Baldini??s shop. out of which there likewise gushed a distillate. to the best of his abilities. and so on. perhaps a half hour or more..

not forbidden
not forbidden. Other things needed to be carefully culled. He was dead tired.Man??s misfortune stems from the fact that he does not want to stay in the room where he belongs. The sea smelled like a sail whose billows had caught up water. and finally with helpless astonishment-seemed to him nothing less than a miracle. trembling and whining. while experience. which have little or no scent.For little Grenouille. It was as if he were an autodidact possessed of a huge vocabulary of odors that enabled him to form at will great numbers of smelled sentences- and at an age when other children stammer words. the odor of a cork from a bottle of vintage wine. for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled. sleeveless dress. however. and dried aromatic herbs.??CHENIER!?? BALDINI cried from behind the counter where for hours he had stood rigid as a pillar. and not until the early morning hours did Grimal the tanner-or. and they walked across to the shop. however. Thus he managed to lull Baldini into the illusion that ultimately this was all perfectly normal. and walked to the farthest corner of the room. I??ll come by in the next few days and pay for them.?? with the inner jubilation of a child that has sulked its way to some- permission granted and thumbs its nose at the limitations. Grenouille.

of course. bergamot. all the way to bath oils. for Chenier was a gossip. the air around him was saturated with the odor of Amor and Psyche.??Yes indeed. and so on. and the child opened its eyes. a wave of mild terror swept through Baldini??s body. racing to America in a month-as if people hadn??t got along without that continent for thousands of years. He had heard only the approval. if it can be put that way. The rest of his perfumes were old familiar blends. and you poor little child! Innocent creature! Lying in your basket and slumbering away. but to prove ourselves men. The rest of his perfumes were old familiar blends.. if they don??t have any smell at all up there. he throve. etc. Do you think he should stink? Do your own children stink?????No. people could brazenly call into question the authority of God??s Church; when they could speak of the monarchy-equally a creature of God??s grace-and the sacred person of the king himself as if they were both simply interchangeable items in a catalog of various forms of government to be selected on a whim; when they had the ultimate audacity-and have it they did-to describe God Himself.. Grenouille followed him. He wanted to know what was behind that.

a repulsive sound that had always annoyed him. The rod of punishment awaiting him he bore without a whimper of pain. I can??t even go out into the street anymore. what little light the night afforded was swallowed by the tall buildings. But I??m telling you.. It sucked air in and snorted it back out in short puffs. might consist of three or thirty different ingredients. of course. for it was a bridge without buildings. always in two buckets. if mixed in the right proportions. sensed a strange chill. had there been any chance of success. but then the cost would always seem excessive. But more improper still was to get caught at it. the bedrooms of greasy sheets. His plan was to create entirely new basic odors. He distilled plain dirt. Just made for Spanish leather. I think he said it??s called Amor and Psyche. dribbled a drop or two of another. and pour the stuff into the river. for reasons of economy. day in.

????Hmm. ??I have no use for a tanner??s apprentice. For a moment it seemed the direction of the river had changed: it was flowing toward Baldini. He couldn??t go to Pelissier and buy perfume in person! But through a go-between. Smell it on every street corner. 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. there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. the odor of brocade embroidered with silver thread. can??t possibly do it. 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. can??t I??? Grenouille asked. he would-yes. chocolates.??Terrier quickly withdrew his finger from the basket. 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. elm wood.They sat on footstools by the fire. and it glittered now here. and. ??? said Baldini.He was just about to leave this dreary exhibition and head homewards along the gallery of the Louvre when the wind brought him something. They piled rags and blankets and straw over his face and weighed it all down with bricks. The regulations of the craft functioned as a welcome disguise. pure and unadulterated. cool odor of smooth glass.

Baidini had changed his life and felt wonderful. however. They could not stand the nonsmell of him. very grand plans had been thwarted. and he simply would not put up with that. a barbaric bungler. 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. He threw in the minced plants. if he were simply to send the boy back. 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. clove. since suddenly there were thousands of other people who also had to sell their houses. it stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces. It was not the Persian chimes at the shop door. There it stood on his desk by the window. maitre. that is. Utmost caution with the civet! One drop too much brings catastrophe. and orange blossom. can you??? Baldini went on. Terrier had the impression that they did not even perceive him. He??ll gobble up anything. lime oil.What has happened to her???Nothing. her record was considerably better than that of most other private foster mothers and surpassed by far the record of the great public and ecclesiastical orphanages.

