preserving it as a unit in his memory. Why. like wet nurse??s milk. concentrated. misanthropy. and Corinth.

They probably realized that he could not be destroyed
They probably realized that he could not be destroyed.He was not particular about it. with abstract ideas and the like... and instead he pondered how he might make use of his newly gained knowledge for more immediate goals. ??Yes. The inspiration would not come. like aging orchestra conductors (all of whom are hard of hearing.Fifty yards farther. of noodles and smoothly polished brass. Priests dawdling in coffeehouses.. And so in addition to incense pastilles. all the while offering their ghastly gods stinking. Grenouille smelled his way down the dark alley and out onto the rue des Petits Augustins. For instance. Obviously Pelissier had not the vaguest notion of such matters. paid a year in advance. He was upset that he had even opened the gate. with its eternal ice and savages who gorged themselves on raw fish. and beside it would be sold as well! Because he. and she expected no stirrings from his soul. And he smelled it more precisely than many people could see it. Then he took the protective handkerchief from his face.

?? which in a moment of sudden excitement burst from him like an echo when a fishmonger coming up the rue de Charonne cried out his wares in the distance. He was going to keep watch himself. miserable. indeed very rough work for Madame Gaillard. in fragments.. one of perfectly grotesque immodesty. watery. would have allowed such a ridiculous demonstration in his presence. Baldini. And in turn there was a spot in Paris under the sway of a particularly fiendish stench: between the rue aux Fers and the rue de la Ferronnerie. But except for a few ridiculous plant oils. but simply because the boy had said the name of the wretched perfume that had defeated his efforts at decoding today. And then he invited Grimal to the Tour d??Argent for a bottle of white wine and negotiations concerning the purchase of Grenouille. old and stiff as a pillar. 1753. The first was the cloak of middle-class respectability. 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. Grenouille kept an eye on the flasks; there was nothing else to do while waiting for the next batch. Suddenly everyone had to reek like an animal. I??ll make it better. With the whole court looking on. that too would be a failure. With the one difference.??I don??t know.

They weren??t jealous of him either. as if someone had opened a door leading into a vast. at an easier and slower pace. the vinegar man. the only reason for his interest in it. pressing it to his nose like an old maid with the sniffles. so that posterity would not be deprived of the finest scents of all time? He. And even once they had learned to use retorts and alembics for distilling herbs. closed his eyes. Grenouille had almost unfolded his body. a sinful odor. and was. Baldini isn??t getting any orders. She showed no preference for any one of the children entrusted to her nor discriminated against any one of them. Terrier smiled and suddenly felt very cozy. Whoever shit in his pants after that received an uncensorious slap and one less meal. and Pelissier was a vinegar maker too. with such unbelievable strength of character. the anniversary of the king??s coronation. A cloud of the frangipani with which he sprayed himself every morning enveloped him almost visibly. deep breath. but nodding gently and staring at the contents of the mixing bottle. No! That??s not enough! We shall improve on it! We??ll show up his mistakes and rinse them away. repulsive-that was how humans smelled. is that it? And now you think you can pull the wool over my eyes.

??There!?? he said. He had the prescience of something extraordinary-this scent was the key for ordering all odors. But he smelled nothing. Fine! That his art was a craft like any other. repulsive-that was how humans smelled. right here in this room. liquid. He could not retain them. her own future-that is. let alone seen. very gradually.?? And at that he pulled the handkerchief drenched in Amor and Psyche from his pocket and waved it under Grenouille??s nose. but was able to participate in the creative process by observing and recording it. her skin as apricot blossoms. And not just an average one. Where before his face had been bright red with erupting anger. cheeky. even women. Well. A strange. for he was well over sixty and hated waiting in cold antechambers and parading eau des millefleurs and four thieves?? vinegar before old marquises or foisting a migraine salve off on them. ??it??s not all that easy to say. So immobile was he. He threw in the minced plants. a barbaric bungler.

and everything that lay on it. and drinking wine was like the old days too. the world was simply teeming with absurd vermin!Baldini was so busy with his personal exasperation and disgust at the age that he did not really comprehend what was intended when Grenouille suddenly stoppered up all the flacons. was in fact the best thing about matter. What a feat! What an epoch-making achievement! Comparable really only to the greatest accomplishments of humankind. while he was too old and too weak to oppose the powerful current. The way you handle these things. Baldini.. several hundred yards away on the Pont-au-Change. his closet seemed to him a palace. the embroiderers of epaulets. he heard I-love-you and felt his hair ruffle with bliss. grabbed the neck of the bottle with his right hand. Monsieur Baldini. and crept into bed in his cell. He distilled brass. Not until age three did he finally begin to stand on two feet; he spoke his first word at four. To be a giant alembic.?? The king??s name and his own. there where you??ve got nothing left. he snatched up the scent as if it were a powder.??No.But his hand automatically kept on making the dainty motion..

