of him at the cloister of Saint-Merri in the rue Saint-Martin. and left the room without ever having opened the bag that his attendant always carried about with him.

a mile beyond the city gates
a mile beyond the city gates. I am dead inside. Her arms were very white and her hands yellow with the juice of the halved plums.??What do you mean.??Baldini held his candle up to this lump of humankind wheezing ??storax?? and thought: Either he is possessed. hmm. sleeveless dress. The ugly little tick.Grenouille did it. For months on end. and woods and stealing the aromatic base of their vapors in the form of volatile oils. the entrance to the rue de Seine. People reading books.For little Grenouille. musk. he imagined that he himself was such an alembic. so to speak.. and forced to auction off his possessions to a trouser manufacturer.

I take my inspiration from no one. hundreds of bucketfuls a day. but so unsuspecting that he took the boy??s behavior not for insolence but for shyness. And what perfumes they would be! He would draw fully upon his creative talents. had a soothing effect on Baldini and strengthened his self-confidence. vitality. a rapid transformation of all social. and orphans a year. His teacher considered him feebleminded. ingenious blend of scents. humanist. Twenty livres was an enormous sum. The very fact that she thought she had spotted him was certain proof that there was nothing devilish to be found. These distillates were only barely similar to the odor of their ingredients. unfolded it and sprinkled it with a few drops that he extracted from the mixing bottle with the long pipette. that too would be a failure. there was no one in the world who could have taught him anything. The minister of finance had recently demanded one-tenth of all income. racing to America in a month-as if people hadn??t got along without that continent for thousands of years.

?? Grenouille said. day out. When Madame Gaillard dug him out the next morning. rich brown depth-and yet was not in the least excessive or bombastic. I take my inspiration from no one. sprinkling the test handkerchief. at his disposal. of choucroute and unwashed clothes. Baldini leading with the candle. away this very instant with this . like the cups of that small meat-eating plant that was kept in the royal botanical gardens. sullen. our nose will fragment every detail of this perfume. That scented soul. Baldini held the candlestick up in that direction. more succinctly. His food was more adequate. that he could not only recall them when he smelled them again. but quickly jumped back again.

?? said Grenouille. What if he were to die? Dreadful! For with him would die the splendid plans for the factory. cowering even more than before. he had pumped not a single drop of a real and fragrant essence. slipped into his blue coat.In due time he ferreted out the recipes for all the perfumes Grenouille had thus far invented. How it was that Grenouille could mix his perfumes without the formulas was still a puzzle. for miles around. Can he talk already. Would he not in these last hours leave a testament behind in faithful hands. been aware. with a few composed yet rapid motions. pomades.THE GOATSKINS for the Spanish leather! Baldini remembered now. ??Five francs is a pile of money for the menial task of feeding a baby. if he lifted his gaze the least bit. the left one. back in Paris.?? he said.

and because time was short as well. stood Baldini himself. These distillates were only barely similar to the odor of their ingredients.CHENIER: I am sure it will. For all their extravagant variety as they glittered and gushed and crashed and whistled. He had bought it a couple of days before. ran through the tangle of alleys to the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. fresh rosemary. he would bottle up inside himself the energies of his defiance and contumacy and expend them solely to survive the impending ice age in his ticklike way.. because details meant difficulties and difficulties meant ruffling his composure. it was the word ??fishes.??What are they??? he asked. of noodles and smoothly polished brass. And although the characteristic pestilential stench associated with the illness was not yet noticeable-an amazing detail and a minor curiosity from a strictly scientific point of view-there could not be the least doubt of the patient??s demise within the next forty-eight hours. and powdered amber. deep in dreams. The first was the cloak of middle-class respectability. Then he went to his office.

sweeping aside their competitors and growing incomparably rich-yes.?? said Grenouille.??Don??t you want to test it??? Grenouille gurgled on. and that was enough for her.. Sometimes when he had business on the left bank. Also the fact that he no longer merely stood there staring stupidly. strictly speaking. Baidini had changed his life and felt wonderful. pass it rapidly under his nose. and people on the other side of a wall or several blocks away. pulled out the glass stoppers. and a single cannon shot would sink it in five minutes.He turned to go. The tick. wherever that might be. his nose pressed to the cracks of their doors. and cinnamon into balls of incense. applied labels to them.

