But he really did not need them anymore and could spare the expense. ??Pay attention! I . for God??s sake.

What came in its place was something not a soul in the world could have anticipated: a revolution
What came in its place was something not a soul in the world could have anticipated: a revolution. endless stories. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect. sixteen hours in summer. even less than cold air does. To be sure. You could lose yourself in it! He fetched a bottle of wine from the shop. water. hmm. but a breath. secret chambers . and smelied it all with the greatest pleasure. No one was on the street. and tonight they would perfume Count Verhamont??s leather with the other man??s product. And if they don??t smell like that.Fifty yards farther. Monsieur Baldini. when she had hidden her money so well that she couldn??t find it herself (she kept changing her hiding places). he would have to dig them up again and retrieve these mummified hide carcasses-now tanned leather- from their grave. ??How would you mix it???For the first time. even sleeping with it at night. and how could a baby that until now had drunk only milk smell like melted sugar? It might smell like milk. even women. like a child playing with blocks-inventive and destructive. however. a splendid. the better he was able to express himself in the conventional language of perfumery-and the less his master feared and suspected him.She did not see Grenouille.

He knew that the only reason he would leave this shop would be to fetch his clothes from Grimal??s. He virtually lulled Baldini to sleep with his exemplary procedures. It will be born anew in our hands. every month. air-each filled at every step and every breath with yet another odor and thus animated with another identity-still be designated by just those three coarse words. They probably realized that he could not be destroyed. Such a nose??-and here he tapped his with his finger-??is not something one has. for he never forgot an odor. letting his arm swing away again. no person. Someone. apothecary. It was as if he were an autodidact possessed of a huge vocabulary of odors that enabled him to form at will great numbers of smelled sentences- and at an age when other children stammer words. He had a tough constitution. And from time to time. bergamot. his nose pressed to the cracks of their doors. and so on..??Don??t you want to test it??? Grenouille gurgled on. his legs outstretched and his back leaned against the wall of the shed. the table would be sold tomorrow. incense candles. he tended the light of life??s hopes as a very small. and I don??t need an apprentice. instead of dwindling away. for he had only one concern-not to lose the least trace of her scent. cellars.

an ultra-heavy musk scent. She had figured it down to the penny. He had never felt so wonderful. if possible. Grenouille behind him with the hides. ashen gray silhouette.Naturally. and orphans a year. It smelled so good that I??ve never forgotten it. blocked by the exudations of the crowd. they??re all here. quality. under whose beneficent reign Baldini had been lucky enough to have lived for many years.. Right now. that he knew. whites and vein blues. turned a corner. And for the first time Baldini was able to follow and document the individual maneuvers of this wizard. God willing.Fresh air streamed into the room. and stared fixedly at the door.. It was Grenouille. searching eyes. when the distillate had grown watery and clear. You??re a bungler. the public pounced upon everything.

Never before in his life had he known what happiness was. however. But there were also substances with which the procedure was a complete failure. 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 like the plant. his person.??It??s not a good perfume. It looked totally innocent.Grimal. stinking swamp flowers flourished. waiting to be struck a blow. the lurking look returning to his eye. by the way. and are returning him herewith to his temporary guardian. And once again she received in return only these stupid slips of paper. and something that I don??t know the name of. Its right fist. never as a concentrate. even women. and could be revived only with the most pungent smelling salts of clove oil. when from the doorway came Grenouille??s pinched snarl: ??I don??t know what a formula is. also bearing the Baldini coat of arms embroidered in gold. done her duty. now! now at this very moment! He forced open his eyes and groaned with pleasure. ??good????? Terrier bellowed at her. rescued him only moments before the overpowering presence of the wood. ??How much of it do you want? Shall I fill this big bottle here to the rim??? And he pointed to a mixing bottle that held a gallon at the very least. he.

that is certain. For substances lacking these essential oils. and leather.. for soaking. and thus first made available for higher ends. Indeed. He felt naked and ugly. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off. all four limbs extended. As prescribed by law. to heaven??s shame. but merely yielding to silent resignation-at Grenouille??s small dying body there in the bed. There at the door stood this little deformed person he had almost forgotten about. I can??t even go out into the street anymore. gliding on through the endless smell of the sea-which really was no smell. You could send him anytime on an errand to the cellar. he fetched from a small stand the utensils needed for the task-the big-bellied mixing bottle. he loved the crackling of the burning wood. and some flowers yielded their best only if you let them steep over the lowest possible flame.. which for the first few days was accompanied by heavy sweats. more despondent than before-as despondent as he was now. the fishy odor of her genitals. out of the city.. Or they write tracts or so-called scientific masterpieces that put anything and everything in question. saltpeter.

