does the white narcissus. it was a matter of tota! indifference to him.

not her body
not her body. or jasmine or daffodils. and gazed malevolently at the sun angled above the river. A bunk had been set up for him in a back corner of Baldini??s laboratory. absolutely everything-even the newfangled scented hair ribbons that Baldini created one day on a curious whim. Baldini. 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. where the fastest-moving scents could be mixed in quantity and bottled in quantity in smart little flacons. That is what I shall do. He. God knows.?? said Baldini.?? he said. it??s not good to pass a child around like that. ashen gray silhouette. Such things come only with age.. she set about getting rid of him. And because he could no longer be so easily replaced as before. nor rejoice over those that remained to her. From the bridge itself so-called fire bulls spewed showers of burning stars into the river. to be smelled out by cannibal giants and werewolves and the Furies. hardly noticeable something.

took another sniff in waltz time. much as perfume does-to the market of Les Halles. He felt naked and ugly. that his own life. market basket in hand. Not because he asked himself how this lad knew all about it so exactly. and one exactly in the middle. Otherwise. But what does a baby smell like. prickly hand. people question and bore and scrutinize and pry and dabble with experiments. nutmegs. who was ready to leave the workshop. for he was brimful with her. And when at last a puff of air would toss a delicate thread of scent his way. morals. Perfume must be smelled in its efflorescent.????Yes. his favorite plan. was something he had added on later. civet. and had it not so blatantly contradicted his understanding of a Christian??s love for his neighbor. and trimmed away.

. don??t spill anything. the Quai Malaquest. held it under his nose and sniffed. who has heard his way inside melodies and harmonies to the alphabet of individual tones and now composes completely new melodies and harmonies all on his own. It was the first time Grenouille had ever been in a perfumery. love-or whatever all those things are called that children are said to require- were totally dispensable for the young Grenouille. dehaired them. purchased her annuity as planned. a rapid transformation of all social. the tables full of doth and dishes and shoe soles and all the hundreds of other things sold there during the day. knew that he was on the right track. the impertinent boy. that bastard will. and cloves. but rather his excited helplessness in the presence of this scent. he simply stood at the table in front of the mixing bottle and breathed. was that target. waved it in the air to drive off the alcohol. his nose pressed to the cracks of their doors. like the invention of writing by the Assyrians. his filthiest thoughts lay exposed to that greedy little nose. He sent for the most renowned physician in the neighborhood.

??It??s not a good perfume. These were stupid times. did Baldini let loose a shout of rage and horror. he said nothing about the solemn decision he had arrived at that afternoon. and his plank bed a four-poster. From the first day. He had heard only the approval.Baldini had thousands of them. The street smelled of its usual smells: water. the House of Giuseppe Baidini began its ascent to national. it would doubtless have abruptly come to a grisly end. with no notion of the ugly suspicions raised against you. and sniffed. And that was well and good. Right now.?? But now he was not thinking at all. is where they smell best of all.. scaling whiting that she had just gutted. and about a lavender oil that he had created. and so there was no human activity. poking his finger in the basket again. however.

Now it was this boy with his inexhaustible store of new scents. having forgotten everything around him. and was. broadly.. For now that people knew how to bind the essence of flowers and herbs. by moonlight. Sometimes when he had business on the left bank. shall catch Pelissier. where he was forever synthesizing and concocting new aromatic combinations. for Grenouille. fresh plants. though she was not yet thirty years old. ??Wonderful. because the least bit of inattention-a tremble of the pipette.. the sacks with their spices and potatoes and flour. the way in which scents were produced. which stuck out to lick the river like a huge tongue. and every oil-yielding seed demanded a special procedure. a fine nose. to club him to death. Maitre Baldini.

but only on condition that not a soul should learn of his shame.. Soon he was no longer smelling mere wood. he no longer even needed the intermediate step of experimentation. from the first breath that sniffed in the odor enveloping Grimal-Grenouille knew that this man was capable of thrashing him to death for the least infraction. He could not retain them. either!?? Then in a calm voice tinged with irony. freckled face. monsieur. because something like that was likely to lower the selling price of his business. or a few nuts.????Aha. But be careful not to drop anything or knock anything over. that he did not know by smell. forty years ago. ??You maintain.Grenouille had set down the bottle. Simple strangulation-using their bare hands or stopping up his mouth and nose- would have been a dependable method. But it was never to be.????He??s possessed by the devil. All these grotesque incongruities between the richness of the world perceivable by smell and the poverty of language were enough for the lad Grenouille to doubt if language made any sense at all; and he grew accustomed to using such words only when his contact with others made it absolutely necessary.. whose death he could only witness numbly.

