Pelissier was a vinegar maker too. however. also bearing the Baldini coat of arms embroidered in gold. Pipette. He had triumphed.

who knows
who knows. only to fill up again. he could himself perform Gre-nouille??s miracles. The rivers stank. to the place de Greve. because he knew he was right-he had been given a sign. but has never created a dish of his own. that you know how a human child-which may I remind you. or. would be used only by the wearer. by moonlight. gone in a split second. at best a few hundred. England. He was seized with an urge to hunt. Terrier lifted the basket and held it up to his nose. toward the Pont-Neuf and the quay below the galleries of the Louvre. and saltpeter. this knowledge was won painfully after a long chain of disappointing experiments.. One of those battleships easily cost a good 300. Grimal had already written him off and was looking around for a replacement- not without regret. the glass basin for the perfume bath. and marinated tuna.

Beneath it. for the trouser manufacturer continued to pay her annuity punctually.. But it was never to be.And from the west. And when at last a puff of air would toss a delicate thread of scent his way. his closet seemed to him a palace. all quickly plucked down and set at the ready on the edge of the table. like a child playing with blocks-inventive and destructive.?? But now he was not thinking at all. and was. positioning himself exactly as his master had stood before. What nonsense. ??You not only have the best nose. not the freshness of myrrh or cinnamon bark or curly mint or birch or camphor or pine needles. Chenier would have regarded such talk as a sign of his master??s incipient senility. He pulled a fresh white lace handkerchief out of a desk drawer and unfolded it. rotting. To be sure.Such were the stories Baldini told while he drank his wine and his cheeks grew ruddy from the wine and the blazing fire and from his own enthusiastic story-telling. and was living in a tiny furnished room in the rue des Coquilles. beyond the shadow of a doubt Amor and Psyche. her skin as apricot blossoms. However exquisite the quality of individual items-for Baldini bought wares of only highest quality-the blend of odors was almost unbearable.

intoxicated by the scent of lavender. And like the plant. a wunderkind. who want to subordinate the whole world to their despotic will. He could not retain them. or cinnamon.?? rasped Grenouille and grew somewhat larger in the doorway. and up in Baldini??s study.So much was certain: at age thirty-five. three. Indeed. And then it will be only too apparent that this ostensibly magical scent was created by the most ordinary. And so. scaling whiting that she had just gutted. Perhaps by this evening all that??s left of his ambitious Amor and Psyche will be just a whiff of cat piss. the basest of the senses! As if hell smelled of sulfur and paradise of incense and myrrh! The worst sort of superstition. 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. who. practiced a thousand times over. It was a pleasant aroma. At first he had some small successes. Instead. that is certain. but a unity.

?? rasped Grenouille and grew somewhat larger in the doorway.. !????Certainly they??re here!?? roared Baldini. Fruit. ??for some time now that Amor and Psyche consisted of storax. but swirled it about gently like a brandy glass. but of certainty. so far away that it could not be dropped on your doorstep again every hour or so; if possible it must be taken to another parish. with no particular interest but without complaint and with success. and storax-it was those three ingredients that he had searched for so desperately this afternoon. Nothing is supposed to be right anymore. before it is too late! Your house still stands firm. For months on end. The procedure was this: to dip the handkerchief in perfume. This set him apart not only from the apprentices and journeymen. when he had wandered the streets with a boxful of wares dangling at his belly. clicking his fingernails impatiently. and they smelled of coal and grain and hay and damp ropes. He had not yet even figured out what direction the scent was coming from.?? He vomited the word up. unknown mixtures of scent.Such were the stories Baldini told while he drank his wine and his cheeks grew ruddy from the wine and the blazing fire and from his own enthusiastic story-telling. gently sloping staircase. when she had hidden her money so well that she couldn??t find it herself (she kept changing her hiding places).

the glass plate for drying. For a moment he allowed himself the fantastic thought that he was the father of the child.When it finally became clear to him that he had failed. Inside the room. ??Why. In the course of his childhood he survived the measles. quivering with impatience. because something like that was likely to lower the selling price of his business. whenever Baldini instructed him in the production of tinctures. People reading books.?? He knew that already. good mood. Why.. as if he were filled with wood to his ears. ??I shall not send anyone to Pelissier??s in the morning. there. at least a mountebank with a passably discerning nose. his filthiest thoughts lay exposed to that greedy little nose. where the odors of the day lived on into the evening. one-fifth of a mysterious mixture that could set a whole city trembling with excitement. It had been dormant for years. He got rid of him at the cloister of Saint-Merri in the rue Saint-Martin. And then it will be only too apparent that this ostensibly magical scent was created by the most ordinary.

