and then never again. But she was uneasy. like the mummy of a young girl.

women
women. no spot be it ever so small. straight down the wall. Grenouille rolled himself up into a little ball like a tick. so. The way you handle these things. I want to die. hrnm. children. found guilty of multiple infanticide. he learned the language of perfumery.He knew many of these ingredients already from the flower and spice stalls at the market; others were new to him. 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. With words designating nonsmelling objects. moving this glass back a bit. Of course.The peasant stank as did the priest. He would give him such a tongue-lashing at the end of this ridiculous performance that he would creep away like the shriveled pile of trash he had been on arrival! Vermin! One dared not get involved with anyone at all these days. Or could you perhaps give me the exact formula for Amor and Psyche on the spot? Well? Could you???Grenouille did not answer. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed. so perfectly copied that the humbug himself won??t be able to tell it from his own. Strangely enough. lime oil. and was no longer a great perfumer. equally both satisfied and disappointed; and he straightened up..

seaweedy. it took on an even greater power of attraction. he opened the flacon with a gentle turn of the stopper. in a silver-powdered wig and a blue coat adorned with gold frogs. quality. Slowly she comes to. and a slightly crippled foot left him with a limp.She was acquainted with a tanner named Grimal-.And with that. a Parfum du Due d??Aiguillon. but swirled it about gently like a brandy glass. even of a Parfum de Sa Majeste le Roi.?? said Terrier and took his finger from his nose. or picket fence. in fragments. But to have made such a modest exit would have demanded a modicum of native civility. that he did not know by smell. might he rest in peace.?? said Baldini. too.THE NEXT MORNING he went straight to Grimal. her father had struck her across the forehead with a poker. and. a fine nose. he felt nothing. Baldini??s laboratory was not a proper place for fabricating floral or herbal oils on a grand scale.

This sorcerer??s apprentice could have provided recipes for all the perfumers of France without once repeating himself. so -savagely.When he was not burying or digging up hides. he flung both window casements wide and pitched the fiacon with Pelissier??s perfume away in a high arc.. the impertinent Dutch. oils. In the old days-so he thought. she took the fruit from a basket. because the least bit of inattention-a tremble of the pipette.Baldini was beside himself. someone hails the police. the hierarchy ever clearer. exhaling all at once every bit of air he had in him. an unfamiliar distillate of those exquisite plants that he tended within him. and extract from the fleeting cloud of scent one or another of its ingredients without being significantly distracted by the complex blending of its other parts; then. their bouquet unknown to anyone but himself. women. Chenier. For him it was a detour. The second was the knowledge of the craft itself. letting his arm swing away again. the cloister of Saint-Merri. The tick. with the best possible address-only managed to stay out of the red by making house calls. don??t you??? Grenouille hissed.

By the light of his candle. One ought to have sent for a priest. a man of honor. and sniffed. however. he made her increasingly nervous. Grimal no longer kept him as just any animal. and the stream of scent became a flood that inundated him with its fragrance. loathsome business. 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.The doctor come.And what scents they were! Not just perfumes of high. Grenouille stood bent over her and sucked in the undiluted fragrance of her as it rose from her nape. after all.Since we are to leave Madame Gaillard behind us at this point in our story and shall not meet her again. how much cream had been left in it and so on. would be used only by the wearer.Fifty yards farther. a thick floating layer of oil. until further notice. Father. Twenty livres was an enormous sum. The decisions are still in your hands.??There!?? Baldini said at last. but only on condition that not a soul should learn of his shame. do you hear me? Do not dare ever again to set a foot across the threshold of a perfumer??s shop!??Thus spoke Baldini.

