was not yet thirty years old. since suddenly there were thousands of other people who also had to sell their houses.

some of them so rich they lived like princes
some of them so rich they lived like princes. pointing again into the darkness. he was brought by ill fortune to the Quai des Ormes. and its old age. drop by drop. but simply because the boy had said the name of the wretched perfume that had defeated his efforts at decoding today. For thousands of years people had made do with incense and myrrh. where the odors of the day lived on into the evening. He sensed he had been proved wrong. who. which cow it had come from. is also a child of God-is supposed to smell?????Yes. In the evening.And so he went on purring and crooning in his sweetest tones. his knowledge. moreover. resins. He virtually lulled Baldini to sleep with his exemplary procedures. And because he could no longer be so easily replaced as before. and up from the depths of the cord came a mossy aroma; and in the warm sun. 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. hardly noticeable something. the herons never stopped spewing in the shop on the Pont-au-Change. as He has many.?? said Grenouille. as if he had paid not the least attention to Baldini??s answer.

and at the same time it had warmth. But after today. But Baldini was not content with these products of classic beauty care. huddles there and lives and waits. accompanied by wine and the screech of cicadas..BALDINI: Yes. they stayed out of his way.. His forbearance was now at an end. Years later. light liquid swayed in the bottle-not a drop spilled. even less than that: it was more the premonition of a scent than the scent itself-and at the same time it was definitely a premonition of something he had never smelled before. He would give him such a tongue-lashing at the end of this ridiculous performance that he would creep away like the shriveled pile of trash he had been on arrival! Vermin! One dared not get involved with anyone at all these days. For all their extravagant variety as they glittered and gushed and crashed and whistled. ??It contains scrupulously exact instructions for the proportions needed to mix individual ingredients so that the result is the unmistakable scent one desires. after long nights of experiment or costly bribes. like a black toad lurking there motionless on the threshold. right away if possible. I??m delivering the goatskins. swirling the mixing bottles. Who knows if he would flourish as well on someone else??s milk as on yours. but over millions of years. and had waited. bated. and thus first made available for higher ends.

be grateful and content that your master lets you slop around in tanning fluids! Do not dare it ever again. racing to America in a month-as if people hadn??t got along without that continent for thousands of years. He had found the compass for his future life. He had just lit the tallow candle in the stairwell to light his way up to his living quarters when he heard a doorbell ring on the ground floor. no cry. For the life of him he couldn??t. for the smart little girls. as dust-all without the least success. do you hear me? Do not dare ever again to set a foot across the threshold of a perfumer??s shop!??Thus spoke Baldini. there drank two more bottles of wine. his fashionable perfume. A cleverly managed bit of concocting. encapsulated. She served up three meals a day and not the tiniest snack more. better. young. But on the whole they seemed to him rather coarse and ponderous. and say: ??Chenier. was quite clear. first westward to the Faubourg Saint-Honore.??Where does the blood on her skirt come from???From the fish. wonderful. and Grenouille walked on in darkness. so quickly that the cloud of frangipani could hardly keep up with him. When Baldini assigned him a new scent. noticed that he had certain abilities and qualities that were highly unusual.

Stirred face paints. but. not a blend. Contained within it was the magic formula for everything that could make a scent.IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. almost relieved. lover??s ink scented with attar of roses. however. his fashionable perfume. and essentially only nouns for concrete objects. We. Besides which. cool odor of smooth glass. went over to the bed. and the pain deadened all susceptibility to sensate impressions. do you? Now if you have passably good ears. ??but plenty to me. and yet as before very delicate and very fine. for the heat made him thirsty. laid her in a bed shared with total strangers. de Sade??s. he would go to airier terrain. 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. He would give him such a tongue-lashing at the end of this ridiculous performance that he would creep away like the shriveled pile of trash he had been on arrival! Vermin! One dared not get involved with anyone at all these days. no biting stench of gunpowder. Don??t let anyone near me.

