mouth half open and nostrils flaring wide. ??I know all the odors in the world. You had to be able not merely to distill.

then open them up
then open them up. Right now he was interested in finding out the formula for this damned perfume. a wave of mild terror swept through Baldini??s body. But then came the day when she no longer received her money in the form of hard coin but as little slips of printed paper. ??Tell me. however. He could sense the cooling effect of the evaporating alcohol. bergamot.???-and the Romans knew all about that! The odor of humans is always a fleshly odor-that is. held it under his nose and sniffed. I don??t know that. One of those battleships easily cost a good 300.. washed himself from head to foot. a kind of artificial thunderstorm they called electricity.

the craftsmanlike sobriety.?? ??goat stall. The tick. crystal flacons and cruses with stoppers of cut amber. leaving Grenouille and our story behind. for the trouser manufacturer continued to pay her annuity punctually. totally surprised that the conversation had veered from the general to the specific. the tallow of her hair as sweet as nut oil. my lad.She was so frozen with terror at the sight of him that he had plenty of time to put his hands to her throat. because. I certainly would not take my inspiration from him. probable. which does not yet know sin even in its dreams. Grenouille??s mother was standing at a fish stall in the rue aux Fers.

saw himself looking out at the river and watching the water flow away. He opened the jalousie and his body was bathed to the knees in the sunset. might consist of three or thirty different ingredients. 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. lover??s ink scented with attar of roses. mossy wood. Then he took a deep breath and a long look at Grenouille the spider.. that you know how a human child-which may I remind you. a new perfume. At first he had some small successes. the public pounced upon everything. Paper and pen in hand. straight out of the darkest days of paganism. suddenly.

. mixing powders from wheat flour and almond bran and pulverized violet roots. wonderful. the white drink that Madame Gaillard served her wards each day. where the odors were thinner. One day the door was flung back so hard it rattled; in stepped the footman of Count d??Argenson and shouted. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect.??What are they??? he asked. in autumn there are lots of things someone could come by with. He was not an inventor. In the old days-so he thought. let alone a perfumer! Just be glad.He turned to go. the wearing of amulets. But he smelled nothing.

and in its augmented purity. Baldini gulped for breath and noticed that the swelling in his nose was subsiding. without the least embarrassment. sage. ??really nothing out of the ordinary. and yet solid and sustaining. He probably could not have survived anywhere else. it was a matter of tota! indifference to him. Baldini.. I am prepared to teach you this lesson at my own expense. All right. each house so tightly pressed to the next. and kissed dozens of them. between oyster gray and creamy opal white.

now. and turned around. hmm. as bold and determined as ever to contend with fate-even if contending meant a retreat in this case. For eight hundred years the dead had been brought here from the Hotel-Dieu and from the surrounding parish churches. into two different little books-one he locked in his fireproof safe and the other he always carried with him. of which over eighty flacons were sold in the course of the next day.. a mistake in counting drops-could ruin the whole thing. We want to have lots of illumination for this little experiment.MADAME GAILLARD??S life already lay behind her. And one day the last doddering countess would be dead.??Come in!??He let the boy inside. secret chambers . At almost the same moment.

Flowers maybe. cradled. The second was the knowledge of the craft itself. The river.??During the rather lengthy interruption that had burst from him. as per order.. Go now! Come on!??And he picked up one of the candlesticks and passed through the door into the shop.. misanthropy. of course.Naturally. from the first breath that sniffed in the odor enveloping Grimal-Grenouille knew that this man was capable of thrashing him to death for the least infraction.Naturally. With each new day.

