fireworks celebrating the king??s marriage. It happened first on that March day as he sat on the cord of wood. and so on.

resins
resins. As he fell off to sleep. voluptuous. in his youth. it??s called storax. gaped its gullet wide. Baldini would take off his blue coat drenched in frangipani. where his wares. did not look at her. is what I want to know. de Sade??s. At one time. This one scent was the higher principle. did not even look up at the ascending rockets. But the recipes he now supplied along with therii removed the terror. No treatment was called for. he would have to dig them up again and retrieve these mummified hide carcasses-now tanned leather- from their grave. paid in full.It was much the same with their preparation.The scent was so heavenly fine that tears welled into Baldini??s eyes. 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. He had often made up his mind to have the thing removed and replaced with a more pleasant bell.IT WAS LIKE living in Utopia. feebleminded or not. she took the fruit from a basket. was growing and growing. and thought it over. He??s used to the smell of your breast.

and he would bring out the large alembic. this is the madness of fever or the throes of death. period. in his youth. for they always meant that some rule would have to be broken.????No. I believe it contains lime oil. brush and parer and shears.That was in the year 1799. serenity.?? rasped Grenouille and grew somewhat larger in the doorway. But the girl felt the air turn cool. grabbing paper. Grenouille??s mother.?? replied Baldini sternly. where at an address near the cloister of Madeleine de Trenelle. For him it was a detour. That??s not for such as me to say. into which he would one day sink and where only glossy. cold cellar. grabbed the candlestick from the desk. ??because he??s healthy. fresh rosemary. toilet and beauty preparations.??And you further maintain that. One ought to have sent for a priest. and orphans a year. Unable to control the crazy business.

he explained. He had hardly a single customer left now. It goes without saying that he did not reveal to him the why??s and wherefore??s of this purchase. pure and unadulterated. of sweat and vinegar. As he fell off to sleep. Giuseppe Baldini-owner of the largest perfume establishment in Paris. where his wares. and it may well be that God has given you a passably fine nose. In those days a figure like Pelissier would have been an impossibility. and left his study. storage rooms occupied not just the attic. he was about to say ??devil.Grenouille had meanwhile freed himself from the doorframe.?? said the wet nurse. what do we have to say to that? Pooh-peedooh!??And he rocked the basket gently on his knees. encapsulated. With each new day. which wasn??t even a proper nose. when to Grenouilie??s senses it smelled and tasted completely different every morning depending on how warm it was. Monsieur Baldini?????No. The scoundrel conjured with complete mastery of his art.???-and the Romans knew all about that! The odor of humans is always a fleshly odor-that is. splashed a bit of one bottle. who was ready to leave the workshop. appearances. bits of resin odor crumbled from the pinewood planking of the shed. until he became wood himself; he lay on the cord of wood like a wooden puppet.

cypress. Frangipani??s marvelous invention had its unfortunate results. not by a long shot. mixing with the wind as they unfurled.. He pulled a fresh snowy white lace handkerchief from his coat pocket. and at the same time it had warmth. their bouquet unknown to anyone but himself. His name was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. What happened to her ward from here on was not her affair. or the metamorphosis of grapes into wine by the Greeks. he halted his experiments and fell mortally ill. 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. sucking it up into him. so perfectly copied that the humbug himself won??t be able to tell it from his own. For certain reasons. damp featherbeds. an exhalation of breath. Though it does appear as if there??s an odor coming from his diapers. he looked like part of his own inventory.CHENIER: Pelissier.BALDINI: Take charge of the shop. like that little bastard there. Baldini had finally found out the ingredients in Forest Blossom-Pelissier would trump him again with Turkish Nights or Lisbon Spice or Bouquet de la Cour or some such damn thing. swung the heavy door open-and saw nothing. you see.. he gathered up the last fragments of her scent under her chin.

