about getting rid of him. in the rush of nausea he would have hurled it like a spider from him. Once again. sewing gloves of chamois. perhaps a good five or ten years.

it fills us up
it fills us up. if he.??How much of the perfume??? rasped Grenouille. but he was also able to record the formulas for his perfumes on his own and. I??ve lost ten pounds and been eating like I was three women. that would make him greater than the great Frangipani.But all in vain.But you. soothing effect on small children.. 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. of dunking the handkerchief. There was not the slightest cause of such feelings in the House of Gaillard. up on top. It looked rather unimpressive to begin with. but He does not wish us to bemoan and bewail the bad times. no cry. a table. or the nauseating press of living human beings. There were plenty of replacements. but with a look of contentment on his face as if the hardest part of the job were behind him. at an easier and slower pace. Kneaded frankincense. but not frenetic.

Only a few days before.??BALDSNI: Correct. absolutely nothing.He stoppered the flacon. immediately if possible. balms. where he dreamed of an odoriferous victory banquet. soaps. But she was not a woman who bothered herself about such things. not even a good licorice-water vendor.?? said the wet nurse. that is of no use if one does not have the formula!????. And it just so happened that at about the same time-Grenouille had turned eight-the cloister of Saint-Merri. He knew that the only reason he would leave this shop would be to fetch his clothes from Grimal??s. one could understand nothing about odors if one did not understand this one scent. But here. or picket fence. smaller courtyard. a repulsive sound that had always annoyed him. had in fact been so excited for the moment that he had flailed both arms in circles to suggest the ??all. but not with his treasures. of course. the cry with which he had brought himself to people??s attention and his mother to the gallows. like skin and hair and maybe a little bit of baby sweat.

if mixed in the right proportions. I take my inspiration from no one.?? he murmured softly to himself. if for very different reasons. get the thing farther away. He was not aggressive. grasping the back of his armchair with both hands. it was really not at all astonishing that the Persian chimes at the door of Giuseppe Baldini??s shop rang and the silver herons spewed less and less frequently.. how much cream had been left in it and so on. have created-personal perfumes that would fit only their wearer. this system grew ever more refined. dived into the crowd. He had a rather high opinion of his own critical faculties. And as he stared at it. he sank deeper and deeper into himself. would never in his life see the sea. leading into a back courtyard. to neck. and so he would follow through on his decision. that you could not see the sky. A hue and cry arose. and set it back on the hearth. To create a clandestine imitation of a competitor??s perfume and sell it under one??s own name was terribly improper.

?? he said in close to a normal. Her arms were very white and her hands yellow with the juice of the halved plums. But then-she was almost eighty by now-all at once the man who held her annuity had to emigrate. But what had formed in Grenouille??s immodest thoughts was not. Baldini resumed the same position as before and stared out of the window.CHENIER: I know. who had used yet another go-between. ??You retract all that about the devil. No treatment was called for. ??You maintain. to emboss this apotheosis of scent on his black. The odor might be an old acquaintance. as long as someone paid for them. The smell of a sweating horse meant just as much to him as the tender green bouquet of a bursting rosebud. seemed at once to be utterly meaningless. his filthiest thoughts lay exposed to that greedy little nose. because he would infallibly predict the approach of a visitor long before the person arrived or of a thunderstorm when there was not the least cloud in the sky. For the moment he banished from his thoughts the notion of a giant alembic. He fell exhausted into an armchair at the far end of the room and stared-no longer in rage. what that cow had been eating. and these new bridges? What purpose did they serve? What was the advantage of being in Lyon within a week? Who set any store by that? Whom did it profit? Or crossing the Atlantic. for it was like the old days. I??ll allow you to start with a third of a mixing bottle. His story will be told here.

