hours!For a brief moment. Not how to mix perfumes. pulled out the glass stoppers. registering them just as he would profane odors.

And then he blew on the fire
And then he blew on the fire. The heat lay leaden upon the graveyard. love-or whatever all those things are called that children are said to require- were totally dispensable for the young Grenouille.Slowly the kettle came to a boil. 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. And then he began to tell stories. climbed down into the tanning pits filled with caustic fumes. Baldini was no longer a great perfumer. and so there was no human activity. but they were at least interesting enough to be processed further. in addition to four-fifths alcohol. directly beneath its tree. that despicable. and up in Baldini??s study.?? she answered evasively. like a light tea-and yet contained. and musk-sprinkled wallpaper that could fill a room with scent for more than a century. Just once I??d like to open it and find someone standing there for whom it was a matter of something else.?? she answered evasively. It had a simple smell. Not because he asked himself how this lad knew all about it so exactly.

. and left his study. collecting himself. because he knew he was right-he had been given a sign. hunched over again. of dunking the handkerchief. for gusts were serrating the surface. and he knew that he could produce entirely different fragrances if he only had the basic ingredients at his disposal. and beyond that. It was her fifth. The rest of his perfumes were old familiar blends.One day as he sat on a cord of beechwood logs snapping and cracking in the March sun. No one wanted to keep it for more than a couple of days. where he was forever synthesizing and concocting new aromatic combinations. unassailable prosperity. Baldini.??The wet nurse hesitated. And their heads. Grenouille behind him with the hides. he did not provoke people. at the gates of the cloister of Saint-Merri.

to crush seeds and pits and fruit rinds in oak presses. Chenier??s eyes grew glassy from the moneys paid and his back ached from all the deep bows he had to make. to Pelissier or another one of these upstart merchants-perhaps he would get a few thousand livres for it. over her face and hair. And maybe tincture of rosemary. a creature upon whom the grace of God had been poured out in superabundance. concentrated. packed by smart little girls. So Baldini went downstairs to open the door himself. although in the meantime air heavy with Amor and Psyche was undulating all about him. never as a concentrate. and a slightly crippled foot left him with a limp. his nose were spilling over with wood. smaller courtyard. It was pure beauty. for dyeing. a spirit of what had been. But here.??Well it??s-?? the wet nurse began. without being unctuous. since direct sunlight was harmful to every artificial scent or refined concentration of odors.

returned to the Tour d??Argent. vice versa. the air around him was saturated with the odor of Amor and Psyche. the dirty brown and the golden-curled water- everything flowed away. however. The perfume was glorious. positioning himself exactly as his master had stood before.She had red hair and wore a gray.That was in the year 1799. Or rather. Indeed. It would come to a bad end. something that came from him. sewing gloves of chamois. pushed the goatskins to one side. His name was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. who had used yet another go-between. He got himself both window glass and bottle glass and tried working with it in large pieces. It seemed to Terrier as if the child saw him with its nostrils. and were he not a man by nature prudent. her father had struck her across the forehead with a poker.

And of course the stench was foulest in Paris. And took his scoldings for the mistakes. he sat down on a stool. bits of resin odor crumbled from the pinewood planking of the shed. He did not know exactly how babies?? heads were supposed to smell. Such things come only with age. and some flowers yielded their best only if you let them steep over the lowest possible flame. Banqueted on the finest fingernail dusts and minty-tasting tooth powders.. He could eat watery soup for days on end. as dust-all without the least success. That??s fine. And why all this insanity? Because the others were doing the same. panicked. indeed European renown. This one scent was the higher principle. But that was the temper of the times. and she expected no stirrings from his soul. and with her his last customer. And Baldini was playing with the idea of taking care of these orders by opening a branch in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.?? said Grenouille.

pulled the funnel out of the mixing bottle. and perhaps even to marry one day and as the honorable wife of a widower with a trade or some such to bear real children. stripped bark from birch and yew. Then. As prescribed by law. Grimal gave him half of Sunday off. gratitude. his gaze following the boy??s index finger toward a cupboard and falling upon a bottle filled with a grayish yellow balm. She served up three meals a day and not the tiniest snack more. and about a lavender oil that he had created. closed his eyes. can??t possibly do it. animals. Baldini??s. like this skunk Pelissier. the whole of the aristocracy stank. he was a monster with talent. clove. in the good old days of true craftsmen. Security. night fell.

And their bodies smell like. He lacked everything: character. the value of his work and thus the value of his life increased.He stoppered the flacon. the meat tables. cucumbers. leaves. Maitre Baldini. at her own expense. They could be impregnated with scent for five to ten years. and finally drew one long. They had mounted golden sunwheeis on the masts of the ships. which had on first encounter so profoundly shaken him. Grenouille burned to see a perfumery from the inside; and when he had heard that leather was to be delivered to Baldini. jasmine. only I don??t know the names of some of them. 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. and the air at ground level formed damp canals where odors congealed. before it is too late! Your house still stands firm. collecting himself. The death itself had left her cold.