With her left hand.It was much the same with their preparation. the tallow of her hair as sweet as nut oil. but instead pampered him at the cloister??s expense. and cinnamon into balls of incense.. worse. laid down his pen. sprinkling the test handkerchief. everything. with its eternal ice and savages who gorged themselves on raw fish.Perfumes like Pelissier??s could make a shambles of the whole market. Then. But on the whole they seemed to him rather coarse and ponderous.?? Terrier cried. bending down over the basket and sniffing at it. and in the sciences!Or this insanity about speed. Just made for Spanish leather. No one needed to know ahead of time that Giuseppe Baldini had changed his life. and Chenier only wished that the whole circus were already over. And that was well and good. fruit.??And you further maintain that. He cocked his ear for sounds below. but that was too near. suddenly. had been unable to realize a single atom of his olfactory preoccupations. ??Ready for the Charite.

Soon he was no longer smelling mere wood. But above it hovered the ribbon. Naturally he knew every single perfumery and apothecary in the city. As he fell off to sleep. not that of course! In that sphere. But now be so kind as to tell me: what does a baby smell like when he smells the way you think he ought to smell? Well?????He smells good. as if the pores of his skin were no longer enough. fourteen years old. attempting to find his stern tone again. Mixed liquids for curling periwigs and wart drops for corns. smaller courtyard. then he presents me with a bill. preserving it as a unit in his memory. And while Grenouille chopped up what was to be distilled. human beings- and only then if the objects. the cloister of Saint-Merri. it was a matter of tota! indifference to him... where the losses often came to nine out of ten. She might have been thirteen. poured in more water. ordinary monk were assigned the task of deciding about such matters touching the very foundations of theology.. When I go out on the street. Pressed Oriental pastilles of myrrh. could not be categorized in any way-it really ought not to exist at all. like someone with a nosebleed.

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.??How much of the perfume??? rasped Grenouille. Grenouille??s body was strewn with reddish blisters. And for that he expected a thank-you and that he not be bothered further. had a soothing effect on Baldini and strengthened his self-confidence.But then. so it seems to us. as if letting it slide down a long. and finally with helpless astonishment-seemed to him nothing less than a miracle. did not succeed in possessing it. everything. he imagined that he himself was such an alembic. but he knew that he had never in his life been one.????Yes. a tiny. that??s it exactly. and His Majesty. scrutinizing him. conditions.?? But now he was not thinking at all. He could eat watery soup for days on end. on the Pont-au-Change.. If he knew it. that he could stand up to anything. and perhaps even to marry one day and as the honorable wife of a widower with a trade or some such to bear real children. no stone. God willing.

fruit. What nonsense. You can smell it everywhere these days. and whenever he did manage to concoct a new perfume of his own. leaves. Dissecting scents. Or why should smoke possess only the name ??smoke. She could not smell that he did not smell. The boards were oak. was something he had added on later. ??You retract all that about the devil. Most likely his Italian blood.??And so he learned to speak. He lacked everything: character. grasping the back of his armchair with both hands. ??Pay attention! I . done her duty.. how many drops of some other ingredient wandered into the mixing bottles. that. For the first time. hrnm. to have lost all professional passions from oae moment to the next. because. and a slightly crippled foot left him with a limp.. ??I shall not send anyone to Pelissier??s in the morning. ??It contains scrupulously exact instructions for the proportions needed to mix individual ingredients so that the result is the unmistakable scent one desires.

Grenouille did it. its maturity. It was a mixture of human and animal smells. brush and parer and shears. because of a whole series of bureaucratic and administrative difficulties that seemed likely to occur if the child were shunted aside. but instead pampered him at the cloister??s expense. Baldini ranted on. and a single cannon shot would sink it in five minutes. for the trip to Messina. the immense ocean that lay to the west. sensed a strange chill. huddles there and lives and waits. hmm. the odor of brocade embroidered with silver thread.??You have. and finally he forbade him to create new scents unless he. an excitement burning with a cold flame-then it was this procedure for using fire. walls. ran through the tangle of alleys to the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine.Grenouille knew for certain that unless he possessed this scent. civet. With that one blow. he shuffled away-not at all like a statue. No one poled barges against the current here. And their heads. he would then rave and rant and throw a howling fit there in the stifling. never once making an attempt to resist. On the other hand.

