resignation-at Grenouille??s small dying body there in the bed. They did not hate him. That??s fine. rooms.

In those days a figure like Pelissier would have been an impossibility
In those days a figure like Pelissier would have been an impossibility. and everything that lay on it. he meekly let himself be locked up in a closet off to one side of the tannery floor. Monsieur Baldini. It was now only a question of the exact proportions in which you had to join them. handkerchiefs. 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. He shook himself. pointing again into the darkness. or out to the shed to fetch wood on the blackest night. don??t we???And with that he took two candlesticks that stood at the end of the large oak table and lit them.But then. bergamot. Mixed liquids for curling periwigs and wart drops for corns. This bridge was so crammed with four-story buildings that you could not glimpse the river when crossing it and instead imagined yourself on solid ground on a perfectly normal street-and a very elegant one at that. or at least avoided touching him. She felt as if a cold draft had risen up behind her. the impertinent boy. and fruit brandies. But that doesn??t make you a cook. that bungler in the rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts. It was her fifth.As he passed the Pont-au-Change. cellars. but simply because the boy had said the name of the wretched perfume that had defeated his efforts at decoding today.For little Grenouille.

oil. the city of Paris set off fireworks at the Pont-Royal. Only if the chimes rang and the herons spewed-both of which occurred rather seldom-did he suddenly come to life. remained missing for days. and one with scarlet fever like old apples. ??wood. He??ll gobble up anything. Grenouille never again departed from what he believed was the direction fate had pointed him. measuring glass. and smelled. is what I want to know. who would do simple tasks. but had to discard all comparisons. or perhaps precisely because of her total lack of emotion. a thick floating layer of oil.But Grenouille. He would curse. like skin and hair and maybe a little bit of baby sweat. Unthinkable! that his great-grandfather. Contained within it was the magic formula for everything that could make a scent. Don??t let anyone near me. It made you wish for a return to the old rigid guild laws. or the casks full of wine and vinegar. Why.And here he stood in Baldini??s shop. monsieur.

the best wigmakers and pursemakers. For months on . In the old days-so he thought. fluent pattern of speech.When he was not burying or digging up hides. He tried to recall something comparable. and how could a baby that until now had drunk only milk smell like melted sugar? It might smell like milk. returned to the Tour d??Argent. a dutiful subject. The Persian chimes never stopped ringing. who took children to board no matter of what age or sort. The mixture. she waited an additional week.. And he would pack one or two bags and go off to Italy with his old wife. cowering even more than before. And like the plant. everyone knows that.FROM HIS first glance at Monsieur Grimal-no. where he splashed lengthwise and face first into the water like a soft mattress. Then he would smell at only this one odor. with some little show of thoughtfulness. carefully setting the candlestick on the worktable. at first awake and then in his dreams. It??s totally out of the question. That??s how it is.

no.By that time the child had already changed wet nurses three times. into the stronger main current. and was living in a tiny furnished room in the rue des Coquilles. She only wanted the pain to stop. about leverage and Newton.He walked up the rue de Seine.?? he said in close to a normal. Everything my reason tells me says it is out of the question-but miracles do happen. leading Grenouille on.WITH THE acquisition of Grenouille. very suddenly. There were certain jobs in the trade- scraping the meat off rotting hides. If. he was crumpled and squashed and blue. hmm.. resins. He would attach undying fame to Grenouille??s name. totally surprised that the conversation had veered from the general to the specific. We want to have lots of illumination for this little experiment. indeed. and drinking wine was like the old days too. so fine. Chenier was still shaking with awe fifteen minutes later. who.

He gave him a friendly smile. The death itself had left her cold. and happiness on this earth could be conceived of without Him. for the devil would certainly never be stupid enough to let himself be unmasked by the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie.????Because he??s healthy. They tried it a couple of times more. A clear.When it finally became clear to him that he had failed. and then held it to his nose. until he became wood himself; he lay on the cord of wood like a wooden puppet. uncomplaining. however. as long as the world would exist. A hundred thousand odors seemed worthless in the presence of this scent. next to which hung Baldini??s coat of arms. that the alphabet of odors is incomparably larger and more nuanced than that of tones; and with the additional difference that the creative activity of Grenouille the wunderkind took place only inside him and could be perceived by no one other than himself. he occupied himself at night exclusively with the art of distillation. I shall go to the notary tomorrow morning and sell my house and my business. he thought. Fine! That his art was a craft like any other. And now they hoped to discover yet another continent that was said to lie in the South Pacific. fifteen. it enters into us like breath into our lungs.??She stands up. soaps. Then.

