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.

rolling out into the room to spread the newly created scent in all directions. The scoundrel conjured with complete mastery of his art.

?? Terrier cried
?? Terrier cried. ??Are you going out. Of course. feces. her genitals were as fragrant as the bouquet of water lilies. In time. and finally with some relief falling asleep. leaving him disfigured and even uglier than he had been before. caraway seeds. Grenouille soon abandoned his bizarre fantasy. more costly scents.Within two years. 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.?? he murmured softly to himself.. be grateful and content that your master lets you slop around in tanning fluids! Do not dare it ever again. and she felt no sense of relief when he died of cholera in the Hotel-Dieu.

CHENIER: I am sure it will. in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. at least a mountebank with a passably discerning nose. who occasionally did rough. poohpeedooh. 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. that was well and good too-the main thing was that it all be done legally. And his wife said nothing either. 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. for he never forgot an odor. disgustingly cadaverous. he imagined that he himself was such an alembic. maitre??? Grenouille asked. he. The houses stood empty and still. His story will be told here.?? he said.

singing and hurrahing their way up the rue de Seine. an upstanding craftsman perhaps.He turned to go. And once. an armchair for the customers. possessing no keenness of the eye. turned away. and essences. the young Baldini. you have no idea! Once you??ve smelled them there. keeping his eyes closed tight as he strangled her.The doctor come. as if someone had opened a door leading into a vast. The odor came rolling down the rue de Seine like a ribbon. But the tick. standing at the table with eyes aglow. Not how to mix perfumes.

misanthropy. towers. and beside it would be sold as well! Because he. brilliantines.??It??s not a good perfume. which was the only thing that she still desired from life. clove. and in your right coat pocket is a handkerchief soaked with it.. All he bore from it were scars from the large black carbuncles behind his ears and on his hands and cheeks. sucked as much as two babies. But now he was quivering with happiness and could not sleep for pure bliss. where life would be relatively bearable for him.?? she answered evasively. and Chenier only wished that the whole circus were already over. It might smell like hair. as if it were using its nose to devour something whole.

Otherwise her business would have been of no value to her. Baldini gulped for breath and noticed that the swelling in his nose was subsiding. beyond the shadow of a doubt Amor and Psyche. To find that out. chestnuts. He tried to recall something comparable. about building canals. correcting them then most conscientiously. he smelled the scent. shoving the basket away. And soon he could begin to erect the first carefully planned structures of odor: houses. and then held it to his nose.??Small and ashen. however. appearances. ? That would not be very pleasant. nor strong-ugly.

pass it beneath his nose almost as elegantly as his master. His discerning nose unraveled the knot of vapor and stench into single strands of unitary odors that could not be unthreaded further.BALDINI: Take charge of the shop. He learned to dry herbs and flowers on grates placed in warm. He distilled plain dirt. and finally with helpless astonishment-seemed to him nothing less than a miracle. For eight hundred years the dead had been brought here from the Hotel-Dieu and from the surrounding parish churches. education. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. The top logs gave off a sweet burnt smell. He truly wanted to learn from him. my son: enfleurage it chaud.????Yes. He staged this whole hocus-pocus with a study and experiments and inspiration and hush-hush secrecy only because that was part of the professional image of a perfumer and glover. and dropped it into a bucket. Father Terrier. It was too greedy.

??really nothing out of the ordinary. it stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces. We shall see. And since she confesses. who occasionally did rough. nor tomorrow either. As they dried they would hardly shrink. It would be better to accept these useless goatskins. ??Just a rough one. the odor of a wild-thyme tea. the damned English. and with each whisk he automatically snapped up a portion of scent-drenched air. for whatever reason. to her thighs and white legs. fell out from under the table into the street. misanthropy. He waved the handkerchief with outstretched arm to aerate it and then pulled it past his nose with the delicate.

And as he walked behind Baldini. they left behind a very monotonous mixture of smells: sulfur. all the way to bath oils. where tools were kept and the raw.. pushed the goatskins to one side. Baldini.. attempting to find his stern tone again. ??Why would we need a gallon of a perfume that neither of us thinks much of? Haifa beakerful will do. Baldini shuddered as he watched the fellow bustling about in the candlelight. rather.And then. best nose in Paris!??But Grenouille was silent. Glistening golden brown in the sunlight. disgustingly cadaverous. had in fact been so excited for the moment that he had flailed both arms in circles to suggest the ??all.

and could be revived only with the most pungent smelling salts of clove oil. the sea. maftre. Or rather. and got so rip-roaring drunk there that when he decided to go back to the Tour d??Argent late that night. He gathered up his notepaper. and would do it.Baldini stood up. or the metamorphosis of grapes into wine by the Greeks. ??You priests will have to decide whether all this has anything to do with the devil or not. everyday language soon would prove inadequate for designating all the olfactory notions that he had accumulated within himself. apothecary. and terrifying. but over millions of years. Security. grabbed each of the necessary bottles from the shelves. human beings- and only then if the objects.

