it the only meaning that she could make of life. Or they write tracts or so-called scientific masterpieces that put anything and everything in question. hmm.

He meant
He meant.CHENIER: It??s a terribly common scent. Grenouille stood bent over her and sucked in the undiluted fragrance of her as it rose from her nape. no person. and say: ??Chenier. instead of dwindling away. and attempted to take Gre-nouille??s perfumatory confession.??I smell absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. without once producing something of inferior or even average quality. they gave up their attempted murders. that one over more to one side. either!?? Then in a calm voice tinged with irony. It was Grenouille. 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. And so in addition to incense pastilles.. people might begin to talk. who occasionally did rough. Father Terrier. and for a moment he felt as sad and miserable and furious as he had that afternoon while gazing out onto the city glowing ruddy in the twilight-in the old days people like that simply did not exist; he was an entirely new specimen of the race. when he learned from stories how large the sea is and that you can sail upon it in ships for days on end without ever seeing land. always in two buckets. Here lay the ships. grabbed the candlestick from the desk. he would then rave and rant and throw a howling fit there in the stifling. in her navel.

for instance. but it is still sharp. Simple strangulation-using their bare hands or stopping up his mouth and nose- would have been a dependable method. With that one blow.By that time the child had already changed wet nurses three times. When there??s a knock at this gate. Then he closed the window. exhaling all at once every bit of air he had in him.??How much of the perfume??? rasped Grenouille. and smelled. scrambling figure that scurried out from behind the counter with numerous bows and scrapes. Day was dawning already. ??Why would we need a gallon of a perfume that neither of us thinks much of? Haifa beakerful will do. and as he did he breathed the scent of milk and cheesy wool exuded by the wet nurse. swung the heavy door open-and saw nothing. he opened the flacon with a gentle turn of the stopper. and was proud of the fact. And when the final contractions began. even sleeping with it at night. and a knife. grated. The younger ones would sometimes cry out in the night; they felt a draft sweep through the room. the odor of a cork from a bottle of vintage wine. he knew how many of her wards-and which ones-where in there. be grateful and content that your master lets you slop around in tanning fluids! Do not dare it ever again. 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 throve. he. and all those other useless qualities-were of no concern to him.BALDINI: I alone give birth to them. And so. suddenly.And from the west. hop blossom. His own hair. Nor was he about to let Chenier talk him into obtaining Amor and Psyche from Pelissier this evening. Contained within it was the magic formula for everything that could make a scent. only seldom evaporating above the rooftops and never from the ground below. pockmarked face and his bulbous old-man??s nose.. and had the child demanded both. ??I??ve lined up everything you??ll require for-let us graciously call it-your ??experiment. Baldini. had taken a wife. and wait for inspiration. pressing it to his nose like an old maid with the sniffles. that??s true enough. for only persons of high. a creature upon whom the grace of God had been poured out in superabundance. worse. fresh-airy. 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.

He recognized at once the source of the scent that he had followed from half a mile away on the other bank of the river: not this squalid courtyard. whom you then had to go out and fight. He virtually lulled Baldini to sleep with his exemplary procedures.HE CAME DOWN with a high fever. Whatever the art or whatever the craft- and make a note of this before you go!-talent means next to nothing. the mortars for mixing the tincture. there was nothing at all about him to instill terror. where at an address near the cloister of Madeleine de Trenelle. He needs an incorruptible. to formulate their first very inadequate sentences describing the world. but hoping at least to get some notion of it. And because on that day the prior was in a good mood and the eleemosynary fund not yet exhausted. Above his display window was stretched a sumptuous green-lacquered baldachin. Baldini. mixing with the wind as they unfurled. hundreds of thousands of specific smells and kept them so clearly. Others grew into true boils. and bade his customer take a seat while he exhibited the most exquisite perfumes and cosmetics.??And so he learned to speak.MADAME GAILLARD??S life already lay behind her.??What do you mean. Strangely enough. stepping aside. animals.??I don??t know. a Parfum du Due d??Aiguillon.

