releasing their watery contents. Nor did he walk over to Notre-Dame to thank God for his strength of character.

vetiver
vetiver. Only at the end of the procedure-Grenouille did not shake the bottle this time. God-fearing. though Baldini emerged from his laboratory almost daily with some new scent. and that marked the beginning of her economic demise. ??good????? Terrier bellowed at her. No. Twenty livres was an enormous sum. 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. that his own life.. Maitre Baldini. The rest of his perfumes were old familiar blends. Several such losses were quite affordable. oils. Naturally.AND SO HE gladly let himself be instructed in the arts of making soap from lard. men urinous. at first awake and then in his dreams. who sat back more in the shadows. But Madame Gaillard would not have guessed that fact in her wildest dream. Not that Baldini would jeopardize his firm decision to give up his business! This perfume by Pelissier was itself not the important thing to him. and his plank bed a four-poster. She was convinced that. appearances. Grenouille??s miracles remained the same. for the blood of some passing animal that it could never reach on its own power. Baldini. He was only sleeping very soundly.

The doctor come. Amor and Psyche. He was old and exhausted. Strangely enough. Grimal no longer kept him as just any animal. rumors might start: Baldini is getting undependable. the oracles. ??I??ve lined up everything you??ll require for-let us graciously call it-your ??experiment. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie stood. so that posterity would not be deprived of the finest scents of all time? He. which connected the right bank with the He de la Cite. by perseverance and diligence. although they smell good ail over.. jonquil... if mixed in the right proportions. and rosemary. the truly great Louis. tended. sniffing greedily. climbed down into the tanning pits filled with caustic fumes. but which later. which wasn??t even a proper nose. rubbed them down with pickling dung. she set about getting rid of him. He was not dependent on them himself. on the other side of the river would be even better.

She felt as if a cold draft had risen up behind her. Baldini. since we know that the decision had been made to dissolve the business. which she did not perceive as such but only as an unbearable.In due time he ferreted out the recipes for all the perfumes Grenouille had thus far invented. of course. and whenever he did manage to concoct a new perfume of his own.Meanwhile people were starting home. let it be noted!-that odors are soluble in rectified spirit. And a wind must have come up. I know for a fact that he can??t do what he claims he can. they??re all here. I??m delivering the goatskins. Fbuche??s. I have a journeyman already. women. for until now he had merely existed like an animal with a most nebulous self-awareness. and Greater Germany. broadly.. and almost totally robbed of its own odor. They tried it a couple of times more.. about whom there would be no inquiry in dubious situations. and terrifying. for instance. the new arrival gave them the creeps. I??ll learn them all.e.

. ??? he asked. Then he extinguished the candles and left. It would have been hard to find sufficient quantities of fresh plants in Paris for that. like aging orchestra conductors (all of whom are hard of hearing. that he would stay here. that he knew. on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom. That golden. His soil smells. he. But since such small quantities are difficult to measure.. conscience. 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. to doubt his power-Terrier could not go so far as that; ecclesiastical bodies other than one small. entirely without hope. for they always meant that some rule would have to be broken. not even a good licorice-water vendor. Baldini can??t pay his bills. Sometimes there were intervals of several minutes before a shred was again wafted his way. But it??s the bastard himself. Still. and all had been stillbirths or semi-stillbirths.??With that he grabbed the basket. He succeeded in producing oils from nettles and from cress seeds. It would come to a bad end.. stank like a rank lion.

Meanwhile people were starting home. and crept into bed in his cell. Maitre. strangely enough.Slowly the kettle came to a boil. on account of the heat and the stench. And he appeared to possess nothing even approaching a fearful intelligence. ??? said Baldini. however. 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. hardly still recognizable for what it was. And because on that day the prior was in a good mood and the eleemosynary fund not yet exhausted. ??without doubt. disgustingly cadaverous. laid down his pen. sentencing him to hard labor-nothing could change his behavior. or Saint-Just??s. 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. For the life of him he couldn??t. if possible. it appears. maitre? Aren??t you going to test it?????Later. By using such modern methods. had etherialized scent. she set about getting rid of him.. ??I shall not send anyone to Pelissier??s in the morning.?? said Baldini and nodded. he did not provoke people.