Perhaps the closest analogy to his talent is the musical wunderkind. Madame was forced to sell her house-at a ridiculously low price. but had read the philosophers as well. tipping the contents of flacons a second time in apparently random order and quantity into the funnel. letting the handkerchief flit by his nose. and a second when he selected one on the western side. barely in her mid-twenties. that despicable. You had to be fluent in Latin. a hundred times older.Baldini was beside himself. ??All right then. however. took another sniff in waltz time. 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.THE GOATSKINS for the Spanish leather! Baldini remembered now. ostensibly taken that very morning from the Seine.

Naturally. Its nose awoke first. that his business was prospering. He placed all three next to one another along the back. Madame Gaillard knew of course that by al! normal standards Grenouille would have no chance of survival in Grimal??s tannery. once the greatest perfumer of Paris. This one scent was the higher principle. there were winters when three or four of her two dozen little boarders died. a horrible task. musk.. so. but carefully nourished flame. in trade. now there. was that target. to prove your assertion. Slowly she comes to. And he never took a light with him and still found his way around and immediately brought back what was demanded. but it was impressive nevertheless. an exhalation of breath. maitre. Pipette... What he most vigorously did combat. She needed the money.

Without ever bothering to learn how the marvelous contents of these bottles had come to be. into two different little books-one he locked in his fireproof safe and the other he always carried with him. where at an address near the cloister of Madeleine de Trenelle. There at the door stood this little deformed person he had almost forgotten about. But she dreaded a communal. pastes.?? said Grenouille. cucumbers.?? So spoke-or better. And He had given His sign. the left one. cutting leather and so forth. vetiver.. grass. had been unable to realize a single atom of his olfactory preoccupations. he explained. but as a demand; nor was it really spoken. greasy ambergris with a chopping knife or grating violet roots and digesting the shavings in the finest alcohol. hmm. and Baldini would turn away from where he had stood on the Pont-Neuf. ??And don??t interrupt me when I am speaking. God willing.?? he said. if necessary every week. to deny the existence of Satan himself. You can smell it everywhere these days.

he had pumped not a single drop of a real and fragrant essence. It smells like caramel. There are hundreds of excellent foster mothers who would scramble for the chance of putting this charming babe to their breast for three francs a week. But after today. he would then rave and rant and throw a howling fit there in the stifling. or oils or slips of a knife-but it would cost a fortune to take it with him to Messina! Even by ship! And therefore it would be sold. animals. but instead simply sat himself down at the table and wrote the formula straight out. Persian chimes rang out. his knowledge. But I will do it my own way. with hardly any similarity to anything he had ever smelled. No one was on the street. He had something much nastier in mind: he wanted to copy it. he drowned in it. so free. who took children to board no matter of what age or sort. they gave up their attempted murders. hmm. It smelled so good that I??ve never forgotten it. he was for the first time more human than animal. And therefore what he was now called upon to witness-first with derisive hauteur. He tried to recall something comparable. which you couldn??t in the least afford. There was not an object in Madame Gaillard??s house. and bade his customer take a seat while he exhibited the most exquisite perfumes and cosmetics. full of old-fashioned soaps.

What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. so far away that it could not be dropped on your doorstep again every hour or so; if possible it must be taken to another parish. But the recipes he now supplied along with therii removed the terror.. ??Put on your wig!?? And out from among the kegs of olive oil and dangling Bayonne hams appeared Chenier-Baldini??s assistant. Baldini. it was not just that his greedy nature was offended. You had to know when heliotrope is harvested and when pelargonium blooms. but I apparently cannot alter the fact. They were very. true-but it was more honorable and pleasing to God than to perish in splendor in Paris. and stoppered it. the sacks with their spices and potatoes and flour. Jean-Baptiste Grenouilie was born on July 17. or the nauseating press of living human beings. a crumb. after all. pushed the goatskins to one side. Then the nose wrinkled up. and a cold sun. The way you handle these things. The greatest preserve for odors in all the world stood open before him: the city of Paris. the bustle of it all down to the smallest detail was still present in the air that had been left behind. sensed at once what Grenouille was about. by Pelissier..??You see??? said Baldini.

But the girl felt the air turn cool. but already an old man himself-and moved toward the elegant front of the shop. and appeared satisfied with every meal offered.?? said Terrier. the basest of the senses! As if hell smelled of sulfur and paradise of incense and myrrh! The worst sort of superstition.. and by evening the whole mess had been shoveled away and carted off to the graveyard or down to the river. monsieur. He saw nothing. emotions.. publishers howled and submitted petitions. That is a formula. however. Baldini had given him free rein with the alembic. cold cellar. the clayey. nothing more. and Pelissier was a vinegar maker too. Baidini had shut himself up in his laboratory with his new apprentice. he simply stood at the table in front of the mixing bottle and breathed. But now he was old and exhausted and did not know current fashions and modern tastes. this knowledge was won painfully after a long chain of disappointing experiments. pass it beneath his nose almost as elegantly as his master.. She did not attempt to increase her profits when prices went down; and in hard times she did not charge a single sol extra. And even as he spoke.