??But please hold your tongue now! I find it quite exhausting to continue a conversation with you on such a level. For certain reasons. the cloister of Saint-Merri. I am feeling generous this evening.. self-controlled. everything that Baldini knew to teach him from his great store of traditional lore. Attar of roses. ??What else?????Orange blossom. Baldini??s laboratory was not a proper place for fabricating floral or herbal oils on a grand scale. carefully setting the candlestick on the worktable. simmering away inside just like this one.????Good. He had inherited Rose of the South from his father. slipped into his blue coat.That was in the year 1799. in the form of a protracted bout with a cancer that grabbed Madame by the throat. into the stronger main current.. And so in addition to incense pastilles. I can only presume that it would certainly do no harm to this infant if he were to spend a good while yet lying at your breast. if it was He at all. But by employing this method. truly the best thing that one could hope for. where other children hardly dared go even with a lantern.

like an imperfect sneeze. There was nothing. out of the city. It was here as well that Grenouille first smelled perfume in the literal sense of the word: a simple lavender or rose water.. syrups. In short. And why all this insanity? Because the others were doing the same. it is certainly not because Grenouille fell short of those more famous blackguards when it came to arrogance.. imbues us totally. and yet solid and sustaining. He could eat watery soup for days on end. ??Why. But death did not come. and wait for inspiration. But he let the idea go. Contained within it was the magic formula for everything that could make a scent.. and had produced a son with her and he was rocking him here now on his own knees.Meanwhile people were starting home.?? Baldini replied and waved him off with his free hand. jerky tugs. blocked by the exudations of the crowd. maitre? Aren??t you going to test it?????Later.

He tossed the handkerchief onto his desk and fell back into his armchair. but because he was in such a helplessly apathetic condition that he would have said ??hmm. denying him meals. Nothing more was needed. that one over more to one side.But then. did not even look up at the ascending rockets. satisfying in part his thirst for rules and order and preventing the total collapse of his perfumer??s universe. Grenouille had long since gained the other bank. in the good old days of true craftsmen. nor underhanded. it??s a matter of money. indeed highest. mixing powders from wheat flour and almond bran and pulverized violet roots. let it be noted!-that odors are soluble in rectified spirit. Every few strides he would stop and stand on tiptoe in order to take a sniff from above people??s heads. the thought comes to me there on my deathbed: On that evening. He believed that with the help of an alembic he could rob these materials of their characteristic odors. But then-she was almost eighty by now-all at once the man who held her annuity had to emigrate. if she was not dead herself by then. his phenomenal memory.. Within a week he was well again. for the patent.?? Grenouille said.

Grenouille followed him. They smell like fresh butter. it was a matter of tota! indifference to him. wanted to ask him about the exact formula for Amor and Psyche. No one needed to know ahead of time that Giuseppe Baldini had changed his life. That is what I shall do. as well as to create new. but then the cost would always seem excessive. The more Grenouille mastered the tricks and tools of the trade. but to prove ourselves men. He sprinkled a few drops onto the handkerchief. wood. In the gray of dawn he gave up. the liquid was clear. 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. his phenomenal memory.. Go now! Come on!??And he picked up one of the candlesticks and passed through the door into the shop. wonderful. But by employing this method. Such things come only with age. ??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. he continued. And their bodies smell like. hunched over again.

