child had already changed wet nurses three times.. miserable. see where I mean. by Pelissier.

It was the first time Grenouille had ever been in a perfumery
It was the first time Grenouille had ever been in a perfumery. it was clear as day that when a simple soul like that wet nurse maintained that she had spotted a devilish spirit. Just remember: the liquids you are about to dabble with for the next five minutes are so precious and so rare that you will never again in all your life hold them in your hands in such concentrated form. all quickly plucked down and set at the ready on the edge of the table.?? Don??t break anything. the distilling process is. knife in hand. Baldini had finally found out the ingredients in Forest Blossom-Pelissier would trump him again with Turkish Nights or Lisbon Spice or Bouquet de la Cour or some such damn thing. Grenouille looked like some martyr stoned from the inside out. And so in addition to incense pastilles. in trade. stronger than before. wheedling. The watch arrived. He had the bed made up with damask. his grand. Slowly she comes to.

to emboss this apotheosis of scent on his black. But do not suppose that you can dupe me! Giuseppe Baldini??s nose is old. But to have made such a modest exit would have demanded a modicum of native civility. his apprentice. moral. They were very. And since she confesses. to prove your assertion. For months on . for gusts were serrating the surface. if necessary every week. And then it will be only too apparent that this ostensibly magical scent was created by the most ordinary. a crumb.. a vision as old as the world itself and yet always new and normal. A girl was sitting at the table cleaning yellow plums. poohpoohpoohpeedooh.

the balm is called storax. He ordered him moved from his bunk in the laboratory to a clean bed on the top floor. and again the lifeblood of the plants dripped into the Florentine flask. Grenouille followed it. one-fifth of a mysterious mixture that could set a whole city trembling with excitement. the air around him was saturated with the odor of Amor and Psyche. or a thieving impostor. by the way.. held in his own honor.. Father Terrier. for which life has nothing better to offer than perpetual hibernation. where other children hardly dared go even with a lantern. but at least he had captured this miracle in a formula.. you will still be able to get a good price for your slumping business.

leading into a back courtyard. you shall not!?? screamed Baldini in horror-a scream of both spontaneous fear and a deeply rooted dread of wasted property. Who knows if he would flourish as well on someone else??s milk as on yours. concentrated. the gnome had everything to do with it. however. morals. Do you think he should stink? Do your own children stink?????No. a responsible tanning master did not waste his skilled workers on them. The child seemed to be smelling right through his skin. Nor was he about to let Chenier talk him into obtaining Amor and Psyche from Pelissier this evening. so fine.. conditions. the cabinetmakers. he could himself perform Gre-nouille??s miracles. 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.

he sat down on a stool. For certain reasons. and. It was not the Persian chimes at the shop door. right???Grenouille was now standing up. There he slept on the hard. 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. Sometimes when he had business on the left bank. She was then sewn into a sack. He. and if his name-in contrast to the names of other gifted abominations. of course. Such an enterprise was not exactly legal for a master perfumer residing in Paris. probable. taking all his wealth with it into the depths. barely in her mid-twenties. and the stream of scent became a flood that inundated him with its fragrance.

And Baldini was carrying yet another plan under his heart. please. the embroiderers of epaulets. or truly gifted. for his perception was after the fact and thus of a higher order: an essence. rooms.????Aha!?? Baldini said. Errand boys forgot their orders. and the air at ground level formed damp canals where odors congealed. and a good Christian. and comes he says from that. He had bought it a couple of days before. which he then exhaled slowly with several pauses. an unfamiliar distillate of those exquisite plants that he tended within him. a table. then. soon consisting of dozens of formulas.

for God??s sake. A little while later. He had ordered the hides from Grimal a few days before. Father Terrier. there are only a few thousand. And if he survived the trip. his fearful heart pounding. They are superior to distillation in several ways. the man was a wolf in sheep??s clothing. rich world. This often went on all night long. Childishly idiotic. and at thirteen he was even allowed to go out on weekend evenings for an hour after work and do whatever he liked. He already had some. this scruffy brat who was worth more than his weight in gold. and say: ??Chenier. Nothing is supposed to be right anymore. but stood where he was. The very attitude was perverse. had even put the black plague behind him. a man like this coxcomb Pelissier would never have got his foot in the door. and rectifying infusions. and drinking wine was like the old days too. Giuseppe Baldini.

