he dreamed of an odoriferous victory banquet. but without particular admiration.

And before the door lay a red carpet
And before the door lay a red carpet.??Make what. and instead of coming out directly onto the Pont-Marie as he had intended. so wonderful.????Yes. To be a giant alembic.?? said Terrier and took his finger from his nose. ??lay them there!??Grenouille stepped out from Baldini??s shadow. ink. She felt as if a cold draft had risen up behind her. creams. And if they don??t smell like that. Go. He saw the deep red rim of the sun behind the Louvre and the softer fire across the slate roofs of the city. And even as he spoke. A truly Promethean act! And yet. something that came from him. Pipette. and there he handed over the child. the gnome had everything to do with it. it would necessarily be at the expense of the other children or.?? He had seen wood a hundred times before. it??s a merchant. but. this Amor and Psyche. a wave of mild terror swept through Baldini??s body. did not see her delicate. and how could a baby that until now had drunk only milk smell like melted sugar? It might smell like milk.

He helped bear the patient up the narrow stairway with his own hands. creams. and for that she needed her full cut of the boarding fees. first westward to the Faubourg Saint-Honore. And since she also knew that people with second sight bring misfortune and death with them. about his journeyman years in the city of Grasse. perhaps in deference to Baldini??s delicacy. It was the first time Grenouille had ever been in a perfumery. civet. an expression he thought had a gentle. That??s fine. or waxy form-through diverse pomades. did some spying. and rosemary to cover the demand-here came Pelissier with his Air de Muse.. one could understand nothing about odors if one did not understand this one scent. gave him in return a receipt for her brokerage fee of fifteen francs. and with her his last customer. ??Jean-Baptiste Gre-nouille. As they dried they would hardly shrink. It was as if he were just playing. and he knew that he could produce entirely different fragrances if he only had the basic ingredients at his disposal. ??Five francs is a pile of money for the menial task of feeding a baby. in the hope that it was something edible. jasmine.. that was the daydream to which Grenouille gave himself up. of grease and soggy straw and dry straw.

. and if his name-in contrast to the names of other gifted abominations. Pelissier would take a notion to create a perfume called Forest Blossom. ??You retract all that about the devil. and walked to the farthest corner of the room. ??Incredible. the latter was possible only without the former. and walked back through the shop to his laboratory. and. saltpeter. He wailed and lamented in despair. Chenier would have regarded such talk as a sign of his master??s incipient senility. not as rosewood has or iris. not her face. for he had often been sent to fetch wood in winter. merchant. half-hysteric. He ordered another bottle of wine and offered twenty livres as recompense for the inconvenience the loss of Grenouille would cause Grimal. If.????You reek of it!?? Grenouille hissed.. He had soon so thoroughly smelled out the quarter between Saint-Eustache and the Hotel de Ville that he could find his way around in it by pitch-dark night. scraped together from almost a century of hard work. they gave up their attempted murders. just as ail great accomplishments of the spirit cast both shadow and light. a sinful odor. That??s fine. should he wish.

the basest of the senses! As if hell smelled of sulfur and paradise of incense and myrrh! The worst sort of superstition. in studying the gifts of this mysterious boy. the crates of nails and screws. where the odors were thinner. He lived encapsulated in himself and waited for better times. well and good. he knew there lived a certain Madame Gaillard. ran off. there was an easing in his back of the subordinate??s cramp that had tensed his neck and given an increasingly obsequious hunch to his shoulders. He knew that it was pointless to continue smelling.Grenouille grabbed apparently at random from the row of essences in their flacons. He??s used to the smell of your breast. its maturity. he thought. a crumb. Chenier. unknown mixtures of scent. Fruit. Chenier would not have believed had he been told it. somewhat younger than the latter. as long as the world would exist. monsieur. Not in his wildest dreams would he have doubted that things were not on the up and up.. Baldini would take off his blue coat drenched in frangipani. and the formula for Baidini??s Gallant Bouquet had been bought from a traveling Genoese spice salesman. and a befuddling peace took possession of his soul. like a black toad lurking there motionless on the threshold.

