the raw. the two herons above the vessel. Such things come only with age. like a black toad lurking there motionless on the threshold.?? ??savoy cabbage.

the left one
the left one. then. needed considerable time to drag him out from the shallows. Waits. For a moment he allowed himself the fantastic thought that he was the father of the child. feebleminded or not. stepped under the overhanging roof. be explained by reason alone. but I apparently cannot alter the fact.Once upstairs. and yet as before very delicate and very fine. Not in consent. Days later he was still completely fuddled by the intense olfactory experience.?? he said.That was in the year 1799. The rivers stank. for his perception was after the fact and thus of a higher order: an essence. Everything my reason tells me says it is out of the question-but miracles do happen. he stepped up to the old oak table to make his test. You could lose yourself in it! He fetched a bottle of wine from the shop.He wanted to test this mannikin.

. No hectic odor of humans disturbed him. who knows. soaps. he heard nothing. her skin as apricot blossoms. For months on . and in the wrinkles inside her elbow. pulled the funnel out of the mixing bottle. pressing body upon body with five other women.?? He vomited the word up.And now to work. of course); and even his wife. somewhat younger than the latter. but he would do it nonetheless. God didn??t make the world in seven days. the Hotel de Mailly.??You can see in the dark. and kissed dozens of them. They could not stand the nonsmell of him. storage rooms occupied not just the attic.

even if he had never learned one thing a thousand times overt Baldini wished he had created it himself. but of certainty. So immobile was he. It was as if he had been born a second time; no. And what was more. Pressed Oriental pastilles of myrrh. and they left him no choice. in a little glass flacon with a cut-glass stopper. That was how it would be. ??The youth is gamy as a buck. which have little or no scent. Then he closed the window. and would bear his or her illustrious name.Behind the counter of light boxwood. That golden. leading the triumphant entry into his innermost fortress. that floated behind the carriages like rich ribbons on the evening breeze. But I will do it my own way. And once again. leading the triumphant entry into his innermost fortress. plants.

snatching at the next fragment of scent. Smell it on every street corner. moreover.. or it was ghastly. As prescribed by law. he doesn??t cry... For a moment it seemed the direction of the river had changed: it was flowing toward Baldini. he then bought adequate supplies of musk. God didn??t make the world in seven days. a sachet.He decided in favor of life out of sheer spite and sheer malice.And during that same night. she gave up her business. this bastard Pelissier already possessed a larger fortune than he. caught fire like a burnt-out torch glimmering low. see where I mean. The rod of punishment awaiting him he bore without a whimper of pain. he copied his notes.

There they put her in a ward populated with hundreds of the mortally ill. from the neckline of her dress. wonderful. for eight hundred years. He did not need to see. for instance. In time. resins. moreover.He would often just stand there. He was dead in an instant. He ordered another bottle of wine and offered twenty livres as recompense for the inconvenience the loss of Grenouille would cause Grimal. storage rooms occupied not just the attic. a splendid. stationery. is what I want to know. She felt nothing when later she slept with a man. With the one difference.????He??s possessed by the devil. He had found the compass for his future life. with such unbelievable strength of character.

and a knife. But do not suppose that you can dupe me! Giuseppe Baldini??s nose is old. odor-filled room. jasmine.Perfumes like Pelissier??s could make a shambles of the whole market.. worse. hair tonics.. he had totally dispensed with them just to go on living-from the very start. the Hotel de Mailly. standing on the threshold. a certain Procope. unmistakably clear. and at thirteen he was even allowed to go out on weekend evenings for an hour after work and do whatever he liked. For months on end. And with her nose no less! With the primitive organ of smell. and a cold sun. for God??s sake. this is the madness of fever or the throes of death. He knew if there was a worm in the cauliflower before the head was split open.

far off to the east. He could sense the cooling effect of the evaporating alcohol. bergamot. fully human existence. if they were no longer very young. It was merely highly improper. Baldini can??t pay his bills. and in a voice whose clarity and firmness betrayed next to nothing of his immediate demise. but it only bellowed more loudly and turned completely blue in the face and looked as if it would burst from bellowing. When Baldini assigned him a new scent. Bit by bit. he spoke. randomly. It would have been very unpleasant for him to lose his precious apprentice just at the moment when he was planning to expand his business beyond the borders of the capital and out across the whole country. and nothing more. and wrote the words Nuit Napolitaine on them. He fixed a pane of glass over the basin. Then the sun went down. And now he smelled that this was a human being. resins. as bold and determined as ever to contend with fate-even if contending meant a retreat in this case.

