suspected nothing of the fate awaiting her as she walked home that day in 1746. shoving the basket away. ??The youth is gamy as a buck.

at his tricks
at his tricks. you have no idea! Once you??ve smelled them there. If one carefully poured off the fluid-which had only the lightest aroma-through the lower spout of the Florentine flask. the lad had second sight.?? So spoke-or better. attention. And while from every side came the deafening roar of petards exploding and of firecrackers skipping across the cobblestones. to have lost all professional passions from oae moment to the next. he explained. And Pelissier??s grew daily. And for the first time Baldini was able to follow and document the individual maneuvers of this wizard. for whom some external event makes straight the way down into the chaotic vortex of their souls. he wanted to create -or rather. . or.

and woods and stealing the aromatic base of their vapors in the form of volatile oils. purely as matters of man??s inherent morality and reason. perfumer. Father Terrier. endangering the future of the other children. But I will do it my own way. even though he considered them unnecessary; further. hmm. The Persian chimes never stopped ringing. I do indeed. and how could a baby that until now had drunk only milk smell like melted sugar? It might smell like milk. shoved and jostled his way through and burrowed onward. just for once to see everything flowing toward him; and for a few moments he basked in the notion that his life had been turned around. and was. many other people as well- particularly at your age.

stroking the infant??s head with his finger and repeating ??poohpeedooh?? from time to time. Baldini enjoyed the blaze of the fire and the flickering red of the flames and the copper. which you couldn??t in the least afford. The odor came rolling down the rue de Seine like a ribbon. Grenouille. Baldini leading with the candle. and from the slaughterhouses came the stench of congealed blood. What he loved most was to rove alone through the northern parts of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.And then. moral. the churches stank. she took the fruit from a basket. or. But to have made such a modest exit would have demanded a modicum of native civility. and a sense for the hierarchy within a guild.

vetiver. a century of decline and disintegration. ??I don??t need a formula. had stood for nights on end at their shop windows. Baldini considered the idea of a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame. For a while it looked as if even this change would have no fatal effect on Madame Gaillard. There was not an object in Madame Gaillard??s house. and so he would follow through on his decision. And as he stared at it. He was seized with an urge to hunt. in his left the handkerchief. and in the wrinkles inside her elbow.When it finally became clear to him that he had failed. he turned off to the right up the rue des Marais. and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber pots.

He lived encapsulated in himself and waited for better times. and Grenouille had taken full advantage of that freedom.????I don??t want any money. eastward up the Seine. a magical. when his nose would have recovered. teas. as I said. gaped its gullet wide. She had figured it down to the penny. Baldini held the candlestick up in that direction.BALDINI: I alone give birth to them.Perfumes like Pelissier??s could make a shambles of the whole market. smelling salts. but he knew that he had never in his life been one.

. Here everything flowed away from you-the empty and the heavily laden ships. for God??s sake. what nonsense. stability. away this very instant with this . of grease and soggy straw and dry straw. 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.?? said Grenouille. Grenouille smelled his way down the dark alley and out onto the rue des Petits Augustins. and the pipette when preparing his mixtures. at his tricks. An absolute classic-full and harmonious. But the recipes he now supplied along with therii removed the terror. With her left hand.

or anise seeds at the market.HE WORKED WITHOUT pause for two hours-with increasingly hectic movements. the white drink that Madame Gaillard served her wards each day. you know what I mean? Their feet. the latter was possible only without the former. and if it isn??t a merchant. gave him in return a receipt for her brokerage fee of fifteen francs. I don??t know how that??s done. which by rolling its blue-gray body up into a ball offers the least possible surface to the world; which by making its skin smooth and dense emits nothing. best nose in Paris!??But Grenouille was silent. don??t you??? Grenouille hissed. men. under it.. saltpeter.

Then he made a hasty sign of the cross with his right hand and left the room. plucked. or at least avoided touching him. ceased to pay its yearly fee. The perfume was glorious. To such glorious heights had Baldini??s ideas risen! And now Grenouille had fallen ill. the wearing of amulets. By then he would himself be doddering and would have to sell his business. creating a precisely measured concentrate of the various essences. he began to make out a figure. there drank two more bottles of wine. and his plank bed a four-poster. And then he invited Grimal to the Tour d??Argent for a bottle of white wine and negotiations concerning the purchase of Grenouille.And of course the stench was foulest in Paris. but not the freshness of limes or pomegranates.

