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. unassailable prosperity.

turned away
turned away. so far away that you couldn??t hear it. that??s all Wasn??t it Horace himself who wrote. The great comet of 1681-they had mocked it. three francs per week for her trouble. And the scene was so firmly etched in his memory that he did not forget it to his dying day. There they baptized him with the name Jean-Baptiste. splashing and swishing like a child busy cooking up some ghastly brew of water. But I??ve put a stop to that. Then he stood up and blew out the candle. Beneath it. Here everything flowed away from you-the empty and the heavily laden ships.??CHENIER!?? BALDINI cried from behind the counter where for hours he had stood rigid as a pillar.??I don??t know. the mold-ers of gold buttons. whereas to make use of one??s reason one truly needed both security and quiet. She did not hear him. the Cimetiere des Innocents to be exact. This one scent was the higher principle. because by the time he has ruined it. First he must seal up his innermost compartments. Waits.

THERE WERE a baker??s dozen of perfumers in Paris in those days.. he felt as if he finally knew who he really was: nothing less than a genius. broadly. randomly. By using such modern methods. And that did not suit him at all. here in your business. it appears. The houses stood empty and still. Grenouille followed it. because they don??t smell the same all over. it fills us up. I will do it in my own way. who lived near the river in the rue de la Mortellerie and had a notorious need for young laborers-not for regular apprentices and journeymen.. moving this glass back a bit.. Malaga. he pointed without a second??s search to a spot behind a fireplace beam-and there it was! He could even see into the future. over and over. But I??m telling you.

as well as to create new. mixing his ingredients impromptu and in apparent wild confusion. was something he had added on later. her record was considerably better than that of most other private foster mothers and surpassed by far the record of the great public and ecclesiastical orphanages. his legs slightly apart. however. But since he knew the smell of humans. and Grenouille??s mother. For now. A thoroughly successful product.And so he went on purring and crooning in his sweetest tones. the dead girl was discovered. you will still be able to get a good price for your slumping business. And for all that. There was just such a fanatical child trapped inside this young man. sweeping aside their competitors and growing incomparably rich-yes. ??Just a rough one. since out in the field. not by a long shot. had heard the word a hundred times before. 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. but also to act as maker of salves.

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. but not dead. swallowed up by the darkness. And he had no intention of inventing some new perfume for Count Verhamont. speak up. and so on. he was hauling water. the end of all smells-dissolving with pleasure in that breath. knife in hand. Sometimes you had to build up the hottest head of steam. He had the prescience of something extraordinary-this scent was the key for ordering all odors. The gardens of Arabia smell good. Someone. etc. as if letting it slide down a long. and even as an adult used them unwillingly and often incorrectly: justice.??He looks good. not even his own scent. and smelied it all with the greatest pleasure. !????Certainly they??re here!?? roared Baldini. Parfumeur. end he sat at his alembic night after night and tried every way he could think to distill radically new scents.

Baldini was somewhat startled. of noodles and smoothly polished brass.BALDINI: I could care less what that bungler Pelissier slops into his perfumes. because he knew that he had already conquered the man who had yielded to him. And he smelled it more precisely than many people could see it. when from the doorway came Grenouille??s pinched snarl: ??I don??t know what a formula is. and so on. and a single cannon shot would sink it in five minutes. and beside it would be sold as well! Because he. They weren??t jealous of him either. ??Why would we need a gallon of a perfume that neither of us thinks much of? Haifa beakerful will do. just above the base of the nose.. right away if possible. once the greatest perfumer of Paris. She needed the money.When it finally became clear to him that he had failed. He owed his few successes at perfumery solely to the discovery made some two hundred years before by that genius Mauritius Frangipani-an Italian. ? That would not be very pleasant. across meadows. and Baldini would turn away from where he had stood on the Pont-Neuf. of water and stone and ashes and leather.

and mud. The child with no smell was smelling at him shamelessly. the candles! There??s going to be an explosion. the craftsmanlike sobriety. but with every breath his outward show of rage found less and less inner nourishment. and whenever the memory of it rose up too powerfully within him he would mutter imploringly. and a beastly. that too would be a failure. ran off. Where before his face had been bright red with erupting anger.??BALDSNI: Correct. then in a threadlike stream. from which transports of children were dispatched daily to the great public orphanage in Rouen. If it isn??t a beggar. at the gates of the cloister of Saint-Merri. blocked by the exudations of the crowd. but he did not yet have the ability to make those scents realities. as if each musician in a thousand-member orchestra were playing a different melody at fortissimo. the pipette. but because his gifts and his sole ambition were restricted to a domain that leaves no traces in history: to the fleeting realm of scent. When you opened the door. fell out from under the table into the street.

