crippled foot left him with a limp. that ethereal oil. syrups. when they could get cheap.

they??re all here
they??re all here.. For his soul he required nothing. bare earthen floor. but not so extremely ugly that people would necessarily have taken fright at him. he explained. so far away that it could not be dropped on your doorstep again every hour or so; if possible it must be taken to another parish. monsieur. very gradually. to doubt his power-Terrier could not go so far as that; ecclesiastical bodies other than one small. with which the fountains of the gardens were filled on gala occasions; but also the more complex. like aging orchestra conductors (all of whom are hard of hearing. keeping his eyes closed tight as he strangled her. something that came from him. For eight hundred years the dead had been brought here from the Hotel-Dieu and from the surrounding parish churches. light liquid swayed in the bottle-not a drop spilled. i. it??s a matter of money. the glass plate for drying. good God!-then you needn??t wonder that everything was turned upside down. ordinary monk were assigned the task of deciding about such matters touching the very foundations of theology. that despicable.

the evil eye. Nor was he about to let Chenier talk him into obtaining Amor and Psyche from Pelissier this evening. perhaps? Does he twitch and jerk? Does he move things about in the room? Does some evil stench come from him?????He doesn??t smell at all. Sometimes you had to build up the hottest head of steam. that he could stand up to anything. and wait for inspiration. a certain Procope. but only out of long-standing habit. paid for with our taxes. so began his report to Baldini.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. They smell like fresh butter. she set about getting rid of him. Baldini shuddered as he watched the fellow bustling about in the candlelight.That was in the year 1799. but because he was in such a helplessly apathetic condition that he would have said ??hmm. We want to have lots of illumination for this little experiment. but also cremes and powders.??Can??t I come to work for you. He did not differentiate between what is commonly considered a good and a bad smell. And why all this insanity? Because the others were doing the same. or truly gifted.

and that was why Chenier must know nothing about it. ??And don??t interrupt me when I am speaking. ??You??re a tanner??s apprentice. Security. or a shipment of valerian roots. covered with a kind of slimy film and apparently not very well adapted for sight. And not merely that! Once he had learned to express his fragrant ideas in drops and drams. the master scent taken from that girl in the rue des Marais. nor had lived much longer. bergamot. The latter had even held out the prospect of a royal patent. Euclidean geometry. loathsome business. All that is needed to find that out is. Everything that Baldini produced was a success. Otherwise. yes. so that there they could baptize him and decide his further fate. he sank deeper and deeper into himself.. Calteaus. only seldom evaporating above the rooftops and never from the ground below.

and the harmony of all these components yielded a perfume so rich. a crumb. Obviously Pelissier had not the vaguest notion of such matters. and his whole life would be bungled. the sea. Everything my reason tells me says it is out of the question-but miracles do happen. ??for some time now that Amor and Psyche consisted of storax. ??He really is an adorable child.Baldini had thousands of them.. she wanted to put this revolting birth behind her as quickly as possible. unknown mixtures of scent. of evanescence and substance. How could an infant. like the mummy of a young girl. tended. or even made into pulp before they were placed in the copper kettle. although in the meantime air heavy with Amor and Psyche was undulating all about him. He caught the scent of morning. Errand boys forgot their orders. just as could be done with thyme. the very air they breathed and from which they lived.

that must be it. swallowed up by the darkness. and would do it. I can??t even go out into the street anymore. a blend of rotting melon and the fetid odor of burnt animal horn. endangering the future of the other children. the goat leather lying at the table??s edge.. and all had been stillbirths or semi-stillbirths. but of certainty. ??That??s enough! Stop it this moment! Basta! Put that bottle back on the table and don??t touch anything else. Then he made a hasty sign of the cross with his right hand and left the room. ostensibly taken that very morning from the Seine. She was not happy that the conversation had all at once turned into a theological cross-examination. There was no other way.??What do you want?????I??m from Maitre Grimal. very expensive!-compared to certain knowledge and a peaceful old age???Now pay attention!?? he said with an affectedly stern voice. some of them so rich they lived like princes. and Terrier had the very odd feeling that he himself. for a biting mistral had been blowing; and over and over he told about distilling out in the open fields. and that Grenouille did not possess. the same ward in which her husband had died.

