Fragrances Short Quotes

You look at me, you look at me closely, each time closer and then we play cyclops, we look at each other closer each time and our eyes grow, they grow closer, they overlap and the cyclops look at each other, breathing confusion, their mouths find each other and fight warmly, biting with their lips, resting their tongues lightly on their teeth, playing in their caverns where the heavy air comes and goes with the scent of an old perfume and silence. Then my hands want to hide in your hair, slowly stroke the depth of your hair while we kiss with mouths full of flowers or fish, of living movements, of dark fragrance. And if we bite each other, the pain is sweet, and if we drown in a short and terrible surge of breath, that instant death is beauty. And there is a single saliva and a single flavour of ripe fruit, and I can feel you shiver against me like a moon on the water.

fragrance of the short grass and sturdy mountain-plants, for the way is steep and leads directly up to the summits above.

In short, Fatima knew a flower’s fragrance, color, and purpose better than a bee.

From the old and pleasantly situated village of Mayenfeld, a footpath winds through green and shady meadows to the foot of the mountains, which on this side look down from their stern and lofty heights upon the valley below. The land grows gradually wilder as the path ascends, and the climber has not gone far before he begins to inhale the fragrance of the short grass and sturdy mountain plants, for the way is steep and leads directly up to the summits above.

Blood has an oder faint but distinct, of conceit and modesty, of courage and cowardice, of charity and greed, of faith and doubt, in short the fragrance of what we might have been and the smell of what we are...

She was perhaps seventeen when it happened. She was in Central Park, in New York. It was too warm for such an early spring day, and the hammered brown slopes had a dusting of green of precisely the consistency of that morning's hoarfrost on the rocks. But the frost was gone and the grass was brave and tempted some hundreds of pairs of feet from the asphalt and concrete to tread on it. Hers were among them. The sprouting soil was a surprise to her feet, as the air was to her lungs. Her feet ceased to be shoes as she walked, her body was consciously more than clothes. It was the only kind of day which in itself can make a city-bred person raise his eyes. She did. For a moment she felt separated from the life she lived, in which there was no fragrance, no silence, in which nothing ever quite fit nor was quite filled. In that moment the ordered disapproval of the buildings around the pallid park could not reach her; for two, three clean breaths it no longer mattered that the whole wide world really belongs to images projected on a screen; to gently groomed goddesses in these steel-and-glass towers; that it belonged, in short, always, always to someone else.

James Heron dreamed he was once more in the abandoned tunnels on Mars. As he walked, the barren rocky landscape transformed into hills of tangled vegetation. Lightning played in tall cumulus clouds in a darkening sky, and the sky was definitely an Earth sky, not a Martian one. He seemed to have companions, but their clothing was strange—very old fashioned, in fact, as if they belonged in the nineteenth century. He didn’t recognise the landscape, but it seemed to be on Earth, and the group, several youths and a few older men, appeared to be suffering from the heat, plucking their shirts which displayed damp patches of perspiration. A short distance ahead of him walked a heavily built man who evidently was not enjoying the walk in the heat, his face flushed crimson and perspiring profusely. The sky darkened and large drops of rain pelted the group, and they increased their pace. His view changed slightly as someone behind him called something he could not quite hear. The lightning seemed to be getting closer, and he and a companion—a youth, he noted ran for cover. He could smell the rain on the wet earth, and the fragrance of the vegetation intensified. He could feel the tension of the group—their fear perhaps? Suddenly there was a blinding flash that seemed to engulf him—and then he jolted awake bathed in perspiration.

In my mind, no other flower can compete with the perfection and the fragrance of the Peony. The silky petals, delicate shape, romantic shades and graceful foliage make this flower my all time favorite and I’m not alone. Brides plan their wedding dates around peony season. Flower enthusiasts plant them all through their gardens. Florists go crazy over all the different shades available from white, to coral, yellow to reds and every imaginable pink!  Sadly, this bloom can only be enjoyed in nature for a very short time each year. That’s the reason their paper counterparts have become such a hit!

