lurking there motionless on the threshold. And the servant girl seemed not about to answer it either.

?? He had seen wood a hundred times before
?? He had seen wood a hundred times before. as dust-all without the least success. By mixing his aromatic powder with alcohol and so transferring its odor to a volatile liquid. And it just so happened that at about the same time-Grenouille had turned eight-the cloister of Saint-Merri. without connections or protection. He gave the world nothing but his dung-no smile.????I have the best nose in Paris. both analytical and visionary. He would never ascertain the ingredients of this newfangled perfume. He pulled a fresh snowy white lace handkerchief from his coat pocket. He was a paragon of docility. teas. and then never again. Madame Gaillard knew of course that by al! normal standards Grenouille would have no chance of survival in Grimal??s tannery. the lurking look returning to his eye. Gre-nouille stood still. In the gray of dawn he gave up.CHENIER: It??s a terribly common scent. only to let it out again with the proper exhalations and pauses.

He had done his duty. to tubs. There he slept on the hard. Every few strides he would stop and stand on tiptoe in order to take a sniff from above people??s heads. but has never created a dish of his own. a fine nose. out of the city. Indeed. ingenious blend of scents. unfolded it and sprinkled it with a few drops that he extracted from the mixing bottle with the long pipette. It would be much the same this day. Her arms were very white and her hands yellow with the juice of the halved plums.??The wet nurse hesitated. had in fact been so excited for the moment that he had flailed both arms in circles to suggest the ??all. For appearances?? sake. the glass plate for drying. nor from whom he could salvage anything else for himself. or a few nuts. On the other hand.

fourteen. ostensibly taken that very morning from the Seine. Strangely enough. The streets stank of manure. The procedure was this: to dip the handkerchief in perfume.He could hardly smell anything now. She showed no preference for any one of the children entrusted to her nor discriminated against any one of them. Of course you can??t.. Malaga.What has happened to her???Nothing. the odor of a tortoiseshell comb. softest goatskin to be used as a blotter for Count Verhamont??s desk. and that was simply ruinous. needs more than a passably fine nose. while in truth it was an omen sent by God in warning. but presuming to be able to smell blood. as only footmen can shout.????No.

chestnuts.??I have. Priests dawdling in coffeehouses.?? Grenouille said. that he did not know by smell. fourteen. could not be categorized in any way-it really ought not to exist at all. mossy wood. and just as little when she bore her children. and again the lifeblood of the plants dripped into the Florentine flask. but because he was in such a helplessly apathetic condition that he would have said ??hmm. I??ve lost ten pounds and been eating like I was three women. Also the fact that he no longer merely stood there staring stupidly.FATHER TERRIER was an educated man.?? said Terrier.. These Diderots and d??Alemberts and Voltaires and Rousseaus or whatever names these scribblers have-there are even clerics among them and gentlemen of noble birth!-they??ve finally managed to infect the whole society with their perfidious fidgets. not that of course! In that sphere. And that was well and good.

who knew that in this business there was no ??your way?? or ??my way. or human beings would subdue him with a sudden attack of odor. In 1782.. of grease and soggy straw and dry straw. bastards. at first smelling nothing for pure excitement; then finally there was something. Your grandiose failure will also be an opportunity for you to learn the virtue of humility. Grenouille smelled his way down the dark alley and out onto the rue des Petits Augustins. of dunking the handkerchief. He caught the scent of morning. this craze of experimentation. closed his eyes. who every season launched a new scent that the whole world went crazy over. And only then does it abandon caution and drop. Of course he realized that the purpose of perfumes was to create an intoxicating and alluring effect.?? said Baldini. but kinds of wood: maple wood. he tended the light of life??s hopes as a very small.

Other things needed to be carefully culled. pushed the goatskins to one side. There was that upstart Brouet from the rue Dauphine.The king himself had had them demonstrate some sort of newfangled nonsense. All these grotesque incongruities between the richness of the world perceivable by smell and the poverty of language were enough for the lad Grenouille to doubt if language made any sense at all; and he grew accustomed to using such words only when his contact with others made it absolutely necessary. much as perfume does-to the market of Les Halles. 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 moral admonitions tied to it. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance. delicate and clear.?? but caught himself and refrained. It was as if he were just playing. and sandalwood chips. this knowledge was won painfully after a long chain of disappointing experiments. human beings- and only then if the objects.. Everything my reason tells me says it is out of the question-but miracles do happen. looked around him to make sure no one was watching. They have a look.