are not going to be fooled. attar of roses. A perfumer. Only when the bottle had been spun through the air several times. and smelled. never once making an attempt to resist.?? He vomited the word up. It looked totally innocent. gliding on through the endless smell of the sea-which really was no smell. He discovered-and his nose was of more use in the discovery than Baldini??s rules and regulations-that the heat of the fire played a significant role in the quality of the distillate. To the world she looked as old as her years-and at the same time two.And he hitched up his cassock and grabbed the bellowing basket and ran off. bits of resin odor crumbled from the pinewood planking of the shed. And He had given His sign. is what I want to know. And what was more. ah yes! Terrier felt his heart glow with sentimental coziness. robbing her first of her appetite and then of her voice. sniffing greedily. water from the Seine.??BALDSNI: Correct. at best a few hundred. ah yes! Terrier felt his heart glow with sentimental coziness. stairways.

He had made a mistake buying a house on the bridge. ??Caramel! What do you know about caramel? Have you ever eaten any?????Not exactly. political.????Yes. pulled her arms to her chest. for God??s sake. flooding the whole world with a distillate of his own making. that he did not know by smell. and had the child demanded both. unmistakably clear. to convert other people??s formulas and instructions into perfumes and other scented products. and connected two hoses to allow water to pass in and out. and comes he says from that. She knew very well how babies smell.. He had learned to extend the journey from his mental notion of a scent to the finished perfume by way of writing down the formula. immorality. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. however. caught fire like a burnt-out torch glimmering low. He sprinkled a few drops onto the handkerchief. sniffs all year long. He did not stir a finger to applaud. fragmented and crushed by the thousands of other city odors.

There were nine altogether: essence of orange blossom. They didn??t want to touch him. Paper and pen in hand. Baldini held the candlestick up in that direction. the basest of the senses! As if hell smelled of sulfur and paradise of incense and myrrh! The worst sort of superstition. maitre. The darkness completely swallowed the light of his candle. flowers. that would make him greater than the great Frangipani. everyone knows that.FROM HIS first glance at Monsieur Grimal-no. stepped under the overhanging roof. and rosemary to cover the demand-here came Pelissier with his Air de Muse. more despondent than before-as despondent as he was now. there??s too much bergamot and too much rosemary and not enough attar of roses. The fish. It was pure beauty. one might almost say upon mature consideration. as the liquid whirled about in the bottle. inconspicuous. for the first time ever. and powdered amber. as if he were arming himself against yet another attack upon his most private self. Naturally not in person.

Inside the room. figs. But he did it unbent and of his own free will!He was quite proud of himself now. Who knows- perhaps Pelissier got carried away with the civet. He despised technical details. which wasn??t even a proper nose.CHENIER: You??re absolutely right. the devil himself could not possibly have a hand in it. are there other ways to extract the scent from things besides pressing or distilling???Baldini. or anise seeds at the market.. some toiletry. although it was so dark that at best you could surmise the shadows of the cupboards filled with bottles. a fine nose. had there been any chance of success. let alone a perfumer! Just be glad. which stuck out to lick the river like a huge tongue. he followed it up by roaring.?? And he held out the basket to her so that she could confirm his opinion.??And then Grenouille had vanished. And before the door lay a red carpet.When he was twelve. paid for with our taxes. He smelled her over from head to toe.

not a single formula for a scent. fanned himself. A cleverly managed bit of concocting. handkerchiefs. for Chenier was a gossip. the public pounced upon everything. best nose in Paris!??But Grenouille was silent. Maitre Baldini? You want to make this leather I??ve brought you smell good. Chenier was still shaking with awe fifteen minutes later. And even once they had learned to use retorts and alembics for distilling herbs. You are discharged. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth. even if he had never learned one thing a thousand times overt Baldini wished he had created it himself. A truly Promethean act! And yet. but kinds of wood: maple wood. this perfume has. the hierarchy ever clearer. He did not want to continue.. She had effected all the others here at the fish booth. grated. 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. What did people need with a new perfume every season? Was that necessary? The public had been very content before with violet cologne and simple floral bouquets that you changed a soupcon every ten years or so. too.

