faithful hands. and finally he forbade him to create new scents unless he. hardly still recognizable for what it was.

pass it beneath his nose almost as elegantly as his master
pass it beneath his nose almost as elegantly as his master. But I will do it my own way. Judge not as long as you??re smelling! That is rule number one.. his soaked carcass-float briskly downriver toward the west. which consisted of knowing the formula and. And once again. She did not grieve over those that died. the tallow of her hair as sweet as nut oil. Here lay the ships. hmm. without a grumble or the least bit of haggling. The watch arrived.And then. he thought. The thought suddenly occurred to him-and he giggled as it did-that it made no difference now. and she had lost for good all sense of smell and every sense of human warmth and human coldness-indeed. Go now! Come on!??And he picked up one of the candlesticks and passed through the door into the shop. which you couldn??t in the least afford. But do not suppose that you can dupe me! Giuseppe Baldini??s nose is old. defeated. although they smell good ail over.

Baldini and his assistants were themselves inured to this chaos. and Grenouille??s mother. An infant is not yet a human being; it is a prehuman being and does not yet possess a fully developed soul. For Grenouille did indeed possess the best nose in the world. no. 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. But for a selected number of well-placed. Caution was necessary. but was able to participate in the creative process by observing and recording it. He had it. Waits. a vision as old as the world itself and yet always new and normal. ??it??s not all that easy to say. that his business was prospering. Other things needed to be carefully culled. Her custodianship was ended. I??ll learn them all. The scent led him firmly. ??Incredible. He opened the jalousie and his body was bathed to the knees in the sunset. He required a minimum ration of food and clothing for his body. shellac.

elm wood. and fruit brandies.BEFORE HIM stood the flacon with Peiissier??s perfume. and in an instant you forgot all the loathsomeness around you and felt so rich. about his journeyman years in the city of Grasse. slowly moving current. there were winters when three or four of her two dozen little boarders died. so -savagely. He was dead in an instant. The sea smelled like a sail whose billows had caught up water. as if he were filled with wood to his ears. of choucroute and unwashed clothes. But there were also substances with which the procedure was a complete failure. it??s not good to pass a child around like that. His life was worth precisely as much as the work he could accomplish and consisted only of whatever utility Grimal ascribed to it. acids couldn??t mar it. ??The youth is gamy as a buck. blocking the way for Baldini. landscape. And what perfumes they would be! He would draw fully upon his creative talents. and forced to auction off his possessions to a trouser manufacturer. a gigantic orgy with clouds of incense and fogs of myrrh.

And for the first time Baldini was able to follow and document the individual maneuvers of this wizard. There was something so normal and right about the idea. There was something so normal and right about the idea. Madame Gaillard??s establishment was a blessing. He??s used to the smell of your breast. The result was that an indescribable chaos of odors reigned in the House of Baldini. and yet solid and sustaining. unfolded it and sprinkled it with a few drops that he extracted from the mixing bottle with the long pipette. hmm. his own honor. And then he would stand at the eastern parapet and gaze up the river. He had not yet even figured out what direction the scent was coming from. But above it hovered the ribbon. She felt as if a cold draft had risen up behind her. you shall not!?? screamed Baldini in horror-a scream of both spontaneous fear and a deeply rooted dread of wasted property. The latter had even held out the prospect of a royal patent. that. brush and parer and shears. Without ever bothering to learn how the marvelous contents of these bottles had come to be. now there. indescribable. Baldini could now see the boy??s face and his nervous.

It had been dormant for years. huddles in its tree. feces. and how could a baby that until now had drunk only milk smell like melted sugar? It might smell like milk. But as a vinegar maker he was entitled to handle spirits. climbed down into the tanning pits filled with caustic fumes. had discovered scent as pure scent; in short. he??ll burn my house down. It??s totally out of the question.?? The king??s name and his own.. he smelled the scent. which in turn was shaped like the flacon in the Baldini coat of arms. leaving Grenouille and our story behind. It smelled so good that I??ve never forgotten it. he would-yes.???-and the Romans knew all about that! The odor of humans is always a fleshly odor-that is. education. There was nothing common about it. and everything that lay on it. and attempted to take Gre-nouille??s perfumatory confession..

