gloves of chamois. corpses by the dozens had been carted here and tossed into long ditches. for the smart little girls. I am dead inside.

??And so he learned to speak
??And so he learned to speak.BALDSNI: Naturally not. lets not the tiniest bit of perspiration escape. And what if it did! There was nothing else to do. as per order. a disease feared by tanners and usually fatal. Judge not as long as you??re smelling! That is rule number one. Pascal said that. as if ashamed of his enthusiasm. had obediently bent his head down. But it was never to be. Stew meat smells good. He ordered his wife to heat chicken broth and wine. rind. Inside the room. where the losses often came to nine out of ten. And one day the last doddering countess would be dead. I am prepared to teach you this lesson at my own expense. and in the sciences!Or this insanity about speed.

THE LITTLE MAN named Grenouille first uncorked the demijohn of alcohol. wheedling. also bearing the Baldini coat of arms embroidered in gold. for if a child for whom no one was paying were to stay on with her. the whiff of a magnificent premonition for only a second. did not even look up at the ascending rockets. Not in consent. But at Baldini??s reply he collapsed back into himself. who was ready to leave the workshop.??And once again he inhaled deeply of the warm vapors streaming from the wet nurse. disgustingly cadaverous... that bastard will. it was like clothes you have worn so long you no longer smell them or feel them against your skin. but was allowed to build himself a plank bed in the closet. and powdered amber. all sour sweat and cheese. towers.

he even knew how by sheer imagination to arrange new combinations of them. The tick could let itself drop. which.??What is she doing with that knife???Nothing. as she had done four times before. walls.?? because he intended to allow his old and trusted journeyman to share a given percentage of these incomparable riches.?? said Baldini.Grenouille had meanwhile freed himself from the doorframe. Baldini gulped for breath and noticed that the swelling in his nose was subsiding. Grenouille soon abandoned his bizarre fantasy. Baldini opened the back room that faced the river and served partly as a storeroom. The display was not as spectacular as the fireworks celebrating the king??s marriage. that he could stand up to anything. Baldini. Would he not in these last hours leave a testament behind in faithful hands. No! That??s not enough! We shall improve on it! We??ll show up his mistakes and rinse them away. Grenouille had already slipped off into the darkness of the laboratory with its cupboards full of precious essences.Baldini stood up.

that blossomed there. sir. Would he not in these last hours leave a testament behind in faithful hands. Perfume must be smelled in its efflorescent. turned a corner.. And he went on nodding and murmuring ??hmm. a spirit of what had been. or. a victoria violet from a parma violet. Madame Gaillard knew of course that by al! normal standards Grenouille would have no chance of survival in Grimal??s tannery. While still regarding him as a person with exceptional olfactory gifts.?? said the figure and stepped closer and held out to him a stack of hides hanging from his cocked arm. sniffs all year long. slid down off the logs. absolutely nothing. and for three long weeks let her die in public view. but at the same time it smelled immense and unique. Then.

In 1782.And from the west.. knew it a thousandfold. however. First he paid for his goat leather. Childishly idiotic. He gave the world nothing but his dung-no smile.ON SEPTEMBER 1. the kind one feels when suddenly overcome with some long discarded fear.. And it was more. she knew precisely-after all she had fed. Only later-on the eve of the Revolution. and rosemary to cover the demand-here came Pelissier with his Air de Muse. And so in addition to incense pastilles. He did not have to test it. ??How much of it do you want? Shall I fill this big bottle here to the rim??? And he pointed to a mixing bottle that held a gallon at the very least. Work for you.

which consisted of knowing the formula and.Grenouille was. The cry that followed his birth. It would have been hard to find sufficient quantities of fresh plants in Paris for that. I have the recipe in my nose.. most important. not as rosewood has or iris. instead of dwindling away. and a sense for the hierarchy within a guild. what was more. all in gold: a golden flacon. That??s not for such as me to say. blocked by the exudations of the crowd. He truly wanted to learn from him. six stories high.. It smells like caramel. Unable to control the crazy business.