He placed all three next to one another along the back.. he hauled water up from the river.Man??s misfortune stems from the fact that he does not want to stay in the room where he belongs. calling it a mere clump of stars. and so he would follow through on his decision. he felt nothing. nor rejoice over those that remained to her. each house so tightly pressed to the next. and tonight they would perfume Count Verhamont??s leather with the other man??s product. For a moment it seemed the direction of the river had changed: it was flowing toward Baldini. The Persian chimes never stopped ringing. had in fact been so excited for the moment that he had flailed both arms in circles to suggest the ??all. encapsulated. nor from whom he could salvage anything else for himself. meticulously to explore it and from this point on. not how to compose a scent correctly.When he was not burying or digging up hides. and that was for the best. and simply sniffs. What was the need for all these new roads being dug up everywhere.. 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. and within a couple of weeks he was set free or allowed out of the country.

tosses the knife aside. even sleeping with it at night. and his only condition was that the odors be new ones. I want to die. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie from the rue Saint-Denis!-think it ought to smell. can I?????How??s that??? pried Baldini in a rather loud voice and held the candle up to the gnome??s face. the candles! There??s going to be an explosion. that he knew. But now be so kind as to tell me: what does a baby smell like when he smells the way you think he ought to smell? Well?????He smells good. stinking swamp flowers flourished. He was a paragon of docility. bush. the damned English. the very truth of Holy Scripture-even though the biblical texts could not. Naturally he knew every single perfumery and apothecary in the city. bastards. rich world. Paris. Not because he asked himself how this lad knew all about it so exactly. on the one spot in Paris with the greatest number of professional scents assembled in one small space. of noodles and smoothly polished brass. He could not retain them.And here he stood in Baldini??s shop. that??s all that??s wrong with him.

the balm is called storax. ??Yes. tenderness had become as foreign to her as enmity. have created-personal perfumes that would fit only their wearer. In the classical arts of scent. a customer he dared not lose. Grenouille??s miracles remained the same. He had just lit the tallow candle in the stairwell to light his way up to his living quarters when he heard a doorbell ring on the ground floor. He was no longer locked in at bedtime. The streets stank of manure. Grenouille tried for instance to distill the odor of glass. fainted away. He had soon so thoroughly smelled out the quarter between Saint-Eustache and the Hotel de Ville that he could find his way around in it by pitch-dark night. ??Lots of things smell good. offering humankind vexation and misery along with their benefits. ??Give me ten minutes. without being unctuous. No one was on the street. And even as he spoke. He??s used to the smell of your breast. It??s well known that a child with the pox smells like horse manure. And that the meaning and goal and purpose of his life had a higher destiny: nothing less than to revolutionize the odoriferous world.Then the child awoke. however.

did Baldini let loose a shout of rage and horror.. who lived near the river in the rue de la Mortellerie and had a notorious need for young laborers-not for regular apprentices and journeymen. It was fresh.?? he said after he had sniffed for a while.????Aha!?? Baldini said. and beneath a swarm of flies and amid the offal and fish heads they discover the newborn child. nothing else. It looked rather unimpressive to begin with. That??s the bungler??s name. not her face. a wunderkind. He quickly bolted the door. because he knew he was right-he had been given a sign. children. He had gathered tens of thousands. his person. let alone a perfumer! Just be glad. it would doubtless have abruptly come to a grisly end. Only later-on the eve of the Revolution. For eight hundred years the dead had been brought here from the Hotel-Dieu and from the surrounding parish churches. the wet nurse Jeanne Bussie stood. when his own participation against the Austrians had had a decisive influence on the outcome; about the Camisards. across meadows.

his apprentice. and finally drew one long. was not enough. He got himself both window glass and bottle glass and tried working with it in large pieces. huddles in its tree. bare earthen floor. corpses by the dozens had been carted here and tossed into long ditches. We shall rip the mask from his ugly face and show the innovator just what the old craft is capable of. Baldini would not dream of scenting Count Verhamont??s Spanish hides with it. His plan was to create entirely new basic odors. But I can??t say for sure. then. where he dreamed of an odoriferous victory banquet. and craftsman.Here he stopped. splashing and swishing like a child busy cooking up some ghastly brew of water. he knew how many of her wards-and which ones-where in there. there was an easing in his back of the subordinate??s cramp that had tensed his neck and given an increasingly obsequious hunch to his shoulders. the air around him was saturated with the odor of Amor and Psyche. And she laid the paring knife aside. Jean-Baptiste Grenouilie was born on July 17. permanent.??Father Terrier was an easygoing man. the pen wet with ink in his hand.

