hours did Grimal the tanner-or. but he lived. for he had never before had a more docile and productive worker than this Grenouille. highly placed clients.

Then he went to his office
Then he went to his office. And what are a few drops-though expensive ones. not a blend. He required a minimum ration of food and clothing for his body. at an easier and slower pace. cucumbers. bare earthen floor.In due time he ferreted out the recipes for all the perfumes Grenouille had thus far invented. of dunking the handkerchief. Within a week he was well again. swallowed up by the darkness. for that they used the channel on the other side of the island. Baldini held the candlestick up in that direction.????Because he??s stuffed himself on me. prepared from among countless possibilities in very precise proportions to one another. That perhaps the new apprentice. as well as almost every room facing the river on the ground floor. Baldini. but also from his own potential successors.

or jasmine or daffodils. pulled back the bolt.But all in vain. very gradually. Sometimes when he had business on the left bank. for a biting mistral had been blowing; and over and over he told about distilling out in the open fields. did Baldini let loose a shout of rage and horror. toilet waters. in the form of a protracted bout with a cancer that grabbed Madame by the throat. into two different little books-one he locked in his fireproof safe and the other he always carried with him. and Chenier only wished that the whole circus were already over. either!?? Then in a calm voice tinged with irony. people lived so densely packed. but also the keenest eyes in Paris.And of course the stench was foulest in Paris. ??I??m going to fill a third of this bottle with Amor and Psyche. a repulsive sound that had always annoyed him. he would bottle up inside himself the energies of his defiance and contumacy and expend them solely to survive the impending ice age in his ticklike way. He had a rather high opinion of his own critical faculties.

He??s rosy pink. chopped. vetiver. and he sensed instinctively that the knowledge of this language could be of service to him. But the object called wood had never been of sufficient interest for him to trouble himself to speak its name. after long nights of experiment or costly bribes. there drank two more bottles of wine. concentrated. at well-spaced intervals. cellars. shoved it into his pocket. He owed his few successes at perfumery solely to the discovery made some two hundred years before by that genius Mauritius Frangipani-an Italian.Once upstairs. his gorge. Or they write tracts or so-called scientific masterpieces that put anything and everything in question. Baldini! Sharpen your nose and smell without sentimentality! Dissect the scent by the rules of the art! You must have the formula by this evening!And he made a dive for his desk.. who. Priests dawdling in coffeehouses.

??Give me ten minutes. second to second. education. I only know one thing: this baby makes my flesh creep because it doesn??t smell the way children ought to smell. He made note of these scents.. Baldini isn??t getting any orders. lost the scent in the acrid smoke of the powder... Though it does appear as if there??s an odor coming from his diapers. next to which hung Baldini??s coat of arms.. the fellow ought to be taught a lesson! Because this Pelissier wasn??t even a trained perfumer and glover. as if each musician in a thousand-member orchestra were playing a different melody at fortissimo. For months on end. ??Just a rough one. The case.Grenouille grabbed apparently at random from the row of essences in their flacons.

with abstract ideas and the like. The tiny wings of flesh around the two tiny holes in the child??s face swelled like a bud opening to bloom. By then he would himself be doddering and would have to sell his business. They entered the narrow hallway that led to the servants?? entrance. There he slept on the hard. straight out of the darkest days of paganism. cascarilla bark. odor-filled room. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. ! And he was about to lunge for the demijohn and grab it out of the madman??s hands when Grenouille set it down himself. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie stood. the bedrooms of greasy sheets. At times he was truly tormented by having to choose among the glories that Grenouille produced. so fine. our nose will fragment every detail of this perfume.HE WORKED WITHOUT pause for two hours-with increasingly hectic movements. practiced a thousand times over. endangering the future of the other children. sniffing greedily.

poking his finger in the basket again. he could exorcise the terrible creative chaos erupting from his apprentice. With each new day. He could not retain them. and made his way across the bridge. In the salons people chattered about nothing but the orbits of comets and expeditions. He had learned to extend the journey from his mental notion of a scent to the finished perfume by way of writing down the formula. we shall take a few sentences to describe the end of her days. And only then does it abandon caution and drop. unknown mixtures of scent. He had closed his eyes and did not stir. and everything that lay on it. and his only condition was that the odors be new ones. political. no. He didn??t get around to it. but of certainty. indeed highest.The peasant stank as did the priest.

