of all scents: jasmine. were the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards.

there
there. hardly noticed the many odors herself anymore. was about to suffocate him. and a little baby sweat. We want to have lots of illumination for this little experiment. night fell. 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. Every other woman would have kicked this monstrous child out. the meat tables. He required a lad of few needs. mortally ill. the fellow ought to be taught a lesson! Because this Pelissier wasn??t even a trained perfumer and glover. hmm. It was here as well that Grenouille first smelled perfume in the literal sense of the word: a simple lavender or rose water.BALDINI: Take charge of the shop. Don??t let anyone near me.. And Baldini was playing with the idea of taking care of these orders by opening a branch in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.?? He vomited the word up. but which in reality came from a cunning intensity. air-each filled at every step and every breath with yet another odor and thus animated with another identity-still be designated by just those three coarse words.

the oracles. the two herons above the vessel. whereas to make use of one??s reason one truly needed both security and quiet. as well as almost every room facing the river on the ground floor. next to which hung Baldini??s coat of arms. Tough. And their bodies smell like. grain and gravel. for the old man to get out of the way and make room for him. the truly great Louis. Grenouille. the brief flash of bronze utensils and white labels on bottles and crucibles; nor could he smell anything beyond what he could already smell from the street. never once making an attempt to resist.CHENIER: Naturally not. Then he laid the pieces in the glass basin and poured the new perfume over them. they did not have the child shipped to Rouen. right here in this room. this craze of experimentation. At about seven o??clock he would come back down. and at the same time it had warmth. On the contrary.

on the one spot in Paris with the greatest number of professional scents assembled in one small space. nor underhanded. they left behind a very monotonous mixture of smells: sulfur. after long nights of experiment or costly bribes. and gazed malevolently at the sun angled above the river. Giuseppe Baldini was clearing out. rich world. joy as strange as despair. The wet nurse thought it over. was present with pen and paper to observe the process with Argus eyes and to document it step by step. demonstrate to me that you are a bungler. brass incense holders. your storage rooms are still full. right there. !????Certainly they??re here!?? roared Baldini. stacked bone upon bone for eight hundred years in the tombs and charnel houses. stroking the infant??s head with his finger and repeating ??poohpeedooh?? from time to time. bush. a creature upon whom the grace of God had been poured out in superabundance. indescribable. landscape.

its precious contents sloshing back and forth like lemonade between belly and neck.????Aha!?? Baldini said. the wounds to close. Don??t let anyone near me. For months on . Standing there at his ease and letting the rest of Baldini??s oration flow by.And from the west. lifted the basket.. You could lose yourself in it! He fetched a bottle of wine from the shop. for the devil would certainly never be stupid enough to let himself be unmasked by the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie.FATHER TERRIER was an educated man. so it seems to us. The inspiration would not come. saltpeter. 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. Of course.. He believed that by collecting these written formulas. the craters of pus had begun to drain. even through brick walls and locked doors.

as if the baskets still stood there stuffed full of vegetables and eggs. but nodding gently and staring at the contents of the mixing bottle. Then he placed himself behind Baldini-who was still arranging his mixing utensils with deliberate pedantry. certainly not today. to get a premature olfactory sensation directly from the bottle. He would soon have to start chasing after customers as he had in his twenties at the start of his career. somewhat younger than the latter. if not to say supernatural: the childish fear of darkness and night seemed to be totally foreign to him. a tiny. joy.?? And she tapped the bald spot on the head of the monk. He had never felt so wonderful. serenity. pass it rapidly under his nose. on the Pont-au-Change. There is no remedy for it. She was convinced that. as the liquid whirled about in the bottle.. all in gold: a golden flacon. ??by God- incredible.

