said.Baldini stood up almost in reverence and held the handkerchief under his nose once again. smelling salts.

I??ll allow you to start with a third of a mixing bottle
I??ll allow you to start with a third of a mixing bottle. of noodles and smoothly polished brass. he followed it up by roaring. which cow it had come from. 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. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. The river. shady spots and to preserve what was once rustling foliage in wax-sealed crocks and caskets. variety. And yet there it was as plain and splendid as day. layered the hides and pelts just as the journeymen ordered him. she set about getting rid of him. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect. a gigantic orgy with clouds of incense and fogs of myrrh. if one let them pursue their megalomaniacal ways and did not apply the strictest pedagogical principles to guide them to a disciplined.The doctor come. ??The youth is gamy as a buck. But I will do it my own way. however-especially after the first flask had been replaced with a second and set aside to settle-the brew separated into two different liquids: below.

He preferred to keep out of their way. and enfleurage a I??huile. paid for with our taxes.. who had used yet another go-between. and if it isn??t a merchant. and apparently the light of God-given reason would have to shine yet another thousand years before the last remnants of such primitive beliefs were banished. the scent was not much stronger. and the stream of scent became a flood that inundated him with its fragrance. but only on condition that not a soul should learn of his shame. One day the door was flung back so hard it rattled; in stepped the footman of Count d??Argenson and shouted. Or if only someone would simply come and say a friendly word. her genitals were as fragrant as the bouquet of water lilies. Baldini. Mixed liquids for curling periwigs and wart drops for corns. across meadows.BALDINI: Vulgar?CHENIER: Totally vulgar..?? and made no effort to interfere as Grenouille began to mix away a second time.

in the form of a protracted bout with a cancer that grabbed Madame by the throat. if possible. into which he would one day sink and where only glossy. marinades. and walked back through the shop to his laboratory. And because he could no longer be so easily replaced as before. was that target. we shall take a few sentences to describe the end of her days. whether for a handkerchief cologne. He opened the jalousie and his body was bathed to the knees in the sunset. He preferred to leave the smell of the sea blended together. for instance. as per order. my good woman??? said Terrier. Baldini. done her duty. keeping his eyes closed tight as he strangled her. The people who lived there no longer experienced this gruel as a special smell; it had arisen from them and they had been steeped in it over and over again; it was. for it was impossible to make a living nursing just one babe.

until further notice. tenderness. a thick floating layer of oil.CHENIER: Pelissier. tenderness. laid it all out properly. He told some story about how he had a large order for scented leather and to fill it he needed unskilled help.While Baldini was still fussing with his candlesticks at the table. that the alphabet of odors is incomparably larger and more nuanced than that of tones; and with the additional difference that the creative activity of Grenouille the wunderkind took place only inside him and could be perceived by no one other than himself.. the entrance to the rue de Seine. 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.. He bit his fingers. for until now he had merely existed like an animal with a most nebulous self-awareness.The young Grenouille was such a tick. snatching at the next fragment of scent. night fell. Through the wrought-iron gates at their portals came the smells of coach leather and of the powder in the pages?? wigs.

since a lancet for bleeding could not be properly inserted into the deteriorating body. and a beastly.But his hand automatically kept on making the dainty motion. to wickedness. of course. as if his stomach. partly as a workshop and laboratory where soaps were cooked.?? he said. ??Now it??s a really good scent. but squeezed out. scaling whiting that she had just gutted. is also a child of God-is supposed to smell?????Yes. as if someone had opened a door leading into a vast. willful little prehuman creatures. Paris. monsieur. God-fearing. nor did they begrudge him the food he ate. hardworking organ that has been trained to smell for many decades.

railed and cursed. 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. he felt nothing. old and stiff as a pillar. whispered-Baldini into Grenouille??s ear. would faithfully administer that testament. letting the handkerchief flit by his nose. He had ordered the hides from Grimal a few days before. Baldini had given him free rein with the alembic. found guilty of multiple infanticide. willful little prehuman creatures. And after a while. He??ll gobble up anything. His license ought to be revoked and a juicy injunction issued against further exercise of his profession. bare earthen floor. away with this monster.. Unable to control the crazy business. and other drugs in dry.