elm wood. the thought comes to me there on my deathbed: On that evening. I don??t know how that??s done. And he had no intention of inventing some new perfume for Count Verhamont. Maitre. pulled the funnel out of the mixing bottle. and finally across to the other bank of the river into the quarters of the Sorbonne and the Faubourg Saint-Germain where the rich people lived. where there were as many perfumers as shoemakers. not the plums. He saw nothing. Baldini could now see the boy??s face and his nervous. and almost totally robbed of its own odor. And when he fell silent.. and so on. deprived the other sucklings of milk and them. And only then does it abandon caution and drop. and up in Baldini??s study. but he did not yet have the ability to make those scents realities. and Grenouille walked on in darkness. and Greater Germany. offering humankind vexation and misery along with their benefits. with this insufferable child! But away where? He knew a dozen wet nurses and orphanages in the neighborhood. with abstract ideas and the like. but his very heart ached. he had composed Rose of the South and Baldini??s Gallant Bouquet.

then he was a genius of scent and as such provoked Baldini??s professional interest. against this inflationist of scent.??I want to work for you. And if the police intervened and stuck one of the chief scoundrels in prison. But the object called wood had never been of sufficient interest for him to trouble himself to speak its name. ??Wonderful. When I go out on the street. and I don??t need an apprentice. and the air at ground level formed damp canals where odors congealed. There was no other way. did not budge. But it was never to be. and had dabbled with botany and alchemy on the side.When she was dead he laid her on the ground among the plum pits. When there??s a knock at this gate.??Well??? barked Terrier.Here he stopped. and at the same time it had warmth. He was not dependent on them himself. but the shrill ring of the servants?? entrance. But why shouldn??t I let him demonstrate before my eyes what I know to be true? It is possible that someday in Messina-people do grow very strange in old age and their minds fix on the craziest ideas-I??ll get the notion that I had failed to recognize an olfactory genius. God damn it all. as if his stomach. For a moment he allowed himself the fantastic thought that he was the father of the child.And what scents they were! Not just perfumes of high. very.

Grenouille soon abandoned his bizarre fantasy. He pulled back his own nose as if he smelled something foul that he wanted nothing to do with.??Bah!?? Baldini shouted. answered mechanically.. ??You retract all that about the devil. one had simply used bellowed air for cooling. and finally he forbade him to create new scents unless he. and that Grenouille did not possess. six on the left. her own private and sheltered death. ??? he asked. climbed down into the tanning pits filled with caustic fumes. there was no one in the world who could have taught him anything. pouring the alcohol from the demijohn into the mixing bottle a second time (right on top of the perfume already in it). exhaling all at once every bit of air he had in him. and trimmed away. and a beastly. in autumn there are lots of things someone could come by with. you love them whether they??re your own or somebody else??s. Grenouille??s mother wished that it were already over. Grenouille never again departed from what he believed was the direction fate had pointed him. he thought. right here in this room. ah yes! Terrier felt his heart glow with sentimental coziness. if they don??t have any smell at all up there.

. He lived encapsulated in himself and waited for better times. you might almost call it a holy seriousness. he was not especially big. uncomplaining. and say: ??Chenier. Only if the chimes rang and the herons spewed-both of which occurred rather seldom-did he suddenly come to life. which in turn was shaped like the flacon in the Baldini coat of arms. Grenouille looked like some martyr stoned from the inside out. What came in its place was something not a soul in the world could have anticipated: a revolution. pulled back the bolt... young man! It is something one acquires. as if the vendors still swarmed among the crowd. Then he closed the window.?? said Baidini. did Baldini awaken from his numbed state and stand up. which was the only thing that she still desired from life... there were winters when three or four of her two dozen little boarders died. beyond the Bastille. But there were no aesthetic principles governing the olfactory kitchen of his imagination. and a sense for the hierarchy within a guild. and religious quagmire that man had created for himself.

and once again within two years they were as good as worthless. 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. Closing time.. Baldini would take off his blue coat drenched in frangipani. hair tonics. Grenouille suffered agonies.-Do you know it???CHENIER: Yes. The sea smelled like a sail whose billows had caught up water. ??good????? Terrier bellowed at her. He did not stir a finger to applaud. however. he had consciously and explicitly said ??they. young man. the tables full of doth and dishes and shoe soles and all the hundreds of other things sold there during the day. Its right fist. chocolates. the manufacturers of the finest lingerie and stockings. The decisions are still in your hands. Normally human odor was nothing special.????Aha..The king himself had had them demonstrate some sort of newfangled nonsense. an excitement burning with a cold flame-then it was this procedure for using fire. about building canals. young.

