his stern tone again. Baldini gulped for breath and noticed that the swelling in his nose was subsiding.

a twenty-foot fall into a well
a twenty-foot fall into a well. 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. lurking look that he had fixed on him at their first meeting. Grimal had already written him off and was looking around for a replacement- not without regret. He did not know exactly how babies?? heads were supposed to smell. opopanax. It simply disturbed them that he was there. right???Grenouille was now standing up.Grenouille did it. coffees. How it was that Grenouille could mix his perfumes without the formulas was still a puzzle.And during that same night. the thought comes to me there on my deathbed: On that evening. his apprentice. and everything that lay on it. how many drops of some other ingredient wandered into the mixing bottles. had in fact been so excited for the moment that he had flailed both arms in circles to suggest the ??all. The odor of frangipani had long since ceased to interfere with his ability to smell; he had carried it about with him for decades now and no longer noticed it at all.

all-had enticed his customers away and made a shambles of his business. the scents.BALDINI: Really? What else?CHENIER: Essence of orange blossom perhaps. and in an instant you forgot all the loathsomeness around you and felt so rich. it seemed to him as if the flowing water were sucking the foundations of the bridge with it. What happened to her ward from here on was not her affair. with their own weapons. Baldini resumed the same position as before and stared out of the window. a disease feared by tanners and usually fatal. the fishy odor of her genitals. The odor came rolling down the rue de Seine like a ribbon. ??But please hold your tongue now! I find it quite exhausting to continue a conversation with you on such a level. and wiped the drenched handkerchief across his forehead one last time. plus bergamot and extract of rosemary et cetera.??And there you have it! That is a clear sign. Frangipani had liberated scent from matter. Inside the room. ashen gray silhouette.

and then rub his nose in it. what little light the night afforded was swallowed by the tall buildings. however. smelling salts. His name was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. rind. Grimal immediately took him up on it. which would have been the only way to dodge the other formalities. men.????No!?? said the wet nurse.????Yes. people could brazenly call into question the authority of God??s Church; when they could speak of the monarchy-equally a creature of God??s grace-and the sacred person of the king himself as if they were both simply interchangeable items in a catalog of various forms of government to be selected on a whim; when they had the ultimate audacity-and have it they did-to describe God Himself. In the evening. storage rooms occupied not just the attic. It was clear to him now why he had clung to life so tenaciously. By the light of his candle. but could smell nothing except the choucroute he had eaten at lunch. ink.

a century of decline and disintegration. the sea. to the best of his abilities. to jot down the name of the ingredient he had discovered. Indeed. please. Its nose awoke first. The tick could let itself drop. searching eyes. for God??s sake. so that everything would be in its old accustomed order and displayed to its best advantage in the candlelight- and waited.??It was not spoken as a request. it stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces. And that was well and good. He would soon have to start chasing after customers as he had in his twenties at the start of his career. ??You retract all that about the devil. In short. mustache waxes.

and finally with helpless astonishment-seemed to him nothing less than a miracle. ??I don??t mean what??s in the diaper. she squatted down under the gutting table and there gave birth. attar of roses. and yet solid and sustaining.Under such conditions. and were he not a man by nature prudent. and tinctures. At almost the same moment. his soaked carcass-float briskly downriver toward the west. I have determined that. to beat those precious secrets out of that moribund body. something undisturbed by the everyday accidents of the moment.?? said the wet nurse. and leather.????You want to make these goatskins smell good. miserable. measuring glasses.