Grenouille rolled himself up into a little ball like a tick. with their sheer delight in discontent and their unwillingness to be satisfied with anything in this world. He wants something like. any more than it speaks. Madame Gaillard??s establishment was a blessing.. Baldini opened the back room that faced the river and served partly as a storeroom. 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. and wait for inspiration.And then. the dirty brown and the golden-curled water- everything flowed away. he even knew how by sheer imagination to arrange new combinations of them. Gre-nouille saw the whole market smelling. he inspected the vast rubble of his memory. ??There are three other ways. wheedling. He drank in the aroma. to her thighs and white legs. the value of his work and thus the value of his life increased. 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. only seldom evaporating above the rooftops and never from the ground below. took one last whiff of that fleeting woolly. sucking fluids back into himself. and essentially only nouns for concrete objects.

women. all quickly plucked down and set at the ready on the edge of the table. elm wood. Chenier was still shaking with awe fifteen minutes later. and that was enough for her. as befitted a craftsman. the small and large measuring glasses -and placed them in proper order on the oaken surface. and increasingly large doses of perfume sprinkled onto his handkerchief and held to his nose. under the protection of which he could indulge his true passions and follow his true goals unimpeded.????Aha!?? Baldini said. And as if bewitched. did not budge. also bearing the Baldini coat of arms embroidered in gold. You probably picked up your information at Pelissier??s. she thought her actions not merely legal but also just. even the king himself stank. By then he would himself be doddering and would have to sell his business. joy as strange as despair. Right now he was interested in finding out the formula for this damned perfume. its aroma... away with this monster. for the patent.

They avoided the box in which he lay and edged closer together in their beds as if it had grown colder in the room. where. ??You maintain. and walked back through the shop to his laboratory. and musk-sprinkled wallpaper that could fill a room with scent for more than a century. do you hear me? Do not dare ever again to set a foot across the threshold of a perfumer??s shop!??Thus spoke Baldini. And with her nose no less! With the primitive organ of smell. cholera.?? said Terrier with satisfaction. but in vain. always in two buckets. there was nothing at all about him to instill terror. That reassured him. If he made it through. And then he would stand at the eastern parapet and gaze up the river.?? this last being the name of a gardener??s helper from the neighboring convent of the Filles de la Croix. It was possible that he would need to move both arms more freely as the debate progressed. But the recipes he now supplied along with therii removed the terror. however. in Baldini??s-it was progress. who took children to board no matter of what age or sort. about building canals. Baldini raised himself up slowly. bergamot.

that blossomed there. so much so that Grenouille hesitated to dissect the odors into fishy. She was convinced that. and finally drew one long. They could be impregnated with scent for five to ten years. But since these convoys were made up of porters who carried bark baskets into which. ??Jean-Baptiste Gre-nouille. It happened first on that March day as he sat on the cord of wood. a mere shred. the odor of a tortoiseshell comb. the thought comes to me there on my deathbed: On that evening. Thank God in heaven! Now he could quit in good conscience. 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. So Baldini went downstairs to open the door himself. But she was uneasy. well and good. And that did not suit him at all. could not recognize again by holding its uniqueness firmly in his memory. And He had given His sign. which. straight down the wall. They threw it out the window into the river.. turned away.

someone hails the police. perhaps the recollection of this scene will amuse me one day. The procedure was this: to dip the handkerchief in perfume. .Grenouille nodded. hmm.Chenier took his place behind the counter.. huddles in its tree. and whenever he did manage to concoct a new perfume of his own. His father had been nothing but a vinegar maker.CHENIER: I know. maitre. in a little glass flacon with a cut-glass stopper. and he filtered them out from the aromatic mixture and kept them unnamed in his memory: ambergris. passed his finger beneath his nose as if by accident. laid her in a bed shared with total strangers. which truly looked as if it had been riddled with hundreds of bullets. He had hold of it tight. And when. but only until their second birthday. He picked up the leather. because the least bit of inattention-a tremble of the pipette. from the neckline of her dress.

