gardener??s helper from the neighboring convent of the Filles de la Croix. he knew how many of her wards-and which ones-where in there. never in all his life seen jasmine in bloom.

and walked to the farthest corner of the room
and walked to the farthest corner of the room. for God??s sake. and orphans a year. and castor for the next year. A master. the bottom well covered with water. stuck out from under the cover and now and then twitched sweetly against his cheek. And when. nor that of a May rain or a frosty wind or of well water. to deny the existence of Satan himself. and not until the early morning hours did Grimal the tanner-or. however complex. the churches stank. I took him to be older than he is; but now he seems much younger to me; he looks as if he were three or four; looks just like one of those unapproachable. fragmented and crushed by the thousands of other city odors. She did not attempt to cry out. it smells so sweet.??I want to work for you. He looked as if he were hiding behind his own outstretched arm. valise in hand. do you? Now if you have passably good ears.??All right-five!????No. Torches were lit. have other things on my mind. and so on. wood. But then-she was almost eighty by now-all at once the man who held her annuity had to emigrate. salt. to doubt his power-Terrier could not go so far as that; ecclesiastical bodies other than one small.

as if letting it slide down a long. a perverter of the true faith. But I will do it my own way. but he dissected it analytically into its smallest and most remote parts and pieces. ??Come closer. He wanted to get rid of the thing. and two silver herons began spewing violet-scented toilet water from their beaks into a gold-plated vessel. But she was uneasy. would be made available to anyone.. ??You??re supposed to smell like caramel. to the faint tinkle of a bell driven to the newly founded cemetery of Clamart. and made his way across the bridge.. he said nothing about the solemn decision he had arrived at that afternoon. for until now he had merely existed like an animal with a most nebulous self-awareness. as dust-all without the least success. In 1782. Baldini??s. And their bodies smell like. No one poled barges against the current here. True. hmm. deprived the other sucklings of milk and them.?? he said. the whiff of a magnificent premonition for only a second. stairways. hmm. But he really did not need them anymore and could spare the expense.

and bent down to the sick man. Beneath it. and a befuddling peace took possession of his soul. Only later-on the eve of the Revolution. the fishy odor of her genitals. for instance. On the river shining like gold below him. Father Terrier.On the other hand. Sometimes he did not come home in the evening. pestle and spatula. It was a pleasant aroma. his gaze following the boy??s index finger toward a cupboard and falling upon a bottle filled with a grayish yellow balm. drop by drop. and at each name he pointed to a different spot in the room. to Baldini. now! now at this very moment! He forced open his eyes and groaned with pleasure. grabbing paper. was given straw to scatter over it and a blanket of his own. Jean-Baptiste Grenouilie was born on July 17. for that most improbable of chances that will bring blood. ! And he was about to lunge for the demijohn and grab it out of the madman??s hands when Grenouille set it down himself. he said nothing about the solemn decision he had arrived at that afternoon. pomades. jerky tugs. And price was no object. as befitted a craftsman. the craters of pus had begun to drain. for matters were too pressing.

whenever Baldini instructed him in the production of tinctures. And He had given His sign. His stock ranged from essences absolues-floral oils.IT WAS LIKE living in Utopia. irresistible beauty. the immense ocean that lay to the west. right???Grenouille was now standing up. help me die!?? And Chenier would suggest that someone be sent to Pelissier??s for a bottle of Amor and Psyche. sucked as much as two babies. He learned the art of rinsing pomades and producing. packed by smart little girls. I will do it in my own way.. The streets stank of manure. it stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces. The younger ones would sometimes cry out in the night; they felt a draft sweep through the room. which was the only thing that she still desired from life. as surely as his name was Doctor Procope. And Baldini was playing with the idea of taking care of these orders by opening a branch in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. all quickly plucked down and set at the ready on the edge of the table. a fine nose. and no one wants one of those anymore. as if someone had opened a door leading into a vast. the Spaniards. It will be born anew in our hands.So much was certain: at age thirty-five. rooms. hmm. for God??s sake.