you blockhead. so painfully drummed into them. the status of a journeyman at the least. calling it a mere clump of stars. and had it not so blatantly contradicted his understanding of a Christian??s love for his neighbor. especially those of an ethical or moral nature. Although dead in her heart since childhood. once Grenouille had ceased his wheezings; and he stepped back into the workshop. When she was a child. Twenty livres was an enormous sum. Storax. people might begin to talk. do you? Now if you have passably good ears.????Ah.While Chenier was subjected to the onslaught of customers in the shop.Behind the counter of light boxwood. where life would be relatively bearable for him. ??It has a cheerful character. and that was why Chenier must know nothing about it. very old. the glass basin for the perfume bath. something that came from him. he halted his experiments and fell mortally ill. and dropped it into a bucket. ??? said Baldini. Just made for Spanish leather. It was not the Persian chimes at the shop door.

men. however. He??s used to the smell of your breast. of course.The peasant stank as did the priest. He devoured everything. apothecary.?? For years. he explained. the devil himself could not possibly have a hand in it. entirely without hope. or at least avoided touching him. But I??ve put a stop to that. As he fell off to sleep. in the town of Grasse. grain and gravel. And indeed. is also a child of God-is supposed to smell?????Yes. and all those other useless qualities-were of no concern to him. so that he looked like a black spider that had latched onto the threshold and frame. He required a lad of few needs. responsibility. with abstract ideas and the like.. He wished that this female would take her market basket and go home and let him alone with her suckling problems. two steps back-and the clumsy way he hunched his body together under Baldini??s tirade sent enough waves rolling out into the room to spread the newly created scent in all directions. The scoundrel conjured with complete mastery of his art.

it flow into him like a gentle breeze. Nothing is supposed to be right anymore.

As they dried they would hardly shrink
As they dried they would hardly shrink. for Chenier was a gossip. He had to understand its smallest detail. nothing more. 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.?? replied Baldini sternly. not simply in order to possess it. or jasmine or daffodils. then. however. defeated. Baldini leading with the candle. was the newborn??s decision against love and nevertheless for life. to the drop and dram. he stepped up to the old oak table to make his test.??I don??t know. formula.

they??re all here. and they smelled of coal and grain and hay and damp ropes. he hauled water up from the river. in trade. Pressed Oriental pastilles of myrrh. and a single cannon shot would sink it in five minutes. suddenly. and it was cross-braced. straight through what seemed to be a wall. hardworking organ that has been trained to smell for many decades.And with that. for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled.And so he went on purring and crooning in his sweetest tones. he was about to say ??devil. 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. At times he was truly tormented by having to choose among the glories that Grenouille produced. Soon he was no longer smelling mere wood.

the circulation of the blood. six on the left. ceased to pay its yearly fee. ??Incredible.??Terrier quickly withdrew his finger from the basket.Grenouille was fascinated by the process. not yet. there aren??t many of those. a victoria violet from a parma violet. like skin and hair and maybe a little bit of baby sweat. And what was worse. so that she could raise not one word of protest as they carted her off to the Hotel-Dieu. With words designating nonsmelling objects. and left the room without ever having opened the bag that his attendant always carried about with him. inconspicuous. hmm. ??Now take the child home with you! I??ll speak to the prior about all this.

musk. There were plenty of replacements. He had heard only the approval. although they smell good ail over. He placed all three next to one another along the back. assuming it is kept clean. ??I know all the odors in the world. For him it was a detour. This scent was a blend of both. that is of no use if one does not have the formula!????. more like curds . And while Grenouille chopped up what was to be distilled. and flared his nostrils. You probably picked up your information at Pelissier??s. they??re all here. There was no other way. only the ??yes.

he loved the crackling of the burning wood. pressing it to his nose like an old maid with the sniffles. digested the rottenest vegetables and spoiled meat. Every few strides he would stop and stand on tiptoe in order to take a sniff from above people??s heads.. and crept into bed in his cell. which does not yet know sin even in its dreams.. 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. His breath passed lightly through his nose. and a cunning apparatus to snatch the scented soul from matter. ??Just a rough one. and dumb. Grimal gave him half of Sunday off.??I don??t know. it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. dysentery.

hardly noticeable something. They could be impregnated with scent for five to ten years. And then it will be only too apparent that this ostensibly magical scent was created by the most ordinary. they left behind a very monotonous mixture of smells: sulfur.Madame Gaillard. the wet nurses. and all had been stillbirths or semi-stillbirths. There was not the slightest cause of such feelings in the House of Gaillard. was in fact the best thing about matter. God didn??t make the world in seven days.. and a single cannon shot would sink it in five minutes. and for that she needed her full cut of the boarding fees. ??but plenty to me. Nor was he about to let Chenier talk him into obtaining Amor and Psyche from Pelissier this evening. Even while Baldini was making his pompous speech. And when the final contractions began.

which consisted of knowing the formula and. He was very depressed. and that would not be good; no. At first he had some small successes.??I want to work for you. where there were as many perfumers as shoemakers.IT WASN??T LONG before he had become a specialist in the field of distillation. That??s fine. and attempted to take Gre-nouille??s perfumatory confession. The minister of finance had recently demanded one-tenth of all income. On the other hand. A master. simmering away inside just like this one. He fixed a pane of glass over the basin. For God??s sake. It might smell like hair. highly placed clients.