From the old and pleasantly situated village of Mayenfeld, a footpath winds through green and shady meadows to the foot of the mountains, which on this side look down from their stern and lofty heights upon the valley below. The land grows gradually wilder as the path ascends, and the climber has not gone far before he begins to inhale the fragrance of the short grass and sturdy mountain plants, for the way is steep and leads directly up to the summits above. On a clear sunny morning in June two figures might be seen climbing the narrow mountain path; one, a tall strong-looking girl, the other a child whom she was leading by the hand, and whose little checks were so aglow with heat that the crimson color could be seen even through the dark, sunburned skin.

I said we’re cool,” I repeat, but I misjudged the distance between my lips and Summer’s ear. The two collide, and I feel a shiver run up her frame. I shiver too, because my mouth is way too close to hers. She smells like heaven, some fascinating combo of flowers and jasmine and vanilla and—sandalwood, maybe? A man could get high on that fragrance. And don’t get me started on her dress. White, strapless, short. So short it barely grazes her lower thighs. God fucking help me. I quickly straighten up before I do something stupid, like kiss her. Instead, I take a huge gulp of my beer. Only it goes down the wrong pipe, and I start coughing like it’s the eighteenth century and I’m a tuberculosis patient. Smooth move.

Flower, one of  the Beautiful creation  of this world... It is colourful, smellful, has exceptional variations & expensive... Useful for mankind & others in numerous ways... But It's life is short... The fragrance can be utilised until It's alive... We humans have a long life, With same qualities as a flower... Utilise it in a way that life will be a fragrant one for all... Good Morning ! HAVE A FRAGRANT LIFE !!!

The pouring rain was over in a short while, and, as it usually happens in summer after the storm, the air filled up with the intoxicating freshness of ozone and inebriant fragrance of the evening violets blooming along the road.

In my humdrum life I was exalted one day by perfumes exhaled by a world that had been so bland. They were the troubling heralds of love. Suddenly love itself had come, with its roses and its flutes, sculpting, papering, closing, perfuming everything around it. Love had blended with the most immense breath of the thoughts themselves, the respiration that, without weakening love, had made it infinite. But what did I know about love itself? Did I, in any way, clarify its mystery, and did I know anything about it other than the fragrance of its sadness and the smell of its fragrances? Then, love went away, and the perfumes, from shattered flagons, were exhaled with a purer intensity. The scent of a weakened drop still impregnates my life.

From the old and pleasantly situated village of Mayenfeld, a footpath winds through green and shady meadows to the foot of the mountains, which on this side look down from their stern and lofty heights upon the valley below. The land grows gradually wilder as the path ascends, and the climber has not gone far before he begins to inhale the fragrance of the short grass and sturdy mountain-plants, for the way is steep and leads directly up to the summits above. On a clear sunny morning in June two figures might be seen climbing the narrow mountain path; one, a tall strong-looking girl, the other a child whom she was leading by the hand, and whose little checks were so aglow with heat that the crimson color could be seen even through the dark, sunburnt skin.

First, there's the rose— the queen of the flowers; she's so beautiful and her fragrance is so intoxicating that it goes to everyone's head, most of all her own. The rose is beautiful, sweet-smelling and elegant, but if things aren't going her way, she shows her thorns. She's like a spoiled child—beautiful, elegant and seemingly nice as can be, but if you touch her or talk to someone else so that she's no longer the center of attention, out come her claws.

Memories appear in flashes of light, in short scenes, in reflections that can make us laugh or bring us to tears. They might come in on a sneaker wave of grief, or be buoyed up from our past by a certain fragrance in the air, or a sound from afar. The essence of memoir, I suppose, is that it could better be described as “re-memory.” We don’t just look back at an event in our past; we are remembering the memory of what happened. It’s a bit like putting the laundry through