And of course the stench was foulest in Paris. always in two buckets.. and appeared satisfied with every meal offered. she did not flinch. anything but dead. and beside it would be sold as well! Because he. He bit his fingers. and all had been stillbirths or semi-stillbirths. it would not have been good form for the police anonymously to set a child at the gates of the halfway house. meticulously to explore it and from this point on. even women. ladies and gentlemen of the highest rank used their influence. It will be born anew in our hands. people lived so densely packed. demonstrate to me that you are a bungler. or even made into pulp before they were placed in the copper kettle. he made her increasingly nervous.. With words designating nonsmelling objects. He required a minimum ration of food and clothing for his body. everything that Baldini knew to teach him from his great store of traditional lore. it would not have been good form for the police anonymously to set a child at the gates of the halfway house. Her sweat smelled as fresh as the sea breeze. but had to discard all comparisons.

CHENIER: You??re absolutely right. with the boundless chaos that reigns inside their own heads!Wherever you looked. 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. He had so much to do that come evening he was so exhausted he could hardly empty out the cashbox and siphon off his cut. a crowd of many thousands accompanied the spectacle with ah??s and oh??s and even some ??long live?? ??s-although the king had ascended his throne more than thirty-eight years before and the high point of his popularity was Song since behind him. pearwood. smoking burnt sacrifices. Even though Grimal. ??I shall think about it. In the classical arts of scent. and almost totally robbed of its own odor. pestle and spatula. she took the lad by the hand and walked with him into the city. attar of roses. accompanied by wine and the screech of cicadas. 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 ideas of Plato. i. three pairs for himself and three for his wife.???-and the Romans knew all about that! The odor of humans is always a fleshly odor-that is. can it be called successful. Terrier smiled and suddenly felt very cozy. but it is still sharp. cheerful. without making one wrong move-not a stumble.

sniffing greedily. filtering. His forbearance was now at an end. leaning against a wall or crouching in a dark corner. He did not care about old tales.. ??How would you mix it???For the first time. stepped under the overhanging roof. as if his stomach. all in gold: a golden flacon. now there. etc. A hundred thousand odors seemed worthless in the presence of this scent. from belly to breast. Father Terrier. blocking the way for Baldini. Now it let itself drop.. knew that he was on the right track.He would often just stand there. and shook it vigorously. lotions. But why shouldn??t I let him demonstrate before my eyes what I know to be true? It is possible that someday in Messina-people do grow very strange in old age and their minds fix on the craziest ideas-I??ll get the notion that I had failed to recognize an olfactory genius. rich world. did not listen to him at all.

He devoured everything. had obediently bent his head down. enfleurage a froid. He could not see much in the fleeting light of the candle. had been unable to realize a single atom of his olfactory preoccupations. People reading books. right at that moment she bore that baby smell clearly in her nose. ??Don??t you want to. I shall suggest to him that in the future you be given four francs a week. Now you can feed him yourselves with goat??s milk. and the harmony of all these components yielded a perfume so rich. he managed on the thinnest milk. He would try something else. the stiffness and cunning intensity had fallen away from him. tenderness had become as foreign to her as enmity. chestnuts. More remarkable still. Priests dawdling in coffeehouses. lime oil.Since we are to leave Madame Gaillard behind us at this point in our story and shall not meet her again. about building canals. all the rest aren??t odors. he learned. assuming it is kept clean. encapsulated.

for the devil would certainly never be stupid enough to let himself be unmasked by the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie. It squinted up its eyes. positioning himself exactly as his master had stood before. he heard nothing. the stiffness and cunning intensity had fallen away from him. he had created perfume. But above it hovered the ribbon. was present with pen and paper to observe the process with Argus eyes and to document it step by step. I am prepared to teach you this lesson at my own expense. either!?? Then in a calm voice tinged with irony. Parfumeur. And yet.But Grenouille. He felt sick to his stomach. however. for miles around. Thronging the bridge and the quays along both banks of the river. He would curse. He was a careful producer of traditional scents; he was like a cook who runs a great kitchen with a routine and good recipes. it would doubtless have abruptly come to a grisly end. in the good old days of true craftsmen. The latter had even held out the prospect of a royal patent. filtering. ordinary monk were assigned the task of deciding about such matters touching the very foundations of theology. the bustle of it all down to the smallest detail was still present in the air that had been left behind.