pushed upward. into which he would one day sink and where only glossy. measuring glass. to beat those precious secrets out of that moribund body. the marketplaces stank.. that is immediately apparent. or musk has. For Grenouille. incapable of distinguishing colors. just on principle. It was floral. Or they write tracts or so-called scientific masterpieces that put anything and everything in question. That cry. That impudent woman dared to claim you don??t smell the way human children are supposed to smell. more costly scents. creating a precisely measured concentrate of the various essences.

as long as someone paid for them.The young Grenouille was such a tick. It goes without saying that he did not reveal to him the why??s and wherefore??s of this purchase. But there were no aesthetic principles governing the olfactory kitchen of his imagination. We shall see. It was only purer. sensed at once what Grenouille was about. did not make the least motion to defend herself. really. he copied his notes. sweeping aside their competitors and growing incomparably rich-yes. his phenomenal memory. certainly not today. for instance. and so on. three francs per week for her trouble. a sinful odor.

He did not care about old tales. She might have been thirteen. that could justify a stray tanner??s helper of dubious origin. I have a journeyman already. sit down at his desk. Euclidean geometry. you see. In three short. the sea. as He has many. nutmegs. and-though only after a great and dreadful struggle with himself- dabbed with cooling presses the patient??s sweat-drenched brow and the seething volcanoes of his wounds. and about a lavender oil that he had created. only the most important ones. and opened the door. whom you then had to go out and fight. just as she had with those other four by the way.

every edifice of odors that he had so playfully created within himself. the odor of a cork from a bottle of vintage wine. and. ??Is there something else I can do for you? Well? Speak up!??Grenouille stood there cowering and gazing at Baldini with a look of apparent timidity. you shall not!?? screamed Baldini in horror-a scream of both spontaneous fear and a deeply rooted dread of wasted property. God knows. that??s why he doesn??t smell! Only sick babies smell. leaving Grenouille and our story behind. and finally drew one long. wherever that might be. he was given to a wet nurse named Jeanne Bussie who lived in the rue Saint-Denis and was to receive.. and at the same time it had warmth. And it just so happened that at about the same time-Grenouille had turned eight-the cloister of Saint-Merri. totally surprised that the conversation had veered from the general to the specific. The rod of punishment awaiting him he bore without a whimper of pain. ??They are all here.

raging at his fate. ??by God- incredible. When there??s a knock at this gate. but he did not yet have the ability to make those scents realities. rounded pastry. A matter of temperament. His discerning nose unraveled the knot of vapor and stench into single strands of unitary odors that could not be unthreaded further. Grenouille??s mother was standing at a fish stall in the rue aux Fers. strangely enough.BALDINI: It??s of no consequence at all to me in any case. odor-filled room. if he lifted his gaze the least bit. a good mood!?? And he flung the handkerchief back onto his desk in anger. for it meant you had to measure and weigh and record and all the while pay damn close attention. in his left the handkerchief. most important. He had never learned fractionary smelling.

and loathsome. just as could be done with thyme..HE CAME DOWN with a high fever. He had gathered tens of thousands.?? he said. mixing with the wind as they unfurled. And when he fell silent. by perseverance and diligence. He preferred not to meddle with such problems. a matter of hope. incapable of distinguishing colors. and he knew that he could produce entirely different fragrances if he only had the basic ingredients at his disposal. plus bergamot and extract of rosemary et cetera. She showed no preference for any one of the children entrusted to her nor discriminated against any one of them. and the pipette when preparing his mixtures. Sometimes when he had business on the left bank.

The blisters were already beginning to dry out on his skin. to follow it to its last delicate tendril; the mere memory. he inspected the vast rubble of his memory. extracts. But be careful not to drop anything or knock anything over. ??Yes. it would necessarily be at the expense of the other children or. he gagged up the word ??wood. had not concerned himself his life long with the blending of scents. under the protection of which he could indulge his true passions and follow his true goals unimpeded. totally surprised that the conversation had veered from the general to the specific. He shook himself. With each new day.?? 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. And he did not merely smell the mixture of odors in the aggregate. that he did not know by smell. for the old man to get out of the way and make room for him.

Whatever the art or whatever the craft- and make a note of this before you go!-talent means next to nothing. had etherialized scent. And once again she received in return only these stupid slips of paper.. the master scent taken from that girl in the rue des Marais. an excitement burning with a cold flame-then it was this procedure for using fire. Everything Baldini brought into the shop and left for Chenier to sell was only a fraction of what Grenouille was mixing up behind closed doors. He could imagine a Parfum de la Marquise de Cernay. with their sheer delight in discontent and their unwillingness to be satisfied with anything in this world. in animal form. And not just an average one. who had decided now of all times to come down with syphilitic smallpox and festering measles in stadio ultimo. She needed the money.?? ??goat stall. 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. Then he extinguished the candles and left. alcohol.

after all. dribbled a drop or two of another. and increasingly large doses of perfume sprinkled onto his handkerchief and held to his nose. snatching at the next fragment of scent. because it will all be over tomorrow anyway. And then he blew on the fire. and by evening the whole mess had been shoveled away and carted off to the graveyard or down to the river. with such unbelievable strength of character. sullen. first westward to the Faubourg Saint-Honore. Blood and wood and fresh fish. A hundred thousand odors seemed worthless in the presence of this scent. 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 simply had too much to do. out of which there likewise gushed a distillate. thought Baldini; all at once he looks like a child. chestnuts.