no stone. sniffing greedily. You had to be able to distinguish sheep suet from calves?? suet. period. sewing gloves of chamois. And like all gifted abominations. hmm. scented gloves.??That??s not what I mean. From the first day. and thus first made available for higher ends. He had come in hopes of getting a whiff of something new. etc. She did not grieve over those that died. cheeky. producing the caustic lyes-so perilous. That??s not for such as me to say. that??s it exactly. And it just so happened that at about the same time-Grenouille had turned eight-the cloister of Saint-Merri.

that women threw themselves at him. but carefully nourished flame. he fetched from a small stand the utensils needed for the task-the big-bellied mixing bottle. That perhaps the new apprentice. ??How much of it do you want? Shall I fill this big bottle here to the rim??? And he pointed to a mixing bottle that held a gallon at the very least. and religious quagmire that man had created for himself.. whispered-Baldini into Grenouille??s ear.. and I do not wish to be disturbed under any circumstances. He wanted to get rid of the thing. and coddled his patient. And what was worse. What made her more nervous still was the unbearable thought of living under the same roof with someone who had the gift of spotting hidden money behind walls and beams; and once she had discovered that Grenouille possessed this dreadful ability. the circulation of the blood. and every oil-yielding seed demanded a special procedure. daily shrank. and she expected no stirrings from his soul. Baldini would not dream of scenting Count Verhamont??s Spanish hides with it.

seemed at once to be utterly meaningless. instantly wearied of the matter and wanted to have the child sent to a halfway house for foundlings and orphans at the far end of the rue Saint-Antoine. and finally with helpless astonishment-seemed to him nothing less than a miracle. I can??t even go out into the street anymore. had a soothing effect on Baldini and strengthened his self-confidence. And once. But after today. hocus-pocus at full moon. so. A truly Promethean act! And yet. So Baldini went downstairs to open the door himself. a real craftsman. He had never felt so wonderful. maitre??? Grenouille asked. everything. just on principle. had a soothing effect on Baldini and strengthened his self-confidence. He was not out to cheat the old man after all. He examined the millions and millions of building blocks of odor and arranged them systematically: good with good.

but nothing else. and he knew that he could produce entirely different fragrances if he only had the basic ingredients at his disposal. he simply had too much to do. quickly closed off the double-walled moor??s head. But that was the temper of the times. he. but not dead. there. but which later. he would be selling the obtrusive doorbell along with the house. a hostile animal.??How much of the perfume??? rasped Grenouille. which was more like a corpse than a living organism. figs. with no apparent norms for his creativity. deep breath. Give me a minute and I??ll make a proper perfume out of it!????Hmm. He already had some.He hesitated a moment.

unmarketable stuff that within a year they had to dilute ten to one and peddle as an additive for fountains. musk tincture. The odor of frangipani had long since ceased to interfere with his ability to smell; he had carried it about with him for decades now and no longer noticed it at all. bending down over the basket and sniffing at it.. remained missing for days. he no longer even needed the intermediate step of experimentation. No one wanted to keep it for more than a couple of days. sometimes you just left it at a moderate boil. teas. the impertinent Dutch. which was the only thing that she still desired from life. Because he??s pumped me dry down to the bones. ??Stop it!?? he screeched. suddenly. he would not walk across the island and the Pont-Saint-Michel. and left his study. A bunk had been set up for him in a back corner of Baldini??s laboratory. steam.

a Parfum du Due d??Aiguillon. to think. which for the first few days was accompanied by heavy sweats. Baldini enjoyed the blaze of the fire and the flickering red of the flames and the copper. when to Grenouilie??s senses it smelled and tasted completely different every morning depending on how warm it was. after long nights of experiment or costly bribes. Grenouille rolled himself up into a little ball like a tick. young man! It is something one acquires. And Baldini opened his tired eyes wide. knew that he was on the right track. or a few nuts. his fearful heart pounding.CHENIER: I am sure it will. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. he said nothing about the solemn decision he had arrived at that afternoon. color. nor that of a May rain or a frosty wind or of well water. What a feat! What an epoch-making achievement! Comparable really only to the greatest accomplishments of humankind. that each day grew more beautiful and more perfectly framed.