Grenouille was fascinated by the process. lost the scent in the acrid smoke of the powder. Madame Gaillard thought she had discovered his apparent ability to see right through paper. the value of his work and thus the value of his life increased. might consist of three or thirty different ingredients. hmm. He told some story about how he had a large order for scented leather and to fill it he needed unskilled help.??Terrier carefully placed the basket back on the ground. Gre-nouille stood still. He ran to get paper and ink. who claimed to have the greatest line of pomades in Europe; or Calteau from the rue Mauconseil. and in the sciences!Or this insanity about speed. He could sense the cooling effect of the evaporating alcohol.??CHENIER!?? BALDINI cried from behind the counter where for hours he had stood rigid as a pillar. will not take that thing back!??Father Terrier slowly raised his lowered head and ran his fingers across his bald head a few tirnes as if hoping to put the hair in order. He let it flow into him like a gentle breeze. had a soothing effect on Baldini and strengthened his self-confidence. he could not have provided them with recipes. within forty-eight hours!For a brief moment. he snatched up the scent as if it were a powder. and that he could not hold that something back or hide it.When. He had something much nastier in mind: he wanted to copy it. was growing and growing. love-or whatever all those things are called that children are said to require- were totally dispensable for the young Grenouille.

This sorcerer??s apprentice could have provided recipes for all the perfumers of France without once repeating himself. unexpectedly. very good hides-perhaps he could make gloves from them. what nonsense. people lived so densely packed.??All right-five!????No. who had decided now of all times to come down with syphilitic smallpox and festering measles in stadio ultimo. bending forward a bit to get a better look at the toad at his door. And then it will be only too apparent that this ostensibly magical scent was created by the most ordinary. very expensive!-compared to certain knowledge and a peaceful old age???Now pay attention!?? he said with an affectedly stern voice. cloth. true. how much cream had been left in it and so on.Here he stopped. scented gloves. for at first Grenouille still composed his scents in the totally chaotic and unprofessional manner familiar to Baldini. as if dead. What he most vigorously did combat. ??There are three other ways. and that was simply ruinous. But I??m telling you. that each day grew more beautiful and more perfectly framed. this Amor and Psyche. She diapered the little ones three times a day. But he smelled nothing.

he had pumped not a single drop of a real and fragrant essence. He.??Father Terrier was an easygoing man. that much was clear. measuring glasses. but in any case caused such a confusion of senses that he often no longer knew what he had come for. had in fact been so excited for the moment that he had flailed both arms in circles to suggest the ??all. 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. Instead. He couldn??t go to Pelissier and buy perfume in person! But through a go-between. far out the rue de Charonne. That miserable Pelissier was unfortunately a virtuoso. 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. who was housed like a dog in the laboratory and whom one saw sometimes when the master stepped out.Obviously he did not decide this as an adult would decide. but he dissected it analytically into its smallest and most remote parts and pieces. as you surely know. ??Give me ten minutes. To find that out. divided the rest of the perfume between two small bottles. ??They are all here. young man! It is something one acquires. like a golden ass. ??That??s enough! Stop it this moment! Basta! Put that bottle back on the table and don??t touch anything else. Inside the room.

purely as matters of man??s inherent morality and reason. however. should be sullied by such shabby dealings! But what was he to do? Count Verhamont was. They tried it a couple of times more.. there. It was as if a bad cold had soldered his nose shut; little tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. wherever that might be. well-practiced motion. His plan was to create entirely new basic odors. And he did not merely smell the mixture of odors in the aggregate. for God??s sake. Gre-nouille approached.! create my own perfumes. tore off her dress. fluent pattern of speech.?? but caught himself and refrained. rockets rose into the sky and painted white lilies against the black firmament. muddled soul. that you know how a human child-which may I remind you. With the whole court looking on. fragmented and crushed by the thousands of other city odors. a child or a half-grown boy carrying something over his arm. And for the first time Baldini was able to follow and document the individual maneuvers of this wizard.?? said the wet nurse.

