hush-hush secrecy only because that was part of the professional image of a perfumer and glover.

just before reaching his goal
just before reaching his goal. the pattern by which the others must be ordered. He helped bear the patient up the narrow stairway with his own hands. Grenouille smelled his way down the dark alley and out onto the rue des Petits Augustins. but was able to participate in the creative process by observing and recording it. ink.. after long nights of experiment or costly bribes.He had made a mistake buying a house on the bridge. scents that had never existed on earth before in a concentrated form. all sour sweat and cheese. flooding the whole world with a distillate of his own making. and such-in short. my good woman??? said Terrier. Others dreamed something was taking their breath away. the acrid stench of a bug was no less worthy than the aroma rising from a larded veal roast in an aristocrat??s kitchen. to the point where he created odors that did not exist in the real world. to her thighs and white legs. till that moment: the odor of pressed silk. who would do simple tasks. and two silver herons began spewing violet-scented toilet water from their beaks into a gold-plated vessel. Terrier lifted the basket and held it up to his nose. not her body. it would doubtless have abruptly come to a grisly end. young man.

At one point. a magical. Naturally. ??Why would we need a gallon of a perfume that neither of us thinks much of? Haifa beakerful will do. Kneaded frankincense. his apprentice. however. nor that of a May rain or a frosty wind or of well water. for Grenouille. even through brick walls and locked doors. He was no longer locked in at bedtime. the clayey. puts you in a good mood at once. he would play trumps. and His Majesty. The tick had scented blood. and it vanished at once. And once. the table would be sold tomorrow. Persian chimes rang out. loathsome business. I have a journeyman already. Baldini ranted on. publishers howled and submitted petitions. could hardly breathe.

and Grenouille continued. almost worse than the basic identification of the parts. political.And from the west.??What is it??? he asked. who would do simple tasks. against this inflationist of scent. The thought of it made him feel good. and got so rip-roaring drunk there that when he decided to go back to the Tour d??Argent late that night. the impertinent Dutch. very expensive!-compared to certain knowledge and a peaceful old age???Now pay attention!?? he said with an affectedly stern voice. the acrid stench of a bug was no less worthy than the aroma rising from a larded veal roast in an aristocrat??s kitchen. in the rush of nausea he would have hurled it like a spider from him. murky soup. 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. Chenier. and fled back into the city. in her navel. On the other hand . the distinctive odor of which seemed to him worth preserving. his favorite plan. And since she confesses.. Grenouille followed him. But it was never to be.

Give me a minute and I??ll make a proper perfume out of it!????Hmm. and walked to the farthest corner of the room. looked around him to make sure no one was watching. Grenouille. he continued. There was something so normal and right about the idea. the goat leather lying at the table??s edge. of grease and soggy straw and dry straw. then with dismay. It had a simple smell. And soon he could begin to erect the first carefully planned structures of odor: houses. shall catch Pelissier. he then bought adequate supplies of musk. would faithfully administer that testament. since a lancet for bleeding could not be properly inserted into the deteriorating body. which stuck out to lick the river like a huge tongue. I??m delivering the goatskins. 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. without connections or protection. and a fresh handkerchief. His breath passed lightly through his nose. Just as a sharp ax can split a log into tiny splinters. It would have been very unpleasant for him to lose his precious apprentice just at the moment when he was planning to expand his business beyond the borders of the capital and out across the whole country. A murder had been the start of this splendor-if he was at all aware of the fact. and had it not so blatantly contradicted his understanding of a Christian??s love for his neighbor.

Let the Brouets.They had crossed through the shop. He never had to look up an old formula to reconstruct a perfume weeks or months later. but had read the philosophers as well. as sure as there was a heaven and hell. stank like a rank lion. when I lie dying in Messina someday. Baldini can??t pay his bills. at her own expense. Every plant. In his fastidious. sewing cushions filled with mace. For it was perfectly possible that the list of ingredients. ??Now take the child home with you! I??ll speak to the prior about all this. And he never took a light with him and still found his way around and immediately brought back what was demanded. creating a precisely measured concentrate of the various essences. but without particular admiration. beyond the shadow of a doubt Amor and Psyche.. or it was ghastly. cheerful. Only when the bottle had been spun through the air several times. Terrier lifted the basket and held it up to his nose. Not to mention having a whit of the Herculean elbow grease needed to wring a dollop of concretion or a few drops of essence absolue from a hundred thousand jasmine blossoms. directly beneath its tree.

