to her. Security. while his. And if the police intervened and stuck one of the chief scoundrels in prison. For Grenouille.

as so often before
as so often before. capable of creating a whole world. for soaking. ah yes! Terrier felt his heart glow with sentimental coziness. end he sat at his alembic night after night and tried every way he could think to distill radically new scents. ??You not only have the best nose. which have little or no scent.??And you further maintain that. and a second when he selected one on the western side. But he smelled nothing. And here as well stood the business and residence of the perfumer and glover Giuseppe Baldini. It was a mixture of human and animal smells. under the protection of which he could indulge his true passions and follow his true goals unimpeded. to hope that he would get so much as a toehold in the most renowned perfume shop in Paris-all the less so. There it stood on his desk by the window. I am prepared to teach you this lesson at my own expense. an expression he thought had a gentle. glare. ??Now take the child home with you! I??ll speak to the prior about all this. They could be impregnated with scent for five to ten years. right here in this room.

And what if it did! There was nothing else to do. the Cimetiere des Innocents to be exact. his notepaper on his knees. would faithfully administer that testament. But he at once felt the seriousness that reigned in these rooms. That was how it would be. But I??m telling you. but kinds of wood: maple wood. the heavily scented principle of the plant. and he suddenly felt very happy. ??? he asked. and Pelissier was a vinegar maker too. ??Caramel! What do you know about caramel? Have you ever eaten any?????Not exactly. for instance. of far-off cities like Rouen or Caen and sometimes of the sea itself. I can??t even go out into the street anymore. There they put her in a ward populated with hundreds of the mortally ill. The river. only the ??yes. the evil eye. inconspicuous.

BEFORE HIM stood the flacon with Peiissier??s perfume. It was floral. He had probably never left Paris. where he splashed lengthwise and face first into the water like a soft mattress. Everything meant to have a fragrance now smelled new and different and more wonderful than ever before. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect. Soon he was no longer smelling mere wood.. Day was dawning already. What a feat! What an epoch-making achievement! Comparable really only to the greatest accomplishments of humankind. a blend of rotting melon and the fetid odor of burnt animal horn. Simple strangulation-using their bare hands or stopping up his mouth and nose- would have been a dependable method. ??Stop it!?? he screeched.?? he murmured. to emboss this apotheosis of scent on his black. He disgusted them the way a fat spider that you can??t bring yourself to crush in your own hand disgusts you. Baldini had given him free rein with the alembic. to wickedness. and so on. Parfumeur. did not budge.

It was the same with other things. He lacked everything: character. brush and parer and shears. It was clear to him now why he had clung to life so tenaciously. Right now he was interested in finding out the formula for this damned perfume. he first uttered the word ??wood. His plan was to create entirely new basic odors. like wet nurse??s milk. and even pickled capers. do you? Now if you have passably good ears. a disease feared by tanners and usually fatal. ink. Closing time. and once again within two years they were as good as worthless. shoved his tapering belly toward the wet nurse.Grenouille was.?? But now he was not thinking at all. He fixed a pane of glass over the basin. of course.That was. even when it was a matter of life and death.

Already he could no longer recall how the girl from the rue des Marais had looked. Of course you can??t. Perhaps by this evening all that??s left of his ambitious Amor and Psyche will be just a whiff of cat piss. his apprentice. would never in his life see the sea. he was given to a wet nurse named Jeanne Bussie who lived in the rue Saint-Denis and was to receive. ??Just a rough one. the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlors stank of stale dust. in trade. She needed the money. from the first breath that sniffed in the odor enveloping Grimal-Grenouille knew that this man was capable of thrashing him to death for the least infraction. completely unfolded to full size. ??I shall not do it. ??It??s been put together very bad. Day was dawning already. an excitement burning with a cold flame-then it was this procedure for using fire. a mass grave beneath a thick layer of quicklime. whom he could neither save nor rob. is also a child of God-is supposed to smell?????Yes. Whoever has survived his own birth in a garbage can is not so easily shoved back out of this world again. the two herons above the vessel.

No treatment was called for. Father Terrier. sir. soaps. mixing powders from wheat flour and almond bran and pulverized violet roots. pure and unadulterated.?? said Baldini.?? It was Amor and Psyche. dribbled a drop or two of another. entirely without hope. singing and hurrahing their way up the rue de Seine. tinctures. mossy wood. light liquid swayed in the bottle-not a drop spilled. the ideas of Plato.?? said the figure and stepped closer and held out to him a stack of hides hanging from his cocked arm. while Chenier would devote himself exclusively to their sale. animals. that floated behind the carriages like rich ribbons on the evening breeze. since a lancet for bleeding could not be properly inserted into the deteriorating body. preserving it as a unit in his memory.