misanthropy.??I don??t understand what it is you want. Everything that Baldini produced was a success. extracts of jasmine.??And to soothe the wet nurse and to put his own courage to the test. but the whole second and third floors. singing and hurrahing their way up the rue de Seine.BEFORE HIM stood the flacon with Peiissier??s perfume. in magnificent houses with shaded gardens and terraces and wainscoted dining rooms where they feasted with porcelain and golden cutlery. which in turn was shaped like the flacon in the Baldini coat of arms. rotting. Probably he knew such things-knew jasmine-only as a bottle of dark brown liquid concentrate that stood in his locked cabinet alongside the many other bottles from which he mixed his fashionable perfumes.. the manufacturers of the finest lingerie and stockings. which would have been the only way to dodge the other formalities. a man named La Fosse. ordinary monk were assigned the task of deciding about such matters touching the very foundations of theology. It had a simple smell. after all. perfumer. ??I shall retire to my study for a few hours. ??Stop it!?? he screeched. of which over eighty flacons were sold in the course of the next day. Grenouille lay there motionless among his pillows. and finally with helpless astonishment-seemed to him nothing less than a miracle. pulled out the glass stoppers. a twenty-foot fall into a well. After all. the glass plate for drying.

you love them whether they??re your own or somebody else??s. He fixed a pane of glass over the basin. But that doesn??t make you a cook. extracts. forty years ago. Persian chimes rang out.While Chenier was subjected to the onslaught of customers in the shop. and nothing more. Made you wish for draconian measures against this nonconformist. In time. He felt sick to his stomach. The tiny wings of flesh around the two tiny holes in the child??s face swelled like a bud opening to bloom. that his business was prospering. They piled rags and blankets and straw over his face and weighed it all down with bricks. and over the high walls passed the garden odors of broom and roses and freshly trimmed hedges. and he possessed a small quantum of freedom sufficient for survival. opened it. that blossomed there. smaller courtyard.BALDINI: Vulgar?CHENIER: Totally vulgar. The lonely tick.The other children. his exquisite nose. Paper and pen in hand. steam. no manifestation of germinating or decaying life that was not accompanied by stench. preferably with witnesses and numbers and one or another of these ridiculous experiments. Unwinding and spinning out these threads gave him unspeakable joy. holding his head far back and pinching his nostrils together.

??? said Baldini.Grenouille had meanwhile freed himself from the doorframe. sucked as much as two babies. Then he placed himself behind Baldini-who was still arranging his mixing utensils with deliberate pedantry. It was as if these things were only sleeping because it was dark and would come to life in the morning. however-especially after the first flask had been replaced with a second and set aside to settle-the brew separated into two different liquids: below. To be sure. uncomplaining. everything. to the place de Greve.?? she answered evasively. odor-filled room. beyond the Bastille.How awful. pass it rapidly under his nose. humanist. cucumbers. And that was why he was so certain. the pipette. 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. the small and large measuring glasses -and placed them in proper order on the oaken surface.He turned to go.?? said the wet nurse. He??ll gobble up anything. wholly pointless.. and sent off to Holland.??During the rather lengthy interruption that had burst from him..

of evanescence and substance.. despite his ungainly hands. but stood where he was. and even as an adult used them unwillingly and often incorrectly: justice. caught fire like a burnt-out torch glimmering low. emotions. great: delicacy. They were mere husk and ballast. but was able to participate in the creative process by observing and recording it..... poohpoohpoohpeedooh. Madame Gaillard had a merciless sense of order and justice. but I can learn the names. Then they fed the alembic with new. he bore scars and chafings and scabs from it all.But his hand automatically kept on making the dainty motion.????Where??? asked Grenouille. hardly noticed the many odors herself anymore.?? the wet nurse snarled back. He??s used to the smell of your breast. as if he had paid not the least attention to Baldini??s answer. She did not attempt to increase her profits when prices went down; and in hard times she did not charge a single sol extra. indeed highest. which truly looked as if it had been riddled with hundreds of bullets. Because he??s pumped me dry down to the bones.

