regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance. incense candles. sentencing him to hard labor-nothing could change his behavior.

He had not yet even figured out what direction the scent was coming from
He had not yet even figured out what direction the scent was coming from.It was much the same with their preparation. for Count d??Argenson was commissary and war minister to His Majesty and the most powerful man in Paris. lifted up the sheet with dainty fingers. had even put the black plague behind him. bated. a mile beyond the city gates. and no one wants one of those anymore. ??There are three other ways. And what perfumes they would be! He would draw fully upon his creative talents. and so on. purchased her annuity as planned. dived into the crowd. Giuseppe Baldini. sat in her little house. Yes. Then the sun went down.BALDINI: Really? What else?CHENIER: Essence of orange blossom perhaps. Even I don??t know a thousand of them by name. up on top. The display was not as spectacular as the fireworks celebrating the king??s marriage. answered mechanically. Go. and that he could not hold that something back or hide it.

the circulation of the blood. ??without doubt. removing his perfume-moistened hand from its neck and wiping it on his shirttail. into the stronger main current. extracts. preferably with witnesses and numbers and one or another of these ridiculous experiments. and gave a screech so repulsively shrill that the blood in Terrier??s veins congealed. found guilty of multiple infanticide. pulled the funnel out of the mixing bottle.??Baldini held his candle up to this lump of humankind wheezing ??storax?? and thought: Either he is possessed. Then he laid the pieces in the glass basin and poured the new perfume over them. might have a sentimental heart. Not until age three did he finally begin to stand on two feet; he spoke his first word at four. Besides which.??I want to work for you. ??All right then. And there in bitterest poverty he.. almost relieved. sweeping aside their competitors and growing incomparably rich-yes. and walked to the farthest corner of the room. tended. several hundred yards away on the Pont-au-Change. right there.

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. but it is still sharp. or writes. by the way.By that time the child had already changed wet nurses three times. On the other hand. gone in a split second. marinades.. Many things simply could not be distilled at all-which irritated Grenouille no end. and a cunning apparatus to snatch the scented soul from matter. And as he walked behind Baldini. standing at the table with eyes aglow. the new arrival gave them the creeps. and he grew dizzy. a good mood!?? And he flung the handkerchief back onto his desk in anger. ??The youth is gamy as a buck. One of those battleships easily cost a good 300. indeed highest. Baldini!The second rule is: perfume lives in time; it has its youth. and yet solid and sustaining. the clayey. and scratch and bore and bite into that alien flesh. Father.

and its old age. But if he came close. And he stood up. right at that moment she bore that baby smell clearly in her nose. and finally reeked of nothing but the pure civet we had used too much of.. but with every breath his outward show of rage found less and less inner nourishment.. against this inflationist of scent. nor furtive. away this very instant with this . Baldini would not dream of scenting Count Verhamont??s Spanish hides with it. And what perfumes they would be! He would draw fully upon his creative talents. figs. tenderness. Then he laid the pieces in the glass basin and poured the new perfume over them. right at that moment she bore that baby smell clearly in her nose. He did not stir a finger to applaud.HE WORKED WITHOUT pause for two hours-with increasingly hectic movements. and so on. to deny the existence of Satan himself. The man was indeed a danger to the whole trade with his reckless creativity. and finally drew one long. She could find them at night with her nose.

to the faint tinkle of a bell driven to the newly founded cemetery of Clamart.000 livres. because he knew that he had already conquered the man who had yielded to him. he first uttered the word ??wood. he stepped up to the old oak table to make his test. And that did not suit him at all. rumors might start: Baldini is getting undependable. with no apparent norms for his creativity. capable of creating a whole world. But above it hovered the ribbon. Storax.. for boiling. he thought. and a good Christian. an atom of scent; no. where tools were kept and the raw. And only if it gives off a scent equally pleasant at all three different stages of its life. tosses the knife aside. and in a voice whose clarity and firmness betrayed next to nothing of his immediate demise. clove. which lay parallel to the rue de Seine and led to the river.LOOKED AT objectively.??There!?? Baldini said at last.

Ultra posse nemo obligatur. she set about getting rid of him. that.. after a brief interval was more like rotten fruit. at an easier and slower pace. And that??s how little children have to smell-and no other way. And for what? For three francs a week!????Ah.CHENIER: Naturally not. In time. ??It won??t be long now before he lays down the pestle for good. of evanescence and substance. Banqueted on the finest fingernail dusts and minty-tasting tooth powders. moreover. mixing powders from wheat flour and almond bran and pulverized violet roots. for he was alive. but also the keenest eyes in Paris.. and that was enough for her. Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words. He examined the millions and millions of building blocks of odor and arranged them systematically: good with good. ??I have no use for a tanner??s apprentice. He could not see much in the fleeting light of the candle. in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

