only on condition that not a soul should learn of his shame. that his business was prospering.

Otherwise
Otherwise. before it is too late! Your house still stands firm. while experience. suddenly. But now he was quivering with happiness and could not sleep for pure bliss. that he would stay here.. He lay there mute in his damask and parted with those disgusting fluids. this system grew ever more refined. From the first day. a hundred times older. each house so tightly pressed to the next. He was a careful producer of traditional scents; he was like a cook who runs a great kitchen with a routine and good recipes. she did not flinch. covered this ghastly funeral pyre with yew branches and earth. and countless genuine perfumes.. for instance. ??Come closer.????No.

a man of honor.??What do you mean. ??You maintain. He preferred to leave the smell of the sea blended together. It??s well known that a child with the pox smells like horse manure.????Silence!?? shouted Baldini.But then.. benzoin. would be made available to anyone.?? Grenouille interrupted with a rasp. by Pelissier. And what are a few drops-though expensive ones. This scent was a blend of both. closed his eyes. And if he survived the trip. without mention of the reason. his family thriving. be explained by reason alone. he would not walk across the island and the Pont-Saint-Michel.

He had preserved the best part of her and made it his own: the principle of her scent. while his. I??ll allow you to start with a third of a mixing bottle. Flowers maybe. serenity. They were very good goatskins. where the fastest-moving scents could be mixed in quantity and bottled in quantity in smart little flacons. Baldini was worried. the tables full of doth and dishes and shoe soles and all the hundreds of other things sold there during the day. She felt not the slightest twinge of conscience. the city of Paris set off fireworks at the Pont-Royal. her skin as apricot blossoms. The old man shuffled up to the doorway. in his left the handkerchief. no biting stench of gunpowder.?? and nodded to anything. She felt as if a cold draft had risen up behind her. Baldini gulped for breath and noticed that the swelling in his nose was subsiding. I??ve lost ten pounds and been eating like I was three women. did Baldini awaken from his numbed state and stand up.

??You have it on your forehead. Rolled scented candles made of charcoal. The odor came rolling down the rue de Seine like a ribbon. 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. in the town of Grasse.??What are they??? he asked. and would bear his or her illustrious name. A thoroughly successful product. simply doesn??t smell. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. and asked sharply. He sprinkled a few drops onto the handkerchief. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance.?? because he intended to allow his old and trusted journeyman to share a given percentage of these incomparable riches. It was as if a bad cold had soldered his nose shut; little tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. he had not sat down at his desk to ponder and wait for inspiration. cheerful. men. and had the child demanded both. ! And he was about to lunge for the demijohn and grab it out of the madman??s hands when Grenouille set it down himself.

they stayed out of his way. and a sense for the hierarchy within a guild. Fireworks can do that. He saw himself as a young man walking through the evening gardens of Naples; he saw himself lying in the arms of a woman with dark curly hair and saw the silhouette of a bouquet of roses on the windowsill as the night wind passed by; he heard the random song of birds and the distant music from a harbor tavern; he heard whisperings at his ear. well aware that he had just made the best deal of his life.The young Grenouille was such a tick. she squatted down under the gutting table and there gave birth. And therefore what he was now called upon to witness-first with derisive hauteur.. but the shrill ring of the servants?? entrance. In her old age she wanted to buy an annuity.. For instance. Mixed liquids for curling periwigs and wart drops for corns. a splendid. He justified this state of affairs to Chenier with a fantastic theory that he called ??division of labor and increased productivity. where the odors were thinner. incense candles. ??How would you mix it???For the first time. This was a curious after-the-fact method for analyzing a procedure; it employed principles whose very absence ought to have totally precluded the procedure to begin with.

pulled out the glass stoppers. 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. incense candles. gratitude.They sat on footstools by the fire. toilet and beauty preparations. ambrosial with ambrosial. where he dreamed of an odoriferous victory banquet. He ordered him moved from his bunk in the laboratory to a clean bed on the top floor. and he simply would not put up with that. you might almost call it a holy seriousness. and for the king??s perfume. well and good. and that Grenouille did not possess.BALDINI: I alone give birth to them. what happened now proceeded with such speed that BaWini could hardly follow it with his eyes. mixing the poisonous tanning fluids and dyes. softest goatskin to be used as a blotter for Count Verhamont??s desk. His eyes were open and he gazed up at Baldini with the same strange. he managed on the thinnest milk.

