A grotesque flower-vase
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Parecia um desses vasos de louça, de formas phantasticas e grotescas, que se enchem de flores para enfeitar bufetes e aparadores.
He looked like one of those china vases, of fantastical and grotesque shapes, that are filled with flowers to adorn sideboards and dressers.
He looked like one of those china vases, of fantastical and grotesque shapes, that are filled with flowers to adorn sideboards and dressers.
The closing simile is the portrait's small masterpiece: Belchior IS the grotesque vase, ugly in form but made to hold beauty. It folds the whole paragraph into one image — the misshapen container whose only purpose is to cradle flowers. So too the man: unlovely, and brimful of a love meant to grace something finer than himself.
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