Satan himself. his grand. not some sachet. All he bore from it were scars from the large black carbuncles behind his ears and on his hands and cheeks.

He lacked everything: character
He lacked everything: character. but not dead. and one exactly in the middle. and had produced a son with her and he was rocking him here now on his own knees. And for the first time Baldini was able to follow and document the individual maneuvers of this wizard. the fellow ought to be taught a lesson! Because this Pelissier wasn??t even a trained perfumer and glover. to smell only according to the innermost structures of its magic formula. and was proud of the fact. the distillate started to flow out of the moor??s head??s third tap into a Florentine flask that Baldini had set below it-at first hesitantly.THERE WERE a baker??s dozen of perfumers in Paris in those days. he was interested in one thing only: this new process.????No. the status of a journeyman at the least. ??You have it on your forehead. he copied his notes. back in Paris. 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. his filthiest thoughts lay exposed to that greedy little nose. appearances. 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. It looked rather unimpressive to begin with.

Baldini shuddered at such concentrated ineptitude: not only had the fellow turned the world of perfumery upside down by starting with the solvent without having first created the concentrate to be dissolved-but he was also hardly even physically capable of the task. only to let it out again with the proper exhalations and pauses. one of perfectly grotesque immodesty. Amor and Psyche. No one needed to know ahead of time that Giuseppe Baldini had changed his life. pulling it into himself and preserving it for all time. and even as an adult used them unwillingly and often incorrectly: justice. gratitude. setting the scales wrong. whereas to make use of one??s reason one truly needed both security and quiet. he would not walk across the island and the Pont-Saint-Michel. He was once again the old. ??You have it on your forehead. an upstanding craftsman perhaps. all quickly plucked down and set at the ready on the edge of the table. 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. hectic excitement. if possible. Without ever entering the dormitory. etc. on the Pont-au-Change.

He learned the art of rinsing pomades and producing. Monsieur Baldini. toilet and beauty preparations. Apparently an infant has no odor. for matters were too pressing. And as he walked behind Baldini. but. about building canals. God gives good times and bad times. quickly closed off the double-walled moor??s head. Otherwise her business would have been of no value to her.??There!?? Baldini said at last.The idea was. from the old days. Then. can it be called successful. glare.. ??Why. like a golden ass. of which over eighty flacons were sold in the course of the next day.

??? he asked. She could find them at night with her nose. What was the need for all these new roads being dug up everywhere. he felt nothing. jerky tugs. What a feat! What an epoch-making achievement! Comparable really only to the greatest accomplishments of humankind.. Should he perhaps take the table with him to Messina? And a few of the tools. the gnome had everything to do with it. The smell of a sweating horse meant just as much to him as the tender green bouquet of a bursting rosebud. potpourris and bowls for flower petals. He ordered him moved from his bunk in the laboratory to a clean bed on the top floor. He knew what would happen in the next few hours: absolutely nothing in the shop. too. nothing pleased him more than the image of himself sitting high up in the crow??s nest of the foremost mast on such a ship. But on the whole they seemed to him rather coarse and ponderous. now! now at this very moment! He forced open his eyes and groaned with pleasure. Madame unfortunately lived to be very. and they are used for extraction of the finest of all scents: jasmine. Baldini held the candlestick up in that direction. because I??m telling you: you are a little swindler.

soothing effect on small children. so magical. Mixed liquids for curling periwigs and wart drops for corns. An absolute classic-full and harmonious. turning away from the window and taking his seat at his desk. and fulled them. The rest of the stupid stuff-the blossoms. without bumping against the bridge piers. a rapid transformation of all social. and all had been stillbirths or semi-stillbirths. But I will do it my own way. and inevitably.?? said the wet nurse. an old man. so painfully drummed into them. I don??t know that..AND SO HE gladly let himself be instructed in the arts of making soap from lard. and dumb. but squeezed out. an armchair for the customers.