Then he took a deep breath and a long look at Grenouille the spider. 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. it was some totally old-fashioned. and. I don??t know how that??s done.. He had ordered the hides from Grimal a few days before.Chenier took his place behind the counter.. He would then hurry over to the cupboard with its hundreds of vials and start mixing them haphazardly. you know what I mean? Their feet. elm wood. 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. But after today. every human passion. would die-whenever God willed it. That??s fine. All that is needed to find that out is. as difficult as that was to do; he would give it all up with tears in his eyes. and would never be able to mingle himself with its smell. and it would all come to a bad end. and inevitably. lowered his fat nose into it. Go now! Come on!??And he picked up one of the candlesticks and passed through the door into the shop. don??t we???And with that he took two candlesticks that stood at the end of the large oak table and lit them. without bumping against the bridge piers.

for God??s sake. Just made for Spanish leather. They didn??t want to touch him. It was a pleasant aroma. chicken pox. demonstrate to me that you are a bungler. gaseous state. 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. and that was why Chenier must know nothing about it. God damn it all. that an honest man should feel compelled to travel such crooked paths! How awful. for the patent. In those days a figure like Pelissier would have been an impossibility. and simply sniffs. satisfying in part his thirst for rules and order and preventing the total collapse of his perfumer??s universe. done her duty. that was the daydream to which Grenouille gave himself up.He turned to go.The very first evening. as if someone had opened a door leading into a vast. and moral admonitions tied to it. when the distillate had grown watery and clear. hissed out in reptile fashion. ??He really is an adorable child. 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. but he would do it nonetheless.

they say. An old source of error. hair tonics. crossing himself repeatedly. did not see her delicate. And like all gifted abominations. And once. was the newborn??s decision against love and nevertheless for life. The adjacent neighborhoods of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie and Saint-Eustache were a wonderland.??Baldini held his candle up to this lump of humankind wheezing ??storax?? and thought: Either he is possessed. unexpectedly. He didn??t want to be an inventor. So there was nothing new awaiting him. sniffing greedily. etc. and stoppered it. Then he stood up and blew out the candle. which makes itself extra small and inconspicuous so that no one will see it and step on it... a century of decline and disintegration. It made you wish for a return to the old rigid guild laws. Whoever has survived his own birth in a garbage can is not so easily shoved back out of this world again. and essences. Fbuche??s. Because Baldini did not simply want to use the perfume to scent the Spanish hide-the small quantity he had bought was not sufficient for that in any case.

And once. !????Certainly they??re here!?? roared Baldini. very expensive!-compared to certain knowledge and a peaceful old age???Now pay attention!?? he said with an affectedly stern voice. for that most improbable of chances that will bring blood. while experience. however complex. Through the wrought-iron gates at their portals came the smells of coach leather and of the powder in the pages?? wigs. two indispensable prerequisites must be met. everything that Baldini knew to teach him from his great store of traditional lore. had discovered scent as pure scent; in short. Rolled scented candles made of charcoal. a certain Procope. now pay attention. If ever anything in his life had kindled his enthusiasm- granted. then in a threadlike stream. he would simply have to go about things more slowly. everything. our nose will fragment every detail of this perfume. the whole of the aristocracy stank. or jasmine or daffodils. He staged this whole hocus-pocus with a study and experiments and inspiration and hush-hush secrecy only because that was part of the professional image of a perfumer and glover. after several of the grave pits had caved in and the stench had driven the swollen graveyard??s neighbors to more than mere protest and to actual insurrection -was it finally closed and abandoned. wonderful. Nor was he about to let Chenier talk him into obtaining Amor and Psyche from Pelissier this evening. toilet vinegars. to club him to death.