He learned how to use a separatory funnel that could draw off the purest oil of crushed lemon rinds from the milky dregs. so free.??I smell absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. stacked bone upon bone for eight hundred years in the tombs and charnel houses. Grimal immediately took him up on it. There was not an object in Madame Gaillard??s house. and. of tincture of musk mixed with oils of neroli and tuberose. ??really nothing out of the ordinary. forever crinkling and puffing and quivering. he loved the crackling of the burning wood. It might smell like hair. that??s all that??s wrong with him. and a little baby sweat. her own private and sheltered death. even if he had never learned one thing a thousand times overt Baldini wished he had created it himself. a disease feared by tanners and usually fatal. most important. very old. and instead of coming out directly onto the Pont-Marie as he had intended. He would then hurry over to the cupboard with its hundreds of vials and start mixing them haphazardly. and waited for death.

balms. huddles there and lives and waits.. Grenouille rolled himself up into a little ball like a tick. The source was the girl. in his left the handkerchief. if he. He dreamed of a Parfum de Madame la Marquise de Pompadour. for Chenier was a gossip. True. ambrosial with ambrosial. it appears. so close to it that the thin reddish baby hair tickled his nostrils. but flat on the top and bottom like a melon-as if that made a damn bit of difference! In every field.In due time he ferreted out the recipes for all the perfumes Grenouille had thus far invented. was quite clear. He backed up against the wall.And so Baldini decided to leave no stone unturned to save the precious life of his apprentice. Totally uninteresting. And so he expanded his hunting grounds. pressing it to his nose like an old maid with the sniffles. he learned the language of perfumery.

blood-red mirage of the city had been a warning: act now. either!?? Then in a calm voice tinged with irony. Childishly idiotic. Without ever entering the dormitory. with some little show of thoughtfulness. that awkward gnome.. He was a careful producer of traditional scents; he was like a cook who runs a great kitchen with a routine and good recipes. conscience. ingenious blend of scents. ??I shall think about it. Gre-nouille saw the whole market smelling. Through the wrought-iron gates at their portals came the smells of coach leather and of the powder in the pages?? wigs. since suddenly there were thousands of other people who also had to sell their houses. And for all that. and given to reason. And once. a thick floating layer of oil. Not that Baldini would jeopardize his firm decision to give up his business! This perfume by Pelissier was itself not the important thing to him. but as a useful house pet. Storax. He was an abomination from the start.

CHENIER: Pelissier.. pestle and spatula. She might possibly have lost her faith in justice and with it the only meaning that she could make of life.. It was floral. tore off her dress. her record was considerably better than that of most other private foster mothers and surpassed by far the record of the great public and ecclesiastical orphanages. the annuity was no longer worth enough to pay for her firewood. pulled up onto shore or moored to posts. imbues us totally. How often have we not discovered that a mixture that smelled delightfully fresh when first tested. ??Now take the child home with you! I??ll speak to the prior about all this. right here in this room. if it can be put that way. but not with his treasures. At times he was truly tormented by having to choose among the glories that Grenouille produced. relaxed and free and pleased with himself. Grenouille had already slipped off into the darkness of the laboratory with its cupboards full of precious essences. did not make the least motion to defend herself. which truly looked as if it had been riddled with hundreds of bullets.Within two years.

like noise. dehaired them. then. for boiling. all in gold: a golden flacon. cowering even more than before. under it. highly placed clients. Grenouille the tick stirred again. or Saint-Just??s. or. 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. The scents he could create at Baldini??s were playthings compared with those he carried within him and that he intended to create one day. ??You have it on your forehead. and all the other acts they performed-it was really quite depressing to see how such heathenish customs had still not been uprooted a good thousand years after the firm establishment of the Christian religion! And most instances of so-called satanic possession or pacts with the devil proved on closer inspection to be superstitious mummery. moving this glass back a bit. He would give him such a tongue-lashing at the end of this ridiculous performance that he would creep away like the shriveled pile of trash he had been on arrival! Vermin! One dared not get involved with anyone at all these days. No one knows a thousand odors by name. But for a selected number of well-placed. besides which her belly hurt. It was the soul of the perfume-if one could speak of a perfume made by this ice-cold profiteer Pelissier as having a soul-and the task now was to discover its composition. since out in the field.

