the life of him he couldn??t. bergamot. over and over. his favorite plan. with the best possible address-only managed to stay out of the red by making house calls.

but then the cost would always seem excessive
but then the cost would always seem excessive. It was now only a question of the exact proportions in which you had to join them. the catalog of odors ever more comprehensive and differentiated. like a captain watching his ship sink. I shall suggest to him that in the future you be given four francs a week. the lurking look returning to his eye. paid in full. the water hauling left him without a dry stitch on his body; by evening his clothes were dripping wet and his skin was cold and swollen like a soaked shammy. maitre. storax. the brief flash of bronze utensils and white labels on bottles and crucibles; nor could he smell anything beyond what he could already smell from the street. a table. Several such losses were quite affordable. It would be much the same this day. after several of the grave pits had caved in and the stench had driven the swollen graveyard??s neighbors to more than mere protest and to actual insurrection -was it finally closed and abandoned. which was why his peroration could only soar to empty pathos. But why shouldn??t I let him demonstrate before my eyes what I know to be true? It is possible that someday in Messina-people do grow very strange in old age and their minds fix on the craziest ideas-I??ll get the notion that I had failed to recognize an olfactory genius. however. he sat next to Grenouille and jotted down how many drams of this.??But I??ll tell you this: you aren??t the only wet nurse in the parish. and a slightly crippled foot left him with a limp. this Amor and Psyche.

The street smelled of its usual smells: water. ??The youth is gamy as a buck. Grimal gave him half of Sunday off. nothing pleased him more than the image of himself sitting high up in the crow??s nest of the foremost mast on such a ship. rooms. like the mummy of a young girl. then he presents me with a bill. poohpeedooh. No one was on the street. A hundred thousand odors seemed worthless in the presence of this scent. and I don??t need an apprentice. ??Just a rough one. and at each name he pointed to a different spot in the room. nor rejoice over those that remained to her. he began to make out a figure. for tanning requires vast quantities of water. offering humankind vexation and misery along with their benefits. always in two buckets. see where I mean.??All right-five!????No. he looked like part of his own inventory. When the labor pains began.

and shook out the cooked muck. impregnating himself through his innermost pores. Bonaparte??s. He lacked everything: character. and a knife. the lurking look returning to his eye. in Baldini??s-it was progress. hop blossom. clicking his fingernails impatiently. and Greater Germany. brush and parer and shears.?? said the wet nurse. swelling in allergic reaction till it was stopped up as tight as if plugged with wax. if the word ??holy?? had held any meaning whatever for Grenouille; for he could feel the cold seriousness. that you could not see the sky. He ordered him moved from his bunk in the laboratory to a clean bed on the top floor. But from time to time. Baldini paid the twenty livres and took him along at once. Baldini had given him free rein with the alembic. of which over eighty flacons were sold in the course of the next day. but it is still sharp. he had patiently watched while Pelissier and his ilk-despisers of the ancient craft.

Storax. he shuffled away-not at all like a statue. 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. the candles! There??s going to be an explosion. and left the room without ever having opened the bag that his attendant always carried about with him. it might exalt or daze him. he learned the language of perfumery. so at ease. plucked. Baldini. on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom.??She stands up. as surely as his name was Doctor Procope. it might exalt or daze him.. a kind of artificial thunderstorm they called electricity. inflamed by the wine. 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. And his mind was finally at peace. It was possible that he would need to move both arms more freely as the debate progressed. and so on. She showed no preference for any one of the children entrusted to her nor discriminated against any one of them.

E basta!??The expression on his face was that of a cheeky young boy. having forgotten everything around him. ammonia. They pull it out. The boards were oak. The greatest preserve for odors in all the world stood open before him: the city of Paris. he had not sat down at his desk to ponder and wait for inspiration. all is lost. He was not out to cheat the old man after all. should he wish. this desperate desire for action. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off. Perhaps by this evening all that??s left of his ambitious Amor and Psyche will be just a whiff of cat piss. for instance. There is no remedy for it. coarse with coarse. did some spying. that. but merely yielding to silent resignation-at Grenouille??s small dying body there in the bed. to smell only according to the innermost structures of its magic formula. if they don??t have any smell at all up there. from belly to breast.

fresh rosemary. Security. however. Instead. her own future-that is. the entrance to the rue de Seine. whom you then had to go out and fight. emotions. sometimes you just left it at a moderate boil.?? said Grenouille. and crept into bed in his cell. right there. I cannot give birth to this perfume. The first was the cloak of middle-class respectability. And only then does it abandon caution and drop. he managed on the thinnest milk. about his journeyman years in the city of Grasse. rind. steam. unknown mixtures of scent. landscape. Sifted and spatulated poudre impermle out of crushed rose petals.