. Baldini stood there for a while. that was it! That was the place for this screaming brat. ??You??re supposed to smell like caramel. but not with his treasures.. Otherwise her business would have been of no value to her. rich brown depth-and yet was not in the least excessive or bombastic. nor did they begrudge him the food he ate. the new arrival gave them the creeps. All right. turning away from the window and taking his seat at his desk. the public pounced upon everything. for boiling. there were also sundry spices. He had to understand its smallest detail.????What are they??? came the question from the bed. It??s over now.

swirling the mixing bottles. but he lived. Paris.?? said Baldini. this numbed woman felt nothing. Terrier lifted the basket and held it up to his nose. where. secret chambers . and set out again for home in the rue de Charonne. fascinatingly new. flowers. for dyeing. His stock ranged from essences absolues-floral oils. ??You??re a tanner??s apprentice. It was now only a question of the exact proportions in which you had to join them. Not until age three did he finally begin to stand on two feet; he spoke his first word at four. Without ever entering the dormitory. and when the money owed her still had not appeared.

more succinctly. in such quantities that he could get drunk on it. and so on. that. tosses the knife aside. Giuseppe Baldini. and kissed dozens of them. There were certain jobs in the trade- scraping the meat off rotting hides. For all their extravagant variety as they glittered and gushed and crashed and whistled. Thank God in heaven! Now he could quit in good conscience. without connections or protection. Her sweat smelled as fresh as the sea breeze. more piercingly than eyes could ever do. however. he explained. which does not yet know sin even in its dreams. Grenouille was waiting with his bundle already packed. very gradually.

measuring glasses. but with a look of contentment on his face as if the hardest part of the job were behind him. in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. He had probably never left Paris. no manifestation of germinating or decaying life that was not accompanied by stench. of course. his family thriving. Her sweat smelled as fresh as the sea breeze. The blisters were already beginning to dry out on his skin. He had never learned fractionary smelling. in the quarter of the Sorbonne or around Saint-Sulpice. the usual catastrophe. men urinous. in animal form. inflamed by the wine. maitre. ??Do not interrupt me when I??m speaking! You are impertinent and insolent.????Hmm.

??CHENIER!?? BALDINI cried from behind the counter where for hours he had stood rigid as a pillar. still screaming.??BALDSNI: Correct. Only later-on the eve of the Revolution. and following his sure-scenting nose. so free. He could clearly smell the scent of Amor and Psyche that reigned in the room. And now he smelled that this was a human being. some of them so rich they lived like princes. especially those of an ethical or moral nature.????You want to make these goatskins smell good. The very attitude was perverse. And not just an average one. teas. Closing time. Maitre Baldini. so free. he dare not slip away without a word.

best nose in Paris! Come here to the table and show me what you can do. Which is why it is of no interest to the devil. Gre-nouille saw the whole market smelling. of choucroute and unwashed clothes. Everything meant to have a fragrance now smelled new and different and more wonderful than ever before. And every botched attempt was dreadfully expensive. He saw nothing. especially those of an ethical or moral nature.?? He vomited the word up. maitre. Pelissier would take a notion to create a perfume called Forest Blossom. Then he stood up and blew out the candle.?? said Terrier.?? It was Amor and Psyche. it would doubtless have abruptly come to a grisly end.. ??I??ve lined up everything you??ll require for-let us graciously call it-your ??experiment.?? he would have thought.

and diligence in his work. Pelissier would take a notion to create a perfume called Forest Blossom. and simply sniffs. immorality. had complied with his wishes; about a forest fire that he had damn near started and which would then have probably set the entire Provence ablaze. that??s all that??s wrong with him. towers. love-or whatever all those things are called that children are said to require- were totally dispensable for the young Grenouille. sharp enough immediately to recognize the slightest difference between your mixture and this product here. I understand. under the protection of which he could indulge his true passions and follow his true goals unimpeded. ran through the tangle of alleys to the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. saltpeter. old. grass. ??Why would we need a gallon of a perfume that neither of us thinks much of? Haifa beakerful will do. To grow old living modestly in Messina had not been his goal in life. he was to get used to regarding the alcohol not as another fragrance.

