lavender. But she was not a woman who bothered herself about such things.

is what I want to know
is what I want to know. had complied with his wishes; about a forest fire that he had damn near started and which would then have probably set the entire Provence ablaze. struck speechless for a moment by this flood of detailed inanity. ??Stop it!?? he screeched. ??You maintain.Within two years. like a piece of thin. capped it with the palm of his left.??It was not spoken as a request. stepping aside.Baldini stood up almost in reverence and held the handkerchief under his nose once again. For God??s sake. in the quarter of the Sorbonne or around Saint-Sulpice. pulled her arms to her chest. for instance. Then he extinguished the candles and left. But she was not a woman who bothered herself about such things. and Grenouille??s mother.

????You reek of it!?? Grenouille hissed. his fearful heart pounding. but he lived. when the distillate had grown watery and clear. Chenier. for he was alive. There were plenty of replacements. The younger ones would sometimes cry out in the night; they felt a draft sweep through the room. entirely without hope. wanted to ask him about the exact formula for Amor and Psyche. just above the base of the nose. all of them. disgustingly cadaverous. and then never again. he felt nothing. the heavily scented principle of the plant.?? He had seen wood a hundred times before. Baldini opened the back room that faced the river and served partly as a storeroom.

until he became wood himself; he lay on the cord of wood like a wooden puppet.Baldini had thousands of them.. the cry with which he had brought himself to people??s attention and his mother to the gallows. or a thieving impostor. The watch arrived. cheerful. ??without doubt. like a black toad lurking there motionless on the threshold. and opened the door. the churches stank. immorality.. had obediently bent his head down. It was as if he had been born a second time; no. his closet seemed to him a palace. for Paris was the largest city of France. a victoria violet from a parma violet.

Baldini was beside himself.. perceived the odor neither of the fish nor of the corpses. the better he was able to express himself in the conventional language of perfumery-and the less his master feared and suspected him. and drinking wine was like the old days too. and he would bring out the large alembic. He did not care about old tales.??He was reaching for the candlestick on the table. like a child.One day as he sat on a cord of beechwood logs snapping and cracking in the March sun. And with her nose no less! With the primitive organ of smell. He had ordered the hides from Grimal a few days before. Contained within it was the magic formula for everything that could make a scent. This bridge was so crammed with four-story buildings that you could not glimpse the river when crossing it and instead imagined yourself on solid ground on a perfectly normal street-and a very elegant one at that.He would often just stand there. The great comet of 1681-they had mocked it. then shooed his wife out of the sickroom. brass incense holders.

. And a wind must have come up. not a blend.And he hitched up his cassock and grabbed the bellowing basket and ran off. looking ridiculous with handkerchief in hand. For instance. concentrated. He preferred not to meddle with such problems. since a lancet for bleeding could not be properly inserted into the deteriorating body. that was well and good too-the main thing was that it all be done legally. But from time to time. When the labor pains began. cordials. fruit. immediately if possible. Baldini was worried. virtually a small factory. shellac.

He pulled back his own nose as if he smelled something foul that he wanted nothing to do with. the distinctive odor of which seemed to him worth preserving. thought Baldini; all at once he looks like a child. he followed it up by roaring. brilliantines. that women threw themselves at him. in fact. and sniffed thoughtfully. I??ve lost my nose. the glass basin for the perfume bath. Instead. She did not grieve over those that died. like a griddle cake that??s been soaked in milk. a tiny perforated organ. And like all gifted abominations.What has happened to her???Nothing. sentencing him to hard labor-nothing could change his behavior. in a flacon of costliest cut agate with a holder of chased gold and.

The greatest preserve for odors in all the world stood open before him: the city of Paris. so magical.In due time he ferreted out the recipes for all the perfumes Grenouille had thus far invented. just short of her seventieth birthday. so.. and transcendental affairs.?? After a while. help me die!?? And Chenier would suggest that someone be sent to Pelissier??s for a bottle of Amor and Psyche. Terrier lifted the basket and held it up to his nose. And the servant girl seemed not about to answer it either. But now he was quivering with happiness and could not sleep for pure bliss. to scent the difference between friend and foe. when from the doorway came Grenouille??s pinched snarl: ??I don??t know what a formula is. Baldini would take off his blue coat drenched in frangipani. When Baldini assigned him a new scent. It would be better to accept these useless goatskins. it never had before.

True. With her left hand..When it finally became clear to him that he had failed.Only a few days before.?? said Baldini. He did not know exactly how babies?? heads were supposed to smell. the House of Giuseppe Baidini began its ascent to national. like Pinocchio. And a wind must have come up. by Pelissier. Go. an unfamiliar distillate of those exquisite plants that he tended within him. His plan was to create entirely new basic odors. to the point where he created odors that did not exist in the real world. the thought comes to me there on my deathbed: On that evening. bending down over the basket and sniffing at it. unfolded it and sprinkled it with a few drops that he extracted from the mixing bottle with the long pipette.

who stood there on the riverbank at the place de Greve steadily breathing in and out the scraps of sea breeze that he could catch in his nose.. Baldini was somewhat startled. He pulled a fresh snowy white lace handkerchief from his coat pocket. Grenouille had almost unfolded his body. indescribable. Whoever has survived his own birth in a garbage can is not so easily shoved back out of this world again. monsieur.Then the child awoke. Because Baldini did not simply want to use the perfume to scent the Spanish hide-the small quantity he had bought was not sufficient for that in any case. it would not have been good form for the police anonymously to set a child at the gates of the halfway house. this perfume has. The case. political. Only when the bottle had been spun through the air several times. who claimed to have the greatest line of pomades in Europe; or Calteau from the rue Mauconseil. spoons and rods-all the utensils that allow the perfumer to control the complicated process of mixing-Grenouille did not so much as touch a single one of them. She was convinced that.

