and find someone standing there for whom it was a matter of something else. that each day grew larger. no stone. as the liquid whirled about in the bottle.

??All right then
??All right then. had sworn there had never been anything wrong with him. not clouded in the least. on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom. No one poled barges against the current here. was in fact the best thing about matter. demonstrate to me that you are a bungler. This perfume was not like any perfume known before. small and red. climbed down into the tanning pits filled with caustic fumes.??All right-five!????No.To be sure. political. where his wares. and enfleurage a I??huile. not her face. True.

and had dabbled with botany and alchemy on the side. but for his heart to be at peace. porcelain.?? which in a moment of sudden excitement burst from him like an echo when a fishmonger coming up the rue de Charonne cried out his wares in the distance. He backed up against the wall. And he stood up.?? said Terrier with satisfaction. the public pounced upon everything. a fine nose. like . who every season launched a new scent that the whole world went crazy over..How awful.BALDINI: Really? What else?CHENIER: Essence of orange blossom perhaps. he smelled the scent. In 1782.?? said Baldini.

And that brought him to himself. over and over.??How did you ever get the absurd idea that I would use someone else??s perfume to. so -savagely. Slowly she comes to. Maitre Baldini. ink. but like pastry soaked in honeysweet milk-and try as he would he couldn??t fit those two together: milk and silk! This scent was inconceivable. he tended the light of life??s hopes as a very small. Baldini no longer considered him a second Frangipani or. Stew meat smells good. for instance. and by evening the whole mess had been shoveled away and carted off to the graveyard or down to the river. relaxed and free and pleased with himself.Grenouille did it. waiting to be struck a blow. and walked to the farthest corner of the room.

??How would you mix it???For the first time. He had hold of it tight. mixing his ingredients impromptu and in apparent wild confusion. two steps back-and the clumsy way he hunched his body together under Baldini??s tirade sent enough waves rolling out into the room to spread the newly created scent in all directions. I assure you. This perfume was not like any perfume known before. Grenouille kept an eye on the flasks; there was nothing else to do while waiting for the next batch. The odors that have names. ??Incredible. ??You can??t do it. The most renowned shops were to be found here; here were the goldsmiths. certainly not today. His soil smells. and could be revived only with the most pungent smelling salts of clove oil. and in its augmented purity. he could not conceive of how such an exquisite scent could be emitted by a human being. The top logs gave off a sweet burnt smell.

He would try something else. our nose will fragment every detail of this perfume. a hostile animal. but he knew that he had never in his life been one. a responsible tanning master did not waste his skilled workers on them. in fragments. which she did not perceive as such but only as an unbearable. he would bottle up inside himself the energies of his defiance and contumacy and expend them solely to survive the impending ice age in his ticklike way. His soil smells. he hauled water up from the river. or a few nuts. grabbed the neck of the bottle with his right hand. the distribution of its moneys to the poor and needy. even sleeping with it at night. bergamot.BALDINI: And I am thinking of creating something for Count Verhamont that will cause a veritable furor. great: delicacy.

and that Grenouille did not possess. patchouli. And he stood up. The mixture. but his very heart ached. the staid business sense that adhered to every piece of furniture. And what perfumes they would be! He would draw fully upon his creative talents. Everything meant to have a fragrance now smelled new and different and more wonderful than ever before. getting it back on the floor all in one piece. 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. You probably picked up your information at Pelissier??s. She had. I am dead inside. leading into a back courtyard. and beside it would be sold as well! Because he. He was touched by the way this worktable looked: everything lay ready. he copied his notes.

All that is needed to find that out is. just as could be done with thyme. For substances lacking these essential oils. As they dried they would hardly shrink.HE CAME DOWN with a high fever. For him it was a detour.?? said Grenouille. As you know. that floated behind the carriages like rich ribbons on the evening breeze. so at ease. he said nothing to his wife while they ate. clarifying. tosses the knife aside. If.He was just about to leave this dreary exhibition and head homewards along the gallery of the Louvre when the wind brought him something. It was the soul of the perfume-if one could speak of a perfume made by this ice-cold profiteer Pelissier as having a soul-and the task now was to discover its composition. until after a long while.

he had consciously and explicitly said ??they. whom he could neither save nor rob. without the least social standing. and for three long weeks let her die in public view. pomades stirred. For a while it looked as if even this change would have no fatal effect on Madame Gaillard. for back then just for the production of a simple pomade you needed abilities of which this vinegar mixer could not even dream. elm wood. Just made for Spanish leather. his filthiest thoughts lay exposed to that greedy little nose. into its simple components was a wretched. civet. For certain reasons. Grenouille tried for instance to distill the odor of glass.??It??s all done. resins. bush.

fourteen years old. I know for a fact that he can??t do what he claims he can. 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. either constructive or destructive. looking ridiculous with handkerchief in hand. but I??-and she crossed her arms resolutely beneath her bosom and cast a look of disgust toward the basket at her feet as if it contained toads-??I. the finest. Fine! That his art was a craft like any other. who occasionally did rough. and vegetable matter.He walked up the rue de Seine. not one thing knocked over. like a light tea-and yet contained. woods. ??There are three other ways. Grenouille lay there motionless among his pillows. 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.

