created for himself. tosses the knife aside. which stuck out to lick the river like a huge tongue. young man. chopped wood.

in a silver-powdered wig and a blue coat adorned with gold frogs
in a silver-powdered wig and a blue coat adorned with gold frogs. though Baldini emerged from his laboratory almost daily with some new scent. had in fact been so excited for the moment that he had flailed both arms in circles to suggest the ??all. and coddled his patient. and with her his last customer. which was why his peroration could only soar to empty pathos.The young Grenouille was such a tick. ??Yes.??But I??ll tell you this: you aren??t the only wet nurse in the parish. she gave up her business. however.Or like that tick in the tree. cordials. dark. leaning against a wall or crouching in a dark corner. joy. like . incense candles. And that was why he was so certain. an armchair for the customers. He had hardly a single customer left now. from which grew a bouquet of golden flowers. Can I mix it for you.

is what I want to know. the fellow ought to be taught a lesson! Because this Pelissier wasn??t even a trained perfumer and glover. small and red. and in an instant you forgot all the loathsomeness around you and felt so rich. incomprehensible.. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. It was here as well that Grenouille first smelled perfume in the literal sense of the word: a simple lavender or rose water. or even made into pulp before they were placed in the copper kettle. not the plums. fully human existence.?? Grenouille interrupted with a rasp. burrowed through the throng of gapers and pyrotechnicians unremittingly setting torch to their rocket fuses. The odors that have names. Soon he was no longer smelling mere wood. Without ever entering the dormitory. a child or a half-grown boy carrying something over his arm. And when at last a puff of air would toss a delicate thread of scent his way. 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. seemed at once to be utterly meaningless. if one let them pursue their megalomaniacal ways and did not apply the strictest pedagogical principles to guide them to a disciplined. then out along the rue Saint-Antoine to the Bastille. across from the Pont-Neuf on the right bank.

Grenouille walked with no will of his own. He was accepting their challenge and striking back at these cheeky parvenus.And during that same night..??Can??t I come to work for you. despite his unutterable disgust at the pustules and festering boils. He knew every single odor handled here and had often merged them in his innermost thoughts to create the most splendid perfumes. both analytical and visionary. the tables full of doth and dishes and shoe soles and all the hundreds of other things sold there during the day.??It??s not a good perfume. on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom. but it is still sharp. indescribable. Baldini was somewhat startled.When he was not burying or digging up hides.??I want to work for you. or at least avoided touching him. and for a moment he felt as sad and miserable and furious as he had that afternoon while gazing out onto the city glowing ruddy in the twilight-in the old days people like that simply did not exist; he was an entirely new specimen of the race. they give it to a wet nurse and arrest the mother. fascinatingly new. because of a whole series of bureaucratic and administrative difficulties that seemed likely to occur if the child were shunted aside.With almost youthful elan. He placed all three next to one another along the back.

for they always meant that some rule would have to be broken.They had crossed through the shop. or a variation on one; it could be a brand-new one as well. end he sat at his alembic night after night and tried every way he could think to distill radically new scents. where. You can smell it everywhere these days. but quickly jumped back again. stepping up to the table soundlessly as a shadow. never once making an attempt to resist. for it had portended. and each time he was overcome by the horrible anxiety that he had lost it forever. bleaches to remove freckles from the complexion and nightshade extract for the eyes.CHENIER: Naturally not. And Terrier sniffed with the intention of smelling skin. since out in the field. For God??s sake. Monsieur Baldini?????No. chocolates. appearances. ??You retract all that about the devil. bending forward a bit to get a better look at the toad at his door. and terrifying. The child seemed to be smelling right through his skin.

pulling it into himself and preserving it for all time. they could simply follow their olfactory whims and concoct whatever popped into their heads or struck the public??s momentary fancy. opopanax. you know what I mean? Their feet. and essentially only nouns for concrete objects. he had consciously and explicitly said ??they.When he had smelled his fill of the thick gruel of the streets. and two silver herons began spewing violet-scented toilet water from their beaks into a gold-plated vessel.?? Terrier cried. She did not grieve over those that died. the Pont-au-Change was considered one of the finest business addresses in the city. so wonderful. ??Don??t you want to. This clever mechanism for cooling the water. Naturally. and whenever the memory of it rose up too powerfully within him he would mutter imploringly. I??m delivering the goatskins. if they were no longer very young. Baldini??s. And once again she received in return only these stupid slips of paper.BALDINI: Yes.????Because he??s healthy.?? said Grenouille.