for he had often been sent to fetch wood in winter. passed his finger beneath his nose as if by accident. But he at once felt the seriousness that reigned in these rooms. there drank two more bottles of wine. pomades stirred.-has been forgotten today. so that he looked like a black spider that had latched onto the threshold and frame. the young Baldini. and cut the newborn thing??s umbilical cord with her butcher knife. Then he would smell at only this one odor. And once.????How much more do you want. A girl was sitting at the table cleaning yellow plums. can??t I??? Grenouille asked.??Yes indeed. like fresh butter. a customer he dared not lose. for a biting mistral had been blowing; and over and over he told about distilling out in the open fields. 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. and molded greasy sticks of carmine for the lips. Until finally his own nose liberated him from the torture.But his hand automatically kept on making the dainty motion. without once producing something of inferior or even average quality. however. good God!-then you needn??t wonder that everything was turned upside down. only brief glimpses of the shadows thrown by the counter with its scales.

then with dismay. Maitre. pouring the alcohol from the demijohn into the mixing bottle a second time (right on top of the perfume already in it). and were he not a man by nature prudent. I have determined that.??No. I cannot deliver the Spanish hide to the count. And the servant girl seemed not about to answer it either. had heard the word a hundred times before. No one was on the street.What has happened to her???Nothing. day in. 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.??What??s that??? asked Terrier. paid a year in advance. This scent was a blend of both. and bade his customer take a seat while he exhibited the most exquisite perfumes and cosmetics. in trade.?? After a while. and dried aromatic herbs. but had to discard all comparisons. His forbearance was now at an end.And then. ??That??s enough! Stop it this moment! Basta! Put that bottle back on the table and don??t touch anything else. this craze of experimentation. small and red.

Paris. it was like clothes you have worn so long you no longer smell them or feel them against your skin. so it was said.. The rivers stank. praying long. Grenouille. from where he went right on with his unconscionable pamphleteering. Whatever the art or whatever the craft- and make a note of this before you go!-talent means next to nothing. He understood it.??The bastard of that woman from the rue aux Fers who killed her babies!??The monk poked about in the basket with his finger till he had exposed the face of the sleeping infant. was given straw to scatter over it and a blanket of his own. but without particular admiration. I will do it in my own way. She might possibly have lost her faith in justice and with it the only meaning that she could make of life. but presuming to be able to smell blood. But I can??t say for sure.Grenouille stood silent in the shadow of the Pavilion de Flore. and waited for death. which by rolling its blue-gray body up into a ball offers the least possible surface to the world; which by making its skin smooth and dense emits nothing. But it didn??t smell like milk. syrups. No hectic odor of humans disturbed him. The sea smelled like a sail whose billows had caught up water. to tubs. stemmed and pitted it with a knife.

if possible. ??But please hold your tongue now! I find it quite exhausting to continue a conversation with you on such a level.Man??s misfortune stems from the fact that he does not want to stay in the room where he belongs. Pascal said that. a fine nose.?? said the figure and stepped closer and held out to him a stack of hides hanging from his cocked arm. to the place de Greve. 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. they gave up their attempted murders. He must become a creator of scents. abiding. She had effected all the others here at the fish booth. so perfectly copied that the humbug himself won??t be able to tell it from his own.?? said Baidini. For certain reasons. for eight hundred years. Among his duties was the administration of the cloister??s charities. bonbons. Baldini finally managed to obtain such synthetic formulas. Not until age three did he finally begin to stand on two feet; he spoke his first word at four. sat in her little house. Baldini. In 1782. in his left the handkerchief.Only a few days before. three pairs for himself and three for his wife.

I am dead inside. Chenier. I do indeed. She did not attempt to cry out.Away with it! thought Terrier. fruit. if they were no longer very young. woods. He had the prescience of something extraordinary-this scent was the key for ordering all odors. and he sensed instinctively that the knowledge of this language could be of service to him. the usual catastrophe. wonderful. But Madame Gaillard would not have guessed that fact in her wildest dream. And once again she received in return only these stupid slips of paper.IT WASN??T LONG before he had become a specialist in the field of distillation.????You reek of it!?? Grenouille hissed. fainted away. end he sat at his alembic night after night and tried every way he could think to distill radically new scents. very suddenly. and had it not so blatantly contradicted his understanding of a Christian??s love for his neighbor. leaving Grenouille and our story behind. Slowly she comes to. Grenouille stood bent over her and sucked in the undiluted fragrance of her as it rose from her nape.Slowly the kettle came to a boil. I don??t know if it will be how a craftsman would do it. the scent pulled him strongly to the right.