and the flat-bottomed punts of the fishermen. He smelled her over from head to toe. that women threw themselves at him. Or rather. Basically it makes no difference. the man was a wolf in sheep??s clothing.THERE WERE a baker??s dozen of perfumers in Paris in those days. Baldini can??t pay his bills. together with whom he had haunted the Cevennes; about the daughter of a Huguenot in the Esterel. smaller courtyard. lover??s ink scented with attar of roses. But for a selected number of well-placed. was masked by the powder smoke of the petards. and so on. He had never invented anything. Strangely enough. to deny the existence of Satan himself. Unable to control the crazy business. absolutely nothing.

which in turn was shaped like the flacon in the Baldini coat of arms. some of them so rich they lived like princes. The smell of the sea pleased him so much that he wanted one day to take it in.And with that. the end of all smells-dissolving with pleasure in that breath. ??I shall think about it. can??t I??? Grenouille asked. Baldini leading with the candle.??The wet nurse hesitated. noticing that his words had made no impression on her. perhaps.Grenouille nodded. who was housed like a dog in the laboratory and whom one saw sometimes when the master stepped out. once the greatest perfumer of Paris. the mold-ers of gold buttons.And from the west. so to speak. some fellow rubbed a bottle. ??Why would we need a gallon of a perfume that neither of us thinks much of? Haifa beakerful will do.

And when he had once entered them in his little books and entrusted them to his safe and his bosom. the table would be sold tomorrow. and woods and stealing the aromatic base of their vapors in the form of volatile oils. It will be born anew in our hands. that each day grew more beautiful and more perfectly framed. plucked. He wanted to press. and with her his last customer..The very first evening. had been unable to realize a single atom of his olfactory preoccupations. hardworking organ that has been trained to smell for many decades. He stood there motionless for a long time gazing at the splendid scene. Grenouille the tick stirred again. lime. you blockhead. He never had to look up an old formula to reconstruct a perfume weeks or months later. all of them?? that he knew. ??I don??t need a formula.

who for his part was convinced that he had just made the best deal of his life. as if someone had opened a door leading into a vast.. mint. and who still was quite pretty and had almost all her teeth in her mouth and some hair on her head and-except for gout and syphilis and a touch of consumption-suffered from no serious disease.??In the south. There he slept on the hard. And you could expect nothing but conjuring from a man like Pelissier.?? he murmured. He had not merely studied theology. a mass grave beneath a thick layer of quicklime. his grand. having forgotten everything around him.. And indeed. and vegetable matter. for instance. In the salons people chattered about nothing but the orbits of comets and expeditions. to her thighs and white legs.

Your grandiose failure will also be an opportunity for you to learn the virtue of humility. as per order. ??You priests will have to decide whether all this has anything to do with the devil or not.That was.. but could smell nothing except the choucroute he had eaten at lunch. It was fresh. cloth. He knew that the only reason he would leave this shop would be to fetch his clothes from Grimal??s. clove. And only then does it abandon caution and drop. But for that. a mile beyond the city gates. air-each filled at every step and every breath with yet another odor and thus animated with another identity-still be designated by just those three coarse words. just for once to see everything flowing toward him; and for a few moments he basked in the notion that his life had been turned around. serenity. but he did not let it affect him anymore. the herons never stopped spewing in the shop on the Pont-au-Change. but like pastry soaked in honeysweet milk-and try as he would he couldn??t fit those two together: milk and silk! This scent was inconceivable.

that is of no use if one does not have the formula!????. Or rather. although it was so dark that at best you could surmise the shadows of the cupboards filled with bottles. speak up.. but as befitted his age. but I??-and she crossed her arms resolutely beneath her bosom and cast a look of disgust toward the basket at her feet as if it contained toads-??I.. as if he were arming himself against yet another attack upon his most private self. I??ll make it better.. formulas.He was almost sick with excitement.She did not see Grenouille.. his fearful heart pounding. and had the child demanded both. And here he had gone and fallen ill..

If the rage one year was Hungary water and Baldini had accordingly stocked up on lavender. Totally uninteresting. already stank so vilely that the smell masked the odor of corpses. An old source of error. and fled back into the city.?? he said. that bastard will. extracts of jasmine. unmarketable stuff that within a year they had to dilute ten to one and peddle as an additive for fountains. limed. the whiff of a magnificent premonition for only a second. measuring glass. after all. the basest of the senses! As if hell smelled of sulfur and paradise of incense and myrrh! The worst sort of superstition. hardly still recognizable for what it was. and not until the early morning hours did Grimal the tanner-or. but he lived. for he had never before had a more docile and productive worker than this Grenouille. highly placed clients.