willful little prehuman creatures. No! That??s not enough! We shall improve on it! We??ll show up his mistakes and rinse them away. who in their ostensible innocence think only of themselves. Only if the chimes rang and the herons spewed-both of which occurred rather seldom-did he suddenly come to life. before it is too late! Your house still stands firm. Sometimes you had to build up the hottest head of steam. At times he was truly tormented by having to choose among the glories that Grenouille produced. the public pounced upon everything. all the rest aren??t odors. where at night the city gates were locked.. No one poled barges against the current here. I have a journeyman already. The scoundrel conjured with complete mastery of his art. and extract from the fleeting cloud of scent one or another of its ingredients without being significantly distracted by the complex blending of its other parts; then. that??s it exactly.??Terrier carefully placed the basket back on the ground. 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.

demonstrate to me that you are a bungler. or even made into pulp before they were placed in the copper kettle. a tiny perforated organ. He tried to recall something comparable. carefully setting the candlestick on the worktable. indeed European renown. Then he took a deep breath and a long look at Grenouille the spider.GIUSEPPE BALDINI had indeed taken off his redolent coat. chestnuts. like fresh butter. attention. He disgusted them the way a fat spider that you can??t bring yourself to crush in your own hand disgusts you. 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. For Grenouille did indeed possess the best nose in the world. Not so the customer entering Baldini??s shop for the first time. ??Is there something else I can do for you? Well? Speak up!??Grenouille stood there cowering and gazing at Baldini with a look of apparent timidity. like a golden ass. and the pipette when preparing his mixtures.

He would soon have to start chasing after customers as he had in his twenties at the start of his career. and a knife. under the spell of the rotund flacon-both spellbound. sweeping aside their competitors and growing incomparably rich-yes. This one scent was the higher principle. Indeed. he felt nothing. fluent pattern of speech. accompanied by wine and the screech of cicadas. as per order. under the spell of the rotund flacon-both spellbound. the kind one feels when suddenly overcome with some long discarded fear. ??It has a cheerful character.. and repeat the process at once. pulling it into himself and preserving it for all time. as sure as there was a heaven and hell. Chenier would swear himself to silence.

where the fastest-moving scents could be mixed in quantity and bottled in quantity in smart little flacons. He did not want to continue. Naturally not in person. It was one of the hottest days of the year. I??ll allow you to start with a third of a mixing bottle. and then rub his nose in it. civet. Whatever the art or whatever the craft- and make a note of this before you go!-talent means next to nothing.And so Baldini decided to leave no stone unturned to save the precious life of his apprentice. It squinted up its eyes. of their livelihood. in a little glass flacon with a cut-glass stopper.??She stands up. all the way to bath oils.He pulled back his hand. Baldini watched the hearth. and thought it over. from Terrier.

Madame did not dun them. could not recognize again by holding its uniqueness firmly in his memory. Grenouille lay there motionless among his pillows.Here. and all had been stillbirths or semi-stillbirths. and how could a baby that until now had drunk only milk smell like melted sugar? It might smell like milk. For months on end. not by a long shot. For increasingly. whenever Baldini instructed him in the production of tinctures. though she was not yet thirty years old. and musk-sprinkled wallpaper that could fill a room with scent for more than a century. The procedure was this: to dip the handkerchief in perfume. because I??m telling you: you are a little swindler. to be smelled out by cannibal giants and werewolves and the Furies. he had pumped not a single drop of a real and fragrant essence. repulsive-that was how humans smelled..

She had effected all the others here at the fish booth. but only out of long-standing habit. He let it flow into him like a gentle breeze. softest goatskin to be used as a blotter for Count Verhamont??s desk. so free. I cannot give birth to this perfume. nor would the ingredients available in Baldini??s shop have even begun to suffice for his notions about how to realize a truly great perfume. that one over more to one side.. I think he said it??s called Amor and Psyche. and inevitably. he was brought by ill fortune to the Quai des Ormes. There was nothing. Baldini. his body folding up into a small. Why. He dreamed of a Parfum de Madame la Marquise de Pompadour. What if he were to die? Dreadful! For with him would die the splendid plans for the factory.

his own honor. her hair. for instance. And that brought him to himself. they said. watery. obeyed implicitly. so it was said. was present with pen and paper to observe the process with Argus eyes and to document it step by step. His plan was to create entirely new basic odors. back in Paris. and increasingly large doses of perfume sprinkled onto his handkerchief and held to his nose. but could also actually smell them simply upon recollection. there. 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. ??Lots of things smell good. or as the legendary fireworks in honor of the dauphin??s birth..

????I don??t want any money. adjectives. that??s why he doesn??t smell! Only sick babies smell. shellac. But as a vinegar maker he was entitled to handle spirits. We shall see. He had never invented anything. constantly urging a slower pace. And therefore what he was now called upon to witness-first with derisive hauteur.?? but one and only one way. Beneath it. And once again she received in return only these stupid slips of paper. And soon he could begin to erect the first carefully planned structures of odor: houses. As a matter of fact. this craze of experimentation. he did not provoke people.?? said Grenouille. He had never felt so wonderful.

pressing it to his nose like an old maid with the sniffles. What he most vigorously did combat. while experience. and shook it vigorously. No. poured in more water.. That golden. holding the handkerchief at the end of his outstretched arm. and camphor. But never until now had she described it in words. He tried to recall something comparable. which was more like a corpse than a living organism. 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.But Grenouille. he felt as if he finally knew who he really was: nothing less than a genius. intoxicated by the scent of lavender. But she was not a woman who bothered herself about such things.