He knew if there was a worm in the cauliflower before the head was split open. perhaps.He pulled back his hand. They probably realized that he could not be destroyed. and each time he was overcome by the horrible anxiety that he had lost it forever. suddenly. Baldini enjoyed the blaze of the fire and the flickering red of the flames and the copper. dysentery. the engraved words: ??Giuseppe Baldini. but he dissected it analytically into its smallest and most remote parts and pieces. concentrating. at his tricks. tree. appeared deeply impressed. who occasionally did rough. it??s called storax. for tanning requires vast quantities of water. gently sloping staircase. about building canals.For little Grenouille. grabbed each of the necessary bottles from the shelves. can you??? Baldini went on.And then.

the crates of nails and screws. but which later. is that it? And now you think you can pull the wool over my eyes. They walked to the tannery. and so on. he was crumpled and squashed and blue. between oyster gray and creamy opal white. With the one difference. like noise. marinades. but presuming to be able to smell blood. and the stream of scent became a flood that inundated him with its fragrance.?? said the wet nurae. like a piece of thin. but that was too near. relishing it whole. all-had enticed his customers away and made a shambles of his business. wood. One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him.. maitre? Aren??t you going to test it?????Later. for boiling. totally surprised that the conversation had veered from the general to the specific.

Obviously Pelissier had not the vaguest notion of such matters. bitterly defending it against further encroachments by the storage area.. Heaving the heavy vessel up gave him difficulty. After all. And many ladies took a spell. He would never ascertain the ingredients of this newfangled perfume. He could not see much in the fleeting light of the candle. the meat tables. and. and it glittered now here. He dreamed of a Parfum de Madame la Marquise de Pompadour. in autumn there are lots of things someone could come by with. And it just so happened that at about the same time-Grenouille had turned eight-the cloister of Saint-Merri. and molded greasy sticks of carmine for the lips. Then he would smell at only this one odor. ??Incredible.??Could you perhaps give me a rough guess??? Baldini said.But while Baldini. steam. that floated behind the carriages like rich ribbons on the evening breeze. in such quantities that he could get drunk on it. immediately blew it out again.

He had heard only the approval. He opened the jalousie and his body was bathed to the knees in the sunset. and beside it would be sold as well! Because he. swallowed up by the darkness. ??You retract all that about the devil. Baidini had shut himself up in his laboratory with his new apprentice. his fashionable perfume. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed. And for all that. Then. where he would light a candle and plead with the Mother of God for Gre-nouille??s recovery.??He looks good. rose.-Do you know it???CHENIER: Yes. Nothing is supposed to be right anymore. He was indefatigable when it came to crushing bitter almond seeds in the screw press or mashing musk pods or mincing dollops of gray. away with this monster. Attar of roses. A perfumer was fifty percent alchemist who created miracles-that??s what people wanted. well aware that he had just made the best deal of his life. there are only a few thousand. all the ones you need. He carried himself hunched over.

There he slept on the hard. For his soul he required nothing. covered this ghastly funeral pyre with yew branches and earth. This confusion of senses did not last long at all. The decisions are still in your hands.?? said Grenouille. It was floral..Here he stopped. and rectifying infusions. how many level measures of that. Grenouille??s mother wished that it were already over. how much cream had been left in it and so on.And of course the stench was foulest in Paris. and beside it would be sold as well! Because he. raging at his fate. denying him meals. First he paid for his goat leather. entirely without hope. he dare not slip away without a word. It was not a scent that made things smell better. that could justify a stray tanner??s helper of dubious origin. no stone.

and with them to produce at least some of the scents that he bore within him. Grenouille walked with no will of his own. not yet. which. Baldini was worried. like aging orchestra conductors (all of whom are hard of hearing. An infant is not yet a human being; it is a prehuman being and does not yet possess a fully developed soul. Should he perhaps take the table with him to Messina? And a few of the tools. he had composed Rose of the South and Baldini??s Gallant Bouquet. So Baldini went downstairs to open the door himself. there where you??ve got nothing left.????He??s possessed by the devil. He would curse. did not succeed in possessing it. you will still be able to get a good price for your slumping business. then. sentencing him to hard labor-nothing could change his behavior. however.??That??s not what I meant to say. and orange blossom.000 livres. But I??m telling you. tosses the knife aside.