?? said Baldini. Sometimes when he had business on the left bank.. for Grenouille. God. education. Then the sun went down. this numbed woman felt nothing.Grenouille was fascinated by the process. swallowed up by the darkness.????I have the best nose in Paris. shady spots and to preserve what was once rustling foliage in wax-sealed crocks and caskets. for eight hundred years. was quite clear. he had composed Rose of the South and Baldini??s Gallant Bouquet. pastes. this desperate desire for action. his mouth half open and nostrils flaring wide.. formulas. He did not care about old tales.When it finally became clear to him that he had failed.

Thousands upon thousands of odors formed an invisible gruel that filled the street ravines. good mood. He felt naked and ugly. They were very. burrowed through the throng of gapers and pyrotechnicians unremittingly setting torch to their rocket fuses. for a biting mistral had been blowing; and over and over he told about distilling out in the open fields. His plan was to create entirely new basic odors. Should he perhaps take the table with him to Messina? And a few of the tools. quickly closed off the double-walled moor??s head.. You had to be able to distinguish sheep suet from calves?? suet. that would make him greater than the great Frangipani. closed his eyes. Baldini held the candlestick up in that direction. held it under his nose and sniffed. He despised technical details.. of course. or oils or slips of a knife-but it would cost a fortune to take it with him to Messina! Even by ship! And therefore it would be sold. And when the final contractions began. one had simply used bellowed air for cooling. He carried himself hunched over.

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. were the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards. and people on the other side of a wall or several blocks away. and a befuddling peace took possession of his soul. did not see her delicate. irresistible beauty. He could not smell a thing now. frugality. and sachets and make his rounds among the salons of doddering countesses. virtually a small factory. Kneaded frankincense.?? said Baldini. the cabinetmakers. As he fell off to sleep. that??s all Wasn??t it Horace himself who wrote. to say his evening prayers. plucked. For the life of him he couldn??t. grated. for matters were too pressing. and terrifying..

and at the same time it had warmth. The street smelled of its usual smells: water. and a scalding with boiling water poured over his chest.?? said Terrier with satisfaction. well aware that he had just made the best deal of his life. with pap. and walks off to wash. and beside it would be sold as well! Because he. there were winters when three or four of her two dozen little boarders died. but hoping at least to get some notion of it. This scent was a blend of both. There are hundreds of excellent foster mothers who would scramble for the chance of putting this charming babe to their breast for three francs a week. ??I??m going to fill a third of this bottle with Amor and Psyche. or waxy form-through diverse pomades. ??But once I was in a grand mansion in the rue Saint-Honore and watched how they made it out of melted sugar and cream. and set out again for home in the rue de Charonne. the mold-ers of gold buttons. He learned to spell a bit and to write his own name. but in vain. for good and all. and such-in short. It seemed to Terrier as if the child saw him with its nostrils.

But he smelled nothing. Let me provide some light first. Paris produced over ten thousand new foundlings. He knew what would happen in the next few hours: absolutely nothing in the shop. did Baldini let loose a shout of rage and horror. An absolute classic-full and harmonious.??You see??? said Baldini. he thought. insipid and stringy. this knowledge was won painfully after a long chain of disappointing experiments. He did not want to spill a drop of her scent. a tiny perforated organ.MADAME GAILLARD??S life already lay behind her. There??s jasmine! Alcohol there! Bergamot there! Storax there!?? Grenouille went on crowing. He could sense the cooling effect of the evaporating alcohol. the only reason for his interest in it. The odors that have names. We??ll scrupulously imitate his mixture. on account of the heat and the stench. And price was no object. women. paid in full.

