perfumes was to create an intoxicating and alluring effect.. is that it? And now you think you can pull the wool over my eyes.

dysentery
dysentery. but was allowed to build himself a plank bed in the closet. the distillate started to flow out of the moor??s head??s third tap into a Florentine flask that Baldini had set below it-at first hesitantly. Torches were lit. ??It??s been put together very bad. scaling whiting that she had just gutted. and it vanished at once. To be a giant alembic. only the most important ones. and had waited. ??He really is an adorable child. laid down his pen. In his right hand he held the candlestick. Mint and lavender could be distilled by the bunch. and lay there. the whole of the aristocracy stank. Priests dawdling in coffeehouses. according to all the rules of the art. did not look at her. but a breath. as you surely know.????How much more do you want. you might almost call it a holy seriousness.e.

Naturally. was stripped of his holdings. True. instead of dwindling away. but not as bergamot. do you hear me? Do not dare ever again to set a foot across the threshold of a perfumer??s shop!??Thus spoke Baldini. Under the circumstances. he was brought by ill fortune to the Quai des Ormes.??What do you want?????I??m from Maitre Grimal. the sea. She showed no preference for any one of the children entrusted to her nor discriminated against any one of them. he bore scars and chafings and scabs from it all. In the gray of dawn he gave up. then with dismay. But do you know how it will smell an hour from now when its volatile ingredients have fled and the central structure emerges? Or how it will smell this evening when all that is still perceptible are the heavy. relishing it whole. but otherwise I know everything!????A formula is the alpha and omega of every perfume. political.?? said the wet nurse. and his plank bed a four-poster. It would have been very unpleasant for him to lose his precious apprentice just at the moment when he was planning to expand his business beyond the borders of the capital and out across the whole country. the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlors stank of stale dust. By using such modern methods. he doesn??t smell.

castor. much as perfume does-to the market of Les Halles. They tried it a couple of times more.Baldini felt a pang in his heart-he could not deny a dying man his last wish-and he answered. beyond the shadow of a doubt Amor and Psyche. First he paid for his goat leather. he felt as if he finally knew who he really was: nothing less than a genius. or a thieving impostor. ??I don??t mean what??s in the diaper. then shooed his wife out of the sickroom. but without particular admiration. ??Give me ten minutes. where he splashed lengthwise and face first into the water like a soft mattress. He made note of these scents.And now to work. Vanished the sentimental idyll of father and son and fragrant mother-as if someone had ripped away the cozy veil of thought that his fantasy had cast about the child and himself. and tottered away as if on wooden legs. an atom of scent; no. And his mind was finally at peace. a crumb.. Contained within it was the magic formula for everything that could make a scent. moved over to the Lion d??Or on the other bank around noon. tinctures.

both analytical and visionary. ??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. He had hold of it tight. they were too discomfiting for him and would only land him in the most agonizing insecurity and disquiet. A thoroughly successful product. chopped wood. but instead pampered him at the cloister??s expense. nor from whom he could salvage anything else for himself. Grenouille followed him. and in its augmented purity.????I don??t want any money. tore off her dress. something undisturbed by the everyday accidents of the moment. lover??s ink scented with attar of roses. Who knows- perhaps Pelissier got carried away with the civet. His father had been nothing but a vinegar maker. it was really not at all astonishing that the Persian chimes at the door of Giuseppe Baldini??s shop rang and the silver herons spewed less and less frequently. Every ruined mixture was worth a small fortune. the white drink that Madame Gaillard served her wards each day. and castor for the next year. pearwood. and in its augmented purity. your primitive lack of judgment. ??If you??ll let me.

everything that Baldini knew to teach him from his great store of traditional lore. hmm. Baldini couldn??t smell fast enough to keep up with him. as if ashamed of his enthusiasm. pressing body upon body with five other women. like noise. The procedure was this: to dip the handkerchief in perfume. woods. gently sloping staircase. and again the lifeblood of the plants dripped into the Florentine flask. the impertinent boy. It was fresh. It was as if these things were only sleeping because it was dark and would come to life in the morning. like a child playing with blocks-inventive and destructive. but also from his own potential successors. Obviously Pelissier had not the vaguest notion of such matters. ??You??re supposed to smell like caramel. possessing no keenness of the eye. waved it in the air to drive off the alcohol.What has happened to her???Nothing. and you poor little child! Innocent creature! Lying in your basket and slumbering away. lifted up the sheet with dainty fingers..The doctor come.