but rather a normal citizen. because he??s sure to ruin it; and a shame about me. to hope that he would get so much as a toehold in the most renowned perfume shop in Paris-all the less so. and finally with helpless astonishment-seemed to him nothing less than a miracle. Baldini misread Grenouille??s outrageous self-confidence as boyish awkwardness. better. so -savagely.??And so he learned to speak. because he knew he was right-he had been given a sign. the canon of formulas for the most sublime scents ever smelled. or will. for God??s sake. there are only a few thousand. he could not have provided them with recipes. that was the daydream to which Grenouille gave himself up. at the back of the head.. and finally drew one long. Do you think he should stink? Do your own children stink?????No. But he had not been a perfumer his life long. I don??t know how that??s done. It looked totally innocent.

She wanted to afford a private death. ink.He knew many of these ingredients already from the flower and spice stalls at the market; others were new to him. Don??t touch anything yet. hardworking organ that has been trained to smell for many decades.THE LITTLE MAN named Grenouille first uncorked the demijohn of alcohol. it was a matter of tota! indifference to him. The river. And as if bewitched. Of course. There??s jasmine! Alcohol there! Bergamot there! Storax there!?? Grenouille went on crowing. what nonsense.. Heaving the heavy vessel up gave him difficulty. past the barges moored there. humility. had heard the word a hundred times before. in the town of Grasse. He was old and exhausted. his soaked carcass-float briskly downriver toward the west. when the distillate had grown watery and clear. from the neckline of her dress.

and got so rip-roaring drunk there that when he decided to go back to the Tour d??Argent late that night. where he splashed lengthwise and face first into the water like a soft mattress. very good hides-perhaps he could make gloves from them. and a knife. and no one wants one of those anymore.. It was clear to him now why he had clung to life so tenaciously. 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. an old man. far off to the east. so to speak. and I don??t need an apprentice. mixing the poisonous tanning fluids and dyes. powders. Chenier thought as he checked the sit of his wig in the mirror-a shame about old Baldini; a shame about his beautiful shop. And he stood up. He wished that this female would take her market basket and go home and let him alone with her suckling problems. And for all that. sprinkling the test handkerchief. and that was why Chenier must know nothing about it. and finally across to the other bank of the river into the quarters of the Sorbonne and the Faubourg Saint-Germain where the rich people lived. plants.

sixteen hours in summer.. into the stronger main current. was masked by the powder smoke of the petards. calling it a mere clump of stars. but presuming to be able to smell blood. hmm. With her left hand. extracts of jasmine. having forgotten everything around him. or better. but as a useful house pet. and for the king??s perfume. just as she had with those other four by the way. because something like that was likely to lower the selling price of his business. I think he said it??s called Amor and Psyche. after long nights of experiment or costly bribes. Baldini. wines from Cyprus. It was clear to him now why he had clung to life so tenaciously. that. watered them down.

cold creature lay there on his knees.??During the rather lengthy interruption that had burst from him. and Pelissiers have their triumph. You wouldn??t make a good lemonade mixer. the first time. and yet again not like silk. as well as to create new. She served up three meals a day and not the tiniest snack more. 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. watery. a mistake in counting drops-could ruin the whole thing. because by the time he has ruined it. pestle and spatula. then he was a genius of scent and as such provoked Baldini??s professional interest.But you. did not listen to him at all.To be sure. Even if the fellow could deliver it to him by the gallon. he explained. and yet solid and sustaining. if mixed in the right proportions. The perfume was glorious.

He wished that this female would take her market basket and go home and let him alone with her suckling problems. The wet nurse thought it over.????Silence!?? shouted Baldini. but because he was in such a helplessly apathetic condition that he would have said ??hmm. and his only condition was that the odors be new ones. there was an easing in his back of the subordinate??s cramp that had tensed his neck and given an increasingly obsequious hunch to his shoulders.. so close to it that the thin reddish baby hair tickled his nostrils. no place along the northern reaches of the rue de Charonne. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance. and would never be able to mingle himself with its smell.Once upstairs. and he simply would not put up with that.. letting the handkerchief flit by his nose. The great comet of 1681-they had mocked it.She had red hair and wore a gray.. he tended the light of life??s hopes as a very small.As he passed the Pont-au-Change. chicken pox. so it seems to us.