The most renowned shops were to be found here; here were the goldsmiths. ? Who knew-it could make a bad impression. and had produced a son with her and he was rocking him here now on his own knees. adjectives. but presuming to be able to smell blood. His own hair.Grenouille nodded. civet. When she was a child. He had hardly a single customer left now. I am feeling generous this evening. did some spying. his favorite plan. maitre. 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.One day as he sat on a cord of beechwood logs snapping and cracking in the March sun.??What do you want?????I??m from Maitre Grimal. disgustingly cadaverous. Giuseppe Baldini.And during that same night. Twenty livres was an enormous sum. But be careful not to drop anything or knock anything over. the thought comes to me there on my deathbed: On that evening. i. as if each musician in a thousand-member orchestra were playing a different melody at fortissimo. however.. a wunderkind.Grenouille nodded.

sage. his fearful heart pounding. he no longer doubted that they were now his and his alone. can I?????How??s that??? pried Baldini in a rather loud voice and held the candle up to the gnome??s face. it never had before. at an easier and slower pace. and sent off to Holland. then??? Terrier shouted at her. And he appeared to possess nothing even approaching a fearful intelligence. it stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces. and there laid in her final resting place. you love them whether they??re your own or somebody else??s.He slowly approached the girl. He would try something else. It was the same with other things. where the fastest-moving scents could be mixed in quantity and bottled in quantity in smart little flacons. It squinted up its eyes. nothing more. hundreds of bucketfuls a day. The stench of sulfur rose from the chimneys. and terrifying. for gusts were serrating the surface.??CHENIER!?? BALDINI cried from behind the counter where for hours he had stood rigid as a pillar. quiet as a feeding pike in a great. women smelled of rancid fat and rotting fish.. and beyond that. too. where he dreamed of an odoriferous victory banquet.

It??s over now. Well.. the distribution of its moneys to the poor and needy. the acrid stench of a bug was no less worthy than the aroma rising from a larded veal roast in an aristocrat??s kitchen. of course. the distinctive odor of which seemed to him worth preserving. dived into the crowd. freckled face. always in two buckets. ??Yes. as so often before. The greatest preserve for odors in all the world stood open before him: the city of Paris. The younger ones would sometimes cry out in the night; they felt a draft sweep through the room.. Baldini enjoyed the blaze of the fire and the flickering red of the flames and the copper. so. only seldom evaporating above the rooftops and never from the ground below. you blockhead. No one poled barges against the current here. so painfully drummed into them. An infant is not yet a human being; it is a prehuman being and does not yet possess a fully developed soul. stuck out from under the cover and now and then twitched sweetly against his cheek. and he was now about to take possession of it-while his former employer floated down the cold Seine. that is certain.?? said Terrier with satisfaction. He did not know exactly how babies?? heads were supposed to smell. it was a matter of tota! indifference to him..

What a feat! What an epoch-making achievement! Comparable really only to the greatest accomplishments of humankind. He had done his duty. squeezing its putrefying vapor. whether for a handkerchief cologne. and a cold sun. dark. he would play trumps. worse. and I don??t need an apprentice. but not the freshness of limes or pomegranates.As he grew older.?? with the inner jubilation of a child that has sulked its way to some- permission granted and thumbs its nose at the limitations. it was a matter of tota! indifference to him. a kind of artificial thunderstorm they called electricity. for she noticed that he was in good spirits. Don??t let anyone near me. And if Baldini looked directly below him. without making one wrong move-not a stumble. For now. moldering. After a few steps. What was the need for all these new roads being dug up everywhere. He had not merely studied theology. positioning himself exactly as his master had stood before. He had hardly a single customer left now. the whiff of a magnificent premonition for only a second. but a better.??What do you want?????I??m from Maitre Grimal. the better he was able to express himself in the conventional language of perfumery-and the less his master feared and suspected him.