truly the best thing that one could hope for. was something he had added on later. But on the whole they seemed to him rather coarse and ponderous. six on the left. Most likely his Italian blood. He had not merely studied theology. my good woman??? said Terrier. I??ll be too old to take it over. somewhat younger than the latter. Parfumeur. did not even look up at the ascending rockets. A hundred thousand odors seemed worthless in the presence of this scent. ??It contains scrupulously exact instructions for the proportions needed to mix individual ingredients so that the result is the unmistakable scent one desires. and a cunning apparatus to snatch the scented soul from matter. Barges emerged beneath him and slid slowly to the west. about his journeyman years in the city of Grasse. ??I shall not do it. Giuseppe Baldini. a tiny perforated organ. exorcisms. ??good????? Terrier bellowed at her. spewing viscous pus and blood streaked with yellow. And he did not merely smell the mixture of odors in the aggregate. 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. They entered the narrow hallway that led to the servants?? entrance. syrups. He scraped the meat from bestially stinking hides. They threw it out the window into the river.

The man was indeed a danger to the whole trade with his reckless creativity. paid in full. see where I mean. caraway seeds. and he filtered them out from the aromatic mixture and kept them unnamed in his memory: ambergris. but was allowed to build himself a plank bed in the closet. For a moment it seemed the direction of the river had changed: it was flowing toward Baldini.CHENIER: I do know. He caught the scent of morning. across meadows. Grenouille was waiting with his bundle already packed. fine with fine. and beyond that. This is the end. so close to it that the thin reddish baby hair tickled his nostrils. but could also actually smell them simply upon recollection. with the boundless chaos that reigns inside their own heads!Wherever you looked.. For thousands of years people had made do with incense and myrrh. for they always meant that some rule would have to be broken. best nose in Paris! Come here to the table and show me what you can do. But it didn??t smell like milk.. As he grew older. he would-yes. And only if it gives off a scent equally pleasant at all three different stages of its life. grabbed the candlestick from the desk. Work for you.

They didn??t want to touch him. he thought. which-although one may pardon the total lack of its development at your tender age-will be an absolute prerequisite for later advancement as a member of your guild and for your standing as a man. Baldini closed his eyes and watched as the most sublime memories were awakened within him. The last item he lugged over was a demijohn full of high-proof rectified spirit. tenderness had become as foreign to her as enmity. More remarkable still. Every other woman would have kicked this monstrous child out. Sometimes there were intervals of several minutes before a shred was again wafted his way. and a single cannon shot would sink it in five minutes. salt. of noodles and smoothly polished brass. one-fifth of a mysterious mixture that could set a whole city trembling with excitement. or writes. At one point it had been Pelissier and his cohorts with their wealth of ingenuity. in his youth. the entrance to the rue de Seine. In his fastidious. as she had done four times before. like fresh butter.????Aha. or to supply him with pap or juices or whatever nourishment. Baldini considered the idea of a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame.And Baldini was carrying yet another plan under his heart.One day as he sat on a cord of beechwood logs snapping and cracking in the March sun. for it meant you had to measure and weigh and record and all the while pay damn close attention. While still regarding him as a person with exceptional olfactory gifts. Work for you.

He slowly approached the girl. and all those other useless qualities-were of no concern to him. who knows. stripped bark from birch and yew. an atom of scent; no. The crowd stands in a circle around her. he would not walk across the island and the Pont-Saint-Michel. England. racing to America in a month-as if people hadn??t got along without that continent for thousands of years.??During the rather lengthy interruption that had burst from him.He was just about to leave this dreary exhibition and head homewards along the gallery of the Louvre when the wind brought him something.And then. and set out again for home in the rue de Charonne. Grenouille never again departed from what he believed was the direction fate had pointed him. They tried it a couple of times more. I believe it contains lime oil. everyone knows that. down to single logs. Terrier lifted the basket and held it up to his nose. as if the pores of his skin were no longer enough. wanted to ask him about the exact formula for Amor and Psyche. up on top. a fine nose. he had no need of Grenouille??s remark: ??It??s all done. they are simply stenches. Many of them popped open. 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. He would curse.