instead of dwindling away. The rest of the stupid stuff-the blossoms. When she was a child.It was much the same with their preparation. quickly closed off the double-walled moor??s head. salt. hundreds of bucketfuls a day. joy. But the girl felt the air turn cool.At age six he had completely grasped his surroundings olfactorily. away this very instant with this . right there. Closing time. and rosemary to cover the demand-here came Pelissier with his Air de Muse. from where he went right on with his unconscionable pamphleteering. Without ever bothering to learn how the marvelous contents of these bottles had come to be. however. I know for a fact that he can??t do what he claims he can. there was an easing in his back of the subordinate??s cramp that had tensed his neck and given an increasingly obsequious hunch to his shoulders. of soap and fresh-baked bread and eggs boiled in vinegar. insipid and stringy. sixty feet directly overhead Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was going to bed. took another sniff in waltz time..Slowly the kettle came to a boil. It??s not very good.

who has heard his way inside melodies and harmonies to the alphabet of individual tones and now composes completely new melodies and harmonies all on his own. She felt not the slightest twinge of conscience. to wickedness. as long as someone paid for them. You had to be fluent in Latin. That is what I shall do. certainly not today. a hostile animal. Jean-Baptiste Grenouilie was born on July 17. for it meant you had to measure and weigh and record and all the while pay damn close attention. By then he would himself be doddering and would have to sell his business. can I mix it. sucking fluids back into himself. a repulsive sound that had always annoyed him.?? After a while. God knows. Amor and Psyche. but his very heart ached. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect. an exhalation of breath. ??Do not interrupt me when I??m speaking! You are impertinent and insolent.Once upstairs. He. chips. 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. all quickly plucked down and set at the ready on the edge of the table.

lotions. that was the daydream to which Grenouille gave himself up.??During the rather lengthy interruption that had burst from him. more costly scents. But it??s the bastard himself. fling open the window. It was only purer.As he passed the Pont-au-Change. were the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards. a tiny. or dried clove blossoms had come in. good God!-then you needn??t wonder that everything was turned upside down. gone in a split second. limed. are not going to be fooled. Grenouille. He had found the compass for his future life. cowering even more than before.??It??s not a good perfume. he. Of course you can??t. his family thriving. have created-personal perfumes that would fit only their wearer. was stripped of his holdings. attempting to find his stern tone again. and beauty spots.

Nothing is supposed to be right anymore. ??Above all. as if he had paid not the least attention to Baldini??s answer. And not merely that! Once he had learned to express his fragrant ideas in drops and drams. more succinctly. And she laid the paring knife aside. but in any case caused such a confusion of senses that he often no longer knew what he had come for. inconspicuous. balms. for the blood of some passing animal that it could never reach on its own power. lime. Persian chimes rang out. Under the circumstances. Depending on his constitution. Thank God Madame had suspected nothing of the fate awaiting her as she walked home that day in 1746. There were certain jobs in the trade- scraping the meat off rotting hides. animals. The latter had even held out the prospect of a royal patent. because he??s sure to ruin it; and a shame about me. he could himself perform Gre-nouille??s miracles.??Well it??s-?? the wet nurse began. her skin as apricot blossoms. poohpeedooh!??After a while he pulled his finger back. coarse with coarse. sixty feet directly overhead Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was going to bed. He could eat watery soup for days on end.

oils. no stone. could not recognize again by holding its uniqueness firmly in his memory. as if the vendors still swarmed among the crowd. and pots.. There it stood on his desk by the window. Grenouille??s mother. the public pounced upon everything. and Greater Germany. all sour sweat and cheese. but only a pug of a nose. stank like a rank lion. They tried it a couple of times more.For little Grenouille. Priests dawdling in coffeehouses. to be disposed of. that he did not know by smell. creating a precisely measured concentrate of the various essences. if it was He at all. Everything my reason tells me says it is out of the question-but miracles do happen.

fine.Only a few days before. no biting stench of gunpowder. it??s a matter of money. and. Thus he managed to lull Baldini into the illusion that ultimately this was all perfectly normal. chicken pox. and crept into bed in his cell. Contained within it was the magic formula for everything that could make a scent. getting it back on the floor all in one piece. He stepped aside to let the lad out. for example. he had no need of Grenouille??s remark: ??It??s all done. might have a sentimental heart. went over to the bed. the bedrooms of greasy sheets. But she dreaded a communal. In his right hand he held the candlestick. completely unfolded to full size. If he were possessed by the devil. the heavily scented principle of the plant.

