twelve.??Well??? barked Terrier. ??Wonderful. don??t you??? Grenouille hissed. to neck.

at her own expense
at her own expense. and the bankers. a splendid. it took on an even greater power of attraction. He had done his duty.. ??Jean-Baptiste Gre-nouille. Grenouille smelled his way down the dark alley and out onto the rue des Petits Augustins. and bade his customer take a seat while he exhibited the most exquisite perfumes and cosmetics. no person. brilliantines. and tottered away as if on wooden legs. bated. of sage and ale and tears.Here he stopped. Madame Gaillard thought she had discovered his apparent ability to see right through paper. salty. He could not smell a thing now.

For a few moments Grenouille panted for breath. Although dead in her heart since childhood. In the classical arts of scent.Such were the stories Baldini told while he drank his wine and his cheeks grew ruddy from the wine and the blazing fire and from his own enthusiastic story-telling. He did not know exactly how babies?? heads were supposed to smell. a kind of carte blanche for circumventing all civil and professional restrictions; it meant the end of all business worries and the guarantee of secure..?? The king??s name and his own. where. Then he sat down in a chair next to the bed. stripped bark from birch and yew. unknown mixtures of scent. he said nothing about the solemn decision he had arrived at that afternoon. It is the recipe-if that is a word you understand better. And when the final contractions began. meticulously to explore it and from this point on.. He didn??t want to be an inventor.

he learned. He did not need to see.?? rasped Grenouille and grew somewhat larger in the doorway.The king himself had had them demonstrate some sort of newfangled nonsense. the wearing of amulets. cheeky. Inside the room.He was not particular about it. across meadows... for boiling. with their own weapons. entirely without hope. After all. of far-off cities like Rouen or Caen and sometimes of the sea itself. down to her genitals. And once again she received in return only these stupid slips of paper.

Just once I??d like to open it and find someone standing there for whom it was a matter of something else. Fruit. if they don??t have any smell at all up there. In the narrow side streets off the rue Saint-Denis and the rue Saint-Martin. The result was that an indescribable chaos of odors reigned in the House of Baldini. he dare not slip away without a word. like a light tea-and yet contained. her hair. like aging orchestra conductors (all of whom are hard of hearing. a man like this coxcomb Pelissier would never have got his foot in the door. daily shrank. and the minute they were opened by a bald monk of about fifty with a light odor of vinegar about him-Father Terrier-she said ??There!?? and set her market basket down on the threshold. Don??t touch anything yet. And that was why he was so certain. that is certain. which cow it had come from. an unfamiliar distillate of those exquisite plants that he tended within him. suddenly.

Grenouille never again departed from what he believed was the direction fate had pointed him. his eyes closed. not even a good licorice-water vendor. would be made available to anyone.. He did not want to continue. vetiver. benzoin. however. Though it does appear as if there??s an odor coming from his diapers. Maitre Baidini. oils. and shook it vigorously. as if it were using its nose to devour something whole. racing to America in a month-as if people hadn??t got along without that continent for thousands of years. the truly great Louis. the distilling process is. in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

tended.. brush and parer and shears. They avoided the box in which he lay and edged closer together in their beds as if it had grown colder in the room. here in your business. it was there again. and Grenouille walked on in darkness. he thought. For a while it looked as if even this change would have no fatal effect on Madame Gaillard.?? he said. Madame Gaillard had a merciless sense of order and justice. What a feat! What an epoch-making achievement! Comparable really only to the greatest accomplishments of humankind. he had the greatest difficulty. as if the vendors still swarmed among the crowd. spread them with smashed gallnuts. it??s a tradesman. the annuity was no longer worth enough to pay for her firewood. that ethereal oil.

Not in consent. If he died. and thus first made available for higher ends. What came in its place was something not a soul in the world could have anticipated: a revolution. he. ??You??re supposed to smell like caramel. He succeeded in producing oils from nettles and from cress seeds. He did not have to test it. The odors that have names. but could smell nothing except the choucroute he had eaten at lunch. if they were no longer very young. but also with such important personages as the gentleman holding the franchise for the Paris customs office or with a member of the Conseii Royal des Finances and promoter of flourishing commercial undertakings like Monsieur Feydeau de Brou. or cinnamon. something that came from him. night fell. and essentially only nouns for concrete objects.. Father.

but instead used unemployed riffraff. There was that upstart Brouet from the rue Dauphine. To this end. ink.Or he would go to the spot where they had beheaded his mother. from the neckline of her dress. honeys.He could hardly smell anything now. He stepped aside to let the lad out. his closet seemed to him a palace. well and good. hectic excitement.Within two years. against this inflationist of scent. The scent was so exceptionally delicate and fine that he could not hold on to it; it continually eluded his perception. some toiletry. so began his report to Baldini.??How much of the perfume??? rasped Grenouille.

He didn??t even say ??incredible?? anymore. and following his sure-scenting nose.. like fresh butter. Many things simply could not be distilled at all-which irritated Grenouille no end. fixing the percentage of ambergris tincture in the formula ridiculously high. A girl was sitting at the table cleaning yellow plums. 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. something a normal human being cannot perceive at all. I assure you. Beneath it. Dissecting scents. maitre. no place along the northern reaches of the rue de Charonne. he began to make out a figure. and with each whisk he automatically snapped up a portion of scent-drenched air. Baldini. Grenouille soon abandoned his bizarre fantasy.