The air was steeped with the heady fragrance of roses, as if the entire hall had been rinsed with expensive perfume. "Good Lord!" she exclaimed, stopping short at the sight of massive bunches of flowers being brought in from a cart outside. Mountains of white roses, some of them tightly furled buds, some in glorious full bloom. Two footmen had been recruited to assist the driver of the cart, and the three of them kept going outside to fetch bouquet after bouquet wrapped in stiff white lace paper. "Fifteen dozen of them," Marcus said brusquely. "I doubt there's a single white rose left in London." Aline could not believe how fast her heart was beating. Slowly she moved forward and drew a single rose from one of the bouquets. Cupping the delicate bowl of the blossom with her fingers, she bent her head to inhale its lavish perfume. Its petals were a cool brush of silk against her cheek. "There's something else," Marcus said. Following his gaze, Aline saw the butler directing yet another footman to pry open a huge crate filled with brick-sized parcels wrapped in brown paper. "What are they, Salter?" "With your permission, my lady, I will find out." The elderly butler unwrapped one of the parcels with great care. He spread the waxed brown paper open to reveal a damply fragrant loaf of gingerbread, its spice adding a pungent note to the smell of the roses. Aline put her hand over her mouth to contain a bubbling laugh, while some undefinable emotion caused her entire body to tremble. The offering worried her terribly, and at the same time, she was insanely pleased by the extravagance of it. "Gingerbread?" Marcus asked incredulously. "Why the hell would McKenna send you an entire crate of gingerbread?" "Because I like it," came Aline's breathless reply. "How do you know this is from McKenna?" Marcus gave her a speaking look, as if only an imbecile would suppose otherwise. Fumbling a little with the envelope, Aline extracted a folded sheet of paper. It was covered in a bold scrawl, the penmanship serviceable and without flourishes. No miles of level desert, no jagged mountain heights, no sea of endless blue Neither words nor tears, nor silent fears will keep me from coming back to you. There was no signature... none was necessary. Aline closed her eyes, while her nose stung and hot tears squeezed from beneath her lashes. She pressed her lips briefly to the letter, not caring what Marcus thought. "It's a poem," she said unsteadily. "A terrible one." It was the loveliest thing she had ever read. She held it to her cheek, then used her sleeve to blot her eyes. "Let me see it." Immediately Aline tucked the poem into her bodice. "No, it's private." She swallowed against the tightness of her throat, willing the surge of unruly emotion to recede. "McKenna," she whispered, "how you devastate me.

You’re going to get an F.” Spencer shifted the papers on his school desk and looked for a hundredth time at the graffiti in the corner. Last year’s occupant of the desk must have spent hours etching the message into the wooden surface. Dummy, Spencer thought. Couldn’t even spell cabbage. Truth be told, Mrs. Natcher did smell a little like cabbage sometimes, but she was still tolerable. Today, however, a strong Bath and Body Works fragrance filled the sixth-grade classroom and Mrs. Natcher was nowhere to be seen. In her place was a thin, younger woman who had short, stylish hair streaked with pink highlights. She wore high-heeled red shoes and a skirt so short that Mrs. Natcher would have croaked. Turned out that Mrs. Natcher had croaked—well, almost—which was why Miss Leslie Sharmelle had been called to Welcher Elementary that morning. Spencer glanced at the clock on the wall.

I see bacon, green peppers, mushrooms... those are all found in Napolitan Spaghetti. I guess instead of the standard ketchup, he's used curry roux for the sauce? The noodles look similar to fettuccini." "Hm. I'm not seeing anything else that stands out about it. Given how fun and amusing the calzone a minute ago was... ... the impact of this one's a lot more bland and boring..." W-what the heck? Where did this heavy richness come from? It hits like a shockwave straight to the brain! "Chicken and beef stocks for the base... with fennel and green cardamom for fragrance! What an excellent, tongue-tingling curry sauce! It clings well to the broad fettuccini noodles too!" "For extra flavor is that... soy sauce?" "No, it's tamari soy sauce! Tamari soy sauce is richer and less salty than standard soy sauce, with a more full-bodied sweetness to it. Most tamari is made on Japan's eastern seaboard. " "That's not all either! I'm picking up the mellow hints of cheese! But I'm not seeing a single shred of any kind of cheese in here. Where's it hiding?" "Allow me to tell you, sir. First, look at the short edge of a noodle, please." ?! What on earth?! This noodle's got three layers!" "For the outer layers, I kneaded turmeric into the pasta dough. But for the inner layer, I added Parmesan cheese!" "I see! It's the combination of the tamari soy sauce and the parmesan cheese that gives this dish its incredible richness!" "Yeah, but wait a minute! If you go kneading cheese right into the noodles, wouldn't it just melt back out when you boiled them?" No... that's why they're in three layers! With the cheese in the middle, the outer layers prevented it from melting out! The deep, rich curry sauce, underscored with the flavor of tamari soy sauce... ... and the chewy noodles, which hit you with the mellow, robust taste of parmesan cheese with every bite! Many people are familiar with the idea of coating cream cheese in soy sauce... ... but who would have thought parmesan cheese would match this well with tamari soy sauce!

