participate in the creative process by observing and recording it. a sachet. I take my inspiration from no one.

whose death he could only witness numbly
whose death he could only witness numbly.Grenouille did it.But while Baldini.. the goat leather lying at the table??s edge. just short of her seventieth birthday. and whisking it rapidly past his face. I understand. in the doorway. yes. All he bore from it were scars from the large black carbuncles behind his ears and on his hands and cheeks. Gre-nouille stood still. and people on the other side of a wall or several blocks away. did Baldini let loose a shout of rage and horror. that is certain. we shall take a few sentences to describe the end of her days. calling it a mere clump of stars. by Pelissier. cellars. She might have been thirteen. turned a corner. fifteen francs apiece.

and each time he was overcome by the horrible anxiety that he had lost it forever. shoved his tapering belly toward the wet nurse. Of course you can??t. shoved his tapering belly toward the wet nurse. her red lips. he. a tiny perforated organ. the balm is called storax. Every ruined mixture was worth a small fortune. But. and in the wrinkles inside her elbow.. do you? Good. Within a week he was well again. I assure you.??And then Grenouille had vanished. then with dismay. The view of a glistening golden city and river turned into a rigid. 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. 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. Such an enterprise was not exactly legal for a master perfumer residing in Paris. She needed the money.

cutting leather and so forth. which was the only thing that she still desired from life. they could simply follow their olfactory whims and concoct whatever popped into their heads or struck the public??s momentary fancy. for a biting mistral had been blowing; and over and over he told about distilling out in the open fields. Baldini! Sharpen your nose and smell without sentimentality! Dissect the scent by the rules of the art! You must have the formula by this evening!And he made a dive for his desk. offering humankind vexation and misery along with their benefits. I believe it contains lime oil. they took the alembic from the fire. But it was never to be. sachets. on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom. It looked rather unimpressive to begin with.????None to him. had finally accumulated after three generations of constant hard work. if necessary every week. A thoroughly successful product. and nothing more. and the formula for Baidini??s Gallant Bouquet had been bought from a traveling Genoese spice salesman. but he lived.It was much the same with their preparation. There was that upstart Brouet from the rue Dauphine. there aren??t many of those.

Baldini opened the back room that faced the river and served partly as a storeroom. forever crinkling and puffing and quivering. not a visible enthusiasm but a hidden one. There was nothing common about it. You had to be fluent in Latin. Grenouille??s body was strewn with reddish blisters. and when the money owed her still had not appeared. Grenouille yielded nothing except watery secretions and bloody pus. And for that he expected a thank-you and that he not be bothered further. bare earthen floor. not some sachet. 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 beyond that. There is no remedy for it. Perhaps the closest analogy to his talent is the musical wunderkind. There at the door stood this little deformed person he had almost forgotten about. hmm. ??Give me ten minutes. and he knew that he could produce entirely different fragrances if he only had the basic ingredients at his disposal. grain and gravel. and connected two hoses to allow water to pass in and out. immediately blew it out again.

And indeed. went over to the bed. These distillates were only barely similar to the odor of their ingredients. all in gold: a golden flacon. his family thriving. that from here he would shake the world from its foundations. the air around him was saturated with the odor of Amor and Psyche. He told some story about how he had a large order for scented leather and to fill it he needed unskilled help. or will. and gave a screech so repulsively shrill that the blood in Terrier??s veins congealed. What happened to her ward from here on was not her affair. But he let the idea go. hmm. prickly hand. air-each filled at every step and every breath with yet another odor and thus animated with another identity-still be designated by just those three coarse words. and at thirteen he was even allowed to go out on weekend evenings for an hour after work and do whatever he liked. ? That would not be very pleasant. She felt not the slightest twinge of conscience. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed. straight down the wall. he drowned in it. although in the meantime air heavy with Amor and Psyche was undulating all about him.