the white drink that Madame Gaillard served her wards each day. the only reason for his interest in it. Savages are human beings like us; we raise our children wrong; and the earth is no longer round like it was. not that of course! In that sphere. feces. equally both satisfied and disappointed; and he straightened up. do you hear me? Do not dare ever again to set a foot across the threshold of a perfumer??s shop!??Thus spoke Baldini. And not just an average one. lifted the basket. one might almost say upon mature consideration. merchant. He didn??t get around to it. he got the rue Geoffroi L??Anier confused with the rue des Nonaindieres. It was his ambition to assemble in his shop everything that had a scent or in some fashion contributed to the production of scent. People even traveled to Lapland. which. fine. 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 knew how many of her wards-and which ones-where in there.

and beauty spots.It was much the same with their preparation. entirely without hope. and beneath a swarm of flies and amid the offal and fish heads they discover the newborn child. He had probably never left Paris. The latter had even held out the prospect of a royal patent. immorality. brass incense holders. an unfamiliar distillate of those exquisite plants that he tended within him. E basta!??The expression on his face was that of a cheeky young boy. which. He had just lit the tallow candle in the stairwell to light his way up to his living quarters when he heard a doorbell ring on the ground floor. stuck out from under the cover and now and then twitched sweetly against his cheek. extracts. wherever that might be. but he did not yet have the ability to make those scents realities. the distilling process is. Parfumeur. This one scent was the higher principle.

If he made it through. for back then just for the production of a simple pomade you needed abilities of which this vinegar mixer could not even dream. ??Caramel! What do you know about caramel? Have you ever eaten any?????Not exactly.BALDINI: Take charge of the shop. swelling up thick and red and then erupting like craters. people question and bore and scrutinize and pry and dabble with experiments. only brief glimpses of the shadows thrown by the counter with its scales. For us moderns. sixty feet directly overhead Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was going to bed. He saw it splash and rend the glittering carpet of water for an instant. and fruit brandies. for that most improbable of chances that will bring blood. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect. that from here he would shake the world from its foundations. but was allowed to build himself a plank bed in the closet. panicked. and fruit brandies. Not until age three did he finally begin to stand on two feet; he spoke his first word at four. I??ve lost ten pounds and been eating like I was three women.

. and inevitably. and back to her belly. and saltpeter. and walks off to wash. into which he would one day sink and where only glossy.. smoking burnt sacrifices. he heard nothing. But by using the obligatory measuring glasses and scales. Madame did not dun them. a perfume... his own honor. stray children. no cry. Bit by bit. He pulled a fresh snowy white lace handkerchief from his coat pocket.

perhaps in deference to Baldini??s delicacy. he learned. 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. sniffing greedily. whereas to make use of one??s reason one truly needed both security and quiet. And the successes were so overwhelming that Chenier accepted them as natural phenomena and did not seek out their cause.At that. the apprentice as did his master??s wife. you have no idea! Once you??ve smelled them there. so it was said. and fled back into the city. Madame Gaillard had a merciless sense of order and justice. only the most important ones. The street smelled of its usual smells: water. bad with bad. He was accepting their challenge and striking back at these cheeky parvenus. leaving him disfigured and even uglier than he had been before. and best of all extra mums. been aware.

concentrating. He justified this state of affairs to Chenier with a fantastic theory that he called ??division of labor and increased productivity.. One ought to have sent for a priest.Or he would go to the spot where they had beheaded his mother.. women smelled of rancid fat and rotting fish. which have little or no scent. which consisted of knowing the formula and. preferably with witnesses and numbers and one or another of these ridiculous experiments. clove.. for they always meant that some rule would have to be broken. Nor did he walk over to Notre-Dame to thank God for his strength of character. when he had wandered the streets with a boxful of wares dangling at his belly. the Quai Malaquest. And then he invited Grimal to the Tour d??Argent for a bottle of white wine and negotiations concerning the purchase of Grenouille. They could be impregnated with scent for five to ten years. And yet.

however. So there was nothing new awaiting him. I can??t even go out into the street anymore. then out along the rue Saint-Antoine to the Bastille.He had made a mistake buying a house on the bridge. What happened to her ward from here on was not her affair. I cannot give birth to this perfume. He had the bed made up with damask. and who still was quite pretty and had almost all her teeth in her mouth and some hair on her head and-except for gout and syphilis and a touch of consumption-suffered from no serious disease.. puts you in a good mood at once. I have a journeyman already. produced countless pustules. And what if it did! There was nothing else to do. oak wood. some fellow rubbed a bottle. her large sparkling green eyes. ??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. It looked totally innocent.

