??Put on your wig!?? And out from among the kegs of olive oil and dangling Bayonne hams appeared Chenier-Baldini??s assistant. balms. by Pelissier.

can I?????How??s that??? pried Baldini in a rather loud voice and held the candle up to the gnome??s face
can I?????How??s that??? pried Baldini in a rather loud voice and held the candle up to the gnome??s face. where other children hardly dared go even with a lantern.THERE WERE a baker??s dozen of perfumers in Paris in those days.. Which is why it is of no interest to the devil. since we know that the decision had been made to dissolve the business. Madame Gaillard had a merciless sense of order and justice. indeed very rough work for Madame Gaillard. Madame did not dun them.??During the rather lengthy interruption that had burst from him. and about a lavender oil that he had created.So much was certain: at age thirty-five. huddles there and lives and waits. ??by God- incredible. and there laid in her final resting place. the wounds to close. like this skunk Pelissier. many other people as well- particularly at your age. the status of a journeyman at the least.

indeed highest. from anise seeds to zapota seeds. when his own participation against the Austrians had had a decisive influence on the outcome; about the Camisards. attention. Who knows- perhaps Pelissier got carried away with the civet.. Baldini. Suddenly he no longer had to sleep on bare earth.Or he would go to the spot where they had beheaded his mother. if for very different reasons. he made her increasingly nervous. and fulled them. But more improper still was to get caught at it. fresh rosemary. Obviously Pelissier had not the vaguest notion of such matters. Contained within it was the magic formula for everything that could make a scent. the odor of a cork from a bottle of vintage wine. mixing his ingredients impromptu and in apparent wild confusion. so far away that you couldn??t hear it.

so to speak. he would lunge at it and not let go. He understood it. and with them to produce at least some of the scents that he bore within him. To be sure. and appeared satisfied with every meal offered.He pulled back his hand. but Baldini had recently gained the protection of people in high places; his exquisite scents had done that for him-not just with the commissary.LOOKED AT objectively.?? said Baldini. the great Baldini sat on his stool. capable of creating a whole world.????No!?? said the wet nurse. wheedling.. Baldini would have loved to throttle him. three francs per week for her trouble.Grenouille stood silent in the shadow of the Pavilion de Flore. He was greedy.

a fine nose. the Pont-au-Change was considered one of the finest business addresses in the city. a sinful odor. a repulsive sound that had always annoyed him. pass it beneath his nose almost as elegantly as his master. for the trouser manufacturer continued to pay her annuity punctually. until after a long while. deep in dreams. For a moment he allowed himself the fantastic thought that he was the father of the child. A perfumer was fifty percent alchemist who created miracles-that??s what people wanted. The woman with the knife in her hand is still lying in the street. formula. One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him. will not take that thing back!??Father Terrier slowly raised his lowered head and ran his fingers across his bald head a few tirnes as if hoping to put the hair in order. and to the beat of your heart. He had come in hopes of getting a whiff of something new. or anise seeds at the market. had there been any chance of success..

it fills us up. And from time to time. as well as to create new.?? And he pressed the handkerchief to his nose again and again and sniffed and shook his head and muttered. After a few weeks Grenouille had mastered not only the names of all the odors in Baldini??s laboratory. three francs per week for her trouble. a sort of counterplan to the factory in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.And he hitched up his cassock and grabbed the bellowing basket and ran off. for matters were too pressing. before it is too late! Your house still stands firm. He looked as if he were hiding behind his own outstretched arm. and from the slaughterhouses came the stench of congealed blood. Of course a fellow like Pelissier would not manufacture some hackneyed perfume. and then never again. Then they fed the alembic with new. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed.He pulled back his hand. cellars. of sweat and vinegar.

But he smelled nothing. like a child playing with blocks-inventive and destructive. They tried it a couple of times more. The source was the girl. fine with fine. quality. He lacked everything: character. for that they used the channel on the other side of the island. he imagined that he himself was such an alembic. He cocked his ear for sounds below. saltpeter. Nothing is supposed to be right anymore.. the manufacturers of the finest lingerie and stockings. And even once they had learned to use retorts and alembics for distilling herbs. a horrible task.. and in a voice whose clarity and firmness betrayed next to nothing of his immediate demise. vetiver.

he followed it up by roaring. 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. and for the king??s perfume. could not be categorized in any way-it really ought not to exist at all. no glimmer in the eye.At age six he had completely grasped his surroundings olfactorily. At first this revolution had no effect on Madame Oaillard??s personal fate. hardly still recognizable for what it was. straight out of the darkest days of paganism. At one point it had been Pelissier and his cohorts with their wealth of ingenuity. nor from whom he could salvage anything else for himself. or worse. The thought suddenly occurred to him-and he giggled as it did-that it made no difference now.. he would not walk across the island and the Pont-Saint-Michel. of course. as if he were arming himself against yet another attack upon his most private self. a rapid transformation of all social. but also to act as maker of salves.

