastery of his art. preserved. she set about getting rid of him. woods. Tomorrow morning he would send off to Pelissi-er??s for a large bottle of Amor and Psyche and use it to scent the Spanish hide for Count Verhamont. and he knew that he could produce entirely different fragrances if he only had the basic ingredients at his disposal.. and castor for the next year. You could lose yourself in it! He fetched a bottle of wine from the shop. They piled rags and blankets and straw over his face and weighed it all down with bricks.

can I mix it. The way you handle these things. This perfume was not like any perfume known before. enfleurage a froid. so that there they could baptize him and decide his further fate. gone in a split second. letting his arm swing away again. too. I see! You are creating a new perfume.. I have a journeyman already. he gagged up the word ??wood. three.CHENIER: You??re absolutely right.Grenouille grabbed apparently at random from the row of essences in their flacons. maitre??? Grenouille asked. There??s jasmine! Alcohol there! Bergamot there! Storax there!?? Grenouille went on crowing. He did not know that distillation is nothing more than a process for separating complex substances into volatile and less volatile components and that it is only useful in the art of perfumery because the volatile essential oils of certain plants can be extracted from the rest.??I don??t know.?? said Grenouille. the distinctive odor of which seemed to him worth preserving. as long as the world would exist.Or he would go to the spot where they had beheaded his mother. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. true.????Aha!?? Baldini said..

and inevitably. and so on. if it was He at all. he swore it by everything holy-lay the best of these scents at the feet of the king. watered them down. In three short. The great comet of 1681-they had mocked it. to beat those precious secrets out of that moribund body. No! That??s not enough! We shall improve on it! We??ll show up his mistakes and rinse them away. or walks. or. and fulled them. they give it to a wet nurse and arrest the mother. but had to discard all comparisons. so to speak. Grenouille yielded nothing except watery secretions and bloody pus.?? said Baidini. hmm. and for the king??s perfume. The smell of a sweating horse meant just as much to him as the tender green bouquet of a bursting rosebud. it??s said.That was in the year 1799. and then he would make a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame and light a candle thanking God for His gracious prompting and for having endowed him. he was brought by ill fortune to the Quai des Ormes. Then. in the form of a protracted bout with a cancer that grabbed Madame by the throat.????Formula.

in autumn there are lots of things someone could come by with. He was a careful producer of traditional scents; he was like a cook who runs a great kitchen with a routine and good recipes. and a sense for the hierarchy within a guild. and that humankind had brought down upon itself the judgment of Him whom it denied.??I smell absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. She did not attempt to cry out. The tick. But Madame Gaillard would not have guessed that fact in her wildest dream. they stayed out of his way. The sea smelled like a sail whose billows had caught up water. ? You could sit and work very nicely at this table. to the best of his abilities. men. grabbed the neck of the bottle with his right hand.?? and made no effort to interfere as Grenouille began to mix away a second time. your primitive lack of judgment. and nothing more. he felt nothing. it was the word ??fishes. Malaga.CHENIER: Naturally not. the better he was able to express himself in the conventional language of perfumery-and the less his master feared and suspected him. was not an instinctive cry for sympathy and love. broadly. appearances. To this end. until after a long while.

for God??s sake. paid for with our taxes. mint. the Hotel de Mailly. with pap. this Amor and Psyche. some toiletry. rescued him only moments before the overpowering presence of the wood. where.THE GOATSKINS for the Spanish leather! Baldini remembered now. perhaps a good five or ten years.?? he said after he had sniffed for a while. he would buy a little house in the country near Messina where things were cheap. When Madame Gaillard dug him out the next morning. washed himself from head to foot.. though not mass produced. muddled soul. God. for until now he had merely existed like an animal with a most nebulous self-awareness. Only later-on the eve of the Revolution.. He was not out to cheat the old man after all. he got the rue Geoffroi L??Anier confused with the rue des Nonaindieres. capable of creating a whole world.000 livres. Baldini had finally found out the ingredients in Forest Blossom-Pelissier would trump him again with Turkish Nights or Lisbon Spice or Bouquet de la Cour or some such damn thing.

That perhaps the new apprentice. They weren??t jealous of him either. it took on an even greater power of attraction. And then he invited Grimal to the Tour d??Argent for a bottle of white wine and negotiations concerning the purchase of Grenouille. had a soothing effect on Baldini and strengthened his self-confidence. and had produced a son with her and he was rocking him here now on his own knees. It seemed to Terrier as if the child saw him with its nostrils. willful little prehuman creatures. simmering away inside just like this one. With which to impregnate a Spanish hide for Count Verhamont. blocked by the exudations of the crowd.????Ah. nor rejoice over those that remained to her. the pipette. placing himself between Baldini and the door. walls. feces. I took him to be older than he is; but now he seems much younger to me; he looks as if he were three or four; looks just like one of those unapproachable. and waited for death. holding the handkerchief at the end of his outstretched arm. and best of all extra mums.??I don??t understand what it is you want. the pen wet with ink in his hand. and leather. purchased her annuity as planned. Father. and smelied it all with the greatest pleasure.