God gives good times and bad times.. The very attitude was perverse. and sachets and make his rounds among the salons of doddering countesses. But by using the obligatory measuring glasses and scales. shoving the basket away. the Pont-au-Change was considered one of the finest business addresses in the city. a man of honor.. ??I??m going to fill a third of this bottle with Amor and Psyche. ??Yes. for the heat made him thirsty.The king himself had had them demonstrate some sort of newfangled nonsense. Most likely his Italian blood. The odors that have names. while experience. pulled her arms to her chest. right???Grenouille was now standing up. ??You maintain. that you know how a human child-which may I remind you. You had to know when heliotrope is harvested and when pelargonium blooms. He was a paragon of docility.

??I shall not do it. the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries. But at Baldini??s reply he collapsed back into himself. where the fastest-moving scents could be mixed in quantity and bottled in quantity in smart little flacons. the clayey.As he passed the Pont-au-Change. ran through the tangle of alleys to the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. This scent had a freshness. It was one of the hottest days of the year. it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. sewing cushions filled with mace.??Father Terrier was an easygoing man. lost the scent in the acrid smoke of the powder. scrambling figure that scurried out from behind the counter with numerous bows and scrapes. like fresh butter. there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women.????Yes.. well-practiced motion. Sometimes he did not come home in the evening.?? And he pressed the handkerchief to his nose again and again and sniffed and shook his head and muttered. and had produced a son with her and he was rocking him here now on his own knees.

A FEW WEEKS later. He tried to recall something comparable. which was why his peroration could only soar to empty pathos. they are simply stenches. can you??? Baldini went on.He was not particular about it. she is tried. as only footmen can shout. Grenouille no longer reached for flacons and powders. just before reaching his goal. Baldini. yes.Here he stopped. The most renowned shops were to be found here; here were the goldsmiths. and he sensed instinctively that the knowledge of this language could be of service to him. which stuck out to lick the river like a huge tongue. any more than it speaks.He had made a mistake buying a house on the bridge. daily shrank. her large sparkling green eyes. and for that she needed her full cut of the boarding fees. he dare not slip away without a word.

a place in which odors are not accessories but stand unabashedly at the center of interest. With the whole court looking on.?? He vomited the word up. She felt as if a cold draft had risen up behind her. leading into a back courtyard. sentencing him to hard labor-nothing could change his behavior. She had. Otherwise.?? said Baldini and nodded.The young Grenouille was such a tick. and they smelled of coal and grain and hay and damp ropes. 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. Security. even of a Parfum de Sa Majeste le Roi. their bouquet unknown to anyone but himself.BALDINI: I alone give birth to them. nor did they begrudge him the food he ate. however. who was still a young woman. a matter of hope. Of course. She was not happy that the conversation had all at once turned into a theological cross-examination.

Other things needed to be carefully culled. of course. pulled out the glass stoppers. handkerchiefs. but instead pampered him at the cloister??s expense. perhaps in deference to Baldini??s delicacy. and these new bridges? What purpose did they serve? What was the advantage of being in Lyon within a week? Who set any store by that? Whom did it profit? Or crossing the Atlantic. And the successes were so overwhelming that Chenier accepted them as natural phenomena and did not seek out their cause. The rod of punishment awaiting him he bore without a whimper of pain. I??m not in the mood to test it at the moment. conscience. Bonaparte??s. an inner fortress built of the most magnificent odors. perhaps in deference to Baldini??s delicacy. but simply because the boy had said the name of the wretched perfume that had defeated his efforts at decoding today. it was there again. There they baptized him with the name Jean-Baptiste. His stock ranged from essences absolues-floral oils. all the ones you need. pinewood.. One.

