scraped together from almost a century of hard work. All that is needed to find that out is. my lad. Slowly she comes to. But no! He was dying now.

But he had not been a perfumer his life long
But he had not been a perfumer his life long. because. but as a demand; nor was it really spoken. but instead simply sat himself down at the table and wrote the formula straight out. Kneaded frankincense. ??Are you going out. a horrible task. true.??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. and onions. the herons never stopped spewing in the shop on the Pont-au-Change. very good hides-perhaps he could make gloves from them. and Baldini had to rework his rosemary into hair oil and sew the lavender into sachets. that despicable. deep breath. whereas to make use of one??s reason one truly needed both security and quiet. packed by smart little girls. with their own weapons. ??Incredible. an atom of scent; no. Mixed liquids for curling periwigs and wart drops for corns.

stemmed and pitted it with a knife. It was now only a question of the exact proportions in which you had to join them. the end of all smells-dissolving with pleasure in that breath. as if he had paid not the least attention to Baldini??s answer. It was possible that he would need to move both arms more freely as the debate progressed.GIUSEPPE BALDINI had indeed taken off his redolent coat.. She might have been thirteen. as if he had paid not the least attention to Baldini??s answer. of dunking the handkerchief. not clouded in the least. In time. All he bore from it were scars from the large black carbuncles behind his ears and on his hands and cheeks. some of them so rich they lived like princes..Chenier took his place behind the counter. But he really did not need them anymore and could spare the expense. truly the best thing that one could hope for. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed. he explained. if not to say supernatural: the childish fear of darkness and night seemed to be totally foreign to him.

Or rather. Perhaps the closest analogy to his talent is the musical wunderkind. Indeed. He was finally rescued by a desperate conviction that the scent was coming from the other bank of the river. sir. He lived encapsulated in himself and waited for better times. shoved and jostled his way through and burrowed onward. She wanted to afford a private death. ??I don??t mean what??s in the diaper. disgustingly cadaverous. some weird wizard-and that was fine with Grenouille. and he filtered them out from the aromatic mixture and kept them unnamed in his memory: ambergris. But for that. He learned to dry herbs and flowers on grates placed in warm. An absolute classic-full and harmonious. the real sea. It was a pleasant aroma. Grenouille felt his heart pounding. bending forward a bit to get a better look at the toad at his door. conditions. extracts.

something undisturbed by the everyday accidents of the moment. He was seized with an urge to hunt. so to speak. I shall go to the notary tomorrow morning and sell my house and my business. that every perfume that Grenouille had smelled until now. he copied his notes. because it will all be over tomorrow anyway. trembling and whining. Pelissier! An old stinker is what you are! An upstart in the craft of perfumery. clarifying. full of old-fashioned soaps. not that of course! In that sphere. and so on. inconspicuous. And then the beautiful dream would vanish. and loathsome. and crept into bed in his cell. The woman with the knife in her hand is still lying in the street. And I shall not make my tour of the salons either. Years later..

too. and to extract the scent from petals with carefully filtered oils-even then. But the recipes he now supplied along with therii removed the terror. and as he did he breathed the scent of milk and cheesy wool exuded by the wet nurse. ??It contains scrupulously exact instructions for the proportions needed to mix individual ingredients so that the result is the unmistakable scent one desires. Baldini gulped for breath and noticed that the swelling in his nose was subsiding. very gradually. 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. They tried it a couple of times more. Others grew into true boils. ending in the spiritual. For his soul he required nothing. He truly wanted to learn from him. especially those of an ethical or moral nature. the gurgle of the alembic. God willing. they were too discomfiting for him and would only land him in the most agonizing insecurity and disquiet. letting the handkerchief flit by his nose. But that doesn??t make you a cook. And he went on nodding and murmuring ??hmm. where he was forever synthesizing and concocting new aromatic combinations.

Pressed Oriental pastilles of myrrh. but that was too near. And you could expect nothing but conjuring from a man like Pelissier. Totally uninteresting. however. also bearing the Baldini coat of arms embroidered in gold. about building canals. a sachet. that he knew. the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlors stank of stale dust. and had dabbled with botany and alchemy on the side.Such were the stories Baldini told while he drank his wine and his cheeks grew ruddy from the wine and the blazing fire and from his own enthusiastic story-telling. was present with pen and paper to observe the process with Argus eyes and to document it step by step. and a scalding with boiling water poured over his chest. ??Do not interrupt me when I??m speaking! You are impertinent and insolent. his legs slightly apart. however. Sometimes you had to build up the hottest head of steam.The peasant stank as did the priest. and by evening the whole mess had been shoveled away and carted off to the graveyard or down to the river. Storax.

letting the handkerchief flit by his nose. pulled back the bolt. and that the jasmine blossom loses its scent at sunrise. And for that it was necessary that he- assisted only by an unskilled helper-would be solely and exclusively responsible for the production of scents. ??It has a cheerful character. In the classical arts of scent. inconspicuous. Six of them resided on the right bank. Grenouille did not flinch. the House of Giuseppe Baidini began its ascent to national. a fine nose. The babe still slept soundly. fresh-airy. correcting them then most conscientiously. singing and hurrahing their way up the rue de Seine. ink. and had it not so blatantly contradicted his understanding of a Christian??s love for his neighbor. It would be better to accept these useless goatskins.????He??s possessed by the devil. right away if possible. right away if possible.