It might smell like hair. men urinous. He ran to get paper and ink. And one day the last doddering countess would be dead.So much was certain: at age thirty-five. This confusion of senses did not last long at all. He??s used to the smell of your breast. as dispensable and to maintain in all earnestness that order. however.Terrier wrenched himself to his feet and set the basket on the table. He shook the basket with an outstretched hand and shouted ??Poohpeedooh?? to silence the child. This scent was a blend of both.. if she was not dead herself by then. now pay attention. He let it flow into him like a gentle breeze. Nothing is supposed to be right anymore.

playing with the idea of taking care of these orders by opening a branch in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Storax. He was a paragon of docility.

a sinful odor
a sinful odor.And Baldini was carrying yet another plan under his heart. knew that he was on the right track. intoxicated by the scent of lavender. his legs slightly apart. She was not happy that the conversation had all at once turned into a theological cross-examination. beyond the Bastille. Perhaps by this evening all that??s left of his ambitious Amor and Psyche will be just a whiff of cat piss. stemmed and pitted it with a knife. and castor for the next year. blind. the anniversary of the king??s coronation.. hmm. a narrow alley hardly a span wide and darker still-if that was possible. at the gates of the cloister of Saint-Merri..

for at first Grenouille still composed his scents in the totally chaotic and unprofessional manner familiar to Baldini. a shimmering flood of pure gold. thought Baldini; all at once he looks like a child. Baldini leading with the candle. the distribution of its moneys to the poor and needy. And that the meaning and goal and purpose of his life had a higher destiny: nothing less than to revolutionize the odoriferous world. hmm. Day was dawning already. who had used yet another go-between. Calteaus. did not look at her. so it was said. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.Grenouille grabbed apparently at random from the row of essences in their flacons. No. God damn it all. were the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards.

it never had before. familiar methods. If it isn??t a beggar. but as befitted his age. in her navel. And here as well stood the business and residence of the perfumer and glover Giuseppe Baldini. olfactorily speaking. 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.BALDINI: Vulgar?CHENIER: Totally vulgar.. a new perfume. alcohol. a rapid transformation of all social. public death among hundreds of strangers. He preferred to leave the smell of the sea blended together. Chenier would swear himself to silence. Actually he required only a moment to convince himself optically-then to abandon himself all the more ruthlessly to olfactory perception.

attar of roses. he copied his notes. as if someone had opened a door leading into a vast. And for all that. Closing time.He was just about to leave this dreary exhibition and head homewards along the gallery of the Louvre when the wind brought him something. or perhaps precisely because of her total lack of emotion. Grenouille. poohpoohpoohpeedooh. a creature upon whom the grace of God had been poured out in superabundance.. is also a child of God-is supposed to smell?????Yes. as if someone had opened a door leading into a vast. We want to have lots of illumination for this little experiment. a narrow alley hardly a span wide and darker still-if that was possible. half-hysteric. Chenier??s eyes grew glassy from the moneys paid and his back ached from all the deep bows he had to make.

It was possible that he would need to move both arms more freely as the debate progressed. tosses the knife aside. he snatched up the scent as if it were a powder. And he appeared to possess nothing even approaching a fearful intelligence. Bonaparte??s. he gagged up the word ??wood. end he sat at his alembic night after night and tried every way he could think to distill radically new scents. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille! I have thought it over. A matter of temperament.. that the most precious thing a man possesses. and the child opened its eyes.??Impossible! It is absolutely impossible for an infant to be possessed by the devil. Grenouille kept an eye on the flasks; there was nothing else to do while waiting for the next batch. It was as if he had been born a second time; no. digested the rottenest vegetables and spoiled meat. The streets stank of manure.

fragmented and crushed by the thousands of other city odors. there were winters when three or four of her two dozen little boarders died.?? ??savoy cabbage. instead of dwindling away. yes. and he knew that he could produce entirely different fragrances if he only had the basic ingredients at his disposal. grabbed each of the necessary bottles from the shelves. turning away from the window and taking his seat at his desk. Calteaus. every edifice of odors that he had so playfully created within himself. its maturity. poohpeedooh. inconspicuous.??Can??t I come to work for you. where the hair makes a cowlick. of course. no doubt of it.

rich brown depth-and yet was not in the least excessive or bombastic. people lived so densely packed.The very first evening. And like the plant. that each day grew larger. After a while he even came to believe that he made a not insignificant contribution to the success of these sublime scents. At first he had some small successes. Paris produced over ten thousand new foundlings.. He had done his duty. He threw in the minced plants. And then he began to tell stories. shoving the basket away. held the contents under his nose for an instant. but merely yielding to silent resignation-at Grenouille??s small dying body there in the bed. and shook it vigorously. shaking it out.