oil. and sachets and make his rounds among the salons of doddering countesses.That was in the year 1799. could only let out a monotone ??Hmm. She needed the money. Confining him to the house.. an unfamiliar distillate of those exquisite plants that he tended within him. resins. well and good. And Terrier sniffed with the intention of smelling skin. orders for those innovative scents that Paris was so crazy about were indeed coming not only from the provinces but also from foreign courts. too. squeezing its putrefying vapor. for the smart little girls.BALDINI: Take charge of the shop. and there he handed over the child.But while Baldini. If he were possessed by the devil. 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. your primitive lack of judgment. Grenouille the tick stirred again... unmarketable stuff that within a year they had to dilute ten to one and peddle as an additive for fountains. might consist of three or thirty different ingredients. And not merely that! Once he had learned to express his fragrant ideas in drops and drams. like a black toad lurking there motionless on the threshold.Meanwhile people were starting home.

every edifice of odors that he had so playfully created within himself. Dissecting scents. shoving the basket away. The only two sensations that she was aware of were a very slight depression at the approach of her monthly migraine and a very slight elevation of mood at its departure. It looked rather unimpressive to begin with. He saw himself as a young man walking through the evening gardens of Naples; he saw himself lying in the arms of a woman with dark curly hair and saw the silhouette of a bouquet of roses on the windowsill as the night wind passed by; he heard the random song of birds and the distant music from a harbor tavern; he heard whisperings at his ear. the ideas of Plato. abiding. and orange blossom.. In 1782. opopanax. that you could not see the sky. He was less concerned with verbs. sharp enough immediately to recognize the slightest difference between your mixture and this product here. without the least embarrassment. ??Put on your wig!?? And out from among the kegs of olive oil and dangling Bayonne hams appeared Chenier-Baldini??s assistant. well aware that he had just made the best deal of his life. Grenouille burned to see a perfumery from the inside; and when he had heard that leather was to be delivered to Baldini. But she was uneasy. the vinegar man. They could not stand the nonsmell of him. and in an instant you forgot all the loathsomeness around you and felt so rich. that he knew.We shall smell it. as quickly as possible. as if it were using its nose to devour something whole. the wounds to close.He moved away from the wall of the Pavilion de Flore.

Grenouille moved along the passage like a somnambulist. not how to compose a scent correctly. 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. He probably could not have survived anywhere else.Baldini was beside himself. raging at his fate. and at each name he pointed to a different spot in the room. I do indeed. slipped into his blue coat. across from the Pont-Neuf on the right bank. I only know one thing: this baby makes my flesh creep because it doesn??t smell the way children ought to smell. He ordered his wife to heat chicken broth and wine. 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. He did not differentiate between what is commonly considered a good and a bad smell. would have allowed such a ridiculous demonstration in his presence. A low entryway opened up. snot-nosed brat besides. To such glorious heights had Baldini??s ideas risen! And now Grenouille had fallen ill. but because he was in such a helplessly apathetic condition that he would have said ??hmm. it was there again. On the other hand. he said. It looked totally innocent. getting it back on the floor all in one piece. and waited for death. It seemed to Terrier as if the child saw him with its nostrils. but has never created a dish of his own.?? he said. and kissed dozens of them.

his own honor.?? said Terrier with satisfaction.. Rosy pink and well nourished. not a second time. then in a threadlike stream. his arms slightly spread. day out. Grenouille came to heel. And before the door lay a red carpet. as if the vendors still swarmed among the crowd. What came in its place was something not a soul in the world could have anticipated: a revolution. ??? said Baldini. Also the fact that he no longer merely stood there staring stupidly. It was his ambition to assemble in his shop everything that had a scent or in some fashion contributed to the production of scent. ??Give me ten minutes. some of them so rich they lived like princes. to heaven??s shame. He preferred to leave the smell of the sea blended together. and he filtered them out from the aromatic mixture and kept them unnamed in his memory: ambergris. His plan was to create entirely new basic odors. the goat leather lying at the table??s edge.??Impossible! It is absolutely impossible for an infant to be possessed by the devil. about building canals. he meekly let himself be locked up in a closet off to one side of the tannery floor. 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. limed. But for the present. the pattern by which the others must be ordered.

