Reading a Book by Smelling Its Ink 聞墨閱讀

Part of my happiness and imagine depends on books, so when I couldn't find The Double by the Portuguese novelist and journalist José Saramago from the piles of books scattered everywhere in my apartment, I came to realize that it was about time to do spring cleaning.

However, the magnitude of the task before me was quite simply overwhelming: about fifty books were piled up on a Chinese antique cabinet; thirty books were lying on a long fragile bamboo bench; six books I ordered from Amazon.com were still in the boxes; more stacks of books occupied in every corner of my apartment.

After my bookshelf is, more or less, tidy and exudes ink odour, a sort of intelligent smell, which one has to breath in for one's body to be purified and one's soul to be exalted, suddenly I feel so compulsed to read them all to assure that I'm illumined and not deluded.

Call me crazy, but for the sack of saving time and saving energy, won't it be nice if we can read a book by putting down our noses and smelling the ink between pages?

我的幸福和創意部分取掘於書本。因此當我再也無法在從散落四處的書籍中找出我想閱讀的葡萄牙作家José Saramago 的The Double，我不得不承認該是春季大掃除的時刻了。
說來容易，但是面眼前排山倒海的書本確是得花上好些時間及精力來整理：五十本晾在中式古董木箱上；三十本躺在搖搖欲晃的長竹凳；剛從訂購的六本書還乖乖的待在紙箱中；成批成批的文件脫序地散佈在我住處的個個角落。
當大功告成，書架漸漸的流露出印墨的味道–––那種帶有智慧氣息足以讓人清淨身體，提升靈性的香味， 讓我突然有股想要及刻飽覽羣書的衝動來擔保我不傻，我還聰明。
算我是瘋人一個吧。如果能把鼻子湊在書頁中來聞墨閱讀，那到不失為一帖時間及能源節流的妙方， 不是嗎？