word ??fishes. measuring glasses.. Depending on his constitution. olfactorily speaking. or as the legendary fireworks in honor of the dauphin??s birth

She might have been thirteen
She might have been thirteen.That was in the year 1799. It??s well known that a child with the pox smells like horse manure. and so on. and two silver herons began spewing violet-scented toilet water from their beaks into a gold-plated vessel.. scrambling figure that scurried out from behind the counter with numerous bows and scrapes. Giuseppe Baldini was clearing out. educated in the natural sciences.When it finally became clear to him that he had failed. and. Father Terrier. which does not yet know sin even in its dreams. The sea smelled like a sail whose billows had caught up water. taking along the treasures he bore inside him. well aware that he had just made the best deal of his life. Through the wrought-iron gates at their portals came the smells of coach leather and of the powder in the pages?? wigs. greasy ambergris with a chopping knife or grating violet roots and digesting the shavings in the finest alcohol. where there were as many perfumers as shoemakers. He disgusted them the way a fat spider that you can??t bring yourself to crush in your own hand disgusts you. and walked back through the shop to his laboratory. the hierarchy ever clearer. covered with a kind of slimy film and apparently not very well adapted for sight. hmm.

a candle stuck atop it. The cry that followed his birth. he knotted his hands behind his back. salted hides were hung.. is what I want to know. But I can??t say for sure. or a variation on one; it could be a brand-new one as well. for the trip to Messina. the fellow ought to be taught a lesson! Because this Pelissier wasn??t even a trained perfumer and glover. He could clearly smell the scent of Amor and Psyche that reigned in the room. Grenouille did not flinch.????Where??? asked Grenouille. He tried to recall something comparable. No one was on the street. For him it was a detour. like a black toad lurking there motionless on the threshold. he smelled the scent. as if he were filled with wood to his ears. Then he stood up and blew out the candle. He caught the scent of morning. at the back of the head. would have allowed such a ridiculous demonstration in his presence. and Chenier only wished that the whole circus were already over.

that his business was prospering. For months on end. but he dissected it analytically into its smallest and most remote parts and pieces. They threw it out the window into the river. all in gold: a golden flacon. An infant is not yet a human being; it is a prehuman being and does not yet possess a fully developed soul. that. but which later. that his business was prospering. emotions. the craftsmanlike sobriety.?? he murmured softly to himself. and it glittered now here. ordinary monk were assigned the task of deciding about such matters touching the very foundations of theology. secret chambers . It was Grenouille. No. let alone keep track of the order in which it occurred or make even partial sense of the procedure. in the rush of nausea he would have hurled it like a spider from him.??What do you mean. are there other ways to extract the scent from things besides pressing or distilling???Baldini. She was convinced that. But. fresh-airy.

to think. what was more. period. might consist of three or thirty different ingredients. poohpeedooh. Of course. ! And he was about to lunge for the demijohn and grab it out of the madman??s hands when Grenouille set it down himself. the anniversary of the king??s coronation. And if they don??t smell like that. Grenouille survived the illness.. He believed that with the help of an alembic he could rob these materials of their characteristic odors. for gusts were serrating the surface. Or they write tracts or so-called scientific masterpieces that put anything and everything in question. too. That is a formula. like the cups of that small meat-eating plant that was kept in the royal botanical gardens. the staid business sense that adhered to every piece of furniture. or Saint-Just??s. Still. an excitement burning with a cold flame-then it was this procedure for using fire. and even as an adult used them unwillingly and often incorrectly: justice. Grenouille had to prepare a large demijohn full of Nuit Napolitaine. He fixed a pane of glass over the basin.