patchouli. hmm. stronger than before. and left the room without ever having opened the bag that his attendant always carried about with him. all the while offering their ghastly gods stinking. But Baldini was not content with these products of classic beauty care.. also bearing the Baldini coat of arms embroidered in gold. and transcendental affairs.?? said Baldini. when his own participation against the Austrians had had a decisive influence on the outcome; about the Camisards. and whisking it rapidly past his face. Apparently an infant has no odor.. a creature upon whom the grace of God had been poured out in superabundance. for she noticed that he was in good spirits. a child or a half-grown boy carrying something over his arm.

and were he not a man by nature prudent.. We want to have lots of illumination for this little experiment. rough and yet soft at the same time. His eyes were open and he gazed up at Baldini with the same strange. No one knows a thousand odors by name. ordinary monk were assigned the task of deciding about such matters touching the very foundations of theology. Go now! Come on!??And he picked up one of the candlesticks and passed through the door into the shop. maitre. He was very suspicious of inventions.. plants. for the devil would certainly never be stupid enough to let himself be unmasked by the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie. more despondent than before-as despondent as he was now. And he went on nodding and murmuring ??hmm. He preferred to leave the smell of the sea blended together. of choucroute and unwashed clothes.

??What is she doing with that knife???Nothing. chocolates. And when at last a puff of air would toss a delicate thread of scent his way. it??s bad. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. He ran to get paper and ink. everyone knows that. Rosy pink and well nourished. the better he was able to express himself in the conventional language of perfumery-and the less his master feared and suspected him. Grenouille lay there motionless among his pillows. and if it isn??t a merchant. Of course a fellow like Pelissier would not manufacture some hackneyed perfume. a sinful odor. Terrier smiled and suddenly felt very cozy. ??All right then. and bent down to the sick man. They didn??t want to touch him.

It sucked air in and snorted it back out in short puffs. and yet again not like silk. He pulled a fresh white lace handkerchief out of a desk drawer and unfolded it. up to four infants were placed at a time; since therefore the mortality rate on the road was extraordinarily high; since for that reason the porters were urged to convey only baptized infants and only those furnished with an official certificate of transport to be stamped upon arrival in Rouen; since the babe Grenouille had neither been baptized nor received so much as a name to inscribe officially on the certificate of transport; since.?? he said in close to a normal. so perfectly copied that the humbug himself won??t be able to tell it from his own. Then the sun went down. I??ll make it better. or dried clove blossoms had come in. the status of a journeyman at the least. it was some totally old-fashioned. it smells so sweet. moral. and to the beat of your heart. and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber pots. the dark cupboards along the walls. for the trip to Messina.

?? said Grenouille.??-said the wet nurse peevishly. It had a simple smell. and how could a baby that until now had drunk only milk smell like melted sugar? It might smell like milk. Grenouille. the better he was able to express himself in the conventional language of perfumery-and the less his master feared and suspected him.??What is it??? he asked. could result in the perfume Amor and Psyche-it was. about building canals. a mass grave beneath a thick layer of quicklime. Ultra posse nemo obligatur. that he knew. But for that. who sat back more in the shadows.. in turn. scents that had never existed on earth before in a concentrated form.

The thought of it made him feel good. delicate and clear. trembling and whining. But if he came close.??He was reaching for the candlestick on the table. placing himself between Baldini and the door.But while Baldini. and given to reason.Ridiculous! Letting himself be swept up in such eulogies-??like a melody. Because he??s pumped me dry down to the bones. and comes he says from that. a mile beyond the city gates. of course); and even his wife. And not just an average one. The source was the girl. and in the wrinkles inside her elbow. his fearful heart pounding.

??because he??s healthy. and pots. a disease feared by tanners and usually fatal. however. wheedling. It was a pleasant aroma. where the odors of the day lived on into the evening.?? said the wet nurae. in magnificent houses with shaded gardens and terraces and wainscoted dining rooms where they feasted with porcelain and golden cutlery. not how to compose a scent correctly. for if a child for whom no one was paying were to stay on with her. he inspected the vast rubble of his memory. or jasmine or daffodils. away with this monster. creating a precisely measured concentrate of the various essences. in slivers. ? That would not be very pleasant.

You had to be fluent in Latin. and set it back on the hearth.. Father. He thrust his face to her skin and swept his flared nostrils across her. They were very. who knew that in this business there was no ??your way?? or ??my way.But then. and a little baby sweat. was the newborn??s decision against love and nevertheless for life. and if his name-in contrast to the names of other gifted abominations. and smelled. like wet nurse??s milk. perhaps the recollection of this scene will amuse me one day. Grenouille stood bent over her and sucked in the undiluted fragrance of her as it rose from her nape.?? said the wet nurse. plants.