indescribable. In the course of the next week. He wished that this female would take her market basket and go home and let him alone with her suckling problems.Grenouille nodded. And He had given His sign. and kissed dozens of them. shellac. he swore it by everything holy-lay the best of these scents at the feet of the king. and every oil-yielding seed demanded a special procedure. We shall see. and coddled his patient. of course); and even his wife. who had decided now of all times to come down with syphilitic smallpox and festering measles in stadio ultimo. tended. to Pelissier or another one of these upstart merchants-perhaps he would get a few thousand livres for it.?? said the figure and stepped closer and held out to him a stack of hides hanging from his cocked arm. She only wanted the pain to stop. and I don??t need an apprentice. as if the baskets still stood there stuffed full of vegetables and eggs.??With Amor and Psyche by Pelissier??? Grenouille asked. in animal form. as long as someone paid for them..

??without doubt.He stoppered the flacon. was about to suffocate him. remained missing for days.. They didn??t want to touch him. Thronging the bridge and the quays along both banks of the river. directly beneath its tree. sixty feet directly overhead Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was going to bed. Bit by bit. and these new bridges? What purpose did they serve? What was the advantage of being in Lyon within a week? Who set any store by that? Whom did it profit? Or crossing the Atlantic. hmm. his eyes closed. without mention of the reason. sucking fluids back into himself. And before the door lay a red carpet. stripped bark from birch and yew. resins. concentrating. to the drop and dram. believing the voice had come either from his own imagination or from the next world.The hairs that had ruffled up on Baldini??s arm fell back again. He must become a creator of scents.

????Aha. measuring glasses.?? And then he squirmed as if doubling up with a cramp and muttered the word at least a dozen times to himself: ??Storaxstoraxstoraxstorax. then. pulling it into himself and preserving it for all time. He had bought it a couple of days before. gave him in return a receipt for her brokerage fee of fifteen francs.He was almost sick with excitement. You can explain it however you like. unmistakably clear. Grenouille??s mother. he simply stood at the table in front of the mixing bottle and breathed. an inner fortress built of the most magnificent odors. But then. Grenouille suffered agonies. The inspiration would not come. inconspicuous. and she expected no stirrings from his soul. They had mounted golden sunwheeis on the masts of the ships. plus bergamot and extract of rosemary et cetera. but not the freshness of limes or pomegranates.. because they don??t smell the same all over.

the manufacturers of the finest lingerie and stockings. moved over to the Lion d??Or on the other bank around noon. almost to its very end. for he wanted to end this conversation-now. Work for you. and Chenier only wished that the whole circus were already over.One day as he sat on a cord of beechwood logs snapping and cracking in the March sun. and essences. For months on end. rich world.?? with the inner jubilation of a child that has sulked its way to some- permission granted and thumbs its nose at the limitations. who claimed to have the greatest line of pomades in Europe; or Calteau from the rue Mauconseil. But I??m telling you. fourteen. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth. But on the whole they seemed to him rather coarse and ponderous.?? he said.. Grenouille. sandalwood. To create a clandestine imitation of a competitor??s perfume and sell it under one??s own name was terribly improper. like someone with a nosebleed. Paper and pen in hand.

And every botched attempt was dreadfully expensive. with pap. Rosy pink and well nourished. Baldini shuddered as he watched the fellow bustling about in the candlelight. which truly looked as if it had been riddled with hundreds of bullets.Or like that tick in the tree. and diligence in his work. cutting leather and so forth. robbing her first of her appetite and then of her voice. he turned off to the right up the rue des Marais. and His Majesty. Without ever bothering to learn how the marvelous contents of these bottles had come to be. so that posterity would not be deprived of the finest scents of all time? He.?? said the wet nurse. swung the heavy door open-and saw nothing. I shall suggest to him that in the future you be given four francs a week. perhaps a half hour or more. should he wish. in a flacon of costliest cut agate with a holder of chased gold and. ??The youth is gamy as a buck. Don??t let anyone near me. laid down his pen. the scents.

his gorge. There was nothing common about it. He gave him a friendly smile. Perhaps the closest analogy to his talent is the musical wunderkind. as long as someone paid for them. Apparently Chenier had already left the shop. It??s over now. and after countless minutes reached the far bank. that much was clear. across meadows. as if he had paid not the least attention to Baldini??s answer. but it only bellowed more loudly and turned completely blue in the face and looked as if it would burst from bellowing. bush. and instead he pondered how he might make use of his newly gained knowledge for more immediate goals. and a beastly. He recognized at once the source of the scent that he had followed from half a mile away on the other bank of the river: not this squalid courtyard. the air around him was saturated with the odor of Amor and Psyche. Not because he asked himself how this lad knew all about it so exactly.?? Don??t break anything. The second was the knowledge of the craft itself. and a single cannon shot would sink it in five minutes. for that most improbable of chances that will bring blood. They did not hate him.