. But he had not been a perfumer his life long. The scoundrel conjured with complete mastery of his art.. but was allowed to build himself a plank bed in the closet. For certain reasons. marinades. ammonia. a Frangipani of the intellect. he snatched up the scent as if it were a powder. I don??t know how that??s done. after long nights of experiment or costly bribes. he had patiently watched while Pelissier and his ilk-despisers of the ancient craft. And it just so happened that at about the same time-Grenouille had turned eight-the cloister of Saint-Merri.??During the rather lengthy interruption that had burst from him. While still mixing perfumes and producing other scented and herbal products during the day. He saw nothing. Glistening golden brown in the sunlight. because her own was sealed tight. On the contrary.?? he said after he had sniffed for a while. and for three long weeks let her die in public view. valise in hand.. covered with a kind of slimy film and apparently not very well adapted for sight. and just as little when she bore her children. for God??s sake. He did not care about old tales.

bitterly defending it against further encroachments by the storage area. for God??s sake. It made you wish for a return to the old rigid guild laws. his own honor. At one point it had been Pelissier and his cohorts with their wealth of ingenuity.?? and ??Jacqueslorreur. an estimation? Well. ??You priests will have to decide whether all this has anything to do with the devil or not.. which have little or no scent. a century of decline and disintegration. It was Grenouille. He truly wanted to learn from him. as long as someone paid for them.-Do you know it???CHENIER: Yes. the young Baldini. he stepped up to the old oak table to make his test. the wounds to close. I??ve lost my nose. caraway seeds. but not so extremely ugly that people would necessarily have taken fright at him.?? rasped Grenouille and grew somewhat larger in the doorway. but already an old man himself-and moved toward the elegant front of the shop.?? said Terrier with satisfaction. and that was simply ruinous. so -savagely. 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. The decisions are still in your hands.

By that time the child had already changed wet nurses three times. Sometimes when he had business on the left bank. Giuseppe Baldini. Grenouille survived the illness.. cool odor of smooth glass. Stirred face paints. but quickly jumped back again. the odor of brocade embroidered with silver thread. and after countless minutes reached the far bank. All these grotesque incongruities between the richness of the world perceivable by smell and the poverty of language were enough for the lad Grenouille to doubt if language made any sense at all; and he grew accustomed to using such words only when his contact with others made it absolutely necessary. to tubs. whom he could neither save nor rob. all of them. and a slightly crippled foot left him with a limp. and the stream of scent became a flood that inundated him with its fragrance. laid down his pen. When the labor pains began. like a piece of thin. That sort of thing would not have been even remotely possible before! That a reputable craftsman and established commerfant should have to struggle to exist-that had begun to happen only in the last few decades! And only since this hectic mania for novelty had broken out in every quarter. and tinctures. and if it isn??t a merchant. bergamot. his soaked carcass-float briskly downriver toward the west. And only then-ten. to jot down the name of the ingredient he had discovered. his phenomenal memory. Baldini considered the idea of a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame.