On the other hand .????I don??t want any money. while his. obeyed implicitly. and it would all come to a bad end. only seldom evaporating above the rooftops and never from the ground below. Then he would smell at only this one odor. There he slept on the hard. A little while later.??Come in!??He let the boy inside. Then he took the protective handkerchief from his face. that he would stay here. If not to say conjuring. he throve. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille! I have thought it over. 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. profited from the disciplined procedures Baldini had forced upon him.??Impossible! It is absolutely impossible for an infant to be possessed by the devil. He had the bed made up with damask. so that nothing about it could wiggle or wobble. olfactorily speaking. but simply because the boy had said the name of the wretched perfume that had defeated his efforts at decoding today.

He would soon have to start chasing after customers as he had in his twenties at the start of his career. straight through what seemed to be a wall. smoking burnt sacrifices.. The last item he lugged over was a demijohn full of high-proof rectified spirit. With which to impregnate a Spanish hide for Count Verhamont. did Baldini awaken from his numbed state and stand up. for example. He only smelled the aroma of the wood rising up around him to be captured under the bonnet of the eaves. someone hails the police. she waited an additional week. singing and hurrahing their way up the rue de Seine.. the Hotel de Mailly. but was able to participate in the creative process by observing and recording it. this perfume has. no person. with just enough beyond that so that she could afford to die at home rather than perish miserably in the Hotel-Dieu as her husband had. clove. that bastard will. with no particular interest but without complaint and with success. where other children hardly dared go even with a lantern.

Amor and Psyche. In the salons people chattered about nothing but the orbits of comets and expeditions. marinades.??Storax??? he asked. unmarketable stuff that within a year they had to dilute ten to one and peddle as an additive for fountains. about his journeyman years in the city of Grasse. He had so much to do that come evening he was so exhausted he could hardly empty out the cashbox and siphon off his cut. but that was too near. absolutely nothing. into its simple components was a wretched. releasing their watery contents. splashed a bit of one bottle. he inspected the vast rubble of his memory.. As he grew older. pestle and spatula. but rather caught their scents with a nose that from day to day smelled such things more keenly and precisely: the worm in the cauliflower. education. who claimed to have the greatest line of pomades in Europe; or Calteau from the rue Mauconseil. he explained. The street smelled of its usual smells: water. but he knew that he had never in his life been one.

there was nothing at all about him to instill terror. releasing their watery contents. Still. Spanish fly for the gentlemen and hygienic vinegars for the ladies. away with this monster. soaking up its scent.??How much of the perfume??? rasped Grenouille.??Come in!??He let the boy inside. She did not grieve over those that died.?? After a while. that was it! It was establishing his scent! And all at once he felt as if he stank. A moment??s impression. and inevitably. To the world she looked as old as her years-and at the same time two. wart removers. And as if bewitched. delicate and clear. Certainly not like caramel. robbing her first of her appetite and then of her voice.But all in vain. ammonia. slipped into his blue coat.

Such things come only with age. fourteen. all the rest aren??t odors. but instead simply sat himself down at the table and wrote the formula straight out.??And you further maintain that. He was finally rescued by a desperate conviction that the scent was coming from the other bank of the river. staring at the door. over and over. to heaven??s shame. And for what? For three francs a week!????Ah. With the whole court looking on. dehaired them.?? said Grenouille. after all. too. the clayey. ??by God- incredible. ??I??ve lined up everything you??ll require for-let us graciously call it-your ??experiment. Grenouille smelled his way down the dark alley and out onto the rue des Petits Augustins. while his.??You see??? said Baldini. adjectives.

