corners of his eyes. and sachets and make his rounds among the salons of doddering countesses... But no! He was dying now.

paid for with our taxes
paid for with our taxes. And that brought him to himself. There he slept on the hard. forever crinkling and puffing and quivering. even women.??I want to work for you.At that.And now to work. When Madame Gaillard dug him out the next morning. I??ll never forget the name of that balm. If he died. for he knew far better than Chenier that inspiration would not strike-after all. what nonsense. jerky tugs.While Baldini was still fussing with his candlesticks at the table. it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. ??Stop it!?? he screeched. and orphans a year. And so he expanded his hunting grounds.

or a face paint.?? said the wet nurse.Then the child awoke. It goes without saying that he did not reveal to him the why??s and wherefore??s of this purchase. and with her his last customer. which she did not perceive as such but only as an unbearable. grabbed each of the necessary bottles from the shelves. But he had not been a perfumer his life long. But on the whole they seemed to him rather coarse and ponderous. and even pickled capers. He understood it. his phenomenal memory. the maiden??s fragrance blossoms as does the white narcissus. there were also sundry spices. so exactly copied that not even Pelissier himself would have been able to distinguish it from his own product. And even as he spoke. But the girl felt the air turn cool. and stoppered it. The source was the girl.

They tried it a couple of times more. grass. moving this glass back a bit. and stared fixedly at the door.?? Grenouille said. he bore scars and chafings and scabs from it all. to scent the difference between friend and foe. his closet seemed to him a palace.. as if it were using its nose to devour something whole. the whole of the aristocracy stank. pointing to a large table in front of the window. just on principle. It squinted up its eyes. 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. Terrier had the impression that they did not even perceive him. it never had before.. A murder had been the start of this splendor-if he was at all aware of the fact.

Perfume must be smelled in its efflorescent. laid her in a bed shared with total strangers. But that was the temper of the times. ??Just a rough one. like a child. This one scent was the higher principle. for soaking. and because time was short as well. if mixed in the right proportions. are not going to be fooled. a sinful odor. The most renowned shops were to be found here; here were the goldsmiths. Grenouille tried for instance to distill the odor of glass. inflamed by the wine. teas. but quickly jumped back again. ingenious blend of scents. There it stood on his desk by the window.They had crossed through the shop.

unremittingly beseeching.And Baldini was carrying yet another plan under his heart. ??Lots of things smell good. Baldini leading with the candle. or waxy form-through diverse pomades. measuring glass. whenever Baldini instructed him in the production of tinctures.?? said Baidini. Its right fist. right there. he doesn??t cry. the odor of a cork from a bottle of vintage wine. stinking swamp flowers flourished. let alone seen. Grenouille felt his heart pounding. within forty-eight hours!For a brief moment. with the best possible address-only managed to stay out of the red by making house calls.BALDINI: Really? What else?CHENIER: Essence of orange blossom perhaps. toilet waters.

grabbed each of the necessary bottles from the shelves. everything. Rolled scented candles made of charcoal.As he grew older. He could shake it out almost as delicately. Giuseppe Baldini. Then he would smell at only this one odor. there??s too much bergamot and too much rosemary and not enough attar of roses. cold creature lay there on his knees. absolutely everything-even the newfangled scented hair ribbons that Baldini created one day on a curious whim. against this inflationist of scent. ??Yes. Madame Gaillard had a merciless sense of order and justice. 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. Who knows if he would flourish as well on someone else??s milk as on yours.????I have the best nose in Paris.??How did you ever get the absurd idea that I would use someone else??s perfume to. Grenouille survived the illness. just as could be done with thyme.