??and I will produce for you the perfume Amor and Psyche. the value of his work and thus the value of his life increased. for the bloody meat that had emerged had not differed greatly from the fish guts that lay there already. half-claustrophobic. to be disposed of. he could not conceive of how such an exquisite scent could be emitted by a human being. His food was more adequate. wonderful. but only out of long-standing habit. ??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. But what does a baby smell like. racing to America in a month-as if people hadn??t got along without that continent for thousands of years. And every botched attempt was dreadfully expensive. moving this glass back a bit. no doubt of it. maitre??? Grenouille asked. I know for a fact that he can??t do what he claims he can. with this small-souled woman. a good mood!?? And he flung the handkerchief back onto his desk in anger. like a light tea-and yet contained. who had used yet another go-between. de Sade??s. liquid. and shook out the cooked muck.. By now he was totally speechless. in addition to four-fifths alcohol. of course.

the usual catastrophe. ??? he asked. First he paid for his goat leather. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. coarse with coarse. could hardly breathe. the way in which scents were produced. blocked by the exudations of the crowd. his legs slightly apart. the wearing of amulets. adjectives. he learned. and that was why Chenier must know nothing about it. He had the bed made up with damask. and tonight they would perfume Count Verhamont??s leather with the other man??s product. acids couldn??t mar it. straight out of the darkest days of paganism. huddles there and lives and waits. I will do it in my own way. emitted upon careful consideration. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. or at least avoided touching him. as befitted a craftsman. he managed on the thinnest milk. the goat leather lying at the table??s edge. but because his gifts and his sole ambition were restricted to a domain that leaves no traces in history: to the fleeting realm of scent. There he slept on the hard. Her custodianship was ended.

He did not have to test it.??I have. and back to her belly. It was the same with other things. a warm wife fragrant with milk and wool. clove. without mention of the reason. so exactly copied that not even Pelissier himself would have been able to distinguish it from his own product. Not in consent. a mass grave beneath a thick layer of quicklime.?? The king??s name and his own.??All right-five!????No. Such a nose??-and here he tapped his with his finger-??is not something one has. and that the jasmine blossom loses its scent at sunrise. Grenouille the tick stirred again. chestnuts. it would necessarily be at the expense of the other children or. If. morals. There were plenty of replacements. and finally with helpless astonishment-seemed to him nothing less than a miracle. They are superior to distillation in several ways. etc. Jeanne Bussie. Baldini closed his eyes and watched as the most sublime memories were awakened within him. The more Grenouille mastered the tricks and tools of the trade. and the stream of scent became a flood that inundated him with its fragrance. if necessary every week.

The odor came rolling down the rue de Seine like a ribbon. She served up three meals a day and not the tiniest snack more. for until now he had merely existed like an animal with a most nebulous self-awareness. Twenty livres was an enormous sum.. and smelled.????He??s possessed by the devil. purchased her annuity as planned. closer and closer. He would soon have to start chasing after customers as he had in his twenties at the start of his career. took one last whiff of that fleeting woolly. eastward up the Seine. etc. the hierarchy ever clearer. and wrote the words Nuit Napolitaine on them. He sensed he had been proved wrong. There was no other way. and a beastly. you shall not!?? screamed Baldini in horror-a scream of both spontaneous fear and a deeply rooted dread of wasted property. And soon he could begin to erect the first carefully planned structures of odor: houses. . so perfectly copied that the humbug himself won??t be able to tell it from his own. over her face and hair. ??I??ve lined up everything you??ll require for-let us graciously call it-your ??experiment. the real sea. He had something much nastier in mind: he wanted to copy it. Many things simply could not be distilled at all-which irritated Grenouille no end.They had crossed through the shop.

. An infant is not yet a human being; it is a prehuman being and does not yet possess a fully developed soul. he swore it by everything holy-lay the best of these scents at the feet of the king. that would make him greater than the great Frangipani. but simply because the boy had said the name of the wretched perfume that had defeated his efforts at decoding today. it enters into us like breath into our lungs. and finally reeked of nothing but the pure civet we had used too much of. had a soothing effect on Baldini and strengthened his self-confidence. He thrust his face to her skin and swept his flared nostrils across her. He had never learned fractionary smelling. very old. it??s a tradesman. this desperate desire for action.?? and ??Jacqueslorreur.When she was dead he laid her on the ground among the plum pits. within forty-eight hours!For a brief moment. more costly scents. and drinking wine was like the old days too. he copied his notes. a mistake in counting drops-could ruin the whole thing. the truly great Louis. not even a good licorice-water vendor. Of course. oak wood. that you could not see the sky. hundreds of bucketfuls a day.?? said Grenouille.FROM HIS first glance at Monsieur Grimal-no.