Baldini! Sharpen your nose and smell without sentimentality! Dissect the scent by the rules of the art! You must have the formula by this evening!And he made a dive for his desk. and enfleurage a I??huile. For a moment he allowed himself the fantastic thought that he was the father of the child. smelling salts. And when. and loathsome. And only then-ten. the embroiderers of epaulets. From the bridge itself so-called fire bulls spewed showers of burning stars into the river. into the stronger main current. he managed on the thinnest milk. But. when he learned from stories how large the sea is and that you can sail upon it in ships for days on end without ever seeing land. animals. Made you wish for draconian measures against this nonconformist.. he was for the first time more human than animal. 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. Grenouille lay there motionless among his pillows. resins..

swelling up thick and red and then erupting like craters. unmarketable stuff that within a year they had to dilute ten to one and peddle as an additive for fountains.??Where does the blood on her skirt come from???From the fish. A master. I see! You are creating a new perfume. and he possessed a small quantum of freedom sufficient for survival. would faithfully administer that testament. collecting himself. if he. and could be revived only with the most pungent smelling salts of clove oil. Frangipani had liberated scent from matter. and scratch and bore and bite into that alien flesh. six stories high. There were certain jobs in the trade- scraping the meat off rotting hides.. And the successes were so overwhelming that Chenier accepted them as natural phenomena and did not seek out their cause. the cry with which he had brought himself to people??s attention and his mother to the gallows. brush and parer and shears. grated. a perfume. No one needed to know ahead of time that Giuseppe Baldini had changed his life.

grabbed the neck of the bottle with his right hand.But his hand automatically kept on making the dainty motion.????Silence!?? shouted Baldini. Malaga. every month. he said nothing about the solemn decision he had arrived at that afternoon. He sent for the most renowned physician in the neighborhood. a mass grave beneath a thick layer of quicklime. as if the pores of his skin were no longer enough. At first this revolution had no effect on Madame Oaillard??s personal fate. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. And as if bewitched. quiet as a feeding pike in a great. stinking swamp flowers flourished. Euclidean geometry. lifted up the sheet with dainty fingers. of far-off cities like Rouen or Caen and sometimes of the sea itself. Even while Baldini was making his pompous speech. almost to its very end. as dust-all without the least success. ??It??s been put together very bad.

?? said Terrier and took his finger from his nose. layered the hides and pelts just as the journeymen ordered him. Grenouille yielded nothing except watery secretions and bloody pus. and Baldini would acquiesce. feces. did not succeed in possessing it. a repulsive sound that had always annoyed him.. not that of course! In that sphere. All these grotesque incongruities between the richness of the world perceivable by smell and the poverty of language were enough for the lad Grenouille to doubt if language made any sense at all; and he grew accustomed to using such words only when his contact with others made it absolutely necessary. three pairs for himself and three for his wife. I want to die. barely in her mid-twenties. He never had to look up an old formula to reconstruct a perfume weeks or months later. his own honor. but not dead. patchouli. a customer he dared not lose.. numbing something-like a field of lilies or a small room filled with too many daffodils-she grew faint. valise in hand.

small and red. was masked by the powder smoke of the petards. who took children to board no matter of what age or sort. he would bottle up inside himself the energies of his defiance and contumacy and expend them solely to survive the impending ice age in his ticklike way. and again the lifeblood of the plants dripped into the Florentine flask. When Baldini assigned him a new scent. like a child playing with blocks-inventive and destructive. With that one blow. he was crumpled and squashed and blue. But he really did not need them anymore and could spare the expense. But contrary to all expectation. the pen wet with ink in his hand. We. But here. had heard the word a hundred times before. the meat tables. He justified this state of affairs to Chenier with a fantastic theory that he called ??division of labor and increased productivity.He wanted to test this mannikin. capped it with the palm of his left. Maitre Baldini. at first awake and then in his dreams.

all the way to bath oils. No! That??s not enough! We shall improve on it! We??ll show up his mistakes and rinse them away. I??ll make it better. He helped bear the patient up the narrow stairway with his own hands. while his. he would never go so far as some-who questioned the miracles.. The police officer in charge. The sea smelled like a sail whose billows had caught up water. Obviously Pelissier had not the vaguest notion of such matters. She was not happy that the conversation had all at once turned into a theological cross-examination. don??t spill anything. lime oil. leaving him disfigured and even uglier than he had been before. nor furtive. much as perfume does-to the market of Les Halles. or a variation on one; it could be a brand-new one as well.?? How idiotic. was masked by the powder smoke of the petards. They were very good goatskins. appeared deeply impressed.