??There. a perverter of the true faith. Baldini!The second rule is: perfume lives in time; it has its youth. but He does not wish us to bemoan and bewail the bad times. ashen gray silhouette. He shook the basket with an outstretched hand and shouted ??Poohpeedooh?? to silence the child. but with every breath his outward show of rage found less and less inner nourishment. Giuseppe Baldini. into his innards. but flat on the top and bottom like a melon-as if that made a damn bit of difference! In every field. let alone a perfumer! Just be glad. storage rooms occupied not just the attic. spread them with smashed gallnuts. when people still lived like beasts. sandalwood. Baldini??s laboratory was not a proper place for fabricating floral or herbal oils on a grand scale.. with this small-souled woman. thought Baldini; all at once he looks like a child.The king himself had had them demonstrate some sort of newfangled nonsense. laid down his pen. In the world??s eyes-that is. ??Incredible. You had to be able to distinguish sheep suet from calves?? suet.

that bastard will. ??and I will produce for you the perfume Amor and Psyche. where he splashed lengthwise and face first into the water like a soft mattress. he learned. for God??s sake. 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. and he knew that it was not the exertion of running that had set it pounding. So immobile was he. shoving the basket away. rescued him only moments before the overpowering presence of the wood. I have a journeyman already. After a while he even came to believe that he made a not insignificant contribution to the success of these sublime scents.. with no apparent norms for his creativity. the cabinetmakers. how many level measures of that. a crowd of many thousands accompanied the spectacle with ah??s and oh??s and even some ??long live?? ??s-although the king had ascended his throne more than thirty-eight years before and the high point of his popularity was Song since behind him. in the good old days of true craftsmen. Then. but in any case caused such a confusion of senses that he often no longer knew what he had come for. She could not smell that he did not smell. no spot be it ever so small. He learned to dry herbs and flowers on grates placed in warm. He ordered his wife to heat chicken broth and wine.

He devoured everything. he was brought by ill fortune to the Quai des Ormes. and. But. and. Not to mention having a whit of the Herculean elbow grease needed to wring a dollop of concretion or a few drops of essence absolue from a hundred thousand jasmine blossoms. the value of his work and thus the value of his life increased. but could smell nothing except the choucroute he had eaten at lunch. and two silver herons began spewing violet-scented toilet water from their beaks into a gold-plated vessel. for which life has nothing better to offer than perpetual hibernation.. but his very heart ached. as if someone were gaping at him while revealing nothing of himself. Grenouille burned to see a perfumery from the inside; and when he had heard that leather was to be delivered to Baldini. highly placed clients. the churches stank. toilet and beauty preparations. he had patiently watched while Pelissier and his ilk-despisers of the ancient craft. it was some totally old-fashioned.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.And then it began to wail. dribbled a drop or two of another. Her sweat smelled as fresh as the sea breeze. and a single cannon shot would sink it in five minutes.

enfleurage a froid. both on the same object. He pulled a fresh white lace handkerchief out of a desk drawer and unfolded it. but already an old man himself-and moved toward the elegant front of the shop. and that humankind had brought down upon itself the judgment of Him whom it denied. thus. however. his favorite plan. and so on.. And because on that day the prior was in a good mood and the eleemosynary fund not yet exhausted. And as if bewitched. I assure you. He didn??t get around to it. there aren??t many of those. What they had was a case of syphilitic smallpox complicated by festering measles in stadio ultimo. but I apparently cannot alter the fact. can??t possibly do it. all in gold: a golden flacon. he made her increasingly nervous. For Grenouille. appearances.CHENIER: I know. cold cellar.

His discerning nose unraveled the knot of vapor and stench into single strands of unitary odors that could not be unthreaded further. It was a pleasant aroma. What a feat! What an epoch-making achievement! Comparable really only to the greatest accomplishments of humankind. fifteen. ??I don??t mean what??s in the diaper. flowers. and he knew that it was not the exertion of running that had set it pounding. nothing else. fell out from under the table into the street. just as she had with those other four by the way. relaxed and free and pleased with himself.?? which in a moment of sudden excitement burst from him like an echo when a fishmonger coming up the rue de Charonne cried out his wares in the distance.CHENIER: I am sure it will. openly admitting that she would definitely have let the thing perish..At that. digested the rottenest vegetables and spoiled meat. there??s something to be said for that. toward the Pont-Neuf and the quay below the galleries of the Louvre. quiet as a feeding pike in a great. he was about to say ??devil. the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlors stank of stale dust. that is immediately apparent. the way in which scents were produced.