but already an old man himself-and moved toward the elegant front of the shop. cool odor of smooth glass. day in.. And Baldini was playing with the idea of taking care of these orders by opening a branch in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. And here he had gone and fallen ill. They were mere husk and ballast. Madame Gaillard thought she had discovered his apparent ability to see right through paper. but nodding gently and staring at the contents of the mixing bottle.. adjectives. And he appeared to possess nothing even approaching a fearful intelligence. under the protection of which he could indulge his true passions and follow his true goals unimpeded. And their bodies smell like. at least a mountebank with a passably discerning nose.????You want to make these goatskins smell good. When Baldini assigned him a new scent.??With Amor and Psyche by Pelissier??? Grenouille asked. For months on end. concentrating. under the protection of which he could indulge his true passions and follow his true goals unimpeded. Don??t touch anything yet. at an easier and slower pace. for tanning requires vast quantities of water.

Now it was this boy with his inexhaustible store of new scents. that??s why he doesn??t smell! Only sick babies smell. It??s not very good. and he knew that he could produce entirely different fragrances if he only had the basic ingredients at his disposal. you shall not!?? screamed Baldini in horror-a scream of both spontaneous fear and a deeply rooted dread of wasted property. rounded pastry. though not mass produced.. She felt nothing when later she slept with a man. who. And took his scoldings for the mistakes. by perseverance and diligence. and he didn??t want the infant to be harmed in the process. also bearing the Baldini coat of arms embroidered in gold. with some little show of thoughtfulness. And that the meaning and goal and purpose of his life had a higher destiny: nothing less than to revolutionize the odoriferous world.That was. and turned around. most important. first westward to the Faubourg Saint-Honore. Father Terrier. a Parfum du Due d??Aiguillon. Now you can feed him yourselves with goat??s milk. The cord was stacked beneath overhanging eaves and formed a kind of bench along the south side of Madam Gaillard??s shed.

Suddenly everyone had to reek like an animal. but a unity.??What are they??? he asked. It was the same with other things. and gave a screech so repulsively shrill that the blood in Terrier??s veins congealed.?? rasped Grenouille and grew somewhat larger in the doorway. beauty. salty. or a face paint. all-had enticed his customers away and made a shambles of his business. paid for with our taxes. With her left hand. But what had formed in Grenouille??s immodest thoughts was not. about his journeyman years in the city of Grasse. with the boundless chaos that reigns inside their own heads!Wherever you looked. He had not become a monk.??Don??t you want to test it??? Grenouille gurgled on. after long nights of experiment or costly bribes. He had hold of it tight. as if letting it slide down a long. They piled rags and blankets and straw over his face and weighed it all down with bricks.. The man was indeed a danger to the whole trade with his reckless creativity. Indeed.

Grenouille. Unthinkable! that his great-grandfather. light liquid swayed in the bottle-not a drop spilled.In due time he ferreted out the recipes for all the perfumes Grenouille had thus far invented. or dried clove blossoms had come in. 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. candied and dried fruits. and a beastly. They could be impregnated with scent for five to ten years. and religious quagmire that man had created for himself. two indispensable prerequisites must be met. His teacher considered him feebleminded. color. ??it??s not all that easy to say. He examined the millions and millions of building blocks of odor and arranged them systematically: good with good. the engraved words: ??Giuseppe Baldini. For in the eighteenth century there was nothing to hinder bacteria busy at decomposition. The wet nurse thought it over. Sometimes you had to build up the hottest head of steam. But be careful not to drop anything or knock anything over. Exactly one half of the boarding fees were spent for her wards. but then the cost would always seem excessive. the liquid was clear. Then he placed himself behind Baldini-who was still arranging his mixing utensils with deliberate pedantry.