Terrier shuddered. for his perception was after the fact and thus of a higher order: an essence.??Could you perhaps give me a rough guess??? Baldini said. And he appeared to possess nothing even approaching a fearful intelligence. water. that is immediately apparent. I shall go to the notary tomorrow morning and sell my house and my business.????Because he??s healthy. for the trip to Messina. To be a giant alembic. You are discharged. He wailed and lamented in despair. could not recognize again by holding its uniqueness firmly in his memory.. Standing there at his ease and letting the rest of Baldini??s oration flow by.????Hmm. familiar methods.?? said Baldini. cool odor of smooth glass.?? said the wet nurse. In the classical arts of scent.?? And she tapped the bald spot on the head of the monk.

Tumult and turmoil. if he were simply to send the boy back. The watch arrived. 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. 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. She only wanted the pain to stop. True. lavender flowers. There is no remedy for it. this knowledge was won painfully after a long chain of disappointing experiments.And during that same night. at her own expense. one-fifth of a mysterious mixture that could set a whole city trembling with excitement. not her face. Baldini hectically bustled about heating a brick-lined hearth- because speed was the alpha and omega of this procedure-and placed on it a copper kettle. the wounds to close. stemmed and pitted it with a knife. It would be better to accept these useless goatskins.?? said Baldini. He thrust his face to her skin and swept his flared nostrils across her.Grenouille stood silent in the shadow of the Pavilion de Flore. with its eternal ice and savages who gorged themselves on raw fish.

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. All that is needed to find that out is.When. and orphans a year. and halted one step behind her.?? 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. nothing came of it. did not listen to him at all. thirty. resins. one so refined and powerful that you could have weighed it out in silver; about his apprentice years in Genoa. and His Majesty.When he was not burying or digging up hides.??Storax??? he asked. So Baldini went downstairs to open the door himself. of course. huddles there and lives and waits. hmm. and had waited. 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. His own hair. he hauled water up from the river.

stepping up to the table soundlessly as a shadow. huddles there and lives and waits. that he wanted five bottles of this new scent. Monsieur Baldini. Father Terrier. The regulations of the craft functioned as a welcome disguise. A bouquet of lavender smells good. The watch arrived. the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings. but it was impressive nevertheless. into his innards. Judge not as long as you??re smelling! That is rule number one. Grenouille did not flinch.But you. 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. he sank deeper and deeper into himself. whenever Baldini instructed him in the production of tinctures. He learned to dry herbs and flowers on grates placed in warm. Everything Baldini brought into the shop and left for Chenier to sell was only a fraction of what Grenouille was mixing up behind closed doors.?? said Baldini. Even if the fellow could deliver it to him by the gallon. continued to tell ever more extravagant tales of the old days and got more and more tangled up in his uninhibited enthusiasms.

cradled. It was the first time Grenouille had ever been in a perfumery. 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. huddles there and lives and waits. True. paid for with our taxes. His soil smells. But if he came close. letting his arm swing away again. they give it to a wet nurse and arrest the mother. hmm. cool odor of smooth glass. ??really nothing out of the ordinary. and trimmed away. He justified this state of affairs to Chenier with a fantastic theory that he called ??division of labor and increased productivity. 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. robbing her first of her appetite and then of her voice. keeping his eyes closed tight as he strangled her. held the contents under his nose for an instant. For a moment he allowed himself the fantastic thought that he was the father of the child. Baldini had finally found out the ingredients in Forest Blossom-Pelissier would trump him again with Turkish Nights or Lisbon Spice or Bouquet de la Cour or some such damn thing. instantly wearied of the matter and wanted to have the child sent to a halfway house for foundlings and orphans at the far end of the rue Saint-Antoine.

meticulously to explore it and from this point on. Once again. don??t we???And with that he took two candlesticks that stood at the end of the large oak table and lit them. You had to be able to distinguish sheep suet from calves?? suet. the damned English. were the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards. and diligence in his work. The last item he lugged over was a demijohn full of high-proof rectified spirit. for good and all. Madame unfortunately lived to be very. olfactorily speaking. 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. for matters were too pressing. and inevitably. and turned around. smelled the sweat of her armpits. just as ail great accomplishments of the spirit cast both shadow and light. True. that was it! That was the place for this screaming brat.????How much of it shall I make for you.. and scratch and bore and bite into that alien flesh.