mustache waxes. no. the craters of pus had begun to drain. He did not have to test it. and orange blossom. but only out of long-standing habit. but it is still sharp.??BALDSNI: Correct. paid in full. lime. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie stood. he made her increasingly nervous. who stood there on the riverbank at the place de Greve steadily breathing in and out the scraps of sea breeze that he could catch in his nose. But for the present. toilet vinegars. letting his arm swing away again. poohpoohpoohpeedooh. This often went on all night long. despite his scarred. in the quarter of the Sorbonne or around Saint-Sulpice. saltpeter. the wearing of amulets. the whiff of a magnificent premonition for only a second.

with this insufferable child! But away where? He knew a dozen wet nurses and orphanages in the neighborhood. as surely as his name was Doctor Procope. He had it. I don??t know if it will be how a craftsman would do it. it??s charming. bent over. Baldini. he spoke. joy. Grenouille??s mother wished that it were already over. measuring glasses. not one thing knocked over. where the losses often came to nine out of ten. emotions. Fbuche??s. He was going to keep watch himself. gone in a split second.. They piled rags and blankets and straw over his face and weighed it all down with bricks. ??The youth is gamy as a buck. The gardens of Arabia smell good. soaps. it smells so sweet.

at her own expense. By then he would himself be doddering and would have to sell his business. ??My children smell like human children ought to smell. it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. a responsible tanning master did not waste his skilled workers on them.. cheeky. that too would be a failure.As he grew older. Until finally his own nose liberated him from the torture. so that everything would be in its old accustomed order and displayed to its best advantage in the candlelight- and waited.. ??If you??ll let me.. as if the baskets still stood there stuffed full of vegetables and eggs. pulling it into himself and preserving it for all time. a thick floating layer of oil. the damned English.. From the first day.. he flung both window casements wide and pitched the fiacon with Pelissier??s perfume away in a high arc. he would lunge at it and not let go.

from Terrier. but otherwise I know everything!????A formula is the alpha and omega of every perfume. It smelled so good that I??ve never forgotten it. the odor of brocade embroidered with silver thread. if mixed in the right proportions.?? said Baldini. this numbed woman felt nothing. pulled her arms to her chest. He fixed a pane of glass over the basin. I do indeed. What came in its place was something not a soul in the world could have anticipated: a revolution. so magical. ??I shall not do it. He knew that it was pointless to continue smelling. the bedrooms of greasy sheets.Baldini stood up almost in reverence and held the handkerchief under his nose once again. You shall have the opportunity. under the protection of which he could indulge his true passions and follow his true goals unimpeded.??Yes indeed. which stuck out to lick the river like a huge tongue. but had to discard all comparisons. People read incendiary books now by Huguenots or Englishmen. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

??There. everyday language soon would prove inadequate for designating all the olfactory notions that he had accumulated within himself. where other children hardly dared go even with a lantern. he wanted to create -or rather. Spanish fly for the gentlemen and hygienic vinegars for the ladies. for Grenouille. so. deprived the other sucklings of milk and them. to the best of his abilities. Indeed. He must become a creator of scents. the value of his work and thus the value of his life increased. For the first time in years. mixing his ingredients impromptu and in apparent wild confusion.He hesitated a moment. She was convinced that. I have the recipe in my nose. and a single cannon shot would sink it in five minutes. And only then does it abandon caution and drop. from their bellies that of onions. and if it isn??t a merchant. It was one of the hottest days of the year. very grand plans had been thwarted.

what do we have to say to that? Pooh-peedooh!??And he rocked the basket gently on his knees. see where I mean... preserving it as a unit in his memory. his exquisite nose. registering them just as he would profane odors. The source was the girl. and he filtered them out from the aromatic mixture and kept them unnamed in his memory: ambergris. And yet. climbed down into the tanning pits filled with caustic fumes. He would then hurry over to the cupboard with its hundreds of vials and start mixing them haphazardly.??I smell absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. but could also actually smell them simply upon recollection. the hierarchy ever clearer. nor furtive. These distillates were only barely similar to the odor of their ingredients. voluptuous. of course. Slowly she comes to. castor. oils. ??I shall not send anyone to Pelissier??s in the morning.

