Angela Carter (1972) - The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman

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The rest of the machines contained the following items.

Exhibit Two:  THE ETERNAL VISTAS OF LOVE
When I looked through the windows of the machine, all I could see were two eyes looking back at me.  Each eye was a full three feet from end to end, complete with a lid and a tear duct, and was suspended in the air without any visible support.  Like the pubic hair in the previous model, the lashes had been scrupulously set one by one in narrow hems of rosy wax but this time the craftsmen had achieved a disturbing degree of life-likeness which uncannily added to the synthetic quality of the image.  The rounded whites were delicately veined with crimson to produce an effect like that of the extremely precious marble used in Italy during the late baroque period to make altars for the chapels of potentates and the irises were simple rings of deep brown bottle glass while in the pupils I could see, reflected in two discs of mirror, my own eyes, very greatly magnified by the lenses of the machine.  Since my own pupils, in turn, reflected the false eyes before me while these reflections again reflected those reflections, I soon realized I was watching a model of eternal regression.

Exhibit Three:  THE MEETING PLACE OF LOVE AND HUNGER
Upon a cut-glass dish of the kind in which desserts are served lay two perfectly spherical portions of vanilla ice-cream, each topped with a single cherry so that the resemblance to a pair of female breasts was almost perfect.

Exhibit Four:  EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT THE NIGHT IS FOR
Here, a wax figure of the headless body of a mutilated woman lay in a pool of painted blood.  She wore only the remains of a pair of black stockings and a ripped suspender belt of shiny black rubber.  Her arms stuck out stiffly on either side of her and once again I noticed the loving care with which the craftsmen who manufactured her had simulated the growth of underarm hair.  The right breast had been partially segmented and hung open to reveal two surfaces of meat as bright and false as the plaster sirloins which hang in toy butcher's shops while her belly was covered with some kind of paint that always contrived to look wet and, from the paint, emerged the handle of an enormous knife which was kept always a-quiver by the action (probably) of a spring.
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