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On smells In the novel Fortress Besieged, masterpiece of Qian Zhongshu, the protagonist Fang Hongjian is reluctant to sit beside a girl whose prettiness impresses him but whose smells almost make him throw up. The meal is a sheer torture to him from start to finish. The lady perfumes herself before coming to the dinner but the mixed smells on the contrary stink and the one sitting beside her has to stand it when having no other choice. No wonder Michel De Montaigne says that the sweetest of the purest breath consists in nothing more than to be without any offensive smell, as the breath of healthy children. That is why Plautus says, “a woman smells nice when she smells of nothing”. Ladies wild about using perfumes just want to smother some natural stench. They may pray to smell of nothing rather than smell sweetly. After all, the norm fashioning of our bodies works this way: the best characteristic we can hope for us is to smell of nothing. A story recorded in an ancient book tells of a man, who stinks so wildly that no one would approach him and so he felt absolutely lonely without any friend to converse with travels eastward and till he comes to the side to the east ocean. All of a sudden, he finds himself surrounded by so many people that he couldn’t believe his eyes. All the men running after him are attracted by the smell from his body and he soon becomes a star in the region. And everyone likes to make friends with him and thinks it an honor to shake hands with him. They would not wash their hands till the smell disappears and find another chance to shake hands with the man. Thus the Chinese idiom 臭味相投(like drawn to like）. As a person who claims to be morally pure is always vulgar within, a person who claims to smell nice often stinks. QianZhongshu, in his novel Fortress Besieged, which we mention above, ironically says that it’s not his capability for a person of real ability and learning to preach but a real capability for a person of no ability and learning to preach. It’s a dangerous thing to believe a person who likes to talk big. You can find a lady who smells nice really stinks. The more natural, the better. Of some such as Alexander the Great it is said that their sweat smelt nice. It’s hard to say it’s true or not. But in history, there is a famous story: a courtier of Emperor Wen of Han sucked without hesitation the emperor’s pustule on the back when he saw the emperor suffered from it. Probably the higher the rank, the sweeter the smell, including the smell from the wound, the pustule, the piles? If not, how these courtiers bore the smell, sucking and licking the part of the body? No wonder Lu Xun ever wrote that delicate ladies sweat nice while clumsy workers sweat smelly. What kind of sweat do you have? Anyway, we hope to stay in a place where air is fresh and natural without the sound of sucking and licking pustules. That’s our prayer. |
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