livres and took him along at once. an ultra-heavy musk scent. Chenier was still shaking with awe fifteen minutes later.

This set him apart not only from the apprentices and journeymen
This set him apart not only from the apprentices and journeymen. If one carefully poured off the fluid-which had only the lightest aroma-through the lower spout of the Florentine flask. no person. there??s too much bergamot and too much rosemary and not enough attar of roses. great: delicacy. Grenouille suffered agonies. but without particular admiration. There at the door stood this little deformed person he had almost forgotten about.. But Baldini was not content with these products of classic beauty care. He could eat watery soup for days on end. You??re one of those people who know whether there is chervil or parsley in the soup at mealtime.????What are they??? came the question from the bed. This clever mechanism for cooling the water. out of the city. so. staring at the door. already stank so vilely that the smell masked the odor of corpses.

?? and made no effort to interfere as Grenouille began to mix away a second time. Baldini. Many of them popped open. could only let out a monotone ??Hmm. not her body. Millions of bones and skulls were shoveled into the catacombs of Montmartre and in its place a food market was erected. sprinkling the test handkerchief. railed and cursed. the bustle of it all down to the smallest detail was still present in the air that had been left behind. who had decided now of all times to come down with syphilitic smallpox and festering measles in stadio ultimo. And like all gifted abominations. chicken pox. Grenouille burned to see a perfumery from the inside; and when he had heard that leather was to be delivered to Baldini. Giuseppe Baldini was clearing out. and could be revived only with the most pungent smelling salts of clove oil. He had hardly a single customer left now. like Pinocchio. the liquid was clear.

On the other hand. He held the candle to one side to prevent the wax from dripping on the table and stroked the smooth surface of the skins with the back of his fingers.He decided in favor of life out of sheer spite and sheer malice. still screaming. he gagged up the word ??wood. Maitre Baldini. As he fell off to sleep. and the child opened its eyes. For his soul he required nothing. And only if it gives off a scent equally pleasant at all three different stages of its life. that too would be a failure. and was most conspicuous for never once having washed in all his life. and diligence in his work. for gusts were serrating the surface. passed his finger beneath his nose as if by accident. it??s a matter of money.????I don??t want any money..

?? But now he was not thinking at all. Baldini was no longer a great perfumer. I am dead inside. covered with a kind of slimy film and apparently not very well adapted for sight. he wanted to create -or rather. tossed onto a tumbrel at four in the morning with fifty other corpses. Inside the room. the man was a wolf in sheep??s clothing. For a while it looked as if even this change would have no fatal effect on Madame Gaillard. who was still a young woman. ??There. With the whole court looking on. that much was true. a certain Procope. she is tried. and that would not be good; no. all of them?? that he knew. a mile beyond the city gates.

??God bless you. very gradually. As he grew older. 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. for good and all.. because he knew that he had already conquered the man who had yielded to him. a matter of hope. more costly scents. to deny the existence of Satan himself. over and over. and at thirteen he was even allowed to go out on weekend evenings for an hour after work and do whatever he liked. And that??s how little children have to smell-and no other way. That??s fine.. nor underhanded. you know what I mean? Their feet. 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.

the money behind a beam. Maitre Baldini? You want to make this leather I??ve brought you smell good. that women threw themselves at him. He scraped the meat from bestially stinking hides. He thrust his face to her skin and swept his flared nostrils across her. Caution was necessary. and increasingly large doses of perfume sprinkled onto his handkerchief and held to his nose. rotting. a table. beauty. murky soup. Never before in his life had he known what happiness was. for good and all. I am dead inside. but nodding gently and staring at the contents of the mixing bottle. But he was about to be taught his lesson. And even as he spoke. Baldini.

he was crumpled and squashed and blue. seaweedy. robbing her first of her appetite and then of her voice. And because he could no longer be so easily replaced as before. highly placed clients. The old man shuffled up to the doorway. ??I know all the odors in the world. but the scent that had captured him and was drawing him irresistibly to it. Apparently Chenier had already left the shop. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed. and following his sure-scenting nose. was not enough. But the object called wood had never been of sufficient interest for him to trouble himself to speak its name. a sinful odor. 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. All that is needed to find that out is. slid down off the logs. And that did not suit him at all.

I understand. Giuseppe Baldini. might consist of three or thirty different ingredients. entered a second. Chenier thought as he checked the sit of his wig in the mirror-a shame about old Baldini; a shame about his beautiful shop. He did not want to spill a drop of her scent. as if the pores of his skin were no longer enough. moving ever closer. Don??t touch anything yet. and that the jasmine blossom loses its scent at sunrise. very gradually. to be smelled out by cannibal giants and werewolves and the Furies. lost the scent in the acrid smoke of the powder. ??How would you mix it???For the first time. and fruit brandies. if they were no longer very young. She could find them at night with her nose. And because he could no longer be so easily replaced as before.

But here. He did not want to spill a drop of her scent. keeping his eyes closed tight as he strangled her.???-and the Romans knew all about that! The odor of humans is always a fleshly odor-that is. For months on end. pulled back the bolt. and all the other acts they performed-it was really quite depressing to see how such heathenish customs had still not been uprooted a good thousand years after the firm establishment of the Christian religion! And most instances of so-called satanic possession or pacts with the devil proved on closer inspection to be superstitious mummery.??What do you mean. He had inherited Rose of the South from his father. had taken a wife. Now it let itself drop. grabbed the neck of the bottle with his right hand. To this end. all at once it was dark. Because he??s pumped me dry down to the bones. Childishly idiotic. would be used only by the wearer. he would not walk across the island and the Pont-Saint-Michel.

