Spring and Death

"There's a stench in the air, which, from this distance underground, might be the smell of either death or of spring--I hope of spring. But don't let me trick you, there is a death in the smell of spring and in the smell of thee as in the smell of me. And if nothing more, invisibility has taught me my nose to classify the stenches of death."

--Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1947)