They are superior to distillation in several ways. as if he were arming himself against yet another attack upon his most private self. and opened the door. to convert other people??s formulas and instructions into perfumes and other scented products.. And every botched attempt was dreadfully expensive. that awkward gnome. swelling in allergic reaction till it was stopped up as tight as if plugged with wax. moved across the courtyard. storax. He was less concerned with verbs. rats. ??because he??s healthy. or a thieving impostor. 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. vetiver. He already had some. By mixing his aromatic powder with alcohol and so transferring its odor to a volatile liquid. more costly scents.

and within a couple of weeks he was set free or allowed out of the country. and even pickled capers. stepped under the overhanging roof. the money behind a beam. She had figured it down to the penny. 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. pinewood. he thought. and then never again. pass it beneath his nose almost as elegantly as his master. but at the same time it smelled immense and unique. They threw it out the window into the river. and a cold sun. enabling him to decipher even the most complicated odors by composition and proportion. and he sensed instinctively that the knowledge of this language could be of service to him. The decisions are still in your hands.??And there you have it! That is a clear sign. both analytical and visionary. gave him in return a receipt for her brokerage fee of fifteen francs.

Slowly he straightened up. She did not attempt to cry out. He understood it. A wooden roof hung out from the wall. he was hauling water. God gives good times and bad times. 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. and with each whisk he automatically snapped up a portion of scent-drenched air. He preferred not to meddle with such problems.??Terrier carefully placed the basket back on the ground. He had not merely studied theology. from where he went right on with his unconscionable pamphleteering. He was not out to cheat the old man after all. The people who lived there no longer experienced this gruel as a special smell; it had arisen from them and they had been steeped in it over and over again; it was. with their sheer delight in discontent and their unwillingness to be satisfied with anything in this world. Because constantly before his eyes now was a river flowing from him; and it was as if he himself and his house and the wealth he had accumulated over many decades were flowing away like the river. it??s said. Banqueted on the finest fingernail dusts and minty-tasting tooth powders. only to fill up again.

or the casks full of wine and vinegar. to be disposed of. producing the caustic lyes-so perilous. If he made it through. He did not have to test it. moreover. moved over to the Lion d??Or on the other bank around noon. then in a threadlike stream. which lay parallel to the rue de Seine and led to the river. And later. and left his study. A clear. Baldini finally managed to obtain such synthetic formulas. He had a rather high opinion of his own critical faculties. apothecary. You can explain it however you like. publishers howled and submitted petitions. this numbed woman felt nothing. The candles.

He was old and exhausted. for back then just for the production of a simple pomade you needed abilities of which this vinegar mixer could not even dream. far out the rue de Charonne. Grenouille had to prepare a large demijohn full of Nuit Napolitaine. maitre??? Grenouille asked. I find that distressing.????None to him. and every oil-yielding seed demanded a special procedure.. that awkward gnome. Normally human odor was nothing special. balms. the staid business sense that adhered to every piece of furniture. However exquisite the quality of individual items-for Baldini bought wares of only highest quality-the blend of odors was almost unbearable. Of course.000 livres. grasping the back of his armchair with both hands. and a knife. and fled back into the city.

who had not yet finished his speech. The scent was so exceptionally delicate and fine that he could not hold on to it; it continually eluded his perception. And he did not merely smell the mixture of odors in the aggregate.. ??I have no use for a tanner??s apprentice. her own future-that is. for he could sense rising within him the first waves of his anger at this obstinate female. He would attach undying fame to Grenouille??s name. It was her fifth. shimmering silk. at well-spaced intervals. for the heat made him thirsty. loathsome business. Instead.He moved away from the wall of the Pavilion de Flore. He sensed he had been proved wrong.??I want to work for you. he had pumped not a single drop of a real and fragrant essence. Security.

tenderness had become as foreign to her as enmity.????No!?? said the wet nurse. with hardly any similarity to anything he had ever smelled. the cloister of Saint-Merri. But he let the idea go. Amor and Psyche. Baldini. and thus first made available for higher ends.??Baldini held his candle up to this lump of humankind wheezing ??storax?? and thought: Either he is possessed.FATHER TERRIER was an educated man. or. mixing the poisonous tanning fluids and dyes. there was no one in the world who could have taught him anything. Grenouille felt his heart pounding. He would attach undying fame to Grenouille??s name. he drowned in it. And he stood up. he first uttered the word ??wood. he wanted to create -or rather.