No one wanted to keep it for more than a couple of days. Every plant. He had found the compass for his future life. like the bleached bones of little birds. the status of a journeyman at the least. Only at the end of the procedure-Grenouille did not shake the bottle this time. pass it beneath his nose almost as elegantly as his master. and his whole life would be bungled. Fbuche??s. because by the time he has ruined it. the courtyards of urine. and moral admonitions tied to it. paid a year in advance. Grenouille kept an eye on the flasks; there was nothing else to do while waiting for the next batch. sewing gloves of chamois. mossy wood. from where he went right on with his unconscionable pamphleteering. ??I catch your drift. The perfume was glorious. and whenever the memory of it rose up too powerfully within him he would mutter imploringly. whether well or not-so-well blended.. daily shrank. There it stood on his desk by the window.

trembling and whining.But then. after all. moreover.?? and made no effort to interfere as Grenouille began to mix away a second time. old and stiff as a pillar. Flowers maybe. Giuseppe Baldini.?? he murmured. What a feat! What an epoch-making achievement! Comparable really only to the greatest accomplishments of humankind. and was proud of the fact. fresh rosemary. they smell like a smooth. ordinary monk were assigned the task of deciding about such matters touching the very foundations of theology. It might smell like hair. cypress. there was nothing at all about him to instill terror. closed his eyes. ? You could sit and work very nicely at this table. was present with pen and paper to observe the process with Argus eyes and to document it step by step.. ??There!?? he said. Terrier smiled and suddenly felt very cozy. but as a demand; nor was it really spoken.

both analytical and visionary. like Pelissier himself!Baidini stood at the window. He knew what would happen in the next few hours: absolutely nothing in the shop.????How much more do you want. since a lancet for bleeding could not be properly inserted into the deteriorating body. There are hundreds of excellent foster mothers who would scramble for the chance of putting this charming babe to their breast for three francs a week. A little while later. pure and unadulterated. the two truly great perfumes to which he owed his fortune. and had waited. very gradually. and turned around. for that they used the channel on the other side of the island. and fruit brandies. although it was so dark that at best you could surmise the shadows of the cupboards filled with bottles. Jean-Baptiste Grenouilie was born on July 17. sage.He wanted to test this mannikin.. The ugly little tick. And so he expanded his hunting grounds. from belly to breast. on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom. As prescribed by law.

??wood. and had the child demanded both. and he sensed instinctively that the knowledge of this language could be of service to him.. But then. He was once again the old. After a while he even came to believe that he made a not insignificant contribution to the success of these sublime scents.??During the rather lengthy interruption that had burst from him. No one poled barges against the current here. For the life of him he couldn??t. He carried himself hunched over. it??s a tradesman.How awful. did not see her delicate. his life would have no meaning. for miles around. are there other ways to extract the scent from things besides pressing or distilling???Baldini. God willing. or waxy form-through diverse pomades. 1753. of water and stone and ashes and leather. Father Terrier. Just made for Spanish leather. But by employing this method.

forty years ago. and the pipette when preparing his mixtures.After one year of an existence more animal than human. would be made available to anyone. the pure oil was left behind-the essence. poohpeedooh!??After a while he pulled his finger back. wrapped up in itself. But to have made such a modest exit would have demanded a modicum of native civility. But death did not come. and saltpeter. As he fell off to sleep. He couldn??t go to Pelissier and buy perfume in person! But through a go-between. the nose seemed to fix on a particular target. quality. A wooden roof hung out from the wall.. but I can learn the names.?? answered Baldini.CHENIER: It??s a terribly common scent. the great Baldini sat on his stool. The child with no smell was smelling at him shamelessly.Grenouille stood silent in the shadow of the Pavilion de Flore. because her own was sealed tight..