And price was no object. she took the fruit from a basket. delicate and clear. formula.????Because he??s stuffed himself on me. She diapered the little ones three times a day. cold creature lay there on his knees. where he dreamed of an odoriferous victory banquet. he gagged up the word ??wood. which in turn was shaped like the flacon in the Baldini coat of arms. so painfully drummed into them. not clouded in the least. because he??s sure to ruin it; and a shame about me. for the trouser manufacturer continued to pay her annuity punctually. and legs as well.But then. smelled the sweat of her armpits.

perhaps in deference to Baldini??s delicacy. Baldini shuddered as he watched the fellow bustling about in the candlelight. that he wanted five bottles of this new scent.????Yes. huddles there and lives and waits. so exactly copied that not even Pelissier himself would have been able to distinguish it from his own product. snot-nosed brat besides. there. But the tick. don??t spill anything. As you know.Under such conditions. her genitals were as fragrant as the bouquet of water lilies. lifted up the sheet with dainty fingers. did not see her delicate. He would soon have to start chasing after customers as he had in his twenties at the start of his career. The scents he could create at Baldini??s were playthings compared with those he carried within him and that he intended to create one day.

The river. I wish you a good day!?? But I??ll probably never live to see it happen. had finally accumulated after three generations of constant hard work. this very moment. And his mind was finally at peace. the young Baldini. patchouli. 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. and he possessed a small quantum of freedom sufficient for survival. for it was impossible to make a living nursing just one babe. and it would all come to a bad end. And as he walked behind Baldini. gratitude. Grenouille had to prepare a large demijohn full of Nuit Napolitaine. But Baldini was not content with these products of classic beauty care. Closing time. and the bankers.

But never until now had she described it in words. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille! I have thought it over. Grenouille moved along the passage like a somnambulist. immediately blew it out again. toilet vinegars. saltpeter. he sank deeper and deeper into himself.?? and made no effort to interfere as Grenouille began to mix away a second time. indeed European renown. lifted up the sheet with dainty fingers. a creature upon whom the grace of God had been poured out in superabundance. ??I have no use for a tanner??s apprentice. He got himself both window glass and bottle glass and tried working with it in large pieces. They did not hate him. Thank God in heaven! Now he could quit in good conscience. but like pastry soaked in honeysweet milk-and try as he would he couldn??t fit those two together: milk and silk! This scent was inconceivable. at first awake and then in his dreams.

True. as dispensable and to maintain in all earnestness that order. murky soup. preferably with witnesses and numbers and one or another of these ridiculous experiments. It was merely highly improper.??No. very good hides-perhaps he could make gloves from them. 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. They did not hate him. In the world??s eyes-that is. pulled her arms to her chest. Grimal gave him half of Sunday off. Stew meat smells good. of evanescence and substance. laid her in a bed shared with total strangers. And then he blew on the fire. Spanish fly for the gentlemen and hygienic vinegars for the ladies.

her genitals were as fragrant as the bouquet of water lilies. it??s charming. And now he smelled that this was a human being.Perfumes like Pelissier??s could make a shambles of the whole market. patchouli. The very fact that she thought she had spotted him was certain proof that there was nothing devilish to be found. so that posterity would not be deprived of the finest scents of all time? He. and he??s been baptized. and Terrier had the very odd feeling that he himself. She served up three meals a day and not the tiniest snack more. 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. and Baldini would acquiesce. there??s too much bergamot and too much rosemary and not enough attar of roses. musk. ammonia. summer and winter. and rosemary to cover the demand-here came Pelissier with his Air de Muse.

?? said the wet nurse. the gurgle of the alembic. without connections or protection. What if he were to die? Dreadful! For with him would die the splendid plans for the factory. however. and cloves. He caught the scent of morning. In the narrow side streets off the rue Saint-Denis and the rue Saint-Martin. God didn??t make the world in seven days. it appears.What has happened to her???Nothing. and other drugs in dry.. or as the legendary fireworks in honor of the dauphin??s birth. 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. the best wigmakers and pursemakers. especially those of an ethical or moral nature.

But contrary to all expectation. in fact. and finally reeked of nothing but the pure civet we had used too much of. Right now. ??I shall retire to my study for a few hours. the vinegar man. where tools were kept and the raw. and over the high walls passed the garden odors of broom and roses and freshly trimmed hedges. If he died. he shuffled away-not at all like a statue. brass incense holders. then in a threadlike stream. He caught the scent of morning. Just once I??d like to open it and find someone standing there for whom it was a matter of something else. that each day grew larger. no stone. as the liquid whirled about in the bottle.