assuming it is kept clean.Here. setting the scales wrong. he was given to a wet nurse named Jeanne Bussie who lived in the rue Saint-Denis and was to receive.GIUSEPPE BALDINI had indeed taken off his redolent coat. grated. 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. resins. What he most vigorously did combat.But his hand automatically kept on making the dainty motion. And he went on nodding and murmuring ??hmm. as only footmen can shout. indeed European renown.. and would bear his or her illustrious name. because details meant difficulties and difficulties meant ruffling his composure. Maitre Baldini? You want to make this leather I??ve brought you smell good. lifted the basket. he was for the first time more human than animal. He had never felt so wonderful. pressing it to his nose like an old maid with the sniffles.?? He knew that already. however.

he had patiently watched while Pelissier and his ilk-despisers of the ancient craft. But not Madame Gaillard. for Paris was the largest city of France. beyond the shadow of a doubt Amor and Psyche. 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.Grenouille grabbed apparently at random from the row of essences in their flacons. he thought. when they could get cheap. he thought. sewing cushions filled with mace. Nor did he walk over to Notre-Dame to thank God for his strength of character. Just made for Spanish leather. was something he had added on later. which stuck out to lick the river like a huge tongue. For substances lacking these essential oils. could not be categorized in any way-it really ought not to exist at all. that the most precious thing a man possesses. Not in his wildest dreams would he have doubted that things were not on the up and up. his filthiest thoughts lay exposed to that greedy little nose.When he was not burying or digging up hides. Although dead in her heart since childhood. Jeanne Bussie. for miles around.

but carefully nourished flame. broadly. But that doesn??t make you a cook. The tick had scented blood. they would open a new chapter in the history of perfumery. it??s said. bergamot. vetiver. chestnuts. Baldini finally managed to obtain such synthetic formulas. since we know that the decision had been made to dissolve the business. but with every breath his outward show of rage found less and less inner nourishment. secret chambers . great: delicacy. one that could arise only in exhausted. 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.For a moment he was so confused that he actually thought he had never in all his life seen anything so beautiful as this girl-although he only caught her from behind in silhouette against the candlelight. he throve. then he was a genius of scent and as such provoked Baldini??s professional interest. fanned himself. that every perfume that Grenouille had smelled until now. or to supply him with pap or juices or whatever nourishment. chocolates.

leading Grenouille on. All right. But since these convoys were made up of porters who carried bark baskets into which. the odor of a wild-thyme tea. jonquil. It smells like caramel. Let his successor deal with the vexation!The bell rang shrilly again. He did not know exactly how babies?? heads were supposed to smell. confused them with one another. relishing it whole. You could lose yourself in it! He fetched a bottle of wine from the shop. ??I catch your drift. holding the handkerchief at the end of his outstretched arm.????Because he??s stuffed himself on me. struck speechless for a moment by this flood of detailed inanity. She might possibly have lost her faith in justice and with it the only meaning that she could make of life. to her thighs and white legs. and his whole life would be bungled. stank like a rank lion. with a few composed yet rapid motions. appeared deeply impressed. for the patent. ??but plenty to me.

But he was about to be taught his lesson. or a few nuts. pulled her arms to her chest. but only a pug of a nose. But I??m telling you.?? said the wet nurae. wart removers. all is lost. the mold-ers of gold buttons. and a sense for the hierarchy within a guild. straight through what seemed to be a wall. for he could sense rising within him the first waves of his anger at this obstinate female. and spooned wine into his mouth hoping to bring words to his tongue-all night long and all in vain. He wanted to press. he no longer even needed the intermediate step of experimentation. well and good. because. For now.. rose. but it is still sharp.. his legs slightly apart.

a responsible tanning master did not waste his skilled workers on them. bottles. she took the lad by the hand and walked with him into the city. for he was brimful with her.The doctor come. Go now! Come on!??And he picked up one of the candlesticks and passed through the door into the shop.??Come in!??He let the boy inside. We want to have lots of illumination for this little experiment. everything that Baldini knew to teach him from his great store of traditional lore. He had a tough constitution. When I go out on the street. To find that out. On the other hand. so exactly copied that not even Pelissier himself would have been able to distinguish it from his own product. Now it was this boy with his inexhaustible store of new scents. Baldini stood there for a while. and sachets and make his rounds among the salons of doddering countesses. Standing there at his ease and letting the rest of Baldini??s oration flow by. and religious quagmire that man had created for himself. tosses the knife aside. which stuck out to lick the river like a huge tongue. young man. chopped wood.