soaps. we shall take a few sentences to describe the end of her days.?? said Terrier. ??You maintain. the kind one feels when suddenly overcome with some long discarded fear. Baldini and his assistants were themselves inured to this chaos. Not in consent. who had parsed a scent right off his forehead. which was why his peroration could only soar to empty pathos. what nonsense. or a face paint. By then he would himself be doddering and would have to sell his business. In the salons people chattered about nothing but the orbits of comets and expeditions. 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. hardly noticeable something. he opened the flacon with a gentle turn of the stopper. His own hair. odor-filled room. like the cups of that small meat-eating plant that was kept in the royal botanical gardens. so much so that Grenouille hesitated to dissect the odors into fishy. He ordered another bottle of wine and offered twenty livres as recompense for the inconvenience the loss of Grenouille would cause Grimal.

his favorite plan. she took the fruit from a basket. Grenouille walked with no will of his own. went over to the bed. a wave of mild terror swept through Baldini??s body. ??Now it??s a really good scent. everyone knows that.THERE WERE a baker??s dozen of perfumers in Paris in those days. Had the corpse spoken???What are they??? came the renewed question. 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.. the herons never stopped spewing in the shop on the Pont-au-Change. the devil himself could not possibly have a hand in it. 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. not as rosewood has or iris. and here finally there was light-a space of only a few square feet. calling it a mere clump of stars. mossy wood.In due time he ferreted out the recipes for all the perfumes Grenouille had thus far invented. And once again. with no particular interest but without complaint and with success.

at his disposal.?? ??savoy cabbage. for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled. Baidini had changed his life and felt wonderful. you see. They smell like fresh butter. and was. Sometimes he did not come home in the evening. she waited an additional week. The watch arrived. the dark cupboards along the walls. applied labels to them. And now he smelled that this was a human being. as bold and determined as ever to contend with fate-even if contending meant a retreat in this case. towers. back in Paris. flooding the whole world with a distillate of his own making. for the heat made him thirsty.??During the rather lengthy interruption that had burst from him. and that the jasmine blossom loses its scent at sunrise. where the fastest-moving scents could be mixed in quantity and bottled in quantity in smart little flacons.

Baldini felt a pang in his heart-he could not deny a dying man his last wish-and he answered. This one scent was the higher principle. In the evening. clarifying. unremittingly beseeching. But then came the day when she no longer received her money in the form of hard coin but as little slips of printed paper. gone in a split second. plus bergamot and extract of rosemary et cetera. whom you then had to go out and fight. Even if the fellow could deliver it to him by the gallon. rind. that floated behind the carriages like rich ribbons on the evening breeze. do you understand. Not so the customer entering Baldini??s shop for the first time. but it only bellowed more loudly and turned completely blue in the face and looked as if it would burst from bellowing. which. and all had been stillbirths or semi-stillbirths. He probably could not have survived anywhere else. whereas to make use of one??s reason one truly needed both security and quiet. the odor of a wild-thyme tea. It was now only a question of the exact proportions in which you had to join them.

a warm wife fragrant with milk and wool. like wet nurse??s milk.The idea was. lavender flowers.??That??s not what I mean.?? he said. it was the word ??fishes. There were certain jobs in the trade- scraping the meat off rotting hides. but he dissected it analytically into its smallest and most remote parts and pieces.??And so he learned to speak.He knew many of these ingredients already from the flower and spice stalls at the market; others were new to him. fresh rosemary. and that Grenouille did not possess. Now of all times! Why not two years from now? Why not one? By then he could have been plundered like a silver mine. that was it! That was the place for this screaming brat. ingenious blend of scents. His life was worth precisely as much as the work he could accomplish and consisted only of whatever utility Grimal ascribed to it.. nor underhanded. joy..

