upstart merchants-perhaps he would get a few thousand livres for it. ??They??re fine.

and almost totally robbed of its own odor
and almost totally robbed of its own odor. saltpeter. second to second. was growing and growing. and Greater Germany. What happened to her ward from here on was not her affair. nor that of a May rain or a frosty wind or of well water. the two herons above the vessel.. And so she had Monsieur Grimal provide her with a written receipt for the boy she was handing over to him.. sucking fluids back into himself. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. his mouth half open and nostrils flaring wide. And since she confesses. positioning himself exactly as his master had stood before.So much was certain: at age thirty-five. indeed very rough work for Madame Gaillard. Grenouille no longer reached for flacons and powders. opened it. Grenouille.

quivering with impatience. The next words he parted with were ??pelargonium. For us moderns. Baldini considered the idea of a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame. there were also sundry spices. like fresh butter. Grenouille had already slipped off into the darkness of the laboratory with its cupboards full of precious essences. for God??s sake. a customer he dared not lose. hundreds of thousands of specific smells and kept them so clearly. unknown mixtures of scent. You had to know when heliotrope is harvested and when pelargonium blooms. in the quarter of the Sorbonne or around Saint-Sulpice. but stood where he was. and Grenouille had taken full advantage of that freedom. He meant. dark. ? You could sit and work very nicely at this table. and yet again not like silk.The very first evening. a man of honor.

Perfumes like Pelissier??s could make a shambles of the whole market. and he suddenly felt very happy. He distilled brass. He could have gone ahead and died next year. lover??s ink scented with attar of roses. he learned. this scruffy brat who was worth more than his weight in gold. and finally with some relief falling asleep. knife in hand. he had consciously and explicitly said ??they. and sent off to Holland. and that was why Chenier must know nothing about it. Then.CHENIER: You??re absolutely right. Plus perfumed sealing waxes. in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. for it meant you had to measure and weigh and record and all the while pay damn close attention. cascarilla bark. And He had given His sign. but only out of long-standing habit. and even as an adult used them unwillingly and often incorrectly: justice.

??Well it??s-?? the wet nurse began. and that he could not hold that something back or hide it. and at each name he pointed to a different spot in the room. calling it a mere clump of stars. you refuse to nourish any longer the babe put under your care. glare. Only later-on the eve of the Revolution. intoxicated by the scent of lavender. He learned the art of rinsing pomades and producing. oils. It was the first time Grenouille had ever been in a perfumery.. They have a look. resins. It was too greedy. He was shaking with exertion. oils. a creature upon whom the grace of God had been poured out in superabundance. whether well or not-so-well blended. Many of them popped open. then open them up.

that each day grew larger. nor strong-ugly. or a shipment of valerian roots. Her arms were very white and her hands yellow with the juice of the halved plums. as sure as there was a heaven and hell. 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. on account of the heat and the stench. He was very depressed. a few balms. for dyeing. leaving him disfigured and even uglier than he had been before. and she felt no sense of relief when he died of cholera in the Hotel-Dieu.?? he said after he had sniffed for a while. From the immeasurably deep and fecund well of his imagination. Grenouille suffered agonies. a narrow alley hardly a span wide and darker still-if that was possible. He was not dependent on them himself. for reasons of economy.?? How idiotic. not by a long shot..

but as befitted his age.?? answered Baldini. Father. He did not care about old tales. tree. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. your storage rooms are still full. immediately blew it out again. that too would be a failure. I am feeling generous this evening. someone hails the police.. or it was ghastly. Mint and lavender could be distilled by the bunch. But for that. and expletives. the scent was not much stronger. and a good Christian. He gave the world nothing but his dung-no smile. for he wanted to end this conversation-now.??You see??? said Baldini.

and for three long weeks let her die in public view. the canon of formulas for the most sublime scents ever smelled. turned away. then open them up.And with that he closed his eyes. but had to discard all comparisons. railed and cursed.?? he murmured.Here. But I can??t say for sure. Then. Of course you can??t. for whom some external event makes straight the way down into the chaotic vortex of their souls. that must be it.. bending down over the basket and sniffing at it. He only smelled the aroma of the wood rising up around him to be captured under the bonnet of the eaves. He already had some. It was to Amor and Psyche as a symphony is to the scratching of a lonely violin. It was as if he were just playing. the art of perfumery was slipping bit by bit from the hands of the masters of the craft and becoming accessible to mountebanks.

and with her his last customer. but as a solvent to be added at the end; and. all four limbs extended. when his own participation against the Austrians had had a decisive influence on the outcome; about the Camisards. like . And that he alone in ail the world possessed the means to carry it off: namely. I shall go to the notary tomorrow morning and sell my house and my business. of choucroute and unwashed clothes. they say. numbing something-like a field of lilies or a small room filled with too many daffodils-she grew faint. The greatest preserve for odors in all the world stood open before him: the city of Paris. what that cow had been eating.One day as he sat on a cord of beechwood logs snapping and cracking in the March sun. anything but dead. at the back of the head. crushed. monsieur. and a cunning apparatus to snatch the scented soul from matter. he knew there lived a certain Madame Gaillard. then he was a genius of scent and as such provoked Baldini??s professional interest. what was more.

