Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson

34 Russia

34.650

“As regards this ‘oily-something’ which collects in certain pores of the skin of your favorites, it is necessary further to tell the following:

34.650

“As this substance, i.e., the ‘oily-something,’ like everything in general that exists in our Great Universe, cannot remain in one and the same state, therefore there inevitably proceed with these substances in these pores the processes of what are called evolution and involution required by Great Nature. And in consequence of the fact that during these processes, from all cosmic, what are called ‘temporary’ or ‘transitory’ arisings, there are given off what are called ‘secondary’ active elements, that is, those which are temporarily crystallized by the momentum of vibrations, and which, as is known to all, have the property, when adjacent to the organ of smell of beings, of being perceived very ‘cacophonically,’ therefore there on the planet Earth, there is always given off from your favorites who do not use the said hammams, a particular ‘Rastropoonilo’ or as they themselves say ‘odor,’ which even they consider ‘not altogether pleasant.’

34.650

“And indeed, my boy, there on certain continents, particularly on the continent Europe, where the custom of going to the hammam does not obtain, it was very difficult for me as a being with a very acute sense of smell to exist among those three-brained beings on account of this specific ‘Rastropoonilo’ or as they sometimes call it, odor, which issues from them.

34.650-1

“This unpleasant odor which issues from those, the pores of whose skin are never specially cleaned, was so strong that I could without any difficulty detect to which community the given being belonged, and even by those odors I could distinguish one being from another.

34.651

“Now the variety of these specific odors depends upon how long the decomposition of these ‘oily-excretions’ found in the pores of the skin has proceeded.

34.651

“These unpleasant odors fortunately for them do not affect them so ‘tormentingly.’

“And they do not affect them because their sense of smell is very slightly developed and besides this, existing always among these odors, they gradually become accustomed to them.