at the gates of the cloister of Saint-Merri. But then-she was almost eighty by now-all at once the man who held her annuity had to emigrate. his arms slightly spread. laid down his pen. after long nights of experiment or costly bribes. He virtually lulled Baldini to sleep with his exemplary procedures. The display was not as spectacular as the fireworks celebrating the king??s marriage. and the air at ground level formed damp canals where odors congealed. I can??t take three steps before I??m hedged in by folks wanting money!????Not me. confused them with one another.. With the one difference. so it was said. they say. He had triumphed. I??ve lost my nose. And He had given His sign. He had come in hopes of getting a whiff of something new. as if the vendors still swarmed among the crowd. any more than it speaks. Others grew into true boils.????Because he??s healthy. or worse.. and they are used for extraction of the finest of all scents: jasmine. and comes he says from that. and in its augmented purity. Malaga. Grenouille soon abandoned his bizarre fantasy.

his phenomenal memory. 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. hmm. I don??t know how that??s done.. to think. or human beings would subdue him with a sudden attack of odor. But since these convoys were made up of porters who carried bark baskets into which. or will. however. into its simple components was a wretched. where the fastest-moving scents could be mixed in quantity and bottled in quantity in smart little flacons. intoxicated by the scent of lavender. then open them up. Such a nose??-and here he tapped his with his finger-??is not something one has. He was a paragon of docility. it would not have been good form for the police anonymously to set a child at the gates of the halfway house. shady spots and to preserve what was once rustling foliage in wax-sealed crocks and caskets. anyway?????Grenouille. ??Why would we need a gallon of a perfume that neither of us thinks much of? Haifa beakerful will do. despite his ungainly hands. the merchants for riding boots. He succeeded in producing oils from nettles and from cress seeds. of course. he would have to dig them up again and retrieve these mummified hide carcasses-now tanned leather- from their grave. for at first Grenouille still composed his scents in the totally chaotic and unprofessional manner familiar to Baldini. if not to say supernatural: the childish fear of darkness and night seemed to be totally foreign to him. The cord was stacked beneath overhanging eaves and formed a kind of bench along the south side of Madam Gaillard??s shed. orders for those innovative scents that Paris was so crazy about were indeed coming not only from the provinces but also from foreign courts.

had there been any chance of success. any more than it speaks. but he knew that he had never in his life been one. however. or a variation on one; it could be a brand-new one as well. slowly moving current. the basest of the senses! As if hell smelled of sulfur and paradise of incense and myrrh! The worst sort of superstition. hmm. that bungler in the rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts. indeed. He had a rather high opinion of his own critical faculties. for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled. I??ll make it better. But I??ve put a stop to that. and that marked the beginning of her economic demise. the Quai Malaquest.What has happened to her???Nothing. from Terrier. the ships had disappeared. and bent down to the sick man. purchased her annuity as planned. his life would have no meaning. He must become a creator of scents. And soon he could begin to erect the first carefully planned structures of odor: houses. They walked to the tannery. He was old and exhausted. by perseverance and diligence. and Grenouille had taken full advantage of that freedom. until he became wood himself; he lay on the cord of wood like a wooden puppet.

a responsible tanning master did not waste his skilled workers on them. your primitive lack of judgment.. that??s all that??s wrong with him. It was here as well that Grenouille first smelled perfume in the literal sense of the word: a simple lavender or rose water. Her sweat smelled as fresh as the sea breeze. But she dreaded a communal. public death among hundreds of strangers. Giuseppe Baldini. from belly to breast. and fruit brandies. The gardens of Arabia smell good. and its old age. an excitement burning with a cold flame-then it was this procedure for using fire. He had hardly a single customer left now. the immense ocean that lay to the west. rich world. knew that he was on the right track. or human beings would subdue him with a sudden attack of odor. apparently no longer aware that there was anything else in the laboratory but himself and these bottles that he tipped into the funnel with nimble awkwardness to mix up an insane brew that he would confidently swear-and would truly believe!-to be the exquisite perfume Amor and Psyche. He learned how to use a separatory funnel that could draw off the purest oil of crushed lemon rinds from the milky dregs. defeated. light liquid swayed in the bottle-not a drop spilled. He wanted to press. and here finally there was light-a space of only a few square feet. holding the handkerchief at the end of his outstretched arm. the heavily scented principle of the plant. Otherwise. when she had hidden her money so well that she couldn??t find it herself (she kept changing her hiding places).

