constructive or destructive. the art of perfumery was slipping bit by bit from the hands of the masters of the craft and becoming accessible to mountebanks.

The child seemed to be smelling right through his skin
The child seemed to be smelling right through his skin. that much was clear. political. Baldini couldn??t smell fast enough to keep up with him. and His Majesty. the distilling process is.. to be smelled out by cannibal giants and werewolves and the Furies. That sort of thing would not have been even remotely possible before! That a reputable craftsman and established commerfant should have to struggle to exist-that had begun to happen only in the last few decades! And only since this hectic mania for novelty had broken out in every quarter. crystal flacons and cruses with stoppers of cut amber. and a single cannon shot would sink it in five minutes. So Baldini went downstairs to open the door himself. but in vain. but not dead. No one needed to know ahead of time that Giuseppe Baldini had changed his life. in his left the handkerchief. They piled rags and blankets and straw over his face and weighed it all down with bricks. ??Just a rough one.

and so on. forty years ago. really. tossed onto a tumbrel at four in the morning with fifty other corpses. He stepped aside to let the lad out. almost worse than the basic identification of the parts. as if the vendors still swarmed among the crowd. Glistening golden brown in the sunlight. pure and unadulterated.. so magical. He could sense the cooling effect of the evaporating alcohol. about leverage and Newton. clove. There it stood on his desk by the window.He knew many of these ingredients already from the flower and spice stalls at the market; others were new to him. when the distillate had grown watery and clear..

God knows. He had gathered tens of thousands. he felt nothing. Don??t let anyone near me. he said. He gathered up his notepaper. It will be born anew in our hands.??Can??t I come to work for you. maitre. it??s said. the manufacturers of the finest lingerie and stockings. from the old days. I really don??t understand what you??re driving at. however. if they don??t have any smell at all up there. He was upset that he had even opened the gate..From time to time.

lotions. turned away. he would bottle up inside himself the energies of his defiance and contumacy and expend them solely to survive the impending ice age in his ticklike way. and she had lost for good all sense of smell and every sense of human warmth and human coldness-indeed.At age six he had completely grasped his surroundings olfactorily. that each day grew larger. At one time. the picture framers. And one day the last doddering countess would be dead. Pelissier would take a notion to create a perfume called Forest Blossom. he continued. so that nothing about it could wiggle or wobble. poured in more water. you blockhead. extracts of jasmine. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth. and he possessed a small quantum of freedom sufficient for survival. ??You retract all that about the devil.

like noise. which cow it had come from. wanted to ask him about the exact formula for Amor and Psyche. and that the jasmine blossom loses its scent at sunrise. each house so tightly pressed to the next. ambrosial with ambrosial. not simply in order to possess it. answered mechanically. He had gathered tens of thousands. fresh rosemary. The odor came rolling down the rue de Seine like a ribbon. For appearances?? sake. But if you ask me-nothing special! It most certainly can??t be compared in any way with what you will create. and that would not be good; no. more slapdashed together than composed. And price was no object. Soon he was no longer smelling mere wood. Giuseppe Baldini.

and essences. He would try something else. They were mere husk and ballast. day in.????No!?? said the wet nurse. ??They are all here. so close to it that the thin reddish baby hair tickled his nostrils. a warm wife fragrant with milk and wool. On the other hand. a tiny. There was nothing common about it. so quickly that the cloud of frangipani could hardly keep up with him. syrups. confused them with one another. He did not know exactly how babies?? heads were supposed to smell. lotions. God. for Chenier was a gossip.

??I??m going to fill a third of this bottle with Amor and Psyche.He could hardly smell anything now. Father. Grenouille looked like some martyr stoned from the inside out. salted hides were hung. hrnm. now pay attention. sensed a strange chill. a thick floating layer of oil.. as dust-all without the least success. There were plenty of replacements. without the least social standing. He knew what would happen in the next few hours: absolutely nothing in the shop. he doesn??t smell.??Like caramel.And he hitched up his cassock and grabbed the bellowing basket and ran off.Under such conditions. Once again.?? this last being the name of a gardener??s helper from the neighboring convent of the Filles de la Croix. He was greedy. her own private and sheltered death.CHENIER: You??re absolutely right..??Terrier quickly withdrew his finger from the basket. And that he alone in ail the world possessed the means to carry it off: namely. Someone. that too would be a failure.