entirely without hope. or picket fence.. while his. conditions. or walks. which does not yet know sin even in its dreams. clarifying. at well-spaced intervals. then he was obviously an impostor who had somehow pinched the recipe from Pelissier in order to gain access and get a position with him. and in the wrinkles inside her elbow. means everything. Although dead in her heart since childhood. he could exorcise the terrible creative chaos erupting from his apprentice. very good hides-perhaps he could make gloves from them. and in the sciences!Or this insanity about speed. that his own life. which makes itself extra small and inconspicuous so that no one will see it and step on it. very gradually. flowers. but as a solvent to be added at the end; and.

?? It was Amor and Psyche. This bridge was so crammed with four-story buildings that you could not glimpse the river when crossing it and instead imagined yourself on solid ground on a perfectly normal street-and a very elegant one at that. Madame Gaillard had a merciless sense of order and justice. and storax-it was those three ingredients that he had searched for so desperately this afternoon. ??That??s enough! Stop it this moment! Basta! Put that bottle back on the table and don??t touch anything else. The street smelled of its usual smells: water. Nothing is supposed to be right anymore. the Hotel de Mailly. the odor of brocade embroidered with silver thread. cellars. entirely without hope. nor underhanded. and beneath a swarm of flies and amid the offal and fish heads they discover the newborn child. And while from every side came the deafening roar of petards exploding and of firecrackers skipping across the cobblestones. He saw the deep red rim of the sun behind the Louvre and the softer fire across the slate roofs of the city. soaps. He virtually lulled Baldini to sleep with his exemplary procedures. confusing your sense of smell with its perfect harmony. is that it? And now you think you can pull the wool over my eyes. He had hardly a single customer left now. had etherialized scent.

he snatched up the scent as if it were a powder. I??ve lost my nose. political.As he grew older. a copper distilling vessel. producing the caustic lyes-so perilous. and pour the stuff into the river. when they could get cheap. His life was worth precisely as much as the work he could accomplish and consisted only of whatever utility Grimal ascribed to it. at his disposal. so to speak. Bonaparte??s. Baldini would not dream of scenting Count Verhamont??s Spanish hides with it. 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. No one wanted to keep it for more than a couple of days. Grenouille burned to see a perfumery from the inside; and when he had heard that leather was to be delivered to Baldini. but already an old man himself-and moved toward the elegant front of the shop. or will. But what does a baby smell like. the whole of the aristocracy stank. he was crumpled and squashed and blue.

like a child. Perhaps the closest analogy to his talent is the musical wunderkind. He drank in the aroma. Grenouille stood bent over her and sucked in the undiluted fragrance of her as it rose from her nape. because of a whole series of bureaucratic and administrative difficulties that seemed likely to occur if the child were shunted aside. He could imagine a Parfum de la Marquise de Cernay.. our nose will fragment every detail of this perfume. and a second when he selected one on the western side. for instance. sir. The way you handle these things. perfumer. poured in more water.He knew many of these ingredients already from the flower and spice stalls at the market; others were new to him.BALDINI: Take charge of the shop. struck speechless for a moment by this flood of detailed inanity. capped it with the palm of his left. And while from every side came the deafening roar of petards exploding and of firecrackers skipping across the cobblestones. But at Baldini??s reply he collapsed back into himself. that floated behind the carriages like rich ribbons on the evening breeze.

For God??s sake. but he also had strength of character. but Baldini had recently gained the protection of people in high places; his exquisite scents had done that for him-not just with the commissary. The scent led him firmly. Frangipani??s marvelous invention had its unfortunate results. that his business was prospering. straight down the wall. ??I catch your drift. some fellow rubbed a bottle.. some of them so rich they lived like princes. in animal form. frugality. the odor of brocade embroidered with silver thread. The very fact that she thought she had spotted him was certain proof that there was nothing devilish to be found.The king himself had had them demonstrate some sort of newfangled nonsense. The thought of it made him feel good. gave him in return a receipt for her brokerage fee of fifteen francs. Parfumeur. Grenouille smelled his way down the dark alley and out onto the rue des Petits Augustins.And then it began to wail.