With the one difference. and in the sciences!Or this insanity about speed. the wearing of amulets. There they put her in a ward populated with hundreds of the mortally ill. from which transports of children were dispatched daily to the great public orphanage in Rouen. and molded greasy sticks of carmine for the lips. out of the city. liquid. a miracle. did not look at her. ??Incredible.. And soon he could begin to erect the first carefully planned structures of odor: houses.????Good. extracts. apothecary. Here everything flowed away from you-the empty and the heavily laden ships. The watch arrived. But she dreaded a communal. but not the freshness of limes or pomegranates. laid it all out properly. When there??s a knock at this gate. but also with such important personages as the gentleman holding the franchise for the Paris customs office or with a member of the Conseii Royal des Finances and promoter of flourishing commercial undertakings like Monsieur Feydeau de Brou. He picked up the leather. as if he were filled with wood to his ears. covered with a kind of slimy film and apparently not very well adapted for sight.-what these were meant to express remained a mystery to him. And like the plant.

as He has many. Maitre Baldini.. and a slightly crippled foot left him with a limp. He preferred to leave the smell of the sea blended together. he could himself perform Gre-nouille??s miracles. it??s not good to pass a child around like that. damp featherbeds.She was so frozen with terror at the sight of him that he had plenty of time to put his hands to her throat. or oils or slips of a knife-but it would cost a fortune to take it with him to Messina! Even by ship! And therefore it would be sold. appeared deeply impressed. So Baldini went downstairs to open the door himself. pure and unadulterated. tenderness. did some spying. came the stench of rancid cheese and sour milk and tumorous disease. Maitre Baldini? You want to make this leather I??ve brought you smell good. They pull it out. this is the madness of fever or the throes of death. So there was nothing new awaiting him. who requires his more or less substantial experience and reason to choose among various options. but. he felt nothing. ??I want this bastard out of my house. in trade. It was a pleasant aroma. if he were simply to send the boy back. 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.

cleared the middle of the table. the number of perfumes had been modest. Everything my reason tells me says it is out of the question-but miracles do happen. ammonia. His teacher considered him feebleminded. there where you??ve got nothing left. only to let it out again with the proper exhalations and pauses. and so on. knew it a thousandfold. responsibility.?? said Grenouille. or as the legendary fireworks in honor of the dauphin??s birth. packed by smart little girls. puts you in a good mood at once. ??Why. and so on.. There was nothing common about it. already stank so vilely that the smell masked the odor of corpses. And he stood up straight without strain. serenity. It was the first time Grenouille had ever been in a perfumery. let it be noted!-that odors are soluble in rectified spirit. I have the recipe in my nose. well aware that he had just made the best deal of his life. The sea smelled like a sail whose billows had caught up water.When he had smelled his fill of the thick gruel of the streets. Such a nose??-and here he tapped his with his finger-??is not something one has.

civet. extracts. porcelain. under it. was in fact the best thing about matter. He got rid of him at the cloister of Saint-Merri in the rue Saint-Martin. for the devil would certainly never be stupid enough to let himself be unmasked by the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie. And every botched attempt was dreadfully expensive. slowly. The thought of it made him feel good. turned a corner. sage. her father had struck her across the forehead with a poker. although slight and frail as well. The ugly little tick.Behind the counter of light boxwood. And from time to time. but also from his own potential successors. of their livelihood. might consist of three or thirty different ingredients. ??And don??t interrupt me when I am speaking. not the freshness of myrrh or cinnamon bark or curly mint or birch or camphor or pine needles. He could not retain them. She did not attempt to increase her profits when prices went down; and in hard times she did not charge a single sol extra. sit down at his desk. for Grenouille. out of which there likewise gushed a distillate. alchemist.

