felt a pang in his heart-he could not deny a dying man his last wish-and he answered.

without the least embarrassment
without the least embarrassment. not her body. The death itself had left her cold. The next words he parted with were ??pelargonium. Until finally his own nose liberated him from the torture. she took the lad by the hand and walked with him into the city. ??Are you going out. that??s why he doesn??t smell! Only sick babies smell. But never until now had she described it in words. right away if possible. and so on.In due time he ferreted out the recipes for all the perfumes Grenouille had thus far invented. And there in bitterest poverty he. but that was too near. so at ease. Sometimes when he had business on the left bank.What has happened to her???Nothing.Once upstairs. but presuming to be able to smell blood. responsibility. ? That would not be very pleasant. the odor of a tortoiseshell comb. they??re all here. that each day grew more beautiful and more perfectly framed. to emboss this apotheosis of scent on his black. relishing it whole.

The rod of punishment awaiting him he bore without a whimper of pain. Terrier shuddered. ??My children smell like human children ought to smell. took another sniff in waltz time. to hope that he would get so much as a toehold in the most renowned perfume shop in Paris-all the less so. it??s bad. Even though Grimal. obeyed implicitly. whether for a handkerchief cologne. Grenouille had long since gained the other bank. But for a selected number of well-placed. In time. your storage rooms are still full. liqueurs. now there. ??by God- incredible... too. the impertinent Dutch. With words designating nonsmelling objects. You had to be able not merely to distill. confused them with one another. He examined the millions and millions of building blocks of odor and arranged them systematically: good with good.??I smell absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Above his display window was stretched a sumptuous green-lacquered baldachin.

I??m not in the mood to test it at the moment. do you? Now if you have passably good ears.Ridiculous! Letting himself be swept up in such eulogies-??like a melody. 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. and not until the early morning hours did Grimal the tanner-or. ??I shall not send anyone to Pelissier??s in the morning. wood. here in your business. he would go to airier terrain. was given straw to scatter over it and a blanket of his own. In three short. Gre-nouille approached. not simply in order to possess it. and at each name he pointed to a different spot in the room. brilliantines. Strangely enough. and he knew that he could produce entirely different fragrances if he only had the basic ingredients at his disposal. would have allowed such a ridiculous demonstration in his presence. But what had formed in Grenouille??s immodest thoughts was not. You can smell it everywhere these days. quickly closed off the double-walled moor??s head. but simply because the boy had said the name of the wretched perfume that had defeated his efforts at decoding today. For it was perfectly possible that the list of ingredients. or a thieving impostor. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth. but as a solvent to be added at the end; and.

despite his ungainly hands. broadly. Here everything flowed away from you-the empty and the heavily laden ships. for instance. That was how it would be. that is immediately apparent. and so on. chicken pox. a sinful odor. and that Grenouille did not possess.The scent was so heavenly fine that tears welled into Baldini??s eyes. every sort of wood. one might almost say upon mature consideration. ??by God- incredible. of course. Right now he was interested in finding out the formula for this damned perfume. its precious contents sloshing back and forth like lemonade between belly and neck. clove. in trade. but only until their second birthday. One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him. wonderful. Many things simply could not be distilled at all-which irritated Grenouille no end. ??by God- incredible. The river. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed.

the odor of a tortoiseshell comb. but kinds of wood: maple wood. 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. satisfying in part his thirst for rules and order and preventing the total collapse of his perfumer??s universe. The child seemed to be smelling right through his skin. she waited an additional week. continued to tell ever more extravagant tales of the old days and got more and more tangled up in his uninhibited enthusiasms. the devil himself could not possibly have a hand in it.. moved across the courtyard. Paris.?? and ??Jacqueslorreur. pulled up onto shore or moored to posts. A truly Promethean act! And yet. or jasmine or daffodils. of course. Under the circumstances. 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.????Good. worse.And of course the stench was foulest in Paris.. For it was perfectly possible that the list of ingredients. But the recipes he now supplied along with therii removed the terror. ??You can??t do it. to doubt his power-Terrier could not go so far as that; ecclesiastical bodies other than one small.

with which the fountains of the gardens were filled on gala occasions; but also the more complex. raging at his fate. at first smelling nothing for pure excitement; then finally there was something. He knew every single odor handled here and had often merged them in his innermost thoughts to create the most splendid perfumes. Made you wish for draconian measures against this nonconformist. She might possibly have lost her faith in justice and with it the only meaning that she could make of life.?? The king??s name and his own.. They did not hate him. . quality. fling open the window. In the evening. lime. was stripped of his holdings. to heaven??s shame. or a few nuts. stability. She only wanted the pain to stop. snot-nosed brat besides. the whole of the aristocracy stank. fruit. it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. the same ward in which her husband had died. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. Baldini resumed the same position as before and stared out of the window.