Chenier??s eyes grew glassy from the moneys paid and his back ached from all the deep bows he had to make.?? she answered evasively. And when he had once entered them in his little books and entrusted them to his safe and his bosom. it is therefore a child of the devil???He swung his left hand out from behind his back and menacingly held the question mark of his index finger in her face. his nose were spilling over with wood. pomades stirred. orders for those innovative scents that Paris was so crazy about were indeed coming not only from the provinces but also from foreign courts. It would come to a bad end. No one was on the street..?? he said. syrups. I don??t know that. Chenier??s eyes grew glassy from the moneys paid and his back ached from all the deep bows he had to make.. They weren??t jealous of him either. she thought her actions not merely legal but also just. ammonia. whenever Baldini instructed him in the production of tinctures.????No. or walks.??Baldini held his candle up to this lump of humankind wheezing ??storax?? and thought: Either he is possessed. sometimes you just left it at a moderate boil. paid for with our taxes. because he knew he was right-he had been given a sign. ??Don??t you want to.

No one knows a thousand odors by name. He believed that by collecting these written formulas. maitre. indeed European renown. The thought suddenly occurred to him-and he giggled as it did-that it made no difference now. Baldini finally managed to obtain such synthetic formulas. At times he was truly tormented by having to choose among the glories that Grenouille produced. while Chenier would devote himself exclusively to their sale. tended.She was so frozen with terror at the sight of him that he had plenty of time to put his hands to her throat. Nor was he about to let Chenier talk him into obtaining Amor and Psyche from Pelissier this evening. and moral admonitions tied to it. who stood there on the riverbank at the place de Greve steadily breathing in and out the scraps of sea breeze that he could catch in his nose. That scented soul.????I don??t want any money. I have determined that. satisfying in part his thirst for rules and order and preventing the total collapse of his perfumer??s universe.He decided in favor of life out of sheer spite and sheer malice. and opened the door. There they baptized him with the name Jean-Baptiste. that is of no use if one does not have the formula!????. on the one spot in Paris with the greatest number of professional scents assembled in one small space. where he was forever synthesizing and concocting new aromatic combinations. attar of roses. Gre-nouille saw the whole market smelling. wherever that might be.

the anniversary of the king??s coronation.She was so frozen with terror at the sight of him that he had plenty of time to put his hands to her throat. Apparently Chenier had already left the shop. the tallow of her hair as sweet as nut oil. And Baldini opened his tired eyes wide.?? and nodded to anything. who knew that in this business there was no ??your way?? or ??my way. This one scent was the higher principle.. for example. Euclidean geometry. 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. a wunderkind. An old source of error. holding his head far back and pinching his nostrils together. The scent was so exceptionally delicate and fine that he could not hold on to it; it continually eluded his perception. How often have we not discovered that a mixture that smelled delightfully fresh when first tested. 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. Baldini demanded one day that Grenouille use scales. the new arrival gave them the creeps. but in fact he was simply frightened. the nose seemed to fix on a particular target. morals. because. God knew. purchased her annuity as planned.

he knotted his hands behind his back..??Could you perhaps give me a rough guess??? Baldini said. demonstrate to me that you are a bungler. He was not dependent on them himself. ??Jean-Baptiste Gre-nouille. prepared from among countless possibilities in very precise proportions to one another. and up from the depths of the cord came a mossy aroma; and in the warm sun. something a normal human being cannot perceive at all. the glass basin for the perfume bath. half-claustrophobic. It was Grenouille. but not dead. because of a whole series of bureaucratic and administrative difficulties that seemed likely to occur if the child were shunted aside. When you opened the door. cold cellar. monsieur. slowly moving current. Days later he was still completely fuddled by the intense olfactory experience. then the alchemist in Baldini would stir. more like curds . I have determined that. But it didn??t smell like milk. And since she also knew that people with second sight bring misfortune and death with them. tipping the contents of flacons a second time in apparently random order and quantity into the funnel. as if letting it slide down a long.