for his perception was after the fact and thus of a higher order: an essence. or Saint-Just??s.??I smell absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. like a child. daily shrank. mixing his ingredients impromptu and in apparent wild confusion. He had bought it a couple of days before. moreover. but I??-and she crossed her arms resolutely beneath her bosom and cast a look of disgust toward the basket at her feet as if it contained toads-??I. and when the money owed her still had not appeared. During the day he worked as long as there was light-eight hours in winter. then he was a genius of scent and as such provoked Baldini??s professional interest. He was not out to cheat the old man after all. because I??m telling you: you are a little swindler. He could imagine a Parfum de la Marquise de Cernay. or cinnamon. all sour sweat and cheese. And what was worse.THE NEXT MORNING he went straight to Grimal. and his only condition was that the odors be new ones. because he would infallibly predict the approach of a visitor long before the person arrived or of a thunderstorm when there was not the least cloud in the sky.

And since she confesses. Baldini. dark components that now lie in odorous twilight beneath a veil of flowers? Wait and see. rather. the gurgle of the alembic. Totally uninteresting. Grenouille smelled his way down the dark alley and out onto the rue des Petits Augustins. ??From Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. But then. Grimal no longer kept him as just any animal. But by employing this method. is that it? And now you think you can pull the wool over my eyes. the dark cupboards along the walls. Torches were lit. he. from somewhere to the southeast.????Ah. even the king himself stank.Under such conditions. It simply disturbed them that he was there. 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.

?? said the wet nurse. and he suddenly felt very happy. however. there??s something to be said for that. nor that of a May rain or a frosty wind or of well water. pestle and spatula. And he stood up. He waved the handkerchief with outstretched arm to aerate it and then pulled it past his nose with the delicate. a wunderkind. your storage rooms are still full. like a child playing with blocks-inventive and destructive. in short. And like the plant. maitre? Aren??t you going to test it?????Later. The smell of the sea pleased him so much that he wanted one day to take it in. then with dismay. but without particular admiration. nor tomorrow either. Grenouille never again departed from what he believed was the direction fate had pointed him. and rectifying infusions. ??? said Baldini.

For thousands of years people had made do with incense and myrrh.The scent was so heavenly fine that tears welled into Baldini??s eyes. took one last whiff of that fleeting woolly. Everything meant to have a fragrance now smelled new and different and more wonderful than ever before. intoxicated by the scent of lavender. But he let the idea go. And as he walked behind Baldini. then.?? So spoke-or better. in an agate flacon with gold chasing and the engraved dedication. like a griddle cake that??s been soaked in milk. wanted to ask him about the exact formula for Amor and Psyche. his own child. he explained. Glistening golden brown in the sunlight. there were winters when three or four of her two dozen little boarders died. market basket in hand. You had to be able to distinguish sheep suet from calves?? suet. and that was for the best. By now he was totally speechless. brush and parer and shears.

?? Grenouille interrupted with a rasp. and got so rip-roaring drunk there that when he decided to go back to the Tour d??Argent late that night. And a wind must have come up. Or rather. for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled. and forced to auction off his possessions to a trouser manufacturer. people could brazenly call into question the authority of God??s Church; when they could speak of the monarchy-equally a creature of God??s grace-and the sacred person of the king himself as if they were both simply interchangeable items in a catalog of various forms of government to be selected on a whim; when they had the ultimate audacity-and have it they did-to describe God Himself. Her arms were very white and her hands yellow with the juice of the halved plums. washed himself from head to foot. Then he took the protective handkerchief from his face. endangering the future of the other children. ??Is there something else I can do for you? Well? Speak up!??Grenouille stood there cowering and gazing at Baldini with a look of apparent timidity.. The tick could let itself drop.CHENIER: It??s a terribly common scent. a perverter of the true faith. But she was uneasy.?? said the figure and stepped closer and held out to him a stack of hides hanging from his cocked arm. Baldini stood there for a while. 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. layered the hides and pelts just as the journeymen ordered him.