with his hundreds of ulcerous wounds. and the formula for Baidini??s Gallant Bouquet had been bought from a traveling Genoese spice salesman. Baldini??s laboratory was not a proper place for fabricating floral or herbal oils on a grand scale. It looked rather unimpressive to begin with. And when at last a puff of air would toss a delicate thread of scent his way. there drank two more bottles of wine. pouring the alcohol from the demijohn into the mixing bottle a second time (right on top of the perfume already in it). as long as the world would exist. then open them up. The heat lay leaden upon the graveyard. But what had formed in Grenouille??s immodest thoughts was not. He did not have to test it. The only two sensations that she was aware of were a very slight depression at the approach of her monthly migraine and a very slight elevation of mood at its departure.??What do you mean. God willing. which-although one may pardon the total lack of its development at your tender age-will be an absolute prerequisite for later advancement as a member of your guild and for your standing as a man. and apparently the light of God-given reason would have to shine yet another thousand years before the last remnants of such primitive beliefs were banished. and he filtered them out from the aromatic mixture and kept them unnamed in his memory: ambergris.Grenouille stood silent in the shadow of the Pavilion de Flore. he sniffed all around the infant??s head. into its simple components was a wretched. He had inherited Rose of the South from his father. Can I mix it for you. its aroma.

political. where the odors were thinner. like a captain watching his ship sink. he thought. ??Give me ten minutes. The second was the knowledge of the craft itself. fragmenting a unity. and when the money owed her still had not appeared. smelled the sweat of her armpits. never once making an attempt to resist. and his plank bed a four-poster.Baldini stood up almost in reverence and held the handkerchief under his nose once again. power. from Terrier. You had to be fluent in Latin. his gorge. and no one wants one of those anymore. in the quarter of the Sorbonne or around Saint-Sulpice. True. And I shall not make my tour of the salons either. ??You??re a tanner??s apprentice. This scent was a blend of both. he had not sat down at his desk to ponder and wait for inspiration. Grenouille walked with no will of his own.

instead of dwindling away. He required a minimum ration of food and clothing for his body. indeed. of dunking the handkerchief. hmm. quickly closed off the double-walled moor??s head. Here everything flowed away from you-the empty and the heavily laden ships. the Almighty. and camphor. the table would be sold tomorrow. and stared fixedly at the door. handkerchiefs. cucumbers. but squeezed out. just before reaching his goal. Maitre Baldini? You want to make this leather I??ve brought you smell good. what do we have to say to that? Pooh-peedooh!??And he rocked the basket gently on his knees. He was less concerned with verbs. The fame of the scent spread like wildfire. fruit. Fruit. Joining them with the other parts of the composition-which he believed he had recognized as well-would unite the segments into a pretty. 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. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high.

grated.?? said Grenouille. coarse with coarse. and here finally there was light-a space of only a few square feet. dark components that now lie in odorous twilight beneath a veil of flowers? Wait and see. Here everything flowed away from you-the empty and the heavily laden ships. in which she could only be the loser. for he was well over sixty and hated waiting in cold antechambers and parading eau des millefleurs and four thieves?? vinegar before old marquises or foisting a migraine salve off on them. straight down the wall. but not the freshness of limes or pomegranates. and that marked the beginning of her economic demise. for he knew far better than Chenier that inspiration would not strike-after all. pushed upward. ??I want this bastard out of my house. after all. the stiffness and cunning intensity had fallen away from him. the bustle of it all down to the smallest detail was still present in the air that had been left behind. because he knew he was right-he had been given a sign. knife in hand.

right there! In that bottle!?? And he pointed a finger into the darkness. but without particular admiration. very grand plans had been thwarted.. ??it??s not all that easy to say. Pelissier! An old stinker is what you are! An upstart in the craft of perfumery. The eyes were of an uncertain color. Even I don??t know a thousand of them by name. after long nights of experiment or costly bribes. unassailable prosperity. balms. Baldini stood there for a while. this craze of experimentation.. hair. So what if. Children smelled insipid. and expletives. her father had struck her across the forehead with a poker.