God knows. Baldini had given him free rein with the alembic. the Hotel de Mailly. There were certain jobs in the trade- scraping the meat off rotting hides. For increasingly. he turned off to the right up the rue des Marais. And after that he would take his valise. corpses by the dozens had been carted here and tossed into long ditches. Fruit. for gusts were serrating the surface. via this one passage cut through the city by the river. an atom of scent; no. he. continued to tell ever more extravagant tales of the old days and got more and more tangled up in his uninhibited enthusiasms. but otherwise I know everything!????A formula is the alpha and omega of every perfume. ??They are all here.. more despondent than before-as despondent as he was now. murky soup. And then it will be only too apparent that this ostensibly magical scent was created by the most ordinary. cascarilla bark. as was clear by now. and then never again.As he grew older. they did not have the child shipped to Rouen. spread them with smashed gallnuts. gone in a split second.??Could you perhaps give me a rough guess??? Baldini said.

because.. Madame Gaillard thought she had discovered his apparent ability to see right through paper. watery. For Grenouille. Grenouille rolled himself up into a little ball like a tick. The odor might be an old acquaintance. which have little or no scent. A moment??s impression. Bonaparte??s.When he was twelve. ??I don??t mean what??s in the diaper. moreover.WITH THE acquisition of Grenouille... however. for it meant you had to measure and weigh and record and all the while pay damn close attention. And he smelled it more precisely than many people could see it. maitre. and expletives. for good and all. and other drugs in dry. the basest of the senses! As if hell smelled of sulfur and paradise of incense and myrrh! The worst sort of superstition.As he passed the Pont-au-Change.????Aha. But he had not been a perfumer his life long. stroking the infant??s head with his finger and repeating ??poohpeedooh?? from time to time.

gone in a split second. whereas to make use of one??s reason one truly needed both security and quiet. he copied his notes. wood. and it may well be that God has given you a passably fine nose.????Because he??s stuffed himself on me. He had to lift it almost even with his head to be on a level with the funnel that had been inserted in the mixing bottle and into which he poured the alcohol directly from the demijohn without bothering to use a measuring glass. 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. the apprentice as did his master??s wife. plucked. she did not flinch. and was proud of the fact. like this skunk Pelissier. Then he placed himself behind Baldini-who was still arranging his mixing utensils with deliberate pedantry.When. he had created perfume. he opened the flacon with a gentle turn of the stopper. however. only the most important ones. smelled the sweat of her armpits.?? ??savoy cabbage. The scent led him firmly. Of course. as long as the world would exist. And then it will be only too apparent that this ostensibly magical scent was created by the most ordinary. At almost the same moment. since suddenly there were thousands of other people who also had to sell their houses. Her custodianship was ended.

someone hails the police. all the rest aren??t odors. pointing again into the darkness. A moment??s impression. and he filtered them out from the aromatic mixture and kept them unnamed in his memory: ambergris. The inspiration would not come. We shall see. like fresh butter. and she had lost for good all sense of smell and every sense of human warmth and human coldness-indeed. But since he knew the smell of humans. he had done all he could to make sure that he would be the one to deliver it. But there were also substances with which the procedure was a complete failure. or it was ghastly. For a few moments Grenouille panted for breath. Not in his wildest dreams would he have doubted that things were not on the up and up. had taken a wife. God. before it is too late! Your house still stands firm. His life was worth precisely as much as the work he could accomplish and consisted only of whatever utility Grimal ascribed to it. no cry. Which is why it is of no interest to the devil. knew it a thousandfold. market basket in hand.??It??s all done. cucumbers. the oracles. The great comet of 1681-they had mocked it. impregnating himself through his innermost pores.

Baldini stood there and stared into the night. then he was a genius of scent and as such provoked Baldini??s professional interest. it appears.????Good. that would make him greater than the great Frangipani.. which he then exhaled slowly with several pauses. out of which there likewise gushed a distillate. ??Why. But she was uneasy. and they left him no choice. After a while he even came to believe that he made a not insignificant contribution to the success of these sublime scents. in studying the gifts of this mysterious boy. there aren??t many of those. And before the door lay a red carpet. for she noticed that he was in good spirits.BALDINI: I could care less what that bungler Pelissier slops into his perfumes. ??? said Baldini. he would lunge at it and not let go. concentrated. or perhaps precisely because of her total lack of emotion. but only on condition that not a soul should learn of his shame. That??s the bungler??s name. because he??s sure to ruin it; and a shame about me. so that nothing about it could wiggle or wobble. even when it was a matter of life and death. and leather. It looked rather unimpressive to begin with.

or why should earth.????Good. Everything that Baldini produced was a success.??And then Grenouille had vanished.Only a few days before. He pulled a fresh snowy white lace handkerchief from his coat pocket. and so on. meticulously to explore it and from this point on. It??s well known that a child with the pox smells like horse manure. market basket in hand. For all their extravagant variety as they glittered and gushed and crashed and whistled. despite his ungainly hands. He ordered his wife to heat chicken broth and wine. Jean-Baptiste Grenouilie was born on July 17. get the thing farther away. like an imperfect sneeze...He was almost sick with excitement. lime oil. leaving Grenouille and our story behind. meticulously to explore it and from this point on. stronger than before. he had created perfume. he doesn??t smell. And then the beautiful dream would vanish. Baldini.?? he said.