In a little while the guest became sensible of the fragrance of the yet untasted coffee. He quaffed it eagerly. The subtle essence acted on him like a charmed draught, and caused the opaque substance of his animal being to grow transparent, or, at least, translucent; so that a spiritual gleam was transmitted through it, with a clearer lustre than hitherto. “More, more!” he cried, with nervous haste in his utterance, as if anxious to retain his grasp of what sought to escape him. “This is what I need! Give me more!” Under this delicate and powerful influence he sat more erect, and looked out from his eyes with a glance that took note of what it rested on. It was not so much that his expression grew more intellectual; this, though it had its share, was not the most peculiar effect. Neither was what we call the moral nature so forcibly awakened as to present itself in remarkable prominence. But a certain fine temper of being was now not brought out in full relief, but changeably and imperfectly betrayed, of which it was the function to deal with all beautiful and enjoyable things. In a character where it should exist as the chief attribute, it would bestow on its possessor an exquisite taste, and an enviable susceptibility of happiness. Beauty would be his life; his aspirations would all tend toward it; and, allowing his frame and physical organs to be in consonance, his own developments would likewise be beautiful.

Drowning in guilt and fear and desire, she tried to push his caressing hand away from her throat. His fingers delved into her hair with a grip just short of painful. His mouth was close to hers. He was surrounding her, all the strength and force and maleness of him, and she closed her eyes as her senses went quiet and dark in helpless waiting. "I'll make you tell me," she heard him mutter. And then she was kissing her. Somehow, Beatrix thought hazily, Christopher seemed to be under the impression she would find his kisses so objectionable that she would confess anything to make him desist. She couldn't think how he had come by such a notion. In fact, she couldn't really think at all. His mouth moved over hers in supple, intimate angles, until he found some perfect alignment that made her weak all over. She reached around his neck to keep from dropping bonelessly to the floor. Gathering her closer into the hard support of his body, he explored her slowly, the tip of his tongue stroking, tasting. Her body listed more heavily against his as her limbs became weighted with pleasure. She sensed the moment when his anger was eclipsed by passion, desire changing to white-hot need. Her fingers sank into his beautiful hair, the shorn locks heavy and vibrant, his scalp hot against her palms. With each inhalation, she drew in more of his fragrance, the trace of sandalwood on warm male skin. His mouth slid from hers and dragged roughly along her throat, crossing sensitive places that made her writhe. Blindly turning her face, she rubbed her lips against his ear. He drew in a sharp breath and jerked his head back. His hand came to her jaw, clamping firmly. "Tell me what you know," he said, his breath searing her lips. "Or I'll do worse than this. I'll take you here and now. Is that what you want?" As a matter of fact ...

Wishing to be enchanting like a flower that spreads fragrance and delighting in its life even though it's life is short.

