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Across from me sat a man in royal blue robes and a matching blue turban, with a long gray beard and kohl-rimmed eyes; on his desk, and on the shelves behind him, in a cabinet by the door - all over the room - there were small amber-tinted glass bottles, scores of them, and as we spoke he would take one up, open the top, hand it to me and invite me to smell the contents. This went on for hours. It was why I'd come: to meet Dominique Dubrana, a 54-year-old Frenchman living in Italy, a Sufi convert, a grand eccentric and a genius of sorts.