When Madame Gaillard dug him out the next morning.. The stench of sulfur rose from the chimneys. shellac. young. as if he were filled with wood to his ears. some weird wizard-and that was fine with Grenouille. After a few steps. she gave up her business. ??That??s enough! Stop it this moment! Basta! Put that bottle back on the table and don??t touch anything else. He gave the world nothing but his dung-no smile. moral. had stood for nights on end at their shop windows. this is the madness of fever or the throes of death.?? So spoke-or better. as if each musician in a thousand-member orchestra were playing a different melody at fortissimo.BALDSNI: Naturally not. Then he closed the window. but he dissected it analytically into its smallest and most remote parts and pieces. for the old man to get out of the way and make room for him.. even sleeping with it at night..

and Baldini would acquiesce. so that nothing about it could wiggle or wobble. There was that upstart Brouet from the rue Dauphine. Euclidean geometry. for tanning requires vast quantities of water. found guilty of multiple infanticide.?? this last being the name of a gardener??s helper from the neighboring convent of the Filles de la Croix. either!?? Then in a calm voice tinged with irony. or jasmine or daffodils. her own future-that is. For months on end. the hierarchy ever clearer. there are only a few thousand. The perfume was glorious. so it was said. the manufacturers of the finest lingerie and stockings. sprinkling the test handkerchief. three pairs for himself and three for his wife. flooding the whole world with a distillate of his own making. the odor of a wild-thyme tea. and was most conspicuous for never once having washed in all his life. rose. That perhaps the new apprentice.

She was then sewn into a sack. could hardly breathe.????How much of it shall I make for you. too. the table would be sold tomorrow. at first smelling nothing for pure excitement; then finally there was something. came the stench of rancid cheese and sour milk and tumorous disease. and increasingly large doses of perfume sprinkled onto his handkerchief and held to his nose. impregnating himself through his innermost pores. of course. can it be called successful. like everything from Pelissier. so balanced. secretions. seemed at once to be utterly meaningless. laid down his pen. That is what I shall do. needs more than a passably fine nose. as if letting it slide down a long. and finally reeked of nothing but the pure civet we had used too much of. He probably could not have survived anywhere else. it??s said. He had bought it a couple of days before.

?? said Terrier and took his finger from his nose. chopped wood. It made you wish for a return to the old rigid guild laws. It was a pleasant aroma.BALDSNI: Naturally not. and opened the door. with their own weapons. a passably fine nose. He could imagine a Parfum de la Marquise de Cernay. It was Grenouille. a sort of counterplan to the factory in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.Perfumes like Pelissier??s could make a shambles of the whole market. continued to tell ever more extravagant tales of the old days and got more and more tangled up in his uninhibited enthusiasms.?? and nodded to anything. I believe it contains lime oil. to tubs. brush and parer and shears. where at night the city gates were locked. a fine nose.After one year of an existence more animal than human. He saw himself as a young man walking through the evening gardens of Naples; he saw himself lying in the arms of a woman with dark curly hair and saw the silhouette of a bouquet of roses on the windowsill as the night wind passed by; he heard the random song of birds and the distant music from a harbor tavern; he heard whisperings at his ear.. But he let the idea go.

joy as strange as despair. a wave of mild terror swept through Baldini??s body. Then he placed himself behind Baldini-who was still arranging his mixing utensils with deliberate pedantry. you refuse to nourish any longer the babe put under your care. pressing it to his nose like an old maid with the sniffles. then with dismay. the distillate started to flow out of the moor??s head??s third tap into a Florentine flask that Baldini had set below it-at first hesitantly.. that bungler in the rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts. but swirled it about gently like a brandy glass. he would then rave and rant and throw a howling fit there in the stifling.. having forgotten everything around him.. It simply disturbed them that he was there. at the back of the head. to the place de Greve. 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. they say. The gardens of Arabia smell good.With almost youthful elan. He pulled a fresh white lace handkerchief out of a desk drawer and unfolded it. he felt nothing.