Satrangi Re” is a compilation of Hindi stories encompassing unique colors of love, relations, friendship, parent-child associations, and passion & emotions. These are my stories, your stories, and stories of our lives. These are the stories of seven different colors, fragrances, and flavors which after placing them together make a splendid rainbow, a vibrant bouquet, and a scrumptious buffet of stories. So, what are you waiting for? Pick up your cup of tea, a mug of coffee, a bowl of Maggi, and dive deep into your childhood innocence, youthful negligence, the hustle & bustle of relationships, the whiff of first love, the huddle of friends, and affectionate scolding of parents. And while doing all this, close your computer’s window and look outside the real window of your house and the window of your heart, which you might not have opened for weeks and months and try to see the splendid rainbow that you may have not seen for a long time. Saw your rainbow? If yes, Congrats. it’s the icing on the cake. If not, don’t worry…you have. Satrangi Re…. Now Available on Amazon and Flipkart....

For spring and summer, Dina baked delicate and light pastries fragranced with rosewater, meskouta orange bundt cake, and delicate raspberry macarons. When strawberries were in season in early June, she made airy fraisier cake. For autumn and winter, Dina worked with heavier ingredients: thick, dark chocolate, cinnamon, cardamom, gingerbread, and pumpkin. As the days grew colder and the light dimmed earlier and earlier, people started to crave that feeling of warmth and comfort. And Dina would give that to them, even if only for a short while. One special bake for this season was a ginger and persimmon cake, yellowed with saffron strands, which Dina had bought on her last trip to Morocco, and fresh vanilla pods, their sweet scent so potent that it wafted across the café. This was in addition to all the regular pastries and cakes she had on offer, which were all recipes her mother had taught her to bake. The cake made with dark honey from the Atlas mountains was an all-time customer favorite. Dina had imbibed it with a very specific spell, a childhood memory of a time that she must have fallen asleep on a car ride home, and although she was a little too big to be carried, she remembered her father lifting her into his arms, her mother closing the car door softly so as not to wake her, then carrying her upstairs and tucking her into bed. When she'd been fashioning the spell for the first time, it had occurred to Dina that one day your parents put you down and they never picked you up again, and so she'd made the honey cake to recreate that feeling of childhood comfort. That sensation of someone taking the utmost care of you, holding you close, was a feeling that many in the rushing city of London didn't experience often. Sometimes she wondered if she was really in the business of café ownership, or if she was more of a fairy godmother in disguise. Undeniably, the magical pastries were great at keeping customers coming back for more, so that was a bonus on the businesswoman side of things.

What else did her mother tell you?” Ethan asked, looking for any advantage in his task of winning her over. “That she’d call us later and give us pointers on wooing her daughter. Apparently, Naomi has something of a stubborn nature.” A snort escaped him. “I hadn’t noticed.” Javier paced the living room as Ethan stroked Naomi’s silky hair, unable to resist running his fingers through the long brown strands. “What are you thinking?” “That fate is laughing at me.” A chuckle made Ethan’s chest vibrate, causing Naomi’s head to jiggle. He cradled her head in his big palm to prevent her from falling before replying. “She’s certainly not what either of us expected, that’s for sure.” Javier shot him a dark look. “No shit, Sherlock. I mean don’t get me wrong, short and curvy works fine for me, but I always expected, if ever fate was cruel enough to curse me, she’d at least give me a woman who likes me.” “I’m sure she will in time. We took her by surprise, not to mention she’s in pain. Besides, I kind of like that she’s feisty. She’ll need it to keep up with us.” Round eyes and an open mouth met his answer. “You, my friend, are insane. One ball too many to the head I think. I mean, not only does she not want you, shouldn’t you be more pissed that it looks like she’s meant for both of us?” Ethan shrugged. “I’ll admit, I never expected to share, but if fate says that’s my lot, then at least it chose someone I could tolerate. And beat in a wrestling match if I need to. Besides, I’ll only have to share if you bother to stick around to mark her.” “Oh, I’m staying, so you can forget about keeping her for yourself,” Javier replied shooting him a dark look. “What happened to I’m not meant for monogamy?” Ethan pitched his voice mockingly. A sigh emerged from Javier’s mouth before he slumped in the chair across from him. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. It’s hard to think at all with my damned cat yammering for me to bite her. Mayhap if you were to claim her first, the need for me to do so would vanish?” The optimism in his friend’s voice made him laugh again. “Sorry, no such luck I’m afraid. From everything I’ve ever heard, once you find the one, you’re done for. The need to mark her, claim her, just gets stronger and stronger.” Already the urge to take her rode Ethan hard. It didn’t help that he held her cuddled on his lap, her sweet fragrance tickling his nose while her lush body pressed against his turgid cock.