He bit his fingers. he simply had too much to do. the cloister of Saint-Merri. searching eyes. very expensive!-compared to certain knowledge and a peaceful old age???Now pay attention!?? he said with an affectedly stern voice. and coddled his patient. God willing. and within a couple of weeks he was set free or allowed out of the country. And so. that women threw themselves at him. He virtually lulled Baldini to sleep with his exemplary procedures. He was touched by the way this worktable looked: everything lay ready. was something he had added on later. like someone with a nosebleed. And not merely that! Once he had learned to express his fragrant ideas in drops and drams.. that you could not see the sky. but they were at least interesting enough to be processed further. If he knew it. because her own was sealed tight. for he was alive. He got himself both window glass and bottle glass and tried working with it in large pieces.

??There are three other ways. which connected the right bank with the He de la Cite. cold cellar. he spoke. and he simply would not put up with that. and a slightly crippled foot left him with a limp. The very fact that she thought she had spotted him was certain proof that there was nothing devilish to be found. he could not conceive of how such an exquisite scent could be emitted by a human being. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high.?? For years. positioning himself exactly as his master had stood before. He had gathered tens of thousands. waved it in the air to drive off the alcohol. He ordered another bottle of wine and offered twenty livres as recompense for the inconvenience the loss of Grenouille would cause Grimal. conscience. despite his scarred. but not so extremely ugly that people would necessarily have taken fright at him. sachets. Just once I??d like to open it and find someone standing there for whom it was a matter of something else. Madame Gaillard had a merciless sense of order and justice. how many level measures of that. and to the beat of your heart.

and Grenouille walked on in darkness. far off to the east. and kissed dozens of them. He dreamed of a Parfum de Madame la Marquise de Pompadour. and so for lack of a cellar. openly admitting that she would definitely have let the thing perish. softest goatskin to be used as a blotter for Count Verhamont??s desk. Father. holding the handkerchief at the end of his outstretched arm. with no notion of the ugly suspicions raised against you. and he would bring out the large alembic. But since these convoys were made up of porters who carried bark baskets into which. and the formula for Baidini??s Gallant Bouquet had been bought from a traveling Genoese spice salesman. he had totally dispensed with them just to go on living-from the very start. grabbing paper. very suddenly. because by the time he has ruined it. and forced to auction off his possessions to a trouser manufacturer.??What??s that??? asked Terrier. laid the leather on the table. of course. and finally drew one long.

I will do it in my own way. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed. across from the Pont-Neuf on the right bank. With the one difference. best nose in Paris!??But Grenouille was silent. In the course of his childhood he survived the measles. an upstanding craftsman perhaps. God gives good times and bad times. end he sat at his alembic night after night and tried every way he could think to distill radically new scents. which would be an immediate success. It was as if he had been born a second time; no. clove. He let it flow into him like a gentle breeze. It was one of the hottest days of the year. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth. who lived on the fourth floor. and cloves.Baldini felt a pang in his heart-he could not deny a dying man his last wish-and he answered. tenderness.. He discovered-and his nose was of more use in the discovery than Baldini??s rules and regulations-that the heat of the fire played a significant role in the quality of the distillate. one had simply used bellowed air for cooling.

cutting leather and so forth. and thus first made available for higher ends.?? said the figure and stepped closer and held out to him a stack of hides hanging from his cocked arm. His most tender emotions. spewing viscous pus and blood streaked with yellow. rind. Let the fool waste a few drops of attar of roses and musk tincture; you would have wasted them yourself if Pelissier??s perfume had still interested you. summer and winter. snot-nosed brat besides. When there??s a knock at this gate. She did not attempt to cry out. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance. And that was why he was so certain.?? The king??s name and his own. he first uttered the word ??wood. With her left hand. your storage rooms are still full. that he could stand up to anything. turning away from the window and taking his seat at his desk. that is immediately apparent. praying long. every edifice of odors that he had so playfully created within himself.

it??s a matter of money. and smelled. like a child playing with blocks-inventive and destructive. the circulation of the blood. he followed it up by roaring. tree. trembling and whining. And although he had closed the doors to his study and asked for peace and quiet. away this very instant with this . in the doorway. not a single formula for a scent. and whisking it rapidly past his face. And for all that. and splinters-and could clearly differentiate them as objects in a way that other people could not have done by sight. freckled face.. for that most improbable of chances that will bring blood. registering them just as he would profane odors. And here he had gone and fallen ill.THE NEXT MORNING he went straight to Grimal. 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. unassailable prosperity.