Don??t let anyone near me. God willing. ??Yes. however. if he lifted his gaze the least bit. which was why his peroration could only soar to empty pathos.?? when from minute to minute. His life was worth precisely as much as the work he could accomplish and consisted only of whatever utility Grimal ascribed to it. openly admitting that she would definitely have let the thing perish. splashing and swishing like a child busy cooking up some ghastly brew of water. as if ashamed of his enthusiasm.He had made a mistake buying a house on the bridge. and from their bodies. penholders of whjte sandalwood. but so unsuspecting that he took the boy??s behavior not for insolence but for shyness. humility. But then-she was almost eighty by now-all at once the man who held her annuity had to emigrate. of soap and fresh-baked bread and eggs boiled in vinegar. while in truth it was an omen sent by God in warning.

But above it hovered the ribbon. Without ever bothering to learn how the marvelous contents of these bottles had come to be. because he would infallibly predict the approach of a visitor long before the person arrived or of a thunderstorm when there was not the least cloud in the sky. I don??t know that. hunched over again.. a dutiful subject. He didn??t want to be an inventor. virtually a small factory. to the place de Greve. I need peace and quiet. not clouded in the least. pomades stirred. who every season launched a new scent that the whole world went crazy over. for it had portended. Vanished the sentimental idyll of father and son and fragrant mother-as if someone had ripped away the cozy veil of thought that his fantasy had cast about the child and himself. which he then exhaled slowly with several pauses. it might exalt or daze him. He lived encapsulated in himself and waited for better times.

He could not retain them.?? said the wet nurse. I really don??t understand what you??re driving at. ammonia. He had never learned fractionary smelling. The Persian chimes never stopped ringing. like a child. each house so tightly pressed to the next.CHENIER: It??s a terribly common scent.How awful. even the king himself stank. merchant. It was not a scent that made things smell better.HE CAME DOWN with a high fever. misanthropy. Childishly idiotic. it was the word ??fishes. cypress. Flowers maybe.

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. the master scent taken from that girl in the rue des Marais.. ah yes! Terrier felt his heart glow with sentimental coziness. In 1782. .. ??I catch your drift. she took the fruit from a basket.. Gre-nouille stood still. liquid. just as could be done with thyme. But above it hovered the ribbon. the finest. smelled the sweat of her armpits.Or he would go to the spot where they had beheaded his mother. mixing powders from wheat flour and almond bran and pulverized violet roots. The minister of finance had recently demanded one-tenth of all income.

for if a child for whom no one was paying were to stay on with her. moving ever closer. He had found the compass for his future life. There was not an object in Madame Gaillard??s house. however complex.Having observed what a sure hand Grenouille had with the apparatus. very good hides-perhaps he could make gloves from them. misanthropy. in his youth. Paris.????You reek of it!?? Grenouille hissed. wonderful. Depending on his constitution. for God??s sake. at his tricks.She was acquainted with a tanner named Grimal-. right away if possible. In the salons people chattered about nothing but the orbits of comets and expeditions. but had read the philosophers as well.

Savages are human beings like us; we raise our children wrong; and the earth is no longer round like it was. That golden. for he could sense rising within him the first waves of his anger at this obstinate female. because the least bit of inattention-a tremble of the pipette. I don??t know that.??Baldini held his candle up to this lump of humankind wheezing ??storax?? and thought: Either he is possessed. how much cream had been left in it and so on. At one time. Twenty livres was an enormous sum. suddenly everything ought to be different. tipping the contents of flacons a second time in apparently random order and quantity into the funnel.Baldini stood up.CHENIER: I do know.Naturally there was not room for all these wares in the splendid but small shop that opened onto the street (or onto the bridge). While still regarding him as a person with exceptional olfactory gifts. where the hair makes a cowlick. and. for back then just for the production of a simple pomade you needed abilities of which this vinegar mixer could not even dream. 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 could not conceive of how such an exquisite scent could be emitted by a human being. When Madame Gaillard dug him out the next morning. sewing gloves of chamois. for dyeing. But he at once felt the seriousness that reigned in these rooms. and terrifying. and fled back into the city. not as rosewood has or iris. etc. and up from the depths of the cord came a mossy aroma; and in the warm sun. this perfume has. Then. he had composed Rose of the South and Baldini??s Gallant Bouquet.The peasant stank as did the priest. a perfume. when she had hidden her money so well that she couldn??t find it herself (she kept changing her hiding places). so that nothing about it could wiggle or wobble. the catalog of odors ever more comprehensive and differentiated..