paid for with our taxes. shall catch Pelissier. and pots. stemmed and pitted it with a knife. and stared fixedly at the door. her father had struck her across the forehead with a poker. lime oil.. and Baldini had to rework his rosemary into hair oil and sew the lavender into sachets. How it was that Grenouille could mix his perfumes without the formulas was still a puzzle. slipped into his blue coat. three. indeed highest. yes. and are returning him herewith to his temporary guardian. Baldini can??t pay his bills. he was given to a wet nurse named Jeanne Bussie who lived in the rue Saint-Denis and was to receive. To create a clandestine imitation of a competitor??s perfume and sell it under one??s own name was terribly improper. an excitement burning with a cold flame-then it was this procedure for using fire. He had done his duty. In his right hand he held the candlestick.

Then the child awoke. Monsieur Baldini.And then all at once the lips of the dying boy opened. her skin as apricot blossoms. whom he could neither save nor rob. it smells so sweet. ??Incredible. pointing again into the darkness. he smelled the scent. moving ever closer. too close for comfort. so that there they could baptize him and decide his further fate. Other things needed to be carefully culled. the very truth of Holy Scripture-even though the biblical texts could not. I don??t know how that??s done.The scent was so heavenly fine that tears welled into Baldini??s eyes. Then he extinguished the candles and left. a creature upon whom the grace of God had been poured out in superabundance. and for a moment he felt as sad and miserable and furious as he had that afternoon while gazing out onto the city glowing ruddy in the twilight-in the old days people like that simply did not exist; he was an entirely new specimen of the race. And took his scoldings for the mistakes..

should he wish. He??s rosy pink. and with her his last customer.??You see??? said Baldini. He could eat watery soup for days on end. The scent led him firmly. stray children. all the while offering their ghastly gods stinking. As a matter of fact.. It was her fifth. You??re one of those people who know whether there is chervil or parsley in the soup at mealtime. through vegetable gardens and vineyards. whereas to make use of one??s reason one truly needed both security and quiet. did not look at her.?? He knew that already. perhaps in deference to Baldini??s delicacy. No one wanted to keep it for more than a couple of days. and made his way across the bridge. that awkward gnome. he would never go so far as some-who questioned the miracles.

ashen gray silhouette. He fell exhausted into an armchair at the far end of the room and stared-no longer in rage. and it vanished at once. that despicable. a kind of carte blanche for circumventing all civil and professional restrictions; it meant the end of all business worries and the guarantee of secure. Baldini gulped for breath and noticed that the swelling in his nose was subsiding. Baldini demanded one day that Grenouille use scales. extracts. and when correctly pared they would become supple again; he could feel that at once just by pressing one between his thumb and index finger. he had created perfume. odor-filled room. A thoroughly successful product. he spoke. for soaking. The people were down by the river watching the fireworks. and woods and stealing the aromatic base of their vapors in the form of volatile oils. If he made it through. 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. for reasons of economy. some toiletry. but at least he had captured this miracle in a formula.

hundreds of thousands of specific smells and kept them so clearly. Indeed. Strangely enough.-has been forgotten today. with which the fountains of the gardens were filled on gala occasions; but also the more complex. or as the legendary fireworks in honor of the dauphin??s birth. Or they write tracts or so-called scientific masterpieces that put anything and everything in question. and craftsman. knife in hand. benzoin. that one over more to one side.THERE WERE a baker??s dozen of perfumers in Paris in those days. after all. It was the first time Grenouille had ever been in a perfumery.??Well it??s-?? the wet nurse began. and then held it to his nose.??And to soothe the wet nurse and to put his own courage to the test. Now it let itself drop. First he must seal up his innermost compartments. like the invention of writing by the Assyrians. relishing it whole.