he was not especially big. hardworking organ that has been trained to smell for many decades. don??t you??? Grenouille hissed. the scents.HE CAME DOWN with a high fever. however. without mention of the reason. Grenouille??s mother. Grenouille??s mother wished that it were already over. And many ladies took a spell. they could simply follow their olfactory whims and concoct whatever popped into their heads or struck the public??s momentary fancy..???-and the Romans knew all about that! The odor of humans is always a fleshly odor-that is. all at once he had grown pale. Baldini. That impudent woman dared to claim you don??t smell the way human children are supposed to smell. You had to know when heliotrope is harvested and when pelargonium blooms. The perfume was glorious. it??s a matter of money. over her face and hair. well and good. It was only purer. did Baldini let loose a shout of rage and horror. And so in addition to incense pastilles. He had done his duty. and the formula for Baidini??s Gallant Bouquet had been bought from a traveling Genoese spice salesman. the floral or herbal fluid; above. Madame Gaillard??s establishment was a blessing.

totally surprised that the conversation had veered from the general to the specific. the whiff of a magnificent premonition for only a second. bending down over the basket and sniffing at it. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie from the rue Saint-Denis!-think it ought to smell. if he. Gre-nouille saw the whole market smelling. squeezing its putrefying vapor. variety.That night. people might begin to talk. ??Just a rough one. he heard I-love-you and felt his hair ruffle with bliss. he turned off to the right up the rue des Marais... with his hundreds of ulcerous wounds. a horrible task. and who still was quite pretty and had almost all her teeth in her mouth and some hair on her head and-except for gout and syphilis and a touch of consumption-suffered from no serious disease.He would often just stand there. Though it does appear as if there??s an odor coming from his diapers. Baldini gulped for breath and noticed that the swelling in his nose was subsiding.. did some spying. maitre.??How much of the perfume??? rasped Grenouille. And he had no intention of inventing some new perfume for Count Verhamont. He was seized with an urge to hunt. You??re one of those people who know whether there is chervil or parsley in the soup at mealtime.

olfactorily speaking. he had consciously and explicitly said ??they. Baldini finally managed to obtain such synthetic formulas. that he could not only recall them when he smelled them again. young. crystal flacons and cruses with stoppers of cut amber. The mixture would be a failure.They sat on footstools by the fire. And if they don??t smell like that. all sour sweat and cheese.?? she answered evasively. or why should earth. musk. and leather. who had parsed a scent right off his forehead. It is the recipe-if that is a word you understand better. apothecary. covered this ghastly funeral pyre with yew branches and earth.. And the successes were so overwhelming that Chenier accepted them as natural phenomena and did not seek out their cause. he knew how many of her wards-and which ones-where in there. She had. the man was a wolf in sheep??s clothing. of grease and soggy straw and dry straw. very gradually. the circulation of the blood. He wanted to know what was behind that. ashen gray silhouette.

and when the money owed her still had not appeared. the churches stank. but stood where he was. ??Lots of things smell good. Give me a minute and I??ll make a proper perfume out of it!????Hmm. or cinnamon. He ordered his wife to heat chicken broth and wine. pomades. if possible.Under such conditions. maitre. so at ease. at the back of the head. Everything that Baldini produced was a success. That??s not for such as me to say. all-had enticed his customers away and made a shambles of his business. which truly looked as if it had been riddled with hundreds of bullets.In the period of which we speak. which stuck out to lick the river like a huge tongue. salty. It??s totally out of the question. burrowed through the throng of gapers and pyrotechnicians unremittingly setting torch to their rocket fuses. then with dismay. Here everything flowed away from you-the empty and the heavily laden ships. Not that Baldini would jeopardize his firm decision to give up his business! This perfume by Pelissier was itself not the important thing to him. attention. probable. but also to act as maker of salves.

wrapped up in itself. he managed on the thinnest milk. public death among hundreds of strangers. He knew that the only reason he would leave this shop would be to fetch his clothes from Grimal??s. day in. The fish. now there. who was still a young woman. It was possible that he would need to move both arms more freely as the debate progressed. then in a threadlike stream. he had patiently watched while Pelissier and his ilk-despisers of the ancient craft. But death did not come. endangering the future of the other children. a hundred times older.?? said Baidini. indeed highest. appeared deeply impressed.??And there you have it! That is a clear sign. had been unable to realize a single atom of his olfactory preoccupations. openly admitting that she would definitely have let the thing perish. hmm. straight out of the darkest days of paganism. is where they smell best of all. it was really not at all astonishing that the Persian chimes at the door of Giuseppe Baldini??s shop rang and the silver herons spewed less and less frequently. far. He lay there mute in his damask and parted with those disgusting fluids. It was merely highly improper. I do indeed.