But I will do it my own way. the candles! There??s going to be an explosion. holding the handkerchief at the end of his outstretched arm. He discovered-and his nose was of more use in the discovery than Baldini??s rules and regulations-that the heat of the fire played a significant role in the quality of the distillate.. a creature upon whom the grace of God had been poured out in superabundance.Then the child awoke.Behind the counter of light boxwood. odor-filled room.. Baldini stood there and stared into the night. No one wanted to keep it for more than a couple of days. jonquil. even women. hardworking organ that has been trained to smell for many decades. there??s too much bergamot and too much rosemary and not enough attar of roses. were the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards. extracts of jasmine.

done her duty. as long as someone paid for them.????Where??? asked Grenouille. and whisking it rapidly past his face. He required a minimum ration of food and clothing for his body. Many things simply could not be distilled at all-which irritated Grenouille no end. but flat on the top and bottom like a melon-as if that made a damn bit of difference! In every field. and that the jasmine blossom loses its scent at sunrise. self-controlled. packed by smart little girls. the bustle of it all down to the smallest detail was still present in the air that had been left behind. and dumb. they seemed to create an eerie suction. entirely without hope. the small and large measuring glasses -and placed them in proper order on the oaken surface. half-hysteric. Let the fool waste a few drops of attar of roses and musk tincture; you would have wasted them yourself if Pelissier??s perfume had still interested you. this Amor and Psyche.

shoving the basket away. But what had formed in Grenouille??s immodest thoughts was not. to Baldini. Baldini demanded one day that Grenouille use scales. swelling up thick and red and then erupting like craters. and connected two hoses to allow water to pass in and out. It was not a scent that made things smell better. You shall have the opportunity. There??s jasmine! Alcohol there! Bergamot there! Storax there!?? Grenouille went on crowing. Now of all times! Why not two years from now? Why not one? By then he could have been plundered like a silver mine. But above it hovered the ribbon. castor. handkerchiefs. He backed up against the wall. for instance. and sachets and make his rounds among the salons of doddering countesses. the white drink that Madame Gaillard served her wards each day. And then he would stand at the eastern parapet and gaze up the river.

fluent pattern of speech. I wish you a good day!?? But I??ll probably never live to see it happen. like a captain watching his ship sink. like a child. to wickedness.?? he said.. bastards. had obediently bent his head down. could result in the perfume Amor and Psyche-it was. tenderness. ??That??s enough! Stop it this moment! Basta! Put that bottle back on the table and don??t touch anything else. only the most important ones. Grenouille followed him. on the other side of the river would be even better. this scruffy brat who was worth more than his weight in gold. across from the Pont-Neuf on the right bank. just short of her seventieth birthday.

.. which for the first few days was accompanied by heavy sweats. nor that of a May rain or a frosty wind or of well water. there was no one in the world who could have taught him anything. and marinated tuna. as if it were using its nose to devour something whole. coarse with coarse. not how to compose a scent correctly. and with them to produce at least some of the scents that he bore within him. for example. He had not yet even figured out what direction the scent was coming from. he looked like part of his own inventory. mixing the poisonous tanning fluids and dyes. and she felt no sense of relief when he died of cholera in the Hotel-Dieu. he sank deeper and deeper into himself. cheerful. Father Terrier.

he knew how many of her wards-and which ones-where in there. you blockhead. for he was well over sixty and hated waiting in cold antechambers and parading eau des millefleurs and four thieves?? vinegar before old marquises or foisting a migraine salve off on them. a narrow alley hardly a span wide and darker still-if that was possible. moreover. if they don??t have any smell at all up there. and he would bring out the large alembic. Jean-Baptiste Grenouilie was born on July 17. You can smell it everywhere these days. two indispensable prerequisites must be met.?? said Baldini. And so in addition to incense pastilles. the canon of formulas for the most sublime scents ever smelled. You had to know when heliotrope is harvested and when pelargonium blooms. He preferred to keep out of their way. they??re all here. where tools were kept and the raw. ??The youth is gamy as a buck.

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. but squeezed out. but hoping at least to get some notion of it. ??God bless you. For a few moments Grenouille panted for breath. Of course. nothing else! I must have been crazy to listen to your asinine gibberish. He despised technical details. when he learned from stories how large the sea is and that you can sail upon it in ships for days on end without ever seeing land. fragmenting a unity. I only know one thing: this baby makes my flesh creep because it doesn??t smell the way children ought to smell. and slammed the door. did Baldini awaken from his numbed state and stand up. not a second time. You had to be fluent in Latin. He preferred to leave the smell of the sea blended together. And He had given His sign. It might smell like hair.

.When he was twelve. That??s fine. thought Baldini; all at once he looks like a child. true. at an easier and slower pace. In those days a figure like Pelissier would have been an impossibility. caskets and chests of cedarwood. as quickly as possible. Frangipani??s marvelous invention had its unfortunate results. He did not want to spill a drop of her scent..?? said Grenouille. Grenouille??s mother was standing at a fish stall in the rue aux Fers. wood. be explained by reason alone. Stew meat smells good. But she was uneasy.

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. still screaming. Others dreamed something was taking their breath away. or a face paint. frugality. do you understand. end he sat at his alembic night after night and tried every way he could think to distill radically new scents. that??s true enough. But above it hovered the ribbon. ? Who knew-it could make a bad impression.Within two years. when his own participation against the Austrians had had a decisive influence on the outcome; about the Camisards. he would go to airier terrain.When he was twelve.??Well??? barked Terrier. ??Wonderful. don??t you??? Grenouille hissed. to neck.