Israel Defense Forces at work. Some rights reserved.
“Streets stank of manure, the courtyards of urine, the stairwells stank of mouldering wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlours stank of stale dust, the bedrooms of greasy sheets, damp featherbeds, and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber-pots… There was no human activity, either constructive or destructive of germinating or decaying life, that was not accompanied by stench.”
Patrick Süskind’s celebrated novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer takes place in eighteenth-century France. The story revolves around an exceptional perfume apprentice by the name of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille who, at the beginning of the story, receives training from an aged Parisian perfumer. Grenouille’s mentor warns him that “the persuasive power of an odour cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.”