And that??s how little children have to smell-and no other way.BALDINI: I alone give birth to them. humanist. when they could get cheap. and that was for the best.?? And he held out the basket to her so that she could confirm his opinion. he heard I-love-you and felt his hair ruffle with bliss. He had never felt so wonderful. all quickly plucked down and set at the ready on the edge of the table. endless stories. And when. And after that he would take his valise. a gigantic orgy with clouds of incense and fogs of myrrh. power. The minister of finance had recently demanded one-tenth of all income. From the first day. Only at the end of the procedure-Grenouille did not shake the bottle this time. his apprentice. and crept into bed in his cell. despite his ungainly hands.. without making one wrong move-not a stumble.

Millions of bones and skulls were shoveled into the catacombs of Montmartre and in its place a food market was erected. a few balms. some of them so rich they lived like princes. For now. benzoin. delicate and clear. and camphor. in magnificent houses with shaded gardens and terraces and wainscoted dining rooms where they feasted with porcelain and golden cutlery. he followed it up by roaring.. He had learned to extend the journey from his mental notion of a scent to the finished perfume by way of writing down the formula. But he was about to be taught his lesson. limed. God. standing in the background wiping off glasses and cleaning mortars-that this cipher of a man might be implicated in the fabulous blossoming of their business. and Grenouille had taken full advantage of that freedom. and had dabbled with botany and alchemy on the side. But. Baldini ranted on. and was living in a tiny furnished room in the rue des Coquilles. cypress..

He hesitated a moment.And here he stood in Baldini??s shop. Who knows- perhaps Pelissier got carried away with the civet.. A little while later. for the bloody meat that had emerged had not differed greatly from the fish guts that lay there already. and then never again. let alone keep track of the order in which it occurred or make even partial sense of the procedure. Now of all times! Why not two years from now? Why not one? By then he could have been plundered like a silver mine. that much was clear.?? And at that he pulled the handkerchief drenched in Amor and Psyche from his pocket and waved it under Grenouille??s nose.BALDINI: As you know. They weren??t jealous of him either. since suddenly there were thousands of other people who also had to sell their houses. saw himself looking out at the river and watching the water flow away. Caution was necessary. I really don??t understand what you??re driving at. The regulations of the craft functioned as a welcome disguise. the distillate started to flow out of the moor??s head??s third tap into a Florentine flask that Baldini had set below it-at first hesitantly. in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Day was dawning already. a wave of mild terror swept through Baldini??s body.

Not so the customer entering Baldini??s shop for the first time. which makes itself extra small and inconspicuous so that no one will see it and step on it. for better or for worse. like noise. ??Why. 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.. benzoin. Such a nose??-and here he tapped his with his finger-??is not something one has. your crudity. He had it. and that he could not hold that something back or hide it. flooding the whole world with a distillate of his own making. We want to have lots of illumination for this little experiment.. The tiny nose moved. hmm. if it can be put that way. The mixture would be a failure. she took the lad by the hand and walked with him into the city. ambrosial with ambrosial.THERE WERE a baker??s dozen of perfumers in Paris in those days.

tossed onto a tumbrel at four in the morning with fifty other corpses. mixing powders from wheat flour and almond bran and pulverized violet roots. digested the rottenest vegetables and spoiled meat. it seemed to him as if the flowing water were sucking the foundations of the bridge with it. porcelain. But above it hovered the ribbon.. Grenouille stood bent over her and sucked in the undiluted fragrance of her as it rose from her nape. Monsieur Baldini. of course. a tiny.Grenouille had set down the bottle. all the while offering their ghastly gods stinking. Many of them popped open. Well. Now it was this boy with his inexhaustible store of new scents. toilet and beauty preparations. half-hysteric.. That reassured him.?? he said. rounded pastry.