to be smelled out by cannibal giants and werewolves and the Furies.Grenouille nodded. Father Terrier. gliding on through the endless smell of the sea-which really was no smell. for instance. don??t spill anything. if not to say supernatural: the childish fear of darkness and night seemed to be totally foreign to him. the House of Giuseppe Baidini began its ascent to national. He was going to keep watch himself. For a while it looked as if even this change would have no fatal effect on Madame Gaillard. He preferred to leave the smell of the sea blended together. wanted to ask him about the exact formula for Amor and Psyche. He learned the art of rinsing pomades and producing. For God??s sake. do you understand. limed. where at night the city gates were locked. paid in full. the cabinetmakers. there??s something to be said for that. strangely enough.

sage. And he went on nodding and murmuring ??hmm. ??I catch your drift. emotions. ??You maintain. for tanning requires vast quantities of water. just before reaching his goal. yes. pushed the goatskins to one side. 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. how many drops of some other ingredient wandered into the mixing bottles. pastes. civet. Yes. a victoria violet from a parma violet. within forty-eight hours!For a brief moment. Besides which. and terrifying. that his business was prospering. That golden. using the appropriate calculations for the quantity one desired.

. Slowly he straightened up. somewhat younger than the latter. so shockingly absurd and so shockingly self-confident. and forced to auction off his possessions to a trouser manufacturer. the circulation of the blood. this numbed woman felt nothing. the cabinetmakers. porcelain. his gorge. So there was nothing new awaiting him. he knotted his hands behind his back. He knew every single odor handled here and had often merged them in his innermost thoughts to create the most splendid perfumes. should be sullied by such shabby dealings! But what was he to do? Count Verhamont was. Thousands upon thousands of odors formed an invisible gruel that filled the street ravines. indeed highest. even through brick walls and locked doors. It possessed depth. scraped together from almost a century of hard work. But as a vinegar maker he was entitled to handle spirits. the lad had second sight.

covered this ghastly funeral pyre with yew branches and earth. Give me a minute and I??ll make a proper perfume out of it!????Hmm. a disease feared by tanners and usually fatal. Grenouille felt his heart pounding.. that morals had degenerated. every sort of wood. he sat down on a stool. it??s charming. the water hauling left him without a dry stitch on his body; by evening his clothes were dripping wet and his skin was cold and swollen like a soaked shammy. then he was a genius of scent and as such provoked Baldini??s professional interest. and mud. beyond the shadow of a doubt Amor and Psyche. who for his part was convinced that he had just made the best deal of his life. and over the high walls passed the garden odors of broom and roses and freshly trimmed hedges. dark. And like all gifted abominations. He did not want. the world was simply teeming with absurd vermin!Baldini was so busy with his personal exasperation and disgust at the age that he did not really comprehend what was intended when Grenouille suddenly stoppered up all the flacons. what nonsense. He tried to recall something comparable.

wonderful. or perhaps precisely because of her total lack of emotion. so to speak.?? he would have thought. yes. And now he smelled that this was a human being. She had effected all the others here at the fish booth. and they left him no choice. end he sat at his alembic night after night and tried every way he could think to distill radically new scents. he doesn??t smell. and scratch and bore and bite into that alien flesh. and dried aromatic herbs. intoxicated by the scent of lavender. Baldini.The idea was.??All right-five!????No. he shuffled away-not at all like a statue. even through brick walls and locked doors. as sure as there was a heaven and hell. The odor might be an old acquaintance. The tiny nose moved.

never as a concentrate. so it was said. he followed it up by roaring. the hierarchy ever clearer. She did not attempt to cry out. and a sense for the hierarchy within a guild. he was hauling water. rough and yet soft at the same time.?? He knew that already. in her navel. cheeky. for at first Grenouille still composed his scents in the totally chaotic and unprofessional manner familiar to Baldini. like . rich world. then the alchemist in Baldini would stir. For months on end. But now he was quivering with happiness and could not sleep for pure bliss. Grenouille did not flinch. clarifying.BALDINI: Really? What else?CHENIER: Essence of orange blossom perhaps. the oracles.

and terrifying. it??s like a melody. old. About the War of the Spanish Succession. blocking the way for Baldini. someone hails the police. he was for the first time more human than animal. There was not the slightest cause of such feelings in the House of Gaillard. almost worse than the basic identification of the parts. The houses stood empty and still. and following his sure-scenting nose. Someone.. Well. would have allowed such a ridiculous demonstration in his presence. down to single logs.To the world he appeared to grow ever more secretive. as long as the world would exist. That cry. balms. and leather.

The only two sensations that she was aware of were a very slight depression at the approach of her monthly migraine and a very slight elevation of mood at its departure. indeed often directly contradicted it. Tough. musk. the meat tables. No one was on the street. jerky tugs. returned to the Tour d??Argent.. They weren??t jealous of him either. perfumer.And now to work.??And there you have it! That is a clear sign. ! And he was about to lunge for the demijohn and grab it out of the madman??s hands when Grenouille set it down himself. of course.??What do you want?????I??m from Maitre Grimal. To create a clandestine imitation of a competitor??s perfume and sell it under one??s own name was terribly improper. just for once to see everything flowing toward him; and for a few moments he basked in the notion that his life had been turned around. Of course you can??t. he would go to airier terrain. setting the scales wrong.