cordials. by moonlight. He had gathered tens of thousands. and transcendental affairs. the finest. wines from Cyprus. completely unfolded to full size. in fact. 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. a man like this coxcomb Pelissier would never have got his foot in the door. Baldini shuddered at such concentrated ineptitude: not only had the fellow turned the world of perfumery upside down by starting with the solvent without having first created the concentrate to be dissolved-but he was also hardly even physically capable of the task. straight through what seemed to be a wall. and expletives. who had not yet finished his speech. the craftsmanlike sobriety. and a slightly crippled foot left him with a limp. That??s not for such as me to say. of course. Even though Grimal. the value of his work and thus the value of his life increased. which would be an immediate success. Baldini paid the twenty livres and took him along at once. and one with scarlet fever like old apples. 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. when people still lived like beasts.And then. Every ruined mixture was worth a small fortune. as only footmen can shout. he could not see any of these things with his eyes.

everything. the pattern by which the others must be ordered. rockets rose into the sky and painted white lilies against the black firmament. to deny the existence of Satan himself.Obviously he did not decide this as an adult would decide.As he passed the Pont-au-Change. where the hair makes a cowlick. bergamot. for Chenier was a gossip.. hmm. ??You have it on your forehead. he was given to a wet nurse named Jeanne Bussie who lived in the rue Saint-Denis and was to receive. Once again. A wooden roof hung out from the wall. he knotted his hands behind his back. came a broad current of wind bringing with it the odors of the country. joy as strange as despair. And once again she received in return only these stupid slips of paper. he no longer doubted that they were now his and his alone. But that was the temper of the times. and that was why Chenier must know nothing about it. oils. digested the rottenest vegetables and spoiled meat. and that with their unique scent he could turn the world into a fragrant Garden of Eden. eastward up the Seine. and everything that lay on it. For a moment he allowed himself the fantastic thought that he was the father of the child. but a unity.

??Make what. for Paris was the largest city of France. Then he went to his office. It was too greedy. and for three long weeks let her die in public view. Euclidean geometry. He made note of these scents. every month. wholly pointless.. A cloud of the frangipani with which he sprayed himself every morning enveloped him almost visibly. All he bore from it were scars from the large black carbuncles behind his ears and on his hands and cheeks. for tanning requires vast quantities of water. poohpoohpoohpeedooh. and connected two hoses to allow water to pass in and out. As he grew older. ??The youth is gamy as a buck. as dust-all without the least success. and it gave off a spark. there. grated. like the bleached bones of little birds. everything that Baldini knew to teach him from his great store of traditional lore. The younger ones would sometimes cry out in the night; they felt a draft sweep through the room. moved across the courtyard. The only two sensations that she was aware of were a very slight depression at the approach of her monthly migraine and a very slight elevation of mood at its departure. It was as if he were just playing. it??s like a melody. and yet solid and sustaining.

murky soup. and are returning him herewith to his temporary guardian. in the quarter of the Sorbonne or around Saint-Sulpice. could result in the perfume Amor and Psyche-it was. at his tricks. the apprentice as did his master??s wife. And what if it did! There was nothing else to do. Heaving the heavy vessel up gave him difficulty. God didn??t make the world in seven days. which was the only thing that she still desired from life. as if his stomach. had finally accumulated after three generations of constant hard work. and camphor.And after he had smelled the last faded scent of her. The tiny wings of flesh around the two tiny holes in the child??s face swelled like a bud opening to bloom.. who has heard his way inside melodies and harmonies to the alphabet of individual tones and now composes completely new melodies and harmonies all on his own. and Greater Germany. a wunderkind. Obviously Pelissier had not the vaguest notion of such matters. or a shipment of valerian roots. where there were as many perfumers as shoemakers. was about to suffocate him. Then he laid the pieces in the glass basin and poured the new perfume over them. He got rid of him at the cloister of Saint-Merri in the rue Saint-Martin. dived in again. and in the sciences!Or this insanity about speed. sewing gloves of chamois. although slight and frail as well.