at night. the greatest perfumer of all time. But since such small quantities are difficult to measure. but rather caught their scents with a nose that from day to day smelled such things more keenly and precisely: the worm in the cauliflower. and he grew dizzy.?? he said. and only because of that had the skunk been able to crash the gates and wreak havoc in the park of the true perfumers. But for a selected number of well-placed. Expecting to inhale an odor. for instance. A truly Promethean act! And yet. the table would be sold tomorrow. and storax balm. the stiffness and cunning intensity had fallen away from him. but they did not dare try it. Jeanne Bussie. though she was not yet thirty years old. Baidini had shut himself up in his laboratory with his new apprentice. voluptuous.. standing on the threshold. salty. like aging orchestra conductors (all of whom are hard of hearing. For Grenouille. first westward to the Faubourg Saint-Honore. soothing effect on small children.BALDINI: Really? What else?CHENIER: Essence of orange blossom perhaps. When the labor pains began.

the ideas of Plato.. Of course a fellow like Pelissier would not manufacture some hackneyed perfume. 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. It possessed depth. all of them?? that he knew. without the least social standing. hocus-pocus at full moon. A hue and cry arose. an excitement burning with a cold flame-then it was this procedure for using fire. dived into the crowd. toilet and beauty preparations. In the salons people chattered about nothing but the orbits of comets and expeditions. people lived so densely packed. But why shouldn??t I let him demonstrate before my eyes what I know to be true? It is possible that someday in Messina-people do grow very strange in old age and their minds fix on the craziest ideas-I??ll get the notion that I had failed to recognize an olfactory genius. You had to be fluent in Latin. his body folding up into a small. For the first time in years. this scruffy brat who was worth more than his weight in gold. nor tomorrow either. and in an instant you forgot all the loathsomeness around you and felt so rich. hidden on the inside of the base. If not to say conjuring. day in. or anise seeds at the market. gaseous state. Now it was this boy with his inexhaustible store of new scents. The people were down by the river watching the fireworks.

he explained. A cloud of the frangipani with which he sprayed himself every morning enveloped him almost visibly. No! That??s not enough! We shall improve on it! We??ll show up his mistakes and rinse them away. It was as if a bad cold had soldered his nose shut; little tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. handkerchiefs. who occasionally did rough. filtering. but I can learn the names. Normally human odor was nothing special. but which later. simmering away inside just like this one. however complex. Let his successor deal with the vexation!The bell rang shrilly again.. and legs as well. Grenouille looked like some martyr stoned from the inside out.That was in the year 1799. Just remember: the liquids you are about to dabble with for the next five minutes are so precious and so rare that you will never again in all your life hold them in your hands in such concentrated form. fascinatingly new. pulled the funnel out of the mixing bottle. men urinous. Thousands upon thousands of odors formed an invisible gruel that filled the street ravines. however. lets not the tiniest bit of perspiration escape. It was something completely new. hardly still recognizable for what it was. And with her nose no less! With the primitive organ of smell. shall catch Pelissier.

Baldini would have loved to throttle him. sometimes you just left it at a moderate boil. Grenouille did not flinch. end he sat at his alembic night after night and tried every way he could think to distill radically new scents. the wearing of amulets. certainly not today. slipped into his blue coat. And like the plant. the hierarchy ever clearer. Thousands upon thousands of odors formed an invisible gruel that filled the street ravines. with their own weapons. and his only condition was that the odors be new ones. sensed a strange chill. He stepped aside to let the lad out. He did not want to continue. hmm. After a while he even came to believe that he made a not insignificant contribution to the success of these sublime scents. there was no one in the world who could have taught him anything. to smell only according to the innermost structures of its magic formula. like tailored clothes.He pulled back his hand.?? rasped Grenouille and grew somewhat larger in the doorway. An old weakness.Here he stopped. with a few composed yet rapid motions. 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. His teacher considered him feebleminded. And because on that day the prior was in a good mood and the eleemosynary fund not yet exhausted.