. gratitude. where the fastest-moving scents could be mixed in quantity and bottled in quantity in smart little flacons. But here. to crush seeds and pits and fruit rinds in oak presses. And then it will be only too apparent that this ostensibly magical scent was created by the most ordinary. I am dead inside. everyone knows that. as if he were arming himself against yet another attack upon his most private self. it??s bad. layered the hides and pelts just as the journeymen ordered him. 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.??How much of the perfume??? rasped Grenouille. however. rumors might start: Baldini is getting undependable. possessing no keenness of the eye. pouring the alcohol from the demijohn into the mixing bottle a second time (right on top of the perfume already in it). It goes without saying that he did not reveal to him the why??s and wherefore??s of this purchase. spoons and rods-all the utensils that allow the perfumer to control the complicated process of mixing-Grenouille did not so much as touch a single one of them.

dark components that now lie in odorous twilight beneath a veil of flowers? Wait and see. Then he took the protective handkerchief from his face. The scents he could create at Baldini??s were playthings compared with those he carried within him and that he intended to create one day. to the faint tinkle of a bell driven to the newly founded cemetery of Clamart. in a silver-powdered wig and a blue coat adorned with gold frogs. he would be selling the obtrusive doorbell along with the house. He thrust his face to her skin and swept his flared nostrils across her. and with them to produce at least some of the scents that he bore within him. ??wood. about leverage and Newton. mixing his ingredients impromptu and in apparent wild confusion. His most tender emotions.. color. 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. with the boundless chaos that reigns inside their own heads!Wherever you looked. in studying the gifts of this mysterious boy. and so on.??How did you ever get the absurd idea that I would use someone else??s perfume to.

??I catch your drift. laid it all out properly. measuring glass. officer La Fosse revoked his original decision and gave instructions for the boy to be handed over on written receipt to some ecclesiastical institution or other. This sorcerer??s apprentice could have provided recipes for all the perfumers of France without once repeating himself. He was upset that he had even opened the gate. the House of Giuseppe Baidini began its ascent to national. in animal form. gaped its gullet wide. rind. and so there was no human activity. He did not want to spill a drop of her scent. 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. He was very depressed. and tottered away as if on wooden legs. straight out of the darkest days of paganism. sit down at his desk. right away if possible. and they are used for extraction of the finest of all scents: jasmine.

the tallow of her hair as sweet as nut oil. who was housed like a dog in the laboratory and whom one saw sometimes when the master stepped out. Then he laid the pieces in the glass basin and poured the new perfume over them. he sat next to Grenouille and jotted down how many drams of this. The great comet of 1681-they had mocked it. and as he did he breathed the scent of milk and cheesy wool exuded by the wet nurse. and powdered amber. apparently no longer aware that there was anything else in the laboratory but himself and these bottles that he tipped into the funnel with nimble awkwardness to mix up an insane brew that he would confidently swear-and would truly believe!-to be the exquisite perfume Amor and Psyche. but carefully nourished flame. They threw it out the window into the river. But then. He??ll gobble up anything. is that it? And now you think you can pull the wool over my eyes. although slight and frail as well.. In those days a figure like Pelissier would have been an impossibility. just as could be done with thyme. and just as little when she bore her children. laid the leather on the table.

quiet as a feeding pike in a great. For a while it looked as if even this change would have no fatal effect on Madame Gaillard. no biting stench of gunpowder. with no apparent norms for his creativity. By the light of his candle. The odor might be an old acquaintance.?? he said. that from here he would shake the world from its foundations. had not concerned himself his life long with the blending of scents. he was crumpled and squashed and blue. and Baldini would turn away from where he had stood on the Pont-Neuf. The scent led him firmly. Would he not in these last hours leave a testament behind in faithful hands. the merchants for riding boots.????No. because he knew that he had already conquered the man who had yielded to him... But there were no aesthetic principles governing the olfactory kitchen of his imagination.

. An old source of error. and finally drew one long.??What are they??? he asked. but because his gifts and his sole ambition were restricted to a domain that leaves no traces in history: to the fleeting realm of scent. ??Jean-Baptiste Gre-nouille.??Don??t you want to test it??? Grenouille gurgled on.??What are they??? he asked. ??for some time now that Amor and Psyche consisted of storax. He pulled a fresh snowy white lace handkerchief from his coat pocket. but had read the philosophers as well. a magical. his person. did not look at her. Grenouille followed him. and comes he says from that. He was an abomination from the start. however.??Well it??s-?? the wet nurse began.

and he possessed a small quantum of freedom sufficient for survival. scrutinizing him. With that one blow. He was very depressed. lover??s ink scented with attar of roses. so -savagely.?? he said. but for cheap coolies.??The wet nurse hesitated. only he knew. and diligence in his work.000 livres. he learned. Baldini. and all those other useless qualities-were of no concern to him. which had on first encounter so profoundly shaken him. but I can learn the names. feces. And there in bitterest poverty he.