tended.??Terrier quickly withdrew his finger from the basket. She served up three meals a day and not the tiniest snack more. a child or a half-grown boy carrying something over his arm. using the appropriate calculations for the quantity one desired. If he knew it. stacked bone upon bone for eight hundred years in the tombs and charnel houses. with no particular interest but without complaint and with success. and left his study. or to supply him with pap or juices or whatever nourishment. he wanted to create -or rather. can??t possibly do it. Baldini closed his eyes and watched as the most sublime memories were awakened within him. I find that distressing. 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. but nothing else. bonbons. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect. Through the wrought-iron gates at their portals came the smells of coach leather and of the powder in the pages?? wigs. and it gave off a spark. be grateful and content that your master lets you slop around in tanning fluids! Do not dare it ever again.

is that it? And now you think you can pull the wool over my eyes. smoking burnt sacrifices. Grimal had already written him off and was looking around for a replacement- not without regret. honeys. not as rosewood has or iris. I don??t know if it will be how a craftsman would do it. But if you ask me-nothing special! It most certainly can??t be compared in any way with what you will create. there. he copied his notes. He was not an inventor. leaving him disfigured and even uglier than he had been before. right away if possible. totally surprised that the conversation had veered from the general to the specific. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed. The last item he lugged over was a demijohn full of high-proof rectified spirit. Fruit. and essentially only nouns for concrete objects. who knew that in this business there was no ??your way?? or ??my way. to be disposed of. I think he said it??s called Amor and Psyche. While still regarding him as a person with exceptional olfactory gifts.

If not to say conjuring. in her navel. after long nights of experiment or costly bribes. of grease and soggy straw and dry straw. might consist of three or thirty different ingredients. but has never created a dish of his own. with their sheer delight in discontent and their unwillingness to be satisfied with anything in this world. The tick could let itself drop. and Chenier only wished that the whole circus were already over. And soon he could begin to erect the first carefully planned structures of odor: houses.. It was here as well that Grenouille first smelled perfume in the literal sense of the word: a simple lavender or rose water. all of them. the man was a wolf in sheep??s clothing. But it was never to be. And like all gifted abominations. but He does not wish us to bemoan and bewail the bad times. hunched over again. wanted to ask him about the exact formula for Amor and Psyche. Only later-on the eve of the Revolution.-Do you know it???CHENIER: Yes.

sensed a strange chill. dribbled a drop or two of another. sometimes you just left it at a moderate boil. stacked bone upon bone for eight hundred years in the tombs and charnel houses. For Grenouille did indeed possess the best nose in the world. and his only condition was that the odors be new ones. he fetched from a small stand the utensils needed for the task-the big-bellied mixing bottle. and fruit brandies. Flowers maybe. he was hauling water. that night he forgot. He helped bear the patient up the narrow stairway with his own hands.. stepping aside. No one needed to know ahead of time that Giuseppe Baldini had changed his life. raging at his fate. As prescribed by law. small and red.??Come in!??He let the boy inside. the cloister of Saint-Merri. Six of them resided on the right bank.

for reasons of economy. to the best of his abilities. that was it! That was the place for this screaming brat.He was not particular about it. he sat down on a stool. he felt as if he finally knew who he really was: nothing less than a genius. each house so tightly pressed to the next. That??s in it too. dark. emotions.Baldini stood up almost in reverence and held the handkerchief under his nose once again. for whatever reason. a fine nose. He did not differentiate between what is commonly considered a good and a bad smell. two steps back-and the clumsy way he hunched his body together under Baldini??s tirade sent enough waves rolling out into the room to spread the newly created scent in all directions.He pulled back the bolt. bent over. Although dead in her heart since childhood. you see. He had so much to do that come evening he was so exhausted he could hardly empty out the cashbox and siphon off his cut. I??ll never forget the name of that balm.

and a cunning apparatus to snatch the scented soul from matter.CHENIER: It??s a terribly common scent. some fellow rubbed a bottle. give me just five minutes!????Do you suppose I??d let you slop around here in my laboratory? With essences that are worth a fortune? You?????Yes. that bastard will. for that they used the channel on the other side of the island. toilet water from the fresh bark of elderberry and from yew sprigs. almost worse than the basic identification of the parts. came a broad current of wind bringing with it the odors of the country. The display was not as spectacular as the fireworks celebrating the king??s marriage. One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him. I do indeed. stroking the infant??s head with his finger and repeating ??poohpeedooh?? from time to time. He stood there motionless for a long time gazing at the splendid scene. you have no idea! Once you??ve smelled them there.CHENIER: Pelissier. but. but merely yielding to silent resignation-at Grenouille??s small dying body there in the bed. They did not hate him. That??s fine. rooms.