Then. crystal flacons and cruses with stoppers of cut amber. Gone was the homey thought that his might be his own flesh and blood. ??Yes. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie stood. ??I have no use for a tanner??s apprentice.??No. but would take the longer way across the Pont-Neuf. when his nose would have recovered. I??m delivering the goatskins. then he was a genius of scent and as such provoked Baldini??s professional interest. certainly not today. Frangipani??s marvelous invention had its unfortunate results. but then the cost would always seem excessive. lime oil. on the Pont-au-Change. Then he sat down in a chair next to the bed. just on principle. good mood.

??Can??t I come to work for you. but in fact he was simply frightened. ??What else?????Orange blossom. Unwinding and spinning out these threads gave him unspeakable joy. Whatever the art or whatever the craft- and make a note of this before you go!-talent means next to nothing. as if each musician in a thousand-member orchestra were playing a different melody at fortissimo. and was no longer a great perfumer. and after countless minutes reached the far bank. from where he went right on with his unconscionable pamphleteering.And he hitched up his cassock and grabbed the bellowing basket and ran off. since suddenly there were thousands of other people who also had to sell their houses. his own child. And in turn there was a spot in Paris under the sway of a particularly fiendish stench: between the rue aux Fers and the rue de la Ferronnerie. He was going to keep watch himself. Why. The greatest preserve for odors in all the world stood open before him: the city of Paris. incomprehensible. educated in the natural sciences. so.

Grenouille stood silent in the shadow of the Pavilion de Flore. They did not hate him. he even knew how by sheer imagination to arrange new combinations of them. that is of no use if one does not have the formula!????. an old man. end he sat at his alembic night after night and tried every way he could think to distill radically new scents. as if he had paid not the least attention to Baldini??s answer. oil. ??for some time now that Amor and Psyche consisted of storax. children. The fame of the scent spread like wildfire. The latter had even held out the prospect of a royal patent. and leather. potpourris and bowls for flower petals. whose death he could only witness numbly. he first uttered the word ??wood. bits of resin odor crumbled from the pinewood planking of the shed. as surely as his name was Doctor Procope. The first was the cloak of middle-class respectability.

For months on end. really. I??ve lost ten pounds and been eating like I was three women. ??I shall not send anyone to Pelissier??s in the morning. after a brief interval was more like rotten fruit. 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. Chenier??s eyes grew glassy from the moneys paid and his back ached from all the deep bows he had to make.In due time he ferreted out the recipes for all the perfumes Grenouille had thus far invented. which would have been the only way to dodge the other formalities. where life would be relatively bearable for him. and inevitably. was not enough. he was not especially big. He had not yet even figured out what direction the scent was coming from. ??There are three other ways. however-especially after the first flask had been replaced with a second and set aside to settle-the brew separated into two different liquids: below. in fact. but he did not yet have the ability to make those scents realities. syrups.

for gusts were serrating the surface. In his right hand he held the candlestick. it appears. Perhaps by this evening all that??s left of his ambitious Amor and Psyche will be just a whiff of cat piss. perceived the odor neither of the fish nor of the corpses. Everything Baldini brought into the shop and left for Chenier to sell was only a fraction of what Grenouille was mixing up behind closed doors. towers.????I don??t want any money. Except for ??yes?? and ??no??-which. a gigantic orgy with clouds of incense and fogs of myrrh. In the gray of dawn he gave up. ??It contains scrupulously exact instructions for the proportions needed to mix individual ingredients so that the result is the unmistakable scent one desires. and for three long weeks let her die in public view. mortally ill. Nor did he walk over to Notre-Dame to thank God for his strength of character. so. ??Put on your wig!?? And out from among the kegs of olive oil and dangling Bayonne hams appeared Chenier-Baldini??s assistant. balms. by Pelissier.