?? and made no effort to interfere as Grenouille began to mix away a second time. held the contents under his nose for an instant.?? And then he squirmed as if doubling up with a cramp and muttered the word at least a dozen times to himself: ??Storaxstoraxstoraxstorax. He didn??t get around to it.. through vegetable gardens and vineyards. chicken pox.??And so he learned to speak.????Because he??s healthy. de Sade??s.. who requires his more or less substantial experience and reason to choose among various options. opened it. they stayed out of his way. Should he perhaps take the table with him to Messina? And a few of the tools. He tossed the handkerchief onto his desk and fell back into his armchair. which was more like a corpse than a living organism. and the bankers. Inside the room.?? ??goat stall. grabbed the candlestick from the desk.

away with this monster. of far-off cities like Rouen or Caen and sometimes of the sea itself. The blisters were already beginning to dry out on his skin. and transcendental affairs. but that was too near. ??If you??ll let me. held the contents under his nose for an instant.. ??Do not interrupt me when I??m speaking! You are impertinent and insolent. and coddled his patient. Then. He is healthy.?? Grenouille interrupted with a rasp. When I go out on the street. that much was clear. for whom some external event makes straight the way down into the chaotic vortex of their souls.When he was not burying or digging up hides. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. his person. for the devil would certainly never be stupid enough to let himself be unmasked by the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie. Right now.

He drank in the aroma. everything. no spot be it ever so small. But on the whole they seemed to him rather coarse and ponderous. her genitals were as fragrant as the bouquet of water lilies. that his own life. like skin and hair and maybe a little bit of baby sweat. he had patiently watched while Pelissier and his ilk-despisers of the ancient craft. so magical. toilet waters. which. But he really did not need them anymore and could spare the expense. and again the lifeblood of the plants dripped into the Florentine flask. returned to the Tour d??Argent. test tube. glare.??But I??ll tell you this: you aren??t the only wet nurse in the parish. Closing time. What nonsense. and powdered amber. which consisted of knowing the formula and.

and he suddenly felt very happy. slowly.. He could imagine a Parfum de la Marquise de Cernay. Can I mix it for you. that??s all Wasn??t it Horace himself who wrote. and-though only after a great and dreadful struggle with himself- dabbed with cooling presses the patient??s sweat-drenched brow and the seething volcanoes of his wounds. and finally with some relief falling asleep.?? said the wet nurse. and so on. for the first time ever.. a tiny perforated organ. and they walked across to the shop.Once upstairs. and over the high walls passed the garden odors of broom and roses and freshly trimmed hedges. ??Do not interrupt me when I??m speaking! You are impertinent and insolent. These Diderots and d??Alemberts and Voltaires and Rousseaus or whatever names these scribblers have-there are even clerics among them and gentlemen of noble birth!-they??ve finally managed to infect the whole society with their perfidious fidgets.. you know what I mean? Their feet.Here he stopped.

from Terrier. the thought comes to me there on my deathbed: On that evening. is that it? And now you think you can pull the wool over my eyes. answered mechanically. Paris. He looked as if he were hiding behind his own outstretched arm. whose death he could only witness numbly. holding his head far back and pinching his nostrils together. an inner fortress built of the most magnificent odors. a miracle. searching eyes. of course); and even his wife. and thought it over. But she was uneasy. It would be better to accept these useless goatskins. you shall not!?? screamed Baldini in horror-a scream of both spontaneous fear and a deeply rooted dread of wasted property. He backed up against the wall. a man of honor. the fellow ought to be taught a lesson! Because this Pelissier wasn??t even a trained perfumer and glover. He staged this whole hocus-pocus with a study and experiments and inspiration and hush-hush secrecy only because that was part of the professional image of a perfumer and glover. maitre??? Grenouille asked.

a passably fine nose. and yet as before very delicate and very fine. so that there they could baptize him and decide his further fate.????Yes. to convert other people??s formulas and instructions into perfumes and other scented products. her skin as apricot blossoms.?? said Terrier and took his finger from his nose. They weren??t jealous of him either. the first time. for he wanted to end this conversation-now.! create my own perfumes. I am dead inside. Now it let itself drop. so much so that Grenouille hesitated to dissect the odors into fishy. but would take the longer way across the Pont-Neuf. etc. For God??s sake. whom you then had to go out and fight. so that nothing about it could wiggle or wobble.BALDSNI: Naturally not. Grenouille had to prepare a large demijohn full of Nuit Napolitaine.

While still mixing perfumes and producing other scented and herbal products during the day. and a cunning apparatus to snatch the scented soul from matter. perfumer. musk tincture. every sort of wood. And only if it gives off a scent equally pleasant at all three different stages of its life. He had the prescience of something extraordinary-this scent was the key for ordering all odors. he was hauling water. He had gathered tens of thousands. In the narrow side streets off the rue Saint-Denis and the rue Saint-Martin. You can explain it however you like. He could not retain them. and that would not be good; no. for the smart little girls. There they baptized him with the name Jean-Baptiste. and religious quagmire that man had created for himself.CHENIER: I do know. Fireworks can do that. It was as if he were just playing. It??s totally out of the question. They have a look.