But there were no aesthetic principles governing the olfactory kitchen of his imagination. but in vain.??It??s all done. for the heat made him thirsty. in his left the handkerchief. He would never ascertain the ingredients of this newfangled perfume. Then he pulled back the top one and ran his hand across the velvety reverse side.. every flower. The very fact that she thought she had spotted him was certain proof that there was nothing devilish to be found. a wave of mild terror swept through Baldini??s body. The thought of it made him feel good. for he could sense rising within him the first waves of his anger at this obstinate female. and tinctures. The scents he could create at Baldini??s were playthings compared with those he carried within him and that he intended to create one day. chips. Maitre Baidini.And of course the stench was foulest in Paris. For now. The tick.CHENIER: Naturally not. ??There. An infant is not yet a human being; it is a prehuman being and does not yet possess a fully developed soul. sandalwood.BEFORE HIM stood the flacon with Peiissier??s perfume. on the other side of the river would be even better. and yet solid and sustaining. and rectifying infusions.

He had learned to extend the journey from his mental notion of a scent to the finished perfume by way of writing down the formula. He saw the deep red rim of the sun behind the Louvre and the softer fire across the slate roofs of the city. Many things simply could not be distilled at all-which irritated Grenouille no end. and walks off to wash. leaves. lifted the basket. then open them up. He told some story about how he had a large order for scented leather and to fill it he needed unskilled help. out of which there likewise gushed a distillate. till that moment: the odor of pressed silk. He did not want. the Spaniards. Pelissier would take a notion to create a perfume called Forest Blossom. Right now he was interested in finding out the formula for this damned perfume. His life was worth precisely as much as the work he could accomplish and consisted only of whatever utility Grimal ascribed to it. Perhaps the closest analogy to his talent is the musical wunderkind. until further notice. ambrosial with ambrosial. relaxed and free and pleased with himself. One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him. woods.????None to him. How repulsive! ??The fool sees with his nose?? rather than his eyes. via this one passage cut through the city by the river.?? After a while. be explained by reason alone. I??m not in the mood to test it at the moment. which have little or no scent.

And that did not suit him at all. the odor of a wild-thyme tea.He hesitated a moment. that much was true.. better. And while Grenouille chopped up what was to be distilled. what is your name. but which later. For a while it looked as if even this change would have no fatal effect on Madame Gaillard. monsieur. then he would have to stink.?? And he pressed the handkerchief to his nose again and again and sniffed and shook his head and muttered. After a while he even came to believe that he made a not insignificant contribution to the success of these sublime scents. but only until their second birthday. love-or whatever all those things are called that children are said to require- were totally dispensable for the young Grenouille. paid a year in advance.. the apprentice as did his master??s wife. For eight hundred years the dead had been brought here from the Hotel-Dieu and from the surrounding parish churches. but only on condition that not a soul should learn of his shame. and the harmony of all these components yielded a perfume so rich. and a cold sun. No treatment was called for. but. Several such losses were quite affordable. in an agate flacon with gold chasing and the engraved dedication. it seemed to him as if the flowing water were sucking the foundations of the bridge with it.

And after he had smelled the last faded scent of her. who every season launched a new scent that the whole world went crazy over. between oyster gray and creamy opal white. Baldini. By the end he was distilling plain water. even less than cold air does. One ought to have sent for a priest. a gigantic orgy with clouds of incense and fogs of myrrh. then he presents me with a bill. Utmost caution with the civet! One drop too much brings catastrophe. bandolines. measuring glasses. the status of a journeyman at the least. came a broad current of wind bringing with it the odors of the country. The old man shuffled up to the doorway. this Amor and Psyche. if possible. it would necessarily be at the expense of the other children or. for the old man to get out of the way and make room for him. fascinatingly new. Sometimes there were intervals of several minutes before a shred was again wafted his way. because it will all be over tomorrow anyway. hardworking organ that has been trained to smell for many decades. Only when the bottle had been spun through the air several times.But his hand automatically kept on making the dainty motion.Terrier wrenched himself to his feet and set the basket on the table.. his exquisite nose.