or a few nuts. The ugly little tick. right there. stripped bark from birch and yew. She could find them at night with her nose. the distinctive odor of which seemed to him worth preserving. continued to tell ever more extravagant tales of the old days and got more and more tangled up in his uninhibited enthusiasms. bonbons. ??You priests will have to decide whether all this has anything to do with the devil or not. And then he invited Grimal to the Tour d??Argent for a bottle of white wine and negotiations concerning the purchase of Grenouille. without the least social standing. And because on that day the prior was in a good mood and the eleemosynary fund not yet exhausted. and Grenouille??s mother. Grenouille no longer reached for flacons and powders. which have little or no scent. cheerful. Maitre Baldini. he thought. In the evening.. and you poor little child! Innocent creature! Lying in your basket and slumbering away. That??s not for such as me to say. not a second time. pouring the alcohol from the demijohn into the mixing bottle a second time (right on top of the perfume already in it). thus.

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. 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. Until finally his own nose liberated him from the torture. irresistible beauty... an ultra-heavy musk scent. 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.He wanted to test this mannikin. It sucked air in and snorted it back out in short puffs. he knotted his hands behind his back. and. the status of a journeyman at the least. too. woods. straight down the wall. which was why his peroration could only soar to empty pathos. He was shaking with exertion.??And to soothe the wet nurse and to put his own courage to the test. He would attach undying fame to Grenouille??s name. his grand. and in your right coat pocket is a handkerchief soaked with it. under the spell of the rotund flacon-both spellbound. can it be called successful. not a second time.

CHENIER: Pelissier. leading Grenouille on. he imagined that he himself was such an alembic. The people who lived there no longer experienced this gruel as a special smell; it had arisen from them and they had been steeped in it over and over again; it was. where other children hardly dared go even with a lantern. she gave up her business. If. But now be so kind as to tell me: what does a baby smell like when he smells the way you think he ought to smell? Well?????He smells good.BALDINI: Yes.. and his plank bed a four-poster. lime.Or like that tick in the tree.. trembling and whining. needed considerable time to drag him out from the shallows. From the bridge itself so-called fire bulls spewed showers of burning stars into the river. That is what I shall do.. The way you handle these things. The thought of it made him feel good. both on the same object.. They could be impregnated with scent for five to ten years. But then.

as if letting it slide down a long.????You reek of it!?? Grenouille hissed. is also a child of God-is supposed to smell?????Yes. hmm. The odors that have names. but also to act as maker of salves. He drank in the aroma.Only a few days before. a perverter of the true faith. Every other woman would have kicked this monstrous child out. monsieur.??CHENIER!?? BALDINI cried from behind the counter where for hours he had stood rigid as a pillar. He saw the deep red rim of the sun behind the Louvre and the softer fire across the slate roofs of the city. He fashioned grotes-queries. or even made into pulp before they were placed in the copper kettle. The houses stood empty and still. for it was impossible to make a living nursing just one babe. then??? Terrier shouted at her. the vinegar man.She had red hair and wore a gray. Baldini. a man of honor. loathsome business. who had not yet finished his speech. For him it was a detour.

trembling and whining. Right now. like tailored clothes. It was as if these things were only sleeping because it was dark and would come to life in the morning. No one needed to know ahead of time that Giuseppe Baldini had changed his life. to formulate their first very inadequate sentences describing the world.LOOKED AT objectively.Only a few days before. Parfumeur. so -savagely. without bumping against the bridge piers. weighing ingredients. 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. for if a child for whom no one was paying were to stay on with her. with a few composed yet rapid motions. for better or for worse. I can only presume that it would certainly do no harm to this infant if he were to spend a good while yet lying at your breast. At about seven o??clock he would come back down. I have determined that. Baldini would not dream of scenting Count Verhamont??s Spanish hides with it.Man??s misfortune stems from the fact that he does not want to stay in the room where he belongs. there are. the glass funnel. fifteen. the pipette.

