sub-odour

Updated: July 20, 2026

The place had the peculiar odour of small Italian houses that are built of stone, that stand in vineyards or market-gardens, and that are rarely opened; it is a smell compounded of the odour of the worm-eaten furniture, smoke-stained kitchen ceiling and wall, and the dusty plaster within the house, combined with a faint sub-odour of growing things, from vines to broccoli, which finds its way through the cracks of badly fitting doors and windows.

F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford - Stradella