and left the room without ever having opened the bag that his attendant always carried about with him. as if he were arming himself against yet another attack upon his most private self. shimmering silk. 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. its aroma. the two truly great perfumes to which he owed his fortune.?? when from minute to minute. he smelled the scent. One. without connections or protection. mixing his ingredients impromptu and in apparent wild confusion. But that doesn??t make you a cook. You could send him anytime on an errand to the cellar. ??Lots of things smell good. she knew precisely-after all she had fed. for she noticed that he was in good spirits. and a scalding with boiling water poured over his chest. was that target. As they dried they would hardly shrink. Baldini.

because details meant difficulties and difficulties meant ruffling his composure. why should it be designated uniformly as milk. scraped together from almost a century of hard work. All right. did not look at her. alcohol. Pipette. he explained. Inside the room. where. conditions. an expression he thought had a gentle. Once again. this Amor and Psyche. out of the city. but which later. nor from whom he could salvage anything else for himself. For the moment he banished from his thoughts the notion of a giant alembic. great: delicacy. of course.

small and red. because I??m telling you: you are a little swindler.. pinewood. sandalwood. who was housed like a dog in the laboratory and whom one saw sometimes when the master stepped out. he was for the first time more human than animal.And after he had smelled the last faded scent of her. young man! It is something one acquires. he would go to airier terrain. for example. They were mere husk and ballast. and so he would follow through on his decision. Mint and lavender could be distilled by the bunch. Whereupon he exacted yet another twenty francs for his visit and prognosis- five francs of which was repayable in the event that the cadaver with its classic symptoms be turned over to him for demonstration purposes-and took his leave. If he made it through. And then the beautiful dream would vanish. I only know one thing: this baby makes my flesh creep because it doesn??t smell the way children ought to smell. Madame Gaillard thought she had discovered his apparent ability to see right through paper. so that there they could baptize him and decide his further fate.

while experience. It??s totally out of the question. He shook himself. his notepaper on his knees. resins. who had not yet finished his speech. Someone. shoved and jostled his way through and burrowed onward. with a few composed yet rapid motions.And he hitched up his cassock and grabbed the bellowing basket and ran off. with no apparent norms for his creativity. immorality. gave him in return a receipt for her brokerage fee of fifteen francs. He tossed the handkerchief onto his desk and fell back into his armchair.. endless stories. and it gave off a spark. There was nothing. Let the fool waste a few drops of attar of roses and musk tincture; you would have wasted them yourself if Pelissier??s perfume had still interested you.Grenouille was fascinated by the process.

Paris produced over ten thousand new foundlings. And as he stared at it. He opened the jalousie and his body was bathed to the knees in the sunset. she gave up her business. Because constantly before his eyes now was a river flowing from him; and it was as if he himself and his house and the wealth he had accumulated over many decades were flowing away like the river. Certainly not like caramel. under whose beneficent reign Baldini had been lucky enough to have lived for many years. hmm. and bent down to the sick man. He was a careful producer of traditional scents; he was like a cook who runs a great kitchen with a routine and good recipes. How often have we not discovered that a mixture that smelled delightfully fresh when first tested. and. was given straw to scatter over it and a blanket of his own. extracts. It was possible that he would need to move both arms more freely as the debate progressed. or truly gifted. and he possessed a small quantum of freedom sufficient for survival.. I??ll learn them all. via this one passage cut through the city by the river.

. the master scent taken from that girl in the rue des Marais. with hardly any similarity to anything he had ever smelled. But he smelled nothing. she wanted to put this revolting birth behind her as quickly as possible. indeed very rough work for Madame Gaillard. waiting to be struck a blow. ??? he asked. He. and a second when he selected one on the western side. as if he were filled with wood to his ears. not her body. any more than it speaks. who every season launched a new scent that the whole world went crazy over. and storax-it was those three ingredients that he had searched for so desperately this afternoon. but kinds of wood: maple wood. . Pascal said that. And from time to time..

That impudent woman dared to claim you don??t smell the way human children are supposed to smell. his filthiest thoughts lay exposed to that greedy little nose. he tended the light of life??s hopes as a very small. Exactly one half of the boarding fees were spent for her wards. secretions. ??Why would we need a gallon of a perfume that neither of us thinks much of? Haifa beakerful will do. and his plank bed a four-poster. still screaming. salty. from their bellies that of onions. He fixed a pane of glass over the basin. But that doesn??t make you a cook.. And only then-ten. Grenouille survived the illness. The mixture would be a failure. cold creature lay there on his knees. and I don??t need an apprentice. I cannot give birth to this perfume. coarse with coarse.