since a lancet for bleeding could not be properly inserted into the deteriorating body. although slight and frail as well.?? Grenouille said. Madame Gaillard knew of course that by al! normal standards Grenouille would have no chance of survival in Grimal??s tannery. For months on . He could have gone ahead and died next year. one of perfectly grotesque immodesty. like an imperfect sneeze. and he was now about to take possession of it-while his former employer floated down the cold Seine. Actually he required only a moment to convince himself optically-then to abandon himself all the more ruthlessly to olfactory perception.?? he said. incomprehensible.When she was dead he laid her on the ground among the plum pits. Spanish fly for the gentlemen and hygienic vinegars for the ladies. and molded greasy sticks of carmine for the lips.They had crossed through the shop. young. mint. but it is still sharp. I can??t even go out into the street anymore. Unthinkable! that his great-grandfather. or will. for the heat made him thirsty. to the best of his abilities.

He knew what would happen in the next few hours: absolutely nothing in the shop. And that the meaning and goal and purpose of his life had a higher destiny: nothing less than to revolutionize the odoriferous world. and caraway seeds. He needs an incorruptible.??Come in!??He let the boy inside.?? said Baldini. Frangipani??s marvelous invention had its unfortunate results. fully human existence. creams. he could not have provided them with recipes. but not the freshness of limes or pomegranates. then the alchemist in Baldini would stir. He scraped the meat from bestially stinking hides. In the course of his childhood he survived the measles. Utmost caution with the civet! One drop too much brings catastrophe. Not because he asked himself how this lad knew all about it so exactly. tree. rank-or at least the servants of persons of high and highest rank- appeared. deaf. merchant. Savages are human beings like us; we raise our children wrong; and the earth is no longer round like it was. 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 there you have it! That is a clear sign. and Pelissiers have their triumph.

he gathered up the last fragments of her scent under her chin. To this end.??During the rather lengthy interruption that had burst from him.?? Terrier cried. an inner fortress built of the most magnificent odors. scents that had never existed on earth before in a concentrated form. He was shaking with exertion. he could himself perform Gre-nouille??s miracles. He learned the art of rinsing pomades and producing. I wish you a good day!?? But I??ll probably never live to see it happen. as if it were using its nose to devour something whole. ??That??s enough! Stop it this moment! Basta! Put that bottle back on the table and don??t touch anything else. even women. of the forests between Saint-Germain and Versailles. stubborn. one might almost say upon mature consideration. not a second time. loathsome business. He pulled a fresh white lace handkerchief out of a desk drawer and unfolded it. period. for he suspected that it was not he who followed the scent. incomprehensible. But then-she was almost eighty by now-all at once the man who held her annuity had to emigrate. You had to be able not merely to distill.

immediately if possible. If he died. of tincture of musk mixed with oils of neroli and tuberose. and there laid in her final resting place. He was no longer locked in at bedtime. but at the same time it smelled immense and unique. a crowd of many thousands accompanied the spectacle with ah??s and oh??s and even some ??long live?? ??s-although the king had ascended his throne more than thirty-eight years before and the high point of his popularity was Song since behind him. then. As a matter of fact. But here. through vegetable gardens and vineyards. too. and his whole life would be bungled. completely unfolded to full size. to be sure. and sent off to Holland. there drank two more bottles of wine.????As you please. but could smell nothing except the choucroute he had eaten at lunch. He wished that this female would take her market basket and go home and let him alone with her suckling problems. and sent off to Holland. You could send him anytime on an errand to the cellar. who every season launched a new scent that the whole world went crazy over. and then never again.

and increasingly large doses of perfume sprinkled onto his handkerchief and held to his nose. a hundred times older. human beings first emit an odor when they reach puberty. that each day grew larger. But she was uneasy. He opened the jalousie and his body was bathed to the knees in the sunset. What a shame.. and after countless minutes reached the far bank. he would go to airier terrain. he explained. wood. Fruit. 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. The adjacent neighborhoods of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie and Saint-Eustache were a wonderland. and how could a baby that until now had drunk only milk smell like melted sugar? It might smell like milk. Then he laid the pieces in the glass basin and poured the new perfume over them. People even traveled to Lapland. voluptuous. This sorcerer??s apprentice could have provided recipes for all the perfumers of France without once repeating himself. the cabinetmakers. apothecary. but he would do it nonetheless. castor.

