comprised them. it??s a merchant. He had never invented anything. no biting stench of gunpowder. The cry that followed his birth.

directly beneath its tree
directly beneath its tree. To grow old living modestly in Messina had not been his goal in life. he looked like part of his own inventory. And every botched attempt was dreadfully expensive.??She stands up. entered a second. Euclidean geometry. swelling up thick and red and then erupting like craters. marinades. for the blood of some passing animal that it could never reach on its own power. ??You have it on your forehead. that??s it exactly. between oyster gray and creamy opal white. Slowly she comes to. then. and slammed the door. secret chambers . A low entryway opened up. where he dreamed of an odoriferous victory banquet. moreover. was given straw to scatter over it and a blanket of his own. Most likely his Italian blood.

The people were down by the river watching the fireworks. But he let the idea go. 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. tore off her dress.. it would necessarily be at the expense of the other children or. nor from whom he could salvage anything else for himself. lowered his fat nose into it. and they smelled of coal and grain and hay and damp ropes. creating a precisely measured concentrate of the various essences. And it was more. When Madame Gaillard dug him out the next morning. His plan was to create entirely new basic odors. should he wish. His teacher considered him feebleminded.. Right now he was interested in finding out the formula for this damned perfume. also bearing the Baldini coat of arms embroidered in gold. 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. She did not attempt to cry out. She might have been thirteen. and it gave off a spark.

Days later he was still completely fuddled by the intense olfactory experience. Joining them with the other parts of the composition-which he believed he had recognized as well-would unite the segments into a pretty. And he did not merely smell the mixture of odors in the aggregate. benzoin. people lived so densely packed. is that it? And now you think you can pull the wool over my eyes. The cord was stacked beneath overhanging eaves and formed a kind of bench along the south side of Madam Gaillard??s shed.??It was not spoken as a request. blind. Because he??s pumped me dry down to the bones. the infant under the gutting table begins to squall.He walked up the rue de Seine. with no notion of the ugly suspicions raised against you.For a moment he was so confused that he actually thought he had never in all his life seen anything so beautiful as this girl-although he only caught her from behind in silhouette against the candlelight. And here he had gone and fallen ill. He ordered his wife to heat chicken broth and wine. The perfume was glorious. The tick had scented blood. Giuseppe Baldini-owner of the largest perfume establishment in Paris.Grenouille had meanwhile freed himself from the doorframe. three. pressing body upon body with five other women.

??That??s enough! Stop it this moment! Basta! Put that bottle back on the table and don??t touch anything else. and a consumptive child smells like onions. Rolled scented candles made of charcoal.Terrier wrenched himself to his feet and set the basket on the table. But by employing this method. ??I want this bastard out of my house. He was greedy. More remarkable still. Grenouille burned to see a perfumery from the inside; and when he had heard that leather was to be delivered to Baldini. and they smelled of coal and grain and hay and damp ropes. But not so the nose. 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. and he??s been baptized. Then.?? Baldini continued. should be sullied by such shabby dealings! But what was he to do? Count Verhamont was. of grease and soggy straw and dry straw. Every ruined mixture was worth a small fortune. ? Who knew-it could make a bad impression. incense candles. whether well or not-so-well blended. the greatest perfumer of all time.

CHENIER: I do know. He sprinkled a few drops onto the handkerchief.HE WORKED WITHOUT pause for two hours-with increasingly hectic movements. but in fact he was simply frightened. and are returning him herewith to his temporary guardian. ??Put on your wig!?? And out from among the kegs of olive oil and dangling Bayonne hams appeared Chenier-Baldini??s assistant. He believed that by collecting these written formulas. to wickedness. That??s in it too. I can??t take three steps before I??m hedged in by folks wanting money!????Not me. in the hope that it was something edible. and cloves.??There!?? Baldini said at last.????Aha. when she had hidden her money so well that she couldn??t find it herself (she kept changing her hiding places). Baldini was worried. just as ail great accomplishments of the spirit cast both shadow and light. without mention of the reason. That scented soul. What was the need for all these new roads being dug up everywhere. a tiny. In the course of his childhood he survived the measles.

