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The yield was frightfully small The liquid fro was left from the scent of hundreds of thousands of blossoms except those three flacons But they orth a fortune, even here in Grasse And worth how much more once delivered to Paris or Lyon, to Grenoble, Genoa, or Marseille! Madalance was suffused with beauty when she looked at the little bottles, she caressed them with her eyes; and when she picked thelass stoppers, she held her breath to prevent even the least bit of the precious contents fro not the tiniest atom would evaporate and escape, she sealed thehtly tied around the neck of the bottle Then she placed them in a crate stuffed added cotton and put them under lock and key in the cellar

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In April they e blossoed the city in a crea for a wholeand as acquiescent as a slave, he did every ned him But all the while he stirred, spatulated, washed out tubs, cleaned the workshop, or lugged fireith apparentof the metamorphosis of scent, escaped his notice Grenouille used his nose to observe and ration of scent of the flower petals—through the oil and then via alcohol to the precious little flacons Long before Druot noticed it, he would smell when the oil was overheated, smell when the blossonated with scent He could s pots and the precisehad to be stopped And occasionally he let this be known—of course, quite unassu his subht possibly be getting too hot; he alht that they could filter shortly; he so that the alcohol in the alembic had evaporated now… And in tient, but not a complete idiot either, came to realize that his decisions turned out for the best when he did or ordered to be done whatever Grenouille “al about” And since Grenouille was never cocky or know-it-all when he said what he thought or felt, and because he never—particularly never in the presence of Madame Arnulfi!—cast Druot’s authority and superior position of first journeyman in doubt, not even ironically, Druot saw no reason not to follow Grenouille’s advice or, as time went on, not to leave more and more decisions entirely to his discretion

It was increasingly the case that Grenouille did not just do the stirring, but also the feeding, the heating, and the sieving, while Druot stepped round to the Quatre Dauphins for a glass of wine or went upstairs to check out how things were doing with Madah italone, perfecting hi an occasional experiht, he discovered that the pomades he made were incomparably finer, that his essence absolue was several percent purer than those that he produced together with Druot

Jasust was for tuberoses The perfuile that not only did the blossoms have to be picked before sunrise, but they also de Ware the oil would have completely destroyed it The souls of these noblest of blossoms could not be simply ripped from them, they had to beroolass plates smeared with cool oil or wrapped in oil-soaked cloths; there they would die slowly in their sleep It took three or four days for the oil Then they were carefully plucked off and new blossoood ten, twenty times, and it was Septerant oil could be pressed from the cloths The yield was considerably less than with maceration But in purity and verisimilitude, the quality of the jasmine paste or the huile antique de tubéreuse won by such a cold enfleurage exceeded that of any other product of the perfumer’s art Particularly with jase that radiated the sticky-sweet, erotic scent of the blossorano salis, of course For Grenouille’s nose obviously recognized the difference between the odor of the blossoms and their preserved scent: the specific odor of the oil—no rant tableau of the original, softening it, gently diluting its bravado—and, perhaps, only thenits beauty bearable for nore was the most refined and effective method to capture delicate scents There was no better And even if the h completely to satisfy Grenouille’s nose, he knew quite well that it would suffice a thousand ti a world of numbed noses

Just as with maceration, after only a brief time he had likewise surpassed his tutor Druot in the art of cold perfumery—and had roveling fashion Druot gladly left it to hihterhouse and buy the most suitable fats, to purify and render them, to filter them and adjust their proportions—a terribly difficult task that Druot hi, since an adulterated or rancid fat, or one that s, sheep, or cow, could ruin the e the oiled plates in the i room, when to rotate the blossonated Druot soon let Grenouille make all the delicate decisions that he, just as Baldini before him, could only approximate with rules of thu the wisdo Druot, of course, did not suspect

“He’s got a fine touch,” said Druot “He’s got a good feel for things” And soht: Really and truly, he is more talented than me, a hundred times a better perfumer And all the while he considered him to be a total nitwit, because Grenouille—or so he believed—did not cash in at all on his talent, whereas he, Druot, even with his ifts, would soon becoed hiery and not a hint of aenius and werethe orders of the more experienced Druot, without who quite well

Then cas were quieter in the workshop The floral scents lay captive in their crocks and flacons in the cellar, and if Madame did not wish some pomade or other to be washed or for a sack of dried spices to be distilled, there was not all that much to do There were still the olives, a couple of basketfuls every week They pressed the virgin oil froh the oil mill And wine, some of which Grenouille distilled to rectified spirit

Druot made himself more and more scarce He did his duty in Mada of sweat and semen, it was only to head off at once for the Quatre Dauphins Nor did Madame come downstairs often She was busy with her invest her wardrobe for the period that would follow her year of ht often see no one except thebread and olives He hardly went out at all He took part in corporate life—in the regular s and processions of the journeyh as to be conspicuous neither by his absence nor by his presence He had no friends or close acquaintances, but took careful pains not to be considered arrogant or a misfit He left it to the other journeymen to find his society dull and unprofitable He was athe clu

ht enjoyfun of him or use hiuild He succeeded in being considered totally uninteresting People left him alone And that was all he wanted

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He spent his ti to invent a forne In reality, however, he was experih he had used it very sparingly, the perfu out He created a new one But this time he was not content siether soredients; he made it a matter of pride to acquire a personal odor, or better yet, a number of personal odors