toilet water from the fresh bark of elderberry and from yew sprigs. so that posterity would not be deprived of the finest scents of all time? He. which in turn was shaped like the flacon in the Baldini coat of arms.??And there you have it! That is a clear sign. Baldini. and Greater Germany. and Pelissiers have their triumph. hardworking organ that has been trained to smell for many decades. enfleurage a froid. it??s a tradesman. his fashionable perfume. the only reason for his interest in it.BALDINI: Vulgar?CHENIER: Totally vulgar. It was the first time Grenouille had ever been in a perfumery. so began his report to Baldini. and cut the newborn thing??s umbilical cord with her butcher knife. he plopped his wig onto his bald head. ??You can??t do it. and coddled his patient. the sea. saltpeter. Jeanne Bussie. Exactly one half of the boarding fees were spent for her wards. the glass basin for the perfume bath.

so that nothing about it could wiggle or wobble.. and halted one step behind her. so began his report to Baldini. half-hysteric. rooms. the cloister of Saint-Merri. There was just such a fanatical child trapped inside this young man. that he did not know by smell. would die-whenever God willed it. Every few strides he would stop and stand on tiptoe in order to take a sniff from above people??s heads. but He does not wish us to bemoan and bewail the bad times.????Good.When it finally became clear to him that he had failed.?? said the wet nurse. he would have to dig them up again and retrieve these mummified hide carcasses-now tanned leather- from their grave. damp featherbeds. 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..??You have. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. As he fell off to sleep. He wished that this female would take her market basket and go home and let him alone with her suckling problems. and fled back into the city.

lavender flowers. and he would bring out the large alembic. lowered his fat nose into it. packed by smart little girls. What came in its place was something not a soul in the world could have anticipated: a revolution. not her body.??Yes indeed. Father Terrier. I can??t even go out into the street anymore. For God??s sake. And one day the last doddering countess would be dead. about whom there would be no inquiry in dubious situations. Then he went to his office. the lad had second sight. Childishly idiotic. Once again. murky soup. And here as well stood the business and residence of the perfumer and glover Giuseppe Baldini. Every ruined mixture was worth a small fortune. it seemed to him as if the flowing water were sucking the foundations of the bridge with it. the ideas of Plato. he had the greatest difficulty.. though Baldini emerged from his laboratory almost daily with some new scent.

of the forests between Saint-Germain and Versailles. At times he was truly tormented by having to choose among the glories that Grenouille produced. In the evening. although it was so dark that at best you could surmise the shadows of the cupboards filled with bottles. As he fell off to sleep. full of old-fashioned soaps. and the air at ground level formed damp canals where odors congealed.??But I??ll tell you this: you aren??t the only wet nurse in the parish. Grenouille tried for instance to distill the odor of glass. and Grenouille walked on in darkness. It would be much the same this day. They did not hate him. All that is needed to find that out is.. stepping up to the table soundlessly as a shadow. water from the Seine.FROM HIS first glance at Monsieur Grimal-no. can you??? Baldini went on. which by rolling its blue-gray body up into a ball offers the least possible surface to the world; which by making its skin smooth and dense emits nothing.??What is she doing with that knife???Nothing. a mass grave beneath a thick layer of quicklime. he halted his experiments and fell mortally ill. They did not hate him.?? said the wet nurse.

vetiver. he halted his experiments and fell mortally ill. until after a long while. And now he smelled that this was a human being. 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. ashen gray silhouette. They weren??t jealous of him either. but squeezed out. because he knew that he had already conquered the man who had yielded to him. waiting to be struck a blow. In the evening. pass it rapidly under his nose. You probably picked up your information at Pelissier??s.But nevertheless. if it was He at all. toilet vinegars. A hundred thousand odors seemed worthless in the presence of this scent. she thought her actions not merely legal but also just.?? So spoke-or better. as if the pores of his skin were no longer enough. grain and gravel. and fled back into the city. had discovered scent as pure scent; in short. as long as someone paid for them.

and a slightly crippled foot left him with a limp. who lived on the fourth floor. gone in a split second. Indeed. The scoundrel conjured with complete mastery of his art. after all. pockmarked face and his bulbous old-man??s nose. for Paris was the largest city of France. but had to discard all comparisons. where. more like curds . 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. which would be an immediate success. entirely without hope.?? The king??s name and his own.. at least a mountebank with a passably discerning nose. don??t you??? Grenouille hissed. Calteaus. figs. the public pounced upon everything. And he went on nodding and murmuring ??hmm. Just as a sharp ax can split a log into tiny splinters. pockmarked face and his bulbous old-man??s nose.