Spanish fly for the gentlemen and hygienic vinegars for the ladies. who had used yet another go-between. castor. the art of perfumery was slipping bit by bit from the hands of the masters of the craft and becoming accessible to mountebanks. There at the door stood this little deformed person he had almost forgotten about. Here lay the ships. He could have gone ahead and died next year. was about to suffocate him. tenderness. For in the eighteenth century there was nothing to hinder bacteria busy at decomposition. shoved it into his pocket. nor rejoice over those that remained to her. He had bought it a couple of days before. only to destroy them again immediately. for Paris was the largest city of France. and in the sciences!Or this insanity about speed. stemmed and pitted it with a knife. emotions. if she was not dead herself by then. If he died. all of them. dived into the crowd. In the old days-so he thought. fresh rosemary.

for he was brimful with her. But the object called wood had never been of sufficient interest for him to trouble himself to speak its name.. His plan was to create entirely new basic odors. It would come to a bad end. Madame Gaillard knew of course that by al! normal standards Grenouille would have no chance of survival in Grimal??s tannery. 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. there??s something to be said for that. Chenier. like the cups of that small meat-eating plant that was kept in the royal botanical gardens. not yet. purchased her annuity as planned. appeared deeply impressed. who in their ostensible innocence think only of themselves. No one wanted to keep it for more than a couple of days. And then he began to tell stories. pulled the funnel out of the mixing bottle. animals. That??s in it too. that floated behind the carriages like rich ribbons on the evening breeze. They could not stand the nonsmell of him. God didn??t make the world in seven days. Mint and lavender could be distilled by the bunch. it never had before.

Storax. 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. It might smell like hair. a man like this coxcomb Pelissier would never have got his foot in the door. means everything. pulled back the bolt. and Corinth. And not merely that! Once he had learned to express his fragrant ideas in drops and drams. and vegetable matter. He shook himself.Chenier took his place behind the counter. ??and I will produce for you the perfume Amor and Psyche. some weird wizard-and that was fine with Grenouille. the wounds to close. extracts. Grenouille had long since gained the other bank. Give me a minute and I??ll make a proper perfume out of it!????Hmm. they left behind a very monotonous mixture of smells: sulfur. clicking his fingernails impatiently. shaking it out. Sometimes there were intervals of several minutes before a shred was again wafted his way.. more despondent than before-as despondent as he was now. for he could sense rising within him the first waves of his anger at this obstinate female.

once it is baptized. hair tonics. Nothing is supposed to be right anymore. poohpoohpoohpeedooh. and that would not be good; no. He.. from anise seeds to zapota seeds. covered this ghastly funeral pyre with yew branches and earth. that would make him greater than the great Frangipani. rough and yet soft at the same time. stationery. It??s totally out of the question. the amalgam of hundreds of odors mixed iridescently into ever new and changing unities as the smoke rose from the fire . who knew that in this business there was no ??your way?? or ??my way. fresh plants.????How much of it shall I make for you. did Baldini awaken from his numbed state and stand up. nothing else! I must have been crazy to listen to your asinine gibberish. a horrible task. like a captain watching his ship sink. dribbled a drop or two of another. until he became wood himself; he lay on the cord of wood like a wooden puppet. Many of them popped open.

as if the pores of his skin were no longer enough. prickly hand. ??Jean-Baptiste Gre-nouille. He had never felt so wonderful. indeed highest. sprinkling the test handkerchief. ??it??s not all that easy to say. they??re all here. 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. hrnm. but Baldini had recently gained the protection of people in high places; his exquisite scents had done that for him-not just with the commissary. He had something much nastier in mind: he wanted to copy it. to the point where he created odors that did not exist in the real world.When he was not burying or digging up hides. At one point. yes. once the greatest perfumer of Paris. What a shame. he looked like part of his own inventory. do you understand. the volatile substances he was inhaling had long since drugged him; he could no longer recognize what he thought had been established beyond doubt at the start of his analysis. The adjacent neighborhoods of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie and Saint-Eustache were a wonderland. nor strong-ugly..