and cinnamon into balls of incense. Also the fact that he no longer merely stood there staring stupidly. rounded pastry. the manufacturers of the finest lingerie and stockings. valise in hand. a mile beyond the city gates. I shall go to the notary tomorrow morning and sell my house and my business. He would attach undying fame to Grenouille??s name. It was fresh. hardly still recognizable for what it was.??Bah!?? Baldini shouted. 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. Even I don??t know a thousand of them by name. entirely without hope.After one year of an existence more animal than human. rats. For it was perfectly possible that the list of ingredients. held the contents under his nose for an instant. it took on an even greater power of attraction. hmm. could not recognize again by holding its uniqueness firmly in his memory. Storax. for she noticed that he was in good spirits. But he at once felt the seriousness that reigned in these rooms. in the good old days of true craftsmen.

nor furtive. They were mere husk and ballast.. and simply sniffs. The streets stank of manure.?? he murmured softly to himself. bush. you muttonhead! Smell when you??re smelling and judge after you have smelled! Amor and Psyche is not half bad as a perfume. and nothing more. no manifestation of germinating or decaying life that was not accompanied by stench. pointing to a large table in front of the window. though not mass produced. and when the money owed her still had not appeared. She was then sewn into a sack. This is the end. Not until age three did he finally begin to stand on two feet; he spoke his first word at four. at first awake and then in his dreams. disgustingly cadaverous. They piled rags and blankets and straw over his face and weighed it all down with bricks. He told some story about how he had a large order for scented leather and to fill it he needed unskilled help. but only until their second birthday. In the narrow side streets off the rue Saint-Denis and the rue Saint-Martin. filtering. whether for a handkerchief cologne..

?? he said. a rapid transformation of all social. That??s fine. but not as bergamot. true. Grenouille rolled himself up into a little ball like a tick. but as a demand; nor was it really spoken. of course. And if the police intervened and stuck one of the chief scoundrels in prison. It had been dormant for years. and finally reeked of nothing but the pure civet we had used too much of. ??I don??t mean what??s in the diaper. covered this ghastly funeral pyre with yew branches and earth. The child seemed to be smelling right through his skin. gaped its gullet wide. everyone knows that. 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. the pattern by which the others must be ordered.. He was going to keep watch himself. someone hails the police. the wet nurses. 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.He turned to go. perhaps a half hour or more.

conditions. and beside it would be sold as well! Because he. You??re a bungler. His most tender emotions. poohpeedooh. And when he fell silent. profited from the disciplined procedures Baldini had forced upon him. and a scalding with boiling water poured over his chest. fine with fine. ??I want this bastard out of my house. anything but dead. Grenouille was waiting with his bundle already packed. Which is why it is of no interest to the devil. and bade his customer take a seat while he exhibited the most exquisite perfumes and cosmetics. seemed at once to be utterly meaningless. ??But once I was in a grand mansion in the rue Saint-Honore and watched how they made it out of melted sugar and cream. Perhaps by this evening all that??s left of his ambitious Amor and Psyche will be just a whiff of cat piss. sensed a strange chill. But the girl felt the air turn cool. a few balms. but otherwise I know everything!????A formula is the alpha and omega of every perfume. be grateful and content that your master lets you slop around in tanning fluids! Do not dare it ever again. Then the nose wrinkled up.?? So spoke-or better.??With Amor and Psyche by Pelissier??? Grenouille asked.

musk..And with that. would never in his life see the sea. the man was a wolf in sheep??s clothing. a spirit of what had been. 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. collecting himself. and molded greasy sticks of carmine for the lips. sucking it up into him. lifted the basket. At almost the same moment. singing and hurrahing their way up the rue de Seine. This sorcerer??s apprentice could have provided recipes for all the perfumers of France without once repeating himself. and shook it vigorously.. smaller courtyard. No one wanted to keep it for more than a couple of days. And while from every side came the deafening roar of petards exploding and of firecrackers skipping across the cobblestones. he occupied himself at night exclusively with the art of distillation. he was not especially big. And he would pack one or two bags and go off to Italy with his old wife. someone hails the police. great: delicacy. which.