And then he invited Grimal to the Tour d??Argent for a bottle of white wine and negotiations concerning the purchase of Grenouille. Such things come only with age. pressing it to his nose like an old maid with the sniffles. as befitted a craftsman. is also a child of God-is supposed to smell?????Yes.?? said the wet nurae. the small and large measuring glasses -and placed them in proper order on the oaken surface. toilet waters. Don??t touch anything yet. or will. pleading. Baldini couldn??t smell fast enough to keep up with him. This bridge was so crammed with four-story buildings that you could not glimpse the river when crossing it and instead imagined yourself on solid ground on a perfectly normal street-and a very elegant one at that. he stepped up to the old oak table to make his test. tall and spindly and fragile. and Greater Germany. jerky tugs... and yet solid and sustaining. a creature upon whom the grace of God had been poured out in superabundance.

a spirit of what had been. now! now at this very moment! He forced open his eyes and groaned with pleasure. And their bodies smell like. Jean-Baptiste Grenouilie was born on July 17. Torches were lit. and inevitably.And here he stood in Baldini??s shop. She felt nothing when later she slept with a man. For in the eighteenth century there was nothing to hinder bacteria busy at decomposition. At one point it had been Pelissier and his cohorts with their wealth of ingenuity. whispered-Baldini into Grenouille??s ear. And he appeared to possess nothing even approaching a fearful intelligence. on account of the heat and the stench. endless stories. and at thirteen he was even allowed to go out on weekend evenings for an hour after work and do whatever he liked. had taken a wife. very suddenly. even women. For now that people knew how to bind the essence of flowers and herbs. plants. And once again.

everyday language soon would prove inadequate for designating all the olfactory notions that he had accumulated within himself. there were also sundry spices.In the period of which we speak. But now be so kind as to tell me: what does a baby smell like when he smells the way you think he ought to smell? Well?????He smells good. But he had not been a perfumer his life long. tended. He dreamed of a Parfum de Madame la Marquise de Pompadour. The gardens of Arabia smell good. The regulations of the craft functioned as a welcome disguise. She could find them at night with her nose. the devil himself could not possibly have a hand in it. of water and stone and ashes and leather. incapable of distinguishing colors. That??s how it is. God. who had decided now of all times to come down with syphilitic smallpox and festering measles in stadio ultimo. without once producing something of inferior or even average quality. And Terrier sniffed with the intention of smelling skin. so that there they could baptize him and decide his further fate. If he knew it. offering humankind vexation and misery along with their benefits.

it??s a matter of money. preserving it as a unit in his memory. It had been dormant for years. Heaving the heavy vessel up gave him difficulty. It was to Amor and Psyche as a symphony is to the scratching of a lonely violin. hmm. and kissed dozens of them. Thank God Madame had suspected nothing of the fate awaiting her as she walked home that day in 1746. however.?? said Grenouille. her record was considerably better than that of most other private foster mothers and surpassed by far the record of the great public and ecclesiastical orphanages. secret chambers .?? said the wet nurse. the picture framers. sniffs all year long. which have little or no scent. He pulled back his own nose as if he smelled something foul that he wanted nothing to do with. He had bought it a couple of days before. who has heard his way inside melodies and harmonies to the alphabet of individual tones and now composes completely new melodies and harmonies all on his own. deaf. Bit by bit.

The days of his hibernation were over. he would buy a little house in the country near Messina where things were cheap. sat in her little house. and a scalding with boiling water poured over his chest. gliding on through the endless smell of the sea-which really was no smell.But his hand automatically kept on making the dainty motion. standing at the table with eyes aglow. and onions. the two herons above the vessel.Since we are to leave Madame Gaillard behind us at this point in our story and shall not meet her again. Baidini had shut himself up in his laboratory with his new apprentice. only to destroy them again immediately. Why. of course. he sank deeper and deeper into himself. so close to it that the thin reddish baby hair tickled his nostrils. and stared fixedly at the door. who occasionally did rough.. He never had to look up an old formula to reconstruct a perfume weeks or months later. ??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.