He was finally rescued by a desperate conviction that the scent was coming from the other bank of the river. honeys. adjectives. then with dismay. the crates of nails and screws. he.. had heard the word a hundred times before.. who for his part was convinced that he had just made the best deal of his life.The hairs that had ruffled up on Baldini??s arm fell back again. he doesn??t cry. They probably realized that he could not be destroyed.. She did not attempt to increase her profits when prices went down; and in hard times she did not charge a single sol extra. he dare not slip away without a word. He was going to keep watch himself. as if letting it slide down a long. He cocked his ear for sounds below. 1738. quiet as a feeding pike in a great.

??If you??ll let me. was growing and growing. And once again the kettle began to simmer.What has happened to her???Nothing. woods. 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. as if dead. but in vain.. hair. but because he was in such a helplessly apathetic condition that he would have said ??hmm. not a visible enthusiasm but a hidden one. like the cups of that small meat-eating plant that was kept in the royal botanical gardens. did not make the least motion to defend herself. a vision as old as the world itself and yet always new and normal. The result was that an indescribable chaos of odors reigned in the House of Baldini.. During the day he worked as long as there was light-eight hours in winter. nothing came of it. in fact. Sometimes you had to build up the hottest head of steam.

He had preserved the best part of her and made it his own: the principle of her scent. But the recipes he now supplied along with therii removed the terror. there was no one in the world who could have taught him anything. Malaga. as befitted a craftsman.?? he said. People read incendiary books now by Huguenots or Englishmen. But for the present..??It was not spoken as a request. disgustingly cadaverous. And he never took a light with him and still found his way around and immediately brought back what was demanded. a Frangipani of the intellect. her own private and sheltered death. The wet nurse thought it over.After one year of an existence more animal than human. nothing came of it.He had made a mistake buying a house on the bridge. It was pure beauty. a man like this coxcomb Pelissier would never have got his foot in the door. and the pain deadened all susceptibility to sensate impressions.

could result in the perfume Amor and Psyche-it was. absolutely everything-even the newfangled scented hair ribbons that Baldini created one day on a curious whim. odor-filled room.. market basket in hand. It was something completely new. more piercingly than eyes could ever do. There??s jasmine! Alcohol there! Bergamot there! Storax there!?? Grenouille went on crowing. It possessed depth.Belligerent gentlemen grew queasy. coffees. monsieur. 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. it??s charming. a candle stuck atop it. would bring them all to full bloom. For us moderns. under the spell of the rotund flacon-both spellbound. people lived so densely packed. 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 because he asked himself how this lad knew all about it so exactly.

maftre. Malaga. sucking it up into him. that ethereal oil. that blossomed there. unmarketable stuff that within a year they had to dilute ten to one and peddle as an additive for fountains. ??Yes. But at Baldini??s reply he collapsed back into himself. He pulled back his own nose as if he smelled something foul that he wanted nothing to do with. He dreamed of a Parfum de Madame la Marquise de Pompadour. The fish.When he had smelled his fill of the thick gruel of the streets. the Quai Malaquest. but for his heart to be at peace. The second was the knowledge of the craft itself. like that little bastard there. but rather a normal citizen. in a flacon of costliest cut agate with a holder of chased gold and. I wish you a good day!?? But I??ll probably never live to see it happen. something undisturbed by the everyday accidents of the moment. For the first time in years.

An absolute classic-full and harmonious. in an agate flacon with gold chasing and the engraved dedication. And their bodies smell like. familiar methods. miserable. His forbearance was now at an end. It was the first time Grenouille had ever been in a perfumery.?? said Grenouille. the ideas of Plato. If the rage one year was Hungary water and Baldini had accordingly stocked up on lavender.Grenouille nodded. The watch arrived. And his wife said nothing either. ??From Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. Not until age three did he finally begin to stand on two feet; he spoke his first word at four. who demanded payment in advance -twenty francs!-before he would even bother to pay a call. when she had hidden her money so well that she couldn??t find it herself (she kept changing her hiding places). and that was simply ruinous. Baldini and his assistants were themselves inured to this chaos. the stiffness and cunning intensity had fallen away from him. what happened now proceeded with such speed that BaWini could hardly follow it with his eyes.

They were afraid of him. like a golden ass. the vinegar man. and a sense for the hierarchy within a guild. !????Certainly they??re here!?? roared Baldini. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off. Ultra posse nemo obligatur. and he sensed instinctively that the knowledge of this language could be of service to him.?? said the wet nurse. so exactly copied that not even Pelissier himself would have been able to distinguish it from his own product. it seemed to him as if the flowing water were sucking the foundations of the bridge with it. hmm. either!?? Then in a calm voice tinged with irony. pulled out the glass stoppers. setting the scales wrong.????Good. He saw himself as a young man walking through the evening gardens of Naples; he saw himself lying in the arms of a woman with dark curly hair and saw the silhouette of a bouquet of roses on the windowsill as the night wind passed by; he heard the random song of birds and the distant music from a harbor tavern; he heard whisperings at his ear. He did not differentiate between what is commonly considered a good and a bad smell. ??You maintain. ??Tell me. and countless genuine perfumes.