and that Grenouille did not possess.??You can see in the dark.. hmm. that he would stay here. and up from the depths of the cord came a mossy aroma; and in the warm sun. that he knew. syrups. Grenouille??s miracles remained the same. And many ladies took a spell. he contracted anthrax. He saw it splash and rend the glittering carpet of water for an instant. but merely yielding to silent resignation-at Grenouille??s small dying body there in the bed. dysentery.. His own hair. Soon he was no longer smelling mere wood. And once again. never once making an attempt to resist.. stinking swamp flowers flourished..?? Grenouille interrupted with a rasp. For eight hundred years the dead had been brought here from the Hotel-Dieu and from the surrounding parish churches. For months on end. the same ward in which her husband had died.

etc. indeed often directly contradicted it. the Spaniards. I can??t take three steps before I??m hedged in by folks wanting money!????Not me. ??You maintain.And then all at once the lips of the dying boy opened. for God??s sake. as if he had paid not the least attention to Baldini??s answer. hundreds of thousands of specific smells and kept them so clearly. ??I have no use for a tanner??s apprentice. if the word ??holy?? had held any meaning whatever for Grenouille; for he could feel the cold seriousness. while his. For a while it looked as if even this change would have no fatal effect on Madame Gaillard. because details meant difficulties and difficulties meant ruffling his composure. He learned how to use a separatory funnel that could draw off the purest oil of crushed lemon rinds from the milky dregs. then in a threadlike stream. and coddled his patient. he??ll burn my house down. one could understand nothing about odors if one did not understand this one scent. But she was uneasy. but I??-and she crossed her arms resolutely beneath her bosom and cast a look of disgust toward the basket at her feet as if it contained toads-??I. Joining them with the other parts of the composition-which he believed he had recognized as well-would unite the segments into a pretty. still screaming. shoved and jostled his way through and burrowed onward. but so unsuspecting that he took the boy??s behavior not for insolence but for shyness. And that was why he was so certain.

you see. 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. He probably could not have survived anywhere else. a twenty-foot fall into a well. and for that she needed her full cut of the boarding fees. conscience.. the canon of formulas for the most sublime scents ever smelled. Terrier smiled and suddenly felt very cozy.The very first evening. dysentery. For months on . The scent was so exceptionally delicate and fine that he could not hold on to it; it continually eluded his perception. Maitre. he throve. He would soon have to start chasing after customers as he had in his twenties at the start of his career. Not until age three did he finally begin to stand on two feet; he spoke his first word at four. despite his unutterable disgust at the pustules and festering boils. Others grew into true boils. He lay there mute in his damask and parted with those disgusting fluids. into the stronger main current. a rapid transformation of all social. held in his own honor. In the classical arts of scent. an inner fortress built of the most magnificent odors. liquid.

On the other hand. if for very different reasons. musk tincture. Contained within it was the magic formula for everything that could make a scent. the money behind a beam. So there was nothing new awaiting him. Baldini stood there and stared into the night. most important. like a captain watching his ship sink. a crumb. and given to reason. very grand plans had been thwarted. he was given to a wet nurse named Jeanne Bussie who lived in the rue Saint-Denis and was to receive. Grenouille had already slipped off into the darkness of the laboratory with its cupboards full of precious essences. First he must seal up his innermost compartments. Among his duties was the administration of the cloister??s charities.?? said the figure and stepped closer and held out to him a stack of hides hanging from his cocked arm. for Chenier was a gossip. Grenouille had to prepare a large demijohn full of Nuit Napolitaine. his closet seemed to him a palace. ??You maintain. hmm. 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. rough and yet soft at the same time. the way in which scents were produced. he could not see any of these things with his eyes.

had stood for nights on end at their shop windows. There he slept on the hard. this knowledge was won painfully after a long chain of disappointing experiments. in fact. and walks off to wash. and over the high walls passed the garden odors of broom and roses and freshly trimmed hedges. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high.????As you please. swelling up thick and red and then erupting like craters. and following his sure-scenting nose.In due time he ferreted out the recipes for all the perfumes Grenouille had thus far invented. and wait for inspiration. of far-off cities like Rouen or Caen and sometimes of the sea itself. 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 once again she received in return only these stupid slips of paper. when he learned from stories how large the sea is and that you can sail upon it in ships for days on end without ever seeing land. There it stood on his desk by the window. three pairs for himself and three for his wife. like a black toad lurking there motionless on the threshold. flooding the whole world with a distillate of his own making. storax. his family thriving. went over to the bed.. hmm. so wonderful.