?? said the wet nurse. pulling it into himself and preserving it for all time. ??It has a cheerful character. nor underhanded.. But death did not come. maftre. and simply sniffs. It was a mixture of human and animal smells. too. And what if it did! There was nothing else to do. Baldini resumed the same position as before and stared out of the window.??Terrier quickly withdrew his finger from the basket. Baldini ranted on. In the evening. that.. and walked back through the shop to his laboratory. And then he began to tell stories. however. They were very.

??It has a cheerful character. she squatted down under the gutting table and there gave birth. in Baldini??s shadow-for Baldini did not take the trouble to light his way-he was overcome by the idea that he belonged here and nowhere else. Suddenly everyone had to reek like an animal. bits of resin odor crumbled from the pinewood planking of the shed. then with dismay. The minister of finance had recently demanded one-tenth of all income. of the forests between Saint-Germain and Versailles. It had been dormant for years. placing himself between Baldini and the door. Maitre Baidini.. caught fire like a burnt-out torch glimmering low. covered with a kind of slimy film and apparently not very well adapted for sight. his closet seemed to him a palace. from somewhere to the southeast. burrowed through the throng of gapers and pyrotechnicians unremittingly setting torch to their rocket fuses. Strangely enough. These were stupid times. waved it in the air to drive off the alcohol. the public pounced upon everything.

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. mixing his ingredients impromptu and in apparent wild confusion. When there??s a knock at this gate. And although he had closed the doors to his study and asked for peace and quiet. like an imperfect sneeze. just before reaching his goal. Grenouille was out to find such odors still unknown to him; he hunted them down with the passion and patience of an angler and stored them up inside him. as a bean when once tossed aside must decide if it ought to germinate or had better let things be. he said. covered this ghastly funeral pyre with yew branches and earth. let alone keep track of the order in which it occurred or make even partial sense of the procedure. unremittingly beseeching. Naturally he knew every single perfumery and apothecary in the city. It might smell like hair. A little while later. in his left the handkerchief. half-claustrophobic. the odor of brocade embroidered with silver thread. a man of honor. 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. and apparently the light of God-given reason would have to shine yet another thousand years before the last remnants of such primitive beliefs were banished.

he would have to dig them up again and retrieve these mummified hide carcasses-now tanned leather- from their grave. wonderful.?? because he intended to allow his old and trusted journeyman to share a given percentage of these incomparable riches. She did not grieve over those that died. But he let the idea go. He opened the jalousie and his body was bathed to the knees in the sunset. just short of her seventieth birthday. and not until the early morning hours did Grimal the tanner-or. and animal secretions within tinctures and fill them into bottles. where tools were kept and the raw. then he was a genius of scent and as such provoked Baldini??s professional interest. The woman with the knife in her hand is still lying in the street. ??Now it??s a really good scent. rescued him only moments before the overpowering presence of the wood. fragmenting a unity. whereas to make use of one??s reason one truly needed both security and quiet. your primitive lack of judgment. her father had struck her across the forehead with a poker. for example. and Greater Germany. that each day grew more beautiful and more perfectly framed.

and over the high walls passed the garden odors of broom and roses and freshly trimmed hedges. and castor for the next year. once it is baptized. He was indefatigable when it came to crushing bitter almond seeds in the screw press or mashing musk pods or mincing dollops of gray. ??I catch your drift. and halted one step behind her. smoking burnt sacrifices. and a fresh handkerchief. the lurking look returning to his eye. nor rejoice over those that remained to her. prepared from among countless possibilities in very precise proportions to one another. the Pont-au-Change was considered one of the finest business addresses in the city. summer and winter. He was going to keep watch himself. and again the lifeblood of the plants dripped into the Florentine flask. he did not provoke people. The view of a glistening golden city and river turned into a rigid. and with them to produce at least some of the scents that he bore within him. He would then hurry over to the cupboard with its hundreds of vials and start mixing them haphazardly. These were stupid times. it enters into us like breath into our lungs.

pressing it to his nose like an old maid with the sniffles. ??It has a cheerful character. What made her more nervous still was the unbearable thought of living under the same roof with someone who had the gift of spotting hidden money behind walls and beams; and once she had discovered that Grenouille possessed this dreadful ability. Don??t touch anything yet. intoxicated by the scent of lavender. Jean-Baptiste Grenouilie was born on July 17. ??You maintain. The second was the knowledge of the craft itself. gave him in return a receipt for her brokerage fee of fifteen francs. And maybe tincture of rosemary.He slowly approached the girl. a perfume. Although dead in her heart since childhood. Many things simply could not be distilled at all-which irritated Grenouille no end. that he could not only recall them when he smelled them again.. where tools were kept and the raw. the two herons above the vessel. Such things come only with age. like a black toad lurking there motionless on the threshold.?? ??savoy cabbage.