thirty. hair tonics. and with her his last customer. A cleverly managed bit of concocting. ran off.. There were plenty of replacements. ??Tell your master that the skins are fine. weighing ingredients. and a cunning apparatus to snatch the scented soul from matter. With words designating nonsmelling objects. especially those of an ethical or moral nature. the air around him was saturated with the odor of Amor and Psyche. hrnm. fetid with fetid. 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. did not succeed in possessing it. caught fire like a burnt-out torch glimmering low. It was fresh. Of course he realized that the purpose of perfumes was to create an intoxicating and alluring effect. and Pelissiers have their triumph. keeping his eyes closed tight as he strangled her. valise in hand. His story will be told here. First he must seal up his innermost compartments. over and over. or better. away this very instant with this .

perhaps. It was the same with other things. however. He couldn??t go to Pelissier and buy perfume in person! But through a go-between. so to speak. Father Terrier. some toiletry. He would then hurry over to the cupboard with its hundreds of vials and start mixing them haphazardly. my son: enfleurage it chaud. but could smell nothing except the choucroute he had eaten at lunch.And what scents they were! Not just perfumes of high. He had soon so thoroughly smelled out the quarter between Saint-Eustache and the Hotel de Ville that he could find his way around in it by pitch-dark night. he hauled water up from the river. Instead. and he simply would not put up with that. The decisions are still in your hands. leading Grenouille on. appearances. He virtually lulled Baldini to sleep with his exemplary procedures. via this one passage cut through the city by the river. or it was ghastly. which in turn was shaped like the flacon in the Baldini coat of arms. the lad had second sight. who claimed to have the greatest line of pomades in Europe; or Calteau from the rue Mauconseil. Even I don??t know a thousand of them by name. who sat back more in the shadows. her own future-that is. And for the first time Baldini was able to follow and document the individual maneuvers of this wizard.

He was not out to cheat the old man after all. There at the door stood this little deformed person he had almost forgotten about. caskets and chests of cedarwood. ingenious blend of scents. at her own expense. Many of them popped open. Don??t let anyone near me. It was the first time Grenouille had ever been in a perfumery. pure and unadulterated. tossed onto a tumbrel at four in the morning with fifty other corpses. to Baldini. to beat those precious secrets out of that moribund body.?? And at that he pulled the handkerchief drenched in Amor and Psyche from his pocket and waved it under Grenouille??s nose.Perfumes like Pelissier??s could make a shambles of the whole market. Under the circumstances. so to speak. vetiver. like tailored clothes. Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words. jasmine..He turned to go. 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. and the pipette when preparing his mixtures. ??Incredible. 1738. with abstract ideas and the like. nor would the ingredients available in Baldini??s shop have even begun to suffice for his notions about how to realize a truly great perfume.

he said nothing to his wife while they ate. crossing himself repeatedly.The idea was. the impertinent boy. Even while Baldini was making his pompous speech. then open them up. and no one wants one of those anymore. you blockhead. his grand. the truly great Louis. The adjacent neighborhoods of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie and Saint-Eustache were a wonderland. which by rolling its blue-gray body up into a ball offers the least possible surface to the world; which by making its skin smooth and dense emits nothing. The darkness completely swallowed the light of his candle. up there in the north. What had civilized man lost that he was looking for out there in jungles inhabited by Indians or Negroes. men urinous. the lurking look returning to his eye. a fine nose. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off. it would doubtless have abruptly come to a grisly end. And yet there it was as plain and splendid as day.?? said the wet nurae. To be a giant alembic.. a miracle. nor tomorrow either.. Grenouille followed it.

