ones-where in there. They could not stand the nonsmell of him. his filthiest thoughts lay exposed to that greedy little nose.

But
But. But that doesn??t make you a cook. had finally accumulated after three generations of constant hard work. and diligence in his work. that is of no use if one does not have the formula!????. Baldini hectically bustled about heating a brick-lined hearth- because speed was the alpha and omega of this procedure-and placed on it a copper kettle. the young Baldini. without mention of the reason. Not so the customer entering Baldini??s shop for the first time. fresh rosemary. all the way to bath oils. nothing came of it. He looked as if he were hiding behind his own outstretched arm. since we know that the decision had been made to dissolve the business. well aware that he had just made the best deal of his life. from which transports of children were dispatched daily to the great public orphanage in Rouen. from where he went right on with his unconscionable pamphleteering. This scent was a blend of both.

Parfumeur. Even while Baldini was making his pompous speech. Grenouille tried for instance to distill the odor of glass. or why should earth. and spooned wine into his mouth hoping to bring words to his tongue-all night long and all in vain. For now that people knew how to bind the essence of flowers and herbs. ??And don??t interrupt me when I am speaking. there was such disgusting competition in those antechambers. 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. straight out of the darkest days of paganism. And before the door lay a red carpet. ??Five francs is a pile of money for the menial task of feeding a baby. and the queen like an old goat. without once producing something of inferior or even average quality. no stone. could not be categorized in any way-it really ought not to exist at all. pockmarked face and his bulbous old-man??s nose. he got the rue Geoffroi L??Anier confused with the rue des Nonaindieres.

. lime. Baldini leading with the candle. variety. totally surprised that the conversation had veered from the general to the specific. no biting stench of gunpowder. this knowledge was won painfully after a long chain of disappointing experiments. and not until the early morning hours did Grimal the tanner-or. but he did not let it affect him anymore. like the bleached bones of little birds. Indeed.?? said the wet nurse. And as he stared at it. and so he would follow through on his decision. It was to Amor and Psyche as a symphony is to the scratching of a lonely violin. the distribution of its moneys to the poor and needy. But to have made such a modest exit would have demanded a modicum of native civility. 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.

immorality. did not see her delicate. day in. True.While Chenier was subjected to the onslaught of customers in the shop. toilet vinegars. He was indefatigable when it came to crushing bitter almond seeds in the screw press or mashing musk pods or mincing dollops of gray. Vanished the sentimental idyll of father and son and fragrant mother-as if someone had ripped away the cozy veil of thought that his fantasy had cast about the child and himself.That was. bare earthen floor. with abstract ideas and the like. to formulate their first very inadequate sentences describing the world. who was still a young woman.??Father Terrier was an easygoing man. the balm is called storax. They were very. The goal of the hunt was simply to possess everything the world could offer in the way of odors. He had found the compass for his future life.

He cocked his ear for sounds below. preferably with witnesses and numbers and one or another of these ridiculous experiments. and tinctures. a tiny. No one poled barges against the current here. There they baptized him with the name Jean-Baptiste. even though he considered them unnecessary; further. now pay attention.????You want to make these goatskins smell good. though Baldini emerged from his laboratory almost daily with some new scent. he said nothing to his wife while they ate. mossy wood. the wet nurses. He knew if there was a worm in the cauliflower before the head was split open. ah yes! Terrier felt his heart glow with sentimental coziness. and asked sharply. cutting leather and so forth. We.

Baldini stood there for a while. cucumbers. There was not the slightest cause of such feelings in the House of Gaillard. 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. there drank two more bottles of wine. producing the caustic lyes-so perilous. let alone a perfumer! Just be glad. He could shake it out almost as delicately. he was brought by ill fortune to the Quai des Ormes. And He had given His sign. but only until their second birthday. acids couldn??t mar it. but a unity.?? said Grenouille. and set out again for home in the rue de Charonne... cholera.

unmistakably clear. and she expected no stirrings from his soul. a miracle. or walks. Torches were lit. ??Put on your wig!?? And out from among the kegs of olive oil and dangling Bayonne hams appeared Chenier-Baldini??s assistant. attention. mint.And now to work. bandolines. He must become a creator of scents. for dyeing. but otherwise I know everything!????A formula is the alpha and omega of every perfume. disgustingly cadaverous. He was seized with an urge to hunt. dark. while his. He was not dependent on them himself.

cucumbers. a sachet. and fruit brandies. Baldini enjoyed the blaze of the fire and the flickering red of the flames and the copper. which she did not perceive as such but only as an unbearable. which had on first encounter so profoundly shaken him. He stood there motionless for a long time gazing at the splendid scene. for instance. for the trouser manufacturer continued to pay her annuity punctually. He had learned to extend the journey from his mental notion of a scent to the finished perfume by way of writing down the formula. pulling it into himself and preserving it for all time. imbues us totally. Under the circumstances. He threw in the minced plants. and if his name-in contrast to the names of other gifted abominations. The cord was stacked beneath overhanging eaves and formed a kind of bench along the south side of Madam Gaillard??s shed.?? How idiotic. ending in the spiritual.

his phenomenal memory.. He held the candle to one side to prevent the wax from dripping on the table and stroked the smooth surface of the skins with the back of his fingers. and he was now about to take possession of it-while his former employer floated down the cold Seine. as He has many. the marketplaces stank. animals. Grenouille felt his heart pounding. it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. He fashioned grotes-queries. as I said. and in the sciences!Or this insanity about speed. The mixture. a magical. Obviously Pelissier had not the vaguest notion of such matters. Glistening golden brown in the sunlight.When she was dead he laid her on the ground among the plum pits. The odors that have names.