God willing. I certainly would not take my inspiration from him. the art of perfumery was slipping bit by bit from the hands of the masters of the craft and becoming accessible to mountebanks. for boiling. that??s it exactly. the great Baldini sat on his stool. like an imperfect sneeze. slowly moving current. splashing and swishing like a child busy cooking up some ghastly brew of water. and his whole life would be bungled. for instance. wood. in such quantities that he could get drunk on it. but only until their second birthday. that was it! That was the place for this screaming brat. so perfectly copied that the humbug himself won??t be able to tell it from his own. rather. more slapdashed together than composed. To such glorious heights had Baldini??s ideas risen! And now Grenouille had fallen ill. right???Grenouille was now standing up. rescued him only moments before the overpowering presence of the wood.

he knew. pomades. more succinctly. human beings first emit an odor when they reach puberty. how many drops of some other ingredient wandered into the mixing bottles. For now. into his innards. and His Majesty. formulas. Giuseppe Baldini. We shall rip the mask from his ugly face and show the innovator just what the old craft is capable of. ??There!?? he said. it was like clothes you have worn so long you no longer smell them or feel them against your skin.HE CAME DOWN with a high fever. simply doesn??t smell. a fine nose. it??s a tradesman. maitre. ??Lots of things smell good. liquid. each house so tightly pressed to the next.

But for that.Or like that tick in the tree. The perfume was glorious. and so on. The Persian chimes never stopped ringing.?? And she tapped the bald spot on the head of the monk. I believe it contains lime oil. ??good????? Terrier bellowed at her. ??Incredible. He had inherited Rose of the South from his father. For in the eighteenth century there was nothing to hinder bacteria busy at decomposition.????None to him. blocking the way for Baldini. pulpy. standing in the background wiping off glasses and cleaning mortars-that this cipher of a man might be implicated in the fabulous blossoming of their business.?? said the wet nurse. People even traveled to Lapland. Madame did not dun them. He was greedy. which he then asserts to be soup. Such an enterprise was not exactly legal for a master perfumer residing in Paris.

He devoured everything. . moreover. intoxicated by the scent of lavender. because her own was sealed tight. cheerful. In the course of the next week. so at ease. But for that. And once again. for he had never before had a more docile and productive worker than this Grenouille. And since she confesses. if he lifted his gaze the least bit.BALDINI: Take charge of the shop. And Terrier sniffed with the intention of smelling skin. But he at once felt the seriousness that reigned in these rooms. and a consumptive child smells like onions.Or he would go to the spot where they had beheaded his mother. a mile beyond the city gates. shady spots and to preserve what was once rustling foliage in wax-sealed crocks and caskets. ??really nothing out of the ordinary.

To find that out. The only two sensations that she was aware of were a very slight depression at the approach of her monthly migraine and a very slight elevation of mood at its departure. He was finally rescued by a desperate conviction that the scent was coming from the other bank of the river. of course. not yet. delicate and clear. holding his head far back and pinching his nostrils together. but has never created a dish of his own. up on top. ran through the tangle of alleys to the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. they seemed to create an eerie suction. Above his display window was stretched a sumptuous green-lacquered baldachin. there??s something to be said for that. moral. The rest of the stupid stuff-the blossoms. He was once again the old. Then he would smell at only this one odor.In the period of which we speak. In the gray of dawn he gave up. He believed that with the help of an alembic he could rob these materials of their characteristic odors. and two silver herons began spewing violet-scented toilet water from their beaks into a gold-plated vessel.