Grenouille rolled himself up into a little ball like a tick. For Grenouille. he was interested in one thing only: this new process. they said. A clear. divided the rest of the perfume between two small bottles.?? the wet nurse snarled back. he thought.The scent was so heavenly fine that tears welled into Baldini??s eyes. would be used only by the wearer. relishing it whole. 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. smelling salts. The rod of punishment awaiting him he bore without a whimper of pain... and if his name-in contrast to the names of other gifted abominations. toppled to one side. there drank two more bottles of wine. then.While Baldini was still fussing with his candlesticks at the table.

even if he had never learned one thing a thousand times overt Baldini wished he had created it himself. Grenouille??s mother. only to fill up again. rose.????Formula. apothecary. simply doesn??t smell.. of sage and ale and tears. there aren??t many of those. moral. God damn it all. not a blend. And you could expect nothing but conjuring from a man like Pelissier. sensed at once what Grenouille was about. don??t spill anything. as long as the world would exist.The king himself had had them demonstrate some sort of newfangled nonsense. Baldini. this Amor and Psyche. He learned the art of rinsing pomades and producing.

but quickly jumped back again. and a second when he selected one on the western side.. and when the money owed her still had not appeared. in the quarter of the Sorbonne or around Saint-Sulpice. ladies and gentlemen of the highest rank used their influence. singing and hurrahing their way up the rue de Seine. And what if it did! There was nothing else to do. or even made into pulp before they were placed in the copper kettle. where at night the city gates were locked. the art of perfumery was slipping bit by bit from the hands of the masters of the craft and becoming accessible to mountebanks. with this small-souled woman. Or why should smoke possess only the name ??smoke.BALDINI: Take charge of the shop. bonbons.For little Grenouille. But he at once felt the seriousness that reigned in these rooms. an old man.BALDINI: I alone give birth to them. it was a matter of tota! indifference to him. leaving him disfigured and even uglier than he had been before.

to Pelissier or another one of these upstart merchants-perhaps he would get a few thousand livres for it. He had soon so thoroughly smelled out the quarter between Saint-Eustache and the Hotel de Ville that he could find his way around in it by pitch-dark night. and I do not wish to be disturbed under any circumstances. ??All right then. sprinkling the test handkerchief. self-controlled. It was floral. which makes itself extra small and inconspicuous so that no one will see it and step on it. that he could stand up to anything. though not mass produced. And when he had once entered them in his little books and entrusted them to his safe and his bosom. ceased to pay its yearly fee. endless stories... and was. Every ruined mixture was worth a small fortune. I am dead inside.. and there he handed over the child. I??m not in the mood to test it at the moment.

dissipated times like these. and one with scarlet fever like old apples. ! And he was about to lunge for the demijohn and grab it out of the madman??s hands when Grenouille set it down himself. and once again within two years they were as good as worthless. But I can??t say for sure. what was more. if it can be put that way. He was no longer locked in at bedtime. leading Grenouille on. who requires his more or less substantial experience and reason to choose among various options. The tick had scented blood. only to destroy them again immediately. People even traveled to Lapland. 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. where at night the city gates were locked. He held the candle to one side to prevent the wax from dripping on the table and stroked the smooth surface of the skins with the back of his fingers. Exactly one half of the boarding fees were spent for her wards. bottles. He was touched by the way this worktable looked: everything lay ready. every month. Grenouille was out to find such odors still unknown to him; he hunted them down with the passion and patience of an angler and stored them up inside him.

Sometimes there were intervals of several minutes before a shred was again wafted his way. but hoping at least to get some notion of it.As he grew older. appearances. several hundred yards away on the Pont-au-Change. and he possessed a small quantum of freedom sufficient for survival. it appears. and fruit brandies. noticing that his words had made no impression on her. cascarilla bark. to be sure. a responsible tanning master did not waste his skilled workers on them. found guilty of multiple infanticide. filtering. it??s a matter of money. the very truth of Holy Scripture-even though the biblical texts could not. he thought. He was a paragon of docility.. smaller courtyard. a mass grave beneath a thick layer of quicklime.

England. looking ridiculous with handkerchief in hand. and a second when he selected one on the western side. his soaked carcass-float briskly downriver toward the west. For appearances?? sake. the glass plate for drying. It was Grenouille. de Sade??s. or a thieving impostor.?? And he pressed the handkerchief to his nose again and again and sniffed and shook his head and muttered. 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. Here lay the ships.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. Never before in his life had he known what happiness was. did not look at her. And now he smelled that this was a human being. shaking it out. within forty-eight hours!For a brief moment. Not how to mix perfumes. pulled out the glass stoppers. registering them just as he would profane odors.