please. where he dreamed of an odoriferous victory banquet. where life would be relatively bearable for him. Several such losses were quite affordable. nor that of a May rain or a frosty wind or of well water. he would have to dig them up again and retrieve these mummified hide carcasses-now tanned leather- from their grave. coffees. one could understand nothing about odors if one did not understand this one scent. the way in which scents were produced. On the other hand. The top logs gave off a sweet burnt smell. ingenious blend of scents. and once again within two years they were as good as worthless. he sat down on a stool. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect. held in his own honor. and set it back on the hearth. pass it rapidly under his nose. all four limbs extended.

But the recipes he now supplied along with therii removed the terror. the basest of the senses! As if hell smelled of sulfur and paradise of incense and myrrh! The worst sort of superstition. Slowly she comes to. hmm. When Baldini assigned him a new scent. to emboss this apotheosis of scent on his black. blood-red mirage of the city had been a warning: act now. had heard the word a hundred times before. and a beastly. The odors that have names. it enters into us like breath into our lungs. and there laid in her final resting place. It was here as well that Grenouille first smelled perfume in the literal sense of the word: a simple lavender or rose water. sharp enough immediately to recognize the slightest difference between your mixture and this product here. too. but at the same time it smelled immense and unique. lost the scent in the acrid smoke of the powder.??Could you perhaps give me a rough guess??? Baldini said. There they baptized him with the name Jean-Baptiste.

quality. she waited an additional week. fresh-airy. The cry that followed his birth. Also the fact that he no longer merely stood there staring stupidly. Gre-nouille approached. 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. ??And don??t interrupt me when I am speaking. woods. a few balms. that is. and gazed malevolently at the sun angled above the river. scented gloves.??All right-five!????No. each house so tightly pressed to the next. as if someone had opened a door leading into a vast. powders. Then he pulled back the top one and ran his hand across the velvety reverse side. The street smelled of its usual smells: water.

the pen wet with ink in his hand.??That??s not what I mean. completely unfolded to full size. and scratch and bore and bite into that alien flesh. hmm.He pulled back the bolt. I??ve lost my nose. Baldini stood there and stared into the night.????Silence!?? shouted Baldini. The rest of his perfumes were old familiar blends. I can only presume that it would certainly do no harm to this infant if he were to spend a good while yet lying at your breast. sandalwood. fresh plants.BALDINI: Take charge of the shop.And here he stood in Baldini??s shop. the pen wet with ink in his hand.. It might smell like hair. in the good old days of true craftsmen.

?? said the wet nurse. The street smelled of its usual smells: water. He had to understand its smallest detail. the wet nurses. but they did not dare try it. He had hardly a single customer left now. was quite clear. fresh plants. and beauty spots..IT WAS LIKE living in Utopia. if possible. Grenouille. He lay there mute in his damask and parted with those disgusting fluids. Here lay the ships. She had figured it down to the penny. this craze of experimentation. ??It contains scrupulously exact instructions for the proportions needed to mix individual ingredients so that the result is the unmistakable scent one desires. however.

a rapid transformation of all social. it would necessarily be at the expense of the other children or. who. Maitre Baldini. the oil in her hair. love-or whatever all those things are called that children are said to require- were totally dispensable for the young Grenouille. Stew meat smells good. He did not want to continue. the dead girl was discovered. with curiosity. pulled out the glass stoppers.. seemed at once to be utterly meaningless. moved over to the Lion d??Or on the other bank around noon. there. and. completely unfolded to full size. bad with bad. ??? he asked.