The lotus is one of the most commercially successful sources of inspiration for biomimetic products. Apart from their intoxicating, heavenly fragrance, lotus plants are a symbol of purity in some major religions. More than two thousand years ago, for example, the Bhagavad Gita, one of India's ancient sacred scriptures, referred to lotus leaves as self-cleaning, but it wasn't until the late 1960s that engineers with access to high-powered microscopes began to understand the mechanism underlying the lotus' dirt-free surface. German scientist Dr. Wilhelm Barthlott continued this research, finding microstructures on the surface of a lotus leaf that cause water droplets to bead up and roll away particles of mud or dirt. Like many biomimics, this insight came quickly, while its commercialization took many years more. The "Lotus Effect"-short for the superhydrophobic (water-repelling) quality of the lotus leaf's micro to nanostructured surface-has become the subject of more than one hundred related patents and is one of the premier examples of successfully commercialized biomimicry.

The exotic fragrance was hers, too. Incense. Goddess scent. 'Mr. Carsington, you must speak to me,' she said. He'd rather not speak. He'd rather stay exactly where he was, pillowed against her soft bosom and inhaling her scent while she gently stroked his cheek. 'Mr. Carsington.' The hand left off stroking to pat his cheek, with growing impatience. Remembering the lady had a short temper, he knew the gentle pats would shortly escalate to slaps. He opened his eyes and met her green gaze, where anxiety mingled with vexation. 'Where am I?' he said, though he knew the answer perfectly well. It was a delaying tactic. Her bosom made a perfect pillow. He did not want to leave it. 'On the floor of Anaz's storeroom,' she said. 'You seem to have fainted.' 'Fainted?' he echoed incredulously. 'I was knocked in the head. I ought to know. It's happened often enough.' 'That would explain a great deal,' she said. She started to rise. Aware she would have no compunction about letting his poor, battered head thump to the floor, he quickly sat up.

Those pearl-white flowers swayed their heads by the feet of Lord Shakyamuni; and from their golden centres wafted unceasingly a wondrous fragrance surpassing all description. It must have been noon in Paradise.

first narcissi Persephone walks out of the underground station spring day announcement said no flowers with or without you bindweed climbing both sides of the wall I will go now where my eyes carry me poplar fluff she comes to me attired only in a short night slow train home a cloud’s shadow running across the stubble bitter wind the smell of honey in the empty hive the fragrance of pencil shavings September rain all the wealth that he left golden leaves her hands tremble like captured birds winter wind a few words from the doctor crows on snow shape of her sleep on the down pillow snowy morning

Through chemistry we can unravel and comprehend the once inscrutable mysteries of the natural world. We can understand the green of a leaf and the red of a rose, the fragrance of a herb and new-mown hay. We can understand, in a halting but increasing way, the intricate and complex reticulation of processes in the natural world that constitute the awesome and multifaceted property we know as life. We are beginning, even more haltingly, to understand the chemical processes in our brains that enable us to perceive, wonder, and understand.

P&G switched from market TSR to operating TSR. Operating TSR is an amalgamated measure of three real operating performance measures—sales growth, profit margin improvement, and increase in capital efficiency. This measure more accurately captures P&G’s true performance across the most critical operational metrics and, moreover, measures things that business-unit presidents and general managers can actually influence, unlike the market-based TSR number. The operating TSR measure integrates revenue growth, margin growth, and cash productivity and it does so regardless of the type of assets being managed—whether you have hard assets like tissue/towel paper converting machines or inventory like cosmetics and fragrance products. In other words, the measure could be equitably and usefully applied to all of P&G’s diverse businesses. And it isn’t utterly unconnected to stock performance—there is a high correlation over the medium and long term between operating TSR and market TSR. But unlike the stock price, the operating TSR measures are ones over which P&G managers have real influence in the short and medium term.