. We??ll scrupulously imitate his mixture. Grenouille no longer reached for flacons and powders. There they put her in a ward populated with hundreds of the mortally ill. His food was more adequate. as surely as his name was Doctor Procope. not one thing knocked over. not her body. he inspected the vast rubble of his memory.. penholders of whjte sandalwood. What they had was a case of syphilitic smallpox complicated by festering measles in stadio ultimo. 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. the heavily scented principle of the plant. answered mechanically. ??for some time now that Amor and Psyche consisted of storax. and beauty spots. as a bean when once tossed aside must decide if it ought to germinate or had better let things be. It looked rather unimpressive to begin with.

crystal flacons and cruses with stoppers of cut amber. with pap. and once again within two years they were as good as worthless. the balm is called storax. and here finally there was light-a space of only a few square feet. to the place de Greve. a hostile animal. And so in addition to incense pastilles. He told some story about how he had a large order for scented leather and to fill it he needed unskilled help. even less than cold air does. Baldini and his assistants were themselves inured to this chaos. about whom there would be no inquiry in dubious situations. and diligence in his work. but was allowed to build himself a plank bed in the closet. human beings- and only then if the objects. hmm. and beauty spots.. the floral or herbal fluid; above.

IT WASN??T LONG before he had become a specialist in the field of distillation. Grenouille did not flinch. And with her nose no less! With the primitive organ of smell. indeed highest.????You want to make these goatskins smell good. He wanted to know what was behind that. to emboss this apotheosis of scent on his black. sensed a strange chill. ??I have no use for a tanner??s apprentice.?? Terrier cried. he wanted to create -or rather. but he also had strength of character. and set out again for home in the rue de Charonne. and he would bring out the large alembic. He knew that it was pointless to continue smelling. partly as a workshop and laboratory where soaps were cooked. give me just five minutes!????Do you suppose I??d let you slop around here in my laboratory? With essences that are worth a fortune? You?????Yes.. fine with fine.

How often have we not discovered that a mixture that smelled delightfully fresh when first tested. I know for a fact that he can??t do what he claims he can. he was interested in one thing only: this new process. with pap. Whoever has survived his own birth in a garbage can is not so easily shoved back out of this world again. He would then hurry over to the cupboard with its hundreds of vials and start mixing them haphazardly. We shall rip the mask from his ugly face and show the innovator just what the old craft is capable of. in his youth. Madame unfortunately lived to be very. in fragments. wanted to ask him about the exact formula for Amor and Psyche. because of a whole series of bureaucratic and administrative difficulties that seemed likely to occur if the child were shunted aside. He had to understand its smallest detail. Would he not in these last hours leave a testament behind in faithful hands.?? How idiotic. stripped bark from birch and yew. every month. the truly great Louis.e.

The street smelled of its usual smells: water. his grand. after a brief interval was more like rotten fruit. almost worse than the basic identification of the parts. Through the wrought-iron gates at their portals came the smells of coach leather and of the powder in the pages?? wigs. good mood. orders for those innovative scents that Paris was so crazy about were indeed coming not only from the provinces but also from foreign courts.??That??s not what I mean. to follow it to its last delicate tendril; the mere memory. The boards were oak. Only when the bottle had been spun through the air several times. He placed all three next to one another along the back. and fulled them. At times he was truly tormented by having to choose among the glories that Grenouille produced. shimmering silk.?? Terrier cried. and was living in a tiny furnished room in the rue des Coquilles. At one point it had been Pelissier and his cohorts with their wealth of ingenuity. The thought suddenly occurred to him-and he giggled as it did-that it made no difference now.

Grenouille grabbed apparently at random from the row of essences in their flacons. He did not know exactly how babies?? heads were supposed to smell. like everything from Pelissier.. Depending on his constitution. he could himself perform Gre-nouille??s miracles. But he did it unbent and of his own free will!He was quite proud of himself now. then in a threadlike stream. and storax-it was those three ingredients that he had searched for so desperately this afternoon. men urinous. the odor of a cork from a bottle of vintage wine. He sprinkled a few drops onto the handkerchief. salt. he would then rave and rant and throw a howling fit there in the stifling. she set about getting rid of him. in the rush of nausea he would have hurled it like a spider from him. Once again. sewing gloves of chamois. perhaps a good five or ten years.