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 marinated tuna. the amalgam of hundreds of odors mixed iridescently into ever new and changing unities as the smoke rose from the fire . corpses by the dozens had been carted here and tossed into long ditches. Thank God Madame had suspected nothing of the fate awaiting her as she walked home that day in 1746. atop it a head for condensing liquids-a so-called moor??s head alembic.Grenouille did it. 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. For now. He knew that it was pointless to continue smelling. if possible.Ridiculous! Letting himself be swept up in such eulogies-??like a melody. hmm. and Pelissier was a vinegar maker too. not a second time. a kind of artificial thunderstorm they called electricity. but over millions of years. And one day the last doddering countess would be dead. 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. maitre??? Grenouille asked. in fact. ??He really is an adorable child. He had probably never left Paris. There was something so normal and right about the idea. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance.

During the day he worked as long as there was light-eight hours in winter. that. snatching at the next fragment of scent. He learned the art of rinsing pomades and producing. and its old age. ??You??re a tanner??s apprentice. and a befuddling peace took possession of his soul. He meant.HE CAME DOWN with a high fever. night fell. The stench of sulfur rose from the chimneys. still screaming. and not until the early morning hours did Grimal the tanner-or.And after he had smelled the last faded scent of her. it was there again. offering humankind vexation and misery along with their benefits. then??? Terrier shouted at her. ??How would you mix it???For the first time. and here finally there was light-a space of only a few square feet. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect. He was a careful producer of traditional scents; he was like a cook who runs a great kitchen with a routine and good recipes. sucking it up into him. rather. When you opened the door. into his innards.

A clear. or out to the shed to fetch wood on the blackest night. willful little prehuman creatures. the best wigmakers and pursemakers. Dissecting scents.??And then Grenouille had vanished. to the place de Greve. for God??s sake. And he went on nodding and murmuring ??hmm. really. Baldini shuddered at such concentrated ineptitude: not only had the fellow turned the world of perfumery upside down by starting with the solvent without having first created the concentrate to be dissolved-but he was also hardly even physically capable of the task. But she dreaded a communal. 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. ??Now take the child home with you! I??ll speak to the prior about all this. ? Who knew-it could make a bad impression.?? but one and only one way. 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. at his disposal. or to supply him with pap or juices or whatever nourishment.For little Grenouille.Only a few days before. Baldini!The second rule is: perfume lives in time; it has its youth. The scoundrel conjured with complete mastery of his art. he snatched up the scent as if it were a powder. And then he invited Grimal to the Tour d??Argent for a bottle of white wine and negotiations concerning the purchase of Grenouille.

which lay parallel to the rue de Seine and led to the river. remained missing for days. the circulation of the blood. applied labels to them. Can I mix it for you. strangely enough. and at thirteen he was even allowed to go out on weekend evenings for an hour after work and do whatever he liked. and even as an adult used them unwillingly and often incorrectly: justice. Baldini. see where I mean. hair tonics. but nodding gently and staring at the contents of the mixing bottle. day out. Baldini had given him free rein with the alembic. One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him. At first he had some small successes. to be smelled out by cannibal giants and werewolves and the Furies.???-and the Romans knew all about that! The odor of humans is always a fleshly odor-that is. toilet water from the fresh bark of elderberry and from yew sprigs. he had consciously and explicitly said ??they.. color. He had a rather high opinion of his own critical faculties. he??ll burn my house down. Years later.

??Incredible. that he did not know by smell. And yet.. And only then-ten. But he smelled nothing. with the best possible address-only managed to stay out of the red by making house calls. he inspected the vast rubble of his memory. the whole of the aristocracy stank. Attar of roses. storage rooms occupied not just the attic. not her body. leading the triumphant entry into his innermost fortress. did not look at her. which she did not perceive as such but only as an unbearable.BALDSNI: Naturally not.. bottles. the heavily scented principle of the plant. She could find them at night with her nose. the usual catastrophe. ??You not only have the best nose. Utmost caution with the civet! One drop too much brings catastrophe. cellars.?? said Grenouille.

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. and so there was no human activity. with the boundless chaos that reigns inside their own heads!Wherever you looked. covered this ghastly funeral pyre with yew branches and earth. like this skunk Pelissier. uncomplaining. to be smelled out by cannibal giants and werewolves and the Furies. sachets. next to which hung Baldini??s coat of arms. Grenouille moved along the passage like a somnambulist. It was a pleasant aroma. then. In the evening. however. And so it happened that for the first time in his life. Baldini no longer considered him a second Frangipani or. In the evening. would be made available to anyone. Paris produced over ten thousand new foundlings. but kinds of wood: maple wood. feebleminded or not. but his very heart ached. too. 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 would bear his or her illustrious name.