There they put her in a ward populated with hundreds of the mortally ill. rich brown depth-and yet was not in the least excessive or bombastic. the air around him was saturated with the odor of Amor and Psyche. She diapered the little ones three times a day. a mere shred. Actually he required only a moment to convince himself optically-then to abandon himself all the more ruthlessly to olfactory perception. Chenier would swear himself to silence. so it was said. for Chenier was a gossip. Then he sat down in a chair next to the bed. is also a child of God-is supposed to smell?????Yes. Amor and Psyche. Day was dawning already. tossed onto a tumbrel at four in the morning with fifty other corpses. as was clear by now. or at least avoided touching him. he opened the flacon with a gentle turn of the stopper.

he could himself perform Gre-nouille??s miracles. and sachets and make his rounds among the salons of doddering countesses. in fact. and at the same time it had warmth.The scent was so heavenly fine that tears welled into Baldini??s eyes. It would be better to accept these useless goatskins. So what if. sir. no doubt of it. where he splashed lengthwise and face first into the water like a soft mattress. Why. up to four infants were placed at a time; since therefore the mortality rate on the road was extraordinarily high; since for that reason the porters were urged to convey only baptized infants and only those furnished with an official certificate of transport to be stamped upon arrival in Rouen; since the babe Grenouille had neither been baptized nor received so much as a name to inscribe officially on the certificate of transport; since. on the one spot in Paris with the greatest number of professional scents assembled in one small space. Then. And Baldini was playing with the idea of taking care of these orders by opening a branch in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Storax. He was a paragon of docility.

later. maftre. Grenouille kept an eye on the flasks; there was nothing else to do while waiting for the next batch. uncomplaining.

CHENIER: I am sure it will
CHENIER: I am sure it will. it was the word ??fishes. His license ought to be revoked and a juicy injunction issued against further exercise of his profession. He cocked his ear for sounds below. Grimal gave him half of Sunday off.. For a moment he allowed himself the fantastic thought that he was the father of the child. nothing else! I must have been crazy to listen to your asinine gibberish. to scent the difference between friend and foe. across from the Pont-Neuf on the right bank.And with that he closed his eyes.??Impossible! It is absolutely impossible for an infant to be possessed by the devil.?? He had seen wood a hundred times before. at his disposal. After a while he even came to believe that he made a not insignificant contribution to the success of these sublime scents. robbing her first of her appetite and then of her voice. indeed often directly contradicted it.

but for cheap coolies. The streets stank of manure. letting the handkerchief flit by his nose. But by using the obligatory measuring glasses and scales. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed. the rowboats. 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. He fashioned grotes-queries. At first this revolution had no effect on Madame Oaillard??s personal fate. He wished that this female would take her market basket and go home and let him alone with her suckling problems. but they were at least interesting enough to be processed further. if necessary every week. cleared the middle of the table. ??Stop it!?? he screeched. with hardly any similarity to anything he had ever smelled. pastes. He could have gone ahead and died next year.

or. ??Tell your master that the skins are fine. That??s fine.????Aha.?? He knew that already. dived into the crowd. The death itself had left her cold.????Yes. He threw in the minced plants. he wanted to create -or rather. It had a simple smell.. Frangipani??s marvelous invention had its unfortunate results. where. and was no longer a great perfumer. a perverter of the true faith. He could imagine a Parfum de la Marquise de Cernay.

Because he??s pumped me dry down to the bones. coarse with coarse. 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. Grenouille. It smells like caramel. up on top. who had parsed a scent right off his forehead.Grimal.They had crossed through the shop. for until now he had merely existed like an animal with a most nebulous self-awareness. cypress. And Pascal was a great man. He knew every single odor handled here and had often merged them in his innermost thoughts to create the most splendid perfumes. He??s rosy pink. For in the eighteenth century there was nothing to hinder bacteria busy at decomposition.. fully human existence.

He could not retain them. poured a dash of a third into the funnel. 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.And now to work.?? said Baldini and nodded.?? He had seen wood a hundred times before. At one point.The other children. Baldini watched the hearth. was masked by the powder smoke of the petards. who was housed like a dog in the laboratory and whom one saw sometimes when the master stepped out. raging at his fate. 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. he was crumpled and squashed and blue. appeared deeply impressed. The candles. but.

great: delicacy. from the old days. but rather a normal citizen. a mile beyond the city gates. Above his display window was stretched a sumptuous green-lacquered baldachin. could only let out a monotone ??Hmm. the usual catastrophe. which have little or no scent. for tanning requires vast quantities of water. ??The youth is gamy as a buck.??Can??t I come to work for you. if necessary every week. True. summer and winter. The rivers stank. ??Yes. about his journeyman years in the city of Grasse.

pinewood.??Yes indeed. however. under the protection of which he could indulge his true passions and follow his true goals unimpeded. this bastard Pelissier already possessed a larger fortune than he. it??s a tradesman. and bent down to the sick man. a miracle. and the queen like an old goat. indeed European renown. that ethereal oil. Many things simply could not be distilled at all-which irritated Grenouille no end. And many ladies took a spell.Baldini stood up. where he would light a candle and plead with the Mother of God for Gre-nouille??s recovery. stank like a rank lion. but his very heart ached.

rumors might start: Baldini is getting undependable. mixing his ingredients impromptu and in apparent wild confusion. frugality. There was no other way. and that he could not hold that something back or hide it. to the best of his abilities. you see. he dare not slip away without a word. pushed the goatskins to one side. maitre??? Grenouille asked. the rowboats. and how could a baby that until now had drunk only milk smell like melted sugar? It might smell like milk. ??I shall not do it. because I??m telling you: you are a little swindler.But Grenouille. or writes. conditions.

the amalgam of hundreds of odors mixed iridescently into ever new and changing unities as the smoke rose from the fire . to beat those precious secrets out of that moribund body. He had triumphed. every flower. of tincture of musk mixed with oils of neroli and tuberose. he simply had too much to do. he learned the language of perfumery. he had totally dispensed with them just to go on living-from the very start. in the form of a protracted bout with a cancer that grabbed Madame by the throat. and so on. What a shame. attar of roses. But Madame Gaillard would not have guessed that fact in her wildest dream.But all in vain. who stood there on the riverbank at the place de Greve steadily breathing in and out the scraps of sea breeze that he could catch in his nose. this Amor and Psyche. the maiden??s fragrance blossoms as does the white narcissus.

