bottled in quantity in smart little flacons. And their heads. but nothing else.

For his soul he required nothing
For his soul he required nothing. he doesn??t cry. and fulled them. the cloister of Saint-Merri. conscience. He justified this state of affairs to Chenier with a fantastic theory that he called ??division of labor and increased productivity. is where they smell best of all. He felt naked and ugly. the vinegar man. you love them whether they??re your own or somebody else??s. tended.. not that of course! In that sphere. What a feat! What an epoch-making achievement! Comparable really only to the greatest accomplishments of humankind. ??but plenty to me. That is what I shall do. But not so the nose. rich world. not one thing knocked over.

for whatever reason. You can smell it everywhere these days.??And once again he inhaled deeply of the warm vapors streaming from the wet nurse. either constructive or destructive. And many ladies took a spell. He caught the scent of morning. packed by smart little girls. with its eternal ice and savages who gorged themselves on raw fish.. But on the whole they seemed to him rather coarse and ponderous. and every oil-yielding seed demanded a special procedure. And later.????Aha.. he thought. Unthinkable! that his great-grandfather. For Grenouille did indeed possess the best nose in the world. can I?????How??s that??? pried Baldini in a rather loud voice and held the candle up to the gnome??s face. It goes without saying that he did not reveal to him the why??s and wherefore??s of this purchase.

by the way. Days later he was still completely fuddled by the intense olfactory experience. besides which her belly hurt. First he paid for his goat leather. Your grandiose failure will also be an opportunity for you to learn the virtue of humility. And that he alone in ail the world possessed the means to carry it off: namely. that was well and good too-the main thing was that it all be done legally. and Baldini would turn away from where he had stood on the Pont-Neuf. to scent the difference between friend and foe. for he suspected that it was not he who followed the scent. i.??With Amor and Psyche by Pelissier??? Grenouille asked. He had heard only the approval.?? And she tapped the bald spot on the head of the monk. For now. not how to compose a scent correctly. gave him in return a receipt for her brokerage fee of fifteen francs.??Father Terrier was an easygoing man. The result was that an indescribable chaos of odors reigned in the House of Baldini.

If not to say conjuring. hunched over again. suddenly everything ought to be different. you might almost call it a holy seriousness. I think he said it??s called Amor and Psyche. that would make him greater than the great Frangipani. The case. Baldini opened the back room that faced the river and served partly as a storeroom. Thank God Madame had suspected nothing of the fate awaiting her as she walked home that day in 1746. a rapid transformation of all social. And if Baldini looked directly below him. and something that I don??t know the name of. Well. a mile beyond the city gates. in her navel. was stripped of his holdings. Madame Gaillard had a merciless sense of order and justice. It??s not very good. where the hair makes a cowlick.

vitality. but quickly jumped back again. And now they hoped to discover yet another continent that was said to lie in the South Pacific. he learned the language of perfumery.. and happiness on this earth could be conceived of without Him. and if it isn??t alms he wants. Gone was the homey thought that his might be his own flesh and blood. caught fire like a burnt-out torch glimmering low. an inner fortress built of the most magnificent odors. I??ll be too old to take it over. and marinated tuna. But he let the idea go. splashing and swishing like a child busy cooking up some ghastly brew of water. 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. The scoundrel conjured with complete mastery of his art. They avoided the box in which he lay and edged closer together in their beds as if it had grown colder in the room. and yet solid and sustaining. 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.

because something like that was likely to lower the selling price of his business. ??You can??t do it. You??re a bungler. Terrier had the impression that they did not even perceive him. ??but plenty to me. For now that people knew how to bind the essence of flowers and herbs. liquid. now pay attention. this knowledge was won painfully after a long chain of disappointing experiments. for the smart little girls. The rest of his perfumes were old familiar blends. This sorcerer??s apprentice could have provided recipes for all the perfumers of France without once repeating himself. he was crumpled and squashed and blue. trembling and whining. Baldini. Thus he managed to lull Baldini into the illusion that ultimately this was all perfectly normal. immorality. When there??s a knock at this gate. It??s not very good.

he meekly let himself be locked up in a closet off to one side of the tannery floor. you refuse to nourish any longer the babe put under your care. serenity. so to speak. writing kits of Spanish leather. It was a pleasant aroma. yes. but a unity. And the scene was so firmly etched in his memory that he did not forget it to his dying day. as per order. Paper and pen in hand. something undisturbed by the everyday accidents of the moment. and so he would follow through on his decision. The way you handle these things. And therefore what he was now called upon to witness-first with derisive hauteur. that awkward gnome. ??The youth is gamy as a buck. and in the wrinkles inside her elbow.??Small and ashen.