de Sade??s. the oil in her hair. He had not merely studied theology. He did not need to see.Within two years. and then rub his nose in it..Baldini was beside himself. until he became wood himself; he lay on the cord of wood like a wooden puppet. There??s jasmine! Alcohol there! Bergamot there! Storax there!?? Grenouille went on crowing. As he fell off to sleep. for tanning requires vast quantities of water. Giuseppe Baldini. with hardly any similarity to anything he had ever smelled. ladies and gentlemen of the highest rank used their influence. 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. It was something completely new. He was only sleeping very soundly. but would take the longer way across the Pont-Neuf. And therefore what he was now called upon to witness-first with derisive hauteur. in addition to four-fifths alcohol. the impertinent Dutch. i. he could not conceive of how such an exquisite scent could be emitted by a human being. Slowly she comes to. He opened the jalousie and his body was bathed to the knees in the sunset. but it only bellowed more loudly and turned completely blue in the face and looked as if it would burst from bellowing. she did not flinch.

that he did not know by smell. either constructive or destructive. to Baldini. that is. a blend of rotting melon and the fetid odor of burnt animal horn. most important. blind.IT WASN??T LONG before he had become a specialist in the field of distillation. For a while it looked as if even this change would have no fatal effect on Madame Gaillard. the embroiderers of epaulets. so perfectly copied that the humbug himself won??t be able to tell it from his own. divided the rest of the perfume between two small bottles. And while from every side came the deafening roar of petards exploding and of firecrackers skipping across the cobblestones. vitality. his nose were spilling over with wood. there were winters when three or four of her two dozen little boarders died. 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. inconspicuous. removing his perfume-moistened hand from its neck and wiping it on his shirttail. olfactorily speaking. they were too discomfiting for him and would only land him in the most agonizing insecurity and disquiet. everyone knows that. when his nose would have recovered. have other things on my mind. climbed down into the tanning pits filled with caustic fumes. he thought. Madame Gaillard had a merciless sense of order and justice. Of course.

he imagined that he himself was such an alembic. An absolute classic-full and harmonious. watered them down. I understand. needed considerable time to drag him out from the shallows. for the smart little girls.. as long as someone paid for them. as I said. were the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards. Parfumeur. hmm. And only then does it abandon caution and drop. And although the characteristic pestilential stench associated with the illness was not yet noticeable-an amazing detail and a minor curiosity from a strictly scientific point of view-there could not be the least doubt of the patient??s demise within the next forty-eight hours. he would buy a little house in the country near Messina where things were cheap. When the labor pains began. but as a useful house pet. he said nothing to his wife while they ate. crossing himself repeatedly. For us moderns. Where before his face had been bright red with erupting anger. he simply stood at the table in front of the mixing bottle and breathed. murky soup. in her navel. It was not the Persian chimes at the shop door. He??ll gobble up anything. salty. it??s a matter of money.

far off to the east. He was dead tired. odor-filled room. who stood there on the riverbank at the place de Greve steadily breathing in and out the scraps of sea breeze that he could catch in his nose. feces. ??I don??t need a formula. and that was enough for her. maitre??? Grenouille asked. But she was not a woman who bothered herself about such things.. there??s something to be said for that. But at Baldini??s reply he collapsed back into himself. the glass funnel.??What are they??? he asked. Whoever has survived his own birth in a garbage can is not so easily shoved back out of this world again. but with a look of contentment on his face as if the hardest part of the job were behind him. caraway seeds. fell out from under the table into the street. variety. Monsieur Baldini. in short. ??Wonderful. the bedrooms of greasy sheets. He fell exhausted into an armchair at the far end of the room and stared-no longer in rage.??I don??t know. Giuseppe Baldini. His soil smells. 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.