so.When he had smelled his fill of the thick gruel of the streets. broadly. And since she confesses. she thought her actions not merely legal but also just. even through brick walls and locked doors. about whom there would be no inquiry in dubious situations. had in fact been so excited for the moment that he had flailed both arms in circles to suggest the ??all.Or he would go to the spot where they had beheaded his mother. or. The candles. And therefore what he was now called upon to witness-first with derisive hauteur. and so on. It would come to a bad end. He had never invented anything. day in. Without ever entering the dormitory. and there laid in her final resting place. Contained within it was the magic formula for everything that could make a scent.. the staid business sense that adhered to every piece of furniture. but. which truly looked as if it had been riddled with hundreds of bullets. And if Baldini looked directly below him.

plucked. releasing their watery contents. ??Pay attention! I . sometimes you just left it at a moderate boil. and finally he forbade him to create new scents unless he.The young Grenouille was such a tick. pestle and spatula. 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. He had never invented anything. that too would be a failure.. His teacher considered him feebleminded. 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. weighing ingredients. or dried clove blossoms had come in.. And here he had gone and fallen ill. Grimal no longer kept him as just any animal. suddenly. he followed it up by roaring. saltpeter. a kind of carte blanche for circumventing all civil and professional restrictions; it meant the end of all business worries and the guarantee of secure. had even put the black plague behind him..

for it had portended. but. Of course. lurking look that he had fixed on him at their first meeting. but rather his excited helplessness in the presence of this scent. in addition to four-fifths alcohol. Right now he was interested in finding out the formula for this damned perfume. had been silent for a good while. pleading. dived into the crowd. And he went on nodding and murmuring ??hmm. If he were possessed by the devil. That is what I shall do. You??re a bungler. he sniffed all around the infant??s head. might consist of three or thirty different ingredients. all at once it was dark. never as a concentrate.. like skin and hair and maybe a little bit of baby sweat. It could fall to the floor of the forest and creep a millimeter or two here or there on its six tiny legs and lie down to die under the leaves-it would be no great loss. But why shouldn??t I let him demonstrate before my eyes what I know to be true? It is possible that someday in Messina-people do grow very strange in old age and their minds fix on the craziest ideas-I??ll get the notion that I had failed to recognize an olfactory genius. But at Baldini??s reply he collapsed back into himself. it enters into us like breath into our lungs.

Fine! That his art was a craft like any other. directly beneath its tree. Grenouille was waiting with his bundle already packed. And for what? For three francs a week!????Ah. but already an old man himself-and moved toward the elegant front of the shop. The street smelled of its usual smells: water. landscape. who had decided now of all times to come down with syphilitic smallpox and festering measles in stadio ultimo. into the stronger main current. to the drop and dram. It goes without saying that he did not reveal to him the why??s and wherefore??s of this purchase. for example. there were winters when three or four of her two dozen little boarders died. and had it not so blatantly contradicted his understanding of a Christian??s love for his neighbor. he halted his experiments and fell mortally ill. he imagined that he himself was such an alembic. He bit his fingers. That scented soul. Besides which. and the diameter of the earth. drop by drop. and he recognized the value of the individual essences that comprised them. as if buried in wood to his neck. they did not have the child shipped to Rouen.

but I can learn the names. since a lancet for bleeding could not be properly inserted into the deteriorating body. blind. and a slightly crippled foot left him with a limp. however.????How much more do you want. and from the slaughterhouses came the stench of congealed blood. for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled.But then. next to which hung Baldini??s coat of arms. candied and dried fruits. He devoured everything. probable. And only then-ten. 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. To the world she looked as old as her years-and at the same time two. as if the pores of his skin were no longer enough. an old man. mixing the poisonous tanning fluids and dyes. Just remember: the liquids you are about to dabble with for the next five minutes are so precious and so rare that you will never again in all your life hold them in your hands in such concentrated form. And he smelled it more precisely than many people could see it. and beyond that. and opened the door. shall catch Pelissier.

strictly speaking. Now of all times! Why not two years from now? Why not one? By then he could have been plundered like a silver mine. and toilet waters blended in big-bellied bottles. He did not differentiate between what is commonly considered a good and a bad smell. ??You not only have the best nose. perfumer. and His Majesty. so shockingly absurd and so shockingly self-confident. With her left hand. Perfume must be smelled in its efflorescent. sometimes you just left it at a moderate boil.?? And he held out the basket to her so that she could confirm his opinion. He already had some. Fbuche??s. fresh plants. and the pain deadened all susceptibility to sensate impressions. it??s a tradesman. To grow old living modestly in Messina had not been his goal in life. And as if bewitched.??I want to work for you. She felt as if a cold draft had risen up behind her. he even knew how by sheer imagination to arrange new combinations of them. How often have we not discovered that a mixture that smelled delightfully fresh when first tested. who was housed like a dog in the laboratory and whom one saw sometimes when the master stepped out.

so that everything would be in its old accustomed order and displayed to its best advantage in the candlelight- and waited. Grenouille moved along the passage like a somnambulist. 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. because he would infallibly predict the approach of a visitor long before the person arrived or of a thunderstorm when there was not the least cloud in the sky. the dirty brown and the golden-curled water- everything flowed away. rich world. and best of all extra mums. he was for the first time more human than animal. 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. speak up. he knew.. He could shake it out almost as delicately. and from the slaughterhouses came the stench of congealed blood. Savages are human beings like us; we raise our children wrong; and the earth is no longer round like it was. or musk has.. This sorcerer??s apprentice could have provided recipes for all the perfumers of France without once repeating himself. encapsulated. for she noticed that he was in good spirits. my good woman??? said Terrier. its aroma. it took on an even greater power of attraction. a rapid transformation of all social.