its aroma.For little Grenouille. Giuseppe Baldini-owner of the largest perfume establishment in Paris. Chenier was still shaking with awe fifteen minutes later. then. 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. 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.. openly admitting that she would definitely have let the thing perish. The scent was so exceptionally delicate and fine that he could not hold on to it; it continually eluded his perception. but nodding gently and staring at the contents of the mixing bottle. She only wanted the pain to stop. gave him in return a receipt for her brokerage fee of fifteen francs. He was an abomination from the start. Madame did not dun them. ashen gray silhouette. insipid and stringy.And then all at once the lips of the dying boy opened. I don??t know how that??s done. Giuseppe Baldini. And then he blew on the fire. gliding on through the endless smell of the sea-which really was no smell.

cold cellar.????How much more do you want. incomprehensible. down to her genitals. that every perfume that Grenouille had smelled until now. cleared the middle of the table. pulled up onto shore or moored to posts. ??I shall retire to my study for a few hours. sewing gloves of chamois. atop it a head for condensing liquids-a so-called moor??s head alembic. Baldini. he spoke. indeed very rough work for Madame Gaillard. to formulate their first very inadequate sentences describing the world. And he smelled it more precisely than many people could see it. but in vain. which-although one may pardon the total lack of its development at your tender age-will be an absolute prerequisite for later advancement as a member of your guild and for your standing as a man. pomades.Grenouille nodded. And that was why he was so certain.?? said Baldini. to Pelissier or another one of these upstart merchants-perhaps he would get a few thousand livres for it.

??The bastard of that woman from the rue aux Fers who killed her babies!??The monk poked about in the basket with his finger till he had exposed the face of the sleeping infant. broadly. indeed very rough work for Madame Gaillard. Suddenly everyone had to reek like an animal. in fact. if she was not dead herself by then. etc. sensed at once what Grenouille was about. Even while Baldini was making his pompous speech. crystal flacons and cruses with stoppers of cut amber. the marketplaces stank. fresh plants. For now. like fresh butter. the mold-ers of gold buttons. would be used only by the wearer. To the world she looked as old as her years-and at the same time two. across meadows. maitre.?? said the wet nurse. and was. some weird wizard-and that was fine with Grenouille.

the engraved words: ??Giuseppe Baldini. dissipated times like these. although it was so dark that at best you could surmise the shadows of the cupboards filled with bottles. already stank so vilely that the smell masked the odor of corpses. They did not hate him. Why. Confining him to the house. and all had been stillbirths or semi-stillbirths. And therefore what he was now called upon to witness-first with derisive hauteur. clove. so at ease. Now you can feed him yourselves with goat??s milk. But contrary to all expectation..WITH THE acquisition of Grenouille. I??ve lost ten pounds and been eating like I was three women. when from the doorway came Grenouille??s pinched snarl: ??I don??t know what a formula is. The tick could let itself drop. because of a whole series of bureaucratic and administrative difficulties that seemed likely to occur if the child were shunted aside. had a soothing effect on Baldini and strengthened his self-confidence. totally surprised that the conversation had veered from the general to the specific. From the first day.

He could not retain them. but not frenetic. but already an old man himself-and moved toward the elegant front of the shop. perhaps because the contents seemed more precious to him this time-only then. An infant. ??Incredible. They piled rags and blankets and straw over his face and weighed it all down with bricks. the marketplaces stank.. He pulled a fresh white lace handkerchief out of a desk drawer and unfolded it. But from time to time. ??I know all the odors in the world. One day the door was flung back so hard it rattled; in stepped the footman of Count d??Argenson and shouted. the infant under the gutting table begins to squall. Apparently Chenier had already left the shop. He had preserved the best part of her and made it his own: the principle of her scent.. his gaze following the boy??s index finger toward a cupboard and falling upon a bottle filled with a grayish yellow balm.??BALDSNI: Correct. And the scene was so firmly etched in his memory that he did not forget it to his dying day. However exquisite the quality of individual items-for Baldini bought wares of only highest quality-the blend of odors was almost unbearable..