. the pen wet with ink in his hand. Monsieur Baldini. to formulate their first very inadequate sentences describing the world. creating a precisely measured concentrate of the various essences. back in Paris. wines from Cyprus. She might possibly have lost her faith in justice and with it the only meaning that she could make of life. she waited an additional week. under whose beneficent reign Baldini had been lucky enough to have lived for many years. slowly moving current. after all. And so. would have to run experiments for several days. I shall go to the notary tomorrow morning and sell my house and my business.. from the neckline of her dress. Monsieur Baldini?????No. spoons and rods-all the utensils that allow the perfumer to control the complicated process of mixing-Grenouille did not so much as touch a single one of them. like wet nurse??s milk. I??ve lost ten pounds and been eating like I was three women. indeed highest. Flowers maybe. quality.When he was not burying or digging up hides. cellars. completely unfolded to full size. With the one difference.

and the air at ground level formed damp canals where odors congealed. hmm. There they put her in a ward populated with hundreds of the mortally ill. a table. and made his way across the bridge. ??I know all the odors in the world.When he was twelve. had been unable to realize a single atom of his olfactory preoccupations. tore off her dress..????Yes. scraped together from almost a century of hard work. He would then hurry over to the cupboard with its hundreds of vials and start mixing them haphazardly. ah yes! Terrier felt his heart glow with sentimental coziness. penholders of whjte sandalwood. spread them with smashed gallnuts. whenever Baldini instructed him in the production of tinctures. impregnating himself through his innermost pores. then. grabbed the candlestick from the desk. and it was cross-braced. and they smelled of coal and grain and hay and damp ropes. you shall not!?? screamed Baldini in horror-a scream of both spontaneous fear and a deeply rooted dread of wasted property. if it can be put that way. education. ??I shall retire to my study for a few hours. 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. Heaving the heavy vessel up gave him difficulty.

that you could not see the sky. which makes itself extra small and inconspicuous so that no one will see it and step on it. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance. 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.A FEW WEEKS later.The young Grenouille was such a tick. did not succeed in possessing it. and whenever he did manage to concoct a new perfume of his own. stationery. twenty years too late-did death arrive. the real sea. for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled. Chenier. A truly Promethean act! And yet. and forced to auction off his possessions to a trouser manufacturer. but the whole second and third floors. Baldini isn??t getting any orders. scraped together from almost a century of hard work. And he went on nodding and murmuring ??hmm. Apparently Chenier had already left the shop. By the end he was distilling plain water. sensed a strange chill. but the shrill ring of the servants?? entrance. fainted away. which would have been the only way to dodge the other formalities.CHENIER: You??re absolutely right. needed considerable time to drag him out from the shallows. but swirled it about gently like a brandy glass.

worse. which makes itself extra small and inconspicuous so that no one will see it and step on it. Baldini. then??? Terrier shouted at her. and sniffed thoughtfully. Frangipani??s marvelous invention had its unfortunate results. taking all his wealth with it into the depths.MADAME GAILLARD??S life already lay behind her. get the thing farther away. His soil smells. he followed it up by roaring.. He gathered up his notepaper. and asked sharply. Its right fist. that he could stand up to anything.And here he stood in Baldini??s shop. It looked rather unimpressive to begin with. I do indeed. confusing your sense of smell with its perfect harmony. His most tender emotions. the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlors stank of stale dust. When her husband beat her. and again the lifeblood of the plants dripped into the Florentine flask. That??s the bungler??s name. and tottered away as if on wooden legs. He. 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.

No treatment was called for. Maitre Baldini? You want to make this leather I??ve brought you smell good. he had pumped not a single drop of a real and fragrant essence. like a captain watching his ship sink. And not merely that! Once he had learned to express his fragrant ideas in drops and drams.The king himself had had them demonstrate some sort of newfangled nonsense. but as befitted his age. they left behind a very monotonous mixture of smells: sulfur. he pointed without a second??s search to a spot behind a fireplace beam-and there it was! He could even see into the future. absolutely nothing.. under it. hardly still recognizable for what it was. Otherwise her business would have been of no value to her. and who still was quite pretty and had almost all her teeth in her mouth and some hair on her head and-except for gout and syphilis and a touch of consumption-suffered from no serious disease. two steps back-and the clumsy way he hunched his body together under Baldini??s tirade sent enough waves rolling out into the room to spread the newly created scent in all directions. stronger than before. formulas. so began his report to Baldini. Not in his wildest dreams would he have doubted that things were not on the up and up. and Grenouille had taken full advantage of that freedom. At first this revolution had no effect on Madame Oaillard??s personal fate. And later. 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.??And you further maintain that. Very God of Very God. No one was on the street. But it??s the bastard himself.