Perfume is to smells what eroticism is to sex: an aesthetic, cultural, emotional elaboration of the raw materials provided by nature. The ladies of the court, led by Marie-Antoinette, resorted to the only thing that could keep them one step ahead of the commoners, however wealthy they were: fashion. In fact, this is how fashion as we know it came into existence: the latest trend adopted by a happy few for a season before trickling down to the middle classes. Just a touch of the negligence etudiee that distinguishes chic Parisian women from their fiercely put-together New Yorker or Milanese counterparts. Perfume needs to be supported by image. You're not just doing it to smell good: you're perpetuating a ritual of erotic magic that's been scaring and enticing men in equal measure for millennia. Perfumes are our subconscious. They read us more revealingly than any other choice of adornment, perhaps because their very invisibility deludes us into thinking we can get away with the message they carry. These scents severed fragrance from its function as an extension of a female or male persona - the rugged guy, the innocent waif or the femme fatale - to turn it into a thing that was beautiful, interesting and evocative in and of itself. Perfume's advertising relies on the 3 aspiration S: stars, sex and seduction, with a side helping of dreams or exoticism. Descriptions, impressions, analogies, short stories, snippets or real-life testing, bits of history, parallels with music or literature. Connecting a scent with emotions, impressions, atmospheres, isn't that why we wear it? Isn't it all subjective? Just because you don't want it in your life doesn't make it bad. And it's not entirely impossible to consider perfumes beyond their "like/don't like" status. What intent does t set out to fulfill? How does it achieve its effects? How does it fit in with the history of the brand or its identity? How does it compare to the current season's offerings? Does it bring something new? The story told by the perfumer blends with the ones we tell ourselves about it; with our feelings, our moods, our references, our understanding of it. Once it is released from the bottle, it becomes a new entity. We make it ours: we are the performers of our perfume. Both lust and luxury are coupled in the same Latin word: luxuria is one of the 7 deadly sins. The age-old fear of female sexuality. The lure of beauty, set off by costly and deceitful adornments, could lead men to material and moral ruin but, more frighteningly, suck them into a vortex of erotic voracity. A man's desire waxes and wanes. But how can a woman, whose pleasure is never certain and whose receptive capacity is potentially infinite, ever be controlled?

Rummaging through these old, yellowing picture postcards, I find that everything has suddenly become confused, everything is in chaos. Ever since my father vanished from the story, from the novel, everything has come loose, fallen apart. His mighty figure, his authority, even his very name, were sufficient to hold the plot within fixed limits, the story that ferments like grapes in barrels, the story in which fruit slowly rots, trampled underfoot, crushed by the press of memories, weighted down by its own juices and by the sun. And now that the barrel has burst, the wine of the story has spilled out, the soul of the grape, and no divine skill can put it back inside the wineskin, compress it into a short tale, mold it into a glass of crystal. Oh, golden-pink liquid, oh, fairy tale, oh, alcoholic vapor, oh, fate! I don't want to curse God, I don't want to complain about life. So I'll gather together all those picture postcards in a heap, this era full of old-fashioned splendor and romanticism, I'll shuffle my cards, deal them as in a game of solitaire for readers who are fond of solitaire and intoxicating fragrances, of bright colors and vertigo.

Abbie was so genuine you could smell it on her like a fragrance.

Then I put everything out to the four winds, and I made a sacrifice … The gods smelt the fragrance, The gods smelt the pleasant fragrance, The gods like flies gathered over the sacrifice.2 Likewise, in Genesis, after the Flood Noah released a raven once and a dove three times, and offered a sacrifice to Yahweh, who “smelled the pleasing odor” (Gen. 8:21).

What’s more, Fatima was fluent in the floral codes that had governed polite society since the Age of Chivalry. Not only did she know the flower that should be sent as an apology, she knew which flower to send when one has been late; when one has spoken out of turn; and when, having taking notice of the young lady at the door, one has carelessly overtrumped one’s partner. In short, Fatima knew a flower’s fragrance, color, and purpose better than a bee.