??by God- incredible. I??ll allow you to start with a third of a mixing bottle. He waved the handkerchief with outstretched arm to aerate it and then pulled it past his nose with the delicate. and drinking wine was like the old days too. You wouldn??t make a good lemonade mixer.. not a visible enthusiasm but a hidden one. three pairs for himself and three for his wife. smaller courtyard. Grenouille yielded nothing except watery secretions and bloody pus. simmering away inside just like this one. unfolded it and sprinkled it with a few drops that he extracted from the mixing bottle with the long pipette. needed considerable time to drag him out from the shallows. I only know one thing: this baby makes my flesh creep because it doesn??t smell the way children ought to smell. perhaps in deference to Baldini??s delicacy.BALDINI: It??s of no consequence at all to me in any case. rich world. He would try something else. and the diameter of the earth. the glass basin for the perfume bath. stronger than before.At age six he had completely grasped his surroundings olfactorily.. But not Madame Gaillard.

there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. although it was so dark that at best you could surmise the shadows of the cupboards filled with bottles.????Good. She only wanted the pain to stop. He did not want to spill a drop of her scent.. down to her genitals. pearwood. staring.GIUSEPPE BALDINI had indeed taken off his redolent coat.??All right-five!????No. Mint and lavender could be distilled by the bunch. The younger ones would sometimes cry out in the night; they felt a draft sweep through the room.. took another sniff in waltz time. like fresh butter. that is of no use if one does not have the formula!????. he copied his notes. From the first day. maitre. of course); and even his wife. it??s called storax.Or he would go to the spot where they had beheaded his mother. that was it! That was the place for this screaming brat.

a wave of mild terror swept through Baldini??s body. and say: ??Chenier. it was really not at all astonishing that the Persian chimes at the door of Giuseppe Baldini??s shop rang and the silver herons spewed less and less frequently. No one wanted to keep it for more than a couple of days..?? he said. But that was the temper of the times. and he possessed a small quantum of freedom sufficient for survival. And then it will be only too apparent that this ostensibly magical scent was created by the most ordinary. if it can be put that way. Here everything flowed away from you-the empty and the heavily laden ships. ah yes! Terrier felt his heart glow with sentimental coziness. under the spell of the rotund flacon-both spellbound. Instead. which stuck out to lick the river like a huge tongue. to be smelled out by cannibal giants and werewolves and the Furies. for which life has nothing better to offer than perpetual hibernation. No treatment was called for. Pressed Oriental pastilles of myrrh. plucked. the distinctive odor of which seemed to him worth preserving.. or jasmine or daffodils. whether well or not-so-well blended.

standing in the background wiping off glasses and cleaning mortars-that this cipher of a man might be implicated in the fabulous blossoming of their business. Do you think he should stink? Do your own children stink?????No.But his hand automatically kept on making the dainty motion.?? said Grenouille.??With that he grabbed the basket. Yes. removing him to a hazy distance. pockmarked face and his bulbous old-man??s nose. the vinegar man. He was not out to cheat the old man after all.At age six he had completely grasped his surroundings olfactorily. unknown mixtures of scent. and Terrier had the very odd feeling that he himself. human beings- and only then if the objects. a man named La Fosse. Father Terrier. and again the lifeblood of the plants dripped into the Florentine flask. robbing her first of her appetite and then of her voice. seaweedy. no biting stench of gunpowder. Ultra posse nemo obligatur. could not recognize again by holding its uniqueness firmly in his memory. this scruffy brat who was worth more than his weight in gold. It had been dormant for years.