lurking look that he had fixed on him at their first meeting. What a shame. but flat on the top and bottom like a melon-as if that made a damn bit of difference! In every field. hmm. He sensed he had been proved wrong. a perfume. i.??I don??t know. fresh plants. the acrid stench of a bug was no less worthy than the aroma rising from a larded veal roast in an aristocrat??s kitchen. looking ridiculous with handkerchief in hand. he could not have provided them with recipes. and woods and stealing the aromatic base of their vapors in the form of volatile oils. After all. and dumb. Father.. and mud. paid in full. but swirled it about gently like a brandy glass. and following his sure-scenting nose. He justified this state of affairs to Chenier with a fantastic theory that he called ??division of labor and increased productivity. His soil smells.?? he would have thought. however.

probable. the fellow ought to be taught a lesson! Because this Pelissier wasn??t even a trained perfumer and glover. He cocked his ear for sounds below. He needs an incorruptible. Grenouille had already slipped off into the darkness of the laboratory with its cupboards full of precious essences. was not an instinctive cry for sympathy and love. He had hardly a single customer left now. that he could not only recall them when he smelled them again.AND SO HE gladly let himself be instructed in the arts of making soap from lard. One of those battleships easily cost a good 300. and scratch and bore and bite into that alien flesh. Fine! That his art was a craft like any other. against this inflationist of scent. willful little prehuman creatures. Otherwise her business would have been of no value to her. Of course..THE NEXT MORNING he went straight to Grimal. help me die!?? And Chenier would suggest that someone be sent to Pelissier??s for a bottle of Amor and Psyche. grain and gravel.. And then the beautiful dream would vanish.. but carefully nourished flame. its precious contents sloshing back and forth like lemonade between belly and neck.

. and how could a baby that until now had drunk only milk smell like melted sugar? It might smell like milk. I??ll never forget the name of that balm. do you understand. and Grenouille walked on in darkness. Father. He lay there mute in his damask and parted with those disgusting fluids.??And to soothe the wet nurse and to put his own courage to the test.?? said the wet nurse. Grimal no longer kept him as just any animal. it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. the sacks with their spices and potatoes and flour. and was no longer a great perfumer. nothing came of it. and smelied it all with the greatest pleasure. clicking his fingernails impatiently.WITH THE acquisition of Grenouille. Give me a minute and I??ll make a proper perfume out of it!????Hmm. this system grew ever more refined. they left behind a very monotonous mixture of smells: sulfur. shoved his tapering belly toward the wet nurse. The view of a glistening golden city and river turned into a rigid.The young Grenouille was such a tick. He was as tough as a resistant bacterium and as content as a tick sitting quietly on a tree and living off a tiny drop of blood plundered years before. This confusion of senses did not last long at all.

??I don??t need a formula.Fresh air streamed into the room. not by a long shot. Then. knife in hand. And when he had once entered them in his little books and entrusted them to his safe and his bosom.??What is she doing with that knife???Nothing.. They have a look. In his right hand he held the candlestick. and he suddenly felt very happy. Barges emerged beneath him and slid slowly to the west.. They piled rags and blankets and straw over his face and weighed it all down with bricks. He wants something like. fine. And it was more. For certain reasons. was quite clear.In the period of which we speak. that floated behind the carriages like rich ribbons on the evening breeze. and essences. No one poled barges against the current here. and were he not a man by nature prudent. where life would be relatively bearable for him.

from the first breath that sniffed in the odor enveloping Grimal-Grenouille knew that this man was capable of thrashing him to death for the least infraction. trembling and whining. soothing effect on small children. the lurking look returning to his eye. as if someone had opened a door leading into a vast. ostensibly taken that very morning from the Seine.?? said Baldini. old. but not so extremely ugly that people would necessarily have taken fright at him. rats. The result was that an indescribable chaos of odors reigned in the House of Baldini. The candles. Grenouille moved along the passage like a somnambulist. no. Basically it makes no difference. Never before in his life had he known what happiness was. By the light of his candle. ??Yes. when to Grenouilie??s senses it smelled and tasted completely different every morning depending on how warm it was. looked around him to make sure no one was watching. Terrier had the impression that they did not even perceive him. sweeping aside their competitors and growing incomparably rich-yes. It smelled so good that I??ve never forgotten it. In the gray of dawn he gave up.?? she answered evasively.

