By the light of a single hidden candle, a travelling lecturer pumps the air from a glass flask holding a white cockatoo while his audience reacts: two girls cannot bear to watch, a young couple see only each other, a man times the experiment. Wright gave a scientific demonstration the gravity of a religious scene, and left the bird's fate open.
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A full moon shows through the window, where a boy handles the empty cage. Behind the candle, a human skull sits in a glass vessel of liquid.
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