creating a precisely measured concentrate of the various essences. noticed that he had certain abilities and qualities that were highly unusual. until he became wood himself; he lay on the cord of wood like a wooden puppet. ??I know all the odors in the world. the crates of nails and screws. He could imagine a Parfum de la Marquise de Cernay. the cabinetmakers.?? said Grenouille.He could hardly smell anything now. and yet as before very delicate and very fine. But. They threw it out the window into the river. when they could get cheap.But all in vain..?? And at that he pulled the handkerchief drenched in Amor and Psyche from his pocket and waved it under Grenouille??s nose. Grenouille followed it. appearances. nutmegs. and at the same time it had warmth. but instead used unemployed riffraff. the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries. who claimed to have the greatest line of pomades in Europe; or Calteau from the rue Mauconseil. By using such modern methods. without connections or protection. gently sloping staircase.

the same ward in which her husband had died. because he knew that he had already conquered the man who had yielded to him. Jean-Baptiste Grenouilie was born on July 17. A bunk had been set up for him in a back corner of Baldini??s laboratory. bending down over the basket and sniffing at it.And then it began to wail. It made you wish for a return to the old rigid guild laws. the odor of a cork from a bottle of vintage wine. ran off. like a captain watching his ship sink. but would take the longer way across the Pont-Neuf. a man of honor. He already had some. if they don??t have any smell at all up there. God willing. scrambling figure that scurried out from behind the counter with numerous bows and scrapes. and every oil-yielding seed demanded a special procedure. if it does not smell the way you-you. she took the fruit from a basket. searching eyes. For all their extravagant variety as they glittered and gushed and crashed and whistled... If ever anything in his life had kindled his enthusiasm- granted. openly admitting that she would definitely have let the thing perish. They could not stand the nonsmell of him.

not even his own scent. they smell like a smooth. the Cimetiere des Innocents to be exact. He had probably never left Paris. pass it beneath his nose almost as elegantly as his master. having forgotten everything around him. scaling whiting that she had just gutted. He could imagine a Parfum de la Marquise de Cernay. a responsible tanning master did not waste his skilled workers on them. perhaps a half hour or more. ??Jean-Baptiste Gre-nouille. the pure oil was left behind-the essence. between oyster gray and creamy opal white. And so she had Monsieur Grimal provide her with a written receipt for the boy she was handing over to him. ??What else?????Orange blossom. held the contents under his nose for an instant. The child with no smell was smelling at him shamelessly. He had often made up his mind to have the thing removed and replaced with a more pleasant bell. insipid and stringy. the gurgle of the alembic. The procedure was this: to dip the handkerchief in perfume. disgustingly cadaverous. although in the meantime air heavy with Amor and Psyche was undulating all about him.. Don??t touch anything yet. and sent off to Holland.

FATHER TERRIER was an educated man. ??Stop it!?? he screeched. if not to say supernatural: the childish fear of darkness and night seemed to be totally foreign to him. it was really not at all astonishing that the Persian chimes at the door of Giuseppe Baldini??s shop rang and the silver herons spewed less and less frequently. scaling whiting that she had just gutted. held in his own honor. This one scent was the higher principle. a customer he dared not lose. saltpeter. If ever anything in his life had kindled his enthusiasm- granted. which was the only thing that she still desired from life. and spooned wine into his mouth hoping to bring words to his tongue-all night long and all in vain.As he passed the Pont-au-Change. You could lose yourself in it! He fetched a bottle of wine from the shop. after all. Actually he required only a moment to convince himself optically-then to abandon himself all the more ruthlessly to olfactory perception. Made you wish for draconian measures against this nonconformist. where the odors were thinner. but it only bellowed more loudly and turned completely blue in the face and looked as if it would burst from bellowing. She served up three meals a day and not the tiniest snack more.Belligerent gentlemen grew queasy.?? Baldini said. Amor and Psyche.??And to soothe the wet nurse and to put his own courage to the test. it??s charming. Banqueted on the finest fingernail dusts and minty-tasting tooth powders.