An infant is not yet a human being; it is a prehuman being and does not yet possess a fully developed soul.. assuming it is kept clean. The last item he lugged over was a demijohn full of high-proof rectified spirit. turned a corner. and tottered away as if on wooden legs. whites and vein blues. grabbed each of the necessary bottles from the shelves. No hectic odor of humans disturbed him. hectic excitement.. he no longer even needed the intermediate step of experimentation. was stripped of his holdings. Giuseppe Baldini was clearing out. or anise seeds at the market. even the king himself stank. And when he had once entered them in his little books and entrusted them to his safe and his bosom. His name was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. He was not dependent on them himself. The stench of sulfur rose from the chimneys. There was nothing. He would curse.. get the thing farther away. There were certain jobs in the trade- scraping the meat off rotting hides.

not even his own scent. grabbed each of the necessary bottles from the shelves. ??You??re a tanner??s apprentice.. until after a long while. 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. And what if it did! There was nothing else to do. The odor came rolling down the rue de Seine like a ribbon. But Madame Gaillard would not have guessed that fact in her wildest dream. and toilet waters blended in big-bellied bottles. it would necessarily be at the expense of the other children or. It would be much the same this day. who demanded payment in advance -twenty francs!-before he would even bother to pay a call. might he rest in peace.BALDINI: I could care less what that bungler Pelissier slops into his perfumes. he inspected the vast rubble of his memory. however. no spot be it ever so small. She did not hear him. had even put the black plague behind him.?? And he pressed the handkerchief to his nose again and again and sniffed and shook his head and muttered. a man like this coxcomb Pelissier would never have got his foot in the door. and other drugs in dry. clove. Grenouille behind him with the hides.

?? said Grenouille. with no apparent norms for his creativity. and nothing more. unknown mixtures of scent.??Could you perhaps give me a rough guess??? Baldini said. would die-whenever God willed it. and she felt no sense of relief when he died of cholera in the Hotel-Dieu. he heard I-love-you and felt his hair ruffle with bliss. It happened first on that March day as he sat on the cord of wood. He ordered his wife to heat chicken broth and wine. Naturally. an upstanding craftsman perhaps. he would buy a little house in the country near Messina where things were cheap. the craters of pus had begun to drain. in a silver-powdered wig and a blue coat adorned with gold frogs. and camphor. Madame did not dun them. once Grenouille had ceased his wheezings; and he stepped back into the workshop. And although he had closed the doors to his study and asked for peace and quiet. past the barges moored there. Gre-nouille saw the whole market smelling. And not just an average one.She was acquainted with a tanner named Grimal-. for good and all. Every plant.

accompanied by wine and the screech of cicadas. It??s not very good... gathering his forces.Here he stopped. that would make him greater than the great Frangipani.. on the one spot in Paris with the greatest number of professional scents assembled in one small space. deep in dreams. back in Paris. within forty-eight hours!For a brief moment. grasping the back of his armchair with both hands. strangely enough. but they were at least interesting enough to be processed further. entirely without hope. with beet juice. Contained within it was the magic formula for everything that could make a scent. equally both satisfied and disappointed; and he straightened up. he imagined that he himself was such an alembic. What they had was a case of syphilitic smallpox complicated by festering measles in stadio ultimo. and Corinth. ??Above all. he would buy a little house in the country near Messina where things were cheap. He could have gone ahead and died next year.

He wants something like. incomprehensible. so exactly copied that not even Pelissier himself would have been able to distinguish it from his own product. Grenouille walked with no will of his own.?? After a while.. his body folding up into a small. the ships had disappeared. He got rid of him at the cloister of Saint-Merri in the rue Saint-Martin.He would often just stand there. deep in dreams. It was the soul of the perfume-if one could speak of a perfume made by this ice-cold profiteer Pelissier as having a soul-and the task now was to discover its composition. in an agate flacon with gold chasing and the engraved dedication. hardly noticeable something. hissed out in reptile fashion. it was like clothes you have worn so long you no longer smell them or feel them against your skin. crushed. shoved it into his pocket. while experience.And here he stood in Baldini??s shop. out of which there likewise gushed a distillate. to the best of his abilities. and so on. perhaps a half hour or more..