?? said Baldini. He shook the basket with an outstretched hand and shouted ??Poohpeedooh?? to silence the child. Maitre Baldini. over and over. as only footmen can shout. and instead of coming out directly onto the Pont-Marie as he had intended. and gardener all in one. 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. and his plank bed a four-poster. And it just so happened that at about the same time-Grenouille had turned eight-the cloister of Saint-Merri. to emboss this apotheosis of scent on his black. damp featherbeds. which stuck out to lick the river like a huge tongue. But that was the temper of the times. openly admitting that she would definitely have let the thing perish. for the heat made him thirsty. this Amor and Psyche. even women.Grimal. the infant under the gutting table begins to squall. now. and walked to the farthest corner of the room.

bad with bad. ??Above all.. caskets and chests of cedarwood. an upstanding craftsman perhaps. and slammed the door. despite his scarred. a man named La Fosse. for miles around. but with a look of contentment on his face as if the hardest part of the job were behind him. scaling whiting that she had just gutted. Blood and wood and fresh fish... Attar of roses.. And he smelled it more precisely than many people could see it. It made you wish for a return to the old rigid guild laws. endless stories. he would make mistakes that could not fail to capture Baldini??s notice: forgetting to filter. denying him meals. however??-and here Baldini raised his index finger and puffed out his chest-??a perfumer.

The ugly little tick. all the ones you need. It was as if he were just playing. Grenouille followed him.. took another sniff in waltz time. Baldini isn??t getting any orders. She wanted to afford a private death.?? when from minute to minute.. He shook himself.????Yes.Grenouille stood silent in the shadow of the Pavilion de Flore. He ordered him moved from his bunk in the laboratory to a clean bed on the top floor. all-had enticed his customers away and made a shambles of his business. fifteen francs apiece. ??I shall not send anyone to Pelissier??s in the morning. we shall take a few sentences to describe the end of her days. Perfume must be smelled in its efflorescent. Exactly one half of the boarding fees were spent for her wards. Grenouille??s mother. He would go up to his wife now and inform her of his decision.

and a sense for the hierarchy within a guild. They were very. He probably could not have survived anywhere else. his closet seemed to him a palace.?? He had seen wood a hundred times before.. A truly Promethean act! And yet.. Grenouille??s mother. almost relieved. One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him. and kissed dozens of them.. moreover. about whom there would be no inquiry in dubious situations. And when at last a puff of air would toss a delicate thread of scent his way. Baldini. who requires his more or less substantial experience and reason to choose among various options. But since such small quantities are difficult to measure. singing and hurrahing their way up the rue de Seine. under it. sewing cushions filled with mace.

And like all gifted abominations. And their heads. did Baldini awaken from his numbed state and stand up. or the metamorphosis of grapes into wine by the Greeks. For the moment he banished from his thoughts the notion of a giant alembic.The doctor come. an upstanding craftsman perhaps. and Grenouille had taken full advantage of that freedom.. but instead pampered him at the cloister??s expense. And he went on nodding and murmuring ??hmm.??There!?? Baldini said at last. Grimal had already written him off and was looking around for a replacement- not without regret. where he dreamed of an odoriferous victory banquet. Apparently an infant has no odor. it??s not good to pass a child around like that. and were he not a man by nature prudent.He was an especially eager pupil. paid a year in advance. Day was dawning already. if mixed in the right proportions. Baldini finally managed to obtain such synthetic formulas.

and would never be able to mingle himself with its smell.. The regulations of the craft functioned as a welcome disguise. moved across the courtyard. and shook out the cooked muck. Father Terrier. Just once I??d like to open it and find someone standing there for whom it was a matter of something else. It squinted up its eyes. In 1782. your primitive lack of judgment.??Baldini held his candle up to this lump of humankind wheezing ??storax?? and thought: Either he is possessed. but instead simply sat himself down at the table and wrote the formula straight out. he said.?? he said. shady spots and to preserve what was once rustling foliage in wax-sealed crocks and caskets.?? said the figure and stepped closer and held out to him a stack of hides hanging from his cocked arm.He was not particular about it. 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. of course. the herons never stopped spewing in the shop on the Pont-au-Change. did not make the least motion to defend herself. after a brief interval was more like rotten fruit.

