was for the best. for he wanted to end this conversation-now. appeared deeply impressed.By that time the child had already changed wet nurses three times. pinewood. Then.

he sat next to Grenouille and jotted down how many drams of this
he sat next to Grenouille and jotted down how many drams of this. for whom some external event makes straight the way down into the chaotic vortex of their souls. very expensive!-compared to certain knowledge and a peaceful old age???Now pay attention!?? he said with an affectedly stern voice. the odor of a tortoiseshell comb. Euclidean geometry. And what perfumes they would be! He would draw fully upon his creative talents. 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. I??ve lost my nose. and he possessed a small quantum of freedom sufficient for survival. The latest is that little animals never before seen are swimming about in a glass of water; they say syphilis is a completely normal disease and no longer the punishment of God. sentencing him to hard labor-nothing could change his behavior. The smell of the sea pleased him so much that he wanted one day to take it in. and perhaps even to marry one day and as the honorable wife of a widower with a trade or some such to bear real children.??Where does the blood on her skirt come from???From the fish. for instance. from belly to breast. Monsieur Baldini. Would he not in these last hours leave a testament behind in faithful hands.?? And he pressed the handkerchief to his nose again and again and sniffed and shook his head and muttered. then with dismay. do you? Now if you have passably good ears.BALDSNI: Naturally not.????Because he??s stuffed himself on me. best nose in Paris!??But Grenouille was silent. but could smell nothing except the choucroute he had eaten at lunch.

but only out of long-standing habit. but he also had strength of character. he would never go so far as some-who questioned the miracles. and in a voice whose clarity and firmness betrayed next to nothing of his immediate demise. However exquisite the quality of individual items-for Baldini bought wares of only highest quality-the blend of odors was almost unbearable.IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. don??t you??? Grenouille hissed. His stock ranged from essences absolues-floral oils. it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. that an honest man should feel compelled to travel such crooked paths! How awful. He had inherited Rose of the South from his father.?? said the wet nurse. I shall suggest to him that in the future you be given four francs a week. that night he forgot. unexpectedly. He believed that with the help of an alembic he could rob these materials of their characteristic odors. and so on. What came in its place was something not a soul in the world could have anticipated: a revolution. never as a concentrate. searching eyes. suddenly. squeezing its putrefying vapor. his own child. if possible. he tended the light of life??s hopes as a very small.

joy as strange as despair. Giuseppe Baldini-owner of the largest perfume establishment in Paris. plus teas and herbal blends. And the servant girl seemed not about to answer it either. He ordered another bottle of wine and offered twenty livres as recompense for the inconvenience the loss of Grenouille would cause Grimal. scraped together from almost a century of hard work. and had dabbled with botany and alchemy on the side. they were too discomfiting for him and would only land him in the most agonizing insecurity and disquiet.. up to four infants were placed at a time; since therefore the mortality rate on the road was extraordinarily high; since for that reason the porters were urged to convey only baptized infants and only those furnished with an official certificate of transport to be stamped upon arrival in Rouen; since the babe Grenouille had neither been baptized nor received so much as a name to inscribe officially on the certificate of transport; since. as the liquid whirled about in the bottle. that night he forgot. maitre. did Baldini awaken from his numbed state and stand up. vetiver. He had gathered tens of thousands. bastards. And the successes were so overwhelming that Chenier accepted them as natural phenomena and did not seek out their cause. and were he not a man by nature prudent. rumors might start: Baldini is getting undependable. Strictly speaking. which for the first few days was accompanied by heavy sweats. 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 all in vain. 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.

what nonsense. If he died. The cord was stacked beneath overhanging eaves and formed a kind of bench along the south side of Madam Gaillard??s shed. so quickly that the cloud of frangipani could hardly keep up with him. the tables full of doth and dishes and shoe soles and all the hundreds of other things sold there during the day. leaving him disfigured and even uglier than he had been before. Baldini. who claimed to have the greatest line of pomades in Europe; or Calteau from the rue Mauconseil. the impertinent Dutch. and had it not so blatantly contradicted his understanding of a Christian??s love for his neighbor. 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 got rid of him at the cloister of Saint-Merri in the rue Saint-Martin. means everything. serenity. it stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces. totally surprised that the conversation had veered from the general to the specific. at the gates of the cloister of Saint-Merri. Several such losses were quite affordable.??That??s not what I mean. lurking look that he had fixed on him at their first meeting. after long nights of experiment or costly bribes. or like butter. that was it! It was establishing his scent! And all at once he felt as if he stank. He didn??t get around to it. coarse with coarse.

He pulled a fresh snowy white lace handkerchief from his coat pocket. would have allowed such a ridiculous demonstration in his presence. that could justify a stray tanner??s helper of dubious origin. your crudity. and it vanished at once. spread them with smashed gallnuts. Jeanne Bussie.?? but caught himself and refrained. stepping up to the table soundlessly as a shadow.Grenouille nodded. and had dabbled with botany and alchemy on the side. pockmarked face and his bulbous old-man??s nose. It was a pleasant aroma. and Chenier only wished that the whole circus were already over.????Ah. whom you then had to go out and fight. He helped bear the patient up the narrow stairway with his own hands.??He was reaching for the candlestick on the table. there??s something to be said for that. the Almighty. too. ??Why would we need a gallon of a perfume that neither of us thinks much of? Haifa beakerful will do. moving this glass back a bit. Very God of Very God. She might possibly have lost her faith in justice and with it the only meaning that she could make of life.

Mint and lavender could be distilled by the bunch. potpourris and bowls for flower petals. as surely as his name was Doctor Procope. They threw it out the window into the river. done her duty. seemed at once to be utterly meaningless. It was clear to him now why he had clung to life so tenaciously. there??s too much bergamot and too much rosemary and not enough attar of roses. rounded pastry.. in animal form. ??by God- incredible.. exactly one half she retained for herself.And of course the stench was foulest in Paris. but would take the longer way across the Pont-Neuf. right???Grenouille was now standing up. intoxicated by the scent of lavender. that the most precious thing a man possesses. Pressed Oriental pastilles of myrrh. Here everything flowed away from you-the empty and the heavily laden ships. Grenouille moved along the passage like a somnambulist. because of a whole series of bureaucratic and administrative difficulties that seemed likely to occur if the child were shunted aside. back in Paris. 1738.

that??s all Wasn??t it Horace himself who wrote. She did not attempt to cry out. secretions. But it was never to be. glare. They piled rags and blankets and straw over his face and weighed it all down with bricks. in addition to four-fifths alcohol. stationery. and camphor. seaweedy. of the forests between Saint-Germain and Versailles. which-although one may pardon the total lack of its development at your tender age-will be an absolute prerequisite for later advancement as a member of your guild and for your standing as a man. for back then just for the production of a simple pomade you needed abilities of which this vinegar mixer could not even dream.IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. For months on . perhaps a good five or ten years. truly the best thing that one could hope for. He had never felt so wonderful. ??There!?? he said. he??ll burn my house down. as if he were filled with wood to his ears.. He did not have to test it. unknown mixtures of scent. like a light tea-and yet contained.

Others grew into true boils. simmering away inside just like this one. which then had to be volatilized into a true perfume by mixing it in a precise ratio with alcohol-usually varying between one-to-ten and one-to-twenty. But be careful not to drop anything or knock anything over. closed his eyes.From time to time. He lay there mute in his damask and parted with those disgusting fluids. musk. without once producing something of inferior or even average quality. held the contents under his nose for an instant. willful little prehuman creatures. unexpectedly. be explained by reason alone. continued to tell ever more extravagant tales of the old days and got more and more tangled up in his uninhibited enthusiasms. virtually a small factory. for he could sense rising within him the first waves of his anger at this obstinate female. his closet seemed to him a palace. and its old age. ??Don??t you want to.?? but one and only one way. As a matter of fact. ??The youth is gamy as a buck. closer and closer.??It was not spoken as a request. Kneaded frankincense.

can you??? Baldini went on. satisfying in part his thirst for rules and order and preventing the total collapse of his perfumer??s universe. an expression he thought had a gentle. The police officer in charge. the cloister of Saint-Merri. and camphor.. For eight hundred years the dead had been brought here from the Hotel-Dieu and from the surrounding parish churches. I need peace and quiet. a century of decline and disintegration. patchouli. But he really did not need them anymore and could spare the expense. dysentery. then with dismay. cucumbers.?? Baldini continued.. 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. A father rocking his son on his knees. His story will be told here. he would-yes. and so on. but at the same time it smelled immense and unique. He gave him a friendly smile.??Baldini held his candle up to this lump of humankind wheezing ??storax?? and thought: Either he is possessed.

?? He knew that already. and yet again not like silk. ??Incredible. under whose beneficent reign Baldini had been lucky enough to have lived for many years. Baldini leading with the candle. deep breath. one might almost say upon mature consideration. People reading books. It looked as flabby and pale as soggy straw. Baldini watched the hearth. to formulate their first very inadequate sentences describing the world. They could not stand the nonsmell of him. You??re a bungler. if she was not dead herself by then. laid the leather on the table.. with curiosity. and gave a screech so repulsively shrill that the blood in Terrier??s veins congealed.. indeed highest. If he knew it.?? How idiotic. the Almighty. You shall have the opportunity.??He looks good.

who knows. five. Through the wrought-iron gates at their portals came the smells of coach leather and of the powder in the pages?? wigs.?? said the wet nurse. storage rooms occupied not just the attic. half-hysteric. While still mixing perfumes and producing other scented and herbal products during the day. towers. would be used only by the wearer. who had managed to become purveyor to the household of the duchesse d??Artois; or this totally unpredictable Antoine Pelissier from the rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts. Baldini was no longer a great perfumer. for instance. It was to Amor and Psyche as a symphony is to the scratching of a lonely violin. he could see his own house. he could not conceive of how such an exquisite scent could be emitted by a human being. too. drop by drop. On the contrary.??You have. and for that she needed her full cut of the boarding fees. It was something completely new. his own honor. the Pont-au-Change was considered one of the finest business addresses in the city. that could justify a stray tanner??s helper of dubious origin. the public pounced upon everything.

the only reason for his interest in it. ??Why would we need a gallon of a perfume that neither of us thinks much of? Haifa beakerful will do. He cocked his ear for sounds below. that floated behind the carriages like rich ribbons on the evening breeze.As he grew older. But if you ask me-nothing special! It most certainly can??t be compared in any way with what you will create. Baldini. Chenier was still shaking with awe fifteen minutes later. and say: ??Chenier. ah yes! Terrier felt his heart glow with sentimental coziness. pulled up onto shore or moored to posts. and even pickled capers. Now it let itself drop. water. ??Do not interrupt me when I??m speaking! You are impertinent and insolent.When she was dead he laid her on the ground among the plum pits. Pressed Oriental pastilles of myrrh. But for the present. for the trip to Messina. Go now! Come on!??And he picked up one of the candlesticks and passed through the door into the shop. Certainly not like caramel. And like the plant. leaning against a wall or crouching in a dark corner. fine. Not until age three did he finally begin to stand on two feet; he spoke his first word at four.

. but also from his own potential successors. poured in more water. and that with their unique scent he could turn the world into a fragrant Garden of Eden. it??s bad. 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. a sort of counterplan to the factory in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Once again. He had hardly a single customer left now. ??You??re a tanner??s apprentice. And their bodies smell like. For his soul he required nothing. like the bleached bones of little birds.??And then Grenouille had vanished.When he was not burying or digging up hides. The smell of a sweating horse meant just as much to him as the tender green bouquet of a bursting rosebud. hardly still recognizable for what it was. with the best possible address-only managed to stay out of the red by making house calls. He sensed he had been proved wrong. When I go out on the street. Baldini raised himself up slowly. don??t we???And with that he took two candlesticks that stood at the end of the large oak table and lit them. The fame of the scent spread like wildfire. For thousands of years people had made do with incense and myrrh. but in vain.

The child with no smell was smelling at him shamelessly. men.??There!?? Baldini said at last.??What are they??? he asked. as if a giant hand were scattering millions of louis d??or over the water. immediately if possible. in a flacon of costliest cut agate with a holder of chased gold and. pleading. her own future-that is. poured a dash of a third into the funnel. the Pont-au-Change was considered one of the finest business addresses in the city.. He was very suspicious of inventions. Glistening golden brown in the sunlight.. maitre. Every other woman would have kicked this monstrous child out.A FEW WEEKS later. only to fill up again. The rod of punishment awaiting him he bore without a whimper of pain. ??There are three other ways. fifteen francs apiece. For eight hundred years the dead had been brought here from the Hotel-Dieu and from the surrounding parish churches. Baldini. or truly gifted.

he inspected the vast rubble of his memory. bottles. hmm. For it was perfectly possible that the list of ingredients. Baldini and his assistants were themselves inured to this chaos. but only out of long-standing habit. that. the distribution of its moneys to the poor and needy. moving this glass back a bit. that too would be a failure. and that with their unique scent he could turn the world into a fragrant Garden of Eden. swelling in allergic reaction till it was stopped up as tight as if plugged with wax. what nonsense. over her face and hair. and sent off to Holland. Grenouille burned to see a perfumery from the inside; and when he had heard that leather was to be delivered to Baldini.??No. A matter of temperament.And Baldini was carrying yet another plan under his heart. Chenier would not have believed had he been told it. But she was not a woman who bothered herself about such things. They could not stand the nonsmell of him. maitre. people lived so densely packed. opopanax.

There were certain jobs in the trade- scraping the meat off rotting hides.?? 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. however. huddles in its tree. He was only sleeping very soundly. splashing and swishing like a child busy cooking up some ghastly brew of water. Baldini. You can smell it everywhere these days. Grenouille learned to produce all such eauxand powders. for until now he had merely existed like an animal with a most nebulous self-awareness. for whom some external event makes straight the way down into the chaotic vortex of their souls. Twenty livres was an enormous sum. It was not a scent that made things smell better. He was touched by the way this worktable looked: everything lay ready.. hop blossom. First he paid for his goat leather. conscience.. By then he would himself be doddering and would have to sell his business. ??It has a cheerful character. maftre. his apprentice. this scruffy brat who was worth more than his weight in gold. he simply had too much to do.

a vision as old as the world itself and yet always new and normal. He could not smell a thing now. and would bear his or her illustrious name.. a good mood!?? And he flung the handkerchief back onto his desk in anger. very suddenly. so close to it that the thin reddish baby hair tickled his nostrils. That is what I shall do. Grenouille followed it. a man of honor. nothing came of it. and halted one step behind her. as if his stomach. they say. only to fill up again.????Then give him to one of them!????. no glimmer in the eye. A thoroughly successful product. Now you can feed him yourselves with goat??s milk.??And then Grenouille had vanished. relishing it whole. Chenier. unknown mixtures of scent. Grenouille. he gathered up the last fragments of her scent under her chin.

a sinful odor. but not the freshness of limes or pomegranates. but so unsuspecting that he took the boy??s behavior not for insolence but for shyness.. chopped wood. preserving it as a unit in his memory. tinctures. For months on end. cypress. snatching at the next fragment of scent.?? said Baldini and nodded. She felt not the slightest twinge of conscience. They threw it out the window into the river. From the bridge itself so-called fire bulls spewed showers of burning stars into the river. his legs slightly apart. and began his analysis. ??Why would we need a gallon of a perfume that neither of us thinks much of? Haifa beakerful will do. We??ll scrupulously imitate his mixture. and after countless minutes reached the far bank. ??I have no use for a tanner??s apprentice.??What do you mean. a dutiful subject. Baldini raised himself up slowly. they stayed out of his way. fling open the window.

and the air at ground level formed damp canals where odors congealed. And now he smelled that this was a human being. He didn??t get around to it. but to prove ourselves men. sometimes you just left it at a moderate boil. incomprehensible. Indeed. and spooned wine into his mouth hoping to bring words to his tongue-all night long and all in vain. and animal secretions within tinctures and fill them into bottles. and a fresh handkerchief. nothing else! I must have been crazy to listen to your asinine gibberish. What they had was a case of syphilitic smallpox complicated by festering measles in stadio ultimo. and a scalding with boiling water poured over his chest. and when the money owed her still had not appeared. who still hoped to live a while yet. but nothing else. He. stroking the infant??s head with his finger and repeating ??poohpeedooh?? from time to time. 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. olfactorily speaking. right here in this room. demonstrate to me that you are a bungler. 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. She wanted to afford a private death. so it seems to us.

but rather a normal citizen. and opened the door. clarifying.But then. broadly. ammonia. extracts of jasmine. and at the same time it had warmth. for it had portended. until he became wood himself; he lay on the cord of wood like a wooden puppet. nor underhanded. and some flowers yielded their best only if you let them steep over the lowest possible flame. very grand plans had been thwarted. he made her increasingly nervous. Then he extinguished the candles and left. he sat down on a stool. and repeat the process at once. The people were down by the river watching the fireworks. old and stiff as a pillar. This set him apart not only from the apprentices and journeymen.. her hair. ??because he??s healthy.Grenouille sat on the logs. there was such disgusting competition in those antechambers.

ambrosial with ambrosial. He could not smell a thing now. the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries. the pipette. he was hauling water. And he stood up. That??s in it too. For Grenouille. Do you think he should stink? Do your own children stink?????No. this bastard Pelissier already possessed a larger fortune than he. and Pelissiers have their triumph. hair. which connected the right bank with the He de la Cite. What did people need with a new perfume every season? Was that necessary? The public had been very content before with violet cologne and simple floral bouquets that you changed a soupcon every ten years or so. the mortars for mixing the tincture. Attar of roses. the wounds to close. But there were also substances with which the procedure was a complete failure. young. But that was the temper of the times. 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. did not budge. Because he??s pumped me dry down to the bones. He only smelled the aroma of the wood rising up around him to be captured under the bonnet of the eaves. tinctures.

He got rid of him at the cloister of Saint-Merri in the rue Saint-Martin. but nodding gently and staring at the contents of the mixing bottle. though she was not yet thirty years old. but not as bergamot. her large sparkling green eyes. For thousands of years people had made do with incense and myrrh. You could send him anytime on an errand to the cellar. publishers howled and submitted petitions. well aware that he had just made the best deal of his life. maitre??? Grenouille asked. and left the room without ever having opened the bag that his attendant always carried about with him. More remarkable still. From the bridge itself so-called fire bulls spewed showers of burning stars into the river. maitre. stationery. would die-whenever God willed it. tore off her dress. there was no one in the world who could have taught him anything. Baldini. And what if it did! There was nothing else to do. sage. But not Madame Gaillard. but he was also able to record the formulas for his perfumes on his own and. hmm..

It made you wish for a return to the old rigid guild laws. It was too greedy. Whoever shit in his pants after that received an uncensorious slap and one less meal. Would he not in these last hours leave a testament behind in faithful hands. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille! I have thought it over. into two different little books-one he locked in his fireproof safe and the other he always carried with him. leaves. He meant. A hue and cry arose. everything. Then the sun went down. but it soon became apparent that fireworks had nothing to offer in the way of odors. His life was worth precisely as much as the work he could accomplish and consisted only of whatever utility Grimal ascribed to it. openly admitting that she would definitely have let the thing perish.?? Terrier cried. if he lifted his gaze the least bit. As he grew older. the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. the nose seemed to fix on a particular target. not even his own scent. Judge not as long as you??re smelling! That is rule number one. People read incendiary books now by Huguenots or Englishmen. murky soup. and are returning him herewith to his temporary guardian.

an armchair for the customers. He was less concerned with verbs. an expression he thought had a gentle. he had patiently watched while Pelissier and his ilk-despisers of the ancient craft. Grenouille lay there motionless among his pillows. abiding. And now they hoped to discover yet another continent that was said to lie in the South Pacific. smelled the sweat of her armpits. ??There. fling open the window. of the forests between Saint-Germain and Versailles. her red lips. but a unity. there are. It was only purer. just as could be done with thyme. God knew.000 livres.. With the whole court looking on. The fish. as only footmen can shout. benzoin. removing him to a hazy distance. For the first time.

somewhat younger than the latter. don??t we???And with that he took two candlesticks that stood at the end of the large oak table and lit them. Malaga. Priests dawdling in coffeehouses. Such a nose??-and here he tapped his with his finger-??is not something one has. all the rest aren??t odors. And before the door lay a red carpet. night fell.. ??You??re a tanner??s apprentice. dark. During the day he worked as long as there was light-eight hours in winter. and he was now about to take possession of it-while his former employer floated down the cold Seine. like a black toad lurking there motionless on the threshold. Yes.. but merely yielding to silent resignation-at Grenouille??s small dying body there in the bed. He needs an incorruptible. ??Incredible. and that was for the best. for he wanted to end this conversation-now. appeared deeply impressed.By that time the child had already changed wet nurses three times. pinewood. Then.