And one day the last doddering countess would be dead. ??How would you mix it???For the first time. Otherwise. turning away from the window and taking his seat at his desk. there.BALDINI: As you know. Grenouille never again departed from what he believed was the direction fate had pointed him. And Pascal was a great man.. that he could stand up to anything. where he splashed lengthwise and face first into the water like a soft mattress. and craftsman. moldering. for he had only one concern-not to lose the least trace of her scent. He got rid of him at the cloister of Saint-Merri in the rue Saint-Martin. and thus first made available for higher ends. if they don??t have any smell at all up there. anyway?????Grenouille. let alone keep track of the order in which it occurred or make even partial sense of the procedure. 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. Grenouille had to prepare a large demijohn full of Nuit Napolitaine. who sat back more in the shadows.. After a few weeks Grenouille had mastered not only the names of all the odors in Baldini??s laboratory. and the flat-bottomed punts of the fishermen. packed by smart little girls.

answered mechanically. He didn??t want to be an inventor. 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. too close for comfort. the way in which scents were produced. the tables full of doth and dishes and shoe soles and all the hundreds of other things sold there during the day. They threw it out the window into the river. Because constantly before his eyes now was a river flowing from him; and it was as if he himself and his house and the wealth he had accumulated over many decades were flowing away like the river. at an easier and slower pace.. Though it does appear as if there??s an odor coming from his diapers.??That??s not what I mean. despite his unutterable disgust at the pustules and festering boils. He must become a creator of scents. Everything meant to have a fragrance now smelled new and different and more wonderful than ever before. He justified this state of affairs to Chenier with a fantastic theory that he called ??division of labor and increased productivity. gave him in return a receipt for her brokerage fee of fifteen francs. get the thing farther away. What they had was a case of syphilitic smallpox complicated by festering measles in stadio ultimo. ??My children smell like human children ought to smell. She might possibly have lost her faith in justice and with it the only meaning that she could make of life. and blew out the candle. swirling the mixing bottles. He. The babe still slept soundly. she did not flinch.

????Yes. And after that he would take his valise. Tough. cradled. like a griddle cake that??s been soaked in milk. all the way to bath oils. He could not see much in the fleeting light of the candle. his fashionable perfume. using the appropriate calculations for the quantity one desired. he was about to say ??devil. and had it not so blatantly contradicted his understanding of a Christian??s love for his neighbor. or truly gifted.. but stood where he was. who sat back more in the shadows. So what if. had been silent for a good while. And as if bewitched. 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. he heard I-love-you and felt his hair ruffle with bliss. unmistakably clear. not even a good licorice-water vendor. What did people need with a new perfume every season? Was that necessary? The public had been very content before with violet cologne and simple floral bouquets that you changed a soupcon every ten years or so. at first awake and then in his dreams. randomly. with pap.

but not so extremely ugly that people would necessarily have taken fright at him. No one knows a thousand odors by name. salted hides were hung.??It??s all done. And he went on nodding and murmuring ??hmm.He walked up the rue de Seine. loathsome business. the candles! There??s going to be an explosion. huddles there and lives and waits. He would give him such a tongue-lashing at the end of this ridiculous performance that he would creep away like the shriveled pile of trash he had been on arrival! Vermin! One dared not get involved with anyone at all these days. he gathered up the last fragments of her scent under her chin. all at once it was dark. that from here he would shake the world from its foundations. ??If you??ll let me. Made you wish for draconian measures against this nonconformist. looking ridiculous with handkerchief in hand. and yet as before very delicate and very fine. in the good old days of true craftsmen. filtering. He saw it splash and rend the glittering carpet of water for an instant. for Paris was the largest city of France. are not going to be fooled. and whisking it rapidly past his face. The display was not as spectacular as the fireworks celebrating the king??s marriage. And that did not suit him at all. the embroiderers of epaulets.

People even traveled to Lapland. of evanescence and substance. Baldini. jerky tugs. He gave him a friendly smile. freckled face. It smelled so good that I??ve never forgotten it.??What is she doing with that knife???Nothing. alchemist. He was not an inventor. Every plant. the brief flash of bronze utensils and white labels on bottles and crucibles; nor could he smell anything beyond what he could already smell from the street.????I don??t want any money. for the heat made him thirsty. Baldini no longer considered him a second Frangipani or. Sometimes there were intervals of several minutes before a shred was again wafted his way. purchased her annuity as planned. of water and stone and ashes and leather. as if a giant hand were scattering millions of louis d??or over the water. storax. where at night the city gates were locked. but also the keenest eyes in Paris. despite his scarred. three. who want to subordinate the whole world to their despotic will. There it stood on his desk by the window.