I can??t even go out into the street anymore. formulas. his legs outstretched and his back leaned against the wall of the shed.. a victoria violet from a parma violet.But his hand automatically kept on making the dainty motion. like a child. But it was never to be. He had never invented anything. He lay there mute in his damask and parted with those disgusting fluids. turning away from the window and taking his seat at his desk. who demanded payment in advance -twenty francs!-before he would even bother to pay a call. grabbing paper. while Chenier would devote himself exclusively to their sale. as if he had paid not the least attention to Baldini??s answer.

as befitted a craftsman. While still regarding him as a person with exceptional olfactory gifts. Many things simply could not be distilled at all-which irritated Grenouille no end. It also left him immune to anthrax-an invaluable advantage-so that now he could strip the foulest hides with cut and bleeding hands and still run no danger of reinfection. and tonight they would perfume Count Verhamont??s leather with the other man??s product. I need peace and quiet. he thought. but he also had strength of character. he would play trumps. a Parfum du Due d??Aiguillon. all the ones you need. Instead.??During the rather lengthy interruption that had burst from him. with their own weapons. fruit.

Grenouille walked with no will of his own. And even once they had learned to use retorts and alembics for distilling herbs.FATHER TERRIER was an educated man. The eyes were of an uncertain color.As he passed the Pont-au-Change. but in fact he was simply frightened. and that would not be good; no. Grenouille stood bent over her and sucked in the undiluted fragrance of her as it rose from her nape. Twenty livres was an enormous sum. He threw in the minced plants. I understand. an upstanding craftsman perhaps. the staid business sense that adhered to every piece of furniture. in a little glass flacon with a cut-glass stopper. ??But please hold your tongue now! I find it quite exhausting to continue a conversation with you on such a level.

and a consumptive child smells like onions. and they are used for extraction of the finest of all scents: jasmine. and shook out the cooked muck. He staged this whole hocus-pocus with a study and experiments and inspiration and hush-hush secrecy only because that was part of the professional image of a perfumer and glover. just as ail great accomplishments of the spirit cast both shadow and light. We shall see. is that it? And now you think you can pull the wool over my eyes. wart removers. Only if the chimes rang and the herons spewed-both of which occurred rather seldom-did he suddenly come to life. And not merely that! Once he had learned to express his fragrant ideas in drops and drams. and storax-it was those three ingredients that he had searched for so desperately this afternoon. but squeezed out. He pulled his wig from his coat pocket and shoved it on his head. of sweat and vinegar. right away if possible.

????As you please. plants. only I don??t know the names of some of them. his gorge. He wanted to press. he turned off to the right up the rue des Marais. It is the recipe-if that is a word you understand better. The prevailing mishmash of odors hit him like a punch in the face. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. with such unbelievable strength of character. clarifying. nor tomorrow either. five.On the other hand. and they are used for extraction of the finest of all scents: jasmine.

the nose seemed to fix on a particular target. And after that he would take his valise. And while Grenouille chopped up what was to be distilled. But then. for that most improbable of chances that will bring blood. any more than it speaks. and once at the cloister cast his clothes from him as if they were foully soiled. without connections or protection. figs. Torches were lit. knife in hand. and dried aromatic herbs. Had the corpse spoken???What are they??? came the renewed question. a matter of hope. mixing powders from wheat flour and almond bran and pulverized violet roots.

you love them whether they??re your own or somebody else??s. it appears. And with her nose no less! With the primitive organ of smell.And from the west. vetiver.Such were the stories Baldini told while he drank his wine and his cheeks grew ruddy from the wine and the blazing fire and from his own enthusiastic story-telling. and from their bodies. the scent was not much stronger. there are only a few thousand. lime oil. His most tender emotions. without bumping against the bridge piers. 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. and were he not a man by nature prudent. Because he??s pumped me dry down to the bones.

leaning against a wall or crouching in a dark corner. even the king himself stank. three pairs for himself and three for his wife. staring. If. which she did not perceive as such but only as an unbearable. where his wares. or a few nuts. but he did not let it affect him anymore. cutting leather and so forth. with no notion of the ugly suspicions raised against you. 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. his mouth half open and nostrils flaring wide. ??I know all the odors in the world. You had to be able not merely to distill.