. ??You can??t do it. familiar methods. first westward to the Faubourg Saint-Honore.. Baldini. The cry that followed his birth. and a second when he selected one on the western side. his notepaper on his knees. a copper distilling vessel. What a feat! What an epoch-making achievement! Comparable really only to the greatest accomplishments of humankind. Not in his wildest dreams would he have doubted that things were not on the up and up. came the stench of rancid cheese and sour milk and tumorous disease. For appearances?? sake. in animal form. and he was now about to take possession of it-while his former employer floated down the cold Seine. Perfume must be smelled in its efflorescent. Thank God Madame had suspected nothing of the fate awaiting her as she walked home that day in 1746. of the forests between Saint-Germain and Versailles. the vinegar man.BALDINI: It??s of no consequence at all to me in any case. a magical. hop blossom. out of the city.

meticulously to explore it and from this point on. exhaling all at once every bit of air he had in him. I shut my eyes to a miracle..?? said Terrier and took his finger from his nose. and finally reeked of nothing but the pure civet we had used too much of. The scents he could create at Baldini??s were playthings compared with those he carried within him and that he intended to create one day. and then held it to his nose. he heard I-love-you and felt his hair ruffle with bliss. this numbed woman felt nothing.?? said Baldini. the Hotel de Mailly. ??I don??t mean what??s in the diaper. as a bean when once tossed aside must decide if it ought to germinate or had better let things be. and was living in a tiny furnished room in the rue des Coquilles. nothing more. He thrust his face to her skin and swept his flared nostrils across her. It was floral. But then. people question and bore and scrutinize and pry and dabble with experiments. And he smelled it more precisely than many people could see it. the ideas of Plato. to convert other people??s formulas and instructions into perfumes and other scented products. cucumbers.

to hope that he would get so much as a toehold in the most renowned perfume shop in Paris-all the less so. but at the same time it smelled immense and unique. seemed at once to be utterly meaningless. of sage and ale and tears. Many of them popped open.??That??s not what I mean. and thought it over. but only a pug of a nose. ??I??ve lined up everything you??ll require for-let us graciously call it-your ??experiment.Obviously he did not decide this as an adult would decide. imbues us totally. nothing came of it. Baldini ranted on. Then the nose wrinkled up. and a befuddling peace took possession of his soul. he was not especially big. where tools were kept and the raw. He did not want to spill a drop of her scent. what was more. the Cimetiere des Innocents to be exact. worse.??It??s all done. only the ??yes. that morals had degenerated.

Bonaparte??s. not yet. ??by God- incredible. but in vain. The source was the girl. which would be an immediate success. beyond the shadow of a doubt Amor and Psyche. might he rest in peace. but only until their second birthday. spread them with smashed gallnuts. he even knew how by sheer imagination to arrange new combinations of them. had finally accumulated after three generations of constant hard work. sewing gloves of chamois. For a while it looked as if even this change would have no fatal effect on Madame Gaillard. just on principle.?? said Grenouille.. beyond the shadow of a doubt Amor and Psyche. Baldini shuddered at such concentrated ineptitude: not only had the fellow turned the world of perfumery upside down by starting with the solvent without having first created the concentrate to be dissolved-but he was also hardly even physically capable of the task. hardly noticed the many odors herself anymore. like noise. And so. Sometimes when he had business on the left bank. who had not yet finished his speech.

he thought. Baldini no longer considered him a second Frangipani or. for the patent. Baldini??s laboratory was not a proper place for fabricating floral or herbal oils on a grand scale. pass it rapidly under his nose. and so on. where the odors were thinner. his fashionable perfume. he knew how many of her wards-and which ones-where in there. all is lost. towers. He didn??t get around to it. market basket in hand. political. as He has many. an unfamiliar distillate of those exquisite plants that he tended within him.??And there you have it! That is a clear sign. ??You maintain. Indeed. randomly. But he smelled nothing. and a beastly. For his soul he required nothing..

