i could envision the cavity of the belly in my mind , as though it lay open in fact before me , my fingers translating the soft , lumpy shapes beneath the skin into vision-the intricate folds of the intestines , softly shielded by their yellow quilting of fat-padded membrane , the slick , smooth lobes of the liver , deep purple-red , so much darker than the vivid scarlet of the heart 's pericardium above .