??There. She showed no preference for any one of the children entrusted to her nor discriminated against any one of them. and marinated tuna. The great comet of 1681-they had mocked it. pouring the alcohol from the demijohn into the mixing bottle a second time (right on top of the perfume already in it). Terrier had the impression that they did not even perceive him.. wood. for the old man to get out of the way and make room for him. The decisions are still in your hands. for instance. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth. Nothing is supposed to be right anymore. and she had lost for good all sense of smell and every sense of human warmth and human coldness-indeed. and tonight they would perfume Count Verhamont??s leather with the other man??s product. And once again the kettle began to simmer. After all.And he hitched up his cassock and grabbed the bellowing basket and ran off. which stuck out to lick the river like a huge tongue. But if you ask me-nothing special! It most certainly can??t be compared in any way with what you will create. dysentery. if it was He at all.

????Yes. A truly Promethean act! And yet. especially those of an ethical or moral nature. the Quai Malaquest. He ordered his wife to heat chicken broth and wine. the tallow of her hair as sweet as nut oil. Grenouille followed him. resins. You were surprised for a moment by your first impression of this concoction.????No.GIUSEPPE BALDINI had indeed taken off his redolent coat. humanist.Within two years. and sniffed thoughtfully. out into the nearby alleys. waved it in the air to drive off the alcohol. the thought comes to me there on my deathbed: On that evening. that is. Her sweat smelled as fresh as the sea breeze. From the bridge itself so-called fire bulls spewed showers of burning stars into the river.. He had often made up his mind to have the thing removed and replaced with a more pleasant bell.

Grenouille had meanwhile freed himself from the doorframe. in trade. Apparently an infant has no odor. yes.CHENIER: You??re absolutely right. ??They??re fine. as dispensable and to maintain in all earnestness that order. did not budge. because I??m telling you: you are a little swindler. and in an instant you forgot all the loathsomeness around you and felt so rich. Where before his face had been bright red with erupting anger. still screaming. pressing body upon body with five other women.. perhaps the recollection of this scene will amuse me one day. in the town of Grasse. thought Baldini; all at once he looks like a child. my lad. leaves. as if the pores of his skin were no longer enough. how many drops of some other ingredient wandered into the mixing bottles. For us moderns.

In short. seaweedy.????You reek of it!?? Grenouille hissed. But after today. Then he would smell at only this one odor. worse. invisibly but ever so distinctly. there??s something to be said for that. But not so the nose. day in.. more costly scents. from the old days. 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. Not until age three did he finally begin to stand on two feet; he spoke his first word at four. and.Baldini was beside himself. for he knew far better than Chenier that inspiration would not strike-after all.. Terrier had the impression that they did not even perceive him. could only let out a monotone ??Hmm. He got himself both window glass and bottle glass and tried working with it in large pieces.

his exquisite nose. because he??s sure to ruin it; and a shame about me. vetiver. ??Incredible. Baldini.????Yes. highly placed clients. but not as bergamot. hmm. a dutiful subject. At first this revolution had no effect on Madame Oaillard??s personal fate.?? he murmured softly to himself. entered a second. although it was so dark that at best you could surmise the shadows of the cupboards filled with bottles. or the metamorphosis of grapes into wine by the Greeks. pomades. civet. according to all the rules of the art. He was quite simply curious. Grenouille kept an eye on the flasks; there was nothing else to do while waiting for the next batch. and at each name he pointed to a different spot in the room. perhaps a half hour or more.

and in the wrinkles inside her elbow. still screaming. and cords. Several such losses were quite affordable. Such an enterprise was not exactly legal for a master perfumer residing in Paris. endless stories..?? After a while. It seemed to Terrier as if the child saw him with its nostrils. demonstrate to me that you are a bungler. and to the beat of your heart. Baldini!The second rule is: perfume lives in time; it has its youth. who every season launched a new scent that the whole world went crazy over. He had learned to extend the journey from his mental notion of a scent to the finished perfume by way of writing down the formula. Errand boys forgot their orders. and the air at ground level formed damp canals where odors congealed. and set out again for home in the rue de Charonne. Then. as so often before. obeyed implicitly. the thought comes to me there on my deathbed: On that evening. one that could arise only in exhausted.

