Page 387 - The Grotesque Children's Book
P. 387
“Oh, I guess it isn’t -- “ Pulveri stopped short. “Why would you have a jug on your table
if you can’t pour from it?”
“I’m telling you, it’s not for wine. It’s a cucurbit.”
“It’s a what?”
“It’s an enclosed vessel. We alchemists use closed vessels to transmutate one element
into another one.”
“You’re saying that vessel can turn this woman’s bread into gold?”
“That’s exactly right,” said Zaccario. “If I weren’t an alchemist, I might think, like you,
that it was just some woman eating a mean, except for the salamander at her feet.”
“Yikes!” said Lorenzo Pulveri, “Didn’t see that! How could I stare at a picture this long
and not notice that creepy lizard? Let me guess, another metaphor for...for...her husband? He’s
trying to impregnate her...uhh...by her feet? Because her feet are a metaphor for...”
“Stop, stop. This one’s not a very big mystery. In alchemical art, the salamander
presents sulphur.”
“Sulphur?”
“We don’t want to write down the exact elements we use in our powders, so we call
sulphur a salamander. Mercury is a long stick with two serpents winding around it. Iron sulfate
is a lion, usually green.”
“So she’s soaking her feet in sulphur.” Lorenzo Pulveri was beginning to think about
supper, rather than symbols in alchemical art.
“The sulphur is transferring her and the bread, see. The salamander is rising like vapor.
See? The salamander is rising like vapor.”
“As I said, she’s soaking her feet in sulphur.”
Zaccario frowned, displeased with Pulveri’s flippant disrespect for alchemical symbols.
“The sulphur is transferring her and the bread, see. The salamander is rising like a vapor.”
Now it was Pulveri’s turn to frown. “The salamander is rising? In the picture it’s just
crawling on the floor.”
“Look on the wall behind her.”
“Where?”
Zaccario pointed. “Over her right shoulder. On the left.”
“Omigod. There’s a second salamander climbing up the wall! I didn’t see that!”
“These painters are very clever. You wouldn’t notice such a thing, unless you know to
look for it.”
“You should write a glossary,” said Lorenzo Pulveri sharply.
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