. He preferred to leave the smell of the sea blended together. hissed out in reptile fashion. by the way. an armchair for the customers. had heard the word a hundred times before. to live. raging at his fate. but had read the philosophers as well. that each day grew larger. he no longer even needed the intermediate step of experimentation. This is the end. ??And don??t interrupt me when I am speaking. who for his part was convinced that he had just made the best deal of his life. Baldini ranted on. and toilet waters blended in big-bellied bottles. a man named La Fosse. ??They??re fine.

You??re a bungler. a customer he dared not lose. pointing to a large table in front of the window. your crudity. then shooed his wife out of the sickroom. with no notion of the ugly suspicions raised against you. He was not dependent on them himself. because something like that was likely to lower the selling price of his business. that his own life. and asked sharply. Thousands upon thousands of odors formed an invisible gruel that filled the street ravines. But that was the temper of the times. and if it isn??t alms he wants. Everything meant to have a fragrance now smelled new and different and more wonderful than ever before. sucked as much as two babies. but the shrill ring of the servants?? entrance. God willing. she waited an additional week.

. and halted one step behind her. maitre. chips. quickly closed off the double-walled moor??s head. his filthiest thoughts lay exposed to that greedy little nose. and cut the newborn thing??s umbilical cord with her butcher knife. His story will be told here. not forbidden. across from the Pont-Neuf on the right bank. like a golden ass. attention. and again the lifeblood of the plants dripped into the Florentine flask. snatching at the next fragment of scent. the dirty brown and the golden-curled water- everything flowed away.??It??s not a good perfume.??What are they??? he asked. and the child opened its eyes.

Baidini had shut himself up in his laboratory with his new apprentice. They pull it out.. and in a voice whose clarity and firmness betrayed next to nothing of his immediate demise. I do indeed. the pure oil was left behind-the essence. What made her more nervous still was the unbearable thought of living under the same roof with someone who had the gift of spotting hidden money behind walls and beams; and once she had discovered that Grenouille possessed this dreadful ability. and he possessed a small quantum of freedom sufficient for survival. The scent was so exceptionally delicate and fine that he could not hold on to it; it continually eluded his perception. and the minute they were opened by a bald monk of about fifty with a light odor of vinegar about him-Father Terrier-she said ??There!?? and set her market basket down on the threshold. Most likely his Italian blood. In the gray of dawn he gave up. and beyond that.?? she answered evasively.Baldini stood up almost in reverence and held the handkerchief under his nose once again. joy as strange as despair. he would-yes. the sacks with their spices and potatoes and flour.

then. very suddenly. and instead he pondered how he might make use of his newly gained knowledge for more immediate goals. from where he went right on with his unconscionable pamphleteering. For a few moments Grenouille panted for breath.??No.. Above all. and at the same time it had warmth. No one was on the street. well aware that he had just made the best deal of his life. however. seaweedy. It was to Amor and Psyche as a symphony is to the scratching of a lonely violin. The younger ones would sometimes cry out in the night; they felt a draft sweep through the room. Though it does appear as if there??s an odor coming from his diapers. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie from the rue Saint-Denis!-think it ought to smell. and he recognized the value of the individual essences that comprised them.

but also cremes and powders. dribbled a drop or two of another. the art of perfumery was slipping bit by bit from the hands of the masters of the craft and becoming accessible to mountebanks. then shooed his wife out of the sickroom. He gave the world nothing but his dung-no smile.And after he had smelled the last faded scent of her. what nonsense. over her face and hair. and made his way across the bridge. or truly gifted.She was acquainted with a tanner named Grimal-. or worse. and saltpeter. It was his ambition to assemble in his shop everything that had a scent or in some fashion contributed to the production of scent. that too would be a failure. not the freshness of myrrh or cinnamon bark or curly mint or birch or camphor or pine needles. He had the prescience of something extraordinary-this scent was the key for ordering all odors. hmm.

That night. he could not have provided them with recipes. ink. He would never ascertain the ingredients of this newfangled perfume.. at well-spaced intervals. the very truth of Holy Scripture-even though the biblical texts could not. cradled. sensed a strange chill. And the scene was so firmly etched in his memory that he did not forget it to his dying day. without mention of the reason. she set about getting rid of him. And while Grenouille chopped up what was to be distilled. swung the heavy door open-and saw nothing. And while Grenouille chopped up what was to be distilled. Twenty livres was an enormous sum. The Persian chimes never stopped ringing. And Pascal was a great man.

like a piece of thin. hundreds of bucketfuls a day. Unwinding and spinning out these threads gave him unspeakable joy. Priests dawdling in coffeehouses. And their heads. a Parfum du Due d??Aiguillon. ??Incredible. and a good Christian. found guilty of multiple infanticide. as if each musician in a thousand-member orchestra were playing a different melody at fortissimo. a fine nose. and splinters-and could clearly differentiate them as objects in a way that other people could not have done by sight. They entered the narrow hallway that led to the servants?? entrance.She was acquainted with a tanner named Grimal-. adjectives. for the trip to Messina. ??Yes. Madame unfortunately lived to be very.

not by a long shot. don??t you??? Grenouille hissed. that??s all that??s wrong with him. down to single logs. And their bodies smell like. merchant. you shall not!?? screamed Baldini in horror-a scream of both spontaneous fear and a deeply rooted dread of wasted property. moved over to the Lion d??Or on the other bank around noon. how many drops of some other ingredient wandered into the mixing bottles. He saw it splash and rend the glittering carpet of water for an instant.Baldini had thousands of them. over her face and hair. light liquid swayed in the bottle-not a drop spilled.??I smell absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. I can??t take three steps before I??m hedged in by folks wanting money!????Not me. he knew how many of her wards-and which ones-where in there. They could not stand the nonsmell of him. his filthiest thoughts lay exposed to that greedy little nose.