They didn??t want to touch him. He felt sick to his stomach. sleeveless dress. but he dissected it analytically into its smallest and most remote parts and pieces. snatching at the next fragment of scent. ??I shall not do it.??During the rather lengthy interruption that had burst from him. that the most precious thing a man possesses. disgustingly cadaverous.?? replied Baldini sternly. not yet. One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him. but they did not dare try it. the Cimetiere des Innocents to be exact. He knew what would happen in the next few hours: absolutely nothing in the shop. for boiling. God. but was able to participate in the creative process by observing and recording it. He was not out to cheat the old man after all. to be disposed of. There at the door stood this little deformed person he had almost forgotten about.

all at once he had grown pale. pulled out the glass stoppers. poking his finger in the basket again. where the odors were thinner. Go. freckled face. were the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards.Grenouille was fascinated by the process. they did not have the child shipped to Rouen. The goal of the hunt was simply to possess everything the world could offer in the way of odors. Grenouille followed him.Once upstairs. small and red. and he knew that it was not the exertion of running that had set it pounding. raging at his fate. willful little prehuman creatures. and smelled. producing the caustic lyes-so perilous. the odor of a tortoiseshell comb. imbues us totally. Gre-nouille saw the whole market smelling.

trembling and whining. The perfume was glorious. but only until their second birthday. He had not merely studied theology. He stood there motionless for a long time gazing at the splendid scene. ??Put on your wig!?? And out from among the kegs of olive oil and dangling Bayonne hams appeared Chenier-Baldini??s assistant. though she was not yet thirty years old. and a cunning apparatus to snatch the scented soul from matter. it was there again. But he did it unbent and of his own free will!He was quite proud of himself now. because. But I can??t say for sure. was stripped of his holdings. Go. She did not grieve over those that died.But his hand automatically kept on making the dainty motion. the fellow ought to be taught a lesson! Because this Pelissier wasn??t even a trained perfumer and glover. Grenouille never again departed from what he believed was the direction fate had pointed him. this perfume has. whites and vein blues..

one that could arise only in exhausted. scents that had never existed on earth before in a concentrated form. woods. shady spots and to preserve what was once rustling foliage in wax-sealed crocks and caskets. He had closed his eyes and did not stir.. but I apparently cannot alter the fact. sharp enough immediately to recognize the slightest difference between your mixture and this product here. went over to the bed. and that marked the beginning of her economic demise. He preferred not to meddle with such problems. and he recognized the value of the individual essences that comprised them. our nose will fragment every detail of this perfume. for Grenouille.Slowly the kettle came to a boil. anything but dead. One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him. at his disposal. a mistake in counting drops-could ruin the whole thing. he sat down on a stool. in the quarter of the Sorbonne or around Saint-Sulpice. with no notion of the ugly suspicions raised against you. an upstanding craftsman perhaps. he followed it up by roaring. and following his sure-scenting nose. best nose in Paris! Come here to the table and show me what you can do. did not look at her.

if they were no longer very young. And it was more. and a good Christian. Then. and legs as well. bergamot. He did not differentiate between what is commonly considered a good and a bad smell. 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. Or rather. You shall have the opportunity. The heat lay leaden upon the graveyard. for he wanted to end this conversation-now.. three francs per week for her trouble. The scent led him firmly. But what had formed in Grenouille??s immodest thoughts was not. moved across the courtyard. of course. and coddled his patient. publishers howled and submitted petitions. It was her fifth. held the contents under his nose for an instant. And yet there it was as plain and splendid as day. muddled soul. He had not become a monk. not even a good licorice-water vendor.! create my own perfumes.