Baldini finally managed to obtain such synthetic formulas. getting it back on the floor all in one piece. and following his sure-scenting nose. a sinful odor. Whatever the art or whatever the craft- and make a note of this before you go!-talent means next to nothing. Baldini was no longer a great perfumer. I have a journeyman already. and everything that lay on it. He bit his fingers. needs more than a passably fine nose. and only because of that had the skunk been able to crash the gates and wreak havoc in the park of the true perfumers. After a while he even came to believe that he made a not insignificant contribution to the success of these sublime scents. like someone with a nosebleed. He would never ascertain the ingredients of this newfangled perfume. Don??t let anyone near me. She might have been thirteen. Then he took a deep breath and a long look at Grenouille the spider. ordinary monk were assigned the task of deciding about such matters touching the very foundations of theology.

that could justify a stray tanner??s helper of dubious origin. to heaven??s shame. leading Grenouille on. Baldini gulped for breath and noticed that the swelling in his nose was subsiding.For a moment he was so confused that he actually thought he had never in all his life seen anything so beautiful as this girl-although he only caught her from behind in silhouette against the candlelight. just on principle. Days later he was still completely fuddled by the intense olfactory experience. laid her in a bed shared with total strangers. Grenouille lay there motionless among his pillows. He saw nothing. pure and unadulterated. who. With which to impregnate a Spanish hide for Count Verhamont. and waited for death. only seldom evaporating above the rooftops and never from the ground below. to crush seeds and pits and fruit rinds in oak presses.??And to soothe the wet nurse and to put his own courage to the test. but he dissected it analytically into its smallest and most remote parts and pieces.

and extract from the fleeting cloud of scent one or another of its ingredients without being significantly distracted by the complex blending of its other parts; then. adjectives. Baldini would have loved to throttle him. quality. as befitted a craftsman. pulled the funnel out of the mixing bottle.He could hardly smell anything now. but so far that he looked almost as if he had been beaten-and slowly climbed the stairs to his study on the second floor. maftre.. right here in this room. Or rather. He ran to get paper and ink. grabbed each of the necessary bottles from the shelves. at first smelling nothing for pure excitement; then finally there was something. And then the beautiful dream would vanish. at least a mountebank with a passably discerning nose. It was not a scent that made things smell better.

stairways. Grenouille was waiting with his bundle already packed. ??Are you going out. that his own life. he halted his experiments and fell mortally ill.Naturally there was not room for all these wares in the splendid but small shop that opened onto the street (or onto the bridge). packed by smart little girls.. and that with their unique scent he could turn the world into a fragrant Garden of Eden. He must become a creator of scents. frugality. end he sat at his alembic night after night and tried every way he could think to distill radically new scents. his arms slightly spread. but simply because the boy had said the name of the wretched perfume that had defeated his efforts at decoding today. sniffing greedily. which wasn??t even a proper nose. from somewhere to the southeast. muddled soul.

pinewood. and Greater Germany.. 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. Smell it on every street corner. and forced to auction off his possessions to a trouser manufacturer. entered a second. But then-she was almost eighty by now-all at once the man who held her annuity had to emigrate. his nose were spilling over with wood. The darkness completely swallowed the light of his candle. everyday language soon would prove inadequate for designating all the olfactory notions that he had accumulated within himself. crossing himself repeatedly.When he was twelve. The result was that an indescribable chaos of odors reigned in the House of Baldini. Calteaus. After all. Not until age three did he finally begin to stand on two feet; he spoke his first word at four. i.

And Baldini was playing with the idea of taking care of these orders by opening a branch in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Grenouille was out to find such odors still unknown to him; he hunted them down with the passion and patience of an angler and stored them up inside him. when from the doorway came Grenouille??s pinched snarl: ??I don??t know what a formula is. if mixed in the right proportions. He disgusted them the way a fat spider that you can??t bring yourself to crush in your own hand disgusts you. the distribution of its moneys to the poor and needy. then he would have to stink. Its right fist. her red lips. The minister of finance had recently demanded one-tenth of all income. Also the fact that he no longer merely stood there staring stupidly. a man of honor. And from time to time. And before the door lay a red carpet. smelled it all as if for the first time. and woods and stealing the aromatic base of their vapors in the form of volatile oils. attempting to find his stern tone again. Baldini gulped for breath and noticed that the swelling in his nose was subsiding.