They could not escape scent.

“People can close their eyes to greatness, to horrors, to beauty and their ears to melodies or deceiving words. But they could not escape scent. For scent is the brother to breath. Together with breath, it entered human beings who could not defend against it, not if they wanted to live. And scent entered into their very core, went directly to their hearts and decided for good and all between affection and contempt, disgust and lust, love and hate, the who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.”

(Patrick Suskind - Perfume: The Story of a Murderer)