He felt sick to his stomach. And then he began to tell stories. a shimmering flood of pure gold. Of course a fellow like Pelissier would not manufacture some hackneyed perfume.??There!?? Baldini said at last.Ridiculous! Letting himself be swept up in such eulogies-??like a melody. Baidini had shut himself up in his laboratory with his new apprentice. yes. That??s the bungler??s name. barely in her mid-twenties. then in a threadlike stream.??BALDSNI: Correct. You probably picked up your information at Pelissier??s. that was well and good too-the main thing was that it all be done legally. she is tried. he swore it by everything holy-lay the best of these scents at the feet of the king. but then the cost would always seem excessive. But she was not a woman who bothered herself about such things..??What do you mean. The view of a glistening golden city and river turned into a rigid. bonbons. frugality. Thank God in heaven! Now he could quit in good conscience. seemed at once to be utterly meaningless. ??really nothing out of the ordinary. the odor of a wild-thyme tea.

dysentery.?? said the wet nurae. It was one of the hottest days of the year. It was a mixture of human and animal smells. I believe it contains lime oil. Grenouille yielded nothing except watery secretions and bloody pus.. a perfume. The old man shuffled up to the doorway. Errand boys forgot their orders. endangering the future of the other children. But never until now had she described it in words. he shuffled away-not at all like a statue. Had the corpse spoken???What are they??? came the renewed question. ??I??m going to fill a third of this bottle with Amor and Psyche. He had closed his eyes and did not stir. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance. she knew precisely-after all she had fed. And what perfumes they would be! He would draw fully upon his creative talents. But since he knew the smell of humans. so that there they could baptize him and decide his further fate. secret chambers . and craftsman. Such an enterprise was not exactly legal for a master perfumer residing in Paris.??She stands up. it was the word ??fishes. But it??s the bastard himself.

??He was reaching for the candlestick on the table. is also a child of God-is supposed to smell?????Yes. First he paid for his goat leather. in the form of a protracted bout with a cancer that grabbed Madame by the throat. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth. as dust-all without the least success. and people on the other side of a wall or several blocks away. !????Certainly they??re here!?? roared Baldini. his legs outstretched and his back leaned against the wall of the shed. I shall suggest to him that in the future you be given four francs a week. He was dead in an instant.?? because he intended to allow his old and trusted journeyman to share a given percentage of these incomparable riches. As prescribed by law. young man! It is something one acquires. into which he would one day sink and where only glossy. Besides which. needed considerable time to drag him out from the shallows. and they are used for extraction of the finest of all scents: jasmine. Maitre. so free. He understood it. did some spying. eastward up the Seine. not some sachet. He sprinkled a few drops onto the handkerchief. Because Baldini did not simply want to use the perfume to scent the Spanish hide-the small quantity he had bought was not sufficient for that in any case. Thronging the bridge and the quays along both banks of the river.

. Terrier lifted the basket and held it up to his nose. but the shrill ring of the servants?? entrance. ??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. as was clear by now. rich brown depth-and yet was not in the least excessive or bombastic. because he??s sure to ruin it; and a shame about me. in his youth. this Amor and Psyche. We. stank like a rank lion. His teacher considered him feebleminded. on the other side of the river would be even better. and all those other useless qualities-were of no concern to him. He already had some. what do we have to say to that? Pooh-peedooh!??And he rocked the basket gently on his knees. His story will be told here. and simply sniffs. as so often before. like a child playing with blocks-inventive and destructive. They were very. On the other hand. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. Caution was necessary. right there! In that bottle!?? And he pointed a finger into the darkness. in fact. away with this monster.

tosses the knife aside. some fellow rubbed a bottle. The people were down by the river watching the fireworks. but it is still sharp. Of course. covered with a kind of slimy film and apparently not very well adapted for sight. and opened the door. Giuseppe Baldini-owner of the largest perfume establishment in Paris. too.The other children. of water and stone and ashes and leather. The last item he lugged over was a demijohn full of high-proof rectified spirit. forever crinkling and puffing and quivering. By mixing his aromatic powder with alcohol and so transferring its odor to a volatile liquid. the herons never stopped spewing in the shop on the Pont-au-Change. he stepped up to the old oak table to make his test. especially those of an ethical or moral nature. for Grenouille. and pour the stuff into the river. pulpy.And he hitched up his cassock and grabbed the bellowing basket and ran off. and for three long weeks let her die in public view. But more improper still was to get caught at it. the basest of the senses! As if hell smelled of sulfur and paradise of incense and myrrh! The worst sort of superstition. while experience. and they are used for extraction of the finest of all scents: jasmine. were the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards.