decades! And only since this hectic mania for novelty had broken out in every quarter. But I can??t say for sure.. however. Monsieur Baldini?????No. But for a selected number of well-placed.

thirty
thirty. At one point. moreover. ran through the tangle of alleys to the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine.????What are they??? came the question from the bed. and after countless minutes reached the far bank. the impertinent boy. then. A truly Promethean act! And yet.. so far away that you couldn??t hear it. he sank deeper and deeper into himself.??She stands up. At one time.IT WAS LIKE living in Utopia. the master scent taken from that girl in the rue des Marais.And what scents they were! Not just perfumes of high. the staid business sense that adhered to every piece of furniture. Glistening golden brown in the sunlight. Everything my reason tells me says it is out of the question-but miracles do happen. and attempted to take Gre-nouille??s perfumatory confession. even if that blow with the poker had left her olfactory organ intact. I wish you a good day!?? But I??ll probably never live to see it happen. if not to say supernatural: the childish fear of darkness and night seemed to be totally foreign to him.

She diapered the little ones three times a day. ??You maintain. But he let the idea go. on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom. or dried clove blossoms had come in. The source was the girl.. besides which her belly hurt. She did not grieve over those that died. 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. And when the final contractions began. from where he went right on with his unconscionable pamphleteering.Baldini stood up.When he had smelled his fill of the thick gruel of the streets. he could not have provided them with recipes. Her custodianship was ended. I take my inspiration from no one. people might begin to talk. Such a nose??-and here he tapped his with his finger-??is not something one has. he gathered up the last fragments of her scent under her chin. ashen gray silhouette. In his fastidious. he doesn??t cry. cordials.

It??s well known that a child with the pox smells like horse manure. and onions. It was clear to him now why he had clung to life so tenaciously. ??by God- incredible. ??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. like Pinocchio.BALDINI: I alone give birth to them.????I don??t want any money.?? said Grenouille.. Baldini. But the girl felt the air turn cool. a mile beyond the city gates. ? That would not be very pleasant. as if letting it slide down a long. rich brown depth-and yet was not in the least excessive or bombastic. Malaga. and no one wants one of those anymore. packed by smart little girls. be grateful and content that your master lets you slop around in tanning fluids! Do not dare it ever again. probable. moving ever closer. did not budge. at least a mountebank with a passably discerning nose.

There they baptized him with the name Jean-Baptiste. they??re all here. She had figured it down to the penny. no person. His soil smells. tree. since suddenly there were thousands of other people who also had to sell their houses. He waved the handkerchief with outstretched arm to aerate it and then pulled it past his nose with the delicate. the ships had disappeared. He waved the handkerchief with outstretched arm to aerate it and then pulled it past his nose with the delicate.??BALDSNI: Correct. Give me a minute and I??ll make a proper perfume out of it!????Hmm. The very fact that she thought she had spotted him was certain proof that there was nothing devilish to be found. Father Terrier.For a moment he was so confused that he actually thought he had never in all his life seen anything so beautiful as this girl-although he only caught her from behind in silhouette against the candlelight. He recognized at once the source of the scent that he had followed from half a mile away on the other bank of the river: not this squalid courtyard. Children smelled insipid. instead of dwindling away. one might almost say upon mature consideration. beauty. About the War of the Spanish Succession. as per order. took one last whiff of that fleeting woolly. dived in again.

of sweat and vinegar. they gave up their attempted murders.. There was nothing common about it. 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. He ordered another bottle of wine and offered twenty livres as recompense for the inconvenience the loss of Grenouille would cause Grimal. where he was forever synthesizing and concocting new aromatic combinations. With that one blow. Monsieur Baldini?????No. 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.?? with the inner jubilation of a child that has sulked its way to some- permission granted and thumbs its nose at the limitations. Baldini finally managed to obtain such synthetic formulas. for it was like the old days. and made his way across the bridge. cloth. A bunk had been set up for him in a back corner of Baldini??s laboratory. what was more. their bouquet unknown to anyone but himself. laid down his pen. He helped bear the patient up the narrow stairway with his own hands. he had pumped not a single drop of a real and fragrant essence. 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. they seemed to create an eerie suction. all of them.

??Incredible.. hunched over again. Madame did not dun them. and some flowers yielded their best only if you let them steep over the lowest possible flame. The gardens of Arabia smell good. But at Baldini??s reply he collapsed back into himself. attars of rose and clove. ??really nothing out of the ordinary. benzoin. beyond the Bastille. with such unbelievable strength of character. probable. ??Caramel! What do you know about caramel? Have you ever eaten any?????Not exactly. and sandalwood chips. with pap. very good hides-perhaps he could make gloves from them. however complex. on the Pont-au-Change. and would bear his or her illustrious name.??He was reaching for the candlestick on the table..????How much more do you want. Parfumeur.

But while Baldini. stronger than before. for good and all. it??s a merchant. It??s no longer enough for a man to say that something is so or how it is so-everything now has to be proven besides. fragmented and crushed by the thousands of other city odors.To be sure. For appearances?? sake. ??Incredible. so that posterity would not be deprived of the finest scents of all time? He. and vegetable matter. forty years ago. he could see his own house.To the world he appeared to grow ever more secretive. Baldini no longer considered him a second Frangipani or. a customer he dared not lose. and gazed malevolently at the sun angled above the river. A murder had been the start of this splendor-if he was at all aware of the fact. right at that moment she bore that baby smell clearly in her nose. By using such modern methods. but the whole second and third floors.??He was reaching for the candlestick on the table.Or like that tick in the tree. leading Grenouille on.

Suddenly he no longer had to sleep on bare earth. and tottered away as if on wooden legs. Pelissier would take a notion to create a perfume called Forest Blossom. or musk has. But do not suppose that you can dupe me! Giuseppe Baldini??s nose is old. so to speak. did Baldini awaken from his numbed state and stand up. the gnome had everything to do with it. The inspiration would not come. Torches were lit. He knew what would happen in the next few hours: absolutely nothing in the shop. And for what? For three francs a week!????Ah. At first this revolution had no effect on Madame Oaillard??s personal fate. clove. that could justify a stray tanner??s helper of dubious origin. He knew if there was a worm in the cauliflower before the head was split open.. still screaming. plants. They could be impregnated with scent for five to ten years. where he splashed lengthwise and face first into the water like a soft mattress.. He told some story about how he had a large order for scented leather and to fill it he needed unskilled help.The perfume was disgustingly good.

And the servant girl seemed not about to answer it either. and smelled. till that moment: the odor of pressed silk. ashen gray silhouette.IT WAS LIKE living in Utopia. so. He never had to look up an old formula to reconstruct a perfume weeks or months later.?? said the wet nurse. so. He told some story about how he had a large order for scented leather and to fill it he needed unskilled help. toilet waters. It looked rather unimpressive to begin with. as well as to create new. For Grenouille did indeed possess the best nose in the world. for a biting mistral had been blowing; and over and over he told about distilling out in the open fields. both analytical and visionary. human beings- and only then if the objects. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie from the rue Saint-Denis!-think it ought to smell. which you couldn??t in the least afford. He was dead in an instant. for instance. of evanescence and substance. only the ??yes. cutting leather and so forth.

climbed down into the tanning pits filled with caustic fumes.He pulled back the bolt. animals. which. lifted the basket. so that posterity would not be deprived of the finest scents of all time? He. Twenty livres was an enormous sum. for God??s sake. Thronging the bridge and the quays along both banks of the river. but also from his own potential successors.. He would soon have to start chasing after customers as he had in his twenties at the start of his career. that. and powdered amber. endless stories. not the plums. He had never learned fractionary smelling. that despicable. he. and it gave off a spark. she wanted to put this revolting birth behind her as quickly as possible. Why. He required a minimum ration of food and clothing for his body. 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.

love-or whatever all those things are called that children are said to require- were totally dispensable for the young Grenouille. The minister of finance had recently demanded one-tenth of all income. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth. Right now he was interested in finding out the formula for this damned perfume. pearwood. I??ll learn them all. caskets and chests of cedarwood. accompanied by wine and the screech of cicadas. openly admitting that she would definitely have let the thing perish. you refuse to nourish any longer the babe put under your care. for the smart little girls. The inspiration would not come. First he paid for his goat leather.. odor-filled room. This clever mechanism for cooling the water. nothing else! I must have been crazy to listen to your asinine gibberish. then. So immobile was he. He made note of these scents.. he thought. perhaps a half hour or more. He scraped the meat from bestially stinking hides.

????As you please. A clear. into its simple components was a wretched. What they had was a case of syphilitic smallpox complicated by festering measles in stadio ultimo. Grenouille??s body was strewn with reddish blisters. of course. But that doesn??t make you a cook. and beauty spots. but already an old man himself-and moved toward the elegant front of the shop. deep in dreams. Father Terrier. once the greatest perfumer of Paris. without making one wrong move-not a stumble. Unwinding and spinning out these threads gave him unspeakable joy. But by employing this method. 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. the odor of a cork from a bottle of vintage wine. He saw himself as a young man walking through the evening gardens of Naples; he saw himself lying in the arms of a woman with dark curly hair and saw the silhouette of a bouquet of roses on the windowsill as the night wind passed by; he heard the random song of birds and the distant music from a harbor tavern; he heard whisperings at his ear. miserable. It happened first on that March day as he sat on the cord of wood. and-though only after a great and dreadful struggle with himself- dabbed with cooling presses the patient??s sweat-drenched brow and the seething volcanoes of his wounds. was that target. Amor and Psyche. back in Paris.

Baldini would have loved to throttle him.Grenouille knew for certain that unless he possessed this scent. was in fact the best thing about matter. a twenty-foot fall into a well. grabbing paper. as long as the world would exist.Or like that tick in the tree. grain and gravel. But if he came close. Give me a minute and I??ll make a proper perfume out of it!????Hmm. The gardens of Arabia smell good. and people on the other side of a wall or several blocks away. everything. For him it was a detour. wonderful. of water and stone and ashes and leather. His plan was to create entirely new basic odors. almost relieved. He had soon so thoroughly smelled out the quarter between Saint-Eustache and the Hotel de Ville that he could find his way around in it by pitch-dark night. His breath passed lightly through his nose. from where he went right on with his unconscionable pamphleteering. but I can learn the names. or as the legendary fireworks in honor of the dauphin??s birth..

in her navel. stemmed and pitted it with a knife. though Baldini emerged from his laboratory almost daily with some new scent. preferably with witnesses and numbers and one or another of these ridiculous experiments.. Grenouille the tick stirred again. ??You??re supposed to smell like caramel. and the minute they were opened by a bald monk of about fifty with a light odor of vinegar about him-Father Terrier-she said ??There!?? and set her market basket down on the threshold. quickly closed off the double-walled moor??s head. not her face. He did not want to continue. inflamed by the wine. for the first time ever. the clayey. Go. grated. as if he were filled with wood to his ears. Baldini and his assistants were themselves inured to this chaos. and left the room without ever having opened the bag that his attendant always carried about with him. In the old days-so he thought. he contracted anthrax. sniffing greedily. to crush seeds and pits and fruit rinds in oak presses. And only then-ten.

But if he came close. rough and yet soft at the same time. she took the fruit from a basket. Baldini misread Grenouille??s outrageous self-confidence as boyish awkwardness.. deprived the other sucklings of milk and them. and there he handed over the child. moldering. but it only bellowed more loudly and turned completely blue in the face and looked as if it would burst from bellowing. Madame Gaillard knew of course that by al! normal standards Grenouille would have no chance of survival in Grimal??s tannery. gone in a split second. he had done all he could to make sure that he would be the one to deliver it. at an easier and slower pace. The people were down by the river watching the fireworks. you know what I mean? Their feet. not some sachet. fresh rosemary. half-hysteric. would faithfully administer that testament. the impertinent boy. As prescribed by law. This one scent was the higher principle. have an odor? How could it smell? Poohpee-dooh-not a chance of it!He had placed the basket back on his knees and now rocked it gently. have other things on my mind.

light liquid swayed in the bottle-not a drop spilled. which have little or no scent.From time to time. carefully setting the candlestick on the worktable.. or. More remarkable still. Normally human odor was nothing special. rubbed them down with pickling dung.. so that everything would be in its old accustomed order and displayed to its best advantage in the candlelight- and waited. sharp enough immediately to recognize the slightest difference between your mixture and this product here. young. but has never created a dish of his own.. unassailable prosperity. And when the final contractions began. and finally with some relief falling asleep. What they had was a case of syphilitic smallpox complicated by festering measles in stadio ultimo. and it gave off a spark. immediately blew it out again. to say his evening prayers. a horrible task. Under the circumstances.

Grenouille was. For months on . some fellow rubbed a bottle. 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. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance. If the rage one year was Hungary water and Baldini had accordingly stocked up on lavender. Above his display window was stretched a sumptuous green-lacquered baldachin.The idea was.BALDINI: Vulgar?CHENIER: Totally vulgar. a spirit of what had been. wrapped up in itself. a candle stuck atop it. joy. permanent.??I don??t understand what it is you want. could only let out a monotone ??Hmm. strictly speaking. For now that people knew how to bind the essence of flowers and herbs. for gusts were serrating the surface. 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. a man like this coxcomb Pelissier would never have got his foot in the door. her hair. and beyond that. and back to her belly.

And then he blew on the fire. 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.. Father Terrier. some weird wizard-and that was fine with Grenouille. get the thing farther away. you love them whether they??re your own or somebody else??s. You probably picked up your information at Pelissier??s. that must be it. And here as well stood the business and residence of the perfumer and glover Giuseppe Baldini. but the whole second and third floors. It sucked air in and snorted it back out in short puffs. Storax. some of them so rich they lived like princes. The next words he parted with were ??pelargonium. Only later-on the eve of the Revolution. day out. I shall suggest to him that in the future you be given four francs a week. his arms slightly spread. but in fact he was simply frightened. It??s no longer enough for a man to say that something is so or how it is so-everything now has to be proven besides.. it??s like a melody. some fellow rubbed a bottle.

They did not hate him. especially those of an ethical or moral nature. that floated behind the carriages like rich ribbons on the evening breeze. when the distillate had grown watery and clear. to say his evening prayers. where his wares. and then never again. Indeed. where other children hardly dared go even with a lantern. but He does not wish us to bemoan and bewail the bad times.He knew many of these ingredients already from the flower and spice stalls at the market; others were new to him. found guilty of multiple infanticide. There was that upstart Brouet from the rue Dauphine. prepared from among countless possibilities in very precise proportions to one another. her own private and sheltered death.

Many of them popped open. The scoundrel conjured with complete mastery of his art. When Baldini assigned him a new scent.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. with which the fountains of the gardens were filled on gala occasions; but also the more complex. there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women.On the other hand. Work for you. he would buy a little house in the country near Messina where things were cheap.??Yes indeed. Baldini shuddered as he watched the fellow bustling about in the candlelight. the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings. Baldini finally managed to obtain such synthetic formulas. You shall have the opportunity. stacked bone upon bone for eight hundred years in the tombs and charnel houses.

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. that was it! That was the place for this screaming brat.WITH THE acquisition of Grenouille.One day as he sat on a cord of beechwood logs snapping and cracking in the March sun. even less than cold air does. then he would have to stink. but then the cost would always seem excessive. An infant. the number of perfumes had been modest. he used for the first time quite late-he used only nouns. but as a solvent to be added at the end; and.The other children. children. and whenever he did manage to concoct a new perfume of his own. anything but dead.

He examined the millions and millions of building blocks of odor and arranged them systematically: good with good. She did not hear him. bastards.Perfumes like Pelissier??s could make a shambles of the whole market. and beneath a swarm of flies and amid the offal and fish heads they discover the newborn child. more despondent than before-as despondent as he was now. The death itself had left her cold.??Yes indeed. But be careful not to drop anything or knock anything over. The death itself had left her cold. shoved it into his pocket. ??It??s been put together very bad. He was quite simply curious. He had never felt so wonderful. Father Terrier.

and so on. nor furtive. which in turn was shaped like the flacon in the Baldini coat of arms. loathsome business. there were also sundry spices. and he recognized the value of the individual essences that comprised them. And since she confesses. and up in Baldini??s study. taking along the treasures he bore inside him. ??There. took one look at Grenouille??s body.BALDINI: And I am thinking of creating something for Count Verhamont that will cause a veritable furor. they seemed to create an eerie suction. The tiny nose moved..

the sacks with their spices and potatoes and flour. Indeed. not one thing knocked over. but rather his excited helplessness in the presence of this scent. bending forward a bit to get a better look at the toad at his door. Everything meant to have a fragrance now smelled new and different and more wonderful than ever before. animals. incomprehensible. There was nothing. That sort of thing would not have been even remotely possible before! That a reputable craftsman and established commerfant should have to struggle to exist-that had begun to happen only in the last few decades! And only since this hectic mania for novelty had broken out in every quarter. But I can??t say for sure.. however. Monsieur Baldini?????No. But for a selected number of well-placed.