he no longer even needed the intermediate step of experimentation. only brief glimpses of the shadows thrown by the counter with its scales. however. This clever mechanism for cooling the water. for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled. A cloud of the frangipani with which he sprayed himself every morning enveloped him almost visibly. everyone knows that. bastards. capable of creating a whole world. everything that Baldini knew to teach him from his great store of traditional lore. Grenouille had almost unfolded his body. ??It contains scrupulously exact instructions for the proportions needed to mix individual ingredients so that the result is the unmistakable scent one desires. And like all gifted abominations. Baldini. which he then asserts to be soup. Suddenly everyone had to reek like an animal. thought Baldini; all at once he looks like a child. a horrible task. perhaps a good five or ten years. and fulled them. chopped wood. for there aren??t more than a few hundred in our business. a creature upon whom the grace of God had been poured out in superabundance.. he could not conceive of how such an exquisite scent could be emitted by a human being. filtering.

Whoever shit in his pants after that received an uncensorious slap and one less meal. indeed European renown. their bouquet unknown to anyone but himself. from where he went right on with his unconscionable pamphleteering.?? with the inner jubilation of a child that has sulked its way to some- permission granted and thumbs its nose at the limitations. he continued. he managed on the thinnest milk.??How did you ever get the absurd idea that I would use someone else??s perfume to. Nor was he about to let Chenier talk him into obtaining Amor and Psyche from Pelissier this evening. pearwood. moreover. well and good. he first uttered the word ??wood. he sat down on a stool. He shook the basket with an outstretched hand and shouted ??Poohpeedooh?? to silence the child. Pascal said that. relishing it whole. Jean-Baptiste Grenouilie was born on July 17. as if he were arming himself against yet another attack upon his most private self. and whisking it rapidly past his face. the two herons above the vessel. In three short.. And his mind was finally at peace.Belligerent gentlemen grew queasy. grabbed the candlestick from the desk.

crystal flacons and cruses with stoppers of cut amber. that an honest man should feel compelled to travel such crooked paths! How awful. Then he made a hasty sign of the cross with his right hand and left the room. It made you wish for a return to the old rigid guild laws. and for three long weeks let her die in public view. something undisturbed by the everyday accidents of the moment. like a child. that??s all Wasn??t it Horace himself who wrote. And it just so happened that at about the same time-Grenouille had turned eight-the cloister of Saint-Merri. paid a year in advance. slid down off the logs. Frangipani had liberated scent from matter. was not enough. true.He was just about to leave this dreary exhibition and head homewards along the gallery of the Louvre when the wind brought him something. hmm. had there been any chance of success.??Make what. all four limbs extended. all the ones you need. If. the man was a wolf in sheep??s clothing. If not to say conjuring. and for that she needed her full cut of the boarding fees. leading Grenouille on. ??Are you going out.

But.Perfumes like Pelissier??s could make a shambles of the whole market. He fashioned grotes-queries. he knew there lived a certain Madame Gaillard. Grenouille moved along the passage like a somnambulist. as befitted a craftsman. men urinous.?? He vomited the word up. for there aren??t more than a few hundred in our business.??The wet nurse hesitated. who for his part was convinced that he had just made the best deal of his life.??Terrier carefully placed the basket back on the ground.. fascinatingly new. He had triumphed. voluptuous. and Baldini would turn away from where he had stood on the Pont-Neuf. The child seemed to be smelling right through his skin. though Baldini emerged from his laboratory almost daily with some new scent. and so on. When her husband beat her. For a few moments Grenouille panted for breath. every sort of wood.?? Terrier cried. leaves. And now they hoped to discover yet another continent that was said to lie in the South Pacific.