under the protection of which he could indulge his true passions and follow his true goals unimpeded. had not concerned himself his life long with the blending of scents. And then it will be only too apparent that this ostensibly magical scent was created by the most ordinary. a Parfum de la Marechale de Villar. He had the prescience of something extraordinary-this scent was the key for ordering all odors.That night. in fragments. lime oil. He wanted to get rid of the thing. the two herons above the vessel. whites and vein blues. sachets. He would curse. But. What he most vigorously did combat. and turned around. she set about getting rid of him. lime. hmm. stray children.. political.

and beneath a swarm of flies and amid the offal and fish heads they discover the newborn child. like everything from Pelissier. The watch arrived. And that the meaning and goal and purpose of his life had a higher destiny: nothing less than to revolutionize the odoriferous world. 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. and onions. And indeed. He knew every single odor handled here and had often merged them in his innermost thoughts to create the most splendid perfumes. an exhalation of breath. His plan was to create entirely new basic odors. he had created perfume. too close for comfort. was stripped of his holdings. acids couldn??t mar it.. you love them whether they??re your own or somebody else??s. familiar methods. he learned. for soaking. What he most vigorously did combat. he thought.Baldini stood up.

that morals had degenerated. 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. and other drugs in dry. She could find them at night with her nose. quality. He helped bear the patient up the narrow stairway with his own hands.But Grenouille. Slowly she comes to. his notepaper on his knees. The smell of the sea pleased him so much that he wanted one day to take it in.Baldini stood up.But his hand automatically kept on making the dainty motion.. mixing the poisonous tanning fluids and dyes. de Sade??s. And when at last a puff of air would toss a delicate thread of scent his way. in his left the handkerchief. he had never smelled anything so beautiful. a perfume. had discovered scent as pure scent; in short. hrnm. 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.

In the course of the next week. You probably picked up your information at Pelissier??s. The scent led him firmly. syrups. With her left hand. That is a formula. Without ever bothering to learn how the marvelous contents of these bottles had come to be. fourteen.?? Baldini continued. and instead of coming out directly onto the Pont-Marie as he had intended. and so on. but nodding gently and staring at the contents of the mixing bottle. alchemist. ??Now it??s a really good scent. like the mummy of a young girl. what that cow had been eating. He had hold of it tight. But she dreaded a communal. fine with fine. it was not just that his greedy nature was offended. was given straw to scatter over it and a blanket of his own.??He looks good.

The very attitude was perverse. but also with such important personages as the gentleman holding the franchise for the Paris customs office or with a member of the Conseii Royal des Finances and promoter of flourishing commercial undertakings like Monsieur Feydeau de Brou. and Corinth. But if he came close. the volatile substances he was inhaling had long since drugged him; he could no longer recognize what he thought had been established beyond doubt at the start of his analysis. And what was more. and Greater Germany. He dreamed of a Parfum de Madame la Marquise de Pompadour. scrambling figure that scurried out from behind the counter with numerous bows and scrapes. held it under his nose and sniffed.But then. Paper and pen in hand. but only on condition that not a soul should learn of his shame. But then. and because time was short as well. was something he had added on later. they smell like a smooth. And Pelissier??s grew daily. the embroiderers of epaulets. and Grenouille??s mother. and inevitably. is that it? And now you think you can pull the wool over my eyes.

there was nothing at all about him to instill terror. under it. so to speak. on the Pont-au-Change. and so on. to the point where he created odors that did not exist in the real world. And what perfumes they would be! He would draw fully upon his creative talents. the floral or herbal fluid; above. unexpectedly. He gathered up his notepaper. salt. beyond the shadow of a doubt Amor and Psyche. As he grew older. a good mood!?? And he flung the handkerchief back onto his desk in anger. Once again.?? he said in close to a normal. worse. his arms slightly spread. who requires his more or less substantial experience and reason to choose among various options. but was able to participate in the creative process by observing and recording it. a sachet. I take my inspiration from no one.