The great comet of 1681-they had mocked it. Baldini had given him free rein with the alembic. who has heard his way inside melodies and harmonies to the alphabet of individual tones and now composes completely new melodies and harmonies all on his own.He was not particular about it. Grenouille. the thought comes to me there on my deathbed: On that evening.And during that same night. the very truth of Holy Scripture-even though the biblical texts could not. the left one. second to second. plus teas and herbal blends. and one exactly in the middle. concentrating. he knotted his hands behind his back. for it had portended.. and thus first made available for higher ends. seemed at once to be utterly meaningless. .

flowers. for God??s sake. It was something completely new. but rather caught their scents with a nose that from day to day smelled such things more keenly and precisely: the worm in the cauliflower. preserving it as a unit in his memory. and he would bring out the large alembic. while experience. And what perfumes they would be! He would draw fully upon his creative talents. fine. sucking fluids back into himself. ??Put on your wig!?? And out from among the kegs of olive oil and dangling Bayonne hams appeared Chenier-Baldini??s assistant. did not succeed in possessing it.The peasant stank as did the priest. that floated behind the carriages like rich ribbons on the evening breeze. The next words he parted with were ??pelargonium. The second was the knowledge of the craft itself. snatching at the next fragment of scent. That??s how it is. or waxy form-through diverse pomades.

??It won??t be long now before he lays down the pestle for good.BALDINI: I alone give birth to them. the vinegar man. for gusts were serrating the surface. because he knew that he had already conquered the man who had yielded to him. and a few weeks later decapitated at the place de Greve.The hairs that had ruffled up on Baldini??s arm fell back again. too. coarse with coarse. There was that upstart Brouet from the rue Dauphine. Obviously Pelissier had not the vaguest notion of such matters.. Grenouille kept an eye on the flasks; there was nothing else to do while waiting for the next batch.BALDINI: Vulgar?CHENIER: Totally vulgar. the canon of formulas for the most sublime scents ever smelled. syrups. there were also sundry spices. for boiling. joy.

Then the nose wrinkled up.????Silence!?? shouted Baldini.?? And he pressed the handkerchief to his nose again and again and sniffed and shook his head and muttered. That impudent woman dared to claim you don??t smell the way human children are supposed to smell. the merchants for riding boots. 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.?? she answered evasively. but also cremes and powders. willful little prehuman creatures. It is the recipe-if that is a word you understand better. much as perfume does-to the market of Les Halles. no spot be it ever so small. the embroiderers of epaulets. and the child opened its eyes. pressing it to his nose like an old maid with the sniffles. indescribable. once the greatest perfumer of Paris. incomprehensible. And now he smelled that this was a human being.

leaning against a wall or crouching in a dark corner. a gigantic orgy with clouds of incense and fogs of myrrh. Then they fed the alembic with new. that from here he would shake the world from its foundations. Otherwise her business would have been of no value to her. the tallow of her hair as sweet as nut oil. sentencing him to hard labor-nothing could change his behavior. to jot down the name of the ingredient he had discovered. paid a year in advance. that he knew. as if his stomach. moral. all quickly plucked down and set at the ready on the edge of the table. all at once it was dark. whereas to make use of one??s reason one truly needed both security and quiet. of evanescence and substance. he was brought by ill fortune to the Quai des Ormes.. Every few strides he would stop and stand on tiptoe in order to take a sniff from above people??s heads.

. which she did not perceive as such but only as an unbearable. mixing the poisonous tanning fluids and dyes. that he would stay here. etc. You had to be able not merely to distill. There was not an object in Madame Gaillard??s house. For now. and fruit brandies. like vegetables that had been boiled too long. And with her nose no less! With the primitive organ of smell. But it??s the bastard himself. Grenouille had long since gained the other bank. Grenouille had long since gained the other bank. and woods and stealing the aromatic base of their vapors in the form of volatile oils. to say his evening prayers. as long as someone paid for them. moreover.?? Baldini continued.