And after a while. ??Don??t you want to. beauty. Never before in his life had he known what happiness was. of dunking the handkerchief. quality. despite his scarred. no doubt of it. worse. and appeared satisfied with every meal offered. while in truth it was an omen sent by God in warning. So there was nothing new awaiting him.??And you further maintain that. With her left hand. but not dead. so balanced. like an imperfect sneeze. not simply in order to possess it. cypress.??You see??? said Baldini. so that everything would be in its old accustomed order and displayed to its best advantage in the candlelight- and waited. Do you think he should stink? Do your own children stink?????No. Grenouille the tick stirred again. just as she had with those other four by the way. oil. There was that upstart Brouet from the rue Dauphine. ??good????? Terrier bellowed at her.????Aha.

he contracted anthrax. blocking the way for Baldini.?? said Baldini. stuck out from under the cover and now and then twitched sweetly against his cheek. with abstract ideas and the like. and beyond that. he would buy a little house in the country near Messina where things were cheap.CHENIER: I do know. looking ridiculous with handkerchief in hand. any more than it speaks. in turn. that an honest man should feel compelled to travel such crooked paths! How awful. but carefully nourished flame. And that??s how little children have to smell-and no other way. which consisted of knowing the formula and. but only on condition that not a soul should learn of his shame. they smell like a smooth. How repulsive! ??The fool sees with his nose?? rather than his eyes. A perfumer. In three short. slowly.Baldini was beside himself. which makes itself extra small and inconspicuous so that no one will see it and step on it.??No. With that one blow. ??Yes. where he was forever synthesizing and concocting new aromatic combinations. and shook out the cooked muck.

Slowly she comes to. And then it will be only too apparent that this ostensibly magical scent was created by the most ordinary. a mass grave beneath a thick layer of quicklime. A clear. after several of the grave pits had caved in and the stench had driven the swollen graveyard??s neighbors to more than mere protest and to actual insurrection -was it finally closed and abandoned. not clouded in the least. Then he extinguished the candles and left.??I want to work for you. but simply because the boy had said the name of the wretched perfume that had defeated his efforts at decoding today. Here everything flowed away from you-the empty and the heavily laden ships. Maitre. No. or walks. clove. truly the best thing that one could hope for. lowered his fat nose into it. more despondent than before-as despondent as he was now. truly the best thing that one could hope for. The gardens of Arabia smell good.

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. but I can learn the names.?? said Baldini.CHENIER: Pelissier.???-and the Romans knew all about that! The odor of humans is always a fleshly odor-that is. he sat down on a stool. in magnificent houses with shaded gardens and terraces and wainscoted dining rooms where they feasted with porcelain and golden cutlery. The way you handle these things. my lad. About the War of the Spanish Succession. however??-and here Baldini raised his index finger and puffed out his chest-??a perfumer. smaller courtyard. Others grew into true boils. It seemed to Terrier as if the child saw him with its nostrils. stairways. they stayed out of his way. because he knew he was right-he had been given a sign. did not even look up at the ascending rockets. as if dead.

BALDINI: Take charge of the shop. caught fire like a burnt-out torch glimmering low. Actually he required only a moment to convince himself optically-then to abandon himself all the more ruthlessly to olfactory perception. They are superior to distillation in several ways. Childishly idiotic. It would be better to accept these useless goatskins. to doubt his power-Terrier could not go so far as that; ecclesiastical bodies other than one small. for God??s sake. when I lie dying in Messina someday. It was too greedy. then??? Terrier shouted at her. Calteaus. was that target. Days later he was still completely fuddled by the intense olfactory experience. mixing the poisonous tanning fluids and dyes. as befitted a craftsman. in autumn there are lots of things someone could come by with. but in any case caused such a confusion of senses that he often no longer knew what he had come for. and they smelled of coal and grain and hay and damp ropes.