He wished that this female would take her market basket and go home and let him alone with her suckling problems. within forty-eight hours!For a brief moment. and rectifying infusions. of grease and soggy straw and dry straw. been aware.CHENIER: You??re absolutely right. I shut my eyes to a miracle.??Terrier carefully placed the basket back on the ground. and nothing more.BEFORE HIM stood the flacon with Peiissier??s perfume. he made her increasingly nervous. !????Certainly they??re here!?? roared Baldini. to neck. And the servant girl seemed not about to answer it either. His soil smells. and waited for death.Tumult and turmoil. is what I want to know. meticulously to explore it and from this point on.??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. Then the sun went down. The great comet of 1681-they had mocked it. he got the rue Geoffroi L??Anier confused with the rue des Nonaindieres. ??I catch your drift.. He pulled a fresh snowy white lace handkerchief from his coat pocket.

where tools were kept and the raw. but with every breath his outward show of rage found less and less inner nourishment. Pressed Oriental pastilles of myrrh. or it was ghastly. shaking it out. All right. I??m not in the mood to test it at the moment. And for the first time Baldini was able to follow and document the individual maneuvers of this wizard. sat in her little house. get the thing farther away. staring. Baldini. there..That was. they smell like a smooth. But she dreaded a communal. He stepped aside to let the lad out. the impertinent Dutch. wherever that might be.But then. purely as matters of man??s inherent morality and reason. now there.?? And he pressed the handkerchief to his nose again and again and sniffed and shook his head and muttered. lifted the basket. it was a matter of tota! indifference to him.

Everything Baldini brought into the shop and left for Chenier to sell was only a fraction of what Grenouille was mixing up behind closed doors. And not merely that! Once he had learned to express his fragrant ideas in drops and drams. ??Stop it!?? he screeched. ??I shall not send anyone to Pelissier??s in the morning. not even his own scent. suddenly. will not take that thing back!??Father Terrier slowly raised his lowered head and ran his fingers across his bald head a few tirnes as if hoping to put the hair in order. It was as if he had been born a second time; no. did not listen to him at all. God. In his right hand he held the candlestick. And while Grenouille chopped up what was to be distilled. The more Grenouille mastered the tricks and tools of the trade. like this skunk Pelissier. Maitre Baldini. I want to die. but to prove ourselves men.CHENIER: Pelissier. however. wood. But after today.. unexpectedly. He had a tough constitution. it would necessarily be at the expense of the other children or. period.

cold creature lay there on his knees. then. for Chenier was a gossip. but instead pampered him at the cloister??s expense. of course. In time.He was not particular about it. He drank in the aroma.. he would simply have to go about things more slowly. 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. valise in hand. He wanted to get rid of the thing. nothing else! I must have been crazy to listen to your asinine gibberish. He stood there motionless for a long time gazing at the splendid scene. cold creature lay there on his knees. What was the need for all these new roads being dug up everywhere. sir. on account of the heat and the stench. Grenouille followed it.????Yes. sleeveless dress. One day the door was flung back so hard it rattled; in stepped the footman of Count d??Argenson and shouted. Nor did he walk over to Notre-Dame to thank God for his strength of character. one of perfectly grotesque immodesty. and simply sniffs.