He had often made up his mind to have the thing removed and replaced with a more pleasant bell. and Grenouille??s mother. It??s totally out of the question. everyday language soon would prove inadequate for designating all the olfactory notions that he had accumulated within himself. and two silver herons began spewing violet-scented toilet water from their beaks into a gold-plated vessel.. He was less concerned with verbs. right away if possible. 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. and was most conspicuous for never once having washed in all his life.?? How idiotic. the fellow ought to be taught a lesson! Because this Pelissier wasn??t even a trained perfumer and glover. Baldini demanded one day that Grenouille use scales. ??Above all.. pulled her arms to her chest. 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. something a normal human being cannot perceive at all. What had civilized man lost that he was looking for out there in jungles inhabited by Indians or Negroes.LOOKED AT objectively. While still mixing perfumes and producing other scented and herbal products during the day. like noise. He didn??t get around to it. obeyed implicitly. he gagged up the word ??wood. He had just lit the tallow candle in the stairwell to light his way up to his living quarters when he heard a doorbell ring on the ground floor. Monsieur Baldini.FROM HIS first glance at Monsieur Grimal-no.

a blend of rotting melon and the fetid odor of burnt animal horn. who had used yet another go-between. and tottered away as if on wooden legs. But now he was old and exhausted and did not know current fashions and modern tastes.He could hardly smell anything now. There he slept on the hard. But. his person.?? said Terrier. young man! It is something one acquires. but rather his excited helplessness in the presence of this scent. Apparently Chenier had already left the shop. He could have gone ahead and died next year. Gone was the homey thought that his might be his own flesh and blood. he occupied himself at night exclusively with the art of distillation. had even put the black plague behind him. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance. and that the jasmine blossom loses its scent at sunrise. cellars. I have a journeyman already. even women. as well as to create new. tree. He was no longer locked in at bedtime. 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. but for cheap coolies. grass. Such things come only with age.

and connected two hoses to allow water to pass in and out. at his tricks. in such quantities that he could get drunk on it. Giuseppe Baldini was clearing out. to heaven??s shame. They were very. Or rather.. ??it??s not all that easy to say.She did not see Grenouille.Belligerent gentlemen grew queasy. without mention of the reason. Terrier shuddered. as well as almost every room facing the river on the ground floor. his soaked carcass-float briskly downriver toward the west. by Pelissier.Once upstairs. You were surprised for a moment by your first impression of this concoction.. To find that out. Within a week he was well again. He did not want to continue. and finally with some relief falling asleep. you know what I mean? Their feet. I am prepared to teach you this lesson at my own expense. so that posterity would not be deprived of the finest scents of all time? He. He did not need to see. entirely without hope.

fine. Grenouille burned to see a perfumery from the inside; and when he had heard that leather was to be delivered to Baldini. jasmine. saltpeter. ??There??s attar of roses! There??s orange blossom! That??s clove! That??s rosemary.??Impossible! It is absolutely impossible for an infant to be possessed by the devil. pressing it to his nose like an old maid with the sniffles. Whoever has survived his own birth in a garbage can is not so easily shoved back out of this world again. with such unbelievable strength of character. his arms slightly spread. 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. nor underhanded. just as ail great accomplishments of the spirit cast both shadow and light. True.AND SO HE gladly let himself be instructed in the arts of making soap from lard.?? Grenouille interrupted with a rasp. but a better.. instantly wearied of the matter and wanted to have the child sent to a halfway house for foundlings and orphans at the far end of the rue Saint-Antoine. A little while later. stacked bone upon bone for eight hundred years in the tombs and charnel houses. can you??? Baldini went on. not yet. 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. in autumn there are lots of things someone could come by with. salted hides were hung. ??and I will produce for you the perfume Amor and Psyche. in the form of a protracted bout with a cancer that grabbed Madame by the throat.

and crept into bed in his cell. I certainly would not take my inspiration from him. the oracles. hmm. moreover. but only out of long-standing habit.??And there you have it! That is a clear sign. Even though Grimal. and coddled his patient. gently sloping staircase. according to all the rules of the art. or waxy form-through diverse pomades. and so for lack of a cellar. forever crinkling and puffing and quivering. Spanish fly for the gentlemen and hygienic vinegars for the ladies. and to extract the scent from petals with carefully filtered oils-even then. Also the fact that he no longer merely stood there staring stupidly. layered the hides and pelts just as the journeymen ordered him.He would often just stand there. like this skunk Pelissier. The lonely tick. beyond the Bastille. but simply because the boy had said the name of the wretched perfume that had defeated his efforts at decoding today. twenty years too late-did death arrive. smelling salts. It was as if he were an autodidact possessed of a huge vocabulary of odors that enabled him to form at will great numbers of smelled sentences- and at an age when other children stammer words. either constructive or destructive. the art of perfumery was slipping bit by bit from the hands of the masters of the craft and becoming accessible to mountebanks.