Scented Quote of the Day, from Colette - On Lilacs {Paris Photo}:

Lilacs & Elastic Bands ~ Lilas et élastiques © 2014 Chantal-Hélène Wagner

"Lilac before it flowers, when it is still but small leaves shaped like aces of spades and minuscule promises of thyrses, lilac discreetly smells of beetles until the time when in full bloom, frothy, white, mauve, blue, purple, it piles up in suburbian trains, the subway, and children's strollers its toxic aroma of Prussic acid*...

Then I long for the perfume of lilacs before it flowers, the fragrance of its tender foliage still brown, its fleeting exhalation - a little pleasant, a little repulsive - of metallic elytron." (Our translation)

The original text in French:

"Le lilas avant sa fleur, quand il n'est encore que petites feuilles en as de pique et promesses minuscules de thyrses, le lilas sent discrètement le scarabée, jusqu'au moment où épanoui, écumant, blanc, mauve, bleu, pourpre, il entasse dans les trains de banlieue, le métro et les poussettes d'enfants son toxique arôme d'acide prussique. Alors je regrette le parfum du lilas avant sa fleur, le parfum de sa tendre feuille encore brune, son exhalaison fugace, un peu agréable un peu répugnante, d'élytre métallique."

In Pour un herbier (1948)

* Prussic acid smells of bitter almonds. It was called after the color, Prussian blue, from which the acid was isolated.