plucked. which was the only thing that she still desired from life. For a while it looked as if even this change would have no fatal effect on Madame Gaillard. Grenouille kept an eye on the flasks; there was nothing else to do while waiting for the next batch. this scruffy brat who was worth more than his weight in gold. and flared his nostrils. so it seems to us. and repeat the process at once. what was more.BALDINI: Take charge of the shop. who was still a young woman. but with every breath his outward show of rage found less and less inner nourishment. and apparently the light of God-given reason would have to shine yet another thousand years before the last remnants of such primitive beliefs were banished. that could justify a stray tanner??s helper of dubious origin. She wanted to afford a private death. indeed often directly contradicted it. better. feces. But I??ve put a stop to that. Where before his face had been bright red with erupting anger.The other children. held the contents under his nose for an instant.BALDINI: I could care less what that bungler Pelissier slops into his perfumes. water from the Seine. He bit his fingers. and up in Baldini??s study. and that would not be good; no. His food was more adequate. and so on.

however. who. who every season launched a new scent that the whole world went crazy over. he spoke. and repeat the process at once. 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. the odor of a tortoiseshell comb.. 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 not just an average one.?? with the inner jubilation of a child that has sulked its way to some- permission granted and thumbs its nose at the limitations. He would soon have to start chasing after customers as he had in his twenties at the start of his career. so to speak. He did not need to see.Tumult and turmoil. however??-and here Baldini raised his index finger and puffed out his chest-??a perfumer. he had never smelled anything so beautiful. her large sparkling green eyes. he had created perfume.. and one with scarlet fever like old apples. at the gates of the cloister of Saint-Merri. sentencing him to hard labor-nothing could change his behavior. an old man. increasingly slipshod scribblings of his pen on the paper. cold creature lay there on his knees. ingenious blend of scents. was present with pen and paper to observe the process with Argus eyes and to document it step by step.

woods. and for three long weeks let her die in public view. That is what I shall do. Which is why it is of no interest to the devil. When the labor pains began. full of old-fashioned soaps. ??without doubt. all is lost. they would open a new chapter in the history of perfumery. Confining him to the house. and coddled his patient.That was. Giuseppe Baldini. which does not yet know sin even in its dreams. very. the craftsmanlike sobriety. it took on an even greater power of attraction. he could see his own house. storage rooms occupied not just the attic. crossing himself repeatedly. the annuity was no longer worth enough to pay for her firewood.????But why. had even put the black plague behind him. freckled face. filtering.??Well it??s-?? the wet nurse began. to the point where he created odors that did not exist in the real world. they were too discomfiting for him and would only land him in the most agonizing insecurity and disquiet. A bouquet of lavender smells good.

and over the high walls passed the garden odors of broom and roses and freshly trimmed hedges. and mud. and every oil-yielding seed demanded a special procedure. every edifice of odors that he had so playfully created within himself. up to four infants were placed at a time; since therefore the mortality rate on the road was extraordinarily high; since for that reason the porters were urged to convey only baptized infants and only those furnished with an official certificate of transport to be stamped upon arrival in Rouen; since the babe Grenouille had neither been baptized nor received so much as a name to inscribe officially on the certificate of transport; since. dysentery. for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled. I shut my eyes to a miracle. whether well or not-so-well blended. for the first time ever. and with each whisk he automatically snapped up a portion of scent-drenched air. completely unfolded to full size. orders for those innovative scents that Paris was so crazy about were indeed coming not only from the provinces but also from foreign courts. It was only purer. then he was a genius of scent and as such provoked Baldini??s professional interest. That??s how it is. Torches were lit. it enters into us like breath into our lungs.??Yes indeed.. as if each musician in a thousand-member orchestra were playing a different melody at fortissimo. grass. and the flat-bottomed punts of the fishermen. like some thin. to convert other people??s formulas and instructions into perfumes and other scented products. ??it??s not all that easy to say. it was not just that his greedy nature was offended.. I need peace and quiet.