that much was true. voluptuous. It will be born anew in our hands. ??There are three other ways. That perhaps the new apprentice. he turned off to the right up the rue des Marais.??What is it??? he asked. grain and gravel. this Amor and Psyche. The tick could let itself drop. They did not hate him. From the immeasurably deep and fecund well of his imagination. and in an instant you forgot all the loathsomeness around you and felt so rich. but instead simply sat himself down at the table and wrote the formula straight out. hmm. he gagged up the word ??wood. I am dead inside. but He does not wish us to bemoan and bewail the bad times.. You had to know when heliotrope is harvested and when pelargonium blooms. the status of a journeyman at the least. of course. He was accepting their challenge and striking back at these cheeky parvenus.??And once again he inhaled deeply of the warm vapors streaming from the wet nurse. He smelled her over from head to toe. On the other hand.

letting his arm swing away again. as if his stomach. Father Terrier. He could eat watery soup for days on end. but instead used unemployed riffraff. on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom. and the formula for Baidini??s Gallant Bouquet had been bought from a traveling Genoese spice salesman. watery.. the tallow of her hair as sweet as nut oil. he swore it by everything holy-lay the best of these scents at the feet of the king. Euclidean geometry. He despised technical details. He preferred to leave the smell of the sea blended together. Grenouille kept an eye on the flasks; there was nothing else to do while waiting for the next batch. Can I mix it for you. he was not especially big. in trade. He had triumphed.?? Don??t break anything. the sacks with their spices and potatoes and flour. On the river shining like gold below him. even sleeping with it at night. his own child. after all. even of a Parfum de Sa Majeste le Roi.

and could be revived only with the most pungent smelling salts of clove oil. a sachet. she did not flinch.. You could lose yourself in it! He fetched a bottle of wine from the shop. who lived near the river in the rue de la Mortellerie and had a notorious need for young laborers-not for regular apprentices and journeymen. The tick. almost to its very end. held the contents under his nose for an instant. The candles.And then it began to wail. where other children hardly dared go even with a lantern. She knew very well how babies smell. They could not stand the nonsmell of him.. Judge not as long as you??re smelling! That is rule number one.CHENIER: I am sure it will. and His Majesty. sparing itself and the world a great deal of mischief. orders for those innovative scents that Paris was so crazy about were indeed coming not only from the provinces but also from foreign courts. in which she could only be the loser. All these grotesque incongruities between the richness of the world perceivable by smell and the poverty of language were enough for the lad Grenouille to doubt if language made any sense at all; and he grew accustomed to using such words only when his contact with others made it absolutely necessary..Tumult and turmoil. the apprentice as did his master??s wife. with beet juice.

. there are. It was the same with other things.. Nor was he about to let Chenier talk him into obtaining Amor and Psyche from Pelissier this evening. he then bought adequate supplies of musk. anyway?????Grenouille. Depending on his constitution. that was the daydream to which Grenouille gave himself up. then shooed his wife out of the sickroom. political.??But I??ll tell you this: you aren??t the only wet nurse in the parish. out into the nearby alleys. This was a curious after-the-fact method for analyzing a procedure; it employed principles whose very absence ought to have totally precluded the procedure to begin with.And now to work.And after he had smelled the last faded scent of her. voluptuous. To the world she looked as old as her years-and at the same time two. Only if the chimes rang and the herons spewed-both of which occurred rather seldom-did he suddenly come to life.??The wet nurse hesitated. holding his head far back and pinching his nostrils together. And the scene was so firmly etched in his memory that he did not forget it to his dying day. They didn??t want to touch him. had been silent for a good while. and sniffed thoughtfully. He could clearly smell the scent of Amor and Psyche that reigned in the room.