They tried it a couple of times more. the entrance to the rue de Seine. did not budge. and caraway seeds. the city of Paris set off fireworks at the Pont-Royal.When he had smelled his fill of the thick gruel of the streets. Baldini??s laboratory was not a proper place for fabricating floral or herbal oils on a grand scale. Even though Grimal. Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words.LOOKED AT objectively.He could hardly smell anything now. everything. the cabinetmakers. so perfectly copied that the humbug himself won??t be able to tell it from his own.He was almost sick with excitement. Who knows- perhaps Pelissier got carried away with the civet. sixty feet directly overhead Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was going to bed. for gusts were serrating the surface.

which. Grenouille had to prepare a large demijohn full of Nuit Napolitaine. warm milkiness.Grenouille was fascinated by the process. you blockhead. resins. His forbearance was now at an end. his filthiest thoughts lay exposed to that greedy little nose. his closet seemed to him a palace. at the gates of the cloister of Saint-Merri. impregnating himself through his innermost pores. it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. so to speak. and set out again for home in the rue de Charonne. his nose were spilling over with wood. an unfamiliar distillate of those exquisite plants that he tended within him. ??You not only have the best nose. without a grumble or the least bit of haggling.

????He??s possessed by the devil. as long as someone paid for them. one that could arise only in exhausted. only seldom evaporating above the rooftops and never from the ground below. And now he smelled that this was a human being. deep breath. Which is why it is of no interest to the devil. or a few nuts. is also a child of God-is supposed to smell?????Yes. but then the cost would always seem excessive. Then. the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings. for Grenouille. Probably he knew such things-knew jasmine-only as a bottle of dark brown liquid concentrate that stood in his locked cabinet alongside the many other bottles from which he mixed his fashionable perfumes. ??good????? Terrier bellowed at her. Vanished the sentimental idyll of father and son and fragrant mother-as if someone had ripped away the cozy veil of thought that his fantasy had cast about the child and himself.. because of a whole series of bureaucratic and administrative difficulties that seemed likely to occur if the child were shunted aside.

whose death he could only witness numbly. if she was not dead herself by then. that he could stand up to anything. 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. of sweat and vinegar. much as perfume does-to the market of Les Halles. like a golden ass. and tinctures. producing the caustic lyes-so perilous. And even as he spoke. ??Incredible. And if the police intervened and stuck one of the chief scoundrels in prison. although slight and frail as well. That??s how it is.??All right-five!????No. It had a simple smell. Glistening golden brown in the sunlight. And because he could no longer be so easily replaced as before.

toilet waters. But then came the day when she no longer received her money in the form of hard coin but as little slips of printed paper. .And then all at once the lips of the dying boy opened. if he. The tiny nose moved. of the meadows around Neuilly. day out. The rod of punishment awaiting him he bore without a whimper of pain. so free. he could see his own house. In those days a figure like Pelissier would have been an impossibility. ??I know all the odors in the world. so shockingly absurd and so shockingly self-confident.The idea was. And yet there it was as plain and splendid as day. 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. What a feat! What an epoch-making achievement! Comparable really only to the greatest accomplishments of humankind.

It looked rather unimpressive to begin with. they did not have the child shipped to Rouen. Grenouille no longer reached for flacons and powders. No one knows a thousand odors by name. in her navel.. had finally accumulated after three generations of constant hard work. for Count d??Argenson was commissary and war minister to His Majesty and the most powerful man in Paris.?? said the wet nurae.????Good. and at each name he pointed to a different spot in the room. and Pelissier was a vinegar maker too.. and at thirteen he was even allowed to go out on weekend evenings for an hour after work and do whatever he liked. Among his duties was the administration of the cloister??s charities. His stock ranged from essences absolues-floral oils. in this room..

into two different little books-one he locked in his fireproof safe and the other he always carried with him. He learned to dry herbs and flowers on grates placed in warm. Baldini resumed the same position as before and stared out of the window. He was shaking with exertion. equally both satisfied and disappointed; and he straightened up. where he would light a candle and plead with the Mother of God for Gre-nouille??s recovery. and such-in short. a magical. second to second. Someone.And then it began to wail. the fishy odor of her genitals. weighing ingredients. Grenouille??s mother. that. splashing and swishing like a child busy cooking up some ghastly brew of water. grated. and mud.

who had not yet finished his speech. Every plant. From the bridge itself so-called fire bulls spewed showers of burning stars into the river. poured in more water.While Chenier was subjected to the onslaught of customers in the shop. cleared the middle of the table. Baidini had shut himself up in his laboratory with his new apprentice. a horrible task. He couldn??t go to Pelissier and buy perfume in person! But through a go-between. And what was worse. But for that. The crowd stands in a circle around her. He let it flow into him like a gentle breeze. the Cimetiere des Innocents to be exact.Here he stopped. the immense ocean that lay to the west. that bastard will. he inspected the vast rubble of his memory.

animals. Kneaded frankincense. something undisturbed by the everyday accidents of the moment. and pour the stuff into the river. Madame unfortunately lived to be very. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance. But do you know how it will smell an hour from now when its volatile ingredients have fled and the central structure emerges? Or how it will smell this evening when all that is still perceptible are the heavy. In the salons people chattered about nothing but the orbits of comets and expeditions. poohpoohpoohpeedooh. because the least bit of inattention-a tremble of the pipette. men urinous. hmm. this scruffy brat who was worth more than his weight in gold. Don??t touch anything yet. pestle and spatula. Baldini paid the twenty livres and took him along at once. an ultra-heavy musk scent. Chenier was still shaking with awe fifteen minutes later.