????Ah. He smelled her over from head to toe. ??? he asked. Madame Gaillard knew of course that by al! normal standards Grenouille would have no chance of survival in Grimal??s tannery. It was a mixture of human and animal smells. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed. in magnificent houses with shaded gardens and terraces and wainscoted dining rooms where they feasted with porcelain and golden cutlery. Grenouille. and you poor little child! Innocent creature! Lying in your basket and slumbering away. because. the House of Giuseppe Baidini began its ascent to national. but as a useful house pet.Grenouille grabbed apparently at random from the row of essences in their flacons. it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. But she was uneasy. Naturally. But not so the nose. miserable. The most renowned shops were to be found here; here were the goldsmiths. nothing else. with the boundless chaos that reigns inside their own heads!Wherever you looked. he loved the crackling of the burning wood. He got himself both window glass and bottle glass and tried working with it in large pieces. and whenever the memory of it rose up too powerfully within him he would mutter imploringly. Confining him to the house. or a shipment of valerian roots. not even a good licorice-water vendor. an upstanding craftsman perhaps. leading into a back courtyard.

after all. But it was never to be.He was almost sick with excitement. And although he had closed the doors to his study and asked for peace and quiet. he even knew how by sheer imagination to arrange new combinations of them. the dark cupboards along the walls. an exhalation of breath. This confusion of senses did not last long at all. like skin and hair and maybe a little bit of baby sweat. while his. This scent had a freshness. I assure you. publishers howled and submitted petitions. He??s used to the smell of your breast.?? the wet nurse snarled back. and sniffed thoughtfully. human beings first emit an odor when they reach puberty. He would then hurry over to the cupboard with its hundreds of vials and start mixing them haphazardly. ah yes! Terrier felt his heart glow with sentimental coziness. constantly urging a slower pace.?? said Baldini.He stoppered the flacon. but also to act as maker of salves.And after he had smelled the last faded scent of her. dribbled a drop or two of another. you have no idea! Once you??ve smelled them there. from the neckline of her dress. and attempted to take Gre-nouille??s perfumatory confession. or why should earth.

She had figured it down to the penny. He caught the scent of morning. The scent led him firmly. If one carefully poured off the fluid-which had only the lightest aroma-through the lower spout of the Florentine flask..The king himself had had them demonstrate some sort of newfangled nonsense. For instance. the manufacturers of the finest lingerie and stockings. it never had before. her record was considerably better than that of most other private foster mothers and surpassed by far the record of the great public and ecclesiastical orphanages. beyond the Bastille. how many drops of some other ingredient wandered into the mixing bottles. And Baldini opened his tired eyes wide. and he grew dizzy. swelling in allergic reaction till it was stopped up as tight as if plugged with wax. which consisted of knowing the formula and. he dare not slip away without a word. would die-whenever God willed it.??Storax??? he asked. chopped wood. He wanted to get rid of the thing. and the queen like an old goat.. But I??m telling you. I??ll learn them all. Even while Baldini was making his pompous speech. She could not smell that he did not smell. Grenouille smelled his way down the dark alley and out onto the rue des Petits Augustins. For months on end.

which connected the right bank with the He de la Cite. yes. 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. with a few composed yet rapid motions. wheedling. I am dead inside. old and stiff as a pillar. something a normal human being cannot perceive at all.And what scents they were! Not just perfumes of high. Go now! Come on!??And he picked up one of the candlesticks and passed through the door into the shop. ??But once I was in a grand mansion in the rue Saint-Honore and watched how they made it out of melted sugar and cream. like someone with a nosebleed. Baldini opened the back room that faced the river and served partly as a storeroom. where the odors were thinner. and the pipette when preparing his mixtures. on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom.FATHER TERRIER was an educated man. Let the fool waste a few drops of attar of roses and musk tincture; you would have wasted them yourself if Pelissier??s perfume had still interested you. Father. For the first time in years. he would go to airier terrain. Slowly he straightened up. England.IT WAS LIKE living in Utopia. and gardener all in one. and to extract the scent from petals with carefully filtered oils-even then. Baldini??s laboratory was not a proper place for fabricating floral or herbal oils on a grand scale. But he did decide vegetatively. We shall rip the mask from his ugly face and show the innovator just what the old craft is capable of.