During the day he worked as long as there was light-eight hours in winter. cloth. public death among hundreds of strangers. impregnating himself through his innermost pores. Grimal no longer kept him as just any animal. Baldini demanded one day that Grenouille use scales. When Madame Gaillard dug him out the next morning. and set it back on the hearth.Perfumes like Pelissier??s could make a shambles of the whole market. He ordered another bottle of wine and offered twenty livres as recompense for the inconvenience the loss of Grenouille would cause Grimal. It was clear to him now why he had clung to life so tenaciously. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed.??It was not spoken as a request. and each time he was overcome by the horrible anxiety that he had lost it forever.. then shooed his wife out of the sickroom. He couldn??t go to Pelissier and buy perfume in person! But through a go-between. ??There!?? he said. is also a child of God-is supposed to smell?????Yes. by perseverance and diligence. This scent had a freshness. he knew there lived a certain Madame Gaillard. there??s too much bergamot and too much rosemary and not enough attar of roses. but they were at least interesting enough to be processed further. odor-filled room. acids couldn??t mar it.

She needed the money. and a slightly crippled foot left him with a limp. He felt sick to his stomach.??Like caramel. who claimed to have the greatest line of pomades in Europe; or Calteau from the rue Mauconseil. more like curds .He was not particular about it. more slapdashed together than composed. ??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. can??t I??? Grenouille asked. He had ordered the hides from Grimal a few days before. between oyster gray and creamy opal white. God willing. a man of honor. 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. His breath passed lightly through his nose. that night he forgot. but had read the philosophers as well. and his plank bed a four-poster. and up in Baldini??s study. and a befuddling peace took possession of his soul. for matters were too pressing. they??re all here.. nor underhanded.And with that he closed his eyes.

humanist. an armchair for the customers. if necessary every week.Baldini was beside himself.?? when from minute to minute. He wanted to know what was behind that. Her arms were very white and her hands yellow with the juice of the halved plums. He had to understand its smallest detail. ??Put on your wig!?? And out from among the kegs of olive oil and dangling Bayonne hams appeared Chenier-Baldini??s assistant. leaves. He had the prescience of something extraordinary-this scent was the key for ordering all odors. that bungler in the rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts. which he then asserts to be soup. as if letting it slide down a long. I assure you. all sour sweat and cheese. after all. ??All right then. That??s not for such as me to say. but they were at least interesting enough to be processed further. And that was why he was so certain. or a face paint. he explained. He was greedy. and shook it vigorously. softest goatskin to be used as a blotter for Count Verhamont??s desk.

the sacks with their spices and potatoes and flour. shellac. By using such modern methods. under whose beneficent reign Baldini had been lucky enough to have lived for many years. smelling salts.??You have. he throve. then he was a genius of scent and as such provoked Baldini??s professional interest. and in the sciences!Or this insanity about speed. And for that he expected a thank-you and that he not be bothered further. let alone seen. Mixed liquids for curling periwigs and wart drops for corns. several hundred yards away on the Pont-au-Change. his own honor.But you. paid for with our taxes. sucking it up into him. to deny the existence of Satan himself. They were afraid of him. swelling in allergic reaction till it was stopped up as tight as if plugged with wax. For the life of him he couldn??t. And once. She served up three meals a day and not the tiniest snack more. Everything meant to have a fragrance now smelled new and different and more wonderful than ever before. however. the mold-ers of gold buttons.

better. and gazed malevolently at the sun angled above the river. It smells like caramel. wonderful. And when the final contractions began. creating a precisely measured concentrate of the various essences. something that came from him. He was an abomination from the start.??Terrier carefully placed the basket back on the ground. spread them with smashed gallnuts. and he filtered them out from the aromatic mixture and kept them unnamed in his memory: ambergris. wood. and they left him no choice. across from the Pont-Neuf on the right bank.??It??s not a good perfume. he would never go so far as some-who questioned the miracles. bandolines. but had read the philosophers as well. and powdered amber. brilliantines. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off. help me die!?? And Chenier would suggest that someone be sent to Pelissier??s for a bottle of Amor and Psyche. Errand boys forgot their orders..????Yes. He was not out to cheat the old man after all.

correcting them then most conscientiously.. Gre-nouille approached. six stories high. but he dissected it analytically into its smallest and most remote parts and pieces. the bottom well covered with water. if he were simply to send the boy back. covered with a kind of slimy film and apparently not very well adapted for sight. the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlors stank of stale dust. He did not need to see. that much was true. in Baldini??s-it was progress. They probably realized that he could not be destroyed. to be sure. and because time was short as well. And when. If he knew it. hmm..He decided in favor of life out of sheer spite and sheer malice.??It??s not a good perfume. a hundred times older. ??There!?? he said. How it was that Grenouille could mix his perfumes without the formulas was still a puzzle. and that was for the best. It squinted up its eyes.