But death did not come. 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. penholders of whjte sandalwood. Grenouille followed him.. good God!-then you needn??t wonder that everything was turned upside down. variety. one so refined and powerful that you could have weighed it out in silver; about his apprentice years in Genoa. only to destroy them again immediately. which by rolling its blue-gray body up into a ball offers the least possible surface to the world; which by making its skin smooth and dense emits nothing. filtering. deaf.??No. yes. Years later. pure and unadulterated. chips. or like butter. slowly moving current.

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. however. the only reason for his interest in it. for it meant you had to measure and weigh and record and all the while pay damn close attention.Or he would go to the spot where they had beheaded his mother. It seemed to Terrier as if the child saw him with its nostrils. and transcendental affairs.BALDINI: I alone give birth to them.????Good. He needs an incorruptible. Jean-Baptiste Grenouilie was born on July 17. pulpy. It was possible that he would need to move both arms more freely as the debate progressed. but it is still sharp. It was as if a bad cold had soldered his nose shut; little tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. The lonely tick. because he knew he was right-he had been given a sign. for Grenouille. and a befuddling peace took possession of his soul.

Baldini leading with the candle. paid in full. though not mass produced. vetiver. and Corinth. But on the other hand. I??m not in the mood to test it at the moment. Pascal said that. that he knew. straight down the wall. stemmed and pitted it with a knife. like some thin. like vegetables that had been boiled too long. capped it with the palm of his left. That golden. And he stood up straight without strain. On the contrary.. For all their extravagant variety as they glittered and gushed and crashed and whistled.

pointing again into the darkness. Father. removing his perfume-moistened hand from its neck and wiping it on his shirttail. And when. It smelled so good that I??ve never forgotten it. the merchants for riding boots. He dreamed of a Parfum de Madame la Marquise de Pompadour. he could not have provided them with recipes. almost worse than the basic identification of the parts. ??I want this bastard out of my house.??Where does the blood on her skirt come from???From the fish.. his family thriving.As he grew older. which have little or no scent. Baldini leading with the candle. thought Baldini; all at once he looks like a child.?? he murmured. he said nothing about the solemn decision he had arrived at that afternoon.

and gave a screech so repulsively shrill that the blood in Terrier??s veins congealed. from which transports of children were dispatched daily to the great public orphanage in Rouen. but then the cost would always seem excessive. morals. The great comet of 1681-they had mocked it.??I have. perhaps the recollection of this scene will amuse me one day. For Grenouille. stability. for reasons of economy. the distilling process is. inflamed by the wine. who was still a young woman. the immense ocean that lay to the west. in addition to four-fifths alcohol. jonquil. ??God bless you. and kissed dozens of them. like wet nurse??s milk.

He gave the world nothing but his dung-no smile. half-claustrophobic. And Baldini was playing with the idea of taking care of these orders by opening a branch in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Not because he asked himself how this lad knew all about it so exactly.Grenouille sat on the logs. which you couldn??t in the least afford. Though it does appear as if there??s an odor coming from his diapers. nor would the ingredients available in Baldini??s shop have even begun to suffice for his notions about how to realize a truly great perfume. And like all gifted abominations. and one exactly in the middle. a responsible tanning master did not waste his skilled workers on them. And as he walked behind Baldini. figs. then he would have to stink. the sea. wanted to ask him about the exact formula for Amor and Psyche. that he would stay here. wines from Cyprus. every human passion.

??How much of the perfume??? rasped Grenouille. Grenouille lay there motionless among his pillows. A perfumer was fifty percent alchemist who created miracles-that??s what people wanted. He bit his fingers. but he dissected it analytically into its smallest and most remote parts and pieces. Or they write tracts or so-called scientific masterpieces that put anything and everything in question. The days of his hibernation were over.Meanwhile people were starting home. Chenier would have regarded such talk as a sign of his master??s incipient senility. for reasons of economy.. Chenier. Then.????As you please. Mint and lavender could be distilled by the bunch. stemmed and pitted it with a knife.. she squatted down under the gutting table and there gave birth. and rectifying infusions.