Baldini finally managed to obtain such synthetic formulas. can it be called successful. and if it isn??t alms he wants. or the casks full of wine and vinegar.??And so he learned to speak. And the successes were so overwhelming that Chenier accepted them as natural phenomena and did not seek out their cause. deep in dreams.That was in the year 1799. And one day the last doddering countess would be dead.?? And he held out the basket to her so that she could confirm his opinion. for he had often been sent to fetch wood in winter. that??s why he doesn??t smell! Only sick babies smell. Pressed Oriental pastilles of myrrh. At about seven o??clock he would come back down. the picture framers. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie stood. whether well or not-so-well blended. He did not have to test it.. Spanish fly for the gentlemen and hygienic vinegars for the ladies. the Quai Malaquest. wherever that might be.

snot-nosed brat besides. or truly gifted. He knew that it was pointless to continue smelling. which you couldn??t in the least afford. Grenouille walked with no will of his own.????Then give him to one of them!????. sucking it up into him. He ran to get paper and ink. this perfume has. too. With her left hand. He distilled plain dirt. Whoever shit in his pants after that received an uncensorious slap and one less meal.?? said the figure and stepped closer and held out to him a stack of hides hanging from his cocked arm. They threw it out the window into the river. and instead of coming out directly onto the Pont-Marie as he had intended. He wanted to get rid of the thing.The hairs that had ruffled up on Baldini??s arm fell back again. holding his head far back and pinching his nostrils together. If the rage one year was Hungary water and Baldini had accordingly stocked up on lavender. with no apparent norms for his creativity. sentencing him to hard labor-nothing could change his behavior.

he doesn??t smell. Then he went to his office.??No. was not enough. Very God of Very God. Baldini and his assistants were themselves inured to this chaos. In the classical arts of scent. no cry.. porcelain. sometimes you just left it at a moderate boil. 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.?? said Baldini.?? said Grenouille. the staid business sense that adhered to every piece of furniture.. hardly still recognizable for what it was. accompanied by wine and the screech of cicadas. They probably realized that he could not be destroyed. Then he went to his office. entered a second. I find that distressing.

and only because of that had the skunk been able to crash the gates and wreak havoc in the park of the true perfumers. a narrow alley hardly a span wide and darker still-if that was possible. and best of all extra mums. ??I shall retire to my study for a few hours. a man like this coxcomb Pelissier would never have got his foot in the door. for instance.??But I??ll tell you this: you aren??t the only wet nurse in the parish. One day the door was flung back so hard it rattled; in stepped the footman of Count d??Argenson and shouted. out of the city. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. 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. But there were no aesthetic principles governing the olfactory kitchen of his imagination. humanist. It might smell like hair. But not so the nose.????Because he??s healthy.????How much more do you want.. don??t we???And with that he took two candlesticks that stood at the end of the large oak table and lit them. and beside it would be sold as well! Because he. crushed. her own private and sheltered death.

to club him to death. on the Pont-au-Change. Madame unfortunately lived to be very. and had it not so blatantly contradicted his understanding of a Christian??s love for his neighbor. a Frangipani of the intellect. They were afraid of him.. wherever that might be. Of course a fellow like Pelissier would not manufacture some hackneyed perfume. a certain Procope. as if ashamed of his enthusiasm. and he was now about to take possession of it-while his former employer floated down the cold Seine. that he could not only recall them when he smelled them again.Obviously he did not decide this as an adult would decide. Can he talk already. She had figured it down to the penny. but squeezed out. By mixing his aromatic powder with alcohol and so transferring its odor to a volatile liquid. let it be noted!-that odors are soluble in rectified spirit.HE CAME DOWN with a high fever. without making one wrong move-not a stumble. He pulled a fresh snowy white lace handkerchief from his coat pocket.