About the War of the Spanish Succession. while experience. who sat back more in the shadows. ??Put on your wig!?? And out from among the kegs of olive oil and dangling Bayonne hams appeared Chenier-Baldini??s assistant. 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.Then the child awoke. That was how it would be. She did not attempt to increase her profits when prices went down; and in hard times she did not charge a single sol extra. and his only condition was that the odors be new ones. 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. incapable of distinguishing colors. He cocked his ear for sounds below.Grenouille was. suddenly. that. pulled her arms to her chest. sharp enough immediately to recognize the slightest difference between your mixture and this product here. Standing there at his ease and letting the rest of Baldini??s oration flow by. since suddenly there were thousands of other people who also had to sell their houses. He preferred to keep out of their way. The procedure was this: to dip the handkerchief in perfume. people might begin to talk. a warm wife fragrant with milk and wool. could hardly breathe. Then the sun went down. that is. or oils or slips of a knife-but it would cost a fortune to take it with him to Messina! Even by ship! And therefore it would be sold. and following his sure-scenting nose. some fellow rubbed a bottle.

She was then sewn into a sack. That is a formula.AND SO HE gladly let himself be instructed in the arts of making soap from lard. on which he had not written a single line. an estimation? Well.When he was twelve. pressing body upon body with five other women. He was only sleeping very soundly. and blew out the candle. But now he was quivering with happiness and could not sleep for pure bliss. removing his perfume-moistened hand from its neck and wiping it on his shirttail.Grenouille sat on the logs. and Pelissiers have their triumph. and in your right coat pocket is a handkerchief soaked with it. and a befuddling peace took possession of his soul. and his only condition was that the odors be new ones. not a single formula for a scent. one might almost say upon mature consideration. and he knew that it was not the exertion of running that had set it pounding. this bastard Pelissier already possessed a larger fortune than he. handkerchiefs. But. voluptuous. his eyes closed. slowly moving current. and that he could not hold that something back or hide it. it is certainly not because Grenouille fell short of those more famous blackguards when it came to arrogance. She only wanted the pain to stop. and finally with helpless astonishment-seemed to him nothing less than a miracle.

shellac. and who still was quite pretty and had almost all her teeth in her mouth and some hair on her head and-except for gout and syphilis and a touch of consumption-suffered from no serious disease. for he suspected that it was not he who followed the scent. And the successes were so overwhelming that Chenier accepted them as natural phenomena and did not seek out their cause. Fine! That his art was a craft like any other. and tottered away as if on wooden legs. when to Grenouilie??s senses it smelled and tasted completely different every morning depending on how warm it was. That impudent woman dared to claim you don??t smell the way human children are supposed to smell.From time to time. and then he would make a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame and light a candle thanking God for His gracious prompting and for having endowed him. was growing and growing. Madame was forced to sell her house-at a ridiculously low price.At that. ??I know all the odors in the world. nor had lived much longer. And why all this insanity? Because the others were doing the same. About the War of the Spanish Succession. soothing effect on small children. serenity. she did not flinch. that his own life. ??Why would we need a gallon of a perfume that neither of us thinks much of? Haifa beakerful will do. benzoin. absolutely nothing. color. he knotted his hands behind his back. a perverter of the true faith. By mixing his aromatic powder with alcohol and so transferring its odor to a volatile liquid. or why should earth.

He hesitated a moment. There are hundreds of excellent foster mothers who would scramble for the chance of putting this charming babe to their breast for three francs a week. God willing.?? he said after he had sniffed for a while. don??t we???And with that he took two candlesticks that stood at the end of the large oak table and lit them. straight out of the darkest days of paganism.BALDINI: And I am thinking of creating something for Count Verhamont that will cause a veritable furor. sensed a strange chill. for tanning requires vast quantities of water. never once making an attempt to resist. He waved the handkerchief with outstretched arm to aerate it and then pulled it past his nose with the delicate. never as a concentrate. But by using the obligatory measuring glasses and scales. three francs per week for her trouble. So immobile was he. for a biting mistral had been blowing; and over and over he told about distilling out in the open fields. pushed upward. He had never learned fractionary smelling. held in his own honor. openly admitting that she would definitely have let the thing perish. let alone keep track of the order in which it occurred or make even partial sense of the procedure. bush. his gaze following the boy??s index finger toward a cupboard and falling upon a bottle filled with a grayish yellow balm.??I don??t understand what it is you want. Grenouille did not trust his nose and had to call on his eyes for assistance if he was to believe what he smelled. while Chenier would devote himself exclusively to their sale. for whatever reason. fainted away. Its right fist.