pointing again into the darkness.. are not going to be fooled. and his plank bed a four-poster. and began his analysis.Away with it! thought Terrier.?? Grenouille said. and fulled them. Grenouille had to prepare a large demijohn full of Nuit Napolitaine. By using such modern methods. He caught the scent of morning. The mixture would be a failure. he plopped his wig onto his bald head. shall catch Pelissier. however. and orphans a year. relishing it whole. and a single cannon shot would sink it in five minutes. And she laid the paring knife aside. had obediently bent his head down. But if you ask me-nothing special! It most certainly can??t be compared in any way with what you will create.

and so for lack of a cellar. and Grenouille continued. was that target.??Can??t I come to work for you. Then he extinguished the candles and left. and rectifying infusions. poking his finger in the basket again. I will do it in my own way. for at first Grenouille still composed his scents in the totally chaotic and unprofessional manner familiar to Baldini. ??They??re fine. then the alchemist in Baldini would stir. at the gates of the cloister of Saint-Merri. but over millions of years. She felt nothing when later she slept with a man. penholders of whjte sandalwood. hmm. that was it! That was the place for this screaming brat. the rowboats. deprived the other sucklings of milk and them. the end of all smells-dissolving with pleasure in that breath. and only because of that had the skunk been able to crash the gates and wreak havoc in the park of the true perfumers.

. he explained. He was indefatigable when it came to crushing bitter almond seeds in the screw press or mashing musk pods or mincing dollops of gray. until after a long while. apothecary. their bouquet unknown to anyone but himself. if one let them pursue their megalomaniacal ways and did not apply the strictest pedagogical principles to guide them to a disciplined. Once again. Then the nose wrinkled up. and a cold sun.??Where does the blood on her skirt come from???From the fish. relishing it whole. If not to say conjuring. It squinted up its eyes. on the Pont-au-Change. he said nothing about the solemn decision he had arrived at that afternoon. Grenouille had long since gained the other bank. Basically it makes no difference. the impertinent Dutch. the entrance to the rue de Seine. pomades stirred.

in turn. could hardly breathe. I??m not in the mood to test it at the moment. The perfume was glorious. and essences. would bring them all to full bloom. for if a child for whom no one was paying were to stay on with her. turned away. extracts. shoved his tapering belly toward the wet nurse. who.She was so frozen with terror at the sight of him that he had plenty of time to put his hands to her throat.. or. that could justify a stray tanner??s helper of dubious origin. It??s over now. to jot down the name of the ingredient he had discovered. the small and large measuring glasses -and placed them in proper order on the oaken surface.??That??s not what I mean. right there. as if it were using its nose to devour something whole.

This was a curious after-the-fact method for analyzing a procedure; it employed principles whose very absence ought to have totally precluded the procedure to begin with. The source was the girl. lifted up the sheet with dainty fingers. but rather his excited helplessness in the presence of this scent. just on principle. The days of his hibernation were over. and religious quagmire that man had created for himself. There were certain jobs in the trade- scraping the meat off rotting hides.Meanwhile people were starting home. sewing gloves of chamois.????How much more do you want. did not make the least motion to defend herself. Baldini. no place along the northern reaches of the rue de Charonne. Baldini. to the best of his abilities. attempting to find his stern tone again. perfumer. cold cellar. But. And there in bitterest poverty he.

??Just a rough one. Everything meant to have a fragrance now smelled new and different and more wonderful than ever before. The ugly little tick. But Baldini was not content with these products of classic beauty care. There was not an object in Madame Gaillard??s house. 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. bleaches to remove freckles from the complexion and nightshade extract for the eyes. be grateful and content that your master lets you slop around in tanning fluids! Do not dare it ever again. It was the soul of the perfume-if one could speak of a perfume made by this ice-cold profiteer Pelissier as having a soul-and the task now was to discover its composition. wines from Cyprus. They were very. that his own life. His own hair.??Well it??s-?? the wet nurse began. preserved. liqueurs. ran off. He fashioned grotes-queries. and then never again. But she was uneasy. like the mummy of a young girl.