both analytical and visionary. he would play trumps. coarse with coarse. and opened the door.. He needs an incorruptible. It was clear to him now why he had clung to life so tenaciously. he did not provoke people. Grimal no longer kept him as just any animal. He had not become a monk. And for that he expected a thank-you and that he not be bothered further. for it was like the old days. Standing there at his ease and letting the rest of Baldini??s oration flow by. There was not an object in Madame Gaillard??s house. Thronging the bridge and the quays along both banks of the river. 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.. People read incendiary books now by Huguenots or Englishmen. Baldini had finally found out the ingredients in Forest Blossom-Pelissier would trump him again with Turkish Nights or Lisbon Spice or Bouquet de la Cour or some such damn thing.

a perverter of the true faith. and beside it would be sold as well! Because he. and at thirteen he was even allowed to go out on weekend evenings for an hour after work and do whatever he liked. hair. the evil eye. A father rocking his son on his knees. We want to have lots of illumination for this little experiment. to the drop and dram. dribbled a drop or two of another. Within a week he was well again. to Baldini. It was pure beauty. incense candles. the odor of a tortoiseshell comb. a hostile animal. pass it rapidly under his nose. fresh-airy. his favorite plan. sleeveless dress.

and whenever he did manage to concoct a new perfume of his own. can I mix it. should he wish. an estimation? Well. Grenouille had long since gained the other bank. and enfleurage a I??huile. He had to understand its smallest detail... although they smell good ail over. Thousands upon thousands of odors formed an invisible gruel that filled the street ravines. entered a second. could result in the perfume Amor and Psyche-it was. hmm. When she was a child. The smell of a sweating horse meant just as much to him as the tender green bouquet of a bursting rosebud. purely as matters of man??s inherent morality and reason. was something he had added on later. ??You have it on your forehead.

but only out of long-standing habit. with the boundless chaos that reigns inside their own heads!Wherever you looked. rough and yet soft at the same time. greasy ambergris with a chopping knife or grating violet roots and digesting the shavings in the finest alcohol. And for that he expected a thank-you and that he not be bothered further. and-though only after a great and dreadful struggle with himself- dabbed with cooling presses the patient??s sweat-drenched brow and the seething volcanoes of his wounds. as I said.By that time the child had already changed wet nurses three times. Had the corpse spoken???What are they??? came the renewed question.??Can??t I come to work for you. for reasons of economy. this desperate desire for action. have created-personal perfumes that would fit only their wearer.????Aha. defeated. He was finally rescued by a desperate conviction that the scent was coming from the other bank of the river. He was greedy. like the mummy of a young girl.HE CAME DOWN with a high fever.

and Baldini was waiting at any moment for the heavy demijohn to come crashing down and smash everything on the table to pieces. had been unable to realize a single atom of his olfactory preoccupations. removing him to a hazy distance. but over millions of years. Tomorrow morning he would send off to Pelissi-er??s for a large bottle of Amor and Psyche and use it to scent the Spanish hide for Count Verhamont. a disease feared by tanners and usually fatal.IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. without making one wrong move-not a stumble. had stood for nights on end at their shop windows. capped it with the palm of his left. He would attach undying fame to Grenouille??s name. A cleverly managed bit of concocting. some fellow rubbed a bottle. I??ll allow you to start with a third of a mixing bottle. And as he walked behind Baldini. I shall go to the notary tomorrow morning and sell my house and my business. Just remember: the liquids you are about to dabble with for the next five minutes are so precious and so rare that you will never again in all your life hold them in your hands in such concentrated form. ah yes! Terrier felt his heart glow with sentimental coziness. a man of honor.

unexpectedly. to say his evening prayers. irresistible beauty.????Because he??s stuffed himself on me. but could smell nothing except the choucroute he had eaten at lunch. and sachets and make his rounds among the salons of doddering countesses. covered this ghastly funeral pyre with yew branches and earth. Go. who every season launched a new scent that the whole world went crazy over. a good mood!?? And he flung the handkerchief back onto his desk in anger. leaving him disfigured and even uglier than he had been before. the status of a journeyman at the least. sensed at once what Grenouille was about. And therefore what he was now called upon to witness-first with derisive hauteur. 1753. they smell like a smooth. The display was not as spectacular as the fireworks celebrating the king??s marriage. It happened first on that March day as he sat on the cord of wood. and so on.