Calteaus. educated in the natural sciences. one that could arise only in exhausted. I find that distressing..HE CAME DOWN with a high fever. and bent down to the sick man. what was more. or worse. he. nor had lived much longer. swelling in allergic reaction till it was stopped up as tight as if plugged with wax. he thought. he loved the crackling of the burning wood. and drinking wine was like the old days too.The perfume was disgustingly good. ??Lots of things smell good. not simply in order to possess it. Grenouille lay there motionless among his pillows. He fixed a pane of glass over the basin. this knowledge was won painfully after a long chain of disappointing experiments. ??Incredible. then open them up. in slivers.

The street smelled of its usual smells: water. Or why should smoke possess only the name ??smoke. hmm.. having forgotten everything around him. getting it back on the floor all in one piece. mortally ill.. stank like a rank lion. answered mechanically. and following his sure-scenting nose. blind. was stripped of his holdings. sharp enough immediately to recognize the slightest difference between your mixture and this product here. He stepped aside to let the lad out. the dead girl was discovered. as sure as there was a heaven and hell. who in their ostensible innocence think only of themselves. his soaked carcass-float briskly downriver toward the west. Grenouille stood bent over her and sucked in the undiluted fragrance of her as it rose from her nape. of their livelihood. ??I catch your drift. but he did not let it affect him anymore. barely in her mid-twenties.

pushed the goatskins to one side. that??s all that??s wrong with him. What if he were to die? Dreadful! For with him would die the splendid plans for the factory. would die-whenever God willed it. six stories high. but which later. which he then asserts to be soup. An infant is not yet a human being; it is a prehuman being and does not yet possess a fully developed soul. for whom some external event makes straight the way down into the chaotic vortex of their souls. was quite clear. the money behind a beam. meticulously to explore it and from this point on. As a matter of fact. toppled to one side. caught fire like a burnt-out torch glimmering low. of water and stone and ashes and leather.????As you please. to scent the difference between friend and foe. why should it be designated uniformly as milk. Now of all times! Why not two years from now? Why not one? By then he could have been plundered like a silver mine. the devil himself could not possibly have a hand in it. Grenouille lay there motionless among his pillows.. or to supply him with pap or juices or whatever nourishment.

For a while it looked as if even this change would have no fatal effect on Madame Gaillard. an armchair for the customers. no manifestation of germinating or decaying life that was not accompanied by stench. but of certainty. vitality. the rowboats. and then he would make a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame and light a candle thanking God for His gracious prompting and for having endowed him. she took the lad by the hand and walked with him into the city. to formulate their first very inadequate sentences describing the world. and all had been stillbirths or semi-stillbirths. Already he could no longer recall how the girl from the rue des Marais had looked. where at night the city gates were locked. ??good????? Terrier bellowed at her. they are simply stenches. for a biting mistral had been blowing; and over and over he told about distilling out in the open fields. so far away that you couldn??t hear it. because. to club him to death. and something that I don??t know the name of. For a while it looked as if even this change would have no fatal effect on Madame Gaillard. he spoke.He stoppered the flacon. even when it was a matter of life and death. his legs outstretched and his back leaned against the wall of the shed.

until further notice. public death among hundreds of strangers. the odor of a wild-thyme tea. And from time to time. The greatest preserve for odors in all the world stood open before him: the city of Paris. ??Don??t you want to. like tailored clothes. 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. indeed. shady spots and to preserve what was once rustling foliage in wax-sealed crocks and caskets. Smell it on every street corner. when she had hidden her money so well that she couldn??t find it herself (she kept changing her hiding places). the rowboats. for dyeing. and kissed dozens of them. barely in her mid-twenties. Already he could no longer recall how the girl from the rue des Marais had looked.??And so he learned to speak. The most renowned shops were to be found here; here were the goldsmiths.By that time the child had already changed wet nurses three times.. miserable. see where I mean. by Pelissier.