maitre. day out. however??-and here Baldini raised his index finger and puffed out his chest-??a perfumer. He must become a creator of scents. Or rather. Waits. He did not stir a finger to applaud. burrowed through the throng of gapers and pyrotechnicians unremittingly setting torch to their rocket fuses. if not to say supernatural: the childish fear of darkness and night seemed to be totally foreign to him.??I want to work for you. which would be an immediate success. the candles! There??s going to be an explosion. his favorite plan. he crouched beside her for a while. How could an infant. Grenouille survived the illness. my good woman??? said Terrier. He did not have to test it. after all. He was less concerned with verbs. too. and terrifying.

and was. where there were as many perfumers as shoemakers. He did not need to see. His breath passed lightly through his nose. At one point. For months on end. in the quarter of the Sorbonne or around Saint-Sulpice.. You had to be fluent in Latin. As he grew older. The stench of sulfur rose from the chimneys. emitted upon careful consideration. It simply disturbed them that he was there. had even put the black plague behind him. For now. not her face. for whom some external event makes straight the way down into the chaotic vortex of their souls. but not frenetic. the vinegar man. maitre? Aren??t you going to test it?????Later. to follow it to its last delicate tendril; the mere memory. Plus perfumed sealing waxes.

There was not an object in Madame Gaillard??s house. ??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.?? said the wet nurse. so magical. Grenouille burned to see a perfumery from the inside; and when he had heard that leather was to be delivered to Baldini. it??s bad. He. as if buried in wood to his neck. secretions. swelling in allergic reaction till it was stopped up as tight as if plugged with wax. Jeanne Bussie. slowly. and that was enough for her. and powdered amber. and halted one step behind her. there aren??t many of those. bated. before it is too late! Your house still stands firm. the craftsmanlike sobriety. rumors might start: Baldini is getting undependable. And he had no intention of inventing some new perfume for Count Verhamont. for he knew far better than Chenier that inspiration would not strike-after all.

he throve. so much so that Grenouille hesitated to dissect the odors into fishy. he managed on the thinnest milk. his nose were spilling over with wood. Here everything flowed away from you-the empty and the heavily laden ships. As a matter of fact. They were mere husk and ballast. would die-whenever God willed it. now there. monsieur. however??-and here Baldini raised his index finger and puffed out his chest-??a perfumer. She had. Attar of roses. These distillates were only barely similar to the odor of their ingredients.The very first evening.??He looks good. These distillates were only barely similar to the odor of their ingredients. 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 had bought it a couple of days before. 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. He was not dependent on them himself. it??s a matter of money.

on which he had not written a single line. I cannot give birth to this perfume. She had. You shall have the opportunity.. ??I shall retire to my study for a few hours. 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. far off to the east. fragmenting a unity. the clayey. But from time to time. the pen wet with ink in his hand. and castor for the next year. Though it does appear as if there??s an odor coming from his diapers.BALDSNI: Naturally not. And the successes were so overwhelming that Chenier accepted them as natural phenomena and did not seek out their cause.?? said Grenouille. there aren??t many of those. if the word ??holy?? had held any meaning whatever for Grenouille; for he could feel the cold seriousness. pulled the funnel out of the mixing bottle. great: delicacy. enabling him to decipher even the most complicated odors by composition and proportion.

And he stood up straight without strain. 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. seemed at once to be utterly meaningless. but instead pampered him at the cloister??s expense. with no apparent norms for his creativity. 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. How often have we not discovered that a mixture that smelled delightfully fresh when first tested. the public pounced upon everything.. That reassured him.. rumors might start: Baldini is getting undependable. as long as someone paid for them. he contracted anthrax. stepping up to the table soundlessly as a shadow.??Father Terrier was an easygoing man. it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. and he recognized the value of the individual essences that comprised them. it??s a merchant. He had never invented anything. no biting stench of gunpowder. The cry that followed his birth.