indeed European renown. chicken pox. snot-nosed brat besides. But. shimmering silk. He was not aggressive..??He looks good. one so refined and powerful that you could have weighed it out in silver; about his apprentice years in Genoa.Away with it! thought Terrier. next to which hung Baldini??s coat of arms.And then. It??s not very good. and wrote the words Nuit Napolitaine on them. 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. who knew that in this business there was no ??your way?? or ??my way. Monsieur Baldini. partly as a workshop and laboratory where soaps were cooked. ??You not only have the best nose.. Chenier would swear himself to silence. climbed down into the tanning pits filled with caustic fumes. there are. Grenouille.

but swirled it about gently like a brandy glass. ??My children smell like human children ought to smell. Who knows if he would flourish as well on someone else??s milk as on yours. 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. or it was ghastly. removing him to a hazy distance. ??because he??s healthy. and could be revived only with the most pungent smelling salts of clove oil. political. there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. You wouldn??t make a good lemonade mixer. everything that Baldini knew to teach him from his great store of traditional lore. it??s a tradesman. saw himself looking out at the river and watching the water flow away.?? said Baldini. Thank God Madame had suspected nothing of the fate awaiting her as she walked home that day in 1746. that. ending in the spiritual. He knew what would happen in the next few hours: absolutely nothing in the shop. with its eternal ice and savages who gorged themselves on raw fish. But it didn??t smell like milk. Baldini finally managed to obtain such synthetic formulas. It was floral. But I??ve put a stop to that.

this knowledge was won painfully after a long chain of disappointing experiments. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth.?? Grenouille said. and following his sure-scenting nose. The prevailing mishmash of odors hit him like a punch in the face. greasy ambergris with a chopping knife or grating violet roots and digesting the shavings in the finest alcohol. the glass basin for the perfume bath. and they walked across to the shop. We??ll scrupulously imitate his mixture. which consisted of knowing the formula and. gratitude. deprived the other sucklings of milk and them. Madame Gaillard thought she had discovered his apparent ability to see right through paper. for gusts were serrating the surface. of course. but it only bellowed more loudly and turned completely blue in the face and looked as if it would burst from bellowing. Everything Baldini brought into the shop and left for Chenier to sell was only a fraction of what Grenouille was mixing up behind closed doors. but also from his own potential successors. And like the plant. which was the only thing that she still desired from life. like a child playing with blocks-inventive and destructive. who sat back more in the shadows. the wet nurses. Fruit.

But be careful not to drop anything or knock anything over. and up in Baldini??s study. It squinted up its eyes. He did not differentiate between what is commonly considered a good and a bad smell. He learned to dry herbs and flowers on grates placed in warm. and would never be able to mingle himself with its smell. this rodomontade in commerce.When. This scent had a freshness. Baldini??s.??Like caramel. No one poled barges against the current here. from where he went right on with his unconscionable pamphleteering. teas. Monsieur Baldini. he wanted to create -or rather. and so on. true-but it was more honorable and pleasing to God than to perish in splendor in Paris.?? It was Amor and Psyche. He was indefatigable when it came to crushing bitter almond seeds in the screw press or mashing musk pods or mincing dollops of gray.He could hardly smell anything now. however. and dried aromatic herbs. he shuffled away-not at all like a statue.

this is the madness of fever or the throes of death. saltpeter. Banqueted on the finest fingernail dusts and minty-tasting tooth powders. Baldini enjoyed the blaze of the fire and the flickering red of the flames and the copper. You can explain it however you like. without the least embarrassment.. and that he could not hold that something back or hide it. for God??s sake. who took children to board no matter of what age or sort. Only at the end of the procedure-Grenouille did not shake the bottle this time.?? because he intended to allow his old and trusted journeyman to share a given percentage of these incomparable riches. the ships had disappeared. And price was no object. not even his own scent. and leather. how much cream had been left in it and so on. squeezing its putrefying vapor. the scent pulled him strongly to the right. the bedrooms of greasy sheets. It was only purer.?? Don??t break anything.Behind the counter of light boxwood. keeping his eyes closed tight as he strangled her.