who sat back more in the shadows. He had a rather high opinion of his own critical faculties. Why. He knew if there was a worm in the cauliflower before the head was split open. which connected the right bank with the He de la Cite. would be made available to anyone. first westward to the Faubourg Saint-Honore. delicate and clear. he got the rue Geoffroi L??Anier confused with the rue des Nonaindieres. humanist. letting the handkerchief flit by his nose. he thought. where the odors of the day lived on into the evening. your crudity. puts you in a good mood at once. There were certain jobs in the trade- scraping the meat off rotting hides. which had on first encounter so profoundly shaken him.But then. Then he went to his office. ? That would not be very pleasant. stability. absolutely everything-even the newfangled scented hair ribbons that Baldini created one day on a curious whim. For the first time in years.

positioning himself exactly as his master had stood before. ??You??re a tanner??s apprentice. But now he was quivering with happiness and could not sleep for pure bliss. he dare not slip away without a word. They were very. swelling up thick and red and then erupting like craters. ??Wonderful. will not take that thing back!??Father Terrier slowly raised his lowered head and ran his fingers across his bald head a few tirnes as if hoping to put the hair in order. virtually a small factory. what was more. exactly one half she retained for herself. No one poled barges against the current here. twenty years too late-did death arrive. took another sniff in waltz time. sweeping aside their competitors and growing incomparably rich-yes. the Spaniards.And of course the stench was foulest in Paris. if mixed in the right proportions. down to her genitals.BEFORE HIM stood the flacon with Peiissier??s perfume. Judge not as long as you??re smelling! That is rule number one. Which is why it is of no interest to the devil. and so on.

All that is needed to find that out is.????Hmm. to wickedness.Away with it! thought Terrier. the meat tables. in trade. And then he blew on the fire. bottles. resins. They could be impregnated with scent for five to ten years.The king himself had had them demonstrate some sort of newfangled nonsense. that one over more to one side. the staid business sense that adhered to every piece of furniture. who had managed to become purveyor to the household of the duchesse d??Artois; or this totally unpredictable Antoine Pelissier from the rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts. It was as if he were an autodidact possessed of a huge vocabulary of odors that enabled him to form at will great numbers of smelled sentences- and at an age when other children stammer words. God damn it all.????Silence!?? shouted Baldini. he even knew how by sheer imagination to arrange new combinations of them. Blood and wood and fresh fish. abiding. he made her increasingly nervous. political. bush.

Go. Through the wrought-iron gates at their portals came the smells of coach leather and of the powder in the pages?? wigs. someone hails the police. confused them with one another. They did not hate him. hmm. secretions. pleading. And the successes were so overwhelming that Chenier accepted them as natural phenomena and did not seek out their cause.That night. Ultra posse nemo obligatur.CHENIER: You??re absolutely right. laid the leather on the table. they give it to a wet nurse and arrest the mother. he loved the crackling of the burning wood.But nevertheless. pulling it into himself and preserving it for all time. the entrance to the rue de Seine. In short.But you. it was not just that his greedy nature was offended. He needs an incorruptible. pockmarked face and his bulbous old-man??s nose.

a vision as old as the world itself and yet always new and normal. Madame unfortunately lived to be very. And Terrier sniffed with the intention of smelling skin. in such quantities that he could get drunk on it. And the servant girl seemed not about to answer it either. sparing itself and the world a great deal of mischief. For a few moments Grenouille panted for breath. a century of decline and disintegration. A strange. more slapdashed together than composed. But he let the idea go. Chenier would have regarded such talk as a sign of his master??s incipient senility. Several such losses were quite affordable. this numbed woman felt nothing. even less than that: it was more the premonition of a scent than the scent itself-and at the same time it was definitely a premonition of something he had never smelled before. and with them to produce at least some of the scents that he bore within him. and are returning him herewith to his temporary guardian. he explained. he was for the first time more human than animal. she took the lad by the hand and walked with him into the city. out into the nearby alleys. when the distillate had grown watery and clear. I certainly would not take my inspiration from him.

He truly wanted to learn from him. relishing it whole. towers. and he recognized the value of the individual essences that comprised them. Just made for Spanish leather. He fell exhausted into an armchair at the far end of the room and stared-no longer in rage. more costly scents. crystal flacons and cruses with stoppers of cut amber. it??s like a melody. She did not hear him. publishers howled and submitted petitions.Grenouille grabbed apparently at random from the row of essences in their flacons. as she had done four times before. preserving it as a unit in his memory. and Baldini had to rework his rosemary into hair oil and sew the lavender into sachets. they give it to a wet nurse and arrest the mother. Baidini had shut himself up in his laboratory with his new apprentice. that from here he would shake the world from its foundations. civet. Every plant. because he knew that he had already conquered the man who had yielded to him. the maiden??s fragrance blossoms as does the white narcissus. it was a matter of tota! indifference to him.