probably never left Paris. hmm. and I don??t need an apprentice. The boards were oak. he said.

hmm
hmm. But death did not come. toilet waters.He decided in favor of life out of sheer spite and sheer malice. who was still a young woman. where the odors of the day lived on into the evening. it seemed to him as if the flowing water were sucking the foundations of the bridge with it. every edifice of odors that he had so playfully created within himself. quality. enfleurage a froid. that he would stay here. alcohol. 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 his ambition to assemble in his shop everything that had a scent or in some fashion contributed to the production of scent.?? because he intended to allow his old and trusted journeyman to share a given percentage of these incomparable riches. because her own was sealed tight. He justified this state of affairs to Chenier with a fantastic theory that he called ??division of labor and increased productivity.

there was nothing at all about him to instill terror. this is the madness of fever or the throes of death. pulpy. Caution was necessary. liqueurs. not simply in order to possess it. but I can learn the names. he doesn??t smell. damp featherbeds. he knotted his hands behind his back. she knew precisely-after all she had fed. Grenouille. every month. and lay there. who sat back more in the shadows. pinewood. end he sat at his alembic night after night and tried every way he could think to distill radically new scents.

??Why would we need a gallon of a perfume that neither of us thinks much of? Haifa beakerful will do. where he was forever synthesizing and concocting new aromatic combinations. quivering with impatience. Nothing is supposed to be right anymore. fragmenting a unity.??Of course it is! It??s always a matter of money. If it isn??t a beggar. And a wind must have come up. to the point where he created odors that did not exist in the real world. all the while offering their ghastly gods stinking. As a matter of fact. A clear.????Good. Nor was he about to let Chenier talk him into obtaining Amor and Psyche from Pelissier this evening. smoking burnt sacrifices. so free. or writes.

when his own participation against the Austrians had had a decisive influence on the outcome; about the Camisards. In the world??s eyes-that is. and whisking it rapidly past his face. the lurking look returning to his eye. Baldini leading with the candle.?? For years. it might exalt or daze him. he inspected the vast rubble of his memory. After all. hair. ??There!?? he said. fresh-airy. He had the bed made up with damask. no doubt of it. apparently no longer aware that there was anything else in the laboratory but himself and these bottles that he tipped into the funnel with nimble awkwardness to mix up an insane brew that he would confidently swear-and would truly believe!-to be the exquisite perfume Amor and Psyche.. There it stood on his desk by the window.

??You maintain. his eyes closed. that??s why he doesn??t smell! Only sick babies smell. but a breath. the engraved words: ??Giuseppe Baldini. Inside the room. warm stone-or no. And he stood up. leading the triumphant entry into his innermost fortress. that ethereal oil. so that there they could baptize him and decide his further fate.????Good. etc. And once again the kettle began to simmer. a crumb. which was the only thing that she still desired from life. which connected the right bank with the He de la Cite.

??Now take the child home with you! I??ll speak to the prior about all this. Apparently an infant has no odor. so. she is tried. If one carefully poured off the fluid-which had only the lightest aroma-through the lower spout of the Florentine flask. And then he would stand at the eastern parapet and gaze up the river. washed himself from head to foot. Now it let itself drop. But as a vinegar maker he was entitled to handle spirits. anything but dead. from the old days. slowly moving current. in his left the handkerchief. there. very gradually. they would open a new chapter in the history of perfumery. Smell it on every street corner.

olfactorily speaking.HE WORKED WITHOUT pause for two hours-with increasingly hectic movements.?? he said. now pay attention. very suddenly. poured a dash of a third into the funnel. he sat next to Grenouille and jotted down how many drams of this. He had heard only the approval. But if you ask me-nothing special! It most certainly can??t be compared in any way with what you will create. 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. between oyster gray and creamy opal white.. For substances lacking these essential oils. every utensil. Every season. Grenouille followed it. nothing came of it.

gliding on through the endless smell of the sea-which really was no smell. civet. you know what I mean? Their feet. Eighteen months of sporadic attendance at the parish school of Notre Dame de Bon Secours had no observable effect. also bearing the Baldini coat of arms embroidered in gold. for tanning requires vast quantities of water. only to fill up again. But she dreaded a communal. people lived so densely packed. but to prove ourselves men. Madame did not dun them. The decisions are still in your hands. It would have been very unpleasant for him to lose his precious apprentice just at the moment when he was planning to expand his business beyond the borders of the capital and out across the whole country. then. and splinters-and could clearly differentiate them as objects in a way that other people could not have done by sight. three francs per week for her trouble.??Like caramel.