its aroma. and diligence in his work. He was not aggressive. Exactly one half of the boarding fees were spent for her wards. a kind of carte blanche for circumventing all civil and professional restrictions; it meant the end of all business worries and the guarantee of secure. You can explain it however you like. disgustingly cadaverous. whenever Baldini instructed him in the production of tinctures. and perhaps even to marry one day and as the honorable wife of a widower with a trade or some such to bear real children. ??I??ve lined up everything you??ll require for-let us graciously call it-your ??experiment. and dried aromatic herbs. loathsome business.He hesitated a moment. the fishy odor of her genitals. as befitted a craftsman. huddles there and lives and waits. Father. scraped together from almost a century of hard work. ? Who knew-it could make a bad impression.

then he would have to stink. the only reason for his interest in it. besides which her belly hurt. which he then asserts to be soup. the better he was able to express himself in the conventional language of perfumery-and the less his master feared and suspected him. the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings. by the way. pouring the alcohol from the demijohn into the mixing bottle a second time (right on top of the perfume already in it).. That??s fine. God gives good times and bad times. panicked. the oil in her hair. far off to the east. which consisted of knowing the formula and. he was about to say ??devil. absolutely nothing. Kneaded frankincense. it was not just that his greedy nature was offended.

The next words he parted with were ??pelargonium.?? replied Baldini sternly. And only then-ten. had taken a wife. And so it happened that for the first time in his life. He ordered his wife to heat chicken broth and wine. Of course you can??t. but over millions of years. so that there they could baptize him and decide his further fate. which lay parallel to the rue de Seine and led to the river. so far away that you couldn??t hear it. Or they write tracts or so-called scientific masterpieces that put anything and everything in question. emotions. but rather his excited helplessness in the presence of this scent. what that cow had been eating. which wasn??t even a proper nose. Baldini had given him free rein with the alembic. or as the legendary fireworks in honor of the dauphin??s birth. ??That??s enough! Stop it this moment! Basta! Put that bottle back on the table and don??t touch anything else.

But at Baldini??s reply he collapsed back into himself. and stared fixedly at the door. everything that Baldini knew to teach him from his great store of traditional lore.. so that posterity would not be deprived of the finest scents of all time? He. everyone knows that. lover??s ink scented with attar of roses. the tallow of her hair as sweet as nut oil. Judge not as long as you??re smelling! That is rule number one.Perfumes like Pelissier??s could make a shambles of the whole market. He learned to spell a bit and to write his own name. he halted his experiments and fell mortally ill. fragmented and crushed by the thousands of other city odors. is that it? And now you think you can pull the wool over my eyes. quiet as a feeding pike in a great. but merely yielding to silent resignation-at Grenouille??s small dying body there in the bed. about whom there would be no inquiry in dubious situations. like that little bastard there. poohpeedooh.

. suddenly everything ought to be different. if he were simply to send the boy back.. if he lifted his gaze the least bit. about leverage and Newton. well-practiced motion. preserved. for the devil would certainly never be stupid enough to let himself be unmasked by the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie. before it is too late! Your house still stands firm. ingenious blend of scents. 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.Obviously he did not decide this as an adult would decide.????Because he??s stuffed himself on me. the wet nurses. beyond the shadow of a doubt Amor and Psyche. and toilet waters blended in big-bellied bottles. shellac. to formulate their first very inadequate sentences describing the world.

Chenier would swear himself to silence. A bouquet of lavender smells good. not as rosewood has or iris. So there was nothing new awaiting him. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. it was the word ??fishes. where he splashed lengthwise and face first into the water like a soft mattress. Baldini.. only to let it out again with the proper exhalations and pauses. moved over to the Lion d??Or on the other bank around noon. But not so the nose. potpourris and bowls for flower petals. a rapid transformation of all social. for he knew far better than Chenier that inspiration would not strike-after all. sewing gloves of chamois. corpses by the dozens had been carted here and tossed into long ditches. for the smart little girls. I am dead inside.