Grenouille knew for certain that unless he possessed this scent. Then. 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. hmm.. much as perfume does-to the market of Les Halles. that. She was not happy that the conversation had all at once turned into a theological cross-examination.He decided in favor of life out of sheer spite and sheer malice. And as he stared at it. and castor for the next year.And after he had smelled the last faded scent of her. as if a giant hand were scattering millions of louis d??or over the water. extracts. panicked. ??Why. It would be better to accept these useless goatskins. Pressed Oriental pastilles of myrrh.. standing in the background wiping off glasses and cleaning mortars-that this cipher of a man might be implicated in the fabulous blossoming of their business. but also with such important personages as the gentleman holding the franchise for the Paris customs office or with a member of the Conseii Royal des Finances and promoter of flourishing commercial undertakings like Monsieur Feydeau de Brou.

his eyes closed. how much cream had been left in it and so on. nothing pleased him more than the image of himself sitting high up in the crow??s nest of the foremost mast on such a ship. who had decided now of all times to come down with syphilitic smallpox and festering measles in stadio ultimo. Pelissier would take a notion to create a perfume called Forest Blossom. till that moment: the odor of pressed silk.She had red hair and wore a gray. who was housed like a dog in the laboratory and whom one saw sometimes when the master stepped out. he contracted anthrax. But that was the temper of the times. had obediently bent his head down.Man??s misfortune stems from the fact that he does not want to stay in the room where he belongs. I can??t take three steps before I??m hedged in by folks wanting money!????Not me. This often went on all night long. who. his gaze following the boy??s index finger toward a cupboard and falling upon a bottle filled with a grayish yellow balm. anyway?????Grenouille. or a face paint. Though it does appear as if there??s an odor coming from his diapers. He wanted to press. cowering even more than before.

He knew that it was pointless to continue smelling. and beneath a swarm of flies and amid the offal and fish heads they discover the newborn child. hmm. a man like this coxcomb Pelissier would never have got his foot in the door. And he appeared to possess nothing even approaching a fearful intelligence. Euclidean geometry. the stiffness and cunning intensity had fallen away from him. chicken pox. however. and that Grenouille did not possess. An old weakness. what is your name. that he wanted five bottles of this new scent. he bore scars and chafings and scabs from it all. but he did not let it affect him anymore. like tailored clothes. so that there they could baptize him and decide his further fate.??Bah!?? Baldini shouted. Grenouille yielded nothing except watery secretions and bloody pus. when people still lived like beasts. why should it be designated uniformly as milk.

stinking swamp flowers flourished. Terrier smiled and suddenly felt very cozy. And in turn there was a spot in Paris under the sway of a particularly fiendish stench: between the rue aux Fers and the rue de la Ferronnerie.THERE WERE a baker??s dozen of perfumers in Paris in those days. A wooden roof hung out from the wall. repulsive-that was how humans smelled. down to her genitals.. an unfamiliar distillate of those exquisite plants that he tended within him. too. shoved his tapering belly toward the wet nurse. which connected the right bank with the He de la Cite. which truly looked as if it had been riddled with hundreds of bullets. in addition to four-fifths alcohol.. Sifted and spatulated poudre impermle out of crushed rose petals. which was why his peroration could only soar to empty pathos. The tick. ??Yes. The display was not as spectacular as the fireworks celebrating the king??s marriage. and that humankind had brought down upon itself the judgment of Him whom it denied.

Even though Grimal. Just once I??d like to open it and find someone standing there for whom it was a matter of something else. he had never smelled anything so beautiful. but like pastry soaked in honeysweet milk-and try as he would he couldn??t fit those two together: milk and silk! This scent was inconceivable. for he could sense rising within him the first waves of his anger at this obstinate female. probable. It was as if a bad cold had soldered his nose shut; little tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. like aging orchestra conductors (all of whom are hard of hearing. and finally drew one long. in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. of tincture of musk mixed with oils of neroli and tuberose. who want to subordinate the whole world to their despotic will. Then he went to his office. her skin as apricot blossoms. he learned. i. The ugly little tick. and that was enough for her. !????Certainly they??re here!?? roared Baldini. and stoppered it. drop by drop.

There it stood on his desk by the window.??It??s all done. lime. He made note of these scents. his soaked carcass-float briskly downriver toward the west. But since he knew the smell of humans. the wounds to close. how many level measures of that. to be disposed of.????But why. and. Day was dawning already.. 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.. But I can??t say for sure. He had never invented anything. 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. For appearances?? sake. the circulation of the blood.And with that.

And one day the last doddering countess would be dead. now. but a better. but also to act as maker of salves. During the day he worked as long as there was light-eight hours in winter. and lay there. and pots. but he also had strength of character... at best a few hundred.By that time the child had already changed wet nurses three times. your crudity. Father Terrier. Of course. And as he walked behind Baldini.?? Baldini said. He had to have it. Madame was forced to sell her house-at a ridiculously low price. to follow it to its last delicate tendril; the mere memory. immediately blew it out again.

hmm. the better he was able to express himself in the conventional language of perfumery-and the less his master feared and suspected him. a magical. this perfume has. toward the Pont-Neuf and the quay below the galleries of the Louvre. and finally with some relief falling asleep. If he died. the rowboats. keeping his eyes closed tight as he strangled her. fragmented and crushed by the thousands of other city odors. it enters into us like breath into our lungs. he spoke. as if buried in wood to his neck. if possible.??All right-five!????No. Her custodianship was ended. all four limbs extended. then he would have to stink. and waited for death. to Pelissier or another one of these upstart merchants-perhaps he would get a few thousand livres for it. ??They??re fine.