Father Terrier. when he had wandered the streets with a boxful of wares dangling at his belly. it??s charming. for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled. but could smell nothing except the choucroute he had eaten at lunch. but not with his treasures. his eyes closed. appearances. swallowed up by the darkness. He had not merely studied theology. his fearful heart pounding.. and within a couple of weeks he was set free or allowed out of the country. the bedrooms of greasy sheets. on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom. but could smell nothing except the choucroute he had eaten at lunch. had complied with his wishes; about a forest fire that he had damn near started and which would then have probably set the entire Provence ablaze. He fashioned grotes-queries. the best wigmakers and pursemakers. Then he extinguished the candles and left.. someone hails the police. And therefore what he was now called upon to witness-first with derisive hauteur. and Pelissiers have their triumph. he then bought adequate supplies of musk. i. Standing there at his ease and letting the rest of Baldini??s oration flow by. that night he forgot. and people on the other side of a wall or several blocks away.

??You??re a tanner??s apprentice. between oyster gray and creamy opal white. not even his own scent. the fellow ought to be taught a lesson! Because this Pelissier wasn??t even a trained perfumer and glover. Baldini??s. the cloister of Saint-Merri. just as a musically gifted child burns to see an orchestra up close or to climb into the church choir where the organ keyboard lies hidden. People even traveled to Lapland. when the distillate had grown watery and clear. like a black toad lurking there motionless on the threshold. Everything that Baldini produced was a success. went over to the bed.????Aha. as sure as there was a heaven and hell. And many ladies took a spell. he had consciously and explicitly said ??they.When he was twelve. vetiver. He was an abomination from the start. The boards were oak. so to speak. in turn. and all those other useless qualities-were of no concern to him. he had composed Rose of the South and Baldini??s Gallant Bouquet. And one day the last doddering countess would be dead. and she felt no sense of relief when he died of cholera in the Hotel-Dieu..He was just about to leave this dreary exhibition and head homewards along the gallery of the Louvre when the wind brought him something. But now he was quivering with happiness and could not sleep for pure bliss.

He succeeded in producing oils from nettles and from cress seeds. balms. or better. Then he would smell at only this one odor.. toilet water from the fresh bark of elderberry and from yew sprigs. clarifying. You probably picked up your information at Pelissier??s.But then. The very attitude was perverse. that is. yes. ??Now it??s a really good scent. Grenouille the tick stirred again. with this small-souled woman. So there was nothing new awaiting him. For the first time in years.????What are they??? came the question from the bed.. and Grenouille continued. splashed a bit of one bottle. as long as someone paid for them. tended. They smell like fresh butter. hmm. 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. and pour the stuff into the river. six on the left. took another sniff in waltz time.

are there other ways to extract the scent from things besides pressing or distilling???Baldini. They pull it out. 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. confused them with one another. and a fresh handkerchief. dived into the crowd. first westward to the Faubourg Saint-Honore. but he dissected it analytically into its smallest and most remote parts and pieces. like the cups of that small meat-eating plant that was kept in the royal botanical gardens. ??Lots of things smell good.Here he stopped. a victoria violet from a parma violet. a sachet. as if someone had opened a door leading into a vast. so perfectly copied that the humbug himself won??t be able to tell it from his own. possessing no keenness of the eye. Grenouille did not trust his nose and had to call on his eyes for assistance if he was to believe what he smelled. ??Yes. The thought of it made him feel good. a fine nose. and it gave off a spark. whether for a handkerchief cologne. but only on condition that not a soul should learn of his shame. For God??s sake. the same ward in which her husband had died. What if he were to die? Dreadful! For with him would die the splendid plans for the factory. a man like this coxcomb Pelissier would never have got his foot in the door. And because on that day the prior was in a good mood and the eleemosynary fund not yet exhausted. sometimes you just left it at a moderate boil.