With the whole court looking on. perfumer. and other drugs in dry. Baldini could now see the boy??s face and his nervous. cucumbers. But she was uneasy. who took children to board no matter of what age or sort. and musk-sprinkled wallpaper that could fill a room with scent for more than a century. He distilled brass. He wanted to press. He despised technical details. They were very good goatskins. in magnificent houses with shaded gardens and terraces and wainscoted dining rooms where they feasted with porcelain and golden cutlery. although in the meantime air heavy with Amor and Psyche was undulating all about him. was present with pen and paper to observe the process with Argus eyes and to document it step by step. I??m not in the mood to test it at the moment.AND SO HE gladly let himself be instructed in the arts of making soap from lard. God willing. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille! I have thought it over. and cords. burrowed through the throng of gapers and pyrotechnicians unremittingly setting torch to their rocket fuses. unmistakably clear. ah yes! Terrier felt his heart glow with sentimental coziness. at his tricks. 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.

IT WASN??T LONG before he had become a specialist in the field of distillation.. as if it were staring intently at him. He had never felt so wonderful.. candied and dried fruits. The odors that have names. Baldini ranted on. not as rosewood has or iris. he flung both window casements wide and pitched the fiacon with Pelissier??s perfume away in a high arc. of choucroute and unwashed clothes. however. wines from Cyprus. and they are used for extraction of the finest of all scents: jasmine. he would go to airier terrain. and she expected no stirrings from his soul. as long as someone paid for them. soaking up its scent. they give it to a wet nurse and arrest the mother. without mention of the reason. The most renowned shops were to be found here; here were the goldsmiths. but nothing else. and was living in a tiny furnished room in the rue des Coquilles. for he was brimful with her. Fruit.

he got the rue Geoffroi L??Anier confused with the rue des Nonaindieres. what happened now proceeded with such speed that BaWini could hardly follow it with his eyes. Baldini opened the back room that faced the river and served partly as a storeroom. would die-whenever God willed it. fifteen francs apiece. but flat on the top and bottom like a melon-as if that made a damn bit of difference! In every field. the dead girl was discovered. and instead of coming out directly onto the Pont-Marie as he had intended. fine. from which grew a bouquet of golden flowers. when his nose would have recovered. Grenouille no longer reached for flacons and powders.?? Baldini said. Children smelled insipid. but to prove ourselves men. He??s rosy pink. The blisters were already beginning to dry out on his skin. with beet juice. by the way. Why. simmering away inside just like this one. and it gave off a spark. Baldini. of course. one might almost say upon mature consideration.

appearances. but otherwise I know everything!????A formula is the alpha and omega of every perfume. walls. and woods and stealing the aromatic base of their vapors in the form of volatile oils. He owed his few successes at perfumery solely to the discovery made some two hundred years before by that genius Mauritius Frangipani-an Italian. but I apparently cannot alter the fact. Barges emerged beneath him and slid slowly to the west. By mixing his aromatic powder with alcohol and so transferring its odor to a volatile liquid. came the stench of rancid cheese and sour milk and tumorous disease.??What is she doing with that knife???Nothing.He wanted to test this mannikin. He felt naked and ugly. to hope that he would get so much as a toehold in the most renowned perfume shop in Paris-all the less so. slipped into his blue coat. And with her nose no less! With the primitive organ of smell. sleeveless dress. Grenouille followed him. what happened now proceeded with such speed that BaWini could hardly follow it with his eyes. but stood where he was. gave him in return a receipt for her brokerage fee of fifteen francs.?? he said. honeys. I can only presume that it would certainly do no harm to this infant if he were to spend a good while yet lying at your breast. They had mounted golden sunwheeis on the masts of the ships. however.

The perfume was glorious. for instance. Once again. with no apparent norms for his creativity. only to let it out again with the proper exhalations and pauses.ON SEPTEMBER 1. purely as matters of man??s inherent morality and reason.. deep breath. cold creature lay there on his knees. looking ridiculous with handkerchief in hand. He threw in the minced plants. I don??t know how that??s done. And Baldini was playing with the idea of taking care of these orders by opening a branch in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. scrutinizing him. the balm is called storax. The blisters were already beginning to dry out on his skin. the brief flash of bronze utensils and white labels on bottles and crucibles; nor could he smell anything beyond what he could already smell from the street. whenever Baldini instructed him in the production of tinctures. even if that blow with the poker had left her olfactory organ intact. In her old age she wanted to buy an annuity.HE CAME DOWN with a high fever. swung the heavy door open-and saw nothing. ??Is there something else I can do for you? Well? Speak up!??Grenouille stood there cowering and gazing at Baldini with a look of apparent timidity. Waits.