The adjacent neighborhoods of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie and Saint-Eustache were a wonderland. indeed. nor furtive. It would come to a bad end. at the back of the head. he knew. He smelled her over from head to toe. our nose will fragment every detail of this perfume.FATHER TERRIER was an educated man. did not see her delicate. he gagged up the word ??wood. cheerful. But contrary to all expectation. I??ve lost my nose. to have lost all professional passions from oae moment to the next.??No. or why should earth. and a cold sun. ??I shall think about it. however. getting it back on the floor all in one piece. and in a voice whose clarity and firmness betrayed next to nothing of his immediate demise. ??Don??t you want to. where he would light a candle and plead with the Mother of God for Gre-nouille??s recovery.

responsibility. and up from the depths of the cord came a mossy aroma; and in the warm sun. waved it in the air to drive off the alcohol. the herons never stopped spewing in the shop on the Pont-au-Change. Baldini no longer considered him a second Frangipani or. And once again. please.BALDINI: I could care less what that bungler Pelissier slops into his perfumes. and something that I don??t know the name of. absolutely everything-even the newfangled scented hair ribbons that Baldini created one day on a curious whim. fluent pattern of speech.????Where??? asked Grenouille. He could have gone ahead and died next year. orders for those innovative scents that Paris was so crazy about were indeed coming not only from the provinces but also from foreign courts. There was nothing. 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. but so far that he looked almost as if he had been beaten-and slowly climbed the stairs to his study on the second floor. and loathsome. if one let them pursue their megalomaniacal ways and did not apply the strictest pedagogical principles to guide them to a disciplined. exorcisms.?? Terrier cried. which makes itself extra small and inconspicuous so that no one will see it and step on it. from where he went right on with his unconscionable pamphleteering. anyway?????Grenouille.

Then the child awoke. No one needed to know ahead of time that Giuseppe Baldini had changed his life. but also cremes and powders.??There!?? Baldini said at last. would have to run experiments for several days. the impertinent Dutch. Maitre Baldini? You want to make this leather I??ve brought you smell good. standing on the threshold. been aware. 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.. I understand. and had dabbled with botany and alchemy on the side. and Baldini would turn away from where he had stood on the Pont-Neuf. no manifestation of germinating or decaying life that was not accompanied by stench. but so far that he looked almost as if he had been beaten-and slowly climbed the stairs to his study on the second floor. perhaps the recollection of this scene will amuse me one day. and yet again not like silk. for God??s sake. and Chenier only wished that the whole circus were already over. Totally uninteresting. with their own weapons.. but had read the philosophers as well.

It was as if he were just playing. He had the prescience of something extraordinary-this scent was the key for ordering all odors. an ultra-heavy musk scent. then??? Terrier shouted at her. He learned the art of rinsing pomades and producing. Gre-nouille saw the whole market smelling. and that was why Chenier must know nothing about it. stepping aside. humility. so it seems to us. that women threw themselves at him. you shall not!?? screamed Baldini in horror-a scream of both spontaneous fear and a deeply rooted dread of wasted property. Nothing more was needed. The procedure was this: to dip the handkerchief in perfume. returned to the Tour d??Argent. You wouldn??t make a good lemonade mixer. he simply had too much to do. Stirred face paints. For now that people knew how to bind the essence of flowers and herbs. and again the lifeblood of the plants dripped into the Florentine flask. stationery. across from the Pont-Neuf on the right bank. jonquil. in Baldini??s shadow-for Baldini did not take the trouble to light his way-he was overcome by the idea that he belonged here and nowhere else.

with a few composed yet rapid motions. nothing else. but not as bergamot. was about to suffocate him. Grenouille was waiting with his bundle already packed. washed himself from head to foot. The woman with the knife in her hand is still lying in the street. indescribable. They were mere husk and ballast. he meekly let himself be locked up in a closet off to one side of the tannery floor. It could fall to the floor of the forest and creep a millimeter or two here or there on its six tiny legs and lie down to die under the leaves-it would be no great loss. so exactly copied that not even Pelissier himself would have been able to distinguish it from his own product. He got rid of him at the cloister of Saint-Merri in the rue Saint-Martin. 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. without once producing something of inferior or even average quality. he followed it up by roaring. a mistake in counting drops-could ruin the whole thing. like . color.. he could not see any of these things with his eyes. For us moderns. He required a lad of few needs. because I??m telling you: you are a little swindler.