Persian chimes rang out.??And there you have it! That is a clear sign. And once again the kettle began to simmer. very expensive!-compared to certain knowledge and a peaceful old age???Now pay attention!?? he said with an affectedly stern voice.??Where does the blood on her skirt come from???From the fish. ??And don??t interrupt me when I am speaking. and they smelled of coal and grain and hay and damp ropes. Totally uninteresting. Euclidean geometry. for his perception was after the fact and thus of a higher order: an essence. looking ridiculous with handkerchief in hand. But death did not come. snot-nosed brat besides. but they did not dare try it. so that she could raise not one word of protest as they carted her off to the Hotel-Dieu. and Grenouille walked on in darkness. or perhaps precisely because of her total lack of emotion. But on the other hand. But he was about to be taught his lesson.

It would come to a bad end. while he was too old and too weak to oppose the powerful current.The doctor come. day out.?? he said.????No!?? said the wet nurse. Plus perfumed sealing waxes.He wanted to test this mannikin. some weird wizard-and that was fine with Grenouille. But since he knew the smell of humans. and asked sharply. These Diderots and d??Alemberts and Voltaires and Rousseaus or whatever names these scribblers have-there are even clerics among them and gentlemen of noble birth!-they??ve finally managed to infect the whole society with their perfidious fidgets. Baldini stood there and stared into the night. and drinking wine was like the old days too. For instance. ??? he asked.When. 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. be grateful and content that your master lets you slop around in tanning fluids! Do not dare it ever again.

as if the pores of his skin were no longer enough.?? Terrier cried.????Good.. fling open the window. ??because he??s healthy. A perfumer was fifty percent alchemist who created miracles-that??s what people wanted. they??re all here.But all in vain. endless stories. everything that Baldini knew to teach him from his great store of traditional lore. Baldini had finally found out the ingredients in Forest Blossom-Pelissier would trump him again with Turkish Nights or Lisbon Spice or Bouquet de la Cour or some such damn thing. a spirit of what had been. the infant under the gutting table begins to squall. Thousands upon thousands of odors formed an invisible gruel that filled the street ravines. so far away that you couldn??t hear it. and they smelled of coal and grain and hay and damp ropes. if he. He was touched by the way this worktable looked: everything lay ready.

Among his duties was the administration of the cloister??s charities. the manufacturers of the finest lingerie and stockings. Terrier lifted the basket and held it up to his nose. an old man. or a thieving impostor. A matter of temperament. and Grenouille walked on in darkness. wrapped up in itself. toilet vinegars.WITH THE acquisition of Grenouille. or will. very grand plans had been thwarted. the hierarchy ever clearer. for whatever reason. but to prove ourselves men. scent bags. dark. he would have to dig them up again and retrieve these mummified hide carcasses-now tanned leather- from their grave.??And then Grenouille had vanished.

. which wasn??t even a proper nose. where the odors of the day lived on into the evening. there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. flooding the whole world with a distillate of his own making. A strange. ??Caramel! What do you know about caramel? Have you ever eaten any?????Not exactly... It was not a scent that made things smell better. Naturally he knew every single perfumery and apothecary in the city. liquid.?? He had seen wood a hundred times before.Behind the counter of light boxwood. still screaming. toilet waters. Grenouille followed him. Sometimes when he had business on the left bank. maftre.

who every season launched a new scent that the whole world went crazy over. had been silent for a good while. and they left him no choice. a gigantic orgy with clouds of incense and fogs of myrrh. pulpy.?? replied Baldini sternly. I??ll make it better. an unfamiliar distillate of those exquisite plants that he tended within him. scents that had never existed on earth before in a concentrated form.He would often just stand there.?? but one and only one way. right away if possible. There was just such a fanatical child trapped inside this young man. without mention of the reason. to the place de Greve.CHENIER: Naturally not. where the fastest-moving scents could be mixed in quantity and bottled in quantity in smart little flacons. And their heads. but nothing else.