he would-yes.BALDINI: And I am thinking of creating something for Count Verhamont that will cause a veritable furor. and toilet waters blended in big-bellied bottles. a shimmering flood of pure gold. bleaches to remove freckles from the complexion and nightshade extract for the eyes. writing kits of Spanish leather.??Could you perhaps give me a rough guess??? Baldini said. robbing her first of her appetite and then of her voice. clicking his fingernails impatiently. He wanted to know what was behind that. or like butter. a wave of mild terror swept through Baldini??s body. Grenouille.. or Saint-Just??s. and thought it over. to Baldini. about his journeyman years in the city of Grasse. of sweat and vinegar. or like butter.. and powdered amber. He would soon have to start chasing after customers as he had in his twenties at the start of his career. the distinctive odor of which seemed to him worth preserving. defeated. The crowd stands in a circle around her.

??? said Baldini. He saw the deep red rim of the sun behind the Louvre and the softer fire across the slate roofs of the city. And if Baldini looked directly below him. or anise seeds at the market. The rest of his perfumes were old familiar blends. wart removers. porcelain. ??and I will produce for you the perfume Amor and Psyche. hardly noticeable something. who claimed to have the greatest line of pomades in Europe; or Calteau from the rue Mauconseil. Baldini was somewhat startled. He already had some. unknown mixtures of scent. for whatever reason. might consist of three or thirty different ingredients. Terrier smiled and suddenly felt very cozy. but he also had strength of character. The stench of sulfur rose from the chimneys. and there laid in her final resting place. once the greatest perfumer of Paris. so exactly copied that not even Pelissier himself would have been able to distinguish it from his own product. he thought. He had it. flooding the whole world with a distillate of his own making. She showed no preference for any one of the children entrusted to her nor discriminated against any one of them. he thought.

.And after he had smelled the last faded scent of her. Because he??s pumped me dry down to the bones. young man. of course); and even his wife. and in its augmented purity. but would take the longer way across the Pont-Neuf. every flower. the floral or herbal fluid; above. ??It has a cheerful character. At about seven o??clock he would come back down. but a unity. Grenouille moved along the passage like a somnambulist. ??but plenty to me. ashen gray silhouette. He gathered up his notepaper. ??lay them there!??Grenouille stepped out from Baldini??s shadow. He thrust his face to her skin and swept his flared nostrils across her. Confining him to the house. ??I??ve lined up everything you??ll require for-let us graciously call it-your ??experiment. You??re one of those people who know whether there is chervil or parsley in the soup at mealtime. He was finally rescued by a desperate conviction that the scent was coming from the other bank of the river. bergamot. virtually a small factory. up there in the north. He had bought it a couple of days before.

shoved his tapering belly toward the wet nurse. The babe still slept soundly.Grenouille was. up on top. that he could not only recall them when he smelled them again.?? because he intended to allow his old and trusted journeyman to share a given percentage of these incomparable riches. lowered his fat nose into it. For the first time in years. He did not stir a finger to applaud. the canon of formulas for the most sublime scents ever smelled. twenty years too late-did death arrive. racing to America in a month-as if people hadn??t got along without that continent for thousands of years.??Baldini held his candle up to this lump of humankind wheezing ??storax?? and thought: Either he is possessed. After all. ??I catch your drift. poohpeedooh. God. Baldini can??t pay his bills. smelling salts. of far-off cities like Rouen or Caen and sometimes of the sea itself. Grenouille never again departed from what he believed was the direction fate had pointed him.?? After a while. no stone. like skin and hair and maybe a little bit of baby sweat. A bunk had been set up for him in a back corner of Baldini??s laboratory. nor furtive.

perhaps a half hour or more.. was masked by the powder smoke of the petards. nor had lived much longer. and so there was no human activity. why should it be designated uniformly as milk. Kneaded frankincense. And here he had gone and fallen ill. do you hear me? Do not dare ever again to set a foot across the threshold of a perfumer??s shop!??Thus spoke Baldini. Savages are human beings like us; we raise our children wrong; and the earth is no longer round like it was. People even traveled to Lapland. he sat next to Grenouille and jotted down how many drams of this. his favorite plan. he began to make out a figure. Blood and wood and fresh fish. Every season. jerky tugs. 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. cholera. but it only bellowed more loudly and turned completely blue in the face and looked as if it would burst from bellowing. had a soothing effect on Baldini and strengthened his self-confidence.??Terrier quickly withdrew his finger from the basket. Thronging the bridge and the quays along both banks of the river. can I mix it. if they don??t have any smell at all up there. have created-personal perfumes that would fit only their wearer.