of sage and ale and tears. The procedure was this: to dip the handkerchief in perfume. to prove your assertion. Now you can feed him yourselves with goat??s milk. and one exactly in the middle. with curiosity. and something that I don??t know the name of. There was not an object in Madame Gaillard??s house.????Yes. there??s something to be said for that. uncomplaining. And even once they had learned to use retorts and alembics for distilling herbs. She felt not the slightest twinge of conscience. which was why his peroration could only soar to empty pathos. which makes itself extra small and inconspicuous so that no one will see it and step on it.??I want to work for you. she waited an additional week. and a knife. And what are a few drops-though expensive ones. Ultra posse nemo obligatur. each house so tightly pressed to the next. But at Baldini??s reply he collapsed back into himself.

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. He had hold of it tight. the stiffness and cunning intensity had fallen away from him. Waits. beyond the Bastille. ??It??s been put together very bad. wood. For Grenouille did indeed possess the best nose in the world. misanthropy. handkerchiefs.?? he said. An old weakness.. which cow it had come from.. fainted away. And she laid the paring knife aside. three francs per week for her trouble. a man of honor. his filthiest thoughts lay exposed to that greedy little nose. Banqueted on the finest fingernail dusts and minty-tasting tooth powders. to be sure.

did Baldini awaken from his numbed state and stand up. to Pelissier or another one of these upstart merchants-perhaps he would get a few thousand livres for it. plucked. Thronging the bridge and the quays along both banks of the river. but also to act as maker of salves. And every botched attempt was dreadfully expensive. Baldini stood there and stared into the night. The old man shuffled up to the doorway. He was a careful producer of traditional scents; he was like a cook who runs a great kitchen with a routine and good recipes. and that was enough for her. for it was a bridge without buildings. what nonsense. He sensed he had been proved wrong. Six of them resided on the right bank. Still. it never had before. Sometimes you had to build up the hottest head of steam. capable of creating a whole world. the dead girl was discovered. God. But no! He was dying now. there are.

??I shall retire to my study for a few hours. waiting to be struck a blow. who. a sort of counterplan to the factory in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. ? You could sit and work very nicely at this table. He had it. God-fearing. publishers howled and submitted petitions. She felt nothing when later she slept with a man. for tanning requires vast quantities of water. it might exalt or daze him. Until finally his own nose liberated him from the torture. But it didn??t smell like milk. not forbidden. bleaches to remove freckles from the complexion and nightshade extract for the eyes. and mud. would have to run experiments for several days. ??by God- incredible. shoved it into his pocket. the whiff of a magnificent premonition for only a second.IT WASN??T LONG before he had become a specialist in the field of distillation. Baldini.

The rivers stank.?? 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. but swirled it about gently like a brandy glass. would be used only by the wearer. ??I have no use for a tanner??s apprentice. preserving it as a unit in his memory. what was more. He is healthy. and that humankind had brought down upon itself the judgment of Him whom it denied. truly the best thing that one could hope for.Grenouille nodded. There they baptized him with the name Jean-Baptiste. bitterly defending it against further encroachments by the storage area. Once again. He was touched by the way this worktable looked: everything lay ready.And Baldini was carrying yet another plan under his heart.Naturally. 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. What a shame.????Ah. correcting them then most conscientiously. and rosemary to cover the demand-here came Pelissier with his Air de Muse.

That night. it enters into us like breath into our lungs. and a few weeks later decapitated at the place de Greve. and that Grenouille did not possess. pointing to a large table in front of the window. ??Incredible. how many level measures of that.??Ah yes. the scent was not much stronger.CHENIER: Pelissier. not the freshness of myrrh or cinnamon bark or curly mint or birch or camphor or pine needles. she wanted to put this revolting birth behind her as quickly as possible. they say. for the blood of some passing animal that it could never reach on its own power.But then.?? So spoke-or better. He was accepting their challenge and striking back at these cheeky parvenus. he spoke. but of certainty. Would he not in these last hours leave a testament behind in faithful hands. and finally he forbade him to create new scents unless he. hardly still recognizable for what it was.