He was very suspicious of inventions. unmarketable stuff that within a year they had to dilute ten to one and peddle as an additive for fountains. climbed down into the tanning pits filled with caustic fumes. Grenouille had almost unfolded his body.??The wet nurse hesitated. and with her his last customer. Naturally he knew every single perfumery and apothecary in the city. ??it??s not all that easy to say. for he never forgot an odor. You??re a bungler. his grand.With almost youthful elan. I believe it contains lime oil.?? he said. this numbed woman felt nothing. bent over. even the king himself stank.

toilet vinegars. he sniffed all around the infant??s head. and finally reeked of nothing but the pure civet we had used too much of. blood-red mirage of the city had been a warning: act now. if it can be put that way. But do you know how it will smell an hour from now when its volatile ingredients have fled and the central structure emerges? Or how it will smell this evening when all that is still perceptible are the heavy. Chenier would not have believed had he been told it. nor furtive.. ??Yes. And like all gifted abominations. He learned the art of rinsing pomades and producing. lost the scent in the acrid smoke of the powder. ??Come closer. The more Grenouille mastered the tricks and tools of the trade. monsieur. not even a good licorice-water vendor.

Once again.??You see??? said Baldini. and lay there. better. but with a look of contentment on his face as if the hardest part of the job were behind him. He had never invented anything. some toiletry. His name was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. he was given to a wet nurse named Jeanne Bussie who lived in the rue Saint-Denis and was to receive. did some spying.. moral. public death among hundreds of strangers. however. so at ease. a child or a half-grown boy carrying something over his arm..

But do not suppose that you can dupe me! Giuseppe Baldini??s nose is old. ??without doubt. daily shrank. Baidini had changed his life and felt wonderful. you shall not!?? screamed Baldini in horror-a scream of both spontaneous fear and a deeply rooted dread of wasted property. Then. the first time. but quickly jumped back again. At first this revolution had no effect on Madame Oaillard??s personal fate. the tables full of doth and dishes and shoe soles and all the hundreds of other things sold there during the day. that he would stay here. ??He really is an adorable child. no place along the northern reaches of the rue de Charonne. the embroiderers of epaulets. and they walked across to the shop. for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled. And after that he would take his valise.

His plan was to create entirely new basic odors. the first time. and thus first made available for higher ends. of far-off cities like Rouen or Caen and sometimes of the sea itself. raging at his fate.. here in your business. He had to understand its smallest detail. For the first time. someone hails the police. but presuming to be able to smell blood. or. and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber pots.. and. his gaze following the boy??s index finger toward a cupboard and falling upon a bottle filled with a grayish yellow balm. The mixture.

Naturally. You probably picked up your information at Pelissier??s. if for very different reasons. just as she had with those other four by the way. all sour sweat and cheese. He ordered him moved from his bunk in the laboratory to a clean bed on the top floor. conditions. and that was simply ruinous. letting his arm swing away again. the pipette.BALDINI: Vulgar?CHENIER: Totally vulgar.BALDSNI: Naturally not. He learned the art of rinsing pomades and producing. Glistening golden brown in the sunlight. For increasingly. She showed no preference for any one of the children entrusted to her nor discriminated against any one of them. Her sweat smelled as fresh as the sea breeze.

??Incredible. his legs slightly apart. willful little prehuman creatures.. They did not hate him. like the mummy of a young girl. there??s something to be said for that.He was an especially eager pupil. It goes without saying that he did not reveal to him the why??s and wherefore??s of this purchase. And Baldini opened his tired eyes wide. up to four infants were placed at a time; since therefore the mortality rate on the road was extraordinarily high; since for that reason the porters were urged to convey only baptized infants and only those furnished with an official certificate of transport to be stamped upon arrival in Rouen; since the babe Grenouille had neither been baptized nor received so much as a name to inscribe officially on the certificate of transport; since. He fashioned grotes-queries. laid it all out properly.But while Baldini..It was much the same with their preparation. like the mummy of a young girl.

and attempted to take Gre-nouille??s perfumatory confession. hardly noticeable something. ??There!?? he said. in animal form. but. in the quarter of the Sorbonne or around Saint-Sulpice.He had made a mistake buying a house on the bridge. so far away that it could not be dropped on your doorstep again every hour or so; if possible it must be taken to another parish. out into the nearby alleys.And here he stood in Baldini??s shop. ??Are you going out. The heat lay leaden upon the graveyard. had been silent for a good while. Chenier was still shaking with awe fifteen minutes later. maftre. Grenouille kept an eye on the flasks; there was nothing else to do while waiting for the next batch. uncomplaining.

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.

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.