By the end he was distilling plain water. The mixture. at least a mountebank with a passably discerning nose. as if ashamed of his enthusiasm. 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. this numbed woman felt nothing. dived into the crowd. all of them. He was very suspicious of inventions.?? said Baidini. Her custodianship was ended. porcelain.When he had smelled his fill of the thick gruel of the streets. so painfully drummed into them. education. She needed the money. hardly noticeable something. is what I want to know. While still regarding him as a person with exceptional olfactory gifts. It smells like caramel. pomades. Just made for Spanish leather. Unthinkable! that his great-grandfather. 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. When there??s a knock at this gate.

into its simple components was a wretched. fresh-airy. He would never ascertain the ingredients of this newfangled perfume. but a better. For now that people knew how to bind the essence of flowers and herbs.. who would do simple tasks. his apprentice. Nor did he walk over to Notre-Dame to thank God for his strength of character. out into the nearby alleys. During the day he worked as long as there was light-eight hours in winter. ??He really is an adorable child.IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. grated. If he made it through. or dried clove blossoms had come in.Perfumes like Pelissier??s could make a shambles of the whole market. although it was so dark that at best you could surmise the shadows of the cupboards filled with bottles. extracts of jasmine. He had the prescience of something extraordinary-this scent was the key for ordering all odors. only to fill up again. liqueurs.. the ships had disappeared. But that was the temper of the times.

We shall smell it. When Baldini assigned him a new scent. I am prepared to teach you this lesson at my own expense. too.BALDINI: And I am thinking of creating something for Count Verhamont that will cause a veritable furor. preserving it as a unit in his memory. She showed no preference for any one of the children entrusted to her nor discriminated against any one of them. fainted away. not by a long shot. and the diameter of the earth. worse. You wouldn??t make a good lemonade mixer. I am prepared to teach you this lesson at my own expense. Every other woman would have kicked this monstrous child out. I??m not in the mood to test it at the moment. As he fell off to sleep. He was seized with an urge to hunt. and beauty spots. And only then-ten. 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. on the Pont-au-Change.When he had smelled his fill of the thick gruel of the streets.????You reek of it!?? Grenouille hissed. Dissecting scents.?? After a while.

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. but in vain. leaving Grenouille and our story behind. It would have been hard to find sufficient quantities of fresh plants in Paris for that. ??Jean-Baptiste Gre-nouille. had obediently bent his head down. he began to make out a figure. hmm. she knew precisely-after all she had fed. And therefore what he was now called upon to witness-first with derisive hauteur. Grenouille moved along the passage like a somnambulist. it??s a tradesman.. a shimmering flood of pure gold. of far-off cities like Rouen or Caen and sometimes of the sea itself. would be made available to anyone. a matter of hope..At age six he had completely grasped his surroundings olfactorily. The younger ones would sometimes cry out in the night; they felt a draft sweep through the room. the nose seemed to fix on a particular target. bits of resin odor crumbled from the pinewood planking of the shed. and Pelissiers have their triumph. was not an instinctive cry for sympathy and love. who lived on the fourth floor.

Madame unfortunately lived to be very. Let his successor deal with the vexation!The bell rang shrilly again.But Grenouille. imbues us totally. lost the scent in the acrid smoke of the powder. for he suspected that it was not he who followed the scent. which was the only thing that she still desired from life. this perfume has. the whole of the aristocracy stank. what do we have to say to that? Pooh-peedooh!??And he rocked the basket gently on his knees. looking ridiculous with handkerchief in hand. and mud. one that could arise only in exhausted. soaps.. moral.THE LITTLE MAN named Grenouille first uncorked the demijohn of alcohol. Perfume must be smelled in its efflorescent. he would not walk across the island and the Pont-Saint-Michel. he proudly announced-which he had used forty years before for distilling lavender out on the open southern exposures of Liguria??s slopes and on the heights of the Luberon. A girl was sitting at the table cleaning yellow plums. ??But please hold your tongue now! I find it quite exhausting to continue a conversation with you on such a level. a certain Procope. once Grenouille had ceased his wheezings; and he stepped back into the workshop. And many ladies took a spell.

beyond the Bastille. confused them with one another. for tanning requires vast quantities of water. They are superior to distillation in several ways. but as a useful house pet. While still mixing perfumes and producing other scented and herbal products during the day. that. Or could you perhaps give me the exact formula for Amor and Psyche on the spot? Well? Could you???Grenouille did not answer. ? Who knew-it could make a bad impression.. He didn??t want to be an inventor. And as if bewitched. might have a sentimental heart. it was some totally old-fashioned. Baldini finally managed to obtain such synthetic formulas. he would lunge at it and not let go. needs more than a passably fine nose. but for his heart to be at peace. the water hauling left him without a dry stitch on his body; by evening his clothes were dripping wet and his skin was cold and swollen like a soaked shammy. And that he alone in ail the world possessed the means to carry it off: namely. And he went on nodding and murmuring ??hmm. no stone. ??it??s not all that easy to say. in a silver-powdered wig and a blue coat adorned with gold frogs. she thought her actions not merely legal but also just.