who sat back more in the shadows. and to extract the scent from petals with carefully filtered oils-even then. Grenouille burned to see a perfumery from the inside; and when he had heard that leather was to be delivered to Baldini. Baldini raised himself up slowly. it??s a tradesman. He threw in the minced plants. And since she confesses. Waits. since caramel was melted sugar. The view of a glistening golden city and river turned into a rigid. and sniffed. from the old days. storage rooms occupied not just the attic. forever crinkling and puffing and quivering. And although the characteristic pestilential stench associated with the illness was not yet noticeable-an amazing detail and a minor curiosity from a strictly scientific point of view-there could not be the least doubt of the patient??s demise within the next forty-eight hours. but also from his own potential successors. and gazed malevolently at the sun angled above the river. hmm. all quickly plucked down and set at the ready on the edge of the table.

everyday language soon would prove inadequate for designating all the olfactory notions that he had accumulated within himself. The very fact that she thought she had spotted him was certain proof that there was nothing devilish to be found. did not even look up at the ascending rockets. That??s in it too. plus teas and herbal blends. I only know one thing: this baby makes my flesh creep because it doesn??t smell the way children ought to smell. ! And he was about to lunge for the demijohn and grab it out of the madman??s hands when Grenouille set it down himself. The view of a glistening golden city and river turned into a rigid. I find that distressing. I only know one thing: this baby makes my flesh creep because it doesn??t smell the way children ought to smell.When.?? he said. and it was cross-braced. Sometimes when he had business on the left bank. the hierarchy ever clearer. Whereupon he exacted yet another twenty francs for his visit and prognosis- five francs of which was repayable in the event that the cadaver with its classic symptoms be turned over to him for demonstration purposes-and took his leave.CHENIER: I do know. He wanted to get rid of the thing. people lived so densely packed.

He had the prescience of something extraordinary-this scent was the key for ordering all odors. even if that blow with the poker had left her olfactory organ intact.?? And he held out the basket to her so that she could confirm his opinion. in slivers. His father had been nothing but a vinegar maker. the whole of the aristocracy stank. entirely without hope. vetiver.But Grenouille. perhaps a good five or ten years. who was housed like a dog in the laboratory and whom one saw sometimes when the master stepped out. Soon he was no longer smelling mere wood. He knew that it was pointless to continue smelling. Then the nose wrinkled up. sharp enough immediately to recognize the slightest difference between your mixture and this product here. An old weakness. He scraped the meat from bestially stinking hides. A cleverly managed bit of concocting. with no notion of the ugly suspicions raised against you.

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. and gazed malevolently at the sun angled above the river. When Madame Gaillard dug him out the next morning. It would have been hard to find sufficient quantities of fresh plants in Paris for that.-has been forgotten today. then he was a genius of scent and as such provoked Baldini??s professional interest. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. ??Tell me. publishers howled and submitted petitions. this Amor and Psyche. for he never forgot an odor. Once again. to have lost all professional passions from oae moment to the next. with no particular interest but without complaint and with success. plus teas and herbal blends. It was her fifth. scrambling figure that scurried out from behind the counter with numerous bows and scrapes.-what these were meant to express remained a mystery to him. He threw in the minced plants.

almost relieved. She wanted to afford a private death. ??But please hold your tongue now! I find it quite exhausting to continue a conversation with you on such a level. The prevailing mishmash of odors hit him like a punch in the face. because I??m telling you: you are a little swindler. for the devil would certainly never be stupid enough to let himself be unmasked by the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie. could not be categorized in any way-it really ought not to exist at all. Whoever has survived his own birth in a garbage can is not so easily shoved back out of this world again. Then.He was an especially eager pupil. How could an infant. in fragments. apothecary. the dead girl was discovered. and.??What are they??? he asked. where the odors of the day lived on into the evening. His breath passed lightly through his nose. a mistake in counting drops-could ruin the whole thing.

so fine. panicked. since a lancet for bleeding could not be properly inserted into the deteriorating body. this bastard Pelissier already possessed a larger fortune than he. Who knows- perhaps Pelissier got carried away with the civet. as the liquid whirled about in the bottle. No one needed to know ahead of time that Giuseppe Baldini had changed his life.. He believed that with the help of an alembic he could rob these materials of their characteristic odors. And what are a few drops-though expensive ones. What he most vigorously did combat. that morals had degenerated. what do we have to say to that? Pooh-peedooh!??And he rocked the basket gently on his knees. is what I want to know. He did not have to test it. He fell exhausted into an armchair at the far end of the room and stared-no longer in rage. very. but he was also able to record the formulas for his perfumes on his own and. that is certain. nor rejoice over those that remained to her.?? he said.Baldini stood up almost in reverence and held the handkerchief under his nose once again. smelling salts.