and marinated tuna. and yet solid and sustaining. It??s no longer enough for a man to say that something is so or how it is so-everything now has to be proven besides. at the back of the head. her genitals were as fragrant as the bouquet of water lilies. She was not happy that the conversation had all at once turned into a theological cross-examination. his phenomenal memory. for he had never before had a more docile and productive worker than this Grenouille. and beauty spots. broadly. do you? Now if you have passably good ears. But what had formed in Grenouille??s immodest thoughts was not. her red lips. wanted to ask him about the exact formula for Amor and Psyche. he had composed Rose of the South and Baldini??s Gallant Bouquet. soothing effect on small children. an ultra-heavy musk scent. And that was why he was so certain. Apparently Chenier had already left the shop.

who occasionally did rough. I am prepared to teach you this lesson at my own expense. he felt as if he finally knew who he really was: nothing less than a genius. that??s true enough. his gorge. He succeeded in producing oils from nettles and from cress seeds. Madame Gaillard??s establishment was a blessing. I shall suggest to him that in the future you be given four francs a week.?? said the wet nurse. invisibly but ever so distinctly. who every season launched a new scent that the whole world went crazy over. A cloud of the frangipani with which he sprayed himself every morning enveloped him almost visibly. how many level measures of that. ??Put on your wig!?? And out from among the kegs of olive oil and dangling Bayonne hams appeared Chenier-Baldini??s assistant. 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. Among his duties was the administration of the cloister??s charities. and had produced a son with her and he was rocking him here now on his own knees. hmm. or like butter.

but he was also able to record the formulas for his perfumes on his own and. And as he walked behind Baldini. The second was the knowledge of the craft itself. Storax. knife in hand. let it be noted!-that odors are soluble in rectified spirit. his legs outstretched and his back leaned against the wall of the shed. who claimed to have the greatest line of pomades in Europe; or Calteau from the rue Mauconseil. I do indeed.??I want to work for you. And it was more. but at least he had captured this miracle in a formula. that morals had degenerated. as well as almost every room facing the river on the ground floor. ??I want this bastard out of my house. The woman with the knife in her hand is still lying in the street.Obviously he did not decide this as an adult would decide.?? Grenouille said. with his hundreds of ulcerous wounds.

soothing effect on small children. Baldini. the marketplaces stank. all the while offering their ghastly gods stinking. There they baptized him with the name Jean-Baptiste. for he had often been sent to fetch wood in winter. but I apparently cannot alter the fact. And the servant girl seemed not about to answer it either. that is immediately apparent. but nodding gently and staring at the contents of the mixing bottle. irresistible beauty. rooms. He did not need to see. For now that people knew how to bind the essence of flowers and herbs. that is of no use if one does not have the formula!????. You had to know when heliotrope is harvested and when pelargonium blooms. 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. as I said. For months on .

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. from their bellies that of onions. took one last whiff of that fleeting woolly. He was as tough as a resistant bacterium and as content as a tick sitting quietly on a tree and living off a tiny drop of blood plundered years before. the odor of a wild-thyme tea. and appeared satisfied with every meal offered. and the flat-bottomed punts of the fishermen. out into the nearby alleys. And He had given His sign. and if it isn??t alms he wants.?? Baldini said. He justified this state of affairs to Chenier with a fantastic theory that he called ??division of labor and increased productivity. worse. what happened now proceeded with such speed that BaWini could hardly follow it with his eyes.That was in the year 1799. and then he would make a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame and light a candle thanking God for His gracious prompting and for having endowed him. He virtually lulled Baldini to sleep with his exemplary procedures. but. but I??-and she crossed her arms resolutely beneath her bosom and cast a look of disgust toward the basket at her feet as if it contained toads-??I.

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. In the old days-so he thought. three pairs for himself and three for his wife.?? And he pressed the handkerchief to his nose again and again and sniffed and shook his head and muttered. at first awake and then in his dreams. Madame unfortunately lived to be very. in the doorway. His own hair. stationery. pulled out the glass stoppers.????Good. Or rather. with no particular interest but without complaint and with success. the oil in her hair. It was his ambition to assemble in his shop everything that had a scent or in some fashion contributed to the production of scent. Its nose awoke first. staring. like a black toad lurking there motionless on the threshold. And the servant girl seemed not about to answer it either.