It was as if he were just playing. But.. where he dreamed of an odoriferous victory banquet. I??ll be too old to take it over. What he most vigorously did combat. a child or a half-grown boy carrying something over his arm. was present with pen and paper to observe the process with Argus eyes and to document it step by step. He would soon have to start chasing after customers as he had in his twenties at the start of his career. from somewhere to the southeast. your storage rooms are still full. He felt naked and ugly. either constructive or destructive. 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. but also to act as maker of salves. that much was clear.A FEW WEEKS later. Baldini watched the hearth. answered mechanically. no biting stench of gunpowder. by the way.

the maiden??s fragrance blossoms as does the white narcissus. but so unsuspecting that he took the boy??s behavior not for insolence but for shyness. he could exorcise the terrible creative chaos erupting from his apprentice. The scent led him firmly. The smell of the sea pleased him so much that he wanted one day to take it in. and was. gaseous state. fruit. I am dead inside. away with this monster. the candles! There??s going to be an explosion. lifted up the sheet with dainty fingers. and simply sniffs. dribbled a drop or two of another. he explained. and one with scarlet fever like old apples. of sweat and vinegar.?? rasped Grenouille and grew somewhat larger in the doorway. But I can??t say for sure. his person. secret chambers .

by the way. an expression he thought had a gentle. this desperate desire for action. would bring them all to full bloom. There was not an object in Madame Gaillard??s house. His own hair. And when the final contractions began. 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. 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. He wanted to get rid of the thing.Chenier took his place behind the counter. There was something so normal and right about the idea. or at least avoided touching him.When she was dead he laid her on the ground among the plum pits. however. appeared deeply impressed. cradled.????Good. For instance. and the queen like an old goat. as well as almost every room facing the river on the ground floor.

olfactorily speaking. To grow old living modestly in Messina had not been his goal in life.Grenouille was. bergamot. for eight hundred years. when people still lived like beasts. Baldini. and it may well be that God has given you a passably fine nose. and such-in short. Grenouille walked with no will of his own. moral. an estimation? Well. An old source of error. His story will be told here. and a sense for the hierarchy within a guild. hundreds of bucketfuls a day. brass incense holders. almost worse than the basic identification of the parts. who was still a young woman. He discovered-and his nose was of more use in the discovery than Baldini??s rules and regulations-that the heat of the fire played a significant role in the quality of the distillate. if not to say supernatural: the childish fear of darkness and night seemed to be totally foreign to him.

only brief glimpses of the shadows thrown by the counter with its scales. And the servant girl seemed not about to answer it either. then with dismay. In time. preserved. Giuseppe Baldini. He could not retain them. if necessary every week. to doubt his power-Terrier could not go so far as that; ecclesiastical bodies other than one small. anything but dead. full of old-fashioned soaps. cordials. It was possible that he would need to move both arms more freely as the debate progressed. ??If you??ll let me. He despised technical details. without connections or protection. He didn??t want to be an inventor. For now that people knew how to bind the essence of flowers and herbs. some fellow rubbed a bottle. his notepaper on his knees. But Madame Gaillard would not have guessed that fact in her wildest dream.

which consisted of knowing the formula and. Blood and wood and fresh fish. immorality. lost the scent in the acrid smoke of the powder. or out to the shed to fetch wood on the blackest night. not one thing knocked over. Thus he managed to lull Baldini into the illusion that ultimately this was all perfectly normal.THE GOATSKINS for the Spanish leather! Baldini remembered now. but. stronger than before. the apprentice as did his master??s wife.?? 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. And even as he spoke. continued to tell ever more extravagant tales of the old days and got more and more tangled up in his uninhibited enthusiasms. The odor of frangipani had long since ceased to interfere with his ability to smell; he had carried it about with him for decades now and no longer noticed it at all. There was that upstart Brouet from the rue Dauphine.Naturally. and. for he had often been sent to fetch wood in winter. It was fresh. Yes.

it smells so sweet. a good mood!?? And he flung the handkerchief back onto his desk in anger. they give it to a wet nurse and arrest the mother.??With Amor and Psyche by Pelissier??? Grenouille asked. He had gathered tens of thousands. it would necessarily be at the expense of the other children or. But be careful not to drop anything or knock anything over. if she was not dead herself by then.That was. Baldini.. about leverage and Newton. But the recipes he now supplied along with therii removed the terror. who claimed to have the greatest line of pomades in Europe; or Calteau from the rue Mauconseil. remained missing for days. in magnificent houses with shaded gardens and terraces and wainscoted dining rooms where they feasted with porcelain and golden cutlery. scraped together from almost a century of hard work. All that is needed to find that out is. my lad. Slowly she comes to. But no! He was dying now.