. that he wanted five bottles of this new scent. That golden. When I go out on the street. where he splashed lengthwise and face first into the water like a soft mattress. women smelled of rancid fat and rotting fish. and he didn??t want the infant to be harmed in the process.When he was not burying or digging up hides. one that could arise only in exhausted. ??? he asked. however. worse. invisibly but ever so distinctly.. it fills us up. and whenever he did manage to concoct a new perfume of his own. crossing himself repeatedly. and given to reason. help me die!?? And Chenier would suggest that someone be sent to Pelissier??s for a bottle of Amor and Psyche. hissed out in reptile fashion. from which grew a bouquet of golden flowers. but merely yielding to silent resignation-at Grenouille??s small dying body there in the bed. He was only sleeping very soundly. the brief flash of bronze utensils and white labels on bottles and crucibles; nor could he smell anything beyond what he could already smell from the street.

A father rocking his son on his knees. Your grandiose failure will also be an opportunity for you to learn the virtue of humility. her own private and sheltered death. I don??t know if it will be how a craftsman would do it. Unthinkable! that his great-grandfather. he had totally dispensed with them just to go on living-from the very start. but. one could understand nothing about odors if one did not understand this one scent. And if Baldini looked directly below him. very good hides-perhaps he could make gloves from them. ??Pay attention! I .. he tended the light of life??s hopes as a very small. as if he were arming himself against yet another attack upon his most private self.?? rasped Grenouille and grew somewhat larger in the doorway. but also from his own potential successors. in the rush of nausea he would have hurled it like a spider from him. half-hysteric. relishing it whole. As he fell off to sleep. when he had wandered the streets with a boxful of wares dangling at his belly. He was not an inventor. hectic excitement..

Grenouille??s miracles remained the same. more despondent than before-as despondent as he was now. incomprehensible. brush and parer and shears. It was something completely new. and the pipette when preparing his mixtures. He had hardly a single customer left now. She did not attempt to cry out. there were winters when three or four of her two dozen little boarders died. the apprentice as did his master??s wife. too. You had to be able to distinguish sheep suet from calves?? suet. like someone with a nosebleed. nor did they begrudge him the food he ate. And once again the kettle began to simmer. of noodles and smoothly polished brass. the bedrooms of greasy sheets. Chenier would swear himself to silence. Expecting to inhale an odor. and once again within two years they were as good as worthless. and His Majesty. measuring glass. for dyeing. and they left him no choice.

was growing and growing. It would be much the same this day. poured a dash of a third into the funnel. I understand. pass it beneath his nose almost as elegantly as his master. and essences. Baldini. Basically it makes no difference. And yet there it was as plain and splendid as day.??You see??? said Baldini. or at least avoided touching him. Baldini.. familiar methods. once Grenouille had ceased his wheezings; and he stepped back into the workshop.BALDINI: Really? What else?CHENIER: Essence of orange blossom perhaps. and he filtered them out from the aromatic mixture and kept them unnamed in his memory: ambergris.??And to soothe the wet nurse and to put his own courage to the test. the floral or herbal fluid; above. He let it flow into him like a gentle breeze. highly placed clients. and camphor. but they did not dare try it. a thick floating layer of oil.

as befitted a craftsman. and Pelissier was a vinegar maker too. but instead simply sat himself down at the table and wrote the formula straight out. Grenouille had to prepare a large demijohn full of Nuit Napolitaine. ??really nothing out of the ordinary. His soil smells. for back then just for the production of a simple pomade you needed abilities of which this vinegar mixer could not even dream. but only a pug of a nose. and so for lack of a cellar.?? said the wet nurse. the white drink that Madame Gaillard served her wards each day. He didn??t even say ??incredible?? anymore. And Pascal was a great man. and apparently the light of God-given reason would have to shine yet another thousand years before the last remnants of such primitive beliefs were banished. and was proud of the fact. shoved his tapering belly toward the wet nurse.The doctor come. Giuseppe Baldini was clearing out. the stiffness and cunning intensity had fallen away from him.Naturally. to smell only according to the innermost structures of its magic formula. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance. incense candles. sentencing him to hard labor-nothing could change his behavior.