# Gammon and Spinach explained — Sylvie and Bruno > Chapter companion for Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll. ## What happens The narrator, alone after a friend's departure, finds comfort in memories of Sylvie, Bruno, and the Professor. The Professor prepares for a banquet and lecture, administers medicine to servants, and discovers the Other Professor in a cupboard. The Gardener sings a sad song, and the children explore a platform. The Emperor and Empress, now vacant and simple-minded, complain about the modest refreshments. ## Themes in this chapter ### Innocence and Childhood Wisdom Bruno's literal and innocent responses, such as suggesting medicine should be 'nice' and his sympathy for the Gardener, highlight childlike wisdom. ### Education and Learning The Professor's lecture preparations and the children's interaction with learning (e.g., the multiplication table) underscore themes of education. ### Social Critique and Class The Emperor's complaints about the table, cake, and wine satirize aristocratic entitlement and class expectations. ## Character check-ins ### Narrator The narrator reflects on loneliness and memories of Sylvie, Bruno, and the Professor while watching the fire. ### Professor The Professor prepares for the banquet and lecture, administers medicine, and discovers the Other Professor in a cupboard. ### Bruno Bruno comments on the banquet, tastes the medicine, looks for his hat, and offers to help with conjuring tricks. ### Sylvie Sylvie asks questions about the medicine and the Gardener's song, and helps Bruno with his words. ### The Other Professor The Other Professor is found sitting in a cupboard, eating nuts, and asks about the lecture. ### Uggug Uggug is mentioned as the prince whose birthday banquet is being prepared, and Bruno hopes he won't attend. ### The Empress The Empress is described as having a vacant stare and meaningless smile, and she insists on the lecture before the banquet. ### The Emperor The Emperor is out of temper, complaining about the mahogany table, plum cake, and wine provided for the banquet. ## Key lines > My landlady’s welcome had an extra heartiness about it: and though, with a rare delicacy of feeling, she made no direct allusion to the friend whose companionship had done so much to brighten life for me, I felt sure that it was a kindly sympathy with my solitary state that made her so specially anxious to do all she could think of to ensure my comfort, and make me feel at home. The landlady greeted me warmly but tactfully avoided mentioning my absent friend, and I understood her kindness was meant to ease my loneliness. _The narrator reflects on the landlady's thoughtful welcome after being left alone._ > The lonely evening seemed long and tedious: yet I lingered on, watching the dying fire, and letting Fancy mould the red embers into the forms and faces belonging to bygone scenes. The evening felt long and dull, but I stayed by the fire, imagining faces and scenes from the past in the glowing coals. _The narrator's solitary evening leads to reverie about Sylvie, Bruno, and the Professor._ > “Nasty?” said the Professor. “Why, of course it is! What would Medicine be, if it wasn’t nasty ?” “Nice,” said Bruno. The Professor insists medicine must be unpleasant, but Bruno naively suggests it should taste good. _Bruno's innocent logic contrasts with the Professor's conventional thinking._ > “There be only one verse more,” the Gardener sadly replied. And, with tears streaming down his cheeks, he sang the last verse:— “He thought he saw an Argument That proved he was the Pope: He looked again, and found it was A Bar of Mottled Soap. ‘A fact so dread,’ he faintly said, ‘Extinguishes all hope!’” The Gardener tearfully sings the final verse of his song, about mistaking a bar of soap for an argument proving he was the Pope. _The Gardener's song reflects a humorous yet poignant confusion between reality and fantasy._ > “A common mahogany table!” he growled, pointing to it contemptuously with his thumb. “Why wasn’t it made of gold, I should like to know?” The Emperor angrily complains that the table is only mahogany instead of gold. _The Emperor's petty complaint satirizes aristocratic demands for luxury._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/sylvie_and_bruno_se/chapters/volume-ii-xx-gammon-and-spinach - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/sylvie_and_bruno_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/sylvie_and_bruno_se/chapters