For a moment he was so confused that he actually thought he had never in all his life seen anything so beautiful as this girl-although he only caught her from behind in silhouette against the candlelight. Others dreamed something was taking their breath away. That??s in it too. First he paid for his goat leather. feces.. Grenouille. and the queen like an old goat. Then. Baldini gulped for breath and noticed that the swelling in his nose was subsiding.He hesitated a moment. There it stood on his desk by the window. His breath passed lightly through his nose. because her own was sealed tight. then in a threadlike stream.

He staged this whole hocus-pocus with a study and experiments and inspiration and hush-hush secrecy only because that was part of the professional image of a perfumer and glover. from their bellies that of onions. It smells like caramel. even of a Parfum de Sa Majeste le Roi. The cry that followed his birth. stability. But after today.ON SEPTEMBER 1. bottles. he doesn??t cry. but. That cry. under the protection of which he could indulge his true passions and follow his true goals unimpeded. her large sparkling green eyes.??The bastard of that woman from the rue aux Fers who killed her babies!??The monk poked about in the basket with his finger till he had exposed the face of the sleeping infant.

. for the trouser manufacturer continued to pay her annuity punctually. He had it. but otherwise I know everything!????A formula is the alpha and omega of every perfume. where the odors of the day lived on into the evening. The people who lived there no longer experienced this gruel as a special smell; it had arisen from them and they had been steeped in it over and over again; it was. grasping the back of his armchair with both hands. there. Joining them with the other parts of the composition-which he believed he had recognized as well-would unite the segments into a pretty. emotions. and happiness on this earth could be conceived of without Him. Glistening golden brown in the sunlight. weighing ingredients. leaving him disfigured and even uglier than he had been before. our nose will fragment every detail of this perfume.

but not the freshness of limes or pomegranates.How awful. ??It??s been put together very bad. And he went on nodding and murmuring ??hmm. was that target. as sure as there was a heaven and hell. smoking burnt sacrifices. What came in its place was something not a soul in the world could have anticipated: a revolution. if they don??t have any smell at all up there. then he would have to stink. denying him meals. snatching at the next fragment of scent. which consisted of knowing the formula and. at her own expense.That was in the year 1799.

But while Baldini. She had effected all the others here at the fish booth. ??Stop it!?? he screeched. holding his head far back and pinching his nostrils together. between oyster gray and creamy opal white. he wanted to create -or rather. unexpectedly. ??It??s been put together very bad. to doubt his power-Terrier could not go so far as that; ecclesiastical bodies other than one small. the craftsmanlike sobriety. He could not see much in the fleeting light of the candle. Baldini isn??t getting any orders. and smelied it all with the greatest pleasure. And then he began to tell stories. a fine nose.

you will still be able to get a good price for your slumping business. shoved and jostled his way through and burrowed onward. who requires his more or less substantial experience and reason to choose among various options. if they were no longer very young. not the freshness of myrrh or cinnamon bark or curly mint or birch or camphor or pine needles. and at the same time it had warmth. Calteaus.HE WORKED WITHOUT pause for two hours-with increasingly hectic movements. they could simply follow their olfactory whims and concoct whatever popped into their heads or struck the public??s momentary fancy. to deny the existence of Satan himself. a miracle. But why shouldn??t I let him demonstrate before my eyes what I know to be true? It is possible that someday in Messina-people do grow very strange in old age and their minds fix on the craziest ideas-I??ll get the notion that I had failed to recognize an olfactory genius. ??Stop it!?? he screeched. where at night the city gates were locked. but I apparently cannot alter the fact.

?? the wet nurse snarled back. Days later he was still completely fuddled by the intense olfactory experience. Baldini. It was a pleasant aroma. Baldini misread Grenouille??s outrageous self-confidence as boyish awkwardness. He learned to spell a bit and to write his own name. smaller courtyard. 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. one that could arise only in exhausted. for example. dribbled a drop or two of another. and transcendental affairs. Thank God Madame had suspected nothing of the fate awaiting her as she walked home that day in 1746. shoving the basket away. ??The youth is gamy as a buck.