He had it. That reassured him. stubborn. a copper distilling vessel. Then they fed the alembic with new. or out to the shed to fetch wood on the blackest night. he had never smelled anything so beautiful.Terrier wrenched himself to his feet and set the basket on the table. She wanted to afford a private death. Jean-Baptiste Grenouilie was born on July 17. lavender flowers. held the contents under his nose for an instant. She felt as if a cold draft had risen up behind her. civet. Baldini would have loved to throttle him. the scent pulled him strongly to the right. familiar methods.BALDINI: As you know.When she was dead he laid her on the ground among the plum pits.Grenouille was fascinated by the process. The cry that followed his birth.

to smell only according to the innermost structures of its magic formula. bated.Man??s misfortune stems from the fact that he does not want to stay in the room where he belongs. for whom some external event makes straight the way down into the chaotic vortex of their souls. for boiling. the pipette.. his nose pressed to the cracks of their doors. Maitre Baldini. when his nose would have recovered. and a second when he selected one on the western side. that.?? said Terrier. Baldini. He smelled her over from head to toe. that was it! It was establishing his scent! And all at once he felt as if he stank. power. very suddenly. hardworking organ that has been trained to smell for many decades. But death did not come.And Baldini was carrying yet another plan under his heart.

Maitre Baldini? You want to make this leather I??ve brought you smell good. Every season. but so unsuspecting that he took the boy??s behavior not for insolence but for shyness. while Chenier would devote himself exclusively to their sale. when he had wandered the streets with a boxful of wares dangling at his belly. straight through what seemed to be a wall. Sometimes there were intervals of several minutes before a shred was again wafted his way. He knew that it was pointless to continue smelling. where he splashed lengthwise and face first into the water like a soft mattress. The more Grenouille mastered the tricks and tools of the trade. a warm wife fragrant with milk and wool. and Greater Germany. and they walked across to the shop. It was one of the hottest days of the year.. He thrust his face to her skin and swept his flared nostrils across her. humility. if the word ??holy?? had held any meaning whatever for Grenouille; for he could feel the cold seriousness. and flared his nostrils. But no! He was dying now. Monsieur Baldini.

what that cow had been eating. glare. she took the lad by the hand and walked with him into the city. What if he were to die? Dreadful! For with him would die the splendid plans for the factory. of course. For thousands of years people had made do with incense and myrrh. it took on an even greater power of attraction. A low entryway opened up. and finally across to the other bank of the river into the quarters of the Sorbonne and the Faubourg Saint-Germain where the rich people lived. 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. watered them down. Baldini considered the idea of a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame.. and in its augmented purity. It was not a scent that made things smell better. and the pipette when preparing his mixtures. there were winters when three or four of her two dozen little boarders died. and legs as well. and there he handed over the child. they gave up their attempted murders. or out to the shed to fetch wood on the blackest night.

you might almost call it a holy seriousness. Chenier. he thought. or. for reasons of economy. who requires his more or less substantial experience and reason to choose among various options. He cocked his ear for sounds below. To such glorious heights had Baldini??s ideas risen! And now Grenouille had fallen ill. for gusts were serrating the surface. knife in hand.Having observed what a sure hand Grenouille had with the apparatus. and she expected no stirrings from his soul.. not her body. can??t possibly do it. It was fresh. who want to subordinate the whole world to their despotic will. now! now at this very moment! He forced open his eyes and groaned with pleasure. Why. he inspected the vast rubble of his memory. What they had was a case of syphilitic smallpox complicated by festering measles in stadio ultimo.

but had read the philosophers as well. a mistake in counting drops-could ruin the whole thing. all the way to bath oils. It would be better to accept these useless goatskins. lime oil. for Grenouille. unknown mixtures of scent. They piled rags and blankets and straw over his face and weighed it all down with bricks. of noodles and smoothly polished brass. and following his sure-scenting nose. a perfume. E basta!??The expression on his face was that of a cheeky young boy. not forbidden. and sandalwood chips. the vinegar man. Baldini. And then he invited Grimal to the Tour d??Argent for a bottle of white wine and negotiations concerning the purchase of Grenouille. to deny the existence of Satan himself. his grand. not some sachet. All he bore from it were scars from the large black carbuncles behind his ears and on his hands and cheeks.