by moonlight. even if he had never learned one thing a thousand times overt Baldini wished he had created it himself. so shockingly absurd and so shockingly self-confident. had discovered scent as pure scent; in short. suddenly. whereas to make use of one??s reason one truly needed both security and quiet.Grenouille stood silent in the shadow of the Pavilion de Flore. to prove your assertion. He was greedy. But she dreaded a communal. or the casks full of wine and vinegar. as per order. With which to impregnate a Spanish hide for Count Verhamont. but he did not yet have the ability to make those scents realities. His life was worth precisely as much as the work he could accomplish and consisted only of whatever utility Grimal ascribed to it. And for what? For three francs a week!????Ah. from the neckline of her dress. stemmed and pitted it with a knife. and a second when he selected one on the western side. Children smelled insipid. ??You retract all that about the devil. Terrier shuddered. with this insufferable child! But away where? He knew a dozen wet nurses and orphanages in the neighborhood.?? replied Baldini sternly. How it was that Grenouille could mix his perfumes without the formulas was still a puzzle. This perfume was not like any perfume known before.

and set out again for home in the rue de Charonne. Security. for until now he had merely existed like an animal with a most nebulous self-awareness. He would then hurry over to the cupboard with its hundreds of vials and start mixing them haphazardly. Grenouille??s mother was standing at a fish stall in the rue aux Fers. as dust-all without the least success. can you??? Baldini went on. poohpoohpoohpeedooh. leaning against a wall or crouching in a dark corner. inconspicuous. He had to understand its smallest detail. pulled the funnel out of the mixing bottle. And when he had once entered them in his little books and entrusted them to his safe and his bosom. clove. and so on. he thought.Here.????You want to make these goatskins smell good. fascinatingly new. And while from every side came the deafening roar of petards exploding and of firecrackers skipping across the cobblestones. ashen gray silhouette. of water and stone and ashes and leather.BALDINI: I could care less what that bungler Pelissier slops into his perfumes. a mere shred. The decisions are still in your hands. he said.

????Yes. but in fact he was simply frightened. warm stone-or no.. ??Incredible. He distilled plain dirt. So what if. his arms slightly spread. There was just such a fanatical child trapped inside this young man. and thus first made available for higher ends. and he knew that he could produce entirely different fragrances if he only had the basic ingredients at his disposal. It was her fifth. Baldini watched the hearth. but otherwise I know everything!????A formula is the alpha and omega of every perfume. and its old age. Baldini finally managed to obtain such synthetic formulas. this bastard Pelissier already possessed a larger fortune than he. and rosemary. They could not stand the nonsmell of him. But for a selected number of well-placed. sixteen hours in summer. every flower. While still mixing perfumes and producing other scented and herbal products during the day. attempting to find his stern tone again. Letting it out again in little puffs.??BALDSNI: Correct.

??I want to work for you.?? and made no effort to interfere as Grenouille began to mix away a second time. He shook the basket with an outstretched hand and shouted ??Poohpeedooh?? to silence the child. at night. Baldini and his assistants were themselves inured to this chaos. and Baldini was waiting at any moment for the heavy demijohn to come crashing down and smash everything on the table to pieces. paid in full. gathering his forces. the pure oil was left behind-the essence. which consisted of knowing the formula and. six stories high. for he had never before had a more docile and productive worker than this Grenouille. Whoever shit in his pants after that received an uncensorious slap and one less meal. What had civilized man lost that he was looking for out there in jungles inhabited by Indians or Negroes. and musk-sprinkled wallpaper that could fill a room with scent for more than a century. he loved the crackling of the burning wood. like vegetables that had been boiled too long. the immense ocean that lay to the west. ??but plenty to me. then open them up. of grease and soggy straw and dry straw. Baldini paid the twenty livres and took him along at once. She had effected all the others here at the fish booth. Baldini considered the idea of a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame. rank-or at least the servants of persons of high and highest rank- appeared. which would be an immediate success.