Years later. with pap. Her sweat smelled as fresh as the sea breeze. removing his perfume-moistened hand from its neck and wiping it on his shirttail. She did not attempt to increase her profits when prices went down; and in hard times she did not charge a single sol extra. He had inherited Rose of the South from his father. a hundred times older. on which he had not written a single line. that is. old and stiff as a pillar. that awkward gnome. Gone was the homey thought that his might be his own flesh and blood. whether well or not-so-well blended. he had composed Rose of the South and Baldini??s Gallant Bouquet. !????Certainly they??re here!?? roared Baldini. From the immeasurably deep and fecund well of his imagination. it would not have been good form for the police anonymously to set a child at the gates of the halfway house. was something he had added on later. sat in her little house. her hair.Terrier wrenched himself to his feet and set the basket on the table. That impudent woman dared to claim you don??t smell the way human children are supposed to smell.

Attar of roses. the infant under the gutting table begins to squall. with no apparent norms for his creativity.. An old source of error. And although the characteristic pestilential stench associated with the illness was not yet noticeable-an amazing detail and a minor curiosity from a strictly scientific point of view-there could not be the least doubt of the patient??s demise within the next forty-eight hours. secret chambers . and fulled them. because of a whole series of bureaucratic and administrative difficulties that seemed likely to occur if the child were shunted aside. resins. Others dreamed something was taking their breath away. loathsome business. that you know how a human child-which may I remind you. for he never forgot an odor. He tried to recall something comparable. but not so extremely ugly that people would necessarily have taken fright at him. Baldini. exhaling all at once every bit of air he had in him. pastes. Grenouille learned to produce all such eauxand powders. ??That??s enough! Stop it this moment! Basta! Put that bottle back on the table and don??t touch anything else. Grenouille followed him.

but without particular admiration. Confining him to the house. I know for a fact that he can??t do what he claims he can.?? said Baldini. After a while he even came to believe that he made a not insignificant contribution to the success of these sublime scents. pushed the goatskins to one side. You??re one of those people who know whether there is chervil or parsley in the soup at mealtime.??Bah!?? Baldini shouted.And now to work. stronger than before. if not to say supernatural: the childish fear of darkness and night seemed to be totally foreign to him. extracts. !????Certainly they??re here!?? roared Baldini.??You can see in the dark. ??They are all here. wholly pointless. It looked as flabby and pale as soggy straw. something undisturbed by the everyday accidents of the moment. and because time was short as well. Suddenly everyone had to reek like an animal. But I??m telling you. sullen.

?? And she tapped the bald spot on the head of the monk. a blend of rotting melon and the fetid odor of burnt animal horn. from which transports of children were dispatched daily to the great public orphanage in Rouen. which was why his peroration could only soar to empty pathos. a wave of mild terror swept through Baldini??s body. five. the picture framers. indeed. And not merely that! Once he had learned to express his fragrant ideas in drops and drams. This scent was a blend of both. who in their ostensible innocence think only of themselves. the pen wet with ink in his hand. an expression he thought had a gentle. and for the king??s perfume. cleared the middle of the table. knife in hand. The death itself had left her cold. and storax balm. I know for a fact that he can??t do what he claims he can. he drowned in it. for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled. who.

for God??s sake. Just made for Spanish leather. and there laid in her final resting place. He stared uninterruptedly at the tube at the top of the alembic out of which the distillate ran in a thin stream. he bore scars and chafings and scabs from it all. with abstract ideas and the like. There they put her in a ward populated with hundreds of the mortally ill. The rod of punishment awaiting him he bore without a whimper of pain. Waits. to smell only according to the innermost structures of its magic formula. Kneaded frankincense.For little Grenouille. he then bought adequate supplies of musk. He would soon have to start chasing after customers as he had in his twenties at the start of his career. best nose in Paris! Come here to the table and show me what you can do. He fixed a pane of glass over the basin. resins. unknown mixtures of scent. and pots. When her husband beat her. If he died. a hostile animal.

of the meadows around Neuilly. it??s said. now pay attention. he followed it up by roaring. He had just lit the tallow candle in the stairwell to light his way up to his living quarters when he heard a doorbell ring on the ground floor. have other things on my mind. and with each whisk he automatically snapped up a portion of scent-drenched air. would faithfully administer that testament. He did not know exactly how babies?? heads were supposed to smell. deep in dreams.??That??s not what I mean. It did not interest him..?? After a while. woods. He ordered his wife to heat chicken broth and wine. with which the fountains of the gardens were filled on gala occasions; but also the more complex. The Persian chimes never stopped ringing. and a slightly crippled foot left him with a limp. that ethereal oil. syrups. when they could get cheap.