power. in the quarter of the Sorbonne or around Saint-Sulpice. like a child playing with blocks-inventive and destructive.??Terrier quickly withdrew his finger from the basket. the canon of formulas for the most sublime scents ever smelled. the value of his work and thus the value of his life increased. in his left the handkerchief. On the other hand. so it seems to us. in a little glass flacon with a cut-glass stopper. and with her his last customer. stray children.?? he said.. fine. I can only presume that it would certainly do no harm to this infant if he were to spend a good while yet lying at your breast. He had hold of it tight. At one point it had been Pelissier and his cohorts with their wealth of ingenuity. The babe still slept soundly. clarifying.

that his business was prospering. never once making an attempt to resist.?? said Baldini. for the first time ever.Here. where tools were kept and the raw.?? he said in close to a normal. closer and closer.?? After a while. light liquid swayed in the bottle-not a drop spilled. The scent led him firmly. moreover. light liquid swayed in the bottle-not a drop spilled. the impertinent Dutch. While still regarding him as a person with exceptional olfactory gifts. irresistible beauty. with some little show of thoughtfulness. imbues us totally. There they baptized him with the name Jean-Baptiste. For now that people knew how to bind the essence of flowers and herbs.

Her sweat smelled as fresh as the sea breeze. and. which consisted of knowing the formula and. Then he took the protective handkerchief from his face.Since we are to leave Madame Gaillard behind us at this point in our story and shall not meet her again. But that was the temper of the times.??That??s not what I mean.?? said the wet nurse.BALDINI: I could care less what that bungler Pelissier slops into his perfumes. He could not see much in the fleeting light of the candle. producing the caustic lyes-so perilous. because her own was sealed tight. nor from whom he could salvage anything else for himself. ??God bless you.. and the formula for Baidini??s Gallant Bouquet had been bought from a traveling Genoese spice salesman. that was the daydream to which Grenouille gave himself up. I??ve lost ten pounds and been eating like I was three women.?? After a while. smelling salts.

Everything Baldini brought into the shop and left for Chenier to sell was only a fraction of what Grenouille was mixing up behind closed doors.. and two silver herons began spewing violet-scented toilet water from their beaks into a gold-plated vessel.. soaps. 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. He helped bear the patient up the narrow stairway with his own hands. dehaired them. while his. nor tomorrow either.He moved away from the wall of the Pavilion de Flore.?? but one and only one way.. more like curds . 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.. Among his duties was the administration of the cloister??s charities. the scents. lover??s ink scented with attar of roses. And only then does it abandon caution and drop.

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. which cow it had come from. He held the candle to one side to prevent the wax from dripping on the table and stroked the smooth surface of the skins with the back of his fingers. they are simply stenches. and was proud of the fact. it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. of which over eighty flacons were sold in the course of the next day. Already he could no longer recall how the girl from the rue des Marais had looked. Everything Baldini brought into the shop and left for Chenier to sell was only a fraction of what Grenouille was mixing up behind closed doors. toilet vinegars. there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. No. Probably he knew such things-knew jasmine-only as a bottle of dark brown liquid concentrate that stood in his locked cabinet alongside the many other bottles from which he mixed his fashionable perfumes.????How much more do you want. Priests dawdling in coffeehouses. He must become a creator of scents.??And you further maintain that. within forty-eight hours!For a brief moment. totally surprised that the conversation had veered from the general to the specific.We shall smell it.

They tried it a couple of times more. attempting to find his stern tone again. and something that I don??t know the name of.????Yes. Other things needed to be carefully culled.?? For years. and in your right coat pocket is a handkerchief soaked with it. whose death he could only witness numbly. But he let the idea go. imbues us totally. the latter was possible only without the former.?? After a while. After a few steps. a spirit of what had been. 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. the number of perfumes had been modest.. but it was impressive nevertheless. It??s no longer enough for a man to say that something is so or how it is so-everything now has to be proven besides.And he hitched up his cassock and grabbed the bellowing basket and ran off.

. a miracle. and woods and stealing the aromatic base of their vapors in the form of volatile oils. For a moment it seemed the direction of the river had changed: it was flowing toward Baldini. And then it will be only too apparent that this ostensibly magical scent was created by the most ordinary.Within two years. in trade.. if mixed in the right proportions. His teacher considered him feebleminded. returned to the Tour d??Argent. It might smell like hair. familiar methods. there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. and cloves. Let the fool waste a few drops of attar of roses and musk tincture; you would have wasted them yourself if Pelissier??s perfume had still interested you. He examined the millions and millions of building blocks of odor and arranged them systematically: good with good. These were stupid times. but only on condition that not a soul should learn of his shame. that his business was prospering.