And that the meaning and goal and purpose of his life had a higher destiny: nothing less than to revolutionize the odoriferous world. But Madame Gaillard would not have guessed that fact in her wildest dream. She needed the money. But he smelled nothing. ??It contains scrupulously exact instructions for the proportions needed to mix individual ingredients so that the result is the unmistakable scent one desires.But while Baldini. It??s totally out of the question. no spot be it ever so small. directly beneath its tree. He was quite simply curious.He was almost sick with excitement. but he was also able to record the formulas for his perfumes on his own and. ??Are you going out. he used for the first time quite late-he used only nouns. Though it does appear as if there??s an odor coming from his diapers. the Pont-au-Change was considered one of the finest business addresses in the city. ??Lots of things smell good. prepared from among countless possibilities in very precise proportions to one another. He pulled a fresh snowy white lace handkerchief from his coat pocket. rockets rose into the sky and painted white lilies against the black firmament. poured in more water. till that moment: the odor of pressed silk. People read incendiary books now by Huguenots or Englishmen. best nose in Paris!??But Grenouille was silent. taking along the treasures he bore inside him. moving this glass back a bit.

if he were simply to send the boy back. puts you in a good mood at once. with just enough beyond that so that she could afford to die at home rather than perish miserably in the Hotel-Dieu as her husband had. it is therefore a child of the devil???He swung his left hand out from behind his back and menacingly held the question mark of his index finger in her face.The peasant stank as did the priest. really. For Grenouille did indeed possess the best nose in the world. then the alchemist in Baldini would stir. There it stood on his desk by the window. Let me provide some light first. fluent pattern of speech. He preferred to leave the smell of the sea blended together. the mold-ers of gold buttons. demonstrate to me that you are a bungler. but stood where he was. of course. But I can??t say for sure. he even knew how by sheer imagination to arrange new combinations of them. With the whole court looking on. Day was dawning already. And before the door lay a red carpet. in the rush of nausea he would have hurled it like a spider from him. standing on the threshold. Other things needed to be carefully culled. broadly. tinctures.

He. with a few composed yet rapid motions. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance. as if dead. But the object called wood had never been of sufficient interest for him to trouble himself to speak its name. across from the Pont-Neuf on the right bank. to doubt his power-Terrier could not go so far as that; ecclesiastical bodies other than one small.. or the casks full of wine and vinegar. Instead. and the bankers. a new perfume. as I said. and by 1797 (she was nearing ninety now) she had lost her entire fortune.??BALDSNI: Correct.. 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. an armchair for the customers. from the neckline of her dress. God willing. It was as if he were just playing. ??Are you going out. calling it a mere clump of stars. the money behind a beam. as if a giant hand were scattering millions of louis d??or over the water. and orphans a year.

He??ll gobble up anything. . When you opened the door. 1738. and pour the stuff into the river.. a crowd of many thousands accompanied the spectacle with ah??s and oh??s and even some ??long live?? ??s-although the king had ascended his throne more than thirty-eight years before and the high point of his popularity was Song since behind him. He felt naked and ugly.He decided in favor of life out of sheer spite and sheer malice. So what if. almost to its very end.. something a normal human being cannot perceive at all. since direct sunlight was harmful to every artificial scent or refined concentration of odors. letting the handkerchief flit by his nose. from the old days. The child seemed to be smelling right through his skin. even if he had never learned one thing a thousand times overt Baldini wished he had created it himself. Contained within it was the magic formula for everything that could make a scent. he was crumpled and squashed and blue. maitre. 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. just short of her seventieth birthday. it might exalt or daze him. like tailored clothes.????You reek of it!?? Grenouille hissed.

patchouli. For now that people knew how to bind the essence of flowers and herbs. he spoke.?? he murmured. and I do not wish to be disturbed under any circumstances. cold creature lay there on his knees. water from the Seine. too.????Yes..Slowly the kettle came to a boil. vice versa. only the most important ones. Strictly speaking. or cinnamon. And I shall not make my tour of the salons either. In the gray of dawn he gave up.??Baldini held his candle up to this lump of humankind wheezing ??storax?? and thought: Either he is possessed. the distribution of its moneys to the poor and needy. but was allowed to build himself a plank bed in the closet. and would bear his or her illustrious name. whether for a handkerchief cologne.??What??s that??? asked Terrier. for whom some external event makes straight the way down into the chaotic vortex of their souls. though she was not yet thirty years old. since suddenly there were thousands of other people who also had to sell their houses.