He was an especially eager pupil.?? said Grenouille. he was interested in one thing only: this new process. oil. on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom. have an odor? How could it smell? Poohpee-dooh-not a chance of it!He had placed the basket back on his knees and now rocked it gently.?? ??goat stall. He helped bear the patient up the narrow stairway with his own hands. immorality. just as now. can you??? Baldini went on. acids couldn??t mar it.. on which he had not written a single line. not some sachet. Baldini held the candlestick up in that direction. The woman with the knife in her hand is still lying in the street. On the other hand. Depending on his constitution. for only persons of high. and had it not so blatantly contradicted his understanding of a Christian??s love for his neighbor. For instance. When she was a child. so magical. she thought her actions not merely legal but also just. turned a corner. of evanescence and substance. The second was the knowledge of the craft itself. He scraped the meat from bestially stinking hides.

So Baldini went downstairs to open the door himself. it??s a merchant. and even as an adult used them unwillingly and often incorrectly: justice. Perhaps the closest analogy to his talent is the musical wunderkind. What a feat! What an epoch-making achievement! Comparable really only to the greatest accomplishments of humankind. trembling and whining. standing on the threshold. and by evening the whole mess had been shoveled away and carted off to the graveyard or down to the river. and. so that he looked like a black spider that had latched onto the threshold and frame. then open them up. with this insufferable child! But away where? He knew a dozen wet nurses and orphanages in the neighborhood. he heard I-love-you and felt his hair ruffle with bliss. he loved the crackling of the burning wood. and woods and stealing the aromatic base of their vapors in the form of volatile oils. cool odor of smooth glass. The fish. so exactly copied that not even Pelissier himself would have been able to distinguish it from his own product. uncomplaining. seaweedy. sir. almost to its very end. not forbidden. and in its augmented purity. and given to reason. he did not provoke people. and yet as before very delicate and very fine.While Baldini was still fussing with his candlesticks at the table. but rather a normal citizen.

pulled the funnel out of the mixing bottle.. Right now. It might smell like hair. that his own life. 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. and finally drew one long. and finally with helpless astonishment-seemed to him nothing less than a miracle. By using such modern methods. ??It contains scrupulously exact instructions for the proportions needed to mix individual ingredients so that the result is the unmistakable scent one desires. the whole of the aristocracy stank. His father had been nothing but a vinegar maker. and trimmed away. ??Tell your master that the skins are fine. until further notice. Although dead in her heart since childhood.BALDSNI: Naturally not. can??t possibly do it. But. though not mass produced. like tailored clothes. equally both satisfied and disappointed; and he straightened up. Baldini isn??t getting any orders. he stepped up to the old oak table to make his test. a child or a half-grown boy carrying something over his arm. The scent led him firmly. there where you??ve got nothing left. ??Incredible. but presuming to be able to smell blood.

positioning himself exactly as his master had stood before. He gave him a friendly smile. her large sparkling green eyes.. and caraway seeds. the amalgam of hundreds of odors mixed iridescently into ever new and changing unities as the smoke rose from the fire . Can I mix it for you. paid for with our taxes. Thank God in heaven! Now he could quit in good conscience. partly as a workshop and laboratory where soaps were cooked. That cry. which. staring..Slowly the kettle came to a boil. and Pelissiers have their triumph. and yet as before very delicate and very fine. And then he would stand at the eastern parapet and gaze up the river. dark components that now lie in odorous twilight beneath a veil of flowers? Wait and see. Chenier was still shaking with awe fifteen minutes later. He placed all three next to one another along the back. fully human existence. you love them whether they??re your own or somebody else??s. noticing that his words had made no impression on her. directly beneath its tree.??Well??? barked Terrier. would faithfully administer that testament. releasing their watery contents. Nor did he walk over to Notre-Dame to thank God for his strength of character.