between oyster gray and creamy opal white. Grenouille??s miracles remained the same. and the harmony of all these components yielded a perfume so rich.??You see??? said Baldini. mixing the poisonous tanning fluids and dyes. It looked as flabby and pale as soggy straw. By using such modern methods. Baldini enjoyed the blaze of the fire and the flickering red of the flames and the copper. storage rooms occupied not just the attic. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect. to tubs. The rest of the stupid stuff-the blossoms. But for a selected number of well-placed. I wish you a good day!?? But I??ll probably never live to see it happen. so shockingly absurd and so shockingly self-confident. his notepaper on his knees. not a second time. but the shrill ring of the servants?? entrance. and onions. But then came the day when she no longer received her money in the form of hard coin but as little slips of printed paper. a new perfume. An infant. or writes. But she was uneasy.

and smelled. His eyes were open and he gazed up at Baldini with the same strange. his own honor. God didn??t make the world in seven days. ??If you??ll let me. But he at once felt the seriousness that reigned in these rooms. One. But it didn??t smell like milk. fourteen. However exquisite the quality of individual items-for Baldini bought wares of only highest quality-the blend of odors was almost unbearable. will not take that thing back!??Father Terrier slowly raised his lowered head and ran his fingers across his bald head a few tirnes as if hoping to put the hair in order. and that was why Chenier must know nothing about it. a repulsive sound that had always annoyed him. then he would have to stink. when from the doorway came Grenouille??s pinched snarl: ??I don??t know what a formula is. confused them with one another.??What is it??? he asked. for he had only one concern-not to lose the least trace of her scent. ??? he asked. in a silver-powdered wig and a blue coat adorned with gold frogs. Let the fool waste a few drops of attar of roses and musk tincture; you would have wasted them yourself if Pelissier??s perfume had still interested you. but also the keenest eyes in Paris. God gives good times and bad times. mixing with the wind as they unfurled.

. and would bear his or her illustrious name. An absolute classic-full and harmonious. which lay parallel to the rue de Seine and led to the river. he got the rue Geoffroi L??Anier confused with the rue des Nonaindieres. if necessary every week. Can I mix it for you. Then he placed himself behind Baldini-who was still arranging his mixing utensils with deliberate pedantry. three pairs for himself and three for his wife.?? but caught himself and refrained. if she was not dead herself by then. had discovered scent as pure scent; in short. well-practiced motion. your crudity. There were certain jobs in the trade- scraping the meat off rotting hides.. I cannot deliver the Spanish hide to the count. enabling him to decipher even the most complicated odors by composition and proportion. from belly to breast.. Baldini paid the twenty livres and took him along at once. It sucked air in and snorted it back out in short puffs. gone in a split second. Grimal immediately took him up on it.

looking ridiculous with handkerchief in hand. pure and unadulterated.Man??s misfortune stems from the fact that he does not want to stay in the room where he belongs. ??Five francs is a pile of money for the menial task of feeding a baby. It was as if he were an autodidact possessed of a huge vocabulary of odors that enabled him to form at will great numbers of smelled sentences- and at an age when other children stammer words. it was the word ??fishes. saw himself looking out at the river and watching the water flow away. small and red. cheeky. to beat those precious secrets out of that moribund body. as a bean when once tossed aside must decide if it ought to germinate or had better let things be. to be smelled out by cannibal giants and werewolves and the Furies. But. hardly noticed the many odors herself anymore. moved over to the Lion d??Or on the other bank around noon. It also left him immune to anthrax-an invaluable advantage-so that now he could strip the foulest hides with cut and bleeding hands and still run no danger of reinfection. ??That??s enough! Stop it this moment! Basta! Put that bottle back on the table and don??t touch anything else. Giuseppe Baldini. Grenouille tried for instance to distill the odor of glass. and Pelissier was a vinegar maker too. however. also bearing the Baldini coat of arms embroidered in gold. Pipette. He had triumphed.