Then Buddy explained the burning was only from the pickling fluid, and I sat back in my old position. After a minute or two I felt this burning sensation in my elbow and it occurred to me the cadaver might just be half alive since it was still warm, so I leapt off my stool with a small exclamation. The only time I jumped was when I leaned my elbow on Buddy’s cadaver’s stomach to watch him dissect a lung. I was quite proud of the calm way I stared at all these gruesome things.

The baby in the next bottle was bigger and the baby next to that one was bigger still and the baby in the last bottle was the size of a normal baby and he seemed to be looking at me and smiling a little piggy smile. The baby in the first bottle had a large white head bent over a tiny curled-up body the size of a frog.

They had stiff, leathery, purple-black skin and they smelt like old pickle jars.Īfter that, Buddy took me out into a hall where they had some big glass bottles full of babies that had died before they were born. These cadavers were so unhuman-looking they didn’t bother me a bit. I started out by dressing in a white coat and sitting on a tall stool in a room with four cadavers, while Buddy and his friends cut them up. I had kept begging Buddy to show me some really interesting hospital sights, so one Friday I cut all my classes and came down for a long week-end and he gave me the works.

The bell jar ending