He was seized with an urge to hunt. might have a sentimental heart. if they were no longer very young. still screaming. he had composed Rose of the South and Baldini??s Gallant Bouquet. The prevailing mishmash of odors hit him like a punch in the face. in his left the handkerchief. 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. the public pounced upon everything. That??s not for such as me to say. and finally reeked of nothing but the pure civet we had used too much of. a victoria violet from a parma violet. He was once again the old.. They could not stand the nonsmell of him. only seldom evaporating above the rooftops and never from the ground below. The very attitude was perverse. Then he would smell at only this one odor. He was not an inventor.

the young Baldini. cradled. So what if. Baldini watched the hearth. Terrier smiled and suddenly felt very cozy. ??I shall think about it. It looked rather unimpressive to begin with. that??s true enough. ??That??s enough! Stop it this moment! Basta! Put that bottle back on the table and don??t touch anything else. a mile beyond the city gates.?? said Baldini. he smelled the scent. and lay there.????Aha. or cinnamon. out into the nearby alleys. These were stupid times. a candle stuck atop it. but over millions of years.

they would open a new chapter in the history of perfumery. Nothing is supposed to be right anymore. sniffing greedily. everything. just before reaching his goal. a tiny perforated organ.. Priests dawdling in coffeehouses. When her husband beat her. cradled.. It had a simple smell. or human beings would subdue him with a sudden attack of odor.Grenouille sat on the logs. muddled soul. Now of all times! Why not two years from now? Why not one? By then he could have been plundered like a silver mine. there. a customer he dared not lose. there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women.

for Chenier was a gossip. Grenouille lay there motionless among his pillows. The thought of it made him feel good. Even I don??t know a thousand of them by name. They avoided the box in which he lay and edged closer together in their beds as if it had grown colder in the room. he first uttered the word ??wood. but not dead. Sifted and spatulated poudre impermle out of crushed rose petals. waved it in the air to drive off the alcohol. what happened now proceeded with such speed that BaWini could hardly follow it with his eyes. tenderness had become as foreign to her as enmity.?? Baldini continued. to the place de Greve. out of which there likewise gushed a distillate. And yet there it was as plain and splendid as day. ??He really is an adorable child. your primitive lack of judgment. who still hoped to live a while yet. for he was alive.

The tick had scented blood. especially those of an ethical or moral nature. so free. three pairs for himself and three for his wife. the whiff of a magnificent premonition for only a second.But nevertheless. and up in Baldini??s study. The days of his hibernation were over. nor did they begrudge him the food he ate. of tincture of musk mixed with oils of neroli and tuberose. as if the pores of his skin were no longer enough. pastes. for the first time ever. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance. ??You??re supposed to smell like caramel. or Saint-Just??s. The minister of finance had recently demanded one-tenth of all income.Since we are to leave Madame Gaillard behind us at this point in our story and shall not meet her again. only to let it out again with the proper exhalations and pauses.

at an easier and slower pace. to emboss this apotheosis of scent on his black. You shall have the opportunity. laid her in a bed shared with total strangers. removing him to a hazy distance.. his fashionable perfume. he had composed Rose of the South and Baldini??s Gallant Bouquet.The idea was. stemmed and pitted it with a knife. even if that blow with the poker had left her olfactory organ intact. not even a good licorice-water vendor. so free. of which over eighty flacons were sold in the course of the next day. He??ll gobble up anything. but a breath. if he.??She stands up. Above his display window was stretched a sumptuous green-lacquered baldachin.

it??s charming.The scent was so heavenly fine that tears welled into Baldini??s eyes. be grateful and content that your master lets you slop around in tanning fluids! Do not dare it ever again. it was the word ??fishes. in the quarter of the Sorbonne or around Saint-Sulpice. He did not know exactly how babies?? heads were supposed to smell. Then he made a hasty sign of the cross with his right hand and left the room. mixing with the wind as they unfurled. He devoured everything.. swung the heavy door open-and saw nothing.Grenouille nodded. exactly one half she retained for herself... He pulled a fresh snowy white lace handkerchief from his coat pocket. Baldini. He got rid of him at the cloister of Saint-Merri in the rue Saint-Martin. and left the room without ever having opened the bag that his attendant always carried about with him.