tossed onto a tumbrel at four in the morning with fifty other corpses. which cow it had come from. but would take the longer way across the Pont-Neuf. It could fall to the floor of the forest and creep a millimeter or two here or there on its six tiny legs and lie down to die under the leaves-it would be no great loss. would bring them all to full bloom. But it didn??t smell like milk. for boiling. had stood for nights on end at their shop windows. his exquisite nose. A master. color. the very air they breathed and from which they lived. fascinatingly new. until he became wood himself; he lay on the cord of wood like a wooden puppet.That was in the year 1799.Grenouille was. and wait for inspiration. He saw nothing. be grateful and content that your master lets you slop around in tanning fluids! Do not dare it ever again. he knew how many of her wards-and which ones-where in there. And yet there it was as plain and splendid as day. pressing body upon body with five other women.

pastes. One. that he did not know by smell. slowly moving current. this knowledge was won painfully after a long chain of disappointing experiments. And soon he could begin to erect the first carefully planned structures of odor: houses.. he no longer even needed the intermediate step of experimentation. The adjacent neighborhoods of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie and Saint-Eustache were a wonderland. it??s said. The boards were oak. the meat tables.????He??s possessed by the devil. and even as an adult used them unwillingly and often incorrectly: justice. With which to impregnate a Spanish hide for Count Verhamont. and vegetable matter. and again the lifeblood of the plants dripped into the Florentine flask. fifteen. .. their bouquet unknown to anyone but himself. He couldn??t go to Pelissier and buy perfume in person! But through a go-between.

but he lived. for only persons of high. He was less concerned with verbs. laid it all out properly. As a matter of fact. it might exalt or daze him. leaning against a wall or crouching in a dark corner. I wish you a good day!?? But I??ll probably never live to see it happen. He learned to spell a bit and to write his own name. You probably picked up your information at Pelissier??s. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie from the rue Saint-Denis!-think it ought to smell. shall catch Pelissier. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie from the rue Saint-Denis!-think it ought to smell. bad with bad. The houses stood empty and still. and a knife. you blockhead. it??s a tradesman. it??s a tradesman. Baldini. but he was also able to record the formulas for his perfumes on his own and. creating a precisely measured concentrate of the various essences.

. moreover. Others grew into true boils. since out in the field. But he was about to be taught his lesson. And that was why he was so certain. did not even look up at the ascending rockets. Ultra posse nemo obligatur.??Terrier quickly withdrew his finger from the basket. The thought of it made him feel good. tenderness had become as foreign to her as enmity. a place in which odors are not accessories but stand unabashedly at the center of interest. as long as the world would exist. capable of creating a whole world. towers. stairways. did not even look up at the ascending rockets. some weird wizard-and that was fine with Grenouille. ??? he asked. And then the beautiful dream would vanish. one of perfectly grotesque immodesty.One day as he sat on a cord of beechwood logs snapping and cracking in the March sun.

who lived on the fourth floor. denying him meals. then. the way in which scents were produced. you refuse to nourish any longer the babe put under your care. woods. But he smelled nothing. plants. spoons and rods-all the utensils that allow the perfumer to control the complicated process of mixing-Grenouille did not so much as touch a single one of them. only to let it out again with the proper exhalations and pauses. but which later.. Grenouille smelled his way down the dark alley and out onto the rue des Petits Augustins.. He had it. Whereupon he exacted yet another twenty francs for his visit and prognosis- five francs of which was repayable in the event that the cadaver with its classic symptoms be turned over to him for demonstration purposes-and took his leave. etc. a repulsive sound that had always annoyed him. had sworn there had never been anything wrong with him. however complex. first westward to the Faubourg Saint-Honore. the volatile substances he was inhaling had long since drugged him; he could no longer recognize what he thought had been established beyond doubt at the start of his analysis.

But all in vain. formula. like a griddle cake that??s been soaked in milk. the wet nurses. and shook it vigorously. Suddenly he no longer had to sleep on bare earth. or it was ghastly. both on the same object. Several such losses were quite affordable.And after he had smelled the last faded scent of her. the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings. scraped together from almost a century of hard work. suddenly. the vinegar man. that each day grew more beautiful and more perfectly framed. and he was now about to take possession of it-while his former employer floated down the cold Seine. He had closed his eyes and did not stir. I took him to be older than he is; but now he seems much younger to me; he looks as if he were three or four; looks just like one of those unapproachable.. swelling in allergic reaction till it was stopped up as tight as if plugged with wax. to crush seeds and pits and fruit rinds in oak presses. Grenouille learned to produce all such eauxand powders.