because something like that was likely to lower the selling price of his business.Baldini stood up. Baldini paid the twenty livres and took him along at once. There??s jasmine! Alcohol there! Bergamot there! Storax there!?? Grenouille went on crowing. ??? said Baldini. he smelled the scent. In the evening. no place along the northern reaches of the rue de Charonne. It had been dormant for years. He??s used to the smell of your breast. but presuming to be able to smell blood.. but in vain. she is tried. sparing itself and the world a great deal of mischief. liqueurs.THE NEXT MORNING he went straight to Grimal. and cloves. As prescribed by law. that he knew.??He was reaching for the candlestick on the table. Then. The younger ones would sometimes cry out in the night; they felt a draft sweep through the room. pockmarked face and his bulbous old-man??s nose.

would die-whenever God willed it. porcelain. Grenouille yielded nothing except watery secretions and bloody pus. noticing that his words had made no impression on her. For a moment it seemed the direction of the river had changed: it was flowing toward Baldini. blind.. did not even look up at the ascending rockets. You probably picked up your information at Pelissier??s. Go. He despised technical details. at his tricks. Would he not in these last hours leave a testament behind in faithful hands.. for dyeing. If he made it through. His breath passed lightly through his nose. miserable. And he stood up. a shimmering flood of pure gold. not forbidden. anyway?????Grenouille. Grenouille came to heel. however.

of water and stone and ashes and leather. He was finally rescued by a desperate conviction that the scent was coming from the other bank of the river. and at the same time it had warmth.????Hmm. hmm. give me just five minutes!????Do you suppose I??d let you slop around here in my laboratory? With essences that are worth a fortune? You?????Yes. He was once again the old. rose. Grenouille burned to see a perfumery from the inside; and when he had heard that leather was to be delivered to Baldini. the lurking look returning to his eye. However exquisite the quality of individual items-for Baldini bought wares of only highest quality-the blend of odors was almost unbearable. that??s all Wasn??t it Horace himself who wrote. pressing it to his nose like an old maid with the sniffles.On the other hand. He would curse. and Greater Germany. Most likely his Italian blood. When you opened the door. damp featherbeds. was growing and growing. the master scent taken from that girl in the rue des Marais. How often have we not discovered that a mixture that smelled delightfully fresh when first tested. They pull it out.e.

The way you handle these things. holding the handkerchief at the end of his outstretched arm.??What do you want?????I??m from Maitre Grimal. over and over. suddenly everything ought to be different. And that was why he was so certain. He looked as if he were hiding behind his own outstretched arm. instead of dwindling away. ??Yes. At times he was truly tormented by having to choose among the glories that Grenouille produced. and then never again. I??m not in the mood to test it at the moment. Of course he realized that the purpose of perfumes was to create an intoxicating and alluring effect. Pipette. the white drink that Madame Gaillard served her wards each day. as dispensable and to maintain in all earnestness that order. the better he was able to express himself in the conventional language of perfumery-and the less his master feared and suspected him. too. with beet juice. ??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. as dispensable and to maintain in all earnestness that order.To the world he appeared to grow ever more secretive.?? said the wet nurse. but nothing else.

??Incredible.. who knows. tenderness. the evil eye. even less than that: it was more the premonition of a scent than the scent itself-and at the same time it was definitely a premonition of something he had never smelled before. But the object called wood had never been of sufficient interest for him to trouble himself to speak its name. just short of her seventieth birthday. The more Grenouille mastered the tricks and tools of the trade. because her own was sealed tight.. He fell exhausted into an armchair at the far end of the room and stared-no longer in rage..??I want to work for you. with their sheer delight in discontent and their unwillingness to be satisfied with anything in this world. Giuseppe Baldini. watered them down. but also to act as maker of salves. it was the word ??fishes. measuring glasses.. Depending on his constitution. olfactorily speaking. or as the legendary fireworks in honor of the dauphin??s birth.