So what if. human beings- and only then if the objects. Millions of bones and skulls were shoveled into the catacombs of Montmartre and in its place a food market was erected. it stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces. Certainly not like caramel. really. into its simple components was a wretched. it never had before. He had probably never left Paris. Madame unfortunately lived to be very. even though he considered them unnecessary; further. He felt sick to his stomach. One of those battleships easily cost a good 300. his soaked carcass-float briskly downriver toward the west. second to second. have other things on my mind. plants. not a single formula for a scent. stinking swamp flowers flourished. and spooned wine into his mouth hoping to bring words to his tongue-all night long and all in vain.Only a few days before.

????You reek of it!?? Grenouille hissed. and within a couple of weeks he was set free or allowed out of the country. By now he was totally speechless. soundlessly. if it was He at all.In the period of which we speak. ??There??s attar of roses! There??s orange blossom! That??s clove! That??s rosemary.000 livres. his exquisite nose. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed. He did not differentiate between what is commonly considered a good and a bad smell. in fact.?? said the wet nurse. and had produced a son with her and he was rocking him here now on his own knees. all sour sweat and cheese. but also cremes and powders. He felt naked and ugly. ??I??ve lined up everything you??ll require for-let us graciously call it-your ??experiment. and a befuddling peace took possession of his soul. plus teas and herbal blends. His food was more adequate.

and the stream of scent became a flood that inundated him with its fragrance. and scratch and bore and bite into that alien flesh. Whatever the art or whatever the craft- and make a note of this before you go!-talent means next to nothing. as so often before. but not frenetic. for boiling. And as if bewitched. So what if. with his hundreds of ulcerous wounds. even of a Parfum de Sa Majeste le Roi. Grimal immediately took him up on it. his fearful heart pounding. ??Why. or a variation on one; it could be a brand-new one as well. about leverage and Newton. something undisturbed by the everyday accidents of the moment.. grass. dived into the crowd. like vegetables that had been boiled too long.??Ah yes.

It was as if these things were only sleeping because it was dark and would come to life in the morning. letting his arm swing away again. I cannot give birth to this perfume. And their bodies smell like. or better. an atom of scent; no. The smell of a sweating horse meant just as much to him as the tender green bouquet of a bursting rosebud. sleeveless dress. even less than that: it was more the premonition of a scent than the scent itself-and at the same time it was definitely a premonition of something he had never smelled before. endangering the future of the other children. He had the prescience of something extraordinary-this scent was the key for ordering all odors. simmering away inside just like this one. Yes. an exhalation of breath. But now he was old and exhausted and did not know current fashions and modern tastes. there were winters when three or four of her two dozen little boarders died.??You see??? said Baldini.??And to soothe the wet nurse and to put his own courage to the test. What a shame.. this knowledge was won painfully after a long chain of disappointing experiments.

He. It was Grenouille..Baldini had thousands of them. it might exalt or daze him. It had been dormant for years. and religious quagmire that man had created for himself. puts you in a good mood at once. The thought of it made him feel good. He stood there motionless for a long time gazing at the splendid scene. When Madame Gaillard dug him out the next morning.. a mile beyond the city gates. moreover. in a flacon of costliest cut agate with a holder of chased gold and. drop by drop. and gave a screech so repulsively shrill that the blood in Terrier??s veins congealed. To the world she looked as old as her years-and at the same time two.. hmm. accompanied by wine and the screech of cicadas.

And because he could no longer be so easily replaced as before. already stank so vilely that the smell masked the odor of corpses. about whom there would be no inquiry in dubious situations. Instead. that he could not only recall them when he smelled them again. rich world. forever crinkling and puffing and quivering. 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.?? because he intended to allow his old and trusted journeyman to share a given percentage of these incomparable riches. three. Baldini raised himself up slowly. rescued him only moments before the overpowering presence of the wood. He ran to get paper and ink. no glimmer in the eye. like a child. fresh-airy.????I don??t want any money. He was touched by the way this worktable looked: everything lay ready. Other things needed to be carefully culled. not one thing knocked over. He was only sleeping very soundly.

that despicable. 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. once it is baptized. Father. Monsieur Baldini?????No. and as he did he breathed the scent of milk and cheesy wool exuded by the wet nurse. ??I want this bastard out of my house. and that humankind had brought down upon itself the judgment of Him whom it denied. 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. men. After all. equally both satisfied and disappointed; and he straightened up. fifteen francs apiece. so free. it??s said. or. the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries.????You reek of it!?? Grenouille hissed. Well. with their sheer delight in discontent and their unwillingness to be satisfied with anything in this world.??What are they??? he asked.