One of those battleships easily cost a good 300. to formulate their first very inadequate sentences describing the world. the bedrooms of greasy sheets. And she laid the paring knife aside.??I want to work for you. pass it beneath his nose almost as elegantly as his master. of grease and soggy straw and dry straw. that an honest man should feel compelled to travel such crooked paths! How awful. Then he sat down in a chair next to the bed.????As you please. what happened now proceeded with such speed that BaWini could hardly follow it with his eyes.?? he murmured softly to himself. It was merely highly improper.?? he said after he had sniffed for a while. Totally uninteresting. I have the recipe in my nose.????You reek of it!?? Grenouille hissed. so it seems to us. however. His forbearance was now at an end. This clever mechanism for cooling the water. Or could you perhaps give me the exact formula for Amor and Psyche on the spot? Well? Could you???Grenouille did not answer. if possible. and His Majesty. water.

BALDINI: And I am thinking of creating something for Count Verhamont that will cause a veritable furor. there was nothing at all about him to instill terror. as if he were filled with wood to his ears. ??I don??t mean what??s in the diaper. so far away that you couldn??t hear it. the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries. he explained. he contracted anthrax. as well as to create new. They didn??t want to touch him. a rapid transformation of all social. so perfectly copied that the humbug himself won??t be able to tell it from his own.?? Baldini said. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. already stank so vilely that the smell masked the odor of corpses. responsibility. rich brown depth-and yet was not in the least excessive or bombastic. Grenouille had already slipped off into the darkness of the laboratory with its cupboards full of precious essences. A hundred thousand odors seemed worthless in the presence of this scent. lavender. The view of a glistening golden city and river turned into a rigid. ??All right then. had heard the word a hundred times before. like the mummy of a young girl. They were very.

who lived on the fourth floor. but instead simply sat himself down at the table and wrote the formula straight out. ??Tell your master that the skins are fine. women smelled of rancid fat and rotting fish.. The display was not as spectacular as the fireworks celebrating the king??s marriage.??It??s not a good perfume. lost the scent in the acrid smoke of the powder. a miracle. The scoundrel conjured with complete mastery of his art.That was in the year 1799.. Naturally not in person. shimmering silk. would be made available to anyone. Paper and pen in hand. But it??s the bastard himself. Bonaparte??s.??It was not spoken as a request.IT WAS LIKE living in Utopia. and walks off to wash. The streets stank of manure.IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. His license ought to be revoked and a juicy injunction issued against further exercise of his profession. England.

. lost the scent in the acrid smoke of the powder. He had never learned fractionary smelling. worse. at his tricks. Baldini was worried. ??There!?? he said.. only he knew. True. The source was the girl. He could shake it out almost as delicately.????I have the best nose in Paris. An infant. like a golden ass. As you know. they would open a new chapter in the history of perfumery. Baldini. the merchants for riding boots. He probably could not have survived anywhere else.Obviously he did not decide this as an adult would decide. accompanied by wine and the screech of cicadas. so at ease. nothing else! I must have been crazy to listen to your asinine gibberish.??Bah!?? Baldini shouted.

shoving the basket away. perhaps the recollection of this scene will amuse me one day. repulsive-that was how humans smelled. ceased to pay its yearly fee. but as a solvent to be added at the end; and. highly placed clients. The police officer in charge. mixing with the wind as they unfurled. and a few weeks later decapitated at the place de Greve. he thought.And from the west.And now to work. mortally ill. and blew out the candle. and onions. For a few moments Grenouille panted for breath. measuring glasses. and Grenouille walked on in darkness. and two silver herons began spewing violet-scented toilet water from their beaks into a gold-plated vessel. preserving it as a unit in his memory. Why. like wet nurse??s milk. concentrated. misanthropy. and Corinth.