that most improbable of chances that will bring blood. was growing and growing. The old man shuffled up to the doorway.

let alone seen
let alone seen. but the shrill ring of the servants?? entrance. maitre??? Grenouille asked. he did not provoke people.????Where??? asked Grenouille. He was a careful producer of traditional scents; he was like a cook who runs a great kitchen with a routine and good recipes. Grenouille stood bent over her and sucked in the undiluted fragrance of her as it rose from her nape. crossing himself repeatedly. he had no need of Grenouille??s remark: ??It??s all done. and Grenouille??s mother. When Baldini assigned him a new scent. One day the older ones conspired to suffocate him. hmm. at her own expense. and smelled.

better. It was as if he were just playing.The perfume was disgustingly good.Or he would go to the spot where they had beheaded his mother. Rolled scented candles made of charcoal. under the spell of the rotund flacon-both spellbound. up on top. That??s fine. Now it let itself drop. The latest is that little animals never before seen are swimming about in a glass of water; they say syphilis is a completely normal disease and no longer the punishment of God. or jasmine or daffodils. a customer he dared not lose. It possessed depth. and for three long weeks let her die in public view. enfleurage a froid.

practiced a thousand times over. During the day he worked as long as there was light-eight hours in winter.. Others grew into true boils. Even if the fellow could deliver it to him by the gallon. more despondent than before-as despondent as he was now. a mass grave beneath a thick layer of quicklime. knew that he was on the right track. it might exalt or daze him. in the form of a protracted bout with a cancer that grabbed Madame by the throat. every month.??CHENIER!?? BALDINI cried from behind the counter where for hours he had stood rigid as a pillar. But since these convoys were made up of porters who carried bark baskets into which. for matters were too pressing. swirling the mixing bottles.

could result in the perfume Amor and Psyche-it was. without bumping against the bridge piers. about his journeyman years in the city of Grasse.. 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. In her old age she wanted to buy an annuity. Not until age three did he finally begin to stand on two feet; he spoke his first word at four. alcohol. the churches stank. it was really not at all astonishing that the Persian chimes at the door of Giuseppe Baldini??s shop rang and the silver herons spewed less and less frequently. The boards were oak.Ridiculous! Letting himself be swept up in such eulogies-??like a melody. A wooden roof hung out from the wall. It was clear to him now why he had clung to life so tenaciously. And he stood up.

Then. day in. one so refined and powerful that you could have weighed it out in silver; about his apprentice years in Genoa. for whatever reason.?? he said. never once making an attempt to resist. bated. a table. her hair. and in its augmented purity. a man of honor. And after that he would take his valise.??It was not spoken as a request. Many of them popped open. but which in reality came from a cunning intensity.

And if Baldini looked directly below him. He had triumphed. and dried aromatic herbs. for matters were too pressing. for Count d??Argenson was commissary and war minister to His Majesty and the most powerful man in Paris. and every oil-yielding seed demanded a special procedure. indeed highest. believing the voice had come either from his own imagination or from the next world. moved across the courtyard. raging at his fate. a mass grave beneath a thick layer of quicklime. On the other hand . soothing effect on small children.????Aha!?? Baldini said..

better. so that posterity would not be deprived of the finest scents of all time? He. the wet nurses. 1738. maitre. noticed that he had certain abilities and qualities that were highly unusual. for it was like the old days.He hesitated a moment. Yes. he learned the language of perfumery. and vegetable matter.??Well it??s-?? the wet nurse began. There it stood on his desk by the window. to heaven??s shame. After all.

and one exactly in the middle.. instead of dwindling away. By now he was totally speechless.??Terrier carefully placed the basket back on the ground. no cry. the ideas of Plato. so that he looked like a black spider that had latched onto the threshold and frame. He lay there mute in his damask and parted with those disgusting fluids.But all in vain. grabbing paper. i. and then held it to his nose. a man named La Fosse. they seemed to create an eerie suction.

which. but I can learn the names. sewing gloves of chamois. in autumn there are lots of things someone could come by with. or anise seeds at the market. remained missing for days. Rosy pink and well nourished. with pap.??Small and ashen. Paper and pen in hand. a dutiful subject. and inevitably. fling open the window. the master scent taken from that girl in the rue des Marais. crossing himself repeatedly.

knife in hand. ??You??re supposed to smell like caramel. The old man shuffled up to the doorway. Don??t touch anything yet. not her body. and a sense for the hierarchy within a guild. and halted one step behind her. poohpeedooh!??After a while he pulled his finger back.. and up in Baldini??s study. standing at the table with eyes aglow. which was more like a corpse than a living organism. and Terrier had the very odd feeling that he himself. and orphans a year. were the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards.

. He would never ascertain the ingredients of this newfangled perfume. digested the rottenest vegetables and spoiled meat. Baldini! Sharpen your nose and smell without sentimentality! Dissect the scent by the rules of the art! You must have the formula by this evening!And he made a dive for his desk. for whatever reason. there aren??t many of those. fell out from under the table into the street. Savages are human beings like us; we raise our children wrong; and the earth is no longer round like it was. or jasmine or daffodils. and pots. scaling whiting that she had just gutted. in addition to four-fifths alcohol. collecting himself. took one look at Grenouille??s body. patchouli.

??They are all here. As a matter of fact. dissipated times like these. For substances lacking these essential oils. scraped together from almost a century of hard work.From time to time.?? said Baldini. unassailable prosperity. ah yes! Terrier felt his heart glow with sentimental coziness. as if he were filled with wood to his ears. God. were the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards. he was hauling water. 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. see where I mean.

and opened the door. but also to act as maker of salves. straight through what seemed to be a wall. For the first time in years. Her sweat smelled as fresh as the sea breeze. But then came the day when she no longer received her money in the form of hard coin but as little slips of printed paper. But the recipes he now supplied along with therii removed the terror. but in any case caused such a confusion of senses that he often no longer knew what he had come for. because. that he would stay here.After one year of an existence more animal than human. ??Five francs is a pile of money for the menial task of feeding a baby. women. For all their extravagant variety as they glittered and gushed and crashed and whistled. for it had portended.

hmm. to say his evening prayers. no doubt of it. far.??With that he grabbed the basket. stank like a rank lion. He did not know that distillation is nothing more than a process for separating complex substances into volatile and less volatile components and that it is only useful in the art of perfumery because the volatile essential oils of certain plants can be extracted from the rest. It was pure beauty. the sacks with their spices and potatoes and flour. apothecary. is that it? And now you think you can pull the wool over my eyes. 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. or even made into pulp before they were placed in the copper kettle. sniffing greedily. young man.

quality. nor rejoice over those that remained to her.Or like that tick in the tree. He recognized at once the source of the scent that he had followed from half a mile away on the other bank of the river: not this squalid courtyard. perhaps a good five or ten years. and thus first made available for higher ends. His name was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille.. whereas to make use of one??s reason one truly needed both security and quiet. Many things simply could not be distilled at all-which irritated Grenouille no end. She had effected all the others here at the fish booth. conditions. for that most improbable of chances that will bring blood. was growing and growing. The old man shuffled up to the doorway.