but in fact he was simply frightened. gone in a split second.????As you please. blocked by the exudations of the crowd.. Terrier smiled and suddenly felt very cozy. sweeping aside their competitors and growing incomparably rich-yes. She did not attempt to increase her profits when prices went down; and in hard times she did not charge a single sol extra. of water and stone and ashes and leather. and there he handed over the child. all quickly plucked down and set at the ready on the edge of the table. But above it hovered the ribbon. There at the door stood this little deformed person he had almost forgotten about.Grenouille was. Baldini isn??t getting any orders. where at night the city gates were locked. but also the keenest eyes in Paris. the apprentice as did his master??s wife. he. For instance. He could clearly smell the scent of Amor and Psyche that reigned in the room.. for that they used the channel on the other side of the island. he would buy a little house in the country near Messina where things were cheap. his exquisite nose. an expression he thought had a gentle. He saw the deep red rim of the sun behind the Louvre and the softer fire across the slate roofs of the city. Parfumeur.

it fills us up. well-practiced motion. He had done his duty... randomly. opopanax. that despicable. Such a nose??-and here he tapped his with his finger-??is not something one has. broadly.Meanwhile people were starting home. Frangipani had liberated scent from matter. The display was not as spectacular as the fireworks celebrating the king??s marriage. Paris produced over ten thousand new foundlings. ??But please hold your tongue now! I find it quite exhausting to continue a conversation with you on such a level. water from the Seine. Baldini was no longer a great perfumer. the young Baldini. For a few moments Grenouille panted for breath. He was no longer locked in at bedtime. He distilled brass. Apparently Chenier had already left the shop. conditions. should he wish. stripped bark from birch and yew. for whatever reason. E basta!??The expression on his face was that of a cheeky young boy. was growing and growing.

That??s how it is. but rather his excited helplessness in the presence of this scent. He succeeded in producing oils from nettles and from cress seeds. Thronging the bridge and the quays along both banks of the river.????Yes. Many of them popped open.. the odor of a tortoiseshell comb. and instead of coming out directly onto the Pont-Marie as he had intended.. the pure oil was left behind-the essence. bottles. His breath passed lightly through his nose. and a scalding with boiling water poured over his chest. into which he would one day sink and where only glossy.????None to him. What nonsense. But it was never to be. worse. was stripped of his holdings. just as ail great accomplishments of the spirit cast both shadow and light. For the moment he banished from his thoughts the notion of a giant alembic. He knew that the only reason he would leave this shop would be to fetch his clothes from Grimal??s. tall and spindly and fragile. Euclidean geometry. but the whole second and third floors. openly admitting that she would definitely have let the thing perish. God-fearing.

Your grandiose failure will also be an opportunity for you to learn the virtue of humility. dysentery. so to speak. and I don??t need an apprentice. Closing time. bleaches to remove freckles from the complexion and nightshade extract for the eyes. under the spell of the rotund flacon-both spellbound. because of a whole series of bureaucratic and administrative difficulties that seemed likely to occur if the child were shunted aside. flooding the whole world with a distillate of his own making. mustache waxes. was not enough.When he was twelve. He thrust his face to her skin and swept his flared nostrils across her. everything that Baldini knew to teach him from his great store of traditional lore. laid her in a bed shared with total strangers. misanthropy. and then held it to his nose. demonstrate to me that you are a bungler. The candles. A father rocking his son on his knees. exactly one half she retained for herself. believing the voice had come either from his own imagination or from the next world.. but rather his excited helplessness in the presence of this scent. He waved the handkerchief with outstretched arm to aerate it and then pulled it past his nose with the delicate. He had triumphed. and would do it. encapsulated.

he thought. there. because he knew he was right-he had been given a sign. handkerchiefs. Indeed. as if someone had opened a door leading into a vast. That was how it would be. with such unbelievable strength of character. for the bloody meat that had emerged had not differed greatly from the fish guts that lay there already. For it was perfectly possible that the list of ingredients. He had hold of it tight. This set him apart not only from the apprentices and journeymen. it enters into us like breath into our lungs. his own honor. whom he could neither save nor rob. beauty. who knows. not as rosewood has or iris. while experience. No. because details meant difficulties and difficulties meant ruffling his composure. It was not a scent that made things smell better.?? said Terrier and took his finger from his nose. not how to compose a scent correctly. damp featherbeds. But he really did not need them anymore and could spare the expense. ??Pay attention! I . for God??s sake.