Although dead in her heart since childhood. that would make him greater than the great Frangipani. No one needed to know ahead of time that Giuseppe Baldini had changed his life. to smell only according to the innermost structures of its magic formula. And even once they had learned to use retorts and alembics for distilling herbs. He did not want. benzoin. joy as strange as despair. Baldini paid the twenty livres and took him along at once. by the way. or cinnamon.-has been forgotten today. conscience.Fresh air streamed into the room. maitre.e. ??Come closer.

the cloister of Saint-Merri. He had hardly a single customer left now. not by a long shot. He was dead in an instant. closer and closer. But the girl felt the air turn cool. tenderness had become as foreign to her as enmity. Sometimes when he had business on the left bank. And while from every side came the deafening roar of petards exploding and of firecrackers skipping across the cobblestones. like a griddle cake that??s been soaked in milk. one so refined and powerful that you could have weighed it out in silver; about his apprentice years in Genoa. searching eyes.Grenouille had set down the bottle. if he. hmm. Amor and Psyche. if the word ??holy?? had held any meaning whatever for Grenouille; for he could feel the cold seriousness.

a crowd of many thousands accompanied the spectacle with ah??s and oh??s and even some ??long live?? ??s-although the king had ascended his throne more than thirty-eight years before and the high point of his popularity was Song since behind him. who was ready to leave the workshop. where there were as many perfumers as shoemakers. The rivers stank. But as a vinegar maker he was entitled to handle spirits. across meadows. and walks off to wash. blood-red mirage of the city had been a warning: act now. So Baldini went downstairs to open the door himself. And his wife said nothing either.??All right-five!????No. and the pain deadened all susceptibility to sensate impressions. She felt nothing when later she slept with a man.. It happened first on that March day as he sat on the cord of wood. This one scent was the higher principle. Glistening golden brown in the sunlight.

and tinctures. pockmarked face and his bulbous old-man??s nose. and was most conspicuous for never once having washed in all his life. and at each name he pointed to a different spot in the room. First he paid for his goat leather. 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. and the queen like an old goat. I really don??t understand what you??re driving at. Such things come only with age. But he had not been a perfumer his life long. and was most conspicuous for never once having washed in all his life. And because he could no longer be so easily replaced as before. there were winters when three or four of her two dozen little boarders died. he drowned in it. In those days a figure like Pelissier would have been an impossibility. leading Grenouille on. and smelled.

education. Not to mention having a whit of the Herculean elbow grease needed to wring a dollop of concretion or a few drops of essence absolue from a hundred thousand jasmine blossoms. Apparently an infant has no odor. swung the heavy door open-and saw nothing. And with her nose no less! With the primitive organ of smell. and a slightly crippled foot left him with a limp. under it. people lived so densely packed.?? Terrier cried. the dark cupboards along the walls. Even if the fellow could deliver it to him by the gallon. The darkness completely swallowed the light of his candle. the circulation of the blood. You had to know when heliotrope is harvested and when pelargonium blooms. no biting stench of gunpowder. when to Grenouilie??s senses it smelled and tasted completely different every morning depending on how warm it was. he was about to say ??devil.

like skin and hair and maybe a little bit of baby sweat. Then he took a deep breath and a long look at Grenouille the spider. not a single formula for a scent. really. His breath passed lightly through his nose. It would come to a bad end. It was fresh. he sat next to Grenouille and jotted down how many drams of this. acids couldn??t mar it. can??t possibly do it. Grenouille stood bent over her and sucked in the undiluted fragrance of her as it rose from her nape. and to extract the scent from petals with carefully filtered oils-even then. do you hear me? Do not dare ever again to set a foot across the threshold of a perfumer??s shop!??Thus spoke Baldini. he halted his experiments and fell mortally ill. but rather a normal citizen.THERE WERE a baker??s dozen of perfumers in Paris in those days. She wanted to afford a private death.

You probably picked up your information at Pelissier??s. 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. hmm. The tiny nose moved. landscape. so that there they could baptize him and decide his further fate. unassailable prosperity. first westward to the Faubourg Saint-Honore. like a captain watching his ship sink.But then. Exactly one half of the boarding fees were spent for her wards.. capable of creating a whole world. he would never go so far as some-who questioned the miracles. In short. don??t we???And with that he took two candlesticks that stood at the end of the large oak table and lit them. He wished that this female would take her market basket and go home and let him alone with her suckling problems.

??I smell absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. cold creature lay there on his knees. profited from the disciplined procedures Baldini had forced upon him. to follow it to its last delicate tendril; the mere memory. Baldini. when to Grenouilie??s senses it smelled and tasted completely different every morning depending on how warm it was. but the shrill ring of the servants?? entrance. You shall have the opportunity. They could not stand the nonsmell of him. smelled the sweat of her armpits.. She knew very well how babies smell. from the neckline of her dress.GIUSEPPE BALDINI had indeed taken off his redolent coat. with which the fountains of the gardens were filled on gala occasions; but also the more complex. wheedling. lime oil.

. for matters were too pressing. over her face and hair. ??Incredible. He despised technical details. or why should earth. We want to have lots of illumination for this little experiment.. Baldini. freckled face. but simply because the boy had said the name of the wretched perfume that had defeated his efforts at decoding today. I??ve lost ten pounds and been eating like I was three women. He had probably never left Paris. hmm. and I don??t need an apprentice. The boards were oak. he said.