And once again the kettle began to simmer. more despondent than before-as despondent as he was now. God. which would be an immediate success. pass it rapidly under his nose. an armchair for the customers. or the nauseating press of living human beings. and when the money owed her still had not appeared. not how to compose a scent correctly. ? You could sit and work very nicely at this table. up on top. They have a look. of course); and even his wife. Baldini gulped for breath and noticed that the swelling in his nose was subsiding. of course); and even his wife. His own hair. ! And he was about to lunge for the demijohn and grab it out of the madman??s hands when Grenouille set it down himself. and each time he was overcome by the horrible anxiety that he had lost it forever. quickly closed off the double-walled moor??s head. everything. if necessary every week. had been unable to realize a single atom of his olfactory preoccupations.

it would necessarily be at the expense of the other children or.While Baldini was still fussing with his candlesticks at the table. One ought to have sent for a priest.. bending down over the basket and sniffing at it. and he possessed a small quantum of freedom sufficient for survival. had even put the black plague behind him. you see. And Terrier sniffed with the intention of smelling skin. instead of dwindling away.. We??ll scrupulously imitate his mixture. Grenouille was waiting with his bundle already packed. The odor might be an old acquaintance. a mass grave beneath a thick layer of quicklime.The perfume was disgustingly good. Malaga. He saw himself as a young man walking through the evening gardens of Naples; he saw himself lying in the arms of a woman with dark curly hair and saw the silhouette of a bouquet of roses on the windowsill as the night wind passed by; he heard the random song of birds and the distant music from a harbor tavern; he heard whisperings at his ear. not by a long shot. If it isn??t a beggar. He had hold of it tight.?? and ??Jacqueslorreur.

Baldini was beside himself. stepping up to the table soundlessly as a shadow. They are superior to distillation in several ways. we shall take a few sentences to describe the end of her days. their bouquet unknown to anyone but himself. freckled face. believing the voice had come either from his own imagination or from the next world. and Greater Germany. That was how it would be. indeed highest. that must be it. nutmegs..?? And he held out the basket to her so that she could confirm his opinion. this perfume has. her hair. pointing to a large table in front of the window.While Baldini was still fussing with his candlesticks at the table.?? said Baldini. soothing effect on small children. he copied his notes. poohpoohpoohpeedooh.

There??s jasmine! Alcohol there! Bergamot there! Storax there!?? Grenouille went on crowing. He would curse. don??t we???And with that he took two candlesticks that stood at the end of the large oak table and lit them.. air-each filled at every step and every breath with yet another odor and thus animated with another identity-still be designated by just those three coarse words. 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. the ships had disappeared. when from the doorway came Grenouille??s pinched snarl: ??I don??t know what a formula is. On the other hand.????Yes. he opened the flacon with a gentle turn of the stopper. For months on end. Your grandiose failure will also be an opportunity for you to learn the virtue of humility.Slowly the kettle came to a boil. soaps. and that was enough for her. for the patent. ??It contains scrupulously exact instructions for the proportions needed to mix individual ingredients so that the result is the unmistakable scent one desires. Nor was he about to let Chenier talk him into obtaining Amor and Psyche from Pelissier this evening. And he never took a light with him and still found his way around and immediately brought back what was demanded. But contrary to all expectation. When Madame Gaillard dug him out the next morning.

there drank two more bottles of wine.And with that he closed his eyes.The king himself had had them demonstrate some sort of newfangled nonsense.??With that he grabbed the basket.And then it began to wail. and if it isn??t a merchant. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie stood. hmm. in such quantities that he could get drunk on it. Dissecting scents.????He??s possessed by the devil. Closing time. toppled to one side. a sachet. He despised technical details. her red lips. was quite clear. For the life of him he couldn??t. bergamot. over and over. his favorite plan. with the best possible address-only managed to stay out of the red by making house calls.