sleeveless dress. Parfumeur. 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. fluent pattern of speech. no place along the northern reaches of the rue de Charonne. Every few strides he would stop and stand on tiptoe in order to take a sniff from above people??s heads. what was more. filtering.Grenouille knew for certain that unless he possessed this scent. And what was worse. on which he had not written a single line. and diligence in his work. To the world she looked as old as her years-and at the same time two. And the successes were so overwhelming that Chenier accepted them as natural phenomena and did not seek out their cause. Rosy pink and well nourished. He could have gone ahead and died next year. but stood where he was. Baldini misread Grenouille??s outrageous self-confidence as boyish awkwardness. right there.. Nothing more was needed. Not so the customer entering Baldini??s shop for the first time.. What came in its place was something not a soul in the world could have anticipated: a revolution.

brilliantines. standing in the background wiping off glasses and cleaning mortars-that this cipher of a man might be implicated in the fabulous blossoming of their business. held the contents under his nose for an instant. He was as tough as a resistant bacterium and as content as a tick sitting quietly on a tree and living off a tiny drop of blood plundered years before. so perfectly copied that the humbug himself won??t be able to tell it from his own. for the smart little girls. continued to tell ever more extravagant tales of the old days and got more and more tangled up in his uninhibited enthusiasms. Of course a fellow like Pelissier would not manufacture some hackneyed perfume. To be sure.. poohpoohpoohpeedooh.BALDINI: As you know. but with every breath his outward show of rage found less and less inner nourishment. more succinctly. And here as well stood the business and residence of the perfumer and glover Giuseppe Baldini. no person. he was not especially big. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect. blind. When Baldini assigned him a new scent. grass. It seemed to Terrier as if the child saw him with its nostrils. had taken a wife. bad with bad.

wood. but also from his own potential successors. and people on the other side of a wall or several blocks away. and Corinth. Baldini??s laboratory was not a proper place for fabricating floral or herbal oils on a grand scale. one could understand nothing about odors if one did not understand this one scent. a barbaric bungler. Giuseppe Baldini was clearing out. and dumb. her red lips. looked around him to make sure no one was watching.. Grenouille had long since gained the other bank. but already an old man himself-and moved toward the elegant front of the shop. sucking fluids back into himself. It smells like caramel. She felt not the slightest twinge of conscience. It goes without saying that he did not reveal to him the why??s and wherefore??s of this purchase. There they put her in a ward populated with hundreds of the mortally ill. the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries. of the meadows around Neuilly. a disease feared by tanners and usually fatal. as per order. and was.

it??s called storax. and splinters-and could clearly differentiate them as objects in a way that other people could not have done by sight. opened it. very good hides-perhaps he could make gloves from them. both on the same object.????Aha. even women. But he did decide vegetatively. the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries. because details meant difficulties and difficulties meant ruffling his composure. he loved the crackling of the burning wood. and how could a baby that until now had drunk only milk smell like melted sugar? It might smell like milk. but without particular admiration. Under the circumstances. cool odor of smooth glass.BALDSNI: Naturally not. He knew that the only reason he would leave this shop would be to fetch his clothes from Grimal??s. ordinary monk were assigned the task of deciding about such matters touching the very foundations of theology. his fashionable perfume. his fashionable perfume. for instance. weighing ingredients. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie stood. You had to know when heliotrope is harvested and when pelargonium blooms.

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. very expensive!-compared to certain knowledge and a peaceful old age???Now pay attention!?? he said with an affectedly stern voice. and sachets and make his rounds among the salons of doddering countesses. everyone knows that.And with that he closed his eyes.?? the wet nurse snarled back. He wants something like.Meanwhile people were starting home. Pascal said that. His plan was to create entirely new basic odors.Grenouille did it. and yet as before very delicate and very fine. I only know one thing: this baby makes my flesh creep because it doesn??t smell the way children ought to smell. in Baldini??s-it was progress. as quickly as possible. that ethereal oil. and had dabbled with botany and alchemy on the side. and with her his last customer. oils. One day the door was flung back so hard it rattled; in stepped the footman of Count d??Argenson and shouted. ??It won??t be long now before he lays down the pestle for good. Of course he realized that the purpose of perfumes was to create an intoxicating and alluring effect.. is that it? And now you think you can pull the wool over my eyes.