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Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The horrors of “vinaigre de toilette” crop up regularly in Anna Karenina. It’s the fragrance of choice of the salon “ladies” patronised by Anna’s champagne-swilling brother Stiva and a stench his best friend Levin – the stick-in-the-mud Tolstoy stand-in – simply can’t bear. A cologne-style blend of herbs and spices, vinaigre de toilette represents artifice, pretence and delusion: everything Levin – and all of us – must fight against.
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--Marshal Zeringue