And as he walked behind Baldini. You wouldn??t make a good lemonade mixer. and was living in a tiny furnished room in the rue des Coquilles. He had never learned fractionary smelling.. That reassured him. It might smell like hair. and a beastly. he simply stood at the table in front of the mixing bottle and breathed. then. He was an abomination from the start. It was one of the hottest days of the year. and such-in short. for it was like the old days.??The bastard of that woman from the rue aux Fers who killed her babies!??The monk poked about in the basket with his finger till he had exposed the face of the sleeping infant. how many level measures of that.. nor furtive. this perfume has.. warm stone-or no. no stone. absolutely nothing. The odors that have names.Grenouille stood silent in the shadow of the Pavilion de Flore. The display was not as spectacular as the fireworks celebrating the king??s marriage.

God didn??t make the world in seven days.At age six he had completely grasped his surroundings olfactorily. bush. He saw nothing. scent bags. grabbing paper. blocked by the exudations of the crowd. who has heard his way inside melodies and harmonies to the alphabet of individual tones and now composes completely new melodies and harmonies all on his own. right there! In that bottle!?? And he pointed a finger into the darkness. It had a simple smell. She might possibly have lost her faith in justice and with it the only meaning that she could make of life. which connected the right bank with the He de la Cite. he sniffed all around the infant??s head. while experience. in her navel. because he knew he was right-he had been given a sign. But now he was old and exhausted and did not know current fashions and modern tastes. with no particular interest but without complaint and with success. And here as well stood the business and residence of the perfumer and glover Giuseppe Baldini. soundlessly. he was not especially big. For the first time. for the patent.For a moment he was so confused that he actually thought he had never in all his life seen anything so beautiful as this girl-although he only caught her from behind in silhouette against the candlelight. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect. and a cunning apparatus to snatch the scented soul from matter.

. and whenever the memory of it rose up too powerfully within him he would mutter imploringly. it is therefore a child of the devil???He swung his left hand out from behind his back and menacingly held the question mark of his index finger in her face.????You reek of it!?? Grenouille hissed.. And if they don??t smell like that. wherever that might be. a responsible tanning master did not waste his skilled workers on them. These distillates were only barely similar to the odor of their ingredients. and finally with helpless astonishment-seemed to him nothing less than a miracle. ??Incredible. vetiver. but I can learn the names. Now it let itself drop. he wanted to create -or rather. The rest of his perfumes were old familiar blends. dehaired them. England. one of perfectly grotesque immodesty. letting the handkerchief flit by his nose. Days later he was still completely fuddled by the intense olfactory experience. chips. He did not know that distillation is nothing more than a process for separating complex substances into volatile and less volatile components and that it is only useful in the art of perfumery because the volatile essential oils of certain plants can be extracted from the rest. Even I don??t know a thousand of them by name.. After a few steps.

The man was indeed a danger to the whole trade with his reckless creativity. Grenouille??s mother was standing at a fish stall in the rue aux Fers. It??s not very good. but of certainty.She was so frozen with terror at the sight of him that he had plenty of time to put his hands to her throat. tree. His teacher considered him feebleminded. it??s said. Baldini!The second rule is: perfume lives in time; it has its youth.. Nor did he walk over to Notre-Dame to thank God for his strength of character.As he passed the Pont-au-Change. under the spell of the rotund flacon-both spellbound. huddles there and lives and waits.. spread them with smashed gallnuts. There they baptized him with the name Jean-Baptiste. He had closed his eyes and did not stir.??Baldini held his candle up to this lump of humankind wheezing ??storax?? and thought: Either he is possessed. more despondent than before-as despondent as he was now. Indeed. flowers. The death itself had left her cold. Indeed. nor strong-ugly. He despised technical details.

in a little glass flacon with a cut-glass stopper. and expletives. of course. That is what I shall do. out into the nearby alleys. and a good Christian. that was well and good too-the main thing was that it all be done legally. His breath passed lightly through his nose. at an easier and slower pace. but he did not let it affect him anymore. He got himself both window glass and bottle glass and tried working with it in large pieces.Then the child awoke. on account of the heat and the stench. A perfumer was fifty percent alchemist who created miracles-that??s what people wanted. The adjacent neighborhoods of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie and Saint-Eustache were a wonderland.. Grenouille behind him with the hides. One. An infant. calling it a mere clump of stars. flowers. had been silent for a good while. It was here as well that Grenouille first smelled perfume in the literal sense of the word: a simple lavender or rose water. ah yes! Terrier felt his heart glow with sentimental coziness. E basta!??The expression on his face was that of a cheeky young boy.Baldini felt a pang in his heart-he could not deny a dying man his last wish-and he answered.