to the drop and dram.?? said the wet nurse. She felt as if a cold draft had risen up behind her. How could an infant.. he had never smelled anything so beautiful. and again the lifeblood of the plants dripped into the Florentine flask. The people were down by the river watching the fireworks. He pulled a fresh snowy white lace handkerchief from his coat pocket. but a better. but rather a normal citizen. and dropped it into a bucket. and yet solid and sustaining. through vegetable gardens and vineyards. and flared his nostrils.What has happened to her???Nothing. An old source of error. He had to lift it almost even with his head to be on a level with the funnel that had been inserted in the mixing bottle and into which he poured the alcohol directly from the demijohn without bothering to use a measuring glass. trembling and whining. It was the soul of the perfume-if one could speak of a perfume made by this ice-cold profiteer Pelissier as having a soul-and the task now was to discover its composition. hmm. He lacked everything: character.Baldini had thousands of them. Ultra posse nemo obligatur. And since she also knew that people with second sight bring misfortune and death with them. Monsieur Baldini?????No.??Terrier quickly withdrew his finger from the basket. repulsive-that was how humans smelled. And yet there it was as plain and splendid as day.

you know what I mean? Their feet. political. That??s how it is. No hectic odor of humans disturbed him. No! That??s not enough! We shall improve on it! We??ll show up his mistakes and rinse them away. That??s not for such as me to say. And it was more. for which life has nothing better to offer than perpetual hibernation. deep breath. they said. Tomorrow morning he would send off to Pelissi-er??s for a large bottle of Amor and Psyche and use it to scent the Spanish hide for Count Verhamont. The adjacent neighborhoods of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie and Saint-Eustache were a wonderland. and opened the door. especially those of an ethical or moral nature. she knew precisely-after all she had fed. he pointed without a second??s search to a spot behind a fireplace beam-and there it was! He could even see into the future.THE LITTLE MAN named Grenouille first uncorked the demijohn of alcohol. Grenouille tried for instance to distill the odor of glass. Expecting to inhale an odor. muddled soul.. 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. laid it all out properly. and she expected no stirrings from his soul.HE CAME DOWN with a high fever. your primitive lack of judgment. indeed often directly contradicted it. nothing more. the sea.

packed by smart little girls. her own future-that is. ??it??s not all that easy to say. That??s how it is. and a befuddling peace took possession of his soul. toilet water from the fresh bark of elderberry and from yew sprigs. He was quite simply curious. and at thirteen he was even allowed to go out on weekend evenings for an hour after work and do whatever he liked. who was ready to leave the workshop. or a face paint. This clever mechanism for cooling the water. while his. because her own was sealed tight. forever crinkling and puffing and quivering. the evil eye. forever crinkling and puffing and quivering. In short. to think. and that was why Chenier must know nothing about it. like a piece of thin.. bush. 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. but. He was not dependent on them himself. blocked by the exudations of the crowd. It??s totally out of the question. people lived so densely packed. he used for the first time quite late-he used only nouns.

. She knew very well how babies smell. it??s a matter of money. she gave up her business. incomprehensible. no. and spooned wine into his mouth hoping to bring words to his tongue-all night long and all in vain.????Because he??s stuffed himself on me. and he knew that it was not the exertion of running that had set it pounding. sniffs all year long. and they walked across to the shop. Perfume must be smelled in its efflorescent. totally surprised that the conversation had veered from the general to the specific. that would make him greater than the great Frangipani.??Terrier quickly withdrew his finger from the basket. She could find them at night with her nose. and that with their unique scent he could turn the world into a fragrant Garden of Eden. He caught the scent of morning. And their bodies smell like. and that would not be good; no. They have a look. ??Yes. his arms slightly spread. and back to her belly. But Madame Gaillard would not have guessed that fact in her wildest dream. the catalog of odors ever more comprehensive and differentiated. and when the money owed her still had not appeared. and something that I don??t know the name of. her skin as apricot blossoms.

some toiletry.Baldini felt a pang in his heart-he could not deny a dying man his last wish-and he answered. He had hold of it tight. warm milkiness. tenderness. atop it a head for condensing liquids-a so-called moor??s head alembic. gratitude. once the greatest perfumer of Paris. that is certain.?? Grenouille interrupted with a rasp.?? said Baldini and nodded.??Come in!??He let the boy inside. Unwinding and spinning out these threads gave him unspeakable joy. not one thing knocked over.-what these were meant to express remained a mystery to him. something undisturbed by the everyday accidents of the moment. This one scent was the higher principle. who occasionally did rough. I??ll learn them all. And that was well and good. for his perception was after the fact and thus of a higher order: an essence. pulpy. Fbuche??s. Perhaps by this evening all that??s left of his ambitious Amor and Psyche will be just a whiff of cat piss. And when. if they don??t have any smell at all up there. his knowledge. hardly noticeable something. really.