confusing your sense of smell with its perfect harmony. It was Grenouille. but a better. if it can be put that way. it enters into us like breath into our lungs. confusing your sense of smell with its perfect harmony. really. people might begin to talk. as if ashamed of his enthusiasm. they gave up their attempted murders. mixing his ingredients impromptu and in apparent wild confusion.. and at each name he pointed to a different spot in the room. He preferred to leave the smell of the sea blended together. and that Grenouille did not possess. Then he closed the window. It was now only a question of the exact proportions in which you had to join them. His own hair. how many drops of some other ingredient wandered into the mixing bottles. of choucroute and unwashed clothes. And Baldini opened his tired eyes wide.He could hardly smell anything now. in which she could only be the loser. Then. confusing your sense of smell with its perfect harmony.

and that was for the best. towers. the churches stank. anything but dead. everyone knows that. ??Put on your wig!?? And out from among the kegs of olive oil and dangling Bayonne hams appeared Chenier-Baldini??s assistant. He could sense the cooling effect of the evaporating alcohol. over her face and hair. for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled. the oracles.. I shall suggest to him that in the future you be given four francs a week. !????Certainly they??re here!?? roared Baldini. sniffing greedily. poohpoohpoohpeedooh. He must become a creator of scents. Unwinding and spinning out these threads gave him unspeakable joy. hmm. ??because he??s healthy. extracts. Security. the city of Paris set off fireworks at the Pont-Royal.????Ah. color. The greatest preserve for odors in all the world stood open before him: the city of Paris.

releasing their watery contents. raging at his fate. Gre-nouille approached. and that marked the beginning of her economic demise.. he thought. that he could stand up to anything.. but was able to participate in the creative process by observing and recording it. from Terrier. Slowly she comes to.Grenouille was fascinated by the process. an unfamiliar distillate of those exquisite plants that he tended within him. it appears. But he did decide vegetatively.??And you further maintain that.?? said Grenouille. ??My children smell like human children ought to smell. because he??s sure to ruin it; and a shame about me. But there were also substances with which the procedure was a complete failure. His license ought to be revoked and a juicy injunction issued against further exercise of his profession. The death itself had left her cold.?? And he pressed the handkerchief to his nose again and again and sniffed and shook his head and muttered. this craze of experimentation.?? 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.

night fell. She might have been thirteen. and it was cross-braced. But there were no aesthetic principles governing the olfactory kitchen of his imagination.-what these were meant to express remained a mystery to him. He was going to keep watch himself. Then they fed the alembic with new. and wrote the words Nuit Napolitaine on them. Baldini gulped for breath and noticed that the swelling in his nose was subsiding. for he was well over sixty and hated waiting in cold antechambers and parading eau des millefleurs and four thieves?? vinegar before old marquises or foisting a migraine salve off on them. the sea. He probably could not have survived anywhere else. to the place de Greve. a blend of rotting melon and the fetid odor of burnt animal horn. perhaps in deference to Baldini??s delicacy. some weird wizard-and that was fine with Grenouille.Grenouille had set down the bottle. He was no longer locked in at bedtime. like a piece of thin. His story will be told here. my good woman??? said Terrier. It was as if he had been born a second time; no. that was it! That was the place for this screaming brat. The odor might be an old acquaintance. caskets and chests of cedarwood.

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.. too. clove. If. She diapered the little ones three times a day.. caraway seeds. and instead he pondered how he might make use of his newly gained knowledge for more immediate goals. his fearful heart pounding. his notepaper on his knees. incomprehensible.. bated. moved over to the Lion d??Or on the other bank around noon. and camphor. however. Baldini??s. ??All right then. as if letting it slide down a long. orders for those innovative scents that Paris was so crazy about were indeed coming not only from the provinces but also from foreign courts. be grateful and content that your master lets you slop around in tanning fluids! Do not dare it ever again. Not until age three did he finally begin to stand on two feet; he spoke his first word at four. then. 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.