????Because he??s stuffed himself on me. I??ve lost my nose. really. it??s said. political. you blockhead. He did not stir a finger to applaud. It was not the Persian chimes at the shop door. Days later he was still completely fuddled by the intense olfactory experience. saltpeter.He was just about to leave this dreary exhibition and head homewards along the gallery of the Louvre when the wind brought him something. sprinkling the test handkerchief. right???Grenouille was now standing up. cholera.. gave him in return a receipt for her brokerage fee of fifteen francs. hmm. on the other side of the river would be even better. had heard the word a hundred times before.

profited from the disciplined procedures Baldini had forced upon him. he knew how many of her wards-and which ones-where in there. sewing gloves of chamois.?? ??goat stall.. patchouli.?? And she tapped the bald spot on the head of the monk. people might begin to talk. Then. he began to make out a figure. sentencing him to hard labor-nothing could change his behavior. And now he smelled that this was a human being. by Pelissier. And then the beautiful dream would vanish. and tinctures. But as a vinegar maker he was entitled to handle spirits. that he did not know by smell. he swore it by everything holy-lay the best of these scents at the feet of the king. if he lifted his gaze the least bit.

so free. because he knew that he had already conquered the man who had yielded to him. this perfume has. and a consumptive child smells like onions.. not simply in order to possess it. And a wind must have come up. nor strong-ugly. And although he had closed the doors to his study and asked for peace and quiet.But Grenouille. when they could get cheap. For the first time..??He was reaching for the candlestick on the table. The child seemed to be smelling right through his skin. His eyes were open and he gazed up at Baldini with the same strange. should be sullied by such shabby dealings! But what was he to do? Count Verhamont was. Rosy pink and well nourished..

Inside the room. that much was clear.. But that doesn??t make you a cook. or worse. unfolded it and sprinkled it with a few drops that he extracted from the mixing bottle with the long pipette. as if he were filled with wood to his ears. You could send him anytime on an errand to the cellar.?? replied Baldini sternly. tended. and gave a screech so repulsively shrill that the blood in Terrier??s veins congealed. First he must seal up his innermost compartments. In his right hand he held the candlestick. the merchants for riding boots. my lad. divided the rest of the perfume between two small bottles. Grimal gave him half of Sunday off. who claimed to have the greatest line of pomades in Europe; or Calteau from the rue Mauconseil. please.

and Greater Germany. everything that Baldini knew to teach him from his great store of traditional lore. was about to suffocate him. and are returning him herewith to his temporary guardian. of course.WITH THE acquisition of Grenouille. Then he made a hasty sign of the cross with his right hand and left the room. Confining him to the house. Even if the fellow could deliver it to him by the gallon. perceived the odor neither of the fish nor of the corpses. ink. He must become a creator of scents.. ? You could sit and work very nicely at this table. took another sniff in waltz time. She only wanted the pain to stop. laid it all out properly. Embarrassed at what his scream had revealed. Strictly speaking.

Just once I??d like to open it and find someone standing there for whom it was a matter of something else. when people still lived like beasts. even women. ??I know all the odors in the world. knew that he was on the right track. He preferred to leave the smell of the sea blended together. a table. he was not especially big. in the hope that it was something edible. Then he pulled back the top one and ran his hand across the velvety reverse side. dark components that now lie in odorous twilight beneath a veil of flowers? Wait and see. but flat on the top and bottom like a melon-as if that made a damn bit of difference! In every field.??You can see in the dark. best nose in Paris!??But Grenouille was silent. It was as if a bad cold had soldered his nose shut; little tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. and sachets and make his rounds among the salons of doddering countesses... But no! He was dying now.