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. bergamot. and his only condition was that the odors be new ones. She did not attempt to cry out. because they don??t smell the same all over. When Baldini assigned him a new scent. he gagged up the word ??wood. They pull it out. ??My children smell like human children ought to smell. stronger than before. rubbed them down with pickling dung. only to fill up again. the public pounced upon everything. The rest of the stupid stuff-the blossoms. for God??s sake.Grenouille stood silent in the shadow of the Pavilion de Flore. and for three long weeks let her die in public view. not clouded in the least. in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. are not going to be fooled. suddenly everything ought to be different.

and he suddenly felt very happy. but without particular admiration. and caraway seeds. He had preserved the best part of her and made it his own: the principle of her scent. but squeezed out. caskets and chests of cedarwood. could hardly breathe. Paper and pen in hand. A perfumer was fifty percent alchemist who created miracles-that??s what people wanted.?? because he intended to allow his old and trusted journeyman to share a given percentage of these incomparable riches. did not budge. Nothing more was needed. How repulsive! ??The fool sees with his nose?? rather than his eyes. people lived so densely packed. 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. brass incense holders. This confusion of senses did not last long at all. It made you wish for a return to the old rigid guild laws. His plan was to create entirely new basic odors. But then-she was almost eighty by now-all at once the man who held her annuity had to emigrate. gaseous state.

liqueurs.He was just about to leave this dreary exhibition and head homewards along the gallery of the Louvre when the wind brought him something. and it may well be that God has given you a passably fine nose. Baldini demanded one day that Grenouille use scales. She had effected all the others here at the fish booth. Others grew into true boils. hardworking organ that has been trained to smell for many decades.But all in vain. for tanning requires vast quantities of water.He wanted to test this mannikin. his knowledge. pressing body upon body with five other women. England. in fragments. Madame unfortunately lived to be very. are not going to be fooled. 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. perhaps in deference to Baldini??s delicacy. he continued.????Silence!?? shouted Baldini. the pure oil was left behind-the essence.

Grimal immediately took him up on it. offering humankind vexation and misery along with their benefits.?? said Grenouille. and blew out the candle. its maturity. to say his evening prayers. He had inherited Rose of the South from his father.??It was not spoken as a request. liquid. Baldini resumed the same position as before and stared out of the window. He did not want to continue. True. gone in a split second. 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.. There were certain jobs in the trade- scraping the meat off rotting hides. and Grenouille continued. The very attitude was perverse. humility.With almost youthful elan.?? rasped Grenouille and grew somewhat larger in the doorway.

that was well and good too-the main thing was that it all be done legally.??It??s all done. and it gave off a spark. just as ail great accomplishments of the spirit cast both shadow and light. all of them. in addition to four-fifths alcohol. He pulled a fresh snowy white lace handkerchief from his coat pocket. He had ordered the hides from Grimal a few days before. bleaches to remove freckles from the complexion and nightshade extract for the eyes. that is. it??s like a melody. over her face and hair. and finally with some relief falling asleep.??During the rather lengthy interruption that had burst from him. leaving him disfigured and even uglier than he had been before. He scraped the meat from bestially stinking hides. and sachets and make his rounds among the salons of doddering countesses. too close for comfort. orders for those innovative scents that Paris was so crazy about were indeed coming not only from the provinces but also from foreign courts. and molded greasy sticks of carmine for the lips. Grenouille soon abandoned his bizarre fantasy.

The crowd stands in a circle around her. and powdered amber. Parfumeur. fruit. this craze of experimentation. more costly scents. Monsieur Baldini. but over millions of years. And since she confesses. He knew if there was a worm in the cauliflower before the head was split open. I??ll allow you to start with a third of a mixing bottle. he explained. But above it hovered the ribbon. why should it be designated uniformly as milk. entirely without hope. from the old days. adjectives. her father had struck her across the forehead with a poker. Baldini demanded one day that Grenouille use scales. his notepaper on his knees. 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.

. isolated.????No.That night. Twenty livres was an enormous sum. ??good????? Terrier bellowed at her. the usual catastrophe. had even put the black plague behind him. stepping aside. 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 have lost all professional passions from oae moment to the next. never once making an attempt to resist. Grenouille. which had on first encounter so profoundly shaken him.. He was an abomination from the start. tossed onto a tumbrel at four in the morning with fifty other corpses. unknown mixtures of scent. setting the scales wrong. to tubs. This one scent was the higher principle.

. However exquisite the quality of individual items-for Baldini bought wares of only highest quality-the blend of odors was almost unbearable. sewing gloves of chamois. It was his ambition to assemble in his shop everything that had a scent or in some fashion contributed to the production of scent. an unfamiliar distillate of those exquisite plants that he tended within him. out into the nearby alleys. Actually he required only a moment to convince himself optically-then to abandon himself all the more ruthlessly to olfactory perception. sucking it up into him. he loved the crackling of the burning wood.When she was dead he laid her on the ground among the plum pits.At that. he learned the language of perfumery. hunched over again. weighing ingredients.?? said Terrier and took his finger from his nose.. Otherwise her business would have been of no value to her. Security. while his. And if the police intervened and stuck one of the chief scoundrels in prison. For Grenouille.