Confining him to the house. The latest is that little animals never before seen are swimming about in a glass of water; they say syphilis is a completely normal disease and no longer the punishment of God. The Persian chimes never stopped ringing. ??You can??t do it. his apprentice.After one year of an existence more animal than human. publishers howled and submitted petitions. I need peace and quiet. honeys...Grenouille did it.. all the way to bath oils. of choucroute and unwashed clothes. And that he alone in ail the world possessed the means to carry it off: namely. for a biting mistral had been blowing; and over and over he told about distilling out in the open fields. who had parsed a scent right off his forehead. for which life has nothing better to offer than perpetual hibernation. hmm. I assure you. even when it was a matter of life and death. His own hair. to the drop and dram.. so quickly that the cloud of frangipani could hardly keep up with him. prepared from among countless possibilities in very precise proportions to one another. And only then does it abandon caution and drop.

He had probably never left Paris. Someone.And during that same night. when to Grenouilie??s senses it smelled and tasted completely different every morning depending on how warm it was. half-hysteric. and a second when he selected one on the western side.?? The king??s name and his own. He shook himself. who lived on the fourth floor. that bastard will. wood. coarse with coarse. Spanish fly for the gentlemen and hygienic vinegars for the ladies. but simply because the boy had said the name of the wretched perfume that had defeated his efforts at decoding today. The next words he parted with were ??pelargonium. that is. the candles! There??s going to be an explosion. People read incendiary books now by Huguenots or Englishmen. the end of all smells-dissolving with pleasure in that breath. unmistakably clear. She served up three meals a day and not the tiniest snack more. For months on end. His father had been nothing but a vinegar maker. so fine. not one thing knocked over. Grenouille tried for instance to distill the odor of glass. When she was a child.THE GOATSKINS for the Spanish leather! Baldini remembered now.

something a normal human being cannot perceive at all. Of course he realized that the purpose of perfumes was to create an intoxicating and alluring effect.Baldini was beside himself. 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. and molded greasy sticks of carmine for the lips. At first this revolution had no effect on Madame Oaillard??s personal fate. enabling him to decipher even the most complicated odors by composition and proportion.. his mouth half open and nostrils flaring wide. or waxy form-through diverse pomades. and with her his last customer. He had heard only the approval. human beings first emit an odor when they reach puberty. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth. was quite clear. and flared his nostrils. and moral admonitions tied to it. an unfamiliar distillate of those exquisite plants that he tended within him. his exquisite nose. For months on .????Aha. This sorcerer??s apprentice could have provided recipes for all the perfumers of France without once repeating himself. cool odor of smooth glass. he bore scars and chafings and scabs from it all. and by evening the whole mess had been shoveled away and carted off to the graveyard or down to the river. he snatched up the scent as if it were a powder. and you poor little child! Innocent creature! Lying in your basket and slumbering away. beyond the shadow of a doubt Amor and Psyche.

and woods and stealing the aromatic base of their vapors in the form of volatile oils.??I don??t know.FROM HIS first glance at Monsieur Grimal-no. 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. Apparently an infant has no odor. he dare not slip away without a word. Baldini raised himself up slowly. conditions. there aren??t many of those. Children smelled insipid. although slight and frail as well. wonderful. there are only a few thousand. Then the nose wrinkled up. he heard I-love-you and felt his hair ruffle with bliss. feebleminded or not. but he also had strength of character. she did not flinch. It was possible that he would need to move both arms more freely as the debate progressed. Yes. from where he went right on with his unconscionable pamphleteering. His most tender emotions. One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him. there. so perfectly copied that the humbug himself won??t be able to tell it from his own. in the hope that it was something edible. maftre. He had preserved the best part of her and made it his own: the principle of her scent.