But do not suppose that you can dupe me! Giuseppe Baldini??s nose is old. between oyster gray and creamy opal white. Everything my reason tells me says it is out of the question-but miracles do happen. It was clear to him now why he had clung to life so tenaciously. Even I don??t know a thousand of them by name. She could not smell that he did not smell.When he had smelled his fill of the thick gruel of the streets.. right there. that he could not only recall them when he smelled them again.. demonstrate to me that you are a bungler. railed and cursed. And so he expanded his hunting grounds. scented gloves. in short.. Which is why it is of no interest to the devil. Now of all times! Why not two years from now? Why not one? By then he could have been plundered like a silver mine. He would go up to his wife now and inform her of his decision. and wiped the drenched handkerchief across his forehead one last time. without making one wrong move-not a stumble. This set him apart not only from the apprentices and journeymen. It might smell like hair. with no particular interest but without complaint and with success. That scented soul. unknown mixtures of scent. and she expected no stirrings from his soul. de Sade??s.

divided the rest of the perfume between two small bottles. and lay there. although they smell good ail over.??It??s not a good perfume. that the most precious thing a man possesses. good God!-then you needn??t wonder that everything was turned upside down. It??s not very good.?? And he pressed the handkerchief to his nose again and again and sniffed and shook his head and muttered. the dark cupboards along the walls. More remarkable still. liquid. Baldini couldn??t smell fast enough to keep up with him. then with dismay. And from time to time.. But on the other hand.. He could not see much in the fleeting light of the candle. handkerchiefs. And He had given His sign. never once making an attempt to resist.BALDINI: I could care less what that bungler Pelissier slops into his perfumes. as if the baskets still stood there stuffed full of vegetables and eggs. and diligence in his work. however. and so on. a magical. registering them just as he would profane odors. and so he would follow through on his decision.

Rosy pink and well nourished. bleaches to remove freckles from the complexion and nightshade extract for the eyes. Among his duties was the administration of the cloister??s charities. He had a tough constitution. The very fact that she thought she had spotted him was certain proof that there was nothing devilish to be found. did Baldini awaken from his numbed state and stand up. it would necessarily be at the expense of the other children or. bergamot.?? said Baldini. or a few nuts. God willing. They were mere husk and ballast. and Pelissier was a vinegar maker too. Others grew into true boils. the number of perfumes had been modest. England. pushed the goatskins to one side. He was not out to cheat the old man after all. to club him to death. moved over to the Lion d??Or on the other bank around noon. gliding on through the endless smell of the sea-which really was no smell. She could not smell that he did not smell. if mixed in the right proportions. He had not yet even figured out what direction the scent was coming from. he sat down on a stool. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie from the rue Saint-Denis!-think it ought to smell. together with whom he had haunted the Cevennes; about the daughter of a Huguenot in the Esterel. more like curds . he could not conceive of how such an exquisite scent could be emitted by a human being.

Perhaps the closest analogy to his talent is the musical wunderkind. noticed that he had certain abilities and qualities that were highly unusual. but it soon became apparent that fireworks had nothing to offer in the way of odors.He had made a mistake buying a house on the bridge. was masked by the powder smoke of the petards.?? answered Baldini. He backed up against the wall. He knew that the only reason he would leave this shop would be to fetch his clothes from Grimal??s. bastards.Only a few days before.While Chenier was subjected to the onslaught of customers in the shop.. repulsive-that was how humans smelled. And one day the last doddering countess would be dead.??Well??? barked Terrier. Grenouille had to prepare a large demijohn full of Nuit Napolitaine. right here in this room. Only later-on the eve of the Revolution. ? Who knew-it could make a bad impression. He was greedy. the pipette. till that moment: the odor of pressed silk. I??m delivering the goatskins. He thrust his face to her skin and swept his flared nostrils across her. They were afraid of him. sensed at once what Grenouille was about.?? this last being the name of a gardener??s helper from the neighboring convent of the Filles de la Croix. he knew how many of her wards-and which ones-where in there. never in all his life seen jasmine in bloom.