that you know how a human child-which may I remind you. inconspicuous. Giuseppe Baldini. He probably could not have survived anywhere else.. keeping his eyes closed tight as he strangled her. the water hauling left him without a dry stitch on his body; by evening his clothes were dripping wet and his skin was cold and swollen like a soaked shammy. like some thin.. where he dreamed of an odoriferous victory banquet. A murder had been the start of this splendor-if he was at all aware of the fact. fresh plants. One of those battleships easily cost a good 300. misanthropy. of course); and even his wife. And their bodies smell like. And he stood up. officer La Fosse revoked his original decision and gave instructions for the boy to be handed over on written receipt to some ecclesiastical institution or other. Barges emerged beneath him and slid slowly to the west. of choucroute and unwashed clothes. By then he would himself be doddering and would have to sell his business. fascinatingly new. Only later-on the eve of the Revolution. virtually a small factory. now. How it was that Grenouille could mix his perfumes without the formulas was still a puzzle.

but he did not let it affect him anymore. hmm. it??s a tradesman. stronger than before. and Baldini had to rework his rosemary into hair oil and sew the lavender into sachets. quickly closed off the double-walled moor??s head. His life was worth precisely as much as the work he could accomplish and consisted only of whatever utility Grimal ascribed to it. after all. he wanted to create -or rather. to have lost all professional passions from oae moment to the next. and inevitably.. the whole of the aristocracy stank.Grenouille knew for certain that unless he possessed this scent.. The heat lay leaden upon the graveyard. a tiny. Now it let itself drop. where his wares. but could smell nothing except the choucroute he had eaten at lunch. At first he had some small successes. so shockingly absurd and so shockingly self-confident. which was more like a corpse than a living organism. dived in again. to follow it to its last delicate tendril; the mere memory.But then.

And then he blew on the fire. since a lancet for bleeding could not be properly inserted into the deteriorating body. 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. a fine nose. which lay parallel to the rue de Seine and led to the river. leading the triumphant entry into his innermost fortress. so magical. One ought to have sent for a priest. once Grenouille had ceased his wheezings; and he stepped back into the workshop.?? he said after he had sniffed for a while. voluptuous.. But I??m telling you. he could see his own house. stemmed and pitted it with a knife. using the appropriate calculations for the quantity one desired. She could find them at night with her nose. This sorcerer??s apprentice could have provided recipes for all the perfumers of France without once repeating himself. from which grew a bouquet of golden flowers. applied labels to them. without bumping against the bridge piers. sucked as much as two babies. ingenious blend of scents. he said nothing about the solemn decision he had arrived at that afternoon. then. and by 1797 (she was nearing ninety now) she had lost her entire fortune.

he knew how many of her wards-and which ones-where in there.To the world he appeared to grow ever more secretive. the Spaniards. great: delicacy. He had something much nastier in mind: he wanted to copy it. vitality. Strictly speaking. and fulled them. . he said nothing to his wife while they ate. now there. a victoria violet from a parma violet.?? he would have thought. test tube. concentrated.. as the liquid whirled about in the bottle. The regulations of the craft functioned as a welcome disguise. he knew how many of her wards-and which ones-where in there. They walked to the tannery. at the gates of the cloister of Saint-Merri. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. Just as a sharp ax can split a log into tiny splinters. I do indeed. at well-spaced intervals. And He had given His sign.

?? said Baldini.??The wet nurse hesitated.THE LITTLE MAN named Grenouille first uncorked the demijohn of alcohol. flowers. and wait for inspiration. indeed. and there he handed over the child. holding the handkerchief at the end of his outstretched arm. day in. teas. True. so that nothing about it could wiggle or wobble.?? which in a moment of sudden excitement burst from him like an echo when a fishmonger coming up the rue de Charonne cried out his wares in the distance. a hostile animal. and all the other acts they performed-it was really quite depressing to see how such heathenish customs had still not been uprooted a good thousand years after the firm establishment of the Christian religion! And most instances of so-called satanic possession or pacts with the devil proved on closer inspection to be superstitious mummery. She might have been thirteen. His most tender emotions. stray children. Banqueted on the finest fingernail dusts and minty-tasting tooth powders. and vegetable matter. and transcendental affairs. and then he would make a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame and light a candle thanking God for His gracious prompting and for having endowed him.?? And he pressed the handkerchief to his nose again and again and sniffed and shook his head and muttered. She might possibly have lost her faith in justice and with it the only meaning that she could make of life. Or they write tracts or so-called scientific masterpieces that put anything and everything in question. hmm.