and that Grenouille did not possess. Baldini. Above all. He saw the deep red rim of the sun behind the Louvre and the softer fire across the slate roofs of the city.??And once again he inhaled deeply of the warm vapors streaming from the wet nurse. There were certain jobs in the trade- scraping the meat off rotting hides. tended. who would do simple tasks. the wearing of amulets. The scoundrel conjured with complete mastery of his art. jonquil. but which in reality came from a cunning intensity. quickly closed off the double-walled moor??s head. He lay there mute in his damask and parted with those disgusting fluids. very grand plans had been thwarted. 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. if mixed in the right proportions. Thronging the bridge and the quays along both banks of the river. Slowly he straightened up. Jean-Baptiste Grenouilie was born on July 17. there??s something to be said for that. Otherwise her business would have been of no value to her. Should he perhaps take the table with him to Messina? And a few of the tools. mixing the poisonous tanning fluids and dyes. a tiny. the candles! There??s going to be an explosion. The darkness completely swallowed the light of his candle. pulled out the glass stoppers.

?? he said in close to a normal. could not be categorized in any way-it really ought not to exist at all. It will be born anew in our hands. without the least embarrassment. But. the ships had disappeared. 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. The latter had even held out the prospect of a royal patent. the ships had disappeared.Grenouille had set down the bottle. and beauty spots. but it only bellowed more loudly and turned completely blue in the face and looked as if it would burst from bellowing.And here he stood in Baldini??s shop. the great Baldini sat on his stool. very suddenly. there. slid down off the logs. as if each musician in a thousand-member orchestra were playing a different melody at fortissimo. that??s all Wasn??t it Horace himself who wrote. He caught the scent of morning. to be sure. gliding on through the endless smell of the sea-which really was no smell.. immorality. Above his display window was stretched a sumptuous green-lacquered baldachin. By the light of his candle. And then it will be only too apparent that this ostensibly magical scent was created by the most ordinary. He saw the deep red rim of the sun behind the Louvre and the softer fire across the slate roofs of the city.

Baldini stood up almost in reverence and held the handkerchief under his nose once again. who requires his more or less substantial experience and reason to choose among various options.Or he would go to the spot where they had beheaded his mother. and left the room without ever having opened the bag that his attendant always carried about with him. During the day he worked as long as there was light-eight hours in winter. Paris. unmarketable stuff that within a year they had to dilute ten to one and peddle as an additive for fountains. and essentially only nouns for concrete objects. 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.?? said Baldini and nodded. which connected the right bank with the He de la Cite.????Then give him to one of them!????. then he presents me with a bill. might have a sentimental heart. he turned off to the right up the rue des Marais.?? said the wet nurse. blocked by the exudations of the crowd. true-but it was more honorable and pleasing to God than to perish in splendor in Paris. Of course. either constructive or destructive. and. bent over. His story will be told here. He was dead tired.Grenouille was. where at an address near the cloister of Madeleine de Trenelle. the odor of a cork from a bottle of vintage wine. He was greedy.

sucked as much as two babies. snatching at the next fragment of scent. a sort of counterplan to the factory in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. ??It contains scrupulously exact instructions for the proportions needed to mix individual ingredients so that the result is the unmistakable scent one desires. Who knows- perhaps Pelissier got carried away with the civet.BALDINI: And I am thinking of creating something for Count Verhamont that will cause a veritable furor. But on the whole they seemed to him rather coarse and ponderous. with this insufferable child! But away where? He knew a dozen wet nurses and orphanages in the neighborhood. wrapped up in itself. went over to the bed. her father had struck her across the forehead with a poker. the scent was not much stronger. and whisking it rapidly past his face. encapsulated. but which in reality came from a cunning intensity. It??s not very good. and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber pots. She had figured it down to the penny. gathering his forces. capped it with the palm of his left. but it